Tangle - RFK Jr.'s Campaign

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

On Friday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump. Kennedy plans to remove his name from the ballot in ten battleground states but remain an option in safe Republican and Democrat states to give his supporters in noncompetitive states the option to vote for him without playing spoiler. Kennedy has already taken action to remove his name from the ballot in Arizona and Pennsylvania, but election officials in Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin said it is too late for him to take his name off the ballot. You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can watch the entire Tangle Live event at City Winery NYC on our YouTube Channel!Check out Episode 5 of our podcast series, The Undecideds. Please give us a 5-star rating and leave a comment!Today’s clickables: Quick hits (1:51), Today’s story (5:00), Rightt’s take (8:15), Left’s take (12:31), Isaac’s take (16:46), Questions Answered (22:14), Under the Radar (23:42), Numbers (24:25), Have a nice day (25:43)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Help share Tangle.I'm a firm believer that our politics would be a little bit better if everyone were reading balanced news that allows room for debate, disagreement, and multiple perspectives. If you can take 15 seconds to share Tangle with a few friends I'd really appreciate it. Email Tangle to a friend here, share Tangle on X/Twitter here, or share Tangle on Facebook here.Take the survey: How do you think RFK Jr. would have impacted the 2024 election if he was on the ballot in all 50 states? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspending his campaign for president and endorsing former President Donald Trump. I'm going to be with you for the whole pod today as the Tangle team is all returning to our various places across the country after getting together for a team retreat this week in Oregon,

right after the DNC, which was a blast. For those of you who missed it, on Friday, we sent out a Friday edition to all our newsletter subscribers. So it's up on the website for free right now. If you go to readtangle.com, where I shared a bunch of thoughts from the DNC. I basically just emptied my notebook on everything I saw there, and people really liked it. It was a popular piece, so I'm glad I did it.

Encourage you to go check that out if you're interested in some more deep dive coverage from the DNC and want to hear what I saw on the ground in person. First of all, I want to give a quick heads up that you might have noticed we did not have a Sunday podcast yesterday. The Tangle team was together on a retreat out in Oregon this weekend, and we had planned to all sit down and record a special Sunday podcast together. And then we just had a little too much fun and it didn't come to fruition. And we ended up not getting a podcast recorded. And then yesterday we all had to travel back to our various places all across the country. So unfortunately, there's no Sunday podcast this

week. But the good news is that we all got a bunch of fun time together and did some team bonding. So we'll have a fresh Sunday podcast for you coming out this upcoming Sunday, of course. But apologies for those of you who were looking for the Sunday pod yesterday and didn't find it. Also, I wanted to flag for you guys that on Sunday, we published a really interesting reader essay. Shortly after we covered Tim Walls' military record and some of the controversy around it, we got an email from a reader who served in the Minnesota National Guard at the same time that Walls did. This reader had a different perspective about which things Walls said or did that mattered to him as an Iraq war

veteran, and we thought it would be best to share his perspective with everyone. So we turned that piece into a reader essay. These reader contributions and outside contributions are behind a paywall on our website, but if you go to readtangle.com, you can find it, or you can find a link to it in today's episode description, and you can also find it in the Sunday newsletter. All right, with that out of the way, we're going to start things off with some quick hits. First up, Israel said it carried out a preemptive strike in Lebanon to prevent a larger scale attack by Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based militant group. Hezbollah then launched 320 rockets and hit 11 Israeli military targets in what it said was a retaliation for Israel's assassination of a senior commander last month.

Number two, two astronauts who have been stranded on the International Space Station are now scheduled to return to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle in February. Number three, the U.S. Supreme Court partially reinstated Arizona's 2022 law that requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote.

The law has never been enforced. Number four, Venezuela's top court certified President Nicolas Maduro's election victory amid allegations of fraud. And number five, the Taliban published new laws that ban women's voices and bare faces in public. All right, that is it for our quick hits, which brings us to today's main topic, which is RFK Jr.'s campaign.

But tonight, the playing field already changing before our eyes with the announcement by independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. that he is suspending his campaign and is endorsing former President Trump's election bid. Tonight, in a move likely to help former President Trump, independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. suspending his campaign. I promised the American people that I would withdraw from the race if I became a spoiler. And announcing he will now endorse Mr. Trump. I was surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues. On Friday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump. campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump. Kennedy plans to remove his name from the ballot in 10 battleground states, but remained an option in safe Republican and Democrat states

to give his supporters in non-competitive states the option to vote for him without playing spoiler. Kennedy has already taken action to remove his name from the ballot in Arizona and Pennsylvania, but election officials in Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin said it is too late for him to take his name off the ballot. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and the son of former Senator Robert Kennedy, launched a primary challenge to President Joe Biden last June. Then he pivoted to an independent campaign in October. Though he routinely polled at 10% or more as a third-party candidate, his poll numbers have steadily declined since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden

on the Democratic ticket. The Kennedy campaign has struggled to remain financially viable, with recent reports suggesting it was nearly out of money. Kennedy said his decision came after determining he had no realistic path to electoral victory, as well as internal polling that showed his presence in the race would hurt Trump

and help Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Kennedy cited three great causes for his decision to endorse Trump. Free speech, the war in Ukraine, and the war on children. He said Trump is the only other candidate in the race willing to negotiate a quick end to the Ukraine war to tackle the chronic disease epidemic, to protect free speech and our constitutional freedoms, clean corporate influence out of our government, or defy the neocons and their agenda of endless military adventurism, end quote. He also accused Democrats of being the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag, and big money, and said his candidacy was undermined by relentless systematic censorship

and media control. After announcing the suspension of his campaign, Kennedy appeared at a rally with Trump in Glendale, Arizona. The former president called Kennedy a man who has been an incredible champion for so many of these values that we all share, and he promised to work with Kennedy to establish a panel to investigate the increase in chronic health conditions and childhood diseases if elected president. Trump and Kennedy have warmed to each other in the past month, and Kennedy said he was surprised to discover

that we are aligned on many key issues. Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy's running mate, suggested that Kennedy could serve as Trump's health secretary, though Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, said there was no quid pro quo deal for Kennedy's withdrawal. Five of Kennedy's family members released a statement after the announcement calling his decision to endorse Trump a betrayal of the values that our father and family hold most dear.

Kennedy acknowledged the difficulties his endorsement of Trump would cause his wife, children, and friends, but affirmed the certainty he felt in his choice. Today, we're going to explore some arguments from the right and the left about the impact of Kennedy's decision, and then my take. We'll be right back after this quick break. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000

influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at Flucellvax.ca. First up, we'll start with what the right is saying. The right believes Kennedy's endorsement will benefit Trump on the margins. Some suggest Democrats drove Kennedy out of the party. Others say the Kennedy-Trump alliance is a sign of a

broader political realignment in the U.S. In the Washington Examiner, Brady Leonard argued that RFK Jr. and Trump offer a good fit. A Trump-Kennedy partnership makes electoral sense. Trump has previously expressed interest in bringing Kennedy into his administration. Both men have also been viciously attacked by the left. Both value individual liberty far more

than Vice President Kamala Harris, and both view the so-called deep state as the enemy and are skeptical of America's interventionist foreign policy, Leonard wrote. The pair do have profound policy differences, namely Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and his choice to empower COVID-19 task force leader Dr. Anthony Fauci. With the pandemic, lockdowns, and forced vaccinations in the rearview mirror, perhaps Kennedy views other issues facing the nation as more pressing. Jill Stein and Cornel West are non-factors, and the Libertarian Party nominated a left-winger who poses little to no threat to the GOP, making Kennedy the only wildcard in this race. Trump's electoral ceiling is 46.9% of the popular vote,

which he took in his 2020 losing effort against Biden. Kennedy's 3-5% would almost certainly flip most, if not all, of the battleground states in Trump's direction, Leonard said. A Trump-Kennedy alliance would be a natural progression, and if the GOP's tent is big enough to house both Senators Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham, surely there is plenty of room for Kennedy. In the New York Post, Jonathan Turley said Kennedy's decision shows how Democrats drive away their own voters. Where once they defended free speech, Democrats have rallied behind censorship and blacklisting of those with opposing views.

They have sought to block dozens of Republicans from ballots, including former President Trump, Turley wrote. Those actions were raised by Kennedy in his powerful and poignant withdrawal speech. He detailed how the Democratic Party moved to stop him from running against President Biden in the primary, including efforts to block him from ballots. It was an ironic moment. After harassing candidates like RFK and Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips, the Democratic leadership then simply installed their choice at the convention in an unprecedented bait-and-switch. It is not clear whether the red-pill-blue-pill pitch will be enough or whether Kennedy's endorsement will turn the critical votes in swing states. However, the DNC showed how Democrats make Republicans.

The unrelenting identity politics and claims of defending democracy while opposing Democratic choice only reaffirm for many that there is no longer a big tent in the party of Roosevelt and Kennedy, Turley said. There is a serious question whether John F. Kennedy would recognize or support the current Democratic Party. It now rejects many of his core mainstream values. In the American Spectator, Scott McKay wrote, this is no longer the presidential race you think it is. Kennedy hasn't become a conservative. He's still very much an outsider figure in American politics.

And furthermore, he leans left on most issues. The ones where he and Trump have found common cause are only conservative in the sense that they're issues that the Democrat Party has run so far away from the national mainstream that a liberal like Kennedy can only find an alliance with Republicans, McKay said. Kennedy's three issues are good ones to run against Democrats on. While none of the three are as compelling with voters as immigration and the border, inflation and the economy, and crime and public safety,

the things Kennedy identified in his speech work to Trump's advantage. This election will be a referendum on the deep state and the corrupt, hyper-mandatious ruling class in this country, which has run up $35 trillion in debt, plunged us into wars not in our interest, shredded our civil society, destroyed American childhood, and declared war on reality itself in pursuit of some top-down utopian vision imported here from overseas, McKay said. Kennedy's endorsement makes this very clear. Like Trump or not, he is your only alternative to that ruling class. So whether you like Trump or not, you can either get behind him or you're with the ruling class.

All right, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left argues Kennedy's conspiratorial beliefs fit well within the MAGA movement. Some doubt that Kennedy's endorsement of Trump will impact the election. Others say Kennedy has betrayed his family's values. In The Atlantic, John Hendrickson wrote about why RFK Jr. endorsed Trump. Kennedy's evolution from member of a Democratic dynasty to a soldier in the anti-democratic MAGA movement will no doubt confuse casual observers. Trump once called Kennedy the dumbest member of his family, and Kennedy once suggested that Trump was a sociopath. The main reason for Kennedy's conversion

may be pure desperation. This summer, Kennedy made overtures to both major party candidates. Only Trump reciprocated, Hendrickson wrote. But the Trump-Kennedy pairing makes a certain kind of sense. To be sure, Kennedy doesn't share Trump's anti-immigrant sentiment, nor does he lean on white identity politics or nationalism.

Instead, it's Kennedy's conspiratorial anti-establishment, burn-it-down ethos that makes him fit into the MAGA universe. Three key factors forced Kennedy's withdrawal. The first and most obvious was money. Despite tapping Nicole Shanahan, the wealthy Silicon Valley businesswoman, to be his running mate, Kennedy's fundraising has recently dried up. The second factor was ballot access. Nick Brana, the campaign's ballot access director, told me that as of today, the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket was certified in only 22 states, Hendrickson wrote. The third factor was perhaps the most obvious. His core proposition had become moot once Biden dropped out. After Harris took Biden's

place as the nominee, she began to win back some of the disaffected Democrats, Independents, and Undecideds who had parked their support in the Kennedy column. In New York Magazine, Ed Kilgore called Trump and Kennedy a coalition of vengeful whiners. Kennedy's reasoning was relatively clear, if not necessarily compelling. He said he had broken with Democrats over the existential issues of censorship, war, and chronic disease. But it's that first item he dwelled on in talking about his former party, accusing them of bitterly working with big tech to warn people of his anti-vax views during and since the COVID pandemic and rigging the 2024 primaries to keep potential rivals like Kennedy out while hiding the cognitive decline of President Biden, Kilgore said.

As for whether Trump will act on the prime concern of the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket, RFK Jr. seems to be relying mostly on blind faith. And so, this deeply alienated man will form a strange partnership with the Republican candidate for president, based mostly on a common sense of grievance with Democrats and other elites and a common lust for vengeance, Kilgore wrote. And it is not clear at all how many of his remaining supporters will follow him over the brink into Maga land, which

some correctly perceive as a place where environmentalists and those who fret about military spending and childhood health are often treated as hippies and suspected Marxists. In the Los Angeles Times, Max Kennedy said, ignore my brother Bobby. I'm heartbroken over my brother Bobby's endorsement of Donald Trump. I think often about my father and how he might've viewed the politics of our time. I'm not sure what he would've thought about TikTok or AI, but this much I know for sure.

He would've despised Donald Trump, Kennedy wrote. Trump was exactly the kind of arrogant, entitled bully my father used to prosecute. Robert F. Kennedy's life was dedicated to promoting the safety, security, and happiness of the American people. Trump is the enemy of all that. The only thing he seems to be for is himself and disturbingly autocrats such as Vladimir Putin, whom my father would have regarded as an existential threat to our country. Yet my brother now endorses Trump. To pledge allegiance to Trump, a man who demonstrates

no adherence to our family's values, is inconceivable to me, Kennedy said. It feels especially hypocritical that Bobby, a genuine environmentalist, has thrown in with the most anti-environmental president in our history, who promises to drill baby drill if elected. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would be motivated to write something of this nature. With a heavy heart, I am today asking my fellow Americans to do what will honor my father the most, ignore Bobby. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So let's start with the headline question here. Will Kennedy dropping out meaningfully change the race? A few weeks ago, we published a piece suggesting that RFK Jr. could be the most important factor in the 2024 election. Suffice it to say, that piece

has not aged so well. Shortly after we publish it, Biden's disastrous debate upended the entire race, then someone attempted to kill Donald Trump, and then the Democrats changed their nominee to Vice President Kamala Harris. All the while, Kennedy's poll numbers were steadily falling. Now, Kennedy's impact is looking much more narrow, but it could still end up being critical. Given how close the polls are, a 1-2% shift in any swing state could throw the race to Trump. Based purely on what the polling has indicated so far, Trump usually gets a bump when Kennedy is removed from the ticket and the race moves to a head-to-head. Take Arizona, for instance. Biden won there by 11,000 votes in 2020,

and Kennedy polls at 6% there. With him dropping out and endorsing Trump, even if half those voters follow his lead, that could throw the entire state to Trump. And it's not just Arizona. In a survey of seven battleground states by the Cook Political Report, Trump was the second choice for 45%

of Kennedy voters in swing states, while was the second choice for 45% of Kennedy voters in swing states, while Harris was the choice for just 26%. Again, these margins will matter in November. The more interesting question is whether Kennedy telling voters to cast their ballots for Trump will actually matter. Everything about this race is unusual, but a Democrat turned independent

endorsing the Republican nominee is especially novel. How seriously can voters take Kennedy's backing and how loyal were they to him in the first place? These are questions I can't confidently answer right now. In announcing his decision, Kennedy gave his standard stump speech. As usual with him, some of it was a strong biting criticism

of the Democratic Party. It's become more censorious, more captured by corporate interests, less focused on the working class, and less anti-war than it has been in the past. He's also good at identifying real problems that major politicians are ignoring, like chronic health issues among children and the increased instances of autism. And no, that's not just because of changes in diagnosis. His identification of root causes for those issues often veer off into fantasy land,

but the passion with which he speaks about these issues reaches millions of people for a reason. Still, there are a couple of things about what he's doing that are pretty nonsensical. First, even if you subscribe to Kennedy's worldview entirely, I find it peculiar that the candidate he's backing to rein in big pharma, big tech, big ag, and big money is Donald Trump.

If Kennedy was worried about things like big pharma pushing drugs to market that aren't safe or major food producers overusing pesticides and other chemicals to maximize profits, it is rather odd to imagine a world where Trump is the president to step in and fight on his behalf. Remember, core issues in Kennedy's ideology are environmental issues like removing pesticides from food,

which he hoped to do by weaponizing regulators. Whatever you think of former President Trump, he does not have any tangible track record that would indicate a desire to put the vice grip on corporations and address the kinds of issues Kennedy made a centerpiece of his campaign. The second nonsensical aspect of Kennedy's announcement is that he is only sort of dropping out. He's attempting to remove himself from swing state ballots to help Trump while remaining on the ballot in safe states. And he's even floated the idea that he could still eventually win the election in the event Trump and Harris tie at 269 electoral college votes. But actually, that doesn't seem possible.

The House of Representatives breaks the tie by casting votes from its state delegations for any candidate who receives electoral college votes. If Kennedy wants to win a contingent election in Congress, he'll have to get at least one electoral vote, and remaining on the ballot in only the least competitive states is probably the worst way to do that. Of course, any discussion of Kennedy's decision

must include a note that his endorsement for either candidate might be conditional on him landing a cabinet seat. There's a good deal of reporting out there that suggests Kennedy was for sale, approaching both candidates with the carrot of an endorsement in exchange for a position in their prospective administration. Perhaps, from Kennedy's view, Trump's record on some of his top issues is irrelevant if he gets a seat at the cabinet table. But again, Trump is

the kind of pro-business, anti-regulation candidate who has always been resistant to using the government to check corporations, and I have no idea why Kennedy imagines that will change now. Ultimately, Kennedy's campaign struggled to get past many of the same issues that past third-party challengers have faced. He was unable to get consistent media coverage, he didn't have the ground game to get on all the ballots he needed to, and the sum of his views contained too many fringe positions unpopular with the major political tribes to pull significant support from either main candidate. His endorsement of Trump might change the race on the margins, but the opportunity for him to fundamentally challenge the status quo has come to an end.

We'll be right back after this quick break. We'll be right back after this quick break. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history,

and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Chris in Burgaw, North Carolina.

Chris said, Former GOP Representative George Santos has now been officially found guilty. Good. But his sentencing isn't scheduled until February 2025. Why such a long delay? Good question. It seems absurd, I know. And the sentencing hearing is nearly half a year away,

which is just a little bit less time than had elapsed between when he was charged with fraud and when he accepted a plea deal. But there are two good reasons for the delay. First, the sentencing hearing has to fit into the court's schedule. Since the court does not know if a sentencing hearing will be necessary until a verdict, nor does it know how long the hearing will last, the court's docket for the time following the trial starts to fill up. For that reason, there's always some delay between a guilty verdict and a sentencing hearing. Second, the legal teams have to prepare for sentencing, and the court has to

prepare for a hearing. For more complicated or high-profile cases, a good deal of time is usually required for sentencing preparations. Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX had his hearing five months after his conviction, and Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos had hers scheduled for nine months after, and that was later delayed even further. Sentencing for fraud cases can get complicated, and criminal defense lawyers can spend as much time preparing for sentencing as they do for trial, if not more. All right, that is it for Your Questions Answered, which brings us to our under the radar section. Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led the U.S. government's response to COVID-19 under the Trump and Biden

administrations, was just released from the hospital after battling West Nile virus, which he believes he contracted in his garden. The virus is commonly spread through infected mosquitoes, and there is no vaccine or treatment for the disease. West Nile infects several hundreds of several thousand people in the U.S. each year and has been circulating at higher rates this summer than was expected. 216 cases have been reported in 33 states so far this year. NBC News has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. There's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, and next up is our numbers section.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s polling average in national polls on June 23rd, 2024 was 9.6%, according to FiveThirtyEight. By August 23rd, his polling average was just 4.6%. Former President Donald Trump's polling increased in a head-to-head race with Vice President Kamala Harris after Kennedy was removed as an option was plus 10%, according to an August Reuters Ipsos poll. The approximate number of individual donors to Kennedy's campaign through July 2024 was 36,000, according to Politico. The approximate number of Kennedy donors who had also made contributions to Trump's campaign was 1,000. The approximate number of Kennedy donors who had also made contributions to Trump's campaign was 1,000. The approximate number of Kennedy donors who also made contributions to

President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign was 100. The approximate number that Kennedy's running mate, Nicole Shanahan, has donated to his campaign is $15 million. And finally, the percentages of registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada, respectively, who said they supported RFK Jr. in an August 2024 poll was 5%, 4%, 4%, and 4%. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day section. In recent years, heavy levels of rain have contributed to the creation of potholes in Long Beach, California. I love rain, but I hate potholes, said Eric Lopez, Long Beach's director of public works. Employees from public works have been working six days a week to repair the potholes. Thus far, 28,000 of the 63,000 potholes

have been repaired. Additionally, crews hope to improve the sidewalks, curbs, and gutters in an effort to prepare for the 2028 Olympics. NBC Los Angeles has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. Thanks for joining us. And as always, if you want to support our work,

you can go to retangle.com and consider becoming a member. We'll be back here same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by Duke Thomas. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Daily Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was made by Magdalena Bikova, who is also our social media manager. The music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go check out our website at readtangle.com. That's readtangle.com.