The Bulwark Podcast - Luke Russert and Josh Turek: There Is a Vast Rightwing Conspiracy

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

After "60 Minutes" veteran Scott Pelley was fired, he said that the new management at CBS News had instructed him to put false information in his political stories. Coupled with the decimation at The Washington Post, it feels like there is a vast rightwing conspiracy to take over the media. Plus, the much-promised ceasefire with Iran is nowhere in sight, Megyn Kelly feels duped by Trump, California's marquee races look like they'll be Dem v. MAGA, and Steve King gets revenge. Also, newly minted Democratic Senate nominee in Iowa, Josh Turek, talks about his prairie populism, how he'll win over Trump voters, the state's farmaggedon, and its growing cancer rate. And three NBA super-fans give their picks for the finals.Josh Turek and Luke Russert join Tim Miller.show notes Turek's campaign website Luke will be a new co-anchor on MS NOW's "The Weeknight" on June 15 For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/THEBULWARK.

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We got a banger, double-heder show for you today. A lot's happening in the news. In segment two, we have Josh Turrick, who won the Iowa Democratic Senate primary last night. I'll take on Ashley Hinson and the general. Much to talk about there. That could be a key race for control of the Senate. But first, he'll be the newest co-anchor on MS Now's the weeknight, starting on Monday, June 15th at 7 p.m. You might remember him. He took a leave of absence. from the media in 2016 and went on a three-year-six-continent travel expedition. That led to his book, Look for me there, grieving my father, finding myself. We chatted about that a while back now. It's Luke Russert. What's up, man? And it also led me to seeing you in the USF Gonzaga basketball game in San Francisco, which was a fantastic evening where we saw Chet Holmgren at the height of his college,

you know, euphoria. And I'd say he's looked better since then. He's put on some muscles. It shows you that, you know, if you have a good base, you can build up to great things. That is true. Albeit, his last game was not very good. That was the deal. He already has the ring, though.

That's all that matters. That was a delightful little bit of land yet on your journey. I was going to say the opposite of what you said about Chad. I think that we saw the weaknesses that were exposed in the Western Conference finals. I believe he said that he has to go to the weight room and he has to eat with me for about a year to get where he needs to be. But he's getting there. But he's going to get the ring. He's going to hit the max contract.

You know, he's all good. He's having a great career. I've got a little bit more on basketball and you traveling the world like Khan at the end of the podcast here. But there's a lot happening in the news, as mentioned, we had the primary night last night. But I think first, we should start with what's happening in the Middle East. So an Iranian missile hit the Kuwait airport last night. They're also Iranian attacks in Bahrain and on an oil tanker near Dubai. these were in response to a U.S. attack on an island near the Strait of Hormuz.

A lot of bombing, a lot of drones for a war that is over, according to the Secretary of State. In his testimony yesterday, most notably, I think that Kuwait attack left one dead, many injured. The airport record looks horrible. And on the board this morning, General Hurtling flagged for me that this is the airport the most U.S. servicemen come in and out of. He's been through there a bunch. So it's kind of a relevant location for what our troops are doing in the Middle East. So it seems like the war is still on, to me, and kind of in the war on, war off,

you know, kind of Wayne's World thing we got going on. Yeah, I mean, I'll take a step back further. I think the reason why we went to war is still not clear. What they've landed on is that the United States had to stop Iran's nuclear capabilities. That's something that's been ongoing for decades. That was something that President Obama and his team, worked through that deal, which seemingly was having success prior to it being ripped up. So you're left to wonder why we're actually in this war. And I think that the prevailing theory

is that the president got duped by his luxury real estate partners into going to war with Iran. And got a call from, you know, Jake Hush and MBS and was like, hey, let's just do this. It's going to reform the region. Everything's going to be hunk of dory and easy, breezy. And it's not. And I think there's a few things still in line here. Number one, It's incredibly dangerous for the region. So the airport you mentioned where U.S. service members are going in and out of. Our U.S. service members are in harm's way. I don't think we've gotten the straight story about how many times they've been attacked during this war.

13 folks have lost their lives for. Number two, this entire region that was all supposed to be reformed, we're having comedy festivals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Dubai is the place to be. You know, Bahrain's got the F1. It's now become dangerous again to the point of where all these. these economic reforms and them opening up to the world doesn't look too good for luxury real estate. And the last thing I'll just sort of say is it looks like the straits going to be closed for the duration of the summer. And Labor Day is looking like the earliest time it could be open I was seeing in this.

What does that mean? High gas prices all summer? For what? Why did this happen? Yeah, for what is right. And I do think that, you know, we've talked about this a bunch, but he thought this was going to be a quick and dirty job. But, you know, it's still, you know, their incompetence doesn't surprise me. Just thinking about Rubio yesterday, I just want to sit on this for a second. He's testifying on the hill. And, you know, he's the one that people talk about as the competent one in the administration. He's got a lot of jobs.

For some reason, like during this period where we've gotten into this idiotic war with no rationale as you laid out, like Rubio has been like gaining conventional wisdom. momentum and Vance has not, which is like confusing to me because it seems like internally Rubio is one that wanted this and Vance didn't. You know, in addition to as you mentioned, his luxury real estate buddy's wanting it and Israel, which we'll get to. But he's there testifying history. He's like we could have a deal today, Wednesday, maybe next week.

It doesn't seem like we're anywhere in the ballpark of a deal. Just thinking about this in pure Trumpian lizard brain, schoolyard bully terms, like the person who's more powerful has, you know, the leverage. Right now it feels like the Iranians are the ones that are executing leverage against us. Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think that Iran has undoubtedly taken the United States' best punch. And, yeah, did it knock them off their feet a little bit? Yeah, they lost some very significant people in the opening weeks of that war and that military escalation.

But what are they done? They've gone back. They've hunkered down. They've bunkered down. They've moved into a de facto guerrilla warfare, essentially using cheap drones. to outman a lot of the defense systems in the Gulf states, seemingly knocking at our bases or our allies at will, and showing no sense of stopping.

And I think when the president said, oh, we're going to, you know, eliminate an entire civilization. And people are like, okay, that's, you know, that's extreme. But I think they sort of took that threat and said, okay, you want to do that. Well, we're going to show you how difficult that's going to be over the long term.

And we're not going to make a deal until we feel like we're getting out of it, something to stand. on something that strengthens the regime's power going forward. The other thing here, this has completely ruined any of the moderate voices in Iran. I mean, they've been now sidetracked for a generation, in my opinion, because people look at this and say, well, you know, clearly when we put our moderate foot forward and then negotiating for a nuclear deal, it didn't do anything. And look, we got us all bombed.

The hardliners in Iran will take that. But then secondly, reading the guys who are on bulwark and people who follow this for years, the conventional wisdom now is that Iran is stronger today than they were when the war started, that they've shown the ability to take the punch. So why would they commit to a peace deal they don't think is advantageous for that? So I will see that. And then quickly, I just want to put my two cents on the Rubio thing. And that's important.

Once we get through the midterms, the most interesting stories will obviously be, you know, who the Democrats are going to try to nominate. But this celebrity apprentice in the Trump White House between Rubio, between J.D.V. chance, right? Is someone else coming in? I've been seeing reports. Maybe DeSantis gets a cabinet position to some degree. Is he going to be in there at auditioning?

This push and pull to try and harness the energy, the MAGA base, while also looking just normal enough that the suburban Republicans, that, you know, the people who are on the fence aren't going to be repulsed completely. It's going to be a very interesting thing to see play out. And then, of course, you got, you know, 10 crews with the evangelicals. and wherever late night going. But yeah, it's an interesting thing. Trump and the Post, just in New York Post, a couple of things,

says, number one, says interesting. We seem to be getting along quite well with the Ayatola. Yeah. That's one thing he said to the New York Post. I don't, is that true? It doesn't seem like it's true. He basically confirms that he was the source of the Axios report about his call with BB where they were yelling at each other.

He says that it's true. Unclear who else that source would be. Barkervitt has bragged about how Trump is a source of his. Mark Levin had said, leaked that call was committing a crime. So I don't know, maybe another crime to look into on Trump. And as you mentioned, he said the blockade could still be in place by Labor Day. You know, there's no fears urgency of now at all with him. And he posts the meme yesterday where it was just like, I don't know, in front of me. It's just like everything will turn out okay. And that's kind of

where he's at. Yeah. I mean, it's just, you know, I alone can fix it. Trust me. But it's not working here. I would I'd bring up, you know, saying to Bibi, you're effing crazy. Uh, yeah, he said that. It doesn't seem to have brought Bibi back a little bit at all. I mean, there's still, it was like, oh, we're going to go after southern Lebanon. Now we're not. If B.B. feels like he can do whatever he wants without any type of repercussion, that's going to prolong any conflict in the region for a while. I think that when you look at this, they expected Venezuela 2.0. Yeah. And now, they have no idea what they're doing. And all the people who know how to operate in this part of the world do not work for this administration.

There are no serious players in this administration that really know how to get these things done, that know real politic, etc. So you're left with him just filling the void, going to friendly news outlets, be like, trust me, everything's going to be okay. But even that's not working that much. Can I just play for you? This struck me. This struck me. Megan Kelly had Sean Ryan on. Are you a Sean Ryan?

So Sean, I saw he's turning. He's turning. For people who don't know him, he's like a, what, he's like a guns and military podcaster. Guns and guts guy, I would say. Yeah, it was really a mainstream guns, you know, kind of podcaster that then veered more into Maguworld. Him and Megan Kelly are talking.

Let's listen to how they assess the state of play. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to think anymore. I don't even trust my own intuition when it comes to politics because I thought things were going to be so different. And I got fucking duped. Nobody knows anything about anything. I knew something.

It's one of the themes of the year. The thing is like the Trump thing is so disappointing because he did seem like he was going to be different. You know, he was independently wealthy, so there was some reason to believe he wasn't going to. need their money or be swayed by it. He's such a fighter and a middle finger, a walking middle finger. The cope is so strong.

They go on to talk about how Miriam Adelson. I mean, what is this? Like, what? We thought he'd be different. Tim, I mean, look at the U.S.FL documentary about Donald Trump. You don't have to know anything about politics.

He tanked a football league that was on the upswing. He's tanked casinos. The only, thing that Donald Trump brings to the table effectively in American politics is that he is a WWE Hallfamer. He knows how to speak to the masses, get them riled up using WWE tactics. And the thing about WWE, the storylines change. People have short memories. They're quick. But my God, I mean, the amount of people go, I can't believe, I can't believe that

I've been dup. Where are you been? Where are you been? it's really funny yeah they go on to talk about how um you know they should have known when miriam adelson was putting all the money and they're just like grasping around it's like maybe it was the jews that duped us it's like we don't know it's like everything was right in front of our face we don't have any of the conspiratorial nature of it is mind boggling and it's like now he's become you know bought up on this deep state and you know that's the thing he's always been kind of this blank canvas which every conspiracy could be thrown upon and he could serve as the vehicle. And now people are realizing it's like, no, he's just trying to enrich himself. I mean,

this is about $600 million no big contracts for his kids. I mean, this is, this is not some sort of great deer leader serving as the vehicle for all your conspiratorial ideas. This is a pretty common thing to see. This is graph. Well, and we all saw, everybody else saw it. The brain is interesting. You know, you've got to rationalize. You got to convince yourself that you weren't the idiot that you weren't fooled. It's pretty delightful. We'll continue to watch it. Oh, you know, it's pretty busy around here. Shudden the daughter off to a bunch of different camps. You don't believe all the different camps that she's got.

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For their buy one, get-one 50% off deal on custom blinds, shades, shutters, and drapery. For a free, no charge, no obligation consultation, just head to three-dayblinds.com slash the bulwark one last time. That's buy one, get one 50% off when you head to the number three, D-A-Y, blinds.com slash the bulwark. I want to talk to you about some media stuff too before I get to the election. So obviously the huge 60 Minutes news overnight is that Scott Pelley was fired by Barry Weiss and Nick Bilton, this new guy they brought in to run 60 Minutes. We've covered this other places on the bulwark, but for people who haven't because I haven't on this podcast. It started where on the introductory meeting of this new head of 60 Minutes,

Scott Pelley just went in on him very aggressively, talked about how Weiss is murdering 60 Minutes, talking about how he doesn't know anything, that he has no. experience. You guys have no qualifications. And then after that, they all had a long meeting, decide what to do. They fired Pelley by email last night. Pelley then put out a very long statement that had a lot of positive 60-minute stuff and, you know, just kind of general, you know, the thing that you say when you're leaving a company. But included this paragraph on a read you is pretty interesting. For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into politically sensitive stories. I've been

told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose the correspondence for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism and the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on air at all. Woof. Yeah.

Let's unpack that because I think there is a very serious. undertone there. What Pelley is essentially saying is that the First Amendment is under assault at CBS News, which if you know the history of CBS News, it has been a gold standard, especially in that level of broadcast journalism, that has always been seen as the apotheosis of what it should be. And you think about 60 minutes as a program, the NFL lead-in, nine, 10 million people watching the most important stories of the week that are wonderfully produced. So what Pelley is essentially saying is that he's been under pressure from his bosses who were installed by Trump allies, the Ellison family, to put in false information in the vaunted CBS News 60 Minutes. That is terrifying. That is absolutely terrifying. Now, I work for a network that some folks would say has certain opinions. Never once has a boss come to me and said, I want you to put this into a story. I need you to have this opinion for me. Not once. Not once. So when you see that type of conditions, control coming from the top, it's very scary.

And it shows how much this administration takes umbrage with truthful reporting. The other thing I want to say about Scott Pelley, though, keeping it real. Scott Pelly, almost 40 years at CBS to go out the way that he did, he'll never pay for a drink in my presence ever. I mean, that is the most badass of badass. And a guy like Scott Pelley, this is a guy who's done some of the most just real truthful badass reporting. we've seen over the course of the career. And he is not some lefty whistleblower like, I want to go out and get a book deal and talk about. No, no, no.

He's basically saying, listen, I've done this for a very long time. This is heinous. And I'm not going to be a part of this anymore. And people really should listen because this is not normal. This is a five alarm fire. And frankly, I'm very scared for the future of media with anything that they touch. Because if they, the more control they amass, especially with their entertainment, There's a lot of little subliminal messages out there. It's scary.

Yeah. I mean, Tim, you used to, you used to peddle on this the days of the vast left-wing media conspiracy. They're over. They're over. It wasn't not not totally wrong. I mean, you know, that was some bias out there. But the pendulum is shifted.

And there is literally a vast right-wing conspiracy trying to take over the media right now. You know, my old Republican instincts do come in sometimes in this thing. I believe in creative destruction. I think something else good will emerge. There are other opportunities. There's platforms like this one and others where people can have their voices heard. But it is concerning. I'm worried more about the social media platforms than the media institutions.

It's sad. It's depressing that 60 minutes is being just totally gutted. And what is left? That's the thing. It's like we live so much on the hamster wheel. And you have to go back a little bit. You're like, man, if you had told me within six months, the Washington Post in 60 minutes

were both going to be killed. I know. I would be, I would have taken the bet no. Sure. There's no way. There's no way they could do that. And they're doing it. And you're starting to look at like,

all right, what are the bulwarks? You know, you got to go to the places that are the bulwarks that are protecting real news and real thought. And we'll go as long as we possibly can. I'll tell you that. It's a good point. And if you take the lens back, and it's the kind of thing that, you know,

people would have said you have TGS, you're an alarmist, a few year and a half ago, you know, the Washington Post in 60 minutes will essentially be, you know, totally decimated, you know, by pressure from the regime. And it's happened. And if you look at the CBS correspondence, we'll see what Bill Whitaker does. They have to get a whole new cast. I mean, everybody's gone, basically. Yeah. I mean, I don't see how people stay there. And then who gets tired. The type of person that goes in is going in for a corrupt deal. Like, even if the person themselves, even if they managed to snow somebody and bring somebody into CBS,

who's a good person and a good person. reporter, but they're joining a corrupt system. Nothing will change there until they get new leadership. And if they even bring in new leadership, it'll be someone who would be, I think, would be under pressure just to sort of put out a very milk toast, middle of the road product. It doesn't ruffle any feathers. The other thing that's just worth mentioning, this is meaningfully different because

other things have been taking off the air, Colbert at CBS. It's a meaning different from Colbert in a sense. Like, Colbert was a money suck. And you could at least, you know, again, it's hard not to look at it without the context of the corrupt system and the pressure coming from the president of the United States on the media company to get mergers. But you can at least listen to a business reporter that's like, well, this was inevitable. These late-night shows aren't making money anymore. That's not the case about 60 minutes. Viewership was up 9% in the most recent season in 60 minutes. 60 minutes made like

$200 million last year in ad revenue for the company. And like they're got to get for their ideological mission. And I would also argue and we're a little bit older here. But But, it's big for yourself. Yes. Thank you very much. But like there's a part of these broadcast networks, those big three, where there are civic institutions. And the media division, the news division, has always been considered a sort of altruistic deal. Right.

It's like you may lose some money here. Most of them make money. But the idea is like you got your sports. You got your entertainment. But the news, it's just a half hour a night and a few hours in the morning. And then the news shows like 60 minutes for CB. or Dateline for NBC. Those are the important parts of the public trust that these networks are giving you unfiltered, unbiased news that helps you in your day-to-day life as a citizen in the United States make informed decisions.

And if that is just becoming just done away with totally, it's very troubling. It's very troubling. So I agree with you. Colbert, I can see the business rationale to it, although I think he's an incredible talent and I miss him already. But the new stuff, no, there's an altruistic component. to it. And if we private equity that, it's over. This episode is sponsored by

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Find support in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash the bulwark. That's BetterHELP.com slash the bulwark. Let's go to the primary results last night. There's some interesting ones, California, Iowa, Montana, elsewhere. I have one race in particular that really caught my eye, but I'm wondering if there's anything that you saw last night that you wanted to vamp about. Well, I thought in Iowa, I was very interested in what was happening there. I think your guest you're having on Josh Turrick later today.

I thought his speech was masterful last night. I think he spoke to making it a local race, but also talking about larger scale issues. Why don't we put in a little bit from that? I've had to fight my whole life. And this is what is needed in D.C. People who have gone through real struggle, who know what it's like to not have enough, who know what a gallon of gas cost, who have had to put groceries on a credit card. We have enough millionaires in D.C. looking out for billionaires.

We need real people in Washington who have felt the consequences of a broken system because when you have gone through real struggle, you will have a different level of empathy and a different level of fight. And this is what we need in D.C., fighters for the people. and that is what I will be in the United States Senate. Just sort of talking about how the rates of cancer in Iowa have gone up exponentially, how he got in the race because he saw all these people getting denied medical claims, his own inspiring story being in a wheelchair. And it got me sort of thinking about, you know,

the Democratic collapse in the state of Iowa is kind of a really good microcosm of the problems they've had nationwide. Because it's a state that one time had Tom Harkin, it had Bill Sack, and had check Culver. There were statewide elected Democratic officials. I worked on, I covered that campaign of when Joni Ernst beat Bruce Braley, the hog, the castrated hog commercial. But if you had told me, you know, that the Republicans were going to win three straight in Iowa

with pretty comfortable margins, I would be very surprised. But I think this, I think Turks is a good candidate. I think Rob San's a good candidate in the governor's race. Let's talk about the governor's race because that's one that I wanted to get to. Did you pay attention to the Republican primary at all? Because this one, I've been, I was nerding out last night because I was intrigued. The dear leader's selection did not go as planned. As a Trump endorsement goes down.

The backstory here is, this one is for those of us, real ones like me and Luke who were paying attention to politics before Trump came in. Steve King was a Trump. The original MAGA racist. Yeah, a Stephen Miller, a Stephen Miller before Stephen Miller in Congress. and was always courting controversy. But he ends up finally getting out over his skis in 20, I think it was 2019, drawing a primary from a guy named Randy Feinstra.

For people who don't remember this, I found an old CNN clip, and I just want to play a couple of bites from that. This was what happened to Steve King in 2019. The big subject is before us all that some might refer to as the elephant in the room is a situation of a New York Times quote. A quote that his own party thought was

so racist, they stripped Congressman Steve King of his congressional committee assignments. In it, he says, white nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization, how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization? For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another hundred out there that they weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the sides of cantaloupes because they're all in 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. I'm talking about the Mexicans. So, white nationalism.

How did that get bad? So let's fast forward to last night. Steve King ends up, shows you how quickly things change. Steve King actually got beaten in a Republican primary because he said something too racist. Something I don't think you could say today. He gets beaten by a guy named Randy Feinstra.

He's a down-the-line Christian conservative kind of guy. And he was one of these guys that, you know, as the never-trumper's, we get, you always get the right-wing folks, to guilt trip us into being on behalf of like the less bad Republican. And I got that a lot about Featström. Like, oh, you got to be for him. And I'm like, I don't, this Feenstor guy seems like a total Trump stooge.

And like, I don't, he doesn't seem like anything great to me. But Feinster wins the primary, does everything Mr. Trump wants, gets Mr. Trump's endorsement. Fast forward to last night. There's an upstart candidate named Zach Lane, who didn't even register to vote in Iowa until he was a former Koch brothers activist who married into the family so to speak got some generational wealth for himself use some of that money to invest in a company that manufactures cock rings which we appreciate your support never know nothing wrong with that but interesting in i want to be a cockering manufacturer from kansas but he went full maga he beats fiendstra

on the back of endorsement from Steve King. Revenge is a fickle mistress. What's the last long ago? Revenge is a dish surf cold. Steve King, the racists are on the rise again in the Republican primary. And now Zach Lane will face off against Rob Sand at the governor's race.

What a journey that was. I covered Steve King in the House of Representatives for many years. And he was someone who was considered so extreme that the leadership would always get mad at us for quoting him, saying you're taking this one bad apple out of this beautiful House Republican Conference. Why do you pay attention to this guy? Well, guess what? Steve King now could be the mouthpiece of this administration that's in Washington, D.C., elected to the presidency.

No, I mean, I think it's full circle for Steve King. I think that sometimes you always say that the party goes where the energy is, and there's a reason why this guy was, you know, packing auditoriums for as much as he was disliked. And now you've seen that play out in this prime. I'm Mary. I'll say this, though, in Iowa. How deep does the cult go? Because if you're a farmer right now, your costs are through the roof. Tariffs are hurting you. Fertilizer costs are up because of what's happening in Iran. The fuel prices over the summer are going to be terrible for you. It shows you, Rob San and Lon, you're starting to see the differences between the parties and what the choices are here. Because San is a very common. Democrat for Iowa without death. Yeah, middle of the road Democrat honor running on, you know, making sure everybody, no matter what party they are

if they do corruption, go to jail. I think it's the bellwether. Your dad at Florida, Florida, Florida. I think that November is Iowa, Iowa. Iowa. I was back. The Democrats are kicking it out of the presidential first four, but I think it's back this year.

Trump wins it by 12 or 13 last year. So it's a stretch. But if the Democrats want to take the Senate, Turek probably has to be part of the the group. Maybe not. I think there are other paths you can do Paltolla, Tala, Tala, but it's right on the edge. And, and I think, what do you think of Ashley Hinson? I mean, she seems to be pretty, she's, she's pretty talented. I mean, she's, I would call her a,

and she's just a down the line, maga. Yeah, so I say, down the line. She seems she's down the line, but she's personally affable. Right. I've seen her in person. I went to one of her events in Iowa. It's not like she's a wet paper bag, and she's a compelling politician. She's been the state. It's going to be a tough race for Turk. I guess the point is if you're going to win Iowa back again as a Democrat, this is the year, given everything that's happening economically and all the crazy stuff in the White House and these two strong nominees against at least one extremely weak nominee and then Hinson on the Republican side, it will be the state I'm monitoring the closest, I think, when we get to November. I just want

to talk really quickly about two other races. Montana, I only want to mention this just because it's nice when the Democrats are in array, you know, and when good things happen and every once in a while you need to mention it because I'm going to get to California next where that is not the case. In Montana, there was a handsome fireman named Sam Forstock. Maybe this is all the Democrats need is just handsome firemen that look good shirtless. He was supported both by the kind of center Edel Smith on the pod Friday, like that kind of group, the majority Democrats, the center left, kind of fight in mods, and by the fight agency AOC, grand partner Morris Katz, I've had on the podcast. like that group. Both wings that are fighting all the time on Twitter

supported the handsome fireman in this primary. He ends up winning the primary. And we'll see if the Montana district is in play for the first time in a minute. If you're just looking for something that's easy on the eyes and something that makes you happy that the Democrats are pulling their shit together, you might want to look at Sam Forrestog. Case is not the same in California. It looks like Javier Bacera and Karen Bass will get through to the runoff. So I guess the California Democrats are just like, let's just go full steam ahead. Nothing wrong in California.

We're just going to take the two establishment special interest figures put them through. In theory, you could have seen two Democrats get in because of the way the California systems worked. We don't know yet. It takes California about a month to count. We'll probably know by about the Major League All-Star game, who the other person is in these runoffs. But it seems like it's probably going to be Spencer Pratt. in the mayor's race in L.A. and Steve Hilton, the little British fella and the governor's race. I don't know, man. I don't know what's happening out there.

So we spent a lot of time in California. My mom is a seventh generation in California. And my wife's from California in the Central Valley. So I know California very well. I love California. Here's how I read into this. Okay. You have constituency groups in California that mobilize our voters and get them over. The unions are very strong. You had other types of groups that push people and build coalitions, et cetera. I think the bigger story here is Bass is very unpopular, but Sarah has never really been loved by anybody in his own party and has kind of now been sold upon as just like the guy, right?

We needed a guy after Swalwell imploded. We don't trust Steyer because he's a billionaire. Porter never was able to get past the staffer issue. I was surprised that the mayor of San Jose Matt Mahan didn't do better. I think he had a lot of tech money, which I think is a problem now in the Democratic primary for good reason.

In his case, I don't think that there was anything to be working. His campaign was uninspiring. But in terms of results, that was someone who I think actually would have been very interesting to see what they would have done as governor. But here's eye look at California.

This all now traces to Gavin. Because I find Gavin to be the frontrunner right now in the Democratic side until someone knocks him out. Who knows what Conlon is going to do? We don't know what Osef's going to do. But as of right now, Gavin, let's do a little bit. We'll do a dinner in New Orleans.

I'm not betting on him. I'm saying he's a frontrunner. I'm taking the field. I'm saying, I'm saying that as of today, okay, okay, as of today, okay, we're here in the year of our Lord, 2026, I put Gavin as the frontrunner, a Democratic side. A lot can happen. But once he's, he moves out of office and California. has Bacera's governor, Bacadela.

There's a lot of the stories that are to come out of California that are going to be difficult for him and what is his legacy. And I think that'll be the very interesting thing to look with them in terms of national politics. As far as the state goes, state just keeps on churning in fourth largest economy in the world, diversified economy, just the call it Valley money, ag money. I mean, there's always problems in California,

but then it always keeps coming back. You know, it's like the logo of San Francisco, the Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. The muddle third. It always comes back. The muddle. Okay. One of the California race that comes out, I just want to flag briefly, just for other social media obsessives like myself, sometimes you can get a little bit too into the social media discourse on a race. For anybody who followed this San Francisco congressional race, like online, it was very challenging to find a Scott Weiner supporter.

He's a local, pretty accomplished state legislator. Yimbi guy. He got a little bit crossways on the Israel issue. kind of flip-flopping on that. He's right against this very online guy that was AOC's chief of staff, a ton of energy on if you're following the race on X.com, you'd think that former AOC chief of staff had a lot of momentum. He lost by 30 to Scott Weiner last night,

who doesn't even get him to the runoff. So it is important to know for those of us who are monitoring these races online that, you know, sometimes things on the ground are a little different than how things are going on the Internet. But that race is one, I've been a lot of potential. to because it's Nancy Pelosi's seat and the seat of San Francisco is a very strong seat. There's a lot of money in that district. And Wiener has been running for that seat for like the last 10 years to facto.

They were all waiting for Pelosi to retire. And I think there was a lot of speculation that she was going to try and push her daughter into that seat and whether or not that was going to work. That's not been the case. But she's back in Connie Chan, who is a very, I would say, kind of normal San Francisco politician, someone who is a supervisor. So can Chan beat Wiener? I don't know. Weiner has a very good operation, a very good money machine. He almost got a lot of the thing just clean.

And he was in the 40s. Yeah. So I think he should be okay, although it's well-known Pelosi's not a fan of him because she thinks that he has been too eager to ascend into the seat of the queen of California politics. You do not come into the throne until you are summoned, sir. So we will see. Gays can be eager. All right.

One other news item, and then I want to get back to your book for a sec. There's Bill Pulte dues, which we talked about a little bit yesterday. I think on the merits, it's such an absurd nomination to put this guy at charge of DNI. It's just so obvious that Trump just wants him there to go after his foes. That's what he's been doing about housing agency, going through people's mortgages, making sure they cross their T's and dotted their eyes. If they ever said anything mean about Donald Trump, he's now going to try to use the power of our intelligence. agencies to do that. Senate Democrats, what I wanted to flag those, it's Senate Democrats are doing

something that a lot of us have been urging them to do for a while now, which is use limited power they have in the minority to hold up things. And the report this morning is they've been telling their GOP colleagues that Trump doesn't withdraw Pulte as acting director of DNI, that they will tank the bipartisan FISA deal because they don't trust this guy to be in charge of FISA. Totally reasonable and the type of shit that would like to see more of, we'll see how that shakes out. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, so I think you're touching on something that's very

important that's going to be incredibly, an incredibly big story as we head into the midterms, which it does appear that on the backs of the $1.8 billion slush front that Trump was trying to give to the seditious folks who stormed the capital and also the tax freedom for his family, that that has now seem to have grown a spine in some Senate Republicans. You have Tillis, Cassidy, and Corn, the ones who are out the door, who are essentially saying, I want to have an opinion about this, Mitch McConnell,

I would throw in there too. And Thune, I think, sees the writing on the wall that some of this has become so egregious and over the top. They have to do what they can to stop the worst of the worst of the worst. I'm not saying they're a profile encouraged by any means. There's a lot of stuff they could have done already to this point, which would have been great. But they're starting to see, I think a little bit of movement of, you know what? Do we really want to go this far down the rabbit hole and this insane type of stuff? And that is what Bill Pulte is. He is someone with no experience in national intelligence.

I never thought in a million years that I could say that Tulsi Gabbard being removed from head of DNI actually made us less safe. I would take Tulsi Gabbard over this guy. Do you know how crazy it is for me to say that? Because at least Tulsi Gabbard has been on a CODell. She's at least traveled abroad. Has some relationships with some of these intelligence actors. Not the good ones. People would argue she's too close to Russia.

But she's at least been in rooms with people who talk about national intelligence. Bill has no experience in that. Bill is a 38-year-old, a rich guy who's done. done some stuff at Fannie and Freddie, who just has the president's ear. And we've gotten to the point now where the dear leader is seemingly just, you know, who in the Legion of Doom do I have, who is unfailingly loyal to me, no matter the qualifications. And, oh, by the way, if there's some horrific terrorist attack, you know how bad this is? Oh, my God, dude.

It's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible. Yeah. And he's not even trying to do intelligence of the thing. He's trying to do domestic spy. Real quickly on that. I just want to just put a historical point because we can nerd out. Okay.

In 2011, when Boehner, when you all won 63 seats, Boehner put Michelle Bachman on the Intel committee. And that was like a bone to that top of the party. I would love Michelle Bachman to be head of DNA. Yeah, good call. I think Michelle Bachman would be an incredibly successful head of DNI comparative to Bill. Is she still with her husband? I decided to get that in there.

I don't know what Michelle is doing now. Is she still with her husband? Probably not watching the bowlwork, but if she is, Marcus is Marcus? Oh, no, Marcus is doing these days. Marcus, Bobbitt. If you're out there, Marcus. You're out there, girl.

Oh, I went to Minnesota for that race, and she ran against a guy Graves. And he had a button that said, I dig Graves. And that was his campaign file. And then when she dropped out, this guy spent a bunch of money as a Democrat, he dropped out. And it's like, aren't you going to run for the seat? I guess not I don't care. I just going to go back. I don't want to be in Congress.

Screw her. Which I thought was hilarious. Your journey back to TV. I wanted to bring this up because I, I'm sure there's maybe some like me. I had initial Luke Russard skepticism. You know, I'm like, he looks like a lacrosse guy. I don't know.

He might have bullied me. I wish I had that here still. I don't have the lettuce anymore. And so I had that initial feeling. But I also have a soft spot for people who have, who go into the wilderness and who have, like, real life reflection, particularly in D.C. Because D.C. is very much a ladder crime in culture, you know. it's just kind of on to the next thing and people fail up. And a lot of times they don't think about their choices very often.

And like you spent a long period thinking about your choices, which I appreciated. Now that you're back in the game in two weeks here, June 15th, I'm just wondering, do you have any wisdom for yourself? Is there something you're reflecting upon from your time out in the world? Oh, Tim, I love your book because you hit into this idea of perspective and why we did it. And in 2015, I actually had a conversation with how to do that. Speaker John Boehner and he asked me a very haunting question. He said, what are you doing here? And I thought he meant, you know, we're having a meeting together.

Well, you're the house speaker. You asked me to a meeting. That's why I'm here. He goes, no, what are you doing here in Washington? It's just, it's a place where someone's up, someone's down. There's always the next election. There's always the next bill. It's very cyclical. And you can stay here 10, 20, 30, 40, 40, 50 years and have no idea what happened in your life, not seeing how any of the world works or even how the country works. You get so caught up in this bubble. And that was actually a voice that had been in my head. Is this all you are? You grew up in this very cushy bubble in Washington, D.C.

You got a famous last name. Is there a world beyond this? And that's why I decided to take some time away because I didn't know who I was. And when I took time away and went to six continents and 75 countries, a lot of that was a grief journey, reclimsign the death of my father. But a lot of that was also gaining perspective, not only in my life, but also my country in my capital. And that's what I'm going to try to bring to MS now every single night,

is being in the belly of the beast as a beat reporter for about eight years on Capitol Hill, but also seeing how the rest of the world work, the rest of the world operates, and frankly how the rest of the world views the United States. And what is our American identity within that space? So I think it's very important to gain perspective. And what you've always done a good job up, Tim, is that you've always been, I think, good about what cuts through to people, you know, for voters because it's so easy in D.C. to like get in these conversations where voters are just

sort of like thought of commodity. They're like cattle. Right. And it's like, no, there's actually real people at the end of that. And yeah, you do have your true believers like the 30% of each camp. But then there's a lot of people in that middle space that are looking for guidance or looking for understanding. And it's helpful to remind people in the day to day, like, you know, these are some big issues that we need to look at. And that 16 minutes disintegrating before our eyes should make you concerned if you're paycheck to paycheck trying to put food on the table. That's going to be something that's still a concern for you and your children in the

country that you want to grow up in. So just sort of keeping it real in that respect. Yeah. And people in the middle, the other thing about learning about people and getting out there and learning about yourself, I saw this funny clip yesterday of a guy who was being interviewed man on the street, California, and he was voting for Steyer and Pratt. and his reason was I used to be homeless

and Pratt seems to care about the homeless That person does not exist And like the archetypes that people have in their head I think it's just important to remember that We're running out of time Just real quickly on that The most interesting voter to me Was the Kemp Warnock voter in Georgia

Like that that voter exists Who are they? Right? And that's an important perspective, any My last thing, we have the NBA Finals begins tonight And I want to get your take on that You're a basketball guy like me

But first I went to the archives and found maybe some relevant audio that you might remember that I'm interested in your reaction to, reflection on. Let's listen. What would happen to the NBA without Michael Jordan? I think the NBA has survived. I think the NBA would be just fine. I think it's got a great infrastructure with a lot of young players coming up. I think, as we've mentioned today, it's a lot of young players who are going through that transition period. And it's going to take some time because of the maturity.

But the NBA is going to be strong for a period of time. Grand Hill, what would happen to the NBA without Michael Jordan? Well, it would give the rest of us a chance to win. All the politics is local. It's your dad, of course, interviewing Michael Jordan. That was a great day. So that was the 1997 All-Star game in Cleveland, and a young Luke Russert just volunteered to carry my dad's briefcase for that assignment.

And that was an incredibly special day. And getting to meet those guys and take their photos was incredible. Like, I love the NBA. I absolutely, to this day, adore Michael Jordan because of the standard of dominance that he put forward. And I think it's something that we all should aspire to as Americans. I honestly say that the Jordan standard of the hard work and just putting it in every single day and giving it your all. For the NBA finals, sidebar. Grant Hill didn't get injured.

I think he'd be a top 10 NBA player at all time, maybe top five. Very, very good player. Finals tonight. The NBA will be okay without Jordan to answer your dad's question. Yes, it has been okay. And the question will be, is it going to be okay without LeBron? Is it going to be okay without Steph Curry coming up? I think so.

I will say, though, I'm very concerned about the future of American men's basketball. It seems to be going the way of American men's tennis. The top players are now all foreign-born. They're learning a different style of basketball. What does that mean if the United States going forward? We need to get rid of the AAU. We've got to get something in there that is teaching the players who are coming up how to compete the level that we see with Wemby, we see with Yokic, we see with SGA.

Even though some people count SGA as an American, now, it's a Canadian ball. And it's a different to different game. Okay. So that's my big thing there. But it's for the finals tonight. The Yanks will be all right. I want the Knicks badly. I really want them to win.

And I really think that they can create some match. I wondered if you guys were next. I searched, when I found that clip, I was searching Tim Russert Knicks because I was like, no, we're a wizard's fan. So you have my Wizards whole start. game pen on top of me okay so we uh i'm now with through the family i think i'm on year 29 or almost year 30 of having Washington wizard season tickets you want to talk about like the patron saint of lost causes all right you think the bills have a tortured history they could be on

the come up like at least the bills like get in the door yeah the wizards are are they're lost on the highway walking on the shores are on the sure they got the first pick this year they yeah they're coming up though they're coming up we'll see i like the the the the the GM in the management what they have there. They get good young players. Kishon's good. Saar's good. Bob is good.

They're going to get a pick. And we'll see what happens with Trey Young and Davis. But all that being said, I think, I hope the Nix, I'm going to go Nixon six. I think the Nix can create

some matchup problems for San Antonio. It bridges his hand is a, a Robinson. Who's got the word of him? Robinson. Robinson's hand can be okay. I think O.G. is a tough matchup for San Antonio. Brunson can play lights out.

They just got to get one of these first two. You got to get one of these first two. But I would not be surprised if Wendy just goes ham and they win in four. That's possible. Yeah. All right, Bestvo's back. Thanks, Wembe and the next. Luke Russert, man.

It's good to see you again. It's been a minute. Always a pleasure. Thanks for finding that Jordan clip. That was really cool. Of course, man. Good luck on the new show. Thank you.

MS now 7 p.m. The week night with Michael Steele, Simone, Sanders, Townsend, and Luke Russer. Boy, a pal. That's an all-star line at five. ever heard one. Up next, it's Josh Turrick. All right, we are back. He is a Paralympic gold medalist and state legislator in Des Moines. He is now the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Iowa. It's Josh Turrick. What's up, man? I'm going to talk to you. It's great to talk to you. Thanks for having me. Congrats on the win last night. How's it feeling?

Feels good. I'm not going to lie, I'm a little tired, working on two hours of sleep. but a lot of energy and a lot of excitement happening. And it was an amazing night, a culmination of 10 months out there on the trail and an enormous amount of hard work. But I'm really excited and so are a lot of Iowans. I'm seeing real genuine hope in Iowa's eyes for the first time in a very long time. All right. I've been locked in on the Iowa race. We had a little chat for a while.

But I think a lot of maybe some listeners, you're not getting as much attention. as, you know, the drama queens down in Texas, for example. Okay. So a lot of people might not be familiar with you. So why don't you just give us just really quick, kind of your first date. Tell us about Josh Turek's story. Sure. State representative from Iowa.

I'm born and raised in Council, Bless Iowa to a working class family and a working class community. Went through a lot of economic adversity early in my life. We went to the Goodwill as a family, shared clothes, had the wrong color lunch tickets. I was born with my disability. I was born with a condition called spina bifida. It's due to my father's exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. I had my first surgery at one day old.

I had 21 surgeries before I was 12. Thankfully for me, found wheelchair basketball and had a very successful wheelchair basketball career, both collegiately and professionally. Ended up playing in four parallel games. One back-to-back gold medals representing the USA and wheelchair basketball. And then got involved in nonprofit

at work for disabled kids and got involved in healthcare. I was assessing and providing mobility devices like power wheelchairs for individuals with progressive conditions. And we were seeing a thousand percent increase in denial rates for individuals that were on Medicaid here in Iowa. And so decided to run. Won my first election by just six votes. And I did that by dragging my wheelchair upstairs every single day, rain or shine, hot or

cold. I represent the Reddest district that was won on election day. in the most recent election, the two communities I represent, Trump won by 18 points and by 10 points. I was able to win my district by six points and now running for the U.S. Senate because I believe it's a one-in-a-generation opportunity to win Senator Harkin Seatback. You just rolled past something there, pun intended, that I want to talk about for a second, which is that for that state house race. So you live in Council Bluffs.

I've done a bunch of races in Iowa. We called it Council Tucky, you know, with love. It gives you a little feel for what's happening down there. You mentioned in that race when you're doing the door knocking, you're going around town. It's right there in the name, Council Bluffs, hilly. You're going upstairs. You're dragging the wheelchair up the stairs and then knocking on people's door. People had to be like, what in the fuck is happening?

Like, who is this person? I want to hear a little bit about that. That is absolutely true. I wasn't very efficient, but it became very effective. Always, and you're right, Council Bluffs, it's one of the two places on earth with the Lose Hills. So every single house has somewhere between 10, 20, 30 stairs. And sometimes it would take me 10 or 15 minutes to drag my wheelchair up the stairs. The very first question I would always be asked is, how in the world did you get up?

Depending on how many stairs is there. Bro, I'm already not running for state house. If I got 30 minutes up one stairs, I mean, to eat shit, even if it's 10 minutes, that's too much. By the time I would get up there, they would always say, how in the world did you get up here? and I would say, I drug my wheelchair up here. That's how important your vote is. And then I would find regards to where they sat on the political spectrum, they would be willing to give me a few minutes of their time,

even if they were a hardcore Republican, just to say, my God, this guy just dragged his wheelchair all the way up here. And I found that in five or ten minutes of speaking to someone, I can tell them about myself and who I am and why I'm running and what I'm fighting for. And I would hear over and over and over on the doors, even Republicans that would say, I'm not going to vote for every single Democrat,

but I like your kind of Democrat and focusing on cost and corruption and kitchen table issues, the issues that apply to 3.2 million Iowans, what I call common sense prairie populism. And one by one, I win by Iowa, whether it was a Democrat,

independent, or Republican, won them over. And that's what it's going to take to be able to win in a state like Iowa. When you won that race by six votes, you'd be thinking back on all those stairs, that had to be like the best feeling in the world. I don't know what your highest success was

in wheelchair basketball, but that had to feel pretty good. pretty damn good. Strangely, actually, I was disappointed because I had worked so incredibly hard, and I thought I have absolutely outworked my opponent. I definitely am going to win this. So to only win by six votes, and then also I knew it was going to go to a recount, and you never know how that was going to be.

But, I mean, it was an enormous amount of pride. I will say this, out of everything that I've done, including winning gold medals and representing my country on the field of play, the greatest honor that I've ever had is representing my community in the Iowa. legislature, without a doubt. I want to talk about that case you're making to those Republican voters that you met at the door and kind of fast forwarding to today, you know, what that case would look like in 26 because Trump wins state by double digits. You know, turnout as part of the game, of course, but like you're going to have to win people that voted for Donald Trump,

kind of a lot of them. And so I'm wondering like what the case is that you're making to that Trump voter when you hear them right now. The case is that Iowans are hurting all across. of state and it's because of bad federal policy. We are a state that is dead last for economic growth. We're 48th for personal income growth where one of two states are already in an economic decline. We're basically dead last for nearly every health care metric. We've closed 250 more clinics and we've opened over the last 15 years. Only state with a growing cancer rate now leading the nation in foreign foreclosures because of the tariffs. Iwans are hurting in a very, very real way. And then you add that into the fact that this is the first time since 1968, that there's no power of incumbency, open governor's race, along with an open Senate race and two open congressional races.

And this is a state that is a common-sense state that in Trump's first midterm, we win three of the four congressional races, almost win all four. And in 2022, we're only 1.5% away from having three of our six state-wide officials being Democrats. This is a common sense state that has bottomed out, no power of incumbency, and great candidates like myself and Rob San with proven abilities to be able to win over independence and moderate Republicans and Iowans all over the state. It doesn't matter urban or rural area are ready for change. And you've got people like Ashley Hinson that have absolutely voted to decimate the state. She voted for 110,000 Iowans to lose their health care, thousands more to lose food assistance, 119,000 Iowans seeing that. their health care premiums, double or triple, because of her not continuing the ACA subsidies, someone that didn't support a ban on stock trading.

Meanwhile, she's become 10 times more wealthy, someone that has supported the idea of raising the age of Social Security. You could go on and on and on. Ashley Henson has not looked out for Iowa. She's just been a rubber stand for Trump and just looked out for the billionaires and the 1%, the lobbyist and the donors. And Iowans are tired of that. They're fed up and they want someone that's going to go out there.

They're in fight for them. And all these people that are hurting all across Iowa, I can say, I know you're hurting. I've been there. I've felt that struggle because I've grown up in the same way. And this is why I'm doing this because you need a fighter for you in the U.S. Senate. I want that to be true. I want to live in that world where the Trump voters are responsive to their economic concerns. I'm not 100% sure that they are.

And I always think back to like when I had Joe Manchin on the pod, it's like Westroot. I mean, if there's any state being governed worse than Iowa, it's West Virginia, and they keep elected Republicans. And so that makes me wonder if it's cultural issues, right? And people aren't, maybe they say they're voting their economic concerns, but deeply it's a cultural thing. And I look at the hints and ad that she's put out against you, the two issues she brings up is sex changes for kids and amnesty for criminal illegals.

And so I'm wondering how you'd kind of respond to that attack and to the broader question of whether there's like a cultural disconnect between the Democrats and Iowans. I think that if we're going to win in Iowa, I think it's going to be on cost. It's going to be on kitchen table issues. It's going to be on corruption. And the one thing that I would say is, look, we don't have to win this 100 to zero. There are certainly Republicans that, regardless of what happens in the state or in the country, they're going to continue to support and vote that direction. But all we have to do is just get one more vote than Ashley Hinson to be able to win this. And what I know is you've got 37 percent of the the voters here in Iowa that are independence. And I've got a unique ability between my story, background, resume, and my politics focusing on the kitchen table issues, cost and corruption as a common sense prairie populist that has a proven ability to be able to win these folks over. I know that. Again, I represent two communities. Trump, one Carter Lake by 18 points. One council blessed by 10 points. I was able to win my district by nearly six points. I know that I have a unique ability to be able to

to connect with these people, and it's by focusing on the issues that apply to them. It's economic populism. It's prairie populism and not focusing so much on the kitchen table issues. They can bring up all these distractionary issues, but the reality is you can't lie to people. When people are struggling just to afford groceries, just to pay their electric bill, can't keep food on the table, and now can't keep gas in their tanks,

and you're leading the nation in farm foreclosures, and farmers all over the state, tell me over and over and over what we feel is betrayal because Trump gives $20 billion to Argentina. Meanwhile, our Iowa farmers, soybean farmers are upside down on their commodities prices. I islands are ready for change in a real way. On that immigration question, though, look, man, I hear you. I hear everything you said. I worked for McCain's campaign in Iowa in 2008.

And I remember being shocked. Like, I was a kid from the Colorado suburbs. I liked McCain because he was a moderate Republican. I was one of the guys that you were trying to get in this election. Not anymore, but I was back then, and I went to this town hall, I think it was a council Bluffs, actually, not to think about it. And he does Q&As. And it's like the first nine questions are about immigration. That doesn't make any sense to me why immigration was so important to Iowa voters, but it was important then, and that was 18 years ago now. Crap, I'm getting old.

And like now Ashley Hinton's using that same issue in an ad against you. It's like, how do you talk to Iowa voters about that issue? Because for whatever reason, they do seem to care about it. I mean, I certainly think that my voting records speaks to my ability to part ways with my party. I was one of three Democrats to vote for a bill here in Iowa to try to address immigration in a common sense way in lieu of any federal activity. And honestly, it shouldn't be addressed at the state level. But that's because of the failure of people like Ashley Henson being willing to do something about it. I also can talk about it in a personal way. I'm married to an immigrant. I've gone through the process. And I say that if you have come here illegally, you've

committed violent crimes, then you should no longer be here. I recognize that we need to have safe and secure borders, but we also need to have an easier pathway to citizenship for individuals that want to come here and work hard and make their communities better. You can have both. They're not mutually exclusive. And so I think talking about it in a common sense way is the way forward. I think that's where Iowans are. I think that's where Americans are. One other funny thing on the cultural question. Then I had shown a couple of other issues is this guy, Zach Lane wins the governor's race.

It'll be Rob Sandron against him, not you. But I don't know anything about me. It comes out of nowhere. It turns out I think he is from Kansas until about two minutes ago. But I pull up his Twitter feed. I'm doing a deep dive, a personal deep dive last night around midnight because I'm a sicko. And his Twitter bio is talking about how he wants to restore Iowa's culture and heritage. He's not even from.

Like, he lived in Kansas until two minutes ago. But like, and that shows you what you're up against, right? Like, I don't even know what that means. Like, in the South, we know what it means when people say heritage, not hate. But like, what is he even talking about when he's talking about restoring culture and heritage? Like, how do you respond to that? I don't know how to respond to that other than to say, if you want to restore Iowa to the way that we were, we were number one in public education and now we've precipitously dropped.

So we need somebody that's going to actually go out there and fight for our public schools. And I believe public money belongs in public schools. We had vibrant rural communities that are being absolutely decimated because of bad federal policy. These rural communities are being hollowed out because we're only looking out for the billionaires in the large multinational corporations. We've done nothing on small businesses. These small communities have lost their pharmacies. They've lost their grocery stores.

We're closing health care clinics all over the state because of Medicaid cuts because of what Ashley Hinson has voted for there. And now we're even closing the public schools. These are the pillars of these rural communities. So if he's talking about bringing Iowa back, what we need is we need prairie populace like we had for 30 years with Senator Harkin and actually policies that are going to actually help the middle class that's being hollowed out. And that's a livable wage, affordable housing, affordable health care, drinkable water, addressing our cancer rates and addressing the corruption that we're seeing both at the state level and at the federal level. Let's talk about the drinkable water. That was a new one to me. My colleagues here along with his focus groups and I was listening to our Iowa focus groups for this interview.

and several people brought up the cancer water in Iowa and shows you I haven't been reading my Des Moines Register lately because that was a new one to me. What's happening with that? What is the concern and controversy around the water in Iowa? Yeah, well, we have the second highest rates of cancer behind only Kentucky. We put $0 essentially of state appropriation. Every single year I was in the legislature, I sponsored a bill to put $1 for every single Iowa wants to address this with the big, beautiful bill that. Ashley Hinson supported, we ended up losing what little money that we had coming in to address the cancer crisis here in Iowa, $34 million. The cancer crisis has certainly touched my life deeply and

personally. I lost my grandmother to pancreatic cancer. My father, because of exposure to Agent Orange has dealt with several ballots of cancer. And nearly the day that I launched this campaign, my sister got diagnosed with stage two breast cancer, has private insurance. And the private insurance basically said, you don't have enough cancer. If you don't have stage three or stage four, we won't cover the PET scan to see if the cancer spread to other parts of your body. And so first and foremost, we need to return the funding that we lost. We also need to make sure that we've got guardrails on insurance companies because doctors should be siding care, not insurance companies.

And then we have to address the root cause of this cancer crisis, which is the water quality crisis. And we've got a nitrate level crisis. And we need to put more infrastructure to be able to address that. We need more incentives to our farmers. This is to prevent them from incentivize them from putting down fertilizer in the winter months to incentivize them to put down cover crops. Land barriers, like a lot of states, mandate.

We certainly don't want to put any more financial burden in onus because we're at risk of, I mean, we're really in a farmageddon here. But we've got to address this nitrate level issue that we've got with our water quality because it is absolutely leading to our cancer rates. And this is what I want to fight for in the U.S. Senate. Let's talk a little bit more about that farm again. This is something I've been reading a lot about, but I'm not out there. You're actually talking to these folks.

A lot of discussion around the tariffs, obviously, but now the war in Iran has created increasing costs around fertilizer, which is going to affect Iowa. You mentioned the farm bankruptcies. I was reading also about suicides up in farm country. How are people being impacted directly on the ground? Like, is it the tariffs is the fertilizer? Give me some anecdotes about what you're hearing. Everywhere that I'm going, I mean, it is a scary place right now in time to be an Iowa farmer.

It is. It's a farm again. It's a second farm crisis. We're hearing from farmers all across the state. I mean, what we hear is this is betrayal and we'll hear this is just one gut punch after another. The first issue is, yes, absolutely. The tariffs have crushed our farmers. And that's why we hear betrayal.

Trump administration gives $20 billion to Argentina. Meanwhile, our Iowa soybean farmers are upside down on their commodities prices. But it's not just that. That's just the most recent issue. We've done nothing to address the monopolies that have led to input prices being basically doubled. The war in Iran has certainly led to increased cost in diesel fuel, but that's also led to increased cost on fertilizer. I mean, I was hearing over and over from farmers saying, I'm not even sure I'm going to be able to afford fertilizer. mean while as we're coming into planting season.

At the federal level, we haven't done anything. Is that right? So I was getting mixed a reason of that. So when, because some people were saying like, this isn't that big a deal right now because a lot of farmers pre-buy their fertilizer, you know, but that's, but you are getting into fall planting season. And I guess some of them hadn't.

That's what you're hearing. That's what I was hearing. I was hearing a significant amount of them were concerned about not even being able to afford any fertilizers. They were going into planting season. And also at the federal level, look, we've done nothing on right to repair to allow farmers to actually be able to repair their equipment in timely manner. I sponsored a bill in the Iowa legislature to address this at the state level in lieu of action at the federal level. We don't have mandatory country of origin labeling on our beef producers.

This is why we've lost 100,000 beef producers in this country over the last 10 years. And we haven't passed a farm bill. And what I'd like to do if I'm able to get up to the United States Senate is to put a, mandate on Congress that when the five years is up for a farm bill, that Congress is not able to adjourn without passing a farm bill. I mean, we have, what Ashley Henson and our Iowa delegation has not looked out for our rural communities or our farmers. And I think that they are waking up and they're ready for change. They're ready for a genuine common sense prairie populists like myself that is actually going to look out for them, not just faux populism. I love the right to repair.

That's a good one. That's a good populist issue. All right, man. I'm sure you've got other things to get to. Are you going to have time to watch the NBA finals tonight, do you think? Game one. I don't know. I would love to. Maybe on your phone for anybody. For anybody out there, look, I love Winbeana. He's, I mean, is a long-time basketball player. He's such a unique individual. But I think basketball is at its best when the mecca of basketball is rocking. And so I'm actually rooting for the Knicks to win for the first time since 73. If you were going to model yourself, you know, from your wheelchair basketball career after You know, one of the players in the NBA?

Is there somebody that you look to? I thought that I had a game that maybe somebody like a Carmelo Anthony. I was kind of a point forward. I was somebody that shot the ball a whole lot. I didn't have a whole lot of assist. In college, I scored over 4,000 career points. I led the leagues in scoring. I led the USA team in scoring.

That was really my knack. I was great from the mid-range. That was my strength. I love that. Mello, volume shooter. maybe if, and tonight's Jalen Brunson, maybe, of the guys playing tonight. That's right. Did a little more post-up shooting than Jailen Brunson. But I like, I love Jailen Brunson.

I like the game. I'm looking forward to a good finals. San Antonio against New York. It's going to be a good one. All right, man. Good luck out there on the campaign trail. Thank you. A, for anyone out there real quick.

If you're interested, please join us. Turek for Iowa, Turik, the number four, Iowa.com. Really do believe that this is a generational opportunity that we've got to be able to win the Senate seat back here. If we can win the Senate seat, I believe we can get to 51 in the U.S. Senate. We can fundamentally change the state of Iowa, and we can change this country, but we can only do it with your help. Good politician, good comms team, remembering to do that. I usually remember to tee up the website, but as a former flack, but we were getting into back, you know, once we got into basketball talk, it fluttered out of my mind.

So, uh, 10 months, I'm getting my reps. I'm getting my 10,000 hours. Uh, buddy. I'm hoping to get up to Iowa in the fall, so hopefully we'll have a chance to overlap in person. All right. Good luck at the campaign trail. Thank you. All right. Thanks so much to Luke Russard and to Josh Turek. We'll be back, I think, another doubleheader tomorrow. So it's going to be another good one. Hope to see you all then. Peace. The Bork podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate Producer Anzzie Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.