The Daily Beast Podcast - Everyone Should Be ‘Terrified’ of What’s Happening In Europe

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

It’s a new era for The New Abnormal! But things are still pretty abnormal. Co-host Andy Levy is back with guest co-host Danielle Moodie, co-host the Democrayish podcast, to hilariously unpack the last few days’ worth of politics news, including the “terrifying” and fascist woman who won Italy’s election and what that means for us here in the United States. Hint: Nothing good. Also, their joint hope that New York AG Leticia James will finally be able to “burst” Trump’s billionaire bubble. Then! Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe breaks down for Andy the Brett Favre Mississippi welfare scheme, in which Favre and other state officials are accused of funneling $77 million worth of welfare funds to their own personal projects—none of which had anything to do with where the funds needed to go. But a former WWE wrestler is now getting in the mix with major allegations that Wolfe shares with Andy. Plus, Daily Beast reporter Jake Lahut, who focuses on Republican campaigns, joins to talk what he’s seeing in the field, and the time he cornered J.D. Vance with a question about abortion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. And I'm producer Jesse Kennett, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some great guest co-hosts, as well as some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try to make some sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What an excellent show we have today.

First, we're going to talk to Anna Wolf, who's an investigative reporter from Mississippi today, who's been all over the amazing story of Brent Farve and some misallocated funds down in Mississippi. Then we're going to talk to Daily Beast political reporter, Jake LaHut, who's going to talk to us about a bunch of races across the country. But first, we have Danielle Moody, who's, of course, the host of WokeyF Daily,

and the co-host of Democracy-ish, and, of course, a Daily Beast contributor. Daniel Moody. Andy Levy. Thank you so much for joining us and for guest co-hosting with me today. I'm super excited to have you here. I love it here. I'm so excited to be here.

So let's jump into it. We got an interesting new poll showing that former President Donald Trump, who you probably remember as the former president, who thinks he's still the president, his support among Republican voters, at least according to this poll, has gone down. And it hasn't gone down just a little bit. it's gone down like 20%. What do you make of this? I mean, did he kill anybody? Because that was the only thing that I thought would bring his poll numbers down with Republicans. So that's shocking in it of itself. But the fact is, I mean, the man is facing how many lawsuits I've lost count. So at some point, you're like, do I still hitch my cart to this horse that seems to be, you know, struggling?

Like, struggling out of the gate? Or do we look for another fascist to tie our destiny to? So, you know, it's a toss up. But 20 points, that's a steep drop. I'm certain there's ketchup smeared somewhere in Mara Lago over this. Absolutely. The one thing I will say where I disagree with you to the extent where I actually feel pretty good about just saying flat out you are wrong is I think if he killed someone, his numbers would go up.

I know. As soon as I said it, I was like, what am I thinking? Honestly, that's where I actually, I thought, that's where you were going to go. I thought you were going to say, did he kill someone? Because if he did, I'm surprised his numbers have gone down. Yeah, interesting. But yeah, no, I think you're right.

Look, I don't know if it's just fatigue. And I don't know if it's all the lawsuits, which I know you said you've lost track. I believe it's 74. A number I may have just made up. But maybe I didn't. I don't know. But the interesting thing to me is, like, his numbers went up after the, FBI did its thing at Mar-a-Lago. I don't know. There was all this talk about how all of this was going to

help Trump. And, you know, it's the whole deep state thing. And it's the whole they're out to get him. And by proxy, they're out to get me. And there was that whole, if they can do this to the president, imagine what they can do to you kind of thing. Is it possible? We were just all wrong about that. And that even though it went up in the short term for the Mar-a-Lago thing, we now have the Tish James civil suit here in New York. and it's sort of a drip, drip, drip, water torture kind of thing, maybe, and maybe it's having an effect. I don't know. I feel like the one being tortured, though. Like, I feel like the one that is consistently being fucking waterboarded by the Trump's. Like, drown me already. I think that, you know, the reality here with regard to Republicans, you know, the funny thing is, is that I think that

the Tish James case is actually going to hurt Donald Trump more than anything else. Because here's the thing, when you can frame, you know, the Department of Justice and the FBI as like this deep state just out to get Donald Trump. But when you start to look at how he's been able to inflate his wealth, how he's been able to essentially get over economically, I don't think that that's something that the regular Joe in the Midwest or whoever it is that they pander to some random white person that's never been outside of their town. Like I think that, you know, they're the people that are paying taxes. They're the people that don't know how to get over on government. They're the people that are actually, you know, being squeezed to their last drop in terms of like how long their money is actually going. And so to think that Donald Trump is this, you know, multi-millionaire that has just been

able to, you know, squeeze the little guy, I don't think that that's a narrative that they want to get behind. That doesn't, that's not like a, oh yeah, they're attacking all of us. It's like, no, you're super wealthy and privileged, and you've been able to inflate the value of everything that you own in order to get over on regular people. And oh, that's right. I'm regular people, right? And so I think that Tish James in that case is kind of bursting the fantasy bubble around Donald Trump as this like multi-billionaire that you want to be like. I think that's a really good point. And, you know, a lot of the way I've seen this sort of a meager effort at framing this is that Trump and the Trump organization were basically doing what everybody does. Well, I think, unfortunately, that's true with regard to people like Trump. I think all the people like him do exactly what he did. That doesn't go, as you exactly pointed out, that doesn't go for the rest of the country. And Trump's big thing was drain the swamp and stop this sort of, runs completely counter to that, which, look, we've all known that it doesn't get any swampier than Trump. But I do think that stuff like this maybe makes people say to themselves, you know what, he's not the solution. He's part of a fucking problem. And maybe everything else he's saying isn't true. So hopefully that's the case. I'm always kind of cynical about the stuff. And I want to point out also,

this poll is the 20% drop is from 2020. So it's not like from six months ago or anything. anything like that. And it still has 47% of the Republicans in his poll think he should be their nominee, and 46% don't. So again, that's down, it was 67% back in 2020. It's still almost half of all Republicans want him to be their nominee, which is frightening in and of itself. You know, it is this ABC News, Washington Post poll. So this is a fairly reliable poll. It's not some weirdo outlier poll. It is interesting that it's down as much as it is. It still boggles the mind that almost half the Republican Party is like, this should be our guy in 2024. I mean, when you look at the candidates that they are running from members of the House to the Senate, everybody is a carbon

copy of this guy. They are, they have brought out the worst of the worst. Mitch McConnell even said, oh, well, you know, these are not necessarily the best people. I don't know if we're going to actually win the Senate back because they all suck. The reality is that Republican don't have a really high bar that folks need to meet, right? Like, you would think that not being a criminal, that not having multiple lawsuits waged against you would be like the thing that people are like, you know, can we have a fairly clean type of guy that one that isn't battling for his life, right? Particularly has the potential to go bankrupt.

We're talking about $250 million that New York is seeking in damages and we're not even sure he's worth that. The reality is, I don't know what Republicans are thinking, but I got to say, the thing that stood out to me recently was Jared Kushner finding himself wagging his finger at Ron DeSantis and the migrant bullshit that he's doing. And I'm just like, I'm sorry, Satan. What? Like pot kettle? What do you know, what's happening here? But that's who they're going after. It's like, if you're not going to go with Trump, they're going to end up with that guy. So it's like, who's better? I know. I have no idea. No, it's lose-lose. I mean, but, and you're right. And the hilarious thing about the Jared Kushner thing is he's wagging his finger at Ron DeSantis for doing this inane stunt and inane and cruel stunt. But at the same time, Kushner's father-in-law, Donald Trump, is apparently mad because he's claiming, this was my idea that DeSantis stole from me. So it's like, like there really is, there's no good way out of this because the Republican nominee in 2024 is.

is not going to be a Mitt Romney type, which, not to rise to my feet in defense of Mitt Romney, but at least he's not that. We don't know what Mitt Romney is, but he's not that, right? Like, I don't know what he is, but he's not that. We know he's not that. And as you said, the bar is so low right now, like the bar is so low, if you tried to have a limbo contest, nobody would be able to get under it. because it's basically the bar is might as well be underground at this point.

It's so fucking low. So it's just, yeah, I don't know. I'm glad that Trump's numbers are down, I guess. You know, when you think to yourself who benefits and the answer is probably someone like a Ronda Santis, I guess you laugh and cry. It's the laugh cry emoji where you're just doing both at the same time. I've been trying to put my finger on how I've been feeling. That's it, Andy.

I'm the laugh cry emoji in human form. that's what I do on a regular basis. We're not supposed to use that emoji because Gen Z doesn't like it. And I happen to agree with them on this. I never used that actual emoji. But that is, I think, unfortunately, where we are right now. Let's go outside of the country for a minute and go to the fabulous country of Italy, which maybe might be a little less fabulous given what has just happened in the last couple days.

They had national elections. and it looks like right now the clear winner is a coalition that includes this far-right party, the brothers of Italy. I think the worst thing you could say about them is their fascists and the nicest thing you could say about them is their neo-fascists. When I started looking into Georgia Maloney and realizing that at 15 years old, she enlisted into the fascist party in Italy. At 15, I'm like, what was happening in your household? Like, what was going on?

Like, should somebody have called CPS? Because, like, I would have called Child Protective Services and been like, what's happening here? How are you at 15 not, you know, bobbing your head to some bullshit pop star? And instead, you're like, you know what? You know what I want to do at my slumber parties? Talk about Mussolini. Like, what? Hitler youth stuff is what that is.

She's terrifying for so many reasons. I think most because Steve Bannon is one of her best friends along with like Victor Orban, you know, like these are, this is her, these are her people. You know how they say birds of a feather? These are her people. And I'm just like, oh my God. I don't, can I visit Italy? Are we going to be able to go there? I don't think so.

She doesn't like migraine. She don't like queer people. I definitely can't go. I probably end up in somebody's jail. Like black and queer? I'm Jewish. I don't think I can go either. So I think between the two of us, we're going to have to do this podcast right from here in America.

Maybe Jesse can go. I don't know if he wants to, which he might. With Jesse, the thing is he keeps his political views. There's something going on there. So I'm not real clear on that. This is only because you're not on Instagram and don't see the stories. That's true. I am not on Instagram.

There's a couple interesting things here. You brought up Victor Orban and people like that. And yet, this seems to be, unfortunately, this is maybe a growing trend in Europe. And you're right. It's not an accident that Steve Bannon is involved in all these things. And it's also not an accident, but also kind of interesting, that we, all these conservative groups and places like the Heritage Foundation that were aghast when Joe Biden referred to the semi-fascist elements of the GOP, they're all very excited by this win. The only thing they can be mad about is the semi part, because they are sitting here supporting

that George Maloney, who, I mean, this party, they're the heirs to Benito Mussolini, unless I'm wrong about that, but I don't think I am. That's exactly who they are. And the funny thing is, not funny, ha ha, but funny sad, is that she's going to be the first female leader, right? Heading up the third largest economy in Europe. So we're excited about this, right? But this is the thing. It's like, you're like, so a fascist right-wing woman is going to become the leader, of Italy before we in the United States have a Madam President. Like that just shows you just how divergent things have become in this

world. But like you can't even celebrate her because she actually hates women. She has put out anti- she's put out anti-abortion an anti-abortion manifesto. She has talked about the quote traditional family. Meanwhile, she's a single mother and raising a daughter. so apparently she hates herself as well. It's absolutely bizarre because she also founded, I believe, this group. She's a woman but calls it the brothers of Italy.

I'm like, wait, what? Like, who are you? I find her so troubling. No, it's really bad. But, of course, you know, conservatives are wasting no time. I've already seen the tweets and whatever saying, oh, well, I guess I'm sure my friends on the left will be celebrating the first woman leader of Italy, right? Right? And it's like, man, shut up.

Like, nobody actually thinks that way. You know, you, that's your dumb thing in your head. And I guess, again, this is, I guess, maybe the ban in playbook, but she sort of has been doing that thing where she's like, she dips her toes into the fascism. I mean, she's fascist. Right. Let's call it what it is. But it's this sort of, I guess, fascism with a conservative face is maybe a way to say it, where they try to pretend that they're just ordinary run-of-the-mill conservative. as opposed to fascist?

This is why the right wing is really, and I'm going to, it's like a backhanded compliment, and I'm going to like, it's coming up like vomit. But this is what I will say. They weaponize women in such a way that allows you to have a softer face, a more feminized face of fascism. It makes it seem so much more palpable, right,

than having these, you know, fist-wielding, right wing white men, right? Because they can formulate themselves as seeming progressive, right? What you alluded to with the tweets coming out from American conservatives saying, oh, is this going to be a celebration? Because it's a woman, right? But they use women to be the face of mayhem. And that's what I think that you're going to see more and more of. It's what Republicans in the United States are doing. You're seeing some of the women that they're running. And you're just like, oh, my God, you're just Trump in a They're going to be able to make it easier to digest all of the things that they are throwing out anti-immigration, anti-LGB, anti-migrant, right? But you put a feminine face on it and it makes it easier.

And that is going to be something that we're going to need to really pay attention to. Because what's happening in Europe is like this crazy reordering of power that everyone globally should be terrified of. what would have happened after World War II during World War II if there was no America, if there was no strong will democracy to weigh in, right? This is where we are right now, where democracy is dwindling not just in this country, not just backsliding here, but globally. And there's a reordering towards fascism that we haven't seen since World War II. And so what happens, you know, if this is now the new,

New World Order. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. It's frightening because, you know, America for all its many, many, many flaws, at the very least was maybe for a long time, sort of a bulwark against, you know, fascism and stuff like that. And kind of not so much these days, it feels like, no, particularly on the right. It's all common cause. Like, look, we talk on this show many times, Victor Orban is an honored guest at CPAC conventions. I have pretty much no doubt that, you know, Georgia Maloney will be, will get standing ovations at future CPAC events. It's a little frightening. And I was just looking at the brother's slogan is God, fatherland family.

Oh, dear God. I mean, say what you want about the God part and the family part. But again, as a Jew, I hear the word fatherland and I am not in a good mood. So I don't know. We'll see what happens there. But it's not looking good. I just said and say, you look at who is celebrating this win. And we mentioned Victor Orban.

We mentioned Steve Bannon, the Trump, the Trump alites in, you know, in the United States. You had Maria Le Pen, right, who lost her race in France, but like is still gaining. She's gaining, you know, an audience in France. And she's congratulating this win. And so you see what is happening. you have leaders in Spain who are also a part of the same type of fascist regime, like celebrating this as a victory because they're gaining ground. And I'm like, and if America is no longer the America that we know that as flawed as it is

is still the beacon of democracy, if that light actually just goes out, what happens in the world is going to be something that we've never seen and could have prepared for, right? because here, this election happened, it was the lowest turnout that Italy has had. And so that, again, is an alarm for Americans. Why did she win? Because nobody showed up. Yeah.

Let's talk about this turn in America and the problems here. Let's talk about Ted Cruz. You were saying before we started taping that he was one of your favorite senators. He was at a thing called the Texas Tribune Festival down in Austin, Texas over the weekend. And he got a little booed for talking about his plan to end school shootings, which was to put more police officers in schools. This baffles me because anyone with, I think, half a brain knows that that's not the solution to school shooters. But Republicans don't want to talk about what the actual answers to school shooters might be. So they get up there and they say, we need more cops, which, as we've seen recently, I don't know, you might say it doesn't work all that well.

You know, let me say something crazy. There were, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 of them standing outside of the Evaldi, you know, Rob Elementary School doing not a goddamn thing. Right. Right. They were standing in front of a door waiting for a key to go in that was, I think, already open. fiddling with hand sanitizer. So, you know, the other time that Ted Cruz was talking about what happened in Evaldi, he also said that the solution wasn't, of course, to take away the very obvious weapon of war

that is gunning down children in their fucking classrooms, but that we should, you know, have one door because he's also an urban planner and apparently an architect. It is absolutely fucking baffling that Ted Cruz offers every, every idea except the one that staring you in the face, which is if we raise age limits, if we ban assault rifles, which no one uses to hunt anything other than other human beings, I think that maybe you could look at the data from when we actually had an assault weapons ban and national assault weapons ban that the Bush administration allowed to lapse and this is why we find ourselves in this place that you would see, oh, those shootings were less, right? And it wasn't because

we had schools with one door. It wasn't because, like, you had more cops in the building. It was because people couldn't get their hands on a gun that could kill 20 people in less than 20 seconds. Yeah, I remember saying at the time, like, I was actually, of all the things they were going to go with, I was like, door control? That's their solution? Door control? That's their solution? Door control? that's what they want. Like it's just, it's unbelievable. Anything to avoid the issue of semi-automatic rifles being in the hands of 18-year-olds or younger than that even sometimes.

And it's just, I can't even say it's baffling to me as a thinking human being. It's not baffling to me in the sense that, yeah, this is what they do. But the interesting thing was when Cruz spoke at this thing, he gets brood for his dumb suggestions and then he says, oh, you guys can sing kumbaya with them and hope they'll just stop, which of course is not anything anyone is suggesting. And then someone from the audience, according to a business insider, yelled out, 18-year-old boys don't need an AR-15, and that got applause. I mean, it's just, Ted Cruz is an asshole. And I don't, like, and I honestly, I think often about the people of Texas. And I'm just like, why? What is, you know, what?

What's wrong with you, in all honesty? Why? Why do you put this man back in the Senate? You know, I don't understand because he is an idiot and he does not care about it. I mean, you can literally say anything about Ted Cruz and he'll kiss the ring, he'll flip-flop. I mean, he's just a spineless, disgusting human being. But to say on that stage that he cares about children above all else and wants to do everything in his power, I'm like, shut the actual. fuck up. Like, you are an embarrassment, right? And if you really cared about children, then you would make

sure that children don't have access to weapons of war. Then you would do something other than saying that the answer to bad guys is to put good guys with guns in charge as if that it has ever been a solution for anything other than turning America into the Wild Wild Wild West. So I wish that people, I'm glad that they booed him, but I would rather than vote him out. Yeah. That's No, that would be ideal. Yeah, I mean, I think I've said this before. I'm not sure. But, like, there are, there are Republicans, particularly in the Senate, who I think when they look at themselves in the mirror, they feel bad because they know what they're doing is wrong. I don't think Ted Cruz is one of them. I don't think he has a soul. The man flew to Cancun while his state was freezing and people were literally dying. You talk about looking in the mirror, like, I'm pretty sure vampires can't see their fucking reflection. So yes, he's not going to be. be able to look in the mirror and say, oh, you know, I should think better of myself because he's a ghoul.

Okay, yes, I will agree with you that he's a ghoul. I, we have a tendency to put all vampires in the bad category. And I, you're right. Hashtag not all vampires. I think there are some good vampires out there who only drink blood consensually. And I'm going to pull you back there before, because we'll get letters. We'll get a lot of overnight emails. I don't mean the twilight vampires.

Exactly. You know, that are, that are. Not the sparkly ones. The sparkly ones. Not the sparkly ones. Yeah. Right. They're good.

You're right. Hashtag not all vampires. I'm here. I'll make the t-shirts. Okay. Jesus Christ. He read word you two of you. Anna Wolf is an investigative reporter writing about poverty and the economic

justice from Mississippi today. So there's a huge story that's been coming out of Mississippi for quite some time now involving the state's misuse of tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in welfare funds. It involves the state's former Republican governor, current Republican governor, many government officials, and pro football Hall of Famer Brett Farve. Joining us now to talk about this is the Mississippi Today reporter whose investigations have broken many of the headlines around this, Anna Wolf. Anna, thanks so much for being with us. Yeah, thank you for having me. So I want to start sort of at the beginning

for people who don't know this story at all. And please correct me if I've got any of the facts wrong. So there's this welfare program that's at the heart of this called TAMF, which is temporary assistance for needy family and it's sort of a block grant program where the federal government disperses the money or gives the money to the state and then the state decides how to disperse it. Is that correct? That's right. Okay. And because it works this way, it gives all this power and discretion to the governor basically to decide how this money is going to be given out. And that's, I guess, where former governor, Phil Bryant comes in. That's exactly right. I mean, it is kind of interesting. This is a fund that comes from the federal government. It doesn't go through, for example,

the state legislature. So the governor's office has the sole discretion over how it will be spent. Okay. And back in April, you wrote that while he was Mississippi's governor, the welfare department that Bryant oversaw, misused and squandered at least $77 million in federal funds meant to assist the state's poorest residents. So walk us through how he did this. So back in 2016, Bill Bryant appointed a new director to the Department of Human Services. That's the state agency that administers these funds. Prior to this, the department has, had sort of dismantled a pretty common process for accountability within giving government grants called an RFP or request for proposals process, kind of known as the bid process. And so they

weren't taking applications from, for example, service organizations, nonprofits who wanted to receive TANF money to provide services to people in need. They were just kind of carte blanche giving the money out to whoever they wanted to. There was not really strong accountability practices in place to determine whether that money was being used the way that it was supposed to. And especially, they did not have good outcome reporting to show who they were helping, right? And what outcomes the people that they were serving had once they left the program. So around 2016-17, the governor directed the welfare agency head to push out the money to just two nonprofits, who would then be able to disperse the money to different organizations across the state. And that really

opened up this opportunity for those two nonprofits to spend the money, they became kind of a black hole where none of the information about how they were spending the money went back to the state agency and then was public. And that's where you saw Brett Farr reach out to the nonprofit director and say, is there any way that anyone can find out where this money came from and how much if you give it to me? And she said, no, we never disclosed that information because again, they were spending the money and that information was not then going back to the state agency. After six people were initially arrested in February of 2020, I was able to tie Brett Farb's involvement back to a company that received $2 million in stolen welfare funds. It was a pharmaceutical company that he was sponsoring and then also

broke the volleyball story that same month. Okay, so walk us through this volleyball story. We're looking at like $5 million that, again, is supposed to go to like the neediest families in Mississippi. Right. So Brett Farb wanted to see this volleyball stadium built at the University of Southern Mississippi, his alma mater, and also where his daughter played volleyball. And so he was attempting to find people to donate to construct this facility. And he somehow wound up having the conversation with the state's welfare officials, namely John Davis, and then the nonprofit found named Nancy New. And back in July of 2017, they sort of all of a sudden committed $4 million to this project. text messages that were just released here recently show that they had reached out to the governor and

get him on board in order to actually push the funding there. And sure enough, the money went to the volleyball stadium and we didn't find out about it until 2020, about two and a half years later. This was still Phil Bryant, correct? That's right. And now I see that you are reporting that in addition to this as sort of a separate thing that Farve wanted to use prison labor to build this volleyball arena? Yeah, I mean, he was sort of communicating with, you know, the governor or other officials. Just at one point, he said that his friend had suggested maybe they could use prison industries to build some lockers at the facility. And it doesn't look like that probably ever occurred. That notion that he had proposed that has certainly gotten the attention of a lot of people

who are reading the story. But not only was he, you know, angling to use money from the Department of Human Services to build this facility. you know, while purporting that the facility was going to serve people in poverty, right? Which is pretty important. Right. But also that maybe they could use free labor from, you know, the incarcerated population in order to finish out the project. So the way I look at this is Farve is obviously the quote unquote sexy part of this story.

And it shouldn't be downplayed because it does seem like truly, truly heinous, like absolutely nauseating that he would do this. But I think we need to talk about. The fraud goes so much further than this, right? Right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was the state really sort of targeting this particular fund because they knew that they could and manipulating it to serve their purposes. And, you know, it's one thing for these officials to use this money to satisfy the desires of their political cronies. But again, this money was supposed to be solving poverty in the poorest state in the country or at least alleviating some suffering for,

people living in poverty. Right. You know, the welfare check is the primary purpose of this TANF program. That's what it's most well known for, although a very small percentage of the money nationally actually goes directly to cash assistance for very poor families. But the check in Mississippi, during the time of this scandal, it hadn't increased for decades, and it was $170 a month for a family of three. That's what we're talking about. Wow. And 99% of people who were applying for this cash welfare, we're being denied the assistance. So it's a very little amount for us to say, basically that through our state leader's actions, I feel like we were telling people that they didn't deserve this money. We were denying 99% of people applying for it. And it's such a small

amount. But I also don't want to downplay the benefit that those dollars have for these families. So even though it sounds like a very small amount, it can make a difference, right? So I just kind of want to, you know, keep the story about the main thing, which is that, yes, this celebrity was able to take advantage of this taxpayer-funded program, but also who all was left out as a result of this and all of the missed opportunities that it created. In one of the pieces you wrote, and I highly, highly encourage our listeners, go to Mississippi Today.com and you've done so much outstanding work on this. In one of the pieces, you said that even if it's, you know, officially proven through investigations and whatever, that all this money that was supposed to go to these needy families was fraudulently diverted elsewhere, there's no recourse for these families to then get the money. That's done. It's over with. You know, the money wasn't going to go to their families in the first place necessarily. Most of the money of this program is pumped out through organizations to provide services like after school programming and, you know, different educational programs. and workforce development, parenting classes, these kinds of things. And, you know, the years that people missed out on those services, those years are gone. Right. You can't get that back.

Think about a parent who had their child taken away because of neglect. You know, neglect makes up the majority of family separations in this country. This is often a result of poverty. Right. These parents, to get their children back, are often court ordered to attend parents. classes. You know, court ordered to have certain things in their home. They have to have a bed. They have to have a roof over their heads. What happens to these families when those services aren't available to them? That's just chilling. So these programs that were supposed to help these parents put a bed in their house or go to these classes and then suddenly these classes aren't

available and the money that's supposed to help them get a bed because it's going to people like Brett Farf. That's exactly what happened. Yeah, I mean, it's sickening. I want to ask you, The current governor of the state, Republican Tate Reeves, he's in charge of the investigation into all of this. Am I correct in thinking that? Yeah. So that is the civil case that you're describing. And the Mississippi Department of Human Services, the state welfare agency, is bringing the civil case against individuals who they're trying to claw back the money from, individuals who received the money improperly. Brett Fav is a defendant in that case, as well as the welfare officials and some other sports celebrities.

That's on the civil side. And, you know, because DHS is the one bringing that suit, DHS is an agency under the governor's office. So the governor ultimately has the control over what is done, you know, what decisions the agency makes. That's why Phil Bryant had such a big role, you know, when this scandal occurred as the person ultimately in charge of the behavior and actions of the welfare agency. Now, there is a separate federal investigation that is ongoing. And John Davis, the former director of DHS, who allegedly perpetuated the scheme, has recently pled guilty to new federal charges. This is new information that came out last week. And he has agreed to aid prosecution exchange for this plea deal.

And after his plea hearing last Thursday, the DA for Hydez County came out and spoke to reporters and said that John Davis was going to be crucial because he said the latter continues to move up. So they are looking at officials higher up the chain who would have had more of a directive role in spending this welfare money. Okay, that's what I wanted to be clear on, because it sounded like the foxes basically were in charge of the henhouse if the current government is in charge of this investigation. But that's just on the civil side. Isn't Tate Reeves himself possibly involved in this fraud with his personal trainer? Yeah. So the civil case, part of the purpose of it in my mind is the state showing the federal government, that it's trying to get the money back, right?

I mean, the federal government, and I'm talking about the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that administers the money to DHS in Mississippi, is going to come back and try to claw the money back at some point, right? Or at least that's the assumption that has been put out there. I do remember hearing from them back in 2020, and they said that the state would have to repay any money that was deemed misspent. And so in an attempt to display that the state is taking an active role

and getting this money back, that has resulted in the civil suit. There is a defendant in the civil suit who Tate Reeves is tied to and not only tied to, but the welfare director who directed the payment to this defendant described paying out this person as the lieutenant governor's fitness issue. The fitness trainer who worked with Tate Reeves and they had meetings about supporting his programming with welfare funds with the lieutenant governor who it does seem like he inspired John Davis to direct that funding to that trainer in these text messages that we uncovered. And so it is a little interesting to think about him controlling the civil suit that includes this defendant that he had

meetings about funding prior to payments going to him. Yeah, that seems less than ideal. So two questions. One, if that money gets repaid, it goes back to the federal government, I assume, right? Again, it doesn't get dispersed to families who need it. It just goes back to the federal government to the Tanaf Poole. That's right. Has anyone repaid the money yet, or is this all just pending on the outcome of this civil suit? Yeah, I should say, like, the money is not going to be paid back. It's not. It's a nice exercise, but we're talking about $19 million that Nancy New is on the hook for in this civil suit. Nancy New doesn't have $19 million. Sure. Most of the defendants are not going to be able to pay this money back. Brett Farve is one of the individuals who the people in charge of this case actually see as someone who

might be able to pay the money back. And he has returned the $1.1 million that he personally received from the welfare agency. He, according to the auditor's office, is still on the hook for an interest payment. But I think that's kind of a, that's almost a side show at this point. Right. Now, the volleyball stadium has not been a target of the civil suit. So that's been one of the big questions about why has Tate Reeves' office or the, or the Department of Human Services, not targeted the volleyball payment in this attempt to recoup the funds. You know, University of Southern Mississippi and the Athletic Foundation is probably one of the entities that is most likely to be able to repay the money. So if the goal was, you know, the actual outcome of getting money paid back, that would be an important

entity to target in the suit. Now, the attorney who was hired initially to bring this case wanted to include the volleyball stadium as an expenditure question in the civil suit. And the governor's office and the powers that B ultimately made him remove that from the suit before filing it. So this is just, I mean, this is just corruption all the way up the chain. You know, they've given an explanation for why they did that, which had to do with a very kind of niche auditing consideration. The volleyball stadium wasn't fully audited in a forensic audit that we commissioned because there was a lack of documentation from the nonprofit that made the purchase. And so that was their just a

that they gave, but it is a little thin. I'm not sure that that's been fully explained. Yeah, it doesn't sound like it. Just lastly, I want to, right before we did this interview, you tweeted that you got a federal complaint against a defendant in this case, unsealed, a case that it had been sealed for the last two years and that there was a revelation in it. Can you let us know what that is? Yeah, absolutely. So there was a federal complaint filed against a former W.W.E. wrestler by the name of Ted DiBiase Jr. or Teddy. And that case really mirrors the federal charges that we now know that have been levied against the former director, John Davis. And so this complaint outlines these allegations against this wrestler that he entered these

welfare contracts fraudulently in order to, you know, take this money for work that he didn't do. He's denying these allegations. But in his answer to the complaint, he didn't. He didn't. He didn't. He describes a scenario where he actually witnessed the former governor, Phil Bryant, tell his welfare director to cut funding to a particular nonprofit that was involved in this, this welfare story. And he asked him to cut the funding to this nonprofit because the nonprofit director was a supporter of the Democratic candidate for governor that year, who was the Attorney General Jim Hood. So now this story doesn't have to do with Brett Farr, right? And so maybe it's not going to make the national airwaves, but that allegation is an allegation of a sitting governor

directing how taxpayer funds will be spent in order to punish a political opponent. That's a big deal. Yeah, that's, wow, that's huge. This was Phil Bryant doing this or Tate Reeves? I just want to be clear. Well, so it was Phil Bryant who directed his welfare director to cut this funding to this nonprofit because of their political support for Democrats. But who that ultimately benefited was current Governor Tate Reeves because that's who he was running against at the time. So this candidate that they're talking about was Tate Reeves' opponent. And none of the, you know, Republicans in office at the time wanted Jim Hood, that's the Democrat I'm talking about, to win. You know, that would disrupt their power structure. That would disrupt the power that they

wielded across the state. It was Phil Bryant helping to get Tate Reeves elected. Right. That sounds absolutely amazing. Anna, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate you explaining all of this to us. This is such a huge story, and you have been there from the beginning every step of the way, breaking news. And again, I encourage our listeners to go to Mississippi Today.com and read all of Anna's excellent reporting on this issue. Anna, thank you so much. Thank you. Jake LaHut is a politics reporter for The Daily Beast. Joining us now is Daily Beast politics reporter Jake LaHudd, who has the incredibly fun-sounding job of focusing on Republican campaigns. Obviously, Jake, my first question is, how do you keep your sanity? Well, hey, great to be on.

And I don't know, I think going back to when I was at local papers in upstate New York, I always kind of thought it was, I don't know, just maybe a tolerance for some of the modern, like Trumpy tactics that, you know, I can just maybe deal with a little bit. Sure. No, that makes sense. Also, I hate how young you are. There's a couple of Republican races and actually now we're in the general primary cycle. But I want to start with J.D. Vance.

What is going on with the former Hillbilly? His fundraising abilities are maybe a little suspect we're learning. Yeah, the campaign's very low on cash. I think the big alarm raising statistic was that they came into this quarter about $900,000 in the red. And again, this is someone who's supposed to be a protege of billionaire Peter Teal. Right. Where I think there was maybe a false assumption out there that that would come with unlimited outside spending to help him. And maybe the campaign shared that assumption. I don't know. But what's weird is there are kind of some parallels to the Dr. Oz campaign here where it's

sort of unclear, like, what are the events, what are they actually doing day to day? often like you only find out about these events after they happen. I think they tried to kind of get him in front of voters and also, you know, at least compared to before, taking questions more than maybe he had been comfortable with during the primary. So I was at least able to try to squeeze in a question to him when he was doing a rally, the weekend of the Trump rally in, this is up in Avon, Ohio. He was at like a flower nursery type place. and he had done a gaggle, you know,

taking a couple questions from reporters afterwards, took a couple from local radio, took one from a conservative outlet, and then it was just me, and then someone from The Guardian, we got skipped. They said he had to go to, like, a radio interview or something.

So, of course, he's getting, bear in mind, like, while this is happening, there's no way he's making it out of this venue in a minute. Like, he's getting, like, pulled aside by old people left and right. Of course. I sort of flank around that

and predict that there's only really one way, he can get out of this place. And it was when he was almost out there that I asked him, like, hey, you know, you mentioned your mamma in your book a lot. And I was wondering if she informed your views on abortion at all. And he says that, you know, she'd had a number of miscarriages and just, you know, didn't really have any kind of access to health care. And it was a very traumatic thing for her.

So he kind of begins to talk about that. The campaign staff is trying to pull them away. And then I'm like, all right, this is my last chance. I ask, you know, hey, would you support. Senator Lindsey Graham's national ban on abortion, and he ducked out of there right away. We weren't able to get any follow up from the campaign. And I think it was kind of indicative of a bit of a bind that some of these higher-profile Senate candidates were in where they need to moderate a little bit to appeal to a general election

audience, even in a state like Ohio. And the fact that the Vance campaign doesn't really have an answer to that yet, I think, shows that they really came out of the primary, other than with the structural advantages of Ohio being Ohio, there isn't a ton more going on there. And they really, really need that outside spending, which it looks like Mitch McConnell, a line pack is going to do that. But in terms of the central campaign infrastructure, it's basically like no more than two or three traveling aids, not a lot of events. And then, you know, the hope was with that big rally in Youngstown, you kind of get the Trump enthusiasm boosts and you ride on some of those coattails.

get a little fundraising boost, sell some merch, lawn signs, that kind of thing. Well, that's, I mean, it's particularly interesting that you bring up the abortion thing because he has been in the past, he's been pretty clear on his views, hasn't he? He's compared abortion to slavery and stuff like that. And now, as you point out, it's not just him. It's other Republicans having to do this too because abortion seems to be an issue that's going to be, you know, as we say in the business on the ballot this November.

And it doesn't seem like the sort of current extreme. view of the GOP is a winner, particularly, as you might expect, with women. So is he trying to play at Corey now and trying to downplay it in general? Yeah, I mean, I guess preferably not talking about it would be the ideal scenario for that. His main three issues, as he put it, even though he forgot to get around at the third one, or the stem speech, were crime, inflation, and then he wanted to talk about the southern border. And yet, we were in Ohio, but the sense that everything was just completely sealed up when Trump was president and now it's all gone haywire. Those were his big messages.

I think that also just, you look at Ohio and someone like Mike DeWine as the governor, even though, yes, he did sign this restrictive abortion bill that I think is still held up in court right now. But I still talk to a couple of voters who were going to split their ticket and go DeWine for governor and Tim Ryan for Senate. And one of them, who I spoke to at a high school football game in Youngstown, he said that abortion was one of his main motivators. Interesting. And Ryan, of course, has, you know, which is maybe not the case with every Democrat. But he seems to have pretty good support among what we now call the white working class union voters and people like that, that a lot of whom, you know, have maybe shifted Republican. So I got to imagine that that's not great for Vance as well. Yeah, and it's hard to get really good data on this, but it's a great point because one thing that started to happen,

and when you talked to, you know, died in the wool labor reporters, uh, they can go into much more detail on sort of the broader pre-Trump dynamics behind this. But basically Trump sort of accelerated this, you know, fissure in a lot of parts of the country between your rank and file union members and then union leadership who would tend to be endorsing Democrats. Right. You look at a state like Montana with a copper union up there, you know, that was a major challenge. for Steve Bullock and one of the reasons why he wasn't able to win the Senate seat up there in 2020. But Tim Ryan seems to kind of defy that. And what was a bit interesting was a recurring theme I encountered among a lot of the Trump rally attendees was one of the first things they would complain about is like that they're in a union.

All the guys they know want to vote Democrat are going to vote for Ryan. And they're like the one guy who's like isolated from it. They also would adamantly, by the way, say that they are fervently pro-union. like they want unions to exist. They like the protections that a union has. They're just like a Trump guy and they don't get along with everyone else because of politics. And they wish the union would be involved in politics less and stuff like that. So the fact that these guys were like bringing that up immediately when you talk to them,

I thought it was a bit of a tell with, you know, even though they were talking a big game about how they think, you know, JD Vance is going to whip Tim Ryan and this and that. Like the social, just immediate kind of palpable connections that they have to Ryan, where it's just not even like a question of like, oh, who? Where with Vance, you know, when you're bringing him up to a lot of voters, people really don't, like, unless you're on the circuit where a book like Hillbilliology is being promoted, you probably haven't heard a JD dance before. Like if you don't want to Tucker Carlson, you probably haven't heard a JD dance before. Right. So I just keep running into all these people who hadn't heard of him, but everybody knows someone in their family who's in a union. and that person knows who Tim Ryan is.

So I think that's the best thing he has going for him. Like Ohio is still Ohio, but he has that, with the union touch, the goal would be for Tim Ryan to assemble what a political scientist described to me as like a Sherrod Brown-type coalition. Right. Those have happened in off years. You know, it's your union guys and even some undecided voters who might split their ticket, but they like that they think, you know, you have the core interests of the local economy at heart. That's kind of what it would all boil down to when you remove the union aspect, you know.

Gotcha, yeah. Well, look, a lot of polls have it, you know, sort of within the margin of error there. So we'll see what happens. I want to shift a little north and a little east over to the great state of New Hampshire where the GOP selected a guy named Don Baldock as its candidate for Senate. He's made some news. First for what you might call a little bit of a pivot. on the issue of the 2020 election results, he was a firm sort of stopped the steel and the election was stolen guy in his primary campaign. And then, like, right after the primaries, he went on Fox News and said that he now believed

Joe Biden was the winner of the election. And he explained in his words that, quote, people live and learn. Obviously, he's trying to do that, the pivot to the general. But is this a lost cause? guy a lost cause. I mean, that's, that's a ridiculous pivot. Yeah, I think most serious Republicans in New Hampshire have basically written this one off, and they're really bitter about that because they

thought that Maggie Hassan was by far the easier target. When you're up there, you know, you'll see these signs when Gene Shaheen is running that say Shaheen country, you know, to put Shaheen country across a whole gym. No one up there calls it Hassan country. She's never quite had the same level of popularity as Gene Chaheen. If you compare her, they're governorships, you know, they've really followed the same kind of path through the state. And this would have been an ideal cycle to, you know, take Hassan out of that seat, especially if they had run Chris Sununu, the governor who has been one of the top five most popular governors in the country pretty much since he got in.

Right now he's at exactly number five in the morning console moving average. So one thing you got to remember with Baldock with, you know, the election down stuff, obviously signing the letter is kind of like an additional step for him compared to your average GOP candidate when you're with all these other retired generals. He's retired brigadier general. And, you know, when they all signed that letter saying that the election, you know, was stolen and, you know, Biden wasn't legitimately elected, I think that just had a different valence to it because they were former members of the military. Right. We now know about January 6th. But bigger picture, I think New Hampshire's reputation is still somewhat stuck in an era that's kind of gone in the sense that the electorate has really gotten bluer and bluer there over time.

If you look at just the population growth, the main population growth that New Hampshire has had is exclusively come from college-educated, wealthy retirees who are coming from usually neighboring New England states, but it could be anywhere around the country. And the kind of political science idea behind it is they're not really adapting to New Hampshire's politics when they arrive there other than maybe what brought them there in the first place. Like, you know, no income tax, no estate tax, no sales tax, you know, stuff like that. But on particularly social issues, you know, the state has just gotten a lot more democratic leaning than it where it was in the late 90s or early 2000s. So that's kind of why a candidate like Sununu made a lot more sense for that seat. Right. Now, Trump has totally remade the Republican Party in New Hampshire in his image. There's no doubt about that.

You just have to look at who's been able to win there recently. And you have someone like Sununu, who has a broader appeal beyond Trumpism and, you know, a family name with some history to it. And that kind of is able to give him a coalition that no one else in the Republican Party can really replicate. So Balding is struggling with just the fact that he doesn't have a lot of money. The only things people may know about him are the election denialism or some of these kind of, odd stunts he does. Like he held like a Halloween toy thing the night he won the primary. It's like a shield for the movie 300.

He held it upside down. Right. I remember that. It was the whole thing. So they kind of got to like dial that in if they want to be able to compete against Hassan. But Hassan didn't have a primary and she's sitting on a ton of money. And I just think that for Baldock, you know, similarly to Vance, it's less about like

trying to really flesh out. a pivot on something like, you know, election denial or abortion and more just how can they limit the debate to, you know, inflation, crime, stuff like that. And that's going to be a challenge just because the Hampshire voters are very weird, you know, they really like to kick the tires on candidates and hear a lot from them. And they often tend to not really make up their mind until late in the race. But with a polling on this one, Hassan has been very comfortably in the lead. and, you know, I think among the Republicans who have been in the game in New Hampshire for a long time, the consensus is basically, you know, Sununu is locked in for re-election as a Republican, and Hassan is locked in for re-election as a Democrat.

And some crazy outside event would have to happen to change that. Gotcha. Okay, before I let you go, Jake, you wrote a little while ago about something I want you to explain it to the listeners, rather, and also to me, what is gas station TV? So, gas station TV is many things. It is the name of a company that basically has a monopoly on being an ad broker for those central consoles you see when you're filling up gas. And it's also become now a kind of unconventional, maybe trendy-ish strategy for Democrats who at the beginning of the summer, we're looking at a real tough landscape and thinking, okay, how do we counter messaging on inflation? especially when, you know, let's say you're a Democrat challenging a sitting Republican for the House or you're one of those classic vulnerable incumbent Democrats. You're not going to be going on

the Sunday shows or big-time TV at all. So where can you kind of get the most bang for your book? And a couple of these campaign consultants figured out like, hey, we have all these ads we're already cutting and spending money on for TV and digital. What if for pennies on the dollar we could reuse those same ads, run them on gas stations, particularly when you have what they keep describing as a very captive audience. You know, you get your hand on the pump. If the lock thing isn't going there, you got to keep there. You can't look at your phone as much as you may be able to, you know, on a normal day-to-day basis. And suddenly they've got you there for like anywhere between 15 and 45 seconds. So they've shifted from the sort of hedging on inflation messaging. And I guess

The other funny thing is, like, very often on these gas station consoles, there will be a sticker of Joe Biden, you know, with the I did that. You'll see all over the place. And then, you know, these campaigns would imagine, okay, what could we have juxtaposing that with our candidate talking about their strongest issue or hammering a Republican incumbent for not voting for, you know, the price-couching bill on oil. That's where they start to get going. Now it's turned into a bit of a strength where the other advantage of using this broker, gas station TV is that you can highly, highly localized where you put these ads. Sure. When you go down to the street corner and pre-saintable, where you really think you need to either turn out the vote or just make people dislike your opponent enough to not really care as much to show up and vote. So you're seeing both outside groups and Democrats start to kind of throw spaghetti at the wall with these gas station TV consoles.

So I just love if anyone ever sees one and he could catch the outside group that's either said really fast at the end or in the fine print. to let me know because it's also just a highly unregulated space where this company is not subject to usual federal campaign regulations it's not considered you know an airwave advertising right so they've been this for a while though i actually was surprised to find out that the gas station t company first made news back in uh the 2008 presidential campaign when barraq obama wanted to do a big ad buy across their consoles in Florida, which this is pretty wild. I mean, that was a very, very early, I think kind of an oppression, you know,

take by the Obama campaign to think outside the box on advertising. And the gas station TV CEO at the time, who was no longer with the company, put the kibosh on it, said, no, this is the time of year in Florida where, you know, mom and pop businesses can't get their ads in because everything's flooded with politics. We're going to be the one place where you can come and advertise. We will basically, they put a de facto ban on political advertising in the state of Florida. It's a much fanfare. So it's a super weird company and definitely something, you know, that it probably goes unnoticed by a lot of people.

But the campaigns are hoping that even subconsciously, when you're just standing there, you know, mind-wander and off that you get whatever message they're trying to get across to it. That's absolutely fascinating. And honestly, if they're smart, they'll break those locks on the pumps so that people are forced to stand there. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Thank you much for having me. My pleasure.

Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. Who's your inaugural? Fuck that guy. Well, she happens to be my consistent fuck that guy. And that would be the good, good senator, Kirsten Cinema, from Arizona, who is consistently hailed and just recently hailed by Mitch McConnell as one of the most effective first-term senators, you know, and she has said in response that she has forged a friendship with Mitch McConnell,

one that is rooted in our commonalities. And I can't help but think, Andy, what is that commonality? Is it to be hand in hand as they destroy democracy one right at a time? Is it for her to be elevated as some queen's savior of Democrats because she actually isn't one? Because she blocks every single opportunity for us to have voting rights to secure marriage equality. Everything, you know, hinges on. How does Kirsten feel? And I just, I can't stand her. I can't stand with like the bones, the fiber. I say her name. I want to vomit. Like I think that she is in all honesty a terrible person. And like, I give Mansion a lot of hate, but she equally deserves so much venom and is not talked about enough. Yeah, no, I think that that's all of that is true.

I can't argue with a word of it. Maybe they're commonalities. They both are fans of large donors. Yes. So there's that. See, I thought maybe she was just charmed by his magnetic personality. Oh, dear God. That would be really hard to get Pat.

Like when Mitch turns on the charm, Danielle, I could see that as just being like, again, we can go back to vampires. It's like being hypnotized. I think you just fall under his charm spell. So maybe this isn't her fault. All I imagine is whatever room that they're sitting in being dark and filled with smoke and no windows and just free flowing scotch, you know, and just that's all I think about. I think about evil. Like, if evil were just a full-on clone, it would be McConnell's scent.

Like, you know, like, Oda McConnell, O'Da McConnell in cinema. Like, that would be their combined unisex, like, scent of evil. That's who they are. We're going to have to alert our sponsor, Sender, to make sure they get that one to stop. Yes, definitely. All right. Do you want to hear who my fuck that guy is?

Yes, please. So my fuck that guy, much like yours, is not a guy. It is a woman. It is someone who was sort of well known for making zombie and vampire movies that had some pretty heavy gore and I guess some nudity and maybe some sex in them. But she is now a Republican candidate for governor in the state of Michigan running, of course, on a the usual now Republican thing, family values type stuff. I guess her movies were she slipped up or something. Her name is Tudor Dixon, and she is running against the incumbent governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. And of course, back in 2020, there was a kidnapping plot against Gretchen Whitmer,

for which two men had been convicted. They were going to kidnap her in her vacation home, or that was the plan. They had talked about destroying a bridge to sort of hinder her security team. I mean, this was scary. And it's part of a thing that we've been seeing lately with threats against public officials, threats against children's hospitals, going back to threats against abortion clinics. There's nothing funny or fun about it. Unless you're Tudor Dixon, apparently, who at a campaign event recently gave this quote. She said, the sad thing is Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head, and ask if you're ready to talk.

For someone so worried about getting kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer, sure. is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom. Good God. We've talked a lot about this show about the race to the bottom that we see from so many Republicans these days. It's like who can get down the furthest. This has got to be up there. I mean, you know, she's not only dismissing a very real kidnapping threat for which people

have gone to jail against Christian Whitmer. She's turning it around and saying, for some. someone's so worried about getting kidnapped as if this is her fault somehow. Now, of course, the audience, you know, her audience booed her when, I'm kidding and I can't even get through it. She got applauded for saying this, of course, at her rally, which again is why this race to the bottom will never end because it keeps getting rewarded. I mean, hopefully it won't get rewarded in Dixon unseeding Whitmer, but it absolutely gets rewarded by the people around them. So for this reason, and I'm sure very many more, my fuck that guy for this week is Republican Tudor Dixon. Bravo.

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