The Daily Beast Podcast - Marine Senate Candidate Lucas Kunce Thinks Republicans Are ‘Enemy’ of People

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

Missouri Senate candidate Lucas Kunce is not going to knock on a voter’s door and ask them to vote for him because he will lower the cost of prescription drugs. But the former Marine tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast what he will do in this episode of The New Abnormal—including being completely blunt when it comes to calling BS on Republicans. Speaking of which, Rep. Eric Swalwell also joins the pod and talks about the major wins Democrats have had lately and why he thinks the GOP “clowns” don’t stand a chance in taking the House in the midterms. Plus! Molly and co-host Andy Levy talk more about that burn pit bill and pose a major Jan 6 question: Where in the world are those missing text messages? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, 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 the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What a great show we have today. First, we're going to be joined by Congressman Eric Swalwell, who of course represents California's 15th congressional district. He's going to talk to us all about how the Dems win the midterms.

Then we're going to talk to Lucas Coons, who of course is a candidate in the Democratic primary for the Missouri Senate. And he's going to talk to us about what he's running on. But first, let's have some fun. Andy Levy. Molly Johncast I feel like you're not as enthusiastic as I am today. I've had a day, Molly. I've had a day.

I had emergency dental surgery this morning at 8.30. No, that's nothing. I'm telling you, Gates Stone Gate is my new favorite scandal. Hot mic moment between Florida's first Congress. Maddie Matt Gates, most famous for saying that most abortion activists would not ever get pregnant because they were not hot enough, not how any of this works, but okay. Matt Gates caught on a hot mic by a documentary film crew that was following Roger Stone, and he says, don't worry, the big man is going to take care of you. discuss. I guess every generation gets the mafia story they deserve. But honestly, like, the Godfather and Goodfellas were so much better and so much more interesting. It just makes

you realize how not real those movies were and how romanticized they were. I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean, they're movies. They're supposed to be. They're supposed to do that. Because what we've got here is we've got a crime family. We've got people who refer to Donald Trump as the boss and the big man and talk about taking care of you, which is, I mean, is literally straight out of Goodfellas. It's just unbelievable. They get caught for the dumbest reasons. First of all, someone's making a documentary about Roger Stone, which is already stupid. A second one. Weedish filmmakers. I guess he is very popular in Sweden. He's huge in Sweden. So they get caught on hot mics because Roger Stone is such an egotistical idiot that he has to have documentary cameras following him around while he's discussing crimes and pardons for crimes.

It's just amazing how stupid all these people are when it comes right down to it. And thank God they are. I mean, you know, we've talked about this before. Like, I'm not sad that they're stupid because God knows how much worse. this country would be right now if they were even a little smarter about what they're up to. And so, look, he ended up getting the pardon. Heartwarming story. Yeah, no.

It's, you know, it just goes to prove that, you know, you can grow up to get a presidential pardon if you just crime hard enough. Yeah. Well, and if the president is sketchy enough. Yes, absolutely. And then they say, they try to claim that the conversation was illegally recorded. By the documentary film. That's following you around.

I didn't give them permission for that part. Unbelievable. And Gates tell, I guess he told, I forget who he said this. I think it was Washington Post. I was reading it in. The statement that they gave said he was not speaking for Donald Trump. No, he was just speaking for his own knowledge of the crime boss. Yeah, but it's like, so on the one hand, he wanted to be Mr. Big Shot and talk about the big guy and the boss.

And then when he gets caught, he's like, oh, but I wasn't speaking for me. He's such a little rat. They're all just, they're all little weasels. And it's just, I don't know, it's never going to stop. Like I think in 2037, we are still going to, there's going to be like new leaked recordings from 2020. It's unbelievable. This crew, the gang that can't coo straight, has been like basically just every day.

there's new like tapes of crimes, crimes. Did they do crimes? They did crimes. Just America was so unprepared for this level of criming. I think there's a lot of anxiety that Merritt Garland, if Merrick Garland tries to hold Trump accountable, that somehow, you know, he will melt like the wicked witch of the West. I don't think he will.

But I do think it was super interesting to hear that. And it does confirm all of our anxieties and suspicions and beliefs that there was real kind of. of mafia like stuff going on in the White House during the Trump administration. Also, interestingly enough, not a great week for Matt Gates because earlier on this week, Matt Gates said all this misogynistic stuff about women not being attractive enough to impregnate. And this young activist who we had on hasn't been continually raising money off of this.

How he trolled her for her looks. And when we had her on, she had raised $700,000. She's at $2 million now. It's amazing. God bless her. And it's a sign that Democrats can play this game, too. They absolutely can, but it's not an accident that she's young and understands how this works and isn't, you know, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Bach was on the other one. But you know what?

You're not allowed to say anything mean about Chuck because it looks like Chuck may have pulled off getting good old coal miner Joe to vote for something. climate related. And if he does that, he can have all the flip phones he wants. Yeah, I guess. Let's see what happens. But, you know, if you get stuff done in Congress, that's pretty good. Yeah, we'll see what happens. Speaking of not getting stuff done in Congress, not a great week for Republicans love to see it.

My favorite moment was when Republicans decided to vote against giving health care to veterans who had got. on cancer from burn pits. Good work team. Nobody likes those veterans with cancer. You stick it to them. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing stuff.

No notes. I just, I hope that they, you know, if the Democrats, I hate, we always say this and then they probably won't do it. But if they were smart, they'd be showing that little fist bump moment after they stopped the bill from passing between crews and the other senators. that should be in every commercial that the Democrats run across the country. Yeah, by the way, Cruz manages to any bad move Republicans have made somehow Cruz manages to get in there and take credit.

He's either in the center or somehow he like finds his way onto the periphery, like without fail. Right. Like now he's fighting against John Stewart about Burntip Pitts and he's like, well, was a different schedule. Chuck Schumer didn't do the schedule. It's like, you can just take the L, baby. Like, I mean, you're going to pass the legislation this week anyway. Like, you know, fighting with John Stewart doesn't help you.

I mean, he thinks it does, but I'm not sure. Man loves being King Midas in reverse. He is really. I mean, the good, I liked it better when he had the facial hair. Wait, has he shaved the beard? I think he shaved the beard. It's trimmed down a bit. The fat Wolverine look is eroding a bit.

Yeah, fat Wolverine is the best, Ted. Cruz. Fat Wolverine goes on vacation to Cancun. I am not body shaming him. I am merely describing a physical attribute. And then there was Jesse Waters. Right, who also got him, because he's also never never seen anything stupid he doesn't want to be involved in. No, but he, I mean, he, you know, Stuart sort of called him out and then he went back at Stewart and said, I'm not going to blame John for not knowing all the facts. Going forward, let's do this. I'll do the research and John can handle the farming. It's better for everybody that way. I just want to say, Jesse Waters has, in his life, has never done a day of research. Jesse Waters, in his life, I'm without speech. I'm without speech.

Yeah. I mean, again, we've said this dumbest person on cable news. And he's going to sit there and say, I'll do the research. Makes Ainsley-Haret look like a Nobel Prize winning physicist. Nancy Pelosi, you love her, you know her. We are all waiting to find out will she go to Taiwan and will the Chinese shoot down her plane? Tune in next episode to find out if the majority leader of Congress, the Speaker of the House, gets murdered by the Chinese. That's good. I've got your juicing ratings for us this week. We really do.

Yeah, yeah. You guys better tune in next week because you certainly won't. see this news on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC. No, the mainstream media won't tell you that the Chinese shot down. Nancy Pelosi's plane. I hope she goes. I mean, she should go. I think she should go too.

I mean, I also would like to not go to war with China, but that's just me. Yeah, no, I don't think going to war with China would be good. I'll join you going on the record as saying that. But at a certain point, we have to stop, I don't know, we kowtow to China. so much. And it would just every once in a while, it's nice that we don't do that. I mean, I don't know. This is like a little above my pay grade. I always feel like foreign policy. This is right at my pay grade, mom. I am an expert in both near and far east affairs. Well, you have all those years of speaking Mandarin.

I studied with Ambassador John Bolton for several years. I helped him plan several coup. I'm pretty sure they're called coup d'etat. Cus de ta. Cudetas. I like to say, as they say, coes d'etas. Yes, John Bolton. Everyone loves John Bolton. Yeah, so, and then the other big exciting thing that happened is that more January 6 text messages have disappeared.

Of course, because that's what happens when you're investigating things, the evidence disappears, because that's normal. Well, when your name is Chad Wolf. Secretary of Homeland Hattery, Chad Wolf. Yes. Acting, I believe. Acting, yes. Acting, Homeland Security, hotness. He's actually not that good looking, but he does have a great name.

No, you would think with a name like Chad Wolf, much like Josh Hammer, who has like the biggest ratio of coolest name to dwebiest person I think we've ever had in the world. For those who do not now, Josh Hammer is the opinion editor at Zombie Newsweek. Yes. You know, but anyway, so we have we have Chad Wolf whose texts have somehow disappeared now. We also have the Secret Service whose texts have somehow disappeared. Yeah, and apparently the Secret Service IG knew about this like for months and sort of just never said anything to anyone or never brought it up. Because that's what you do when you're a Trump appointee.

We should point out, by the way, that, you know, one of these things, Trump has been floating is if he should become president again, he's basically going to replace the entire civil service with his people. So the days of disappearing texts are just getting started. Yes. No, if Trump wins again, we're all completely. I mean, we just might as well just. Yeah.

But we have, it's a long road to Rome. So let's hope that doesn't happen. And on that road come these text messages, which hopefully someone can find. Right? The Road to Rome is filled with deleted text messages. It's right. Eric Swalwell represents California's 15th congressional district. Welcome back to the new abnormal Eric Swalwell. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

I have a lot to talk to you about. The first thing I want to talk to you about was we had someone on here like a week or two ago, just a political journalist who said, you know, Democrats are going to lose the house. I mean, certainly the math seems to dictate that. have really gone out over their skis. I mean, do you think there's a chance that this all, that Democrats really are able to keep the House? I think it's a lazy, lazy take. And I get, I get it, right? First, midterm election for a president, that typically is what happens. But, I mean, we are, we have entered this era of American history and politics that we've never seen before. You know, the last time, you know, a president did not get wiped out in the midterm election was in 2002, September 11 had just happened, right? That was a 10.0 earthquake. We have not

had a 10.0 earthquake, but I would submit to you, we probably had five or six, like 8.0 earthquakes. You know, we've had January 6, you know, the row reversal, the spree of mass shootings, inflation, and who knows which way that cuts. And of course, you know, January 6. So, I mean, the country, the landscape of the country has been absolutely rocked. And so, and so, you know, I welcome this because every judiciary hearing you have in it, we saw this last week, Republicans would start their questioning with, well, in four months when we're in the majority, dot, dot, dot. And it's like, majority of what? Like majority of inmates at the D.C. jail? Okay, like that may, you know, constitute that. But I welcome them dancing in the end zone and, you know,

measuring the drapes because tell me who you're going to beat. Because I think, Molly, the most vulnerable Democrats lost in 2020. Unlike where, you know, typically the correction comes during the midterms, the ones that lost in 2020, by the way, all had more votes in 2020 than they did in 2018. So it was a Trump surge that wiped them out. So now you have, you know, Mikey Cheryl, Abigail Spanberger, Angie Craig, Elaine Lurie. Like, how are you going to beat them if they flipped a hard seat? They held a hard seat and they're ready to go. So I say, you know, go ahead, Bet against us. I mean, the math on it is there 161 safety seats and 191 safe Republican seats. I mean, we got redistricted. Democrats decided to do nonpartisan redistricting and Republicans decided to cheat. I mean, so Democrats are at a disadvantage. Well, no, there are more Biden, there are more House seats that Biden won than Trump won. And it could have been a lot worse than redistricting. But I think we learned the lesson from, you know, the 2012 redistricting round where we went to the courts and we fought. hard. I do think that, you know, we missed opportunities in New York, for example, but it's not as bad

as we thought it's going to be. So we're not going to lose because of money. Like we have like donors who are fired up. Small donors continue to believe in, you know, this democracy and what we have to do. And our candidates are out fundraising Republican candidates. We're not going to lose because of redistricting. As I said, we have more Biden seats than Trump seats. We're not going to lose because of candidates. Look at the candidates we have Jay Chen, former naval intelligence officer serves on a college school board running in an Orange County seat that we held in 2018 and lost in 2020. We've got candidates with national security and, you know, federal prosecutor backgrounds running all over the country, same profile that, you know, won the house for us in

2018. So I like, you know, where we are going into this. And again, bet against us, you know, be overconfident. But this is, this is not a wipeout that's coming. It is interesting, certainly, like Trump's candidates are just awful. You're seeing. that in the Senate, I mean, just amazingly awful. We haven't really seen quite as much a Trump handiwork in the House. But, I mean, that certainly is helping Democrats. Very much so. And if Republicans ran a bunch of Glenn Youngton-like candidates, you know, who are disciplined and able to keep, you know, distance from Donald Trump and kind of, you know, squash their racist, curious rhetoric as Yonkin was able to do from time to time, then I would say maybe bet against us. But, Dr.

Oz, J.D. Vance, Herschel Walker, Blake Masters. I mean, those are the clowns that are going to, you know, win the Senate for the Republicans. I don't see it. This feels like 2010, 2012, where the Republicans, you know, in Indiana and Missouri squandered, you know, seats that they should win. And by the way, add Missouri to the list there. If Gritens is their nominee in Missouri, we've got a hell of a shot, you know, with a veteran that we've got running there. I think it's Kuntz is the candidate. And then I would also just say, you know, As we look at the midterms, go back to 1994, contract with America. That was a distilled, purposeful message. 2010, repeal and replace. Again, very focused. Here, you have Mitch McConnell in one chamber whipping Republicans to vote for gun safety legislation, whipping Republicans to vote for anti-China chips investments. And in the other chamber, you have Kevin McCarthy whipping against the gun safety legislation

and whipping against the chips. These guys aren't focused story lines. So we're not up against, you know, 94 or 2010. They're in absolute chaos and disarray. So that's why I really don't want to see people pessimistic because pessimism begets pessimism and optimism, you know, begets optimism. So let's talk about Nancy Pelosi. Is she going to Taiwan?

I hope so. I really hope so. You know, it's up to her. And whether she goes or doesn't, she's not going to stop, I think, calling China out. It seems very petty of China to, you know, tell. you know, the second in line to the presidency of our country that they can't pick and choose where they want to go. They also said they were going to shoot her down, right?

Yeah, really? That you're going to shoot me. It seems like a very balsy move. Yeah. I also would just not dare Nancy Pelosi to do anything, by the way. She typically always wins, right? But, I mean, she's, she often says she's on a mission, whatever she does. Like, she doesn't do anything cavalierly or capriciously.

like whenever she makes a decision, especially of this magnitude, you know, there's purpose and planning behind it. And, you know, I'm confident she'll land in the right place on this one. Last week was like this incredible week of Democratic success. Like we had had so many. The truth was, of course, Biden had passed a lot of stuff. But like last week was just this incredible week where Mitch McConnell was furious. It sounds like, again, we don't know yet that there's going to be support for this climate stuff and that mansion is going to come along and a lot of this is going to happen in reconciliation. Were you shocked? I mean, tell me. It was kind of like a democratic harvest, right, where you had done all this work. You wondered if it was

really going to pay off, you know, like the tilling, the seating, you know, nurturing and care and feeding and then just there it is, you know, this harvest of the chips bill, you know, the recent gun legislation, the announcement of, you know, prescription drugs in climate. And we'll see. And Senator Cinema is going to be pivotal in this. And, you know, if she thinks that, you know, there's a carried interest constituency in Arizona, then, you know, she should show her cards, I guess, and show us who that is and why she would vote, you know, to protect that. Because as my good pal, Ruben Giego has pointed out, you know, he doesn't, he does town halls. He actually does a lot of town halls. Ain't no one telling him protect carried interest. Yes, and Ruben Gallego is a likely primary challenger for Kirsten Cinema, I think a lot of people think, or at least I think that and I think you think that too. I think that's a safe bet. But his larger point, you know, because one election at a time is to just do a town hall. You know, go out and talk to voters because I've been in Congress for 10 years, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, you know, always, no matter what time we're in. And when you look at the polls of like what people will openly without being prompted say is their biggest concern, it varies with, you know, whatever the issue of the day is.

But the constant has always been to lower the cost of prescription drugs. And so if we miss the chance to do that now, you know, why are you a Democratic elected leader? And I don't think there's any world in which Republicans will ever lower the cost of prescription drugs ever, ever, ever. That's right. So we should we should take this win. it's a huge win. And if that is the case, we will be able to go to the voters this fall and say, you know, we passed a rescue plan that, you know, helped restaurants, small businesses, schools, police officers, and vaccinated most Americans. We passed infrastructure that connected the disconnected on broadband, green energy, roads, and tunnels. We passed gun safety. We put

the first black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court. We made the largest investment to counter China. And yes, we lowered the cost of prescription drugs and made a significant investment in climate rescue. Those are all big, big wins with the thinnest of majority. Talk to me about where you see this going like now that we're heading into this midterm. I mean, do you think there'll be a leadership shakeup in the next semester? Yeah. I, I, I, do think that this is absolutely the last time you're going to see Mitch McConnell in power. That wasn't where I was going with this. But oh, you really think that. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I was thinking about on the House side for the Democrats.

No, look, again, I cannot convey enough to you how fired up and optimistic I am about, you know, are our chances in the midterm. And so we have the wins. We can count our successes. We should acknowledge the challenges, of course, on inflation and not be, you know, polyana-ish or naive about it. But then draw the contrast. And when you draw the contrast, we are for community. They are for chaos. We are for voting.

They are for violence. You know, we are for freedom and they are for fascism. And then you show demonstratively, you know, where they are on women's reproductive freedom, you know, your kid's right to be free from gun, violence, your right to have your vote counted. The voters are with us. And I saw a CBS poll, you know, over the weekend that showed that especially on, you know, women's reproductive rights, that's the issue where independence, you know, Republican women are most likely to cross over for us. And I think we can't highlight the differences on that enough. And also young voters, we have to turn out 18 to 29. You know, that's the demographic that turned out about 40 percent of them

in 2018, as opposed to about 20% and 2014, it makes a hell of a difference in a midterm election, if that's the number that they're showing up. Are those the cancel student debt group or now? When I talk to young people, I used to be one of them, they primarily will tell you there's about four or five issues. Student debt, yes, is one of them. Climate Rescue is one of them, cost of health care, racial justice, and the role of money in politics.

And so, yes, I do believe the president doing something in the month of August, as has been telegraphed, would be incredibly helpful on that front. I actually think the worst thing that he could do is to continue to just delay payments. That's actually, believe it or not, that's hurting people because when you delay payments, all you're doing is you're just pushing off into the future debt and there's uncertainty around, you know, what you're going to do with that debt. And if you have to ultimately start paying it back, many people, they're just, they're going to budget what they've been doing for the last two years. And they're probably not budgeting in that they're going to have to take on $300 to $500 more a month now. So I think it's better to just give people certainty and hopefully help the people who need it the most. Republicans really screwed themselves last weekend. It was pretty great. This whole thing is just sort of amazing. They're blaming Schumer for the calendar for voting. against this burn pit legislation, which would give money to veterans for health care for cancer that they got from sleeping next to burn pits. So they are just like absolutely, and they had voted for the burn pit legislation several months ago. So it really is like just about the worst look you can go for.

And they're trying to argue that it's between discretionary spending and required spending and somehow, I mean, such a bad look. And Ted Cruz, of course, is on the wrong side of it. Talk to me about this. Yeah. I mean, Ted Cruz managed to take the worst possible position and then thought the best way to, you know, get out of that position was to just, you know, double down on it and go toe to toe with John Stewart, which I don't think any of us, you know, ever would want to do. I saw that you had tweeted Molly that, you know, he has the ability to just cut through all of the bullshit on, you know, political issues and get to the essence of an issue. And he really did that here. And he did it in a sincere, genuine way.

And no one believes that there's really any political agenda here by John Stewart, other than helping people that should be helped. And again, there was never an effort to make the spending over 20 years of, you know, wars in the Middle East, you know, discretionary or mandatory. They just spent the money, spent the money, recruited the veterans, sent them out. You know, there were never any limits there and to suggest that they want limits now because, you know, they found, you know, some sense of budget principles. It's just sour grapes, you know, sore losers over the wins that we got for our constituents

last week. And sadly, the victims here are, you know, veterans who really need to help. It's going to pass. And again, I just hope, Molly, that when it passes, that voters see that one party is for the people and is getting shit done. And the other party just constantly panders and projects. So what I mean is Republicans say they're for law enforcement and police officers. But when we try and fund community policing to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, they all voted against. When we tried to give the heroes of January 6th, the congressional gold medals,

many of them voted against it. When we tried to fund the Capitol Police so that January 6th would never happen again, almost all of them voted against it. So they're not pro cop, they're pro-coo. When you look at the veterans and they wave the flag and they say that Democrats don't support the troops, well, we pass legislation, you know, to support people exposed to these toxic burn pits. And again, because they're upset about other legislation, they're going to leverage the troops here. And then look at China. Again, they make all these, you know, tough on China comments.

I'm constantly, you know, a meme for them on China and it's fine. Why do they go after me? But we had the biggest vote ever in the Congress on taking on China last week, and almost every Republican in the House voted against it. The same thing with Russia. You've got this Putin block now where the party was the party of taking on the evil empire. And here they're supporting Vladimir Putin at the expense of the Ukrainian. So what they say and what they do is completely different. And I think we have to just keep showing that to the voters.

And I hope any notion that the Republicans or the party that supports the truth, groups is finally disabused. Yeah. Thank you so much. This was super interesting. Thank you. Thank you. Of course. Thank you all. Lucas Coons is running for the Democratic nomination for the Missouri Senate. Welcome to the new abnormal, Lucas. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Well, we're excited to have you. Your primary is tomorrow. It is. Yeah. It is. Yeah. Going to be a big day. Yeah. Wow. First, I want to talk to you about burn pits. Let's talk about burn pits.

You wrote an opinion piece for the Fox News website. Way to go. Put it out there for the people who need to read it. Let's talk about that. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm just tired of these Republicans all the time talking about, you know, thank you for your service. Every Veterans Day, every Memorial Day.

You know, they're always talking about support the troops. And it's like, well, you know what? I'm a Marine. I joined, you know, to serve the community I grew up in that took care of me as a kid. you all sent me overseas first to fight for oil in Iraq, and then twice to Afghanistan, where you said you were building something real and lasting. And, you know, it just kills me that these guys, you know, they voted over and over again for $6.4 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan, right? And us who went there, I mean, those were not good conditions. I mean, I ran a police training team

in Iraq. So, you know, I had 12 Marines and a Navy corpsman. I was dodging IEDs the whole time. And, you know, we thought that was the biggest threat. But as it turns out, there was this huge column of smoke over our base the entire time, bathing us in toxin-filled smoke. We had to run through it. You know, we used to joke about how we had to have, we should be doing gas mask runs. And that was the real threat to us, right? Marines and soldiers who all went to Iraq and Afghanistan now, who live next to these open-air burn pits. We all have conditions, many, much more serious than mine, right? I just got like some throat irritation. A lot of people are getting cancer. They're getting migraines they can't deal with. And so, you know, that's a bunch of backgrids.

But the fact of the matter is that Republicans finally had a chance to take care of the troops that they sent overseas for all these years. Finally, you know, an opportunity to invest in us. And they all voted against it, right? They all voted against it. They used us as political hostages. And so I wrote an op-ed and I put it in Fox News because I want the people who go to Fox to see that they are enemies of the people, that they've betrayed us, that they don't care about the troops. They never support the troops. You're in a very interesting race.

Explain to our listeners a little bit about what that looks like. Yeah, it's wild. So, you know, I'm running one of those races where my main thing is I'm tired of seeing, you know, massive defense contractors buy off members of Congress. I'm tired of seeing really all these, all these people get bought off, make decisions based on their stock portfolios, et cetera. And so, you know, I'm a Democrat running the Missouri. And I'm not taking corporate PAC money, no federal lobbyist money, no big pharmaceutical executive money, no fossil fuel executive money. I got a long list there because I think that, you know, we should be winning here, and we will win here if we do things differently.

And plus, we have to win in places like Missouri. I mean, this is the front line for the flight for democracy, where you got the charlatans, like Josh Hawley, Eric Greitens, Donald Trump, winning when Democrats were winning statewide up to 2016. And so I wanted to run a different types of race, but as it turns out, the status quo people aren't really happy with you when you do that. And so in the primary, we have a billionaire eras who jumped into the race on the very last day to go against me. You know, she doesn't know what Citizens United is.

She really doesn't know how everyday people live, and it shows very heavily. And then, you know, Jack Danforth, who is the heir to the Purina fortune, he puts in an independent, so-called independent candidate who's actually a country club Republican in against me, specifically has the guy say that he thinks Lucas Coons is a threat to the things that he holds near and dear, which makes a lot of sense because I am. I tell you right now, country club Republicans are not our friends. and then we got a Trump Republican who's going to win the Republican primary no matter matter who it is.

Is that Greitens? It's going to be either Eric Gritens or Eric Schmidt. And it's just like, it's a beautiful thing though, right? Like we got an opportunity here in Missouri because, you know, with me running through November, we've got a candidate who did 13 years in the Marine Corps, grew up without any money, like my parents were paycheck to paycheck. We went bankrupt from medical bills who understands how everyday people live, can reach normal Missourians. And then we're going to have this John Wood Country Club Republican on the ballot as an

independent, plus a Trump Republican on the ballot. So we'll have them split in the boat, me running right up the middle. It's pretty exciting. That is, that's pretty interesting. So there have been Democratic senators from Missouri rather recently. Yeah, you know, Claire McCaskill was our senator up until 2018. And even when she lost by five points in 2018, our state auditor, who's a Democrat, won by five points on an anti-corruption message. You know, Jason Cander, very seat when it was last up in 2016, he went against a long-time Republican incumbent, Roy Blunt. The seat's open now, obviously. And he only lost by 2.8% when Trump won here by like 19. Like, Missourians are willing to split their ballot. That's the thing about Missourians.

A lot of folks don't understand. We will split our ballots for people as long as they have someone they can believe in, and I'm someone that they can believe in. Another thing about Missouri, too, the lot of folks don't know is just how populous the state is in what some might even consider a progressive way, right? And so, I mean, we have passed populist ballot measure after ballot measure. Yes. Why don't you back up a little bit and talk about your idea of populism because it's pretty interesting. Yeah, I'll do that. So, like, I am so tired of the Josh Holley's, the Eric Greitens, the Donald Trump's of the world being labeled populists, right? Populism is actually about everyday people coming together to go against a system that's not working for them

and getting back some modicum of power. And so, you know, the theme of my campaign is, is fundamentally changing who has power in this country. And I'm just really tired of, you know, Josh Hawling folks giving populism a bad name because what they do is they divide everyday people based on race, religion, where you come from, so that we're not unified and so that their corporate funders can maintain control. You see that over and over again. Even Donald Trump, right? Like he put Gary Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs in charge of our economy.

That is not populism. He's a Democrat. Yeah. Like a Wall Street Democrat banker like that's not populism, man. That is empowering this class of people in a system that's not working for everyday folks. And so what I'm doing right here in the Midwest is I'm taking that label back. I'm fighting for it. I'm fighting for everyday people.

And if we do that, I'm telling you Democrats are going to be fire in the Midwest again. We're going to run through here and win. We just need to be the right counterbalance to that message. And if we're not, if we run on things like, so Democrat consultants will do these polls. And the poll will come back and they'll say, oh, look, you need to go to everybody and tell them you want to lower the price of your prescription drugs because 98% of people said they would like that. That's great. But like if you go to Missouri door and you say, hi, I'm Lucas Coontz, I want to lower the price of your prescription drugs. Can you vote for me for U.S. Senate? They are going to say, 535 members of Congress all said that,

Mr. And did it happen? No, like get off my porch because the system's broken and we got to run against that. That's what Jason Kander did in 2016 when he almost won, right? His campaign theme was that Roy Blunt's wife and all three kids are corporate lobbyists, and he's making decisions for them, which was true. Jesus, they are all corporate lobbyists? They're all corporate lobbyists. Literally, his whole family is corporate lobbyists. It's madness.

And that's what Missourians are tired of. They don't want to tolerate it. You know, the independent who's in this race, he's in that area. He was an attorney for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Eric Schmidt has been in with Big Ag, destroying Missouri. Like, we have a real opportunity. And Eric Gritens is obviously a criminal, our former governor. Yes, that's right.

I think he changes the dynamics of the race a lot if he wins. Oh, if you or I did what he did, we'd be in prison right now. Let's face it. Yeah. Originally, he resigned because he had like some sense of shame, but then when Trump came along, it became like Republicans no longer need to resign for crime. Yeah, now he's on, you know, he went on his rehabilitation tour on Newsmac and OAN with Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani and company.

And here he is. I mean, the thing that worries me with a lot of these, like, states is that are Republicans going to try to mess with the vote? Yeah, they're going to do that. The interesting thing here is that they've been doing it here so long and so deeply that it's pretty well baked into the numbers already. And so, you know, if you see any of the results over the last eight to ten years, the voter suppression's already sort of baked in. And so, you know, we're doing everything we can to overcome that. In an ironic twist, I think the Dobbs decision will be helpful for that because I tell you right now, that was one messed up decision. And, and, and, and, and, and,

the sort of country club Republicans in Missouri, were so thrilled to pass the first trigger law in the entire country, banning abortion even in the case of rape or incest. And I can tell you right now, that's not playing well with anybody. I mean, you saw Claire McCaskill in 2012. She was down in the polls until this guy, Todd Aiken, said that in the case of legitimate rape, a woman's body would reject the sperm so they don't need an exception for rape. Like, when you take away exceptions for things like rape and incest,

it turns the tables. He lost by double digits. you know, they've gone too far. And, you know, they'll pass these laws, though, because they don't care. It doesn't affect them, right? Like, they got money. They got resources. They'll just leave the state and get an abortion, just like they've always done.

It hurts everyday people. Well, it's interesting because we often will have this woman who runs an abortion clinic, Rob and Marty in a red state. And she, in Alabama, and she'll talk about how if conservatives didn't get abortions, they wouldn't. The reason that these clinics are still in business is because conservatives get abortions. just the same way liberals do. Yeah, absolutely. They've been doing it the whole time, and it just kills me because, you know, they sent me to Iraq and Afghanistan, and they told me I was fighting for freedom over there, right?

I didn't choose to go there. They just sent me there. And it's like, well, now I see these same people who said I was fighting for freedom over there, which wasn't true, are the same people who are attacking freedom here, right? It's just, it's crazy. It's like, wow, and now I'm on the front lines for the fight for freedom in my own country. And that's what we're up against. That's why we need to do things like get rid of the filibuster and cut a, viral versus Wade. Why did you go into the Army at first? Well, so I went to the Marine Corps, and, you know, my background is, I mentioned earlier, my parents, my parents got married at 19 and 22. They had quite a few kids right away. And, you know, before you know, we were paycheck to paycheck. And I mean, like, right in the check at the grocery store on the 27th and beg and the manager not to catch it so we could make it. And then when my little sister had a heart surgery, our family went

bankrupt and, you know, we only made it because the people in our neighborhood who really didn't have any more money than we did, they passed a plate at my mom's prayer group, they brought more tuna casserole by the house than we could ever eat. You know, that's how everyday people take care of each other. And I felt an obligation to honor what everyone did for me. So I thought joining the Marine Corps would be the way to do that. I joined the Marines. I did my 13 years. Again, went to Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think this is one of the things that really burns me up is that I watched our country spend $6.4 trillion over there. And I saw my old neighborhood just fall apart because there's always money for war. There's always money for defense contractors. And yet every time they get an

opportunity to invest in our communities, they don't do it. Right. And like the first house I ever lived in is an empty lot now. The one I joined the Marine Corps out of falling apart. The corner store is boarded up because it's been robbed too many times. They can't get insurance because there's no opportunity there anymore. And I just like, I joined the Marine Corps to serve that community. I saw it get gutted. Now I'm doing the Senate race because I see that's the only really way. The only real way to take care of places like that is to fundamentally change you who has power in this country. Yeah, it's certainly true. This was so interesting and, I mean, I'm thrilled that you're trying this and I hope it works. Thank you, Lucas. Thanks, Molly. I hope so too. I mean, we need to do things like this in order to

win again in the Midwest. And we should be winning in the Midwest and this is what it's going to take. Andy, Maui, who has captured your imagination as your, fuck that guy. Well, if we're talking about our number one segment, fuck that guy. Still, our top. Still, our most popular segment. Still our most popular segment. It's a crowd, please.

I am picking 22 people as my fuck those guys this week. And they hail from such varied states as Arkansas and Mississippi all the way to Oklahoma and Louisiana and Tennessee. Act and other states that you could also guess. These are 22 attorneys general who are suing the Biden administration because the Biden administration had this weird idea that if you have a school lunch program, a school meal program, you can't discriminate against kids based on the child's sexual orientation or gender identity. And the attorneys general don't like that. Is they're pro-discrimination? Yes, because they want the right to withhold school lunches from, I guess, gay and transgender students and queer students in general. Because they're all,

these are 22 of America's finest, obviously. So, of course, they're holding this up. You know, it's the usual it's states rights. But also punishing LGBTQ kids is their favorite thing to do. That's what they're doing and that's what they want to do. But as always, they sort of hide behind state's rights, which as far back, at least as slavery, I can't think of a time when the state's rights argument was used to advance people's rights. It's always to discriminate against someone. These are the sons and daughters of George Wallace and Bull Connor. And it's the same shit.

it's, you know, whether it's race, whether it's sexual orientation, whatever it is, they are always firmly on the wrong side and on the side of treating people like shit. And they apparently always will be. Our only hope is that future generations will hopefully be less racist. Less bigoted. Less anti-gay. Yeah, they'll be less bigoted. Let's put it that way.

Because you got your Ken Paxton in Texas, you got your Herbert Slattery in Tennessee. And it's just, they're horrible, horrible people. I don't know how else to say it. And so fuck all 22 of them. Yeah, it's a reasonable kind of way to play it. Do you want to know who my fuck that guy is? I sure do, Molly. This is like my creepiest news story of the week.

Ivana died in her townhouse alone, falling down the stairs. died of abdominal blunt force, abdominal trauma. She is now being buried at the Trump Bedminster Golf Club, where the Saudi blood money golf tournament is going on right now. Wait, wait, it gets worse. Ivana, it turns out that there are all sorts of tax advantages for Donald burying Ivana at his golf club. And also, so you get a tax advantage,

it's classified slightly differently. And then you also get bankruptcy protection because if you go bankrupt, they can't seize the asset because you have relatives buried there. It's a graveyard. So it's a very smart tax play for Donald. It's just not like Donald's current wife.

This is two wives ago. I mean, she had been married multiple times since then. He had been married multiple times since then. and now she's buried at his golf club in the back. I don't know. It just really haunts me. I have to say, like, I know that we're all going to slip this mortal coil one day or another. You know, who knows, maybe tomorrow.

But there's something about being buried at your second husband's golf club that really, so that he can get a tax break that really stings. And again, I'm no fan of Ivana, but just not how I want to go out. You're saying you do not want to be buried at the golf course of your second husband. Yeah, I'm saying that Matt Greenfield, if you bury me at your fucking golf course, I'll just, you know, I will come back to haul you. But wait, he's your first husband. He's my first husband. But I might marry and divorce him and marry him again.

You never know. Oh, okay. That's a popular play. Interesting. Interesting. Why not? It's like Trump being president and then not being president and then being president again. No, don't ever say that.

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