Tangle - The Sunday Podcast: Trump verdict predictions (spoiler: he's guilty). Plus, 2024 election predictions, and Ari returns!

Episode Date: June 2, 2024

On today's episode, Ari returns from his travels and Isaac couldn't be more thrilled, especially with Ari's mic choice. They talk about their predictions on the Trump verdict (this was recorded about 2 hours before the verdict and aged really well...), 2024 election predictions, a listener question about our podcast series, The Undecideds, and as always, the Airing of Grievances. YouTube comments are usually a place to find complaints, anger, and division. But on our latest video — my interview with Haviv Gur — I’ve been humbled to find overwhelmingly positive feedback. If you haven’t gotten the chance to watch, click the link and see what everyone is talking about, and leave some of your thoughts too.In episode 3 of our podcast series, The Undecideds, our focus shifts from Donald Trump toward President Joe Biden. Much has been made in the media about his age and memory and whether he’s cognitively capable of handling another term. But an unanticipated performance at the State of the Union reignited his base and left many questioning that narrative. And while Donald Trump faces a jury of his peers in court, the court of public opinion continues to weigh in on the effectiveness of Biden’s foreign policies, with an eye to the conflicts between Israel and Palestine, Ukraine and Russia, and our own protracted clash at our southern border.  Our undecided voters share their observations on the current commander in chief and how his decisions on the world stage affect their decision in the voting booth. You can listen to Episode 3 ⁠⁠here.⁠⁠You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. 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.

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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+. Is there a verdict?

I don't think there's a verdict yet for the Trump trial. No, no, no, yeah, no, there isn't. Yeah, no, still deliberating. All right, coming up, we talk about Ari and his belief in ghosts, the verdict and the outcome in the Trump trial. We make some predictions about what is going to happen in the 2024 election and a response to a reader question about the Undecided podcast. And then, of course, as always, some grievances. Hope you guys enjoy. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle.

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, here finally, once again, with my co-host Ari Weitzman, who has a brand new microphone that is flashing purple, yellow, green, neon blue lights like we're up in the club. Ari, welcome back. It's been a... Yeah, great. Yeah, I feel so welcome back. Completing the string of three straight podcasts now that I've been with you, that you've started with the need to make a comment about my microphone. It's better than having nothing at all. I had to scramble out here to get something, and I think it's sounding pretty good. So why complain about a thing people can't see instead of just saying, welcome Ari, we missed you? I guess because then it wouldn't be you.

Yeah, it looks awesome. I mean, it is like if a 14 year old boy's bedroom turned into a microphone, that's basically what you have right now. It's pretty sick. No, it looks great. Here's just another insult about it. We should start with you. You've been MIA for a couple of weeks. I'm sure some of the people would like to know why. I think I did okay without you. I did the 10-pack episode where I just riffed on a few topics. And then last week we had Javiv Gur on for the Sunday pod, which was excellent. I think a lot of people seem to really enjoy that interview.

But you've been gone. You were at, I guess, first you were coaching college nationals and then revisiting some of your old trails and travels in the U.S. Or do I have that backwards? Did you do your travels first and then nationals? No, you have it right. But it's not quite where we are in the timeline yet. So I missed the podcast two weeks ago because of a late practice reschedule in Vermont. And then was in College Nationals this past weekend in Wisconsin. This week, I am visiting a friend in Madison or outside of Madison.

So I am still able to make these commitments, but I'm just still abroad, still traveling, not abroad. I'm still abroad relative to Vermont and traveling through the rest of our great country in Wisconsin. I'll be going through Northern Illinois and driving back through Pittsburgh this weekend, getting back home to the Green Mountain State, but have been enjoying Wisconsin this past week. Interesting weather we've had really impacted the College Nationals tournament. I don't know how much people care about that or how much you got to see, but it was a really interesting tournament this year. Yeah, it was a bizarre College Frisbee Nationals. That's me and Ari's

little niche obsession is the ultimate scene. I don't want to drag you back through the University of Vermont's performance because I'm sure it's a little bit sore spot. You guys sounded like you had some bad luck, some tough injuries, which is basically the worst combination of things that can happen at Nationals. But I actually think you should tell the story of this farm and this photograph that happened? Because it came up in the Tangle Team Slack. You were kind of like, do you guys want to hear something crazy? And I actually thought it was quite the story. And I know I'm curious to hear where things stand as well. So I'll get a little bit of an update too, aside from what I learned about it

before you left on your trip. Yeah. And it's going to be a bit of a cliffhanger too. So we'll need to have another update next week. But one of the ongoing themes in our team Slack is that whatever we're talking about relates to a job I used to have in some way. I think I'd lead our team in former jobs, whether they're professions or just part-time work. And one of my part-time jobs was doing organic farming as a manual laborer between my junior and senior years in college, north of Chicago. And this one farm in particular was a place that I was staying for three weeks. There was another seasonal worker who was staying near the farm. I was staying in this old farmhouse that was haunted with a ghost of the farmer's parents

who were murdered there, which is another story. But they told me, you know, just ignore the ghosts and everything's fine. I didn't have any haunting issues. And I pulled through okay. So on the whole, it was a positive experience. I thought since I'm going back through the area, I'm not usually, if ever, going through rural Illinois. So I thought it's a good opportunity to revisit the old haunts, as you might say. And I sent an email to the people who now own the property there. Because I had worked for a couple older people. I wasn't sure if they'd still be reachable. Saw on Google Maps that the address now is owned by another business. Sent them an email, said I'm coming through. Here's a picture of me with Gary and Sue,

another seasonal farmer, one of Gary and Sue's friends. Gary and Sue are the farmers. And said, just picture me in the old place. Thought it'd be fun to come by if you're up for it or just have the time. See you maybe late Friday, which as we record would be tomorrow. And the person who responded back said, hey Ari, great to hear from you. That's actually me standing next to you in that picture. Be great to reconnect. So the other seasonal worker that I was working with 15 years ago just happens to be the person who came back and bought a part of that farm and is living in that house where I used to live for three weeks with those alleged ghosts. And we'll get to catch up and I'll learn about, I'm very eager to hear about whether or not they've had any experiences with

the ghosts or produce um i'm sure they'll have experiences with produce but ghosts maybe maybe not i don't know okay one quick follow i have to ask a follow-up question before we get into some of the news of the day uh do you is this like are you are you speaking are you speaking in jest or is that or do you believe in ghosts genuinely? You know, that used to be my favorite first date question back before I met my wife. And I think it opens a lot of doors to talking about lots of different things and getting to know somebody.

I kind of do, but not, I think, in the sense that we think about ghosts. I think there's something. There's definitely some fuzzy boundary with life and death. And we published the story in the Sunday a couple of weeks ago about children who seem to remember past lives or talk to ghosts that remember past lives and then implant memories in them somehow. There's lots of stories about kids that see or sense or experience or remember things that don't really make rational sense. So there are things that happen in our world that we don't currently have a rational model for understanding.

And I think there's a bunch of different terms we have to try to bridge that gap and explain those things away. I don't know that ghosts as we understand them are the exact right answer, but I think they're pretty close. And I think there's something like that out there. And I think there's a lot of serious people that I know who claim to have had experiences. So you either discount all of that or you think there's something. There's something. Interesting. Yeah, I'm kind of with that. The way I think about it is we have five senses and there's no way the five senses that we have are capable of experiencing all the things that are happening around us. have to be, I just think there has to be some stuff that is sort of outside our periphery. But I didn't know that about you. So when you were starting to reference ghosts on the farm,

sort of caught my attention, made me want to ask a follow-up question. Okay, great. So I will, we'll have to check in next week. I thought you had already been back to the farm. So I'm very excited to hear what happens when you get back there. That is an incredible story. Yeah. Incredible that there's like this one photo you dig up and the person next to you in the picture is now the person who owns the farm. We won't meditate too long on how that could have been you. I think you're happy with the direction you took, right? Do you wish you were her? Do you wish you bought the farm instead? It seems like that's probably a pretty good life. I don't wish that I bought the farm in that euphemistic sense, you know, but I, I, you know, sometimes I think the people, the person I work for can be a bit of a dick. So it wouldn't be interesting to think of the other stuff I could be doing,

but I don't regret it. I think it's all right. All right. Nice. I've been waiting for a good segue, but now you set it up. Speaking of working for a dick, Michael Cohen and Donald Trump have been in trial all week. Uh, it is a, this is, this is the big thing that we, I think we have to talk about. We're recording this on Thursday, May 30th. And, uh, it is the afternoon. The jury is deliberating in, you know, however you feel about it.

And I have, you know, we've talked about this a lot. I have very mixed feelings. It is a historic case. I mean, if Trump gets convicted, it is basically, you know, not basically, it is the first time a president has ever been convicted in a criminal trial. I mean, it is the first time a president has ever been convicted in a criminal trial. I mean, it's the first time a president's ever sat for a criminal trial.

He is facing these falsifying business document charges in order to cover up this hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. If somehow you have missed all of our Tangle coverage of this, I'll briefly sum up my position on this, which is like, I don't care about this case. I don't think it's that important. I think Trump definitely orchestrated these payments. And I think he probably had an affair with Stormy Daniels. And I think that, you know, Alvin Bragg has basically invented charges and tried to make this a much bigger deal than it was. And that this trial should not be happening, even though I think Trump is sort of guilty as charged.

On top of all this stuff, you know, forget even Bragg and the novelty of the charges and the way he's constructed the case and all that stuff. Also, just this, you know, it would have, this case would have hit the statute of limitations if Trump hadn't left New York to go become president and of all the things we New York to go become president. And of all the things we're going to charge a president for, for the first time and sort of open the door to this kind of stuff, this does not seem like the case to do it. And, you know, Michael Cohen is a

sleazeball and a liar and I don't trust him at all. And the judge seems to be overextending himself and the prosecution's overextending itself and Trump is Trump. And the judge seems to be overextending himself and the prosecution's overextending itself and Trump is Trump. And basically nobody comes out of this looking good. Stormy Daniels included. She's also changed her story a few times and all that good stuff. So really what I wanted to talk about, and this is going to be a big chunk of our podcast. We are now six months out from the election, and I wanted to do a little bit of a prediction episode. Given the fact that we're almost exactly six months out, I want to mark this day in time, this Thursday, May 30th afternoon, with a conversation about how we think some of the big things are going to go, and then maybe check in about some of this stuff down the road or review how our predictions panned out in six

months. And the first thing I want to talk about, which I suspect we're going to have an answer to by the time this podcast airs on Sunday, is the verdict or the outcome in this Trump trial. I'm very curious, I guess, to hear, maybe I'll put the question to you first about what you think the outcome is going to be, and then I'll share my prediction and rationale for it. But I'd like to file our predictions here so we can review them next week. This will be one that we get an immediate answer to. And then we're going to talk about some election stuff. So yeah, I'm curious, based on our coverage and what you've gotten to read about this case, where you think this is

going? So first, I agree with your characterization with the slight difference that I think the big sticking point to me is just the ability to make these transgressions fall under a campaign finance violation. That just seems dubious. The statute of limitations stuff, it feels greasy, but it also seems like something you can justify. Same with the stack charges. Greasy, but not unjustifiable, not unique in a historical way, but only unique in that it applies to a sitting precedent. So it feels like a bad, or in that it applies to a former president, so not a great precedent. that's the thing that sort of is my North Star, is this thought of how do you make this actually a prosecuted and convicted sentence, or how do you make this transgression of these covered-up payments qualifies campaign finance? I think the fact that they're still deliberating does send us a clue. Maybe we disagree about what the clue is that it sends us, and maybe that means it doesn't send us anything. But I think

if they were going to convict and it was unanimous, they would have done so. And I think the fact that they're deliberating means that it isn't unanimous, which means the longer they go, I think the less likely it is that there's a guilty verdict. But again, I'm not a court watcher and I'm not a person who's good at reading tea leaves with juries. So that's just my layman's gut check reaction. And I wonder if you have a different, more informed, longer court watching reaction to what we're seeing. informed, longer court-watching reaction to what we're seeing. So I actually generally agree with you that the longer this goes on,

the less likely there is going to be a guilty verdict. I have a little bit of an outside, I guess, I want to say a low odds prediction that I think is maybe increasingly high odds, which is that I think this is going to be a hung jury. And the reason that I think that is there's been some super interesting reporting about the jury makeup. And there's been a bunch of reporters who have been in the room and even some normal civilians who have waited in line to go sit inside the case, go sit inside the trial, who have said that there is one juror who seems openly favorable for Trump. And a lot of people think that this juror is going to basically hold up a guilty verdict, which is kind of wild and will be the sort of thing there's probably going to be a movie made

about in 20 or 30 years, if that's actually how it plays out. But the reporting that I've seen is that this person is nodding along approval with a lot of the stuff Trump's lawyer is saying, nodding along approval with a lot of the stuff Trump's lawyer is saying, has laughed at some of the barbs against Michael Cohen and seems to be making a lot of eye contact with Trump in the courtroom and all this stuff. And there was a report about all the different jurors' media diets and all this stuff. And there was one juror that kind of stuck out because he said that he got a lot of his news from Truth Social, which is Trump's social media company and some more conservative right-leaning news outlets. And basically, people are putting together the dots, these kind of court watchers, and they think that this juror could be the one that's holding stuff up. So very curious to see if it's a not guilty or hung jury.

But my inclination is that if this was going to be a guilty verdict, I think we would have gotten it pretty quick. There are cases where the jury deliberates for a really long time and then a good guilty verdict comes out. But I just think in this particular case, it felt like if this was a three or four hour, one afternoon thing, it was going to come. Like if we got news the first day they were deliberating that there was a verdict, I would have bet a lot of money that it was going to be guilty. But the fact that it's gone on this long makes me think that it's either not guilty or a hung jury

so that's my read on the situation I would say politically if it's a hung jury or a not guilty verdict it's going to be really good for Trump I think he's going to maximize that in basically every way possible and if it's a guilty verdict, I think it could

kind of go either way. I think there's a lot of sort of like, quote unquote, common consensus among a lot of conservative pundits that if Trump, regardless of what the outcome here is, that Trump is going to benefit from it. Like if they, if he's found guilty, he will make himself the victim and use it to prove that, you know, there's this political hijab against him. And, you know, again, I have tons of criticisms about the fact that this trial is even happening that are favorable for Trump criticisms that are favorable for Trump, criticisms that are kind of like, you know, in line with his view of it. But at the same time, I really don't think that that many people, that many Americans can have the time to get past anything aside from the fact that Trump was found guilty of covering

up this affair to help himself politically in the 2016 election. And that's still not a good news story in our country. And it's still a damaging piece of political. So I don't care that it's Trump. I don't care about how he turns all this stuff in his favor. I think like that harms him more than it helps him with a lot of independent and moderate voters who he needs to win the next election. So I feel more inclined that a guilty verdict would actually damage him than he can take advantage of it and make himself a victim. That's kind of just my read on it. But yeah, my hot take prediction, I think, is hung jury. And that is just based off of some of the reporting I've got about this one juror that felt

pretty well sourced and consistent from several different news outlets and from some people who are tweeting live from inside the trial. I've not been there. I've not been in the room, so I can't say anything from firsthand experience. Unfortunately, we're not getting a televised trial. Not unfortunately, it's probably good that we're not, but unfortunately for my sake. So yeah, that's my prediction, hung jury or a not guilty verdict, but probably very beneficial for Trump politically to frame himself as a victim of this political hit job. Even though I think he did everything he's accused of, I also think that it was rather silly to bring this case forward and try and turn this into a federal crime. And I feel pretty

confident about that position going forward. Well, let me follow in on some of those things because since I've been traveling around for the past week, I haven't been as just elbows deep in the news and reading as much about things that are outside of our main scope of coverage. So I'm catching up on this juror number two thing of this person who gets their news from Truth Social and Twitter slash X. And you're saying that you believe this is going to be a hung jury because of one recalcitrant juror. So let's follow that main line and think that that's going to be what happens. What do you think happens after? So if it's a hung jury, does that mean that we don't get a resolution before the election?

Or do you think it is able to be resolved before then? Because if not, then it's kind of moot saying how this affects the election if there's no resolution before the election. So what do you think would happen for timing? My understanding is that it would be incredibly complicated. He would have to, Alvin Bragg would have to decide whether to mount a second trial. He was, you know, he faced a lot of questions and a lot of second guessing about pursuing this case, even when it was first brought. Like there were people in his office who, some people who wanted him to do it and sort of resigned in protest because they weren't going about it fast enough. enough. Other people who were in the New York office before him who didn't pursue the case, even though they had all the same facts, a lot of Trump critics who thought that this was kind of an overreach. My read on it is that, you know, if there's a hung jury, he's not going to go for a second trial because, A, it wouldn't happen before the 2024 election. And I think the politics of this actually matter

to Alvin Bragg. And B, going through all of this that we've all gone through and having a hung jury and a mistrial and just jumping back in again, it just seems so gratuitous. back in again, it just seems so gratuitous. I just have a hard time imagining him being able to justify it. So from a timeline perspective, if there were a second trial, I don't think it would happen before the election. From a political perspective, I think it would just seem, he's already facing criticism to not be able to prosecute this case and then come back and try again seems pretty over the top to me. So I'd be pretty shocked if there were a mistrial and Alvin Bragg came back with the same charges and tried to try Trump again. That just feels really unlikely to me. So I wonder how much this impacts your prediction at all, because we said we wanted to spend some

time talking about what we thought would happen in the 2024 election. We're starting with the presidential election. That's the one that has the biggest focus. We're starting with Trump. He's currently in the news with this election, with this trial impacting the election. So that has a big focus. But how does it matter? Like, why does it matter? I think what you said was there's new stories that are out there about Trump. And again and again saying, this person made illicit payments using funds that were directed from a business in some way that feels shady, even if it's not technically going to be campaign finance violations. It's just bad news for a president or bad news for a presidential candidate. And you sort of like waved away the concept of that being something that Trump can just skate past because

of his history skating past things. But I don't know that without a verdict, that's true. I think with a verdict, it's true, but I think it's just going to, I do think it'll fade away. I think if there is a hung jury and there's a need for a mistrial, we don't have it scheduled before the election. I think it's just not going to matter in a couple months. Can you tell me that it will? Okay, so this is a good segue, actually, because the three things that we wanted to talk about, a look ahead, were the outcome of the presidential election, the outcome of the House race for the House majority, and the outcome of the Senate race for the Senate majority. So I think, first of all, I just should say before I answer your question that

there are different ways, you know, there's a lot of different ways this trial could go. I mean, there, you know, he could get convicted on all counts. He could get convicted on some counts and acquitted on others. He could get acquitted of all counts, or we could have this hung jury. So, you know, there are a lot of different variables about how this could play out. Related to the 2024 election, and I think we can segue into this as a way for me to answer your question. My current status right now, six months away from the election, and I very, very strongly reserve the right to change this answer because so much can happen in six months in politics, is that President Biden is going to win the 2024 election. And the reason that I think that is two twofold and the second part of it relates to

your question and and sort of the impact that this case is going to have on the the electorate the first part is just that democrats have been winning basically every election since 2016 and i know there are a lot of really bad polls for Biden. I know the economic sentiment in the country is really bad. I kind of don't care. And I talked about this on the podcast I did by myself a couple of weeks ago, which was based off one of the tweets that you sent me from that guy who was just like, there are a lot of noisy polls. The polling is broken. We're far out from the election. Democrats are going to come home. Joe Biden's in a better position, et cetera. And I kind of think he's right. I think Simon

Rosenberg, the Democratic strategist who we've had on this show before he was kind of famous in a household name like he is now, he's been hammering this with this newsletter, Hopium, that he writes about all the good signals that are out there for Biden and Democrats. And it's not about what I want to happen. It's not about my preference. Just as a political analyst, I think his argument is way more compelling than the one Republicans have. They have good polls in swing states. That's pretty much it. And that's not to say those polls don't matter at all, but like Democrats have won every close and competitive race. They have a better ground game.

They're way more organized on the ground than the Trump campaign. They have the incumbency factor. They have more money. And they have salience on a couple of really big issues, They have the incumbency factor. They have more money. And they have salience on a couple of really big issues like abortion that's going to drive lots of voters. And then to answer your question, the reason I think this trial is going to matter, the part two of this is that we have two people that are really well known to the electorate, right?

So it's a really odd election and really unique in a lot of ways because we basically have two incumbents running against each other, which, you know, that hasn't happened. I can't remember the last time, but it's been a very long time, decades and decades. I was just reading an article about this. I wish I could remember, but it's been a very long time since two people have both both served in office running against each other in the White House. And the sort of incumbent variable that is always present in elections is people know what they're going to get. You lose that sort of campaign luster where you can make big promises about all the things you're going to do and tell voters all

this really high-minded, optimistic stuff about what you're going to get done because now voters have a real sample size for you. So for Biden, that hurts him because he hasn't delivered on some of the promises he's made. The immigration situation and the border are out of control. I mean, it's a genuine crisis. The world stage feels very uneasy and combustible, which was one of the things Biden ran on was that he was going to be this great world leader and keep us out of fights and resolve what was happening overseas and all this stuff. And instead, we have the Ukraine war, which just looks horrific and is dragged on. And instead we have the Ukraine war, which just looks horrific and is dragged on. And now we have Israel's war in Gaza, which just continues to produce horrific

images and then has this whole protest movement behind in the US. That's bad. It's not great. And that's why his approval ratings are really low. Donald Trump, since the last time he was in office, since the last time he lost an election, right? He ran in 2020 and he lost. And since he lost, we've had January 6th, we had the E. Jean Carroll case where he was accused of raping someone and convicted of, I mean, it wasn't a criminal case, but in the civil lawsuit, a court and a jury basically said that he, you know, performed some sort of sexual harassment, sexual assault, whatever it is, however you want to describe it. It's sort of squishy because it wasn't this criminal case, but he had a very ugly trial with this woman accusing him of this. The classified documents case, it doesn't look like we're going to get an actual trial for it, but he was charged. He gets indicted for mishandling classified documents.

He has the election overturn stuff, all the 2020 election stuff in Georgia at the state level and at the federal level, both of which he seems like he's going to slip out of Teflon Don, you know, never doubt it, but not favorable stories for him to have, especially the mishandling classified documents one. I mean, I think they had him dead to rights on that. And I think those were really legit charges. I think most moderates and a lot of Republicans care a ton about that. And that has a lot of salience, even if we don't get the trial, which doesn't look like we're going to get. And then the business fraud case where people, you know, are saying that this happened, pleading guilty, et cetera, but it's not really touching him. It's touching his organization. et cetera, but it's not really touching him. It's touching his organization.

And then we have this case, which is about an affair with a porn star and falsifying business records and whatever. So that's what's happened since he lost, right? People thought that Biden was more appealing before any of that stuff happened. And in the last three or four years, Democrats have won every close and competitive election pretty much that they've been in. To me, that is the case that Biden's going to win. I think it's a really strong case. And I think it's why I'd much rather be in Biden's shoes than Trump.

So that's kind of how this trial fits into that, is even if the verdict is a hung jury, even if he gets acquitted, I think just the press and the story and the fact that a lot of people, even conservative pundits, are now writing about this basically conceding that this payment happened. We have people testifying that, you know, he wanted to cover the story up. Even his allies are conceding that, you know, he's still denying the affair, but it seems kind of ridiculous that he's denying it. It's just like, none of this looks good. Remember, it's not about convincing the Trump supporters, the diehard rider dies. And I know a lot of them listen to our podcast and I'm sure they have really strong feelings about this. But from the election perspective, he has to win over a lot of moderates and independents and never-Trump Republicans. And I just don't see how that's possible, given everything that's happened since the last time he ran.

Right. So we're on the same page about the non-trial stuff. I sent you that tweet. So obviously, I thought it was compelling where the pollster from Nevada, I think, was discussing the difference between the polls that we see and what we would expect to see now and in November. Like if you think Donald Trump is going to be pulling ahead of Biden in a way that's meaningful, then I've got a bridge to sell you. And if those polling buffers are consistent across swing states, then how meaningful are those signals? It's probably noise. I was also a person who a month ago said, I think the people that are criticizing Biden right now are going to have their come to Jesus moment. So like you had mentioned, normally we have this dynamic in an election where if an incumbent is unpopular, we are comparing them to a challenger giving us their best spin on what their campaign or their presidency will look like. But in the case of this challenger, we have their record to judge against. So all the people that

are testing the waters outside of the Biden camp will see Donald Trump is in those waters and go back home. That's something I find compelling as well. Regarding the trial, yeah, I think there's conflicting stuff a little bit in your analysis. I know you're covering your bases here. But the idea that some of this stuff is going to signal bad news that's actually real to some of those moderates that Trump will have to win over does conflict a bit with the Teflon Don, none of this stuff is going to stick to him idea. And that's the only thing that really remained in tension with me from listening to you explain how this election contains various courtroom stories that Donald Trump is involved with is just this idea of we're winning over moderates or losing moderates, but these charges don't seem to stick, but they do matter. So just in that narrow sense, just that really narrow sense, if you're a moderate voter, you're not excited about Biden, you're Trump-curious, why, again, exactly does this particular court case matter if it's something that all the other court cases haven't mattered, this being in the news before hasn't mattered, the idea of the classified documents, even though

we're not going to get a conviction. If I'm a moderately informed, moderate elector, then that hasn't mattered to me if I'm still considering Trump. Why is this the thing that's going to matter? I'm still not sure about that. And I'm on your side about thinking Biden's probably going to win, but I don't know if this is going to be the reason. in which it could, basically. I mean, I guess the strongest case I can make, and I don't think it's a particularly strong one, is just that if there are moderate voters or independents or people who are right of center that are still figuring out what they want to do in 2024, some of them, I imagine, are going to be really turned off by the stuff that's come out in this trial. Nobody looks good. And it's not like Michael Cohen or Stormy Daniels or the judge

or the Alvin Bragg come out looking good, but Donald Trump's the one who's running for president in 2024. And he really does not come out looking good. I mean, it's, it's pretty clear that he knew about the payments. He knew they were happening. A lot of even his like close friends and allies testified that he was quite worried, um, you know, about the election impact. And that was kind of more what he was obsessing over versus what his defense team said, which was that he was really worried about the impact it would have on his wife, Melania. There was just like icky details, you know, and I don't mean the actual sex stuff that Stormy Daniels talked about, which I thought was fairly inappropriate, but I just mean like the whole sleaziness of it and the way this, like, like David Pecker, who,

you know, was running the national inquire as a publisher there, like the way that he was interacting with Trump and they were killing all these stories. And, you know, there was a lot of stuff there. That's like this, the sort of media bias behind the scenes, pulling the power string stuff that Trump's often accusing other people of. It just becomes clear that in 2016, he was doing a lot of that in New York with people in the media world and also had this lawyer, Michael Cohen, who's doing this kind of dark behind the scenes, money in an envelope type deal where they're paying porn stars and Playboy models off to stay quiet about these allegations. So I can't, you know, I don't know for sure,

but I imagine that there are some meaningful group of kind of moderate independent voters who maybe can't stomach Biden, but don't want to vote for Trump, who are reading and following this trial closely, who are turned off quite a bit by what they're hearing. So that's kind of the proposition, I guess. And again, I don't know, like to your point, if they haven't made their mind up already, I'm not sure this is the case that's going to change their mind, but I don't really see any world in which it helps him. I could see an acquittal really strengthening his support among his already strong supporters who see all this as a witch hunt. But for the people who don't feel that way, who aren't diehard ride or die Trumpers,

I think they're going to feel like this is just more sleaziness and drama and all the stuff they don't want out of a president, basically. I get it. So we're both saying it looks like there's reason to believe momentum building for Biden in that read. We would need one of these trials to turn favorably to build momentum for Trump. And in the best read, it looks like this is not going to be something that builds momentum. So at best, it's a push and therefore not good enough, more or less. And we can start talking about the Senate, right? Yeah, right.

Yeah, I think that's a good way to tie it up. Yeah, right. I think that's a good way to tie it up. Yeah, so the next two elements are the Senate and the House predictions, which I also want to do now that we're sort of six months out from the election. Would you prefer to go first or second on the Senate since I was the one who pushed for us to transition. I think this one, we know already the map is going to be hard for Democrats. They currently hold the Senate, but only by vice presidential tiebreaker. They're going to be defending some more toss-up districts that they would need in defending. 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.

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Republicans. That's kind of the basics of it from what I see. And it's going to come down to a couple of toss-ups. I think a lot of people are talking about Tester's seat in Montana, Brown's seat in Ohio, and then the ones that Democrats are going to be trying to contest would be Ted Cruz in Texas. I don't know if that's actually going to happen. I feel like every time he's up for reelection, people are saying, this is the year we get Ted and you're not going to get Ted. It's not going to be different. But then like a couple other senators are in danger in Democrat districts. So Kyrsten Sinema is not running for re-election. Her seat is going to go to a new senator, either from the Democrat party or the Republican party. I don't remember the name of the Democratic challenger, and I don't have a note in front

of me with it. So I apologize. Hopefully you can help me out on that when it's your turn to speak, but it looks like he's going to be more popular as a candidate than Sinema would have been. So even when we covered Sinema dropping out in Tangle, we mourn the loss of a senator like Sinema, but acknowledge that if you're going to say it's good news for one party or the other, it's good news for Democrats. They are also defending a seat in Wisconsin and Nevada that are somewhat contested, and they would need to get all of those contested seats as well as both toss-ups. And if not, their insurance policy is dethroning Ted Cruz from the Senate in Texas, where he's been pretty firmly lodged for a while. And that's a pretty bad insurance policy. So the path looks narrow to me for Democrats. I don't think I'm saying anything super surprising here. I know that we've talked about how a lot of elections have been going

their favor recently, but it does just seem like a tall order, even with abortion being in your favor as a very popular referendum item for state and federal elections. And that won't change. That's still really bad things dragging Biden down as an incumbent that don't create a lot of momentum at the top of the ticket. You mentioned them earlier. So the border, destabilization abroad, his handling of the U.S. response to Israel-Gaza, these are all things that aren't going to create a lot of momentum for moderate voters or even not going to create a lot of enthusiasm for Democrats that would need to turn out to win these toss-up elections. So even with the winning streak they're on, it just seems like too tall of an order for the Senate, and it seems like something that's going to get to Republicans. That's my read. Yeah, I'm mostly in agreement. I mean, I think just where we're sitting now, it's really, really hard to imagine Democrats holding the Senate. They have a super difficult map. I mean, they're basically, you know, they're defending 23 of their held seats to Republicans, defending 11 of theirs. The true toss-ups right now are in Montana, Nevada, and Ohio. I think Sherrod Brown is a really good candidate and is going to win

in Ohio. I think Nevada and Montana are both, they're rated toss-ups right now by Cook Political, and I feel like they're really ripe for Republicans to take, especially Nevada. Biden's been polling really poorly there. Trump has been growing in popularity with the Latino voters in that part of the country and is going to be at the top of the ticket. And I think that's going to help a lot. And then there's Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin that are all up. Arizona and Michigan are both open races. It's Ruben Gallegos, the candidate who's running in Arizona for Democrats, yeah, against Carrie Lake, which I actually think is as close to a slam dunk as Democrats have in any of the competitive races, because I think Carrie Lake is a genuinely terrible candidate. Again, not passing judgment on her as a person

or her views or whatever. She's just not a good candidate. She's polling badly. She doesn't connect with moderate voters. Arizona is a very purpley state, and I really struggle to see how she's going to win. Michigan and Pennsylvania, of course, are going to be tight and Wisconsin, of course, going to be tight. Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin has a pretty good resume and I think is a good candidate for Democrats to have on the ticket. Same with Casey in Pennsylvania, who, you know, I mean, again, it's really hard. You look at what happened in 2020. We got Mehmet Oz and John Fetterman, and I think Oz was a particularly bad candidate.

I think that Casey's going to have a harder time winning this race than John Fennerman did. But the basic upshot of it is there are these seven super competitive Senate races. They're all Senate seats that Democrats hold. I think for sure they're going to win one, which is the one in Arizona. That's just my prediction. I think they have a really good inside track to win Ohio too on the back of Sherrod Brown. And then they have to win all five to avoid a split, which if they win the White House, they would still be in the majority if they only say they only lose one seat or something. but winning all five, winning all seven is just like... It just feels

not impossible, but kind of close. But a tall order, yeah. Yeah, a really tall order. And I'll save everybody the suspense. They're not going to beat Ted Cruz in Texas. Sorry, it's not going to happen. In Florida, I

will say there's... I would almost put Rick Scott's seat in Florida in a little more danger than Ted Cruz in Texas. And the only reason I say that is because Florida is going to have this abortion amendment up in the 2024 election. And I could see that driving an interesting voter turnout. But, you know, Florida's been so solidly red for the last few elections that, again, it's really hard to imagine him losing. So, yeah, I guess my stake in the ground, given where we are, is pretty conventional, which is I think Democrats are probably going to lose, you know, two to five seats in the Senate and they have a one seat advantage right now. So that's, that's the majority right there. I don't think they're going to lose all seven of these races.

I think, you know, Pennsylvania and Arizona and Ohio are places that they're probably going to do pretty well. But yeah, it's really, really tough for them. So I expect a Republican Senate majority in 2024. And by the way, the map gets worse for Republicans or gets worse for Democrats in 2028. So this is going to be a big kind of swing. Yeah, yeah, 2026. Sorry, this is going to be a big kind of swing. Yeah, yeah, 2026. Sorry, this is going to be a big kind of swing the next few years that I think, you know, barring a really strong kind of Democratic blue wave in the electorate, which could totally happen, there's going to be a lot of trouble for Democrats in the Senate. So yeah, I think we're pretty aligned there. Similarly, but kind of on the flip side of stuff is the situation in the House, which, you know, it's really interesting

because you kind of imagine all this stuff happening, all the national elections working top down. And I think what's good for Democrats is that oftentimes these House races, the candidates really matter. And it's more of a bottom-up election than the Senate, where you see a lot of races because they're statewide, being tied so closely to who the president is and whether people campaign with them and all that stuff. Democrats are defending fewer seats than Republicans in this upcoming House race, or at least they, I guess that's not necessarily true. They're not defending fewer seats, but they have fewer seats, I think, that are really competitive that they hold. And so House race, which is a ton. And given how thin the margins are right now, Republicans have like a five-seat majority. 22 seats basically amounts

to a coin flip for what's going to happen. Everything that I've seen makes me think that Democrats have an advantage in the House based on those competitive seats, the really true toss-ups, and then the fact that they have pretty much 30 lean or likely Democratic seats to the 17 likely or lean Republican seats that Republicans have. So the math of this is pretty much that there's these, what's that? 30 plus 17, 47 plus 22. There's like 68 to 70 seats, right? And that kind of 69, 70 seats that are like genuinely competitive right in that kind of 69, 70 seats that are like genuinely competitive. And Democrats are really well positioned to take 30 of them right off the bat. And then they just have to split the toss-ups to get the House majority back. So I feel pretty confident about a Democratic House majority. I think on top of that, just the simple math game of it, Republicans in the House have been so dysfunctional the last year that the party's divided, comes back again to the campaign operations on the ground. And they're also not running as organized and unified of a campaign, you know, in those

competitive seats across the country. And I just think Democrats have a better operation. And that matters a lot in these kinds of races. So I guess that puts me at Biden re-election Senate majority with Republicans and House majority with Democrats and more divided government and a second Biden term is six months out where my prediction sits. But the House stuff is going to be so interesting because there are just these micro races in these little districts all across the country that have huge significance. And, you know, I don't know what the migration crisis is going to do, what the migrant crisis is going to do in some of these New York districts

that Democrats need to win. And maybe Republicans pull off some upsets there. You know, in a state like Florida, where abortion is going to be on the ballot, I don't know what that's going to do to some of these House races that might be tight. I mean, there's going to be stuff like that that's really, really variable and just like total kind of cliffhanger. How is this going to go? But it's going to be a wild night and we're probably going to have a lot of really close races, which will be exciting from the kind of sport of it all perspective, but probably

torturous from a democracy perspective. Especially if you're partisan and you have a rooting interest. Yeah, it'll be a definite hold on the edge of your seat kind of night. I think that's well said about the House being a somewhat bottom-up situation when you're looking at a ticket with a president at the top. And I agree that we're talking about a large body here in the House, and it's really tough to make succinct statements about where it's going to go when we have this many toss-up seats, and when a lot of them have differences in what's on the ballot for those individual houses who are the candidates in those districts. It's just, it's too difficult to get into all of

those details. It might be something that requires its own dedicated edition, whether it's like a Friday edition from us or a YouTube edition or something. I think that'd be interesting as we get into it, really digging into these toss- up or leaning seats because there's just a lot at play. I think even when you double click on one of them, just to zoom in the thing that is all that I'm just, I guess I'm a sadist. And the thing that I'm really interested in watching,

um, is the Colorado three district, uh, which is the one that Lauren Bobert is leaving in order to run in a safer district in Colorado 4. And I wonder how that's going to go. I think that one, just to give us an indication of not even what's going to happen with the balance of the house and the democracy at large, but more, how much did her name matter to voters? And when you remove her from the ballot, then you get a pretty clear test of candidate strength or candidate recognition being a factor.

And I just want to see how the Colorado three is going to go without Boebert running in it. I think I have that the right way around. I'm pretty sure she's going to be running in the Colorado four. Um, and I, you know, we don't like giving her, um, antics outside of Congress, a whole lot of attention. I think we like focusing on the stuff that matters in the halls of Congress, but obviously she's a name that matters or it's a name that you recognize. So just seeing how do we measure that effect, like the House Freedom Caucus legislative celebrity effect. Not that the Republicans are the only ones that have legislative celebrities. The Democrats have theirs too. Like the squad obviously comes to mind, but it's just a clear test of how that effect matters. So that's something I'm interested in. Yeah. I, I, I, again, like there are so many different

variables at these, at the house level in these kind of much smaller micro races that i think are way more detached from the national politics of it all that um you know yeah it's just super hard to to speak in broad terms about it but generally agree with all that and would just note that there's a lot of kind of lauren bobert s candidates on the right and the left in this upcoming election in the House races that are really divisive, polarizing, even in their own party. And I think, you know, candidate quality is going to matter a lot more than, you know, the national political scene in a lot of races. And that's kind of what creates so much mystery here. All right, before we start to wrap things up, I did want to make sure we got to one of these

reader questions we got that you and I both decided would be kind of interesting to talk about. People who have been listening to this podcast by now probably know we launched this limited podcast series called The Undecideds earlier this year. The concept is basically that we're following around five undecided voters from a few different states across the country, including some swing states. And we're just tracking how they're reacting in some of the biggest stories, what they're thinking, how they're deciding who to vote for. I find it really fascinating. If you haven't listened to any episodes yet, I definitely encourage you to

scroll back on our feed and look for The Undecideds and watch, or I'm sorry, listen to some of those episodes. It's a good look at the current state of the electorate. And I think a fascinating look at how people who are genuinely unsure what they're going to do with their vote are deciding and what sort of news stories have salience. So this reader, JP from Erie, Colorado, wrote in and asked, are you going to be doing a listener questions episode of the Undecideds podcast? I understand that as journalists, your team probably can't correct or offer data to the interviewees. Not sure where the line is for pushback, tough journalism versus bias, but engaging questionable opinions seems to fit with the ethos of Tangle. For example,

at least two of the Undecideds have questioned the timing of Trump's trials, but delays are part of Trump's legal strategy, not an exonerating data point. Also, the Arizona person keeps referencing the COVID lockdowns being so hard on his community, but a quick Google search shows that statewide lockdowns ended in Arizona on May 15, 2020, while Trump was still in office. Good questions. I'm not going to answer the specifics, and Ari, I'm curious to hear how you answer this question, but I guess I would just say, no, we're not going to push back on our undecided voters about their opinions,

because I actually think that kind of undermines what the purpose of the show is, at least from my perspective. The listener questions episode of the Undecided podcast is a really interesting idea, and I think it'd actually be really fun to pursue that where we collect listeners' questions for the undecideds and present them to these people we interview every week and see how they answer some of the questions. I have no interest in any of us doing some kind of real-time live fact-checking of the people we're interviewing for this show. Some of them I've heard say things that maybe I would want to follow up on if I was interviewing a person who was in office or a person in a position of power. To be frank, I think all of our guests who were interviewing for the show

are decently well-informed. I don't hear them promulgate a ton of misinformation or stuff that's not based in reality or facts. I think they all have certain biases that come out in the interviews. But the point for me is to get an understanding of why these voters feel the way they feel about the candidates, what stories are making their way to voters, and how these undecided voters are interpreting the news and these different stories. So it's so much more interesting for me to just hear them talk than I think it would be for us to kind of try and quote unquote push back on certain beliefs they have. I don't want to correct them or fact check them or whatever else it is if they say

something that maybe we think is not accurate, I want to present to our listeners what voters like this are thinking and talking about and what's dominating the conversation for them. Because to me, that's the thing that's really interesting. So that's how I personally would answer that question. I'd be interested, Ari, if you have a different or a similar answer, I guess. Yeah, I think it's pretty similar for me because, right, let's start with the areas where we agree the most, which is, first of all, not wanting to push back in real time to listeners who are answering questions unless they mistake something, like they say the wrong name or the wrong year. It's more like offering

a correction for a slip-up more than pushing back on an internal inconsistency in some reasoning. That's not the point of this. I think the point of it is if you notice some internal inconsistency, then you're an engaged listener and it's helping you come to a viewpoint if you disagree with something that they're saying. Otherwise, if you agree with something they're saying, then you're an engaged listener just going the other direction, finding a point of view compelling that you hadn't considered. That's the whole point is just to try to engage the way you're thinking about the election compared to the way other people who are struggling to think of where am I going to put my vote this year, hearing how they're thinking about it.

The only thing that I disagree with you on, I think, is that that is a little bit more of a point, isn't just to hear undecided voters. But there's a lot of other people who are listening to this who are themselves undecided, and I think it's not just an academic exercise for a lot of people. I think they really want to hear some other perspectives other than their own to come up with ideas for how to think about this election and this choice. So in that regard, if we are allowing somebody to say something wrong, then we aren't fulfilling our promise to those people. I don't think that's what we're doing, but I think that's just, you know, good pushback. And I want to speak directly to a couple of the examples this person wrote in about. One, the COVID lockdown, like that's a fair play on their part, saying, I blame Biden for these COVID lockdowns that occurred during Trump. At the same time, they're probably thinking about COVID lockdowns that were led by Democrats, and therefore they wouldn't want to support the Democratic president because they're of the same

party. That's a more valid way of thinking about it than a misremembering, and I think that's what's at play there. And I think that's probably an answer you'd hear if we pose that to a reader or pose that to one of the people who's undecided. The other example that they had was about delays in Trump's trials. And I think a lot of conservative people have real concerns about challenges to Trump being eligible for the election based on a reading of his actions as being against the Constitution. This happens to me sometimes. I forget the word. What's the word I'm going for right here?

Can you just help provide it? I don't know what word you're going for, actually. No, okay. Sedition, I think, I think is the word I want. A lot of people think that the federal government intentionally delayed bringing that case, and I think they have an argument. So both sides, I think, are able to see the other as playing politics with timing. politics with timing. So I say all that just to mention that the things this reader is giving pushback for, I think are indicative a little bit of the bias they're bringing in. But that doesn't mean that this exercise is fruitless. So on one hand, I agree. On the other hand, maybe I have a different perspective of the way people could think about our undecided series. But ultimately, I think this is a good

idea. I think this reader saying, I would love it if there were a reader questions edition where we all get to pose questions that they get to answer would be interesting. And I think it's something worth following up on. And we can find potential biases in our undecided voters. We can have this bias speak to the biases in readers who pose the questions, and we can just get a better understanding of different ways of thinking about these candidates, which I think is one of the whole points here. And I think we would get those questions, we'd send them out in advance to the people we're interviewing, they'd have a chance to think about them thoughtfully, and then we'd get some pretty interesting responses. And I think that'd be really,

really engaging. I think I would listen to something like that. I think it's a good idea. Well said. I really do agree. I mean, I think the questions being presented to them from listeners would be super fascinating. And also just, yeah, like I said, to me, the really interesting part of this is just hearing the kind of raw, honest take from these participants in this little project. And that's what kind of captures me, I suppose. And so, you know, there's a time and place, I think, for pushback and that kind of live fact checking. And I just don't know that this is the format or the sort of topic and participants in the interview where I would want to do that. past an hour now so i want to try and tie this up really appreciate having you back ari despite your microphone and your lack of a strong internet connection both of which um it's really tough for you to just give a straightforward positive statement and i appreciate that about you too it's been fun to listen as a listener has been driving around hearing you on the podcast and

listening to the tango podcast without without me like both the sundays and the daily so that's been fun um i'm glad that you appreciate having me back we have both in a way i'm upset i'm upset because we have we both have our video off so i can't even see you now we're just like i feel like we're on a phone call together um i i'm really excited for this concept we're kicking around for next week, which I'm tempted to give a preview of, but I want to talk to you more about it offline. But I'll just say, if you're listening to this, I think next Sunday's show is also going to be really interesting.

And I'm super excited to kind of see what Ari does with this pitch that I gave him. We have to hit our grievances now that you're back, you know, been just been bursting and holding back on all the complaints I have about the world for the last few weeks without having this space. All right, we're going to enter the grievance zone. The airing of grievances. Doctor gave me a relaxation cassette.

When my blood pressure gets too high, the man on the tape tells me to say, Surrender me now! Would you prefer first or second on this? Well, you're the one who's bursting. Do you want to start? Sure, I'll start. My grievance for this week is the fact that I have, for the last six to eight years, just genuinely had a hard time breathing through my nose. And I went to go see an ENT shortly before I moved from New York to Philadelphia. shortly before I moved from New York to Philadelphia. And the ENT gave me an examination,

looked at my nose, shined a light up there, said he saw some inflammation, all this stuff. This was about three years ago. And gave me this kind of rather complex solution, like literally a solution to put into my nose to resolve this inflammation. I had to go buy like four different ingredients and mix them into this little squeeze bottle and squeeze them in my nose. And when I moved from New York to Philly, like a month after this doctor's appointment, I lost all the information that he had given me. And so I never went to get it. And I kind of just, you know, as you do sometimes with certain health issues, just like backburn it and had a new primary care physician and had a new, you know, doctors, everything and haven't been back to the ENT since. The last few months I've been snoring, which is pretty new for me. Like, like my wife has been waking me up in the middle of the night, shaking me like,

you're snoring, please stop. So it's been creating some tension in our relationship. So I made a deal with her that I would go back to the ENT because this was kind of a new thing. So today I go back to the ENT and I have my first ENT appointment here in Philly. And the guy gives me like a 30 second examination. I mean, literally looks up my nostrils and he's just like, you have an extremely deviated septum. Like how are you living? Like very deviated is what he said. Uh, and then I said, really? Cause I actually went to an ENT a few years ago and he said, it's not subtle, uh, like in that tone. And I was like, Oh, so he, and he was kind

of like, how are you like, like, how are you operating with this? Basically just like you, you like really can't breathe out of the right side of your nose. And I was like, no, this is what I've been saying. And sometimes I chew with my mouth open because I feel like I'm having trouble breathing. My wife yells at me about that. I snore. She gets upset with me about that. I work out a ton and run around. And sometimes I just feel like I can't do some of the nose breathing stuff to get your heart rate down when I'm exercising. And the guy was like, yeah, you need surgery. And like, this is going to, you're, this will be like life-changing for you. Like you're going to feel way, way, way better, which I've heard about people who get deviated septum surgery, but I'm just like, how is it like this didn't have, it's, I have all the same symptoms and all the same stuff that's been happening for the last few

years. And maybe it's gotten worse in the last two years since I moved to Philly, but I want to go back to my old ENT and just be like, dude, could have been good information for me to have. Unless ENTs are like dentists where you get a different diagnosis depending on the dentist you go to. I think dentistry is a total hoax, different grievance, but yeah, my Phoebe's brother, my, my brother-in-law convinced me that dentistry is a hoax. He sent me an awesome article about it. And now that I moved, I've gone to some different dentists and I've gotten just like radically different advice for the exact same things about like a receding gum or a

cavity, or like some people say I have a cavity and the other dentist looks at the same thing and says I don't and I have genuinely I have apologies to all the dentists out there and maybe somebody has some way of explaining this but I've come to the conclusion that like there's something kind of fishy going on in dentistry separate you know separate grievance anyway we posted something like that this Sunday just wanted to say that get that in there yeah we did oh yeah we did but my core grievance. Anyway, the core grievance for me is... And we posted something like that this Sunday. Just wanted to say that, get that in there before we continue. Oh, yeah, we did. But my core grievance is basically that I have been living with a

deviated septum and I haven't been able to breathe properly for like six years and could have had this resolved a long time ago. And now I have to figure out when I want to schedule a surgery. And if anybody has gotten this surgery and is listening to this, please write to me, Isaac, I-S-A-C at readtangle.com. Tell me what to expect. Tell me whether it was worth it for you or not. I want to know, get some listener feedback about this. But this is new information.

I literally got back from this ENT appointment like an hour ago. So I had to update my grievance to share this, but, um, yeah, not sweet. Just like, uh, kind of salty about how the whole thing played out. Well, I know at least one person, uh, listening to this who has had surgery to correct a deviated septum and that's, uh, that's me. So I can give you a little bit of information here if you want. How is the experience for you? I would start by tempering my expectations a bit. This idea of this is going to be life-changing for you, maybe.

But it also won't be immediate because my situation was a little different, it sounds like, than yours. You and I talk about frisbee a lot so everybody listening is going to be used to it but it was at a winter league like a recreational league game in san francisco seven years ago and those games are pretty high level like the rec leagues in san francisco are really good and somebody was being a total try hard and they did a little too much trying hard and a little not enough paying attention to where other people are and just like knocked the heck out of my nose and had a compound break. It was my first and only ever broken bone. I got it manually reset,

which is the most painful thing I've ever gone through. And we could talk about that at a different time. I don't recommend that experience. I was told by other ENTs afterwards, yeah, we don't do that anymore. Like you get anesthesia and you go under. That's, if it's not within a couple hours, that's kind of medieval. That's not a thing to do. But part of the break was a deviated septum. So it was this, in a medical sense, a trauma that moved the joints around, broke some bones in the nose, needed a couple of different things to get set,

had to have the surgery, which they go in, they reset all the bones. They sort of peel the skin on your nose back so they can access the septum. It's a little brutal to imagine. And I just have a little scar that you can't see on the outside part of my septum, just between my nostrils. And it doesn't bother me at all anymore. But the issue, so maybe with you, it's going to be different because it's a thing you've normalized, you've lived with. For me, it was trauma. I got swollen. I couldn't breathe out of my nose for a while. And then I had a surgery and that set things right. But after the surgery, you still have a lot of inflammation. A surgery itself is a trauma. So you're still really stuffed

up more so. And you have anesthesia over your nose, so you're kind of in pain. And that goes away slowly over time. And when you come back to normalcy, it doesn't feel like a return to normalcy. It doesn't feel like a sudden somebody throws off the veil and you can see again. It feels like you're impacted for your life, then you have a surgery, and then you're super, super impacted. And then you get back to probably a situation that was better than it was when you started. But it's hard to, you don't have the baseline to prepare to. So you can't really, it's not magical, but I think it is helpful. You'll feel better. All right. I'll take that. I'll take feeling better. I just want to sleep better is really the big thing. I just

want to get like a good sleep where my mouth is closed. I'm not snoring and I'm breathing through my nose. That's, that's what I'm hoping for out of this whole thing. Um, what's your grievance? what I'm hoping for out of this whole thing. All right, what's your grievance? Mine is another language-based grievance. That's kind of who you're talking to, and that's the person that you get when you get me. You get a person who's just annoyed about language choices. And I know as a speaker, I'm not perfect, but when I'm writing and reading, I get to be really judgmental. So, that is my grievance today is about the phrase, hey, I'm not sure if or I'm not sure that. And this usage of it, to just throw an example randomly, yesterday in the newsletter, I had drafted part of the reader question for you to finalize that was about editorial staff biases at different news organizations and how we rate them left,

right, or center. And in one of the paragraphs, we were referring to a bunch of different news outlets. And in context and flow of the sentence, I made the decision to put the economist in quotes because just the way it was phrased, I didn't want to have something that said working for something like the economist. I don't know what it was, but it just seemed to feel more clear if I wrapped it in quotes. And you disagree. You wanted the quotes to be gone. And your response to it was, not sure why these are here. And I just thought, man, just say, I don't think these should be here. It's passive aggressive. Just say, I disagree or these shouldn't be here. I'm not sure why. It's like, oh, you're not sure. So you have an idea. You're pretty sure, but you're not certain that's

what you're saying. Or do you mean something else? so just say the thing you mean that's what i'm saying wow this grievance is about me that's what that's what's come up uh not just you but in this case yeah you know you're always coming at me for my grievances so i figured if you're going to argue my grievances let's uh let's have at it you know let's make it super direct that's fair You know what this kind of reminds me of, uh, a grievance that Phoebe has is I always say, um, she'll, she'll have an idea about something and I'll say, that's actually a really good idea. And she'll go, Oh, is it actually a really good idea? Like if you're so shocked that I can think of something that was like half intelligent. And I'm like, I don't mean it like that. I'm just, you know, I'm not shocked

at the fact that you, but it's just this turn of phrase that I use that really grinds her gears. And it seems sort of a really similar genre to, I'm not sure if that's exactly how I would have done it, but you know, whatever. Yeah. Um, even you, you phrased that so well there that just the way that you said that with that tone just annoyed me like, Oh, I'm not sure that that's how I would have done it. It's like, no, you mean you wanted to done it that way. I get it. I see both sides of it with the other example you had with you and Phoebe. I think I get your point of view though. The thing that you're saying isn't, I'm surprised that you had a good idea. The thing that you're saying is that's a good idea. And I'm not just saying that

I actually believe it. I'm not just going along to get along. I think you, the thing you said is actually genuinely good. And I agree with it. It's not, wow, look at you, a good idea from the remedial class. It's, it's not the way that that's meant, but I understand the read. Has that gotten better? Have you been able to find common ground on that? No, I still do it all the time. It's just a terrible habit that I, to be frank, I have not even attempted to break. I've not done anything to help that situation. So that's just kind of where we're at now is I say it, she gets annoyed and, uh, we sort of move on. Well, does she listen? I don't think she listens to this podcast, right? She wouldn't spend more time listening to us talk

than she has to. I hope she listens. Um, but yeah, probably, probably not. I think occasionally maybe something catches her eye and she tunes in. But yeah, she has to listen to me talk a lot. Okay, listen, we're at like close to an hour and a half now. We're about to sign off. Before we do, I just want to throw this out there. I just got a push notification from the New York Times. The jury has reached a verdict in the criminal trial of President Donald J. Trump, who is facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. So we're going to get that today. We will now hear the verdict in the next 30 or 45 minutes, probably. This is Thursday afternoon. It's 4.45, so it'll be Sunday by the time you guys hear about this, and I suspect our Monday newsletter will be on this very topic.

Any last, do we have any, given that, any change of feeling? I think I'm less inclined to mistrial. Now, all of a sudden, this feels like this happened in a short enough period of time that it's probably an acquittal of something. But I don't know. It still doesn't feel like a guilty verdict to me, but I think a mistrial may have taken another day or two. A hung jury may have taken a day or two. What do you think? Any last final thoughts?

No, I'm not going to change any of the things that we said. It's still been several days worth of deliberations. I think whether this happened today or tomorrow morning or afternoon, I think it's still past that threshold for me, so I don't have anything to change. All right, there you have it. Ari, genuinely good to have you back. I really am glad you're here. Ari, genuinely good to have you back. I really am glad you're here. It's nice to be back. We'll have an interesting episode next week to review some of this stuff and what we thought and certainly an interesting

edition of the Tangled newsletter on Monday. We'll see you guys then. Have a good one. Take care. Peace. take care peace our podcast is written by me isaac saul and edited and engineered by john wall the script is edited by our managing editor ari weitzman will k back belly saul and sean brady the logo for our podcast was designed by magdalena bakova who is also our social media manager music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to retangle.com and check out our website. Thank you. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older,

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