Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Trump’s Trying to Squeeze Canada on Trade AGAIN. Here’s Why it Will Backfire

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov break down a packed Tuesday — and then are joined by Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) for a wide-ranging conversation on the midterms, the Democratic Party's future, and whether he's running for president. But first: in a scramble to keep tariff revenue alive, Trump signed orders imposing 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian goods including wine, cement, and hockey sticks. Scott and Jessica ask why the administration keeps jumping through hoops to impose tariffs, and why Canada — one of America's closest allies — is again the target. Andy Burnham is officially Britain's seventh prime minister in a decade. In his first cabinet meeting, he declared his government would be a "cost of living government," with GDP projected to grow just 0.8% this year. Is this change in leadership good for Britain? Then, Sen. Kelly joins the show on primary day in Arizona — 105 days out from the midterm elections. He breaks down what Trump-endorsed Republicans are running on in his state, and what tonight's results might signal nationally. Kelly has new bipartisan legislation aimed at getting more men into education as teachers, mentors, and volunteers — and makes the case that Democrats need to spend more time on legislation like this rather than national political fights.  He also discusses his role as one of the Democrats’ top fundraisers, having raised roughly $25 million and contributed about $10 million to other candidates. Does this signal a presidential run in his future? What would his campaign be about, and how would his wife — former Rep. Gabby Giffords — feel about being in the White House? Get your tickets now for our live show at 92NY: https://www.92ny.org/event/scott-galloway-and-jessica-tarlov 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

Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 dollars bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12-month plan required $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra.

Initial term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. What does the ideal presidential candidate look like? Donald Trump has shown you that to be not boring, to be a showman, can get you really, really far in this environment. I'm Preet Bharara, and this week, the Atlantic staff writer Mark Leavovich joins me to discuss the latest chaos out of Washington and what to expect from the upcoming elections. The episode is out now. Search and follow. Stay tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway.

And I'm Jessica Tarliffe. Please make sure to tune into Raging Perspective tomorrow at noon-eastern time. Jess and Aaron will be live streaming on Substack and YouTube every Wednesday. Make sure to hit subscribe to get access to all of our content and help our show reach more folks. All right, let's bust into it. The Trump administration is racing toward a deadline. After the Supreme Court struck down Trump's emergency tariffs in February, the White House fell back on a 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act.

But that authority expires July 24th, leaving the administration scrambling for new ways to keep tariffs and the revenue they generate or the revenue they lose. One place they could find it, Canada, Trump signed orders Monday imposing 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian goods, including wine, cement, and get this, hockey stick, someone hurts. Here's Scott Bissant explaining the rationale. What is the trade discrimination that is at hand causing the president to hike tariffs here on Canada? Well, I think it's something that we've discussed with our Canadian colleagues for a long time, and they haven't done anything about it. They're highly discriminatory on dairy products. U.S. alcohol and beverages have been removed from Canadian shelves. So, this is really just reciprocity in terms of what they've done to our great U.S. companies.

You got to feel bad for Scott. Somebody sent me the talking points mid, mid sentence. Let me pretzel myself. They're taking our stuff off of it. What he missed was they took our stuff off of shelves after we decided to glare war on our ally. Your thoughts here, Jeff. You know, it's like really hard to push Canadians to the point where they will boycott you, like what they did with Kentucky bourbon. But we've found the way, right?

Like, you have aggravated the nicest people on the way. the planet, basically. And it's such a good opportunity to take the off ramp, right? Like, the Supreme Court is giving you the way, right? Just take the win, you know, and then walk away, maybe the tail between your legs a little bit. But this continual obsession with a tool that can be useful, used in small increments, right, for specific reasons to make it this blunt instrument that is not eliciting the kind of results that you want. Is, the height of absurdity. And I say it, I guess, about a lot of things that this administration does. I just don't get it. Like, now on a monthly basis, they are paying more out to companies that suffered

from the tariffs than you're taking in in revenues. It's double in June is what they saw. And they're quietly doing these updates to the White House website. Like yesterday, they admitted that the 50% aluminum tariffs aren't working. They wrote the domestic product. and supply of primary aluminum, which is critical to the U.S. economy and defense industrial base, is still an insufficient supply. It's not working. It's not working. And no one believes you that we have been taken advantage of brutally at this level by Canada or Brazil. And they certainly don't believe you when you say that you have a problem with forced labor practices. We haven't done anything about what China does. And we talked about this yesterday. Like there are a million

people that live in a concentration camp there. Nobody cares. So it's just hard to take them seriously. And usually Scott Besson is decent in these interviews. But the pretzling was notable on that one. So they'll probably have to send Jameson Greer, the trade representative in, to clean up there. But no one likes the tariffs. Even the staunchest Trump supporters, like a Stephen Moore or Maria Bartaromo, people who are, you know, economically literate understand that this is not a good idea. Yeah, and granted, it's a high bar, but if you were looking for the first ballot Hall of Fame, head up your ass decision that weakened or reduced the size of our potential market to sell our goods into, meanwhile or while raising the cost of goods for households,

sclerotic, inconsistent, irrational tariffs on our largest customer would be a pretty elegant way to do that. What people oftentimes don't realize is that Canada buys more U.S. goods They're a bigger customer of U.S. products than the UK, France, China, and Japan combined. We obsess over how much China buys. Canada dwarfs China in terms of being our biggest customer. And if you think of America as a business, why would you decide to stick up the middle finger to your largest customer over and over and over? About $900 billion in annual goods and services cross the border. And every tariff ultimately ends up in a reciprocal tariff, which decreases the potential market for American business products and increases the cost of the products we bring in.

And their claim is that trade with Canada asymmetrically benefits Canadians, that they've been taking advantage of us. Here's the math. They sell low-margin products into the U.S. timber. unrefined oil, low margin call it 20 to 30 points of gross margin products. They sell $100 of timber into us. They hold on to $20 or $30. We sell iPhones and services. We sell Apple and J.P. Morgan, things that have 60 plus points of gross margin. In addition, every dollar of gross margin that American companies receive from Canadian purchases of American goods translate to $20 or $30 of shareholder value. Apple trades at a P.E. of 31. Timber and oil companies trade at high single-digit

multiples. So when we sell a dollar of iPhones into Canada, an American company will recognize about $12 in shareholder value. When they in turn sell a dollar of timber into the United States, they get about $2 in shareholder value. If there's any asymmetry in the trade with Canada, it wildly skews towards the benefit of Americans. And to give, it reminds me of that animal house line where Otter says to his fraternity brother or the pledge who was stupid enough to let the brothers borrow his parents' car and they trash it, he says, you fucked up, you trusted us. That is effectively how Canada must feel right now, because 80% of their export market was going into the U.S. Why? Because they fucked up and trusted us and thought, okay, we shared the largest undefended border in the world.

We look, smell, and feel like each other. We like each other. We go to Disneyland. You watch Maple Leafs and Raptors games. We followed you into every war or we're there before you, including World War II or Afghanistan or Iraq or Gulf War's one. and two, we thought we were close friends, and now you are basically taking a knife and going for our jugular, but before that stabbing yourself in the gut. This is, it is just, it is absolutely baffling how we could be this stupid, that we have taken a country that simultaneously our largest customer, our largest ally, perhaps our most loyal ally, and then all of a sudden for no reason decided that our biggest villain. The transition from, oh my God, we put on this incredible World Cup as North America, right? Like this was the unified front to the day after

we hand over the trophy to the Spanish team. And there's, I think, unilaterally good vibe. and good press about what just transpired, to then say, we're going to hit you with a 50% tariff feels even more insane. Like, that there's a deep rot in this man and this man I'm talking about the president of the United States brain, that he could go from such a high point moment where he was clearly enjoying himself, right, on that reception line with the Canadian and Mexican PM and, president respectively. So that transition feels like a bit of whiplash. And I was interested in the FT reporting on the new tariffs where apparently officials within the administration are very concerned

about this because they know that Liberation Day for Trump was basically the Afghanistan withdrawal for Biden, where the approval rating went down and it never came back up that they dug this hole that they can't get out of. So it'll be interesting to see if they have any sway with him. on this. They're paying attention to the polls. They're looking at the midterms, Laura Ingram. Last night used her monologue to say, Republicans need to get out of the war in Iran. The gas now on a national level above $4. You can't win a midterm under these circumstances. So the battle is beginning with the internal pushback, I guess, against President Trump as he sits there, gleefully signing away our economic future and pushing Mark Carney even further into the loving arms

of Europe. We have a new prime minister, our seventh in just a decade in Britain. Andy Burnham is officially the new prime minister. During his first cabinet meeting today, he declared, we need to be a cost of living government. President Trump took the truth social to support Burnham's plan to accelerate oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, but also called the UK a poverty stricken disaster. Let's listen to a bit from Burnham yesterday on his first day. In the 1980s, Britain took some wrong turns. Political power was centralized. Economic power privatized. Large parts of the country de-industrialized, and they still haven't recovered.

Many feel as though they're still in decline, and they don't have the ability to turn things around. That's why we will change politics. And we will take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land so that they can do more. And in doing more, build a new economy. It's kind of amazing how no matter which country you tune into, they're having the same conversations right now, right? Like anyone who's winning an election is saying the same thing about cost of living. The question will be who can actually fix it. I did love that he started off his first day as Prime Minister at a homeless shelter, making breakfast for the folks who are there.

This is a cause near and dear to his heart. He donated 15% of his salary every year when he was mayor of Birmingham to homelessness charities. And his big thing is that he's going to end rough, they call it rough sleeping, are homelessness. And the first policy that he's enacted is a VAT cut for domestic energy bills. So a cost of living focus, all to the good. I just, I wonder if you're coming seventh in a decade, how do you think you would be thinking about it? Because there's a part of me of the things you just have in the back of your mind, I could be another six or 12 month notch, right? Or I could really be the one to break this streak and this pattern and deliver for Britons.

And I mean, it certainly seems from his speech that he wants to do these big things. and to make this massive change. But, yeah, it feels to me like that is all weak sauce and populace, blah, blah, with no actionable strategy. And Prime Minister Starmor, Keir Starrmer, had nice vibes, said the right things, and couldn't outline what he stood for, principles or actual programs that were going to enact. And Britain is desperate for the type of, first off, he just historically gets it wrong here. The 80s and 90s were actually arguably boom periods.

I've been going to the UK since the 70s. They want to return to the glory of the 60s and 70s when they were just a meddling power in what felt like an inexorable downward spiral. It was Thatcher, and I would argue Tony Blair with strong private property laws that attracted a lot of outside capital. And London had a boom.

And if he wants a demon in terms of a moment, he should go to Brexit, which arguably was the greatest own goal in the history of Europe. And I mean, at some point, there's going to need to be a leader that stands up and says, we screwed up with Brexit, we need to reincorp, we need backs it, and we need growth again. Britain is a case study in what happens when a country loses productivity growth. UK productivity growth has been essentially flat for a decade.

GDP growth is projected below 1%. Real wages are about the same as they were before Brexit. Public services are under pressure despite historically high tax burdens. Britain keeps, it keeps changing prime ministers because it's easier to replace this. CEO, then fix the business model. And the political instability isn't the problem here. It's or the disease. It's the symptom. The disease is stagnant productivity. And somebody is going to have to actually take an unpopular view and say, Brexit was stupid. We need to get, we need to reintegrate into the EU and expand our market while lowering the cost for our consumers. We need to jumpstart growth or

invest in technology or find, find ways to attract more business and more capital here. And also, the non-dom tax policy is just so indicative of England and Europe. In Europe, they'd rather be more equal, even if it comes at the cost of the whole. And in the U.S., loosely speaking, we're comfortable with inequality as long as as a whole we're doing better. And I would argue that's no longer happening, that inequality has gotten so out of control that it's actually now eating its own tail and costing the whole. But the non-DOM tax policies that were enacted, I think it was 24 months ago, they want to tickle the sensors of the upper middle class and understandably say the rich should pay their fair share.

And if you've relocated from Hong Kong, at some point you need to help you need to pay your fair share. That theoretically makes all the sense in the world. The problem is the tax, their treasury is going to collect less receipts this year than they did before because these millionaires are mobile. And just as they choose to relocate to London, they're now choosing to relocate to other places. But the European and British people would rather feel good about themselves and about these principles

than have the revenue for the NHS and food stamps for the poor. This is just the story of Britain, just a series of own goals, whether it's IPOs that they decide are not ethical, so they find other markets to go public in, whether it's an inability to maintain tech companies because of regulation. It's such a tragedy because the UK has all of the underpinnings of what could be one of the most robust

economies in the world. Incredible intellectual property, fantastic, some of the best educational institutions in the world, an incredible culture and culture does compound. People do move to a place they want to live in, and yet they can't get out of their own way. And cost of living, he wants to call himself the cost of living government. Cost of living isn't solved by speeches. It's solved by productivity. And there's absolutely no programs he's proposed that would result in capital formation or, you know, something resembling an increase in productivity. Let's give him more than 24 hours. Fair enough. So we'll see what comes. I mean, big shakeups in the cabinet as well as to be expected, though, you know, keeping some like the home secretary is staying on. So we'll see what comes. I thought that the, you

change in approach to oil and gas was notable. President Trump likes it. He's already on true social saying people are dancing in the streets because the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, has stated that he'll be opening up all the way the invaluable North Sea oil. We'll see what that is. Kier Starrmer, at least by the time he was leaving, had figured out how to deal with Trump. It will be interesting to see what Burnham does there. But I love the idea of him coming out and saying, we're going to try to unravel Brexit. I like Baxit, but however you want to do it, I think it would be such a relief to the Brits to hear that there is someone focused on this

now that it's, I think, about 60%. It was like 53% regretted it right after it happened, and I think it's up to 60% now and be hard-pressed to even get a good conservative defense of it and the implications. There are obviously immigration issues in all of these countries, and they're paying attention to it. But I think that that would be a very smart hill to die on if that's what happens or just, you know, something to anchor yourself in and make you very popular from the get-go.

But a new era. There's a civil war happening in the Democratic Party. And if there's one place that that's playing out most clearly, it's in Michigan. A crucial Senate primary battle in Michigan that could determine control of Congress in November. Congresswoman Haley Stevens and Abdul Al-Sayette. a progressive Democrat and a moderate Democrat. In the end, it all comes down to the dreaded e-word, electability. But in Michigan, one candidate is trying to turn the electability concept on its head.

If we think that voters walk around asking, where do I sit on some theoretical left-right spectrum? Then in theory, the bulk of the voters are somewhere in the middle. The problem, though, is that that model hasn't really accurately predicted our politics for a very long time. If Michiganers wanted moderate, why would you? they have elected Donald Trump twice. Dr. Abdul-El-Sayette is making the progressive case for America first, and he's trying to settle the Democrats' ideological battle in the process. This is about the many versus the money.

I'm Instead Herndon, and this is America Actually. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. We're joined now by Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. So, Senator, thanks for being here on Raging Motors. Good to be here. So today's primary day in your state, we're now 105 days. from the midterms. What are the Trump-endorsed Republicans running on your neck of the woods? What are you expecting to see tonight? Well, we've got primaries on our side. Primaries on their side.

There are some Trump-endorsed candidates, two House members. I think they're trying to out-maga each other here and then see if they can get through a general election, which I find very unlikely. Our governor, Katie Hobbs, has done a good job. She's solving the problems that the people in Arizona are dealing with. But we have house primaries as well. There's a candidate that I endorsed in CD1, Marlene, Golan Woods, who I think is the right person to solve some of these really tough problems that we have in this country. She's an experienced journalist, so she has experience holding people accountable, politicians accountable, locally in general, but I think it's the right moment for somebody like her to serve in the United States Congress. The kind of the big story

in New York has been the rise of the Democratic Socialist wing of the party. Are you seeing, and to be fair, that feels like all the energy right now is on the Democratic side. Are you seeing any sort of similar trends in your home state, Senator? We haven't seen a ton of it, not like, you know, what we've been seeing in other places. Though I think when you see that in places like New York City and, you know, other, you know, maybe in the Midwest. I think you're seeing a reaction to just the challenges that regular people have right now and that the government just isn't stepping up to meet their challenges. And what we see with this administration is they're looking out for the rich people,

for billionaires, for Donald Trump's friends, for the people who have written the million-dollar check to be a member of Mar-a-Lago or the bigger check to fund his ballroom, those are the people that get taken care of. And hardworking, middle-class, people are just, left behind. And if you're a young person in the country today, I mean, what opportunity do you have to, let's say, buy a home? Last October, I took my 30-year-old daughter to see the house that we lived in when I was 30, and she was one. She doesn't remember the place. It's near the Navy base where I was

stationed, four-bedroom house, nice neighborhood, end of a cul-de-sac. We knock on the door. The guy I sold the house to in the 1990s. He was still there. And he recognizes me, excited to see me. We go in. I think your show, The Five, was on, on Fox. But he was happy to see me. We walk around the house and we get in the car. And the first thing my 30-year-old daughter says to me is she says, Dad, I don't understand. You were able to buy that house in that neighbor. And you were my age and you were in the Navy. Yeah. Like what the hell happened?

I mean, that's not for her and her friends and her husband, people who have done everything right. That's not like in the world of possibilities for them. And you can multiply that, you know, a million times across the country. So this government, and it's not just Donald Trump, its governments before them have failed hardworking people. and the 1% now owns as much of this country as the middle class. Think about that for a second.

That is not a healthy place. So I think what you're seeing is a reaction to the reality of the lack of opportunity in our country today. Senator, it's great to have you. And obviously, following your work for a while. And I do want to dig into that lengthy Atlantic profile, which was an incredible read on a number of levels. but I want to talk first about your new legislation. This is right up Scott's Alley. Could you talk a little bit about the legislation

and how you formed the bipartisan group to get this done? Because you don't hear that term very often that something bipartisan is actually happening. Well, it's two specific pieces of legislation and it's actually directed at solving the problem of two few men in the classroom. I had a male teacher in the fifth and sixth grade. There weren't a lot of male teachers back then, either, but there were more. It was like 35%. Now it's 25%. The number's going down. Young men and boys

need good male role models. I had them in my life, coaches, teachers. When I got in the Navy, my department head or commanding officer, I think one of my first commanding officers in a Navy squad and was a great role model. For me, his name was Terry Tom's. So I've had great male role models. So we need more male teachers. So one piece of legislation provides training where you can be paid to get training so you could become a teacher for men. Similar thing in mentorships, having programs like AmeriCorps as an example, prioritize the recruitment of men. There's a long list. I mean, the list of young boys.

or boys and young men signed up for mentors is much longer than the one where girls are signing up for mentors. So we have this lack of mentorship. So it solves those two problems. The one thing on the mentorship side, not the teaching side, is bipartisan. We're working on getting Republicans on board with the other piece of legislation as well. We have a lot of young people, especially, well, and a lot of young men and women who listen to the show. And I saw that for the first time, the armed services met its recruiting targets for the first time in about a decade. I'd just be curious if when someone approaches you, Senator, and says, you know, I'm looking for something to do. Quite frankly, I'm looking for purpose. I'm looking to advance my skills.

I'm looking for a place to be, a place to make some progress as a young man or woman. And they say, what kind of person is the armed services suited for? And just as importantly, what kind of person is it not suited for? What advice you give to young people regarding service. Well, I, you know, I think public service is so important and it's not just about helping your country. I think often it helps the individual, you know, to have that experience to do something and be involved in something that's larger than themselves. You know, I experienced that in my 25 years of active duty, you know, multiple jobs that I've had in the, in the United States Navy, including, you know, going to war for our nation in 1991, the first Gulf War. So I think,

I think people get something out of that kind of service. I encourage people to go into the military. I am not a supporter of a lot of the actions that the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is taking within our military. I find a lot of it very troubling and concerning. But I still encourage people to serve. I was recently talking to a young guy who was about to graduate from Yale University that because he spent some time in England, he was thinking about maybe going into the British military. And I told him, hey, we need you.

We need people like you in the U.S. military. He's a U.S. citizen. He's got dual citizenship. And I convinced him to, you know, stay on the path. He's about to go to infantry school. He just finished basic. Graduate of Yale, we need smart people who are mission-oriented and mission-focused. That's the kind of folks we want in the military.

One problem we have now in recruiting, and you do say the numbers are up, and that's the numbers reported by the military right now. And I do to some extent believe that. One of the challenges we had previously in recruiting is, you know, a lot of, you know, MAGA kind of folks and Republicans were just overinflating this whole wokenness within the military. I never saw that. I think it's a bunch of crap. but I think it did to some extent, depressed, you know, recruitment. So the recruitment numbers are up. That's great. We want people to serve.

One of the challenges we have is how many people are eligible to serve in the United States military? We got folks that can't pass the physical, can't pass the medical, and can't pass the written exam because they can't read well enough. You have to be able to read at a decent level to pass the ASVAB, which is the exam to get in the military. And one way we can solve that, and we've tried to address this before, I brought it up in the Armed Services Committee a number of times, is pre-K. Because if you go to pre-K, you're more likely to be able to read in the third grade. And if you can read in the third grade, you're probably going to be able to read at a high school level and graduate from high school. school. That's a really good point that you're making about depressing military signups in the era

before this. And it is a good thing, obviously, when people are signing up and want to serve our country, and I certainly share your critiques of what's going on at the Department of Defense. By extension of what you were just talking about, what service did for you and for so many others, what do you think about a system of mandatory national service for the country, not necessarily. that you have to go into the armed forces, but, you know, some give back function and some, you know, call it our gap year or, you know, our two years before you go off to college, where you do something that supports the country. I think we should do it, whether it's, and it doesn't have to be serving in the military,

that should be one of the options. It could be America or it could be Teach for America. It could be maybe we create a program where people go into like caregiving. We've got a lack of, you know, well, trained, sufficient, you know, caregivers for an elderly population. So that's something we could do as well. And what I've noticed about this is it does seem to have strong bipartisan support. But we've never been able to get the appropriate legislation across the finish line. But, you know, thank you. I think it's a reminder that we need to continue to focus on this because

I think it would make us a better country. We're also deporting a lot of our best caregivers with the revoking the TPS programs. For instance, the Haitians are incredible caregivers. I'm curious, what do you think is going to happen with the war in Iran? Hard to say. I mean, because Donald Trump got himself into a position he's finding it very hard to get out of. We don't know for sure why he started this thing. Initially, he said it was about regime change. We're going to bomb for a few days. There'll be a new government. They're going to be friendly to us. He doesn't listen to people around him. And I don't think he thinks very strategically when it was obvious to him that that wasn't going to happen after the first few days. Then he transitioned

to this is about enriched uranium and nuclear weapons. The Iranians were not racing to get a nuclear weapon. That bullshit they say about, well, that he says about in two weeks they were going to have a nuclear weapon. That is not true. Then it became ballistic missiles. Then the Navy. So he is flailing on this. And either he doesn't. didn't hear it or they didn't tell them or he didn't take it seriously that the Iranians can shut down the Strait of Hormuz pretty easily right now. So now he finds himself in a spot where he's got to evaluate like bad choices. Probably the only deal he can make that they would accept is something that was better than the one he tore up in 2018. And I don't think this president's going to want the

criticism he's going to get from that, he tore up the JCPOA. It had enrichment below 4%. I think he would like to go back to where we were in February. The problem is it's very hard to put the ship back in the donkey. And you can't like just, you can't just like undo this stuff, right? So now he could walk away from it, but then they have control of the Strait of Hormuz. The other option is he could escalate this and invade Karg Island or do some ground invasion over the Iranians. Here's the problem. Presidents like Donald Trump and people that go into this government often think you drop a bomb on something and that solves your problems. Air power is not the solution to strategic problems.

It just isn't. And the addition of ground troops, we'd be seeing thousands and thousands of dead Americans. I don't think that's the answer either. But I'll tell you what definitely isn't the answer, is having his son-in-law and his buddy negotiate this thing. You know, find people that have experience. It's not just like this coincidence that the best person in the country to negotiate it happens to be his son-in-law. We need experienced and serious people doing this. And then the other thing I think he could do and would be figure out what levers you have to put more economic pressure on them. And at this point, I would suggest we just stop killing people. I know Pete Heggseth, he's made it

very clear. He likes to kill a lot of people. He ran around on a stage saying maximum lethality, we're going to kill people and setting records on bombing stuff. But that is not working. So if the thing you're doing is not working, do something else. Senator, you've become one of the Democratic Party's top fundraisers, raising roughly 25 million and contributing about 10 million to other candidates, which shows a remarkable ability to raise money, which is a precondition or a criteria for running for president. And I'm trying to think of an elegant way to get to whether or not you're running. Just do it. Just say it. Follow me here and see if this works.

As someone who is constantly mentioned on a short list of people who would get a different. decent amount of support to run for president. Invite us into the decision process of someone who is obviously called on a lot, has the ability to raise money, as seen as a viable candidate, has, you know, you're out of central casting to be a candidate. What is the decision process that someone goes through when evaluating, obviously what is a pretty, a significant decision for you and your family? Like, let us, to the extent you're willing to let us, what is your decision process around this. Well, usually I give a very short answer to this, and I know you're not looking for that because you asked a long question. I haven't decided. I'm a science data facts person. I'm a little bit

unusual in this whole political world. You know, I think there's two or three engineers in the United States Senate. I'm one of them. You know, I've always made decisions based on what are the facts, you know, what are the numbers show? I care a lot about numbers. So we're taking a look at, you know, whether there's a path, whether I'm the right person for the job right now. And then the family thing is a big piece of this. You know, I take this stuff very seriously. I really do. It is a lot different than making a decision to run for Senate, which, by the way, is not something I, you know, I had, you know, thought of my entire life. People used to talk to me about it after Gabby was injured and I was living in Arizona. But it wasn't something I really took seriously until I had this

young woman who came up to me who had a kid with Down syndrome and she told me, she thought her kid was going to lose his health insurance. And she asked me if I would consider running for the, for the U.S. Senate. So I told her I would. And four months later, I was a candidate. So it's, it's kind of like that. I think some of these people who run for president have been thinking about this since they were in the third grade. That is not me. You know, I wanted to go to, you know, I wanted to be the first person to walk on the planet Mars.

I failed miserably at this. I didn't get close. There is still time. So I haven't made a decision yet, but I do things rather methodically. Jess, last question for the senator? It's not really a question, more of a statement. I just wanted to say that I think that Gabby would be an incredible,

first lady, if that is a decision that you choose to make. And I think that your example in service and also in love and humanity is an incredibly important one for us here in America and globally. And I'm just very appreciative of what you two have done for the country. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Thank you. All right. Let's leave it there. Amongst other things, Senator Mark Kelly succeeded at the highest level in three elite professions, Navy combat pilot, 39 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm, NASA astronaut who flew four space shuttle missions and commanded the final flight of endeavor and a U.S. Senator from one of the country's premier swing states. I was described

as one of the few people, I think the only person in the Senate who has capped in a vehicle at 30,000 miles an hour. Senator Kelly, very much appreciate your time today. Hey, thank you guys. Jess, thoughts on Senator Kelly as a presidential candidate? Worthy of being on that stage for sure. I like that he said, you know, I'll look at the facts and I'll look at the data. And the data is that this guy wins a state that we need to win. The same calculation will be going through Josh Shapiro's mind, right? There's no route without Pennsylvania or very limited.

So I liked him a lot. And we're, you know, we co-host a show called Raging Moderates. And that's what Mark Kelly is. So it was very cool to have him. I've wanted to talk to him for a long time. What were your thoughts? Well, I'm a big fan of the centers, and I'm really excited about this legislation

to try and get more males in the teaching profession. I think that it's just nice to see, I think the dialogue has come so far, and it's nice to see our elected leaders actually proposing specific programs and legislation to address the issue instead of acknowledging it or not acknowledging it or turning it into a culture war show.

I'm appreciative that the senator is a person who listens and then says, all right, what can we do about it? I think that if he doesn't ultimately become the nominee, he's probably going to be number one or number two on everyone's short list to be their VP pick because of the reasons you stated, military service, swing state. America has a tendency to go in a very different direction

from a personality and political leaning standpoint when it goes from one president to the other. So military service, I think the most accretive thing about his presidency would not just be that he seems like a reasonable guy who has good relationships in the Senate, but that he wouldn't be in our goddamn face every day. I feel like the biggest tax cut would be an emotional tax cut where we didn't have to hear from the fucking president every goddamn day on everything. It just feels like a pollutant that we're gagging on. And he doesn't strike me as someone who needs, who's always Jonesing for the camera or needs to comment on the Taylor Swift tour. So I think that would be, I hope and wonder if the American public is ready for literally a 180, not even from a political standpoint, from just from a complexion or a personality standpoint. The difficult thing is that I don't know, Senator Kelly strikes me as someone who just does not have the desire to be big on social media.

and that's just not him. And I wonder if he has what I'll call the social media or the new media Riz. He's not prone to dramatic statements. He's not prone. He's not good with 15 seconds sound bites. He's the kind of guy who's a thoughtful, measured, you know, adult. And I wonder if our media ecosystem has left that behind or if that person can can can be a small donor recipient.

That's my only, that's my fear around handicapping the race that on one end, maybe America will be very much drawn to a different type of person. But I wonder in this era of a clip economy if he's, if he's cut out for it. I think he'll be cut out for it if he is a great editor. Yeah. Who can splice this stuff up. I mean, just in talking to us, he dropped a couple well-timed bullshits. I mean, his fight with Pete Hegseth is the stuff of social media dreams, right?

That is not only, you know, pointed in accurate criticism, but that he has the bona fides and the swagger to back it up. I mean, I referenced that profile in the Atlantic of him, which is worth everyone's time. It's a great profile. But it's all about how this guy's not scared of anything. Like, how do you think that you're going to scare the pilot, right? The combat veteran pilot or the astronaut or the guy who was told. that his wife was dead and had to live with that for 20 minutes and then wait for a week for her to wake up

and is still being asked things like, do you think America is ready for a disabled first lady? There's a tough guy thing going on with him and how much is bottled up in that person, how many dimensions there are to his level of expertise and to his personality. I think he could thrive. It will not be as inherently oozing. out of him as like a Gavin Newsome. But I think that people who are looking for swagger will see it in Mark Kelly. And he will be an interesting entrant if he is going to on the, you know, more moderate side of the field, squaring off, you know, against if it's AOC or whoever will be the progressive standard bear. Yeah. And I now wish I brought it up. But it just seems so insane. And, you know,

it seems pretty obvious, and I would argue Fox does this, that they assess and the Republican Party assess who the most likely or most viable candidates are for president. And then, you know, it's one thing when Fox attacks them every day, as they did with Secretary Clinton, as I believe they're doing with Governor Newsom now. But when the administration goes after, you know, basically a combat veteran who is, you know, whose life sort of is synonymous with service and accused them of sedition, which is a crime punishable by death, I'm just really shocked that more Republicans and veterans didn't come out and say, okay, this is, this is just, this has gone way too far. Do you, you were probably following this clip more closely than me. What did you see as a reaction

there? I saw, you know, Republicans treating Trump with kid gloves, but also not piling on, right? because it was the group, the six, the seditious six, were all veterans. So I think that they were basically like, this is going to be better if we back off of it. And you didn't see the usual, oh, he's got a point. They shouldn't have done it. And it was coming. I mean, we don't talk about that story that much anymore. But this was right after the taking down of the fishermen in the Caribbean, right?

that we were blowing up Venezuelan boats and claiming that they were narco-terrorists and that the Admiral in charge of Southern Command left his job. Resigned. Right. Yeah. So I think that there are moments where certainly the veterans in the Senate and the House on the Republican side think that it's better to say nothing to get it to go away rather than inflaming it into a bigger kerfuffle.

But it would have been interesting to ask him. also what kind of private support he was getting during that because they got tons of death threats. Alyssa Slokin was saying that her dad, a week before he died, was swatted, actually. But he said he wanted to come back. So we'll ask him next time.