The Dispatch Podcast - Can the GOP Survive Trump’s Approval Numbers?

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

Steve Hayes is joined by Jonah Goldberg, Mike Warren, and John McCormack to discuss Trump’s role within the Republican Party in the upcoming midterms and the Democratic Party’s association with Hasan Piker. The Agenda: —Trump’s impact on Republican candidates —Democrats and Hasan Piker —The Senate race in Texas —Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District —The Senate race in Ohio —NWYT: Fantasy football Show notes: —Mike Warren’s newsletter Next Right —FantasyPros —Footballguys The Dispatch Podcast is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including audio versions of all our articles and newsletters—⁠click here⁠. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Steve Hayes. On today's roundtable, we look at President Trump's role within the Republican Party as it relates to the upcoming midterms and Democratic Senate candidate Abdul Al-Said's association with socialist streamer Hassan Piker. Then the panelists each choose a race. We think you should pay extra attention to this November. And finally, not worth your time? Fantasy football. I'm joined today by the dispatch's editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg, politics editor Mike Warren, and senior editor, John McCorm. Corbyn. Let's dive right in. Okay, gentlemen, we're going to spend some time on politics. We are two months out from the 2026 midterm elections. There are a couple dozen competitive house races, depending on how you count them, probably six, seven, eight competitive Senate races, maybe a couple more. And this is going to have significant potential consequences on the final two years of the Trump administration. Although, as John wrote earlier this summer, it may not have many significant consequences on the final two years of the Trump administration. Donald Trump had a good number of Republicans over to the White House last night to the New Rose Garden where he had a dinner. He served in cheeseburgers.

They talked about the two months in front of us in the midterm elections. The Trump super PAC released two new television ads pointing toward the mid-term. elections featuring only Donald Trump, talking about Donald Trump and Donald Trump's accomplishments. Donald Trump's overall approval right now, according to the Real Clear Politics average, is negative 16.7. His approval on the economy, negative 26.7. His approval on inflation, negative 39.1. His approval on foreign policy, negative 19.9. His approval on Iran, negative 26.5. His approval on what I think is his best issue, immigration, negative 9.8. The country believes that the United States is on the wrong track versus the right track. There's a 24 point gap there. And many Republicans in competitive

races are doing what they can to localize the race, to make the race about their district or their state. And yet Donald Trump, in his comments to Republicans on Wednesday evening, promised that he would be campaigning in battleground states ahead of these elections. Mike, is Donald Trump doing exactly what Democrats want Donald Trump to do at this moment with somebody so unpopular, promising to weigh in for the next two months on behalf of imperiled Republicans? Yes, but I don't know if it's an irrational move on. Trump and the Republicans. I mean, look, all those numbers are very, very bad for Donald Trump, very, very bad for Republicans. On the other hand, there is so much enthusiasm against Trump

from Democratic voters. Okay, so Democratic voters are coming out in 2026. I don't think there's any risk of that not happening. Independence, it's bad for Republicans among independent voters. That's the Democrats' challenge right now is just to get them motivated to vote for. Democrats, what do the Republicans need to do? They need to motivate their voters who are not motivated at all at this point in the race. So who is the best person in the GOP to unify Republican voters, to get them excited about voting when they otherwise have no good reasons to be excited to vote? It's Donald Trump. So I don't know if it's necessarily irrational. I think that this is just the problem that Republicans are in when you have a very unpopular president who remains,

very popular, maybe not as popular as it was a year ago with Republican voters, but still popular with very popular with Republican voters. The number one most popular person within the party, he's not wrong to think that, you know, it's all about me. The problem is just that, you know, whereas two years ago, Democrats were sort of down on the dumps. There was no enthusiasm for the Democratic agenda after four years of Biden and then all of the mess with Biden being replaced Kamala Harris. All of those dynamics are different on the Democratic and independent side. But on the Republican side, things that really haven't changed. Voters still are motivated by him. The question I have and the question I think I'll be watching in the next couple of months is how good does he make on

that promise to go out and campaign for people? And who shows up on stage with him in a lot of these battleground places? That's the thing to watch, I think, and to see if the rhetoric matches the reality. Yeah, John, there's this massive voter enthusiasm gap that Mike refers to well documented in a Fox News poll and in many other polls. Pretty much every poll taken over the past couple months shows this this enthusiasm gap. Is that the right way to respond to it for Republicans to push Donald Trump front and center, to campaign around him to make arguments about what? I mean, if you're a Republican strategist, if you were talking to a Republican strategist

and you're trying to come up with the best case for a Republican and a competitive House district and you want to gin up Republicans, make them excited to show up at the polls. Is this what you're doing? I mean, I think you can strain to make an argument that there's some rational basis to this, but I don't think it really holds up. I mean, Trump's approval rating is what in the high 30s right now, his numbers on the economy are just completely, you know, they're two to one against them. Whereas last time around, the first round in midterms when Trump was in office in 2018,

he actually had a positive economic approval rating. So I think all these, you know, white voters without a college degree that Trump I just don't think they're going to turn out for that reason. They voted for him based on that they can feel they see the prices going up continually. They see the tariffs are not. They're not popular. And I just think putting Trump front and center doesn't really do anything to move the needle. I mean, people have made up their minds about Trump.

He's been the main character, more or less for over a decade. You can try and strain to make an argument saying, well, if the election's about Trump's approval rating, therefore we got to run ads boosting Trump to get Trump's approval rating up. I just don't think that's going to work. He's not some unknown character. Right. This isn't his second year in office. This is his 10th year, 11th year, being the number one person in American politics.

So, no, I don't think that this is an effective strategy. This is all, at the end of the day, what it's always been about, which is Donald Trump's ego, that Trump wants to be popular. He wants to be the center of the story. He's happy to spend a million dollars boosting Darlene Graham in a safe GOP Senate seat and spending $0 on a Texas Senate race. That's important for Republicans if you only care about partisan control of the Senate. So again, it's all about Trump. It's about his ego. There's not some grand master strategy here.

Yeah, and Jonah, it's not like people are coming to these conclusions or posing Trump based on nothing. They're basing this on what they're seeing play out in the Iran war, the promises that he made versus the current reality. The things that he said about inflation, remember, when he came to office, when he was campaigning in 2024, he not only promised to reverse Joe Biden and keep. inflation in check, he said he was going to bring prices down and he was very specific about the prices he was going to bring down. It's interesting when you look at his approval numbers on inflation, the Real Clear Politics average is 29% approved, 68.1% disapprove on inflation. I just wonder who the 29% is. I mean, are these egg eaters? Because egg prices have gone down. But virtually every other grocery store item is either flat.

has increased since then. Is the challenge, it's a fundamental challenge for Republicans running this cycle, that they're running against reality? Yeah. You know, one of my great peeves about a lot of right-wing analysis about politics is this belief that if the mainstream media wasn't biased, their message would get through, right? And the simple fact is that, like, first of all,

you see Donald Trump speaking for himself enough that people can draw conclusions of Trump unfiltered through media translators, right? I mean, you see his press conferences almost every day or media availability almost every single day. People also are very confused about the macro economy. They are all experts on the microeconomy that is their own personal finances and their own personal experiences. And you cannot talk them out of their own personal experiences with assuring. that contradict the reality that they're living in. And this is a problem for all presidents. I've been making that point about Bush, Obama, Clinton, going all the way back.

I largely agree with McCormick on the fact that this won't work. I'm a little less dismissive about whether or not it's a bad idea. Sarah Isger often makes this point that campaigns can do everything right and still lose. Like, they just lose, right? And they like to second guess and think, oh, I had these better options. And I just don't think, I'm not sure that the Trump campaign has, the Trump people, White House has better options insofar as on paper, there's a certain logic to this is going to be a referendum. Past White House has tried to make midterms a choice. That's what Obama tried to do.

That's what Bush tried to do before their disastrous midterms. And when the country's in a bad mood, it doesn't work. And it's basically a referendum on the party in power. And the GOP has been the party in power for a while now. And it's felt like even longer, given the way that the GOP and Trump have dominated the conversation. And so people are fed up. And so you can understand this idea. Well, if it's going to be a referendum no matter what, getting my approval rating up from 33 to 43 or to 45 probably helps that would help at the margins.

First of all, I just don't think they're going to get his approval rating up. And second of all, so I have this theory. Like we talk about this all the time, how there are certain cabinet secretaries when you see them on Sunday shows. What makes them suddenly more interesting than cabinet secretaries normally are on Sunday shows is because you know they're talking to Trump rather than the American people. And they're saying stuff to get Trump's approval rather than like the best message for themselves or for the administration. I think there's something similar going on here in that if you look at those two ads, that they released. One is on a lot of issues that the Republicans want to be identified with, you know,

whether they're exaggerating the reality of what they've done. That's a different issue. Can you just describe the ads in general terms? Yes. So one ad is Donald Trump and the Republicans gave you no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, biggest tax cut in American history, this, that, and the other, right? Like actual substantial things. Again, I'm not saying that the way they characterize it is entirely accurate, but that's not

the point, right? Those are winning issues for them. The other ad is, behold, Donald Trump, strong like bull, smell my musk, right? It is just pure, like, personality cult crap. And both of them have pictures, have, it's, you know, and they're both Trump center. And they're both Trump center. Yeah.

But my theory is, it's sort of like, I mean, you guys still have kids where maybe you have to use some guile to get them to eat vegetables or whatever. You know, you sneak it into something or, like, put the spinach under the cheese so they can't see it, you know, whatever, on the pizza. I suspect that Trump's team presented him with a bunch of Trump strong-like bull ads and snuck in one kind of like, look at all these issues things, and Trump approved them. And the RNC wants the issue one to run all over the place, but they're probably telling Trump it's all of these strong-like bull ones. and they might actually just run those more in Florida or in D.C.

So Trump sees them when he's watching TV. You know, put them on the right Fox shows. So he sees those and thinks they're great. And then they run the other ones where they need to. But at the end of the day, I think the real problem is Trump's not weakest with MAGA Trump voters. Trump's weakest with conservative-leaning, Republican-leaning independence, particularly all of those Hispanics that gave him his margins in 2024. We always try to make this distinction between there are never Trumpers,

which kind of don't exist anymore. They're always Trumpers, which are basically the MAGA people. I mean, there are still some never Trumps. Yeah, but like this is the term is not a thing. Outside of this podcast, though, maybe. Yeah. And then there's always Republicans, right? The people who are just like, oh, he's nominee, I got to vote for him.

It's there where he's really weak. It's there where it's like the normie Republicans who, hate Trump's enemies, but are also like, this is not what I voted for and have Trump fatigue because Trump has been the establishment now for so long. And I don't think that these are the ads to win those people over. More Cal Bell is not going to get the people sick of the cowbell to, like, turn out to vote for politicians they're not interested in. Can I defend my proposition here that it's at least a rational? Oh, I think it's rational. Yeah, to put Trump up front. And again, I think as we've established, that doesn't mean it's effective or it's going to work entirely.

But I do believe it is rational because of where we are in the sort of, sorry, I apologize for saying, using the phrase game theory, but the sort of game theory decision tree point we are at, which is Trump is entirely to blame for being here. What if you were a member of Congress, a Republican running for reelection or a senator, what do you have to run on? What has been accomplished in the last two years of complete Republican control? Nothing. And why has nothing been accomplished?

Because Donald Trump, certainly in the last year, has not allowed, does not want anything to get through Congress besides the big, beautiful bill, before this Save Act, right? The Save America Act, this voting sort of pipe dream federal voting law that he once passed. So if you're a Republican, you can't say, well, I got this done and we got this done and we're making things better. And yes, inflation is still bad right now, but we're doing things. Like, there's nothing for them to run on. There's nothing for you as random Republican congressmen running for re-election to differentiate yourself from the president. So I do think there's a rationality to just hooking on to the president and closing your eyes and hoping that you don't

crash at the end, that somehow you end up in the river. Let me offer a slightly different scenario. I mean, one of the complaints you're hearing from Republicans on Capitol Hill, both those who are in competitive races and those who want Republicans to keep the majorities, is that Trump is sitting on this mountain of cash and he's not spending it. Wouldn't it be more effective for the White House? I mean, we'll start with the hypothesis that Trump truly cares about the Republican Party. He wants fellow Republicans to win and he's willing to do the best thing, even if it means setting aside his own ego to contribute to Republicans' efforts to maintain.

the majorities. Bless your heart. So a complete, a complete fantasy is what you're saying. He also has the ability to fly. If one were to do that, wouldn't by far the smarter move be to go in in a targeted way in these competitive districts and to cut ads focusing on reductions in crime, cleaning up the border? You can imagine the pictures, the video of immigrant inflows under Joe Biden, the kind of footage that was so popular under Fox, people, sort of watch. walking over the Rio Grande, make the case that, you know, this is a challenging time in America, but under Republican leadership, don't even mention Donald Trump. Crime is down. Immigration, you stemmed the flow of illegal immigration at the border, and we've got more work to do or something like that. Don't even mention Trump. Trump provides the money, either through his super PAC or other outside entities that can support these individual congressmen and women.

Make that case. Make a much more targeted case. Take a much more targeted case. Trump out of it. Yeah, I think that that would be better if we were living in a completely different world where Donald Trump doesn't value being front and center. I think the thing you do hear from, certainly I hear from Republican strategists and people who think about these campaign things is, you know, sort of like Donald Rumsfeld's line, you go to war with the army you have. Like, you go to campaign with the party that you have, and the party that you have is Trump,

and you can't run away from it. And your scenario of sort of putting him on the back burner just doesn't work for this Republican Party. And they will reap, I believe, what they are sowing by having this scenario. To be clear, I'm not sure that would work. I'm not sure that would be good if it did work. But nobody's going to forget that Donald Trump is president, that he's the sort of dominant figure in American politics today. That was sort of my point about the advisors telling Trump what he wants to hear about these ads,

is that this is the strategy that you can get Trump to approve. Right. Right. Because he talks about this money that he's sitting on as if it's like literally his money. Yes. And getting him to spend money on people in ways that don't benefit him.

I mean, that is one of the through lines for his international diplomacy. It was how his charity work. And so, like, of the rational ideas that are possible to get sign off from Trump, I think this is like probably the best one.

Pretty amazing. I want to jump into some individual races, but before we do that, Mike, you mentioned Trump's sort of crumbling support among Hispanics in particular. And in the most recent issue of Next Right, you're terrific newsletter that we are publishing where you look at sort of the politics and policy debates animating the right, sort of building up to the midterms and then long past the midterms, this is going to be, we think, if not the most important, one of the most important debates that will unfold in American politics over the next two months, six months, two years, ten years will be this, I think, coming sort of battle royal on the American right, and your next right covers that on a weekly basis. You had some reporting

on Trump's losing support among Hispanic voters, and in particular in Texas. Can you describe what's happening there? Yeah, I do want to give credit. I believe. it was Jonah who mentioned Trump losing support from Hispanics. But that just shows you- You don't have to give credit. No, we should take credit away from Jonah, you know. You don't have to give Jonah credit. He had clearly been reading my newsletter and it had just sort of washed over him.

Look, is Jonah doing your performance evaluations, Mike? Come on. I don't know. All right. So, yeah, so there's a new poll of three congressional districts in South Texas. It's not a perfect analog. to Hispanic voters, but it's pretty darn close. It's about as close as you can get

at the congressional district level because these are three congressional districts that run along the Rio Grande and the border with Mexico, and they have a significantly high Hispanic population in these three districts. Two of them are represented by Democrats, one of them represented by Republicans.

Should also be noted that these are redrawn districts. Remember, Texas redrew its districts, the Republican majority in the state. legislature redrew districts with the intention of being more favorable to Republicans. And yet, there are some really concerning signs for Donald Trump and Republicans in these three districts. And the top line, right, it's just that all three of the Republican candidates are trailing Democrats in those three districts, including Monica Della Cruz, who is the Republican,

who's been in this district now for two terms, is running for, I believe a third term. she is down something, I believe it was three points to a Democratic challenger who's very much a high-level recruit for the Democratic Party. Bobby Polito, he's a singer and sort of a well-known figure within the Tejano community. Those are Texans of Mexican origin. And so at the top level, you can just see that, okay, Democrats are doing well in districts that Donald Trump won. That's the other thing we need to underscore. All three of these districts, including in the newly redrawn version, of these districts, Donald Trump won, and sometimes won by a lot in 2024, right?

So that's the analog, right? We can understand and kind of see where Donald Trump's improvement among Hispanic and Latino voters happened in South Texas. And if you know anything about South Texas, it makes a lot of sense. It's working class. And it is very much a part of that supposed coalition that Donald Trump was bringing about of a kind of a cross-ethnic working class coalition. So the fact that not only are those Democratic candidates doing well in those districts,

Donald Trump's approval rating in those districts now is underwater. And I just think that tells you everything. This was supposed to be kind of the base for where Donald Trump and the Republican Party were going to remake their coalition. It was the birth of the realignment. Right, right. This is where the realignment was supposed to happen. And it ain't happening.

And it doesn't mean that it can't happen over a long period. period of time, Republicans go back in there. But I do think you're saying, I mean, Greg Abbott, who's the Republican governor, is running again for reelection. He's been campaigning in this part of the state since he first ran for governor in 2014. He's done well in this part. But he's even down in his reelection effort in these districts as well. I just think it shows you that all of that talk of realignment doesn't matter when the results are what they have been in the economy. And the economy, but also I think in immigration as well. I don't think this is a population that is necessarily aligned with where sort of like liberal progressives are on immigration, but I think the conduct of

the way that the administration has tried to, you know, remove people from the country has also had a negative effect on these populations as well. And so I think what you're seeing is a big red flag for Republicans who thought there was a new day for Hispanic voters in the Republican Party. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the Dispatch podcast. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always 375 and get life brand pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more. And we're back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast.

Let's jump in. So I'm going to jump into a few specific races now with the time that we have left. And I want to start in Michigan. If you are even a casual consumer of political news and information these days, you have been inundated with reporting and analysis and hot takery, knee-jerk, opinion-mongering from and about the state of Michigan. Where Abu al-Sayyid, very progressive, he says he's not a socialist. not a Democratic socialist, but aligned with the far left of the Democratic Party, is taking on former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers in the Senate race there, was thought to have been potentially, I think the conventional wisdom,

was certainly the candidate he dispatched in the Democratic primary, made the argument that he was far too left to win a general election. And if you hadn't Abdul al-Said, Al-Said as the, Democratic nominee running against Mike Rogers, he was sure to lose because he couldn't bring aboard independence and the kinds of other people that he would need to win the Senate race in Michigan. If you look at polling, however, and let's just stipulate up front, there are all sorts of problems with polling. There were problems with polling inside that Democratic primary that overstated and supported the race was closer than Polsters had suggested. It might be, having caveated it,

If you look at the polling since the Democratic primary one month ago, Abdul-El-Said is plus five in a Michigan State UGov poll, plus four in an epic MRI poll, plus one in a Fabrizio-Anzaloni poll. He's down four to Mike Rogers in a Fox News poll, plus seven in a Susquehanna poll like the voters, and plus three. So he is winning five of the six polls that have been taken since the Democratic primary. But John, just reflecting on the news this week, it's fair to say he's had some trouble consolidating the support of the Democratic Party. There's been tremendous infighting and criticism of him from fellow Democrats.

And a lot of it relates to Hassan Piker, who is a prominent supporter, a California streamer. as Al-Said would now have it. Can you walk us through how you're looking at the Michigan Senate race and the controversies around Abu al-A-A-A-D? Yeah, right now, I think that the polling shows Syed with a slight advantage, but I do think that he has, you know, as such toxic associations and has made such extreme and radical statements in the past that he could lose this thing. He mentioned Hassan Piker, someone who has said that America deserved 9-11, someone who has said that he hates America, basically, you know, favorable things about Mao Zedong. I think that if you could focus on that, again, this conversation about Trump, should we focus on Trump's personality or the issues?

You can just do 100% negative ads about the other guy. And so that's why there is still an opportunity for Mike Rogers here. And, you know, Al-Sayad, he has not been willing to formally disavow Piker, even in the wake of Piker's most recent outrage of saying sort of predicting that if Jewish Americans continue to stand up for Israel, well, you know, they're just going to be an anti-Semitic backlash against you. I'm just predicting this. I'm not saying I'm justifying it. but it was pretty much, it was not too subtle what he was doing. And Syed, who invited Piker to campaign with him the night before the primary election, the recent primary election, is unwilling to cut ties with him.

So, I mean, you know, there's this idea out there that somehow Syed might be the Obama 2.0 because Obama had a Muslim name when he was from the Midwest. I think that's just crazy. I mean, Obama ran away from Jeremiah Wright, the radical pastor in Chicago that he had been associated with, who said, gave a sermon about God America, not God bless him. America, you know, Obama's trope and all his rhetoric was to sort of create two extreme positions and place himself in the center and say that he was the reason to the frustration of conservatives. Yeah.

The scientist wants to run on full progressivism. I mean, he's going on Fox News, getting in arguments with Jesse Waters about circumcision being just like sex change operations for children. I mean, I'm not saying that he can't win. I mean, the polls are showing that he actually has a slight advantage and Trump may be the overwhelming issue and he still wins. But he is running a very different race than Barack. Obama ever did in 2008. So I do think this is a live, a live race of a real toss-up.

Jonah, he's tried to create some distance between himself and Hassan Piker and his line. I mean, it is a, it's a funny line if you paid attention to the primary where he really gave a full embrace of Hassan Piker and all of his problems and really sort of mocked people who asked him questions about Hassan Piker's controversial, outrageous, I would say anti-American positions, Al-Sayette, I think one of the ways that he sort of proved his progressive bona fides in the primary was to say, to hell with the people who are criticizing me for my association with this guy, I'm not going to back away. I am who I am. You should vote for me because I believe what I believe. And now, when he gets questions about this, he says, well, this race isn't about some Twitch streamer from California. Democrats, John Fabro, the Crooked Media Obama podcast, bro, proposed having a day where Democrats don't talk about Hassan Piker and don't take the bait. Just don't answer these questions. Debbie Dingell, representative from Michigan, has said she's done taking questions about

Hassan Piker. Is that going to be enough to create this distance or does he need to go farther, as John suggests and do sort of a full rejection of Piker? If he does that, what are the implications for the progressive base that supported him? Yeah, so that's the problem, right? as John was saying, it's not an Obama strategy. And it's not an implausible strategy, right? Like, we've been living in the era of base turnout election strategies for a while now,

where the whole goal is not necessarily to win over the middle. It's just simply to turn up the gain on your own side and win by turnout. Saeed's not a DSA member, but he's DSA aligned in, you know, in every way that matters to, you know, the typical voter. he can't afford to lose the there are two constituencies that won the primary for him the DSA types in college towns right University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and all that kind of stuff white downly mobile overly educated people

and the Arab and Muslim population in Michigan and I don't want to like cast dispersions and say that every Arab or every Muslim in Michigan is either Hassan Piker fan or a son. sees the world the way they do, the way he does. Nor do I want to say that every barista socialist with open-toed shoes in a closed mind at the University of Michigan

sees the world the way Hassan Puckin is. But enough from column A and column B do, or at least they like him enough. And the logic of the DSA left has always been the popular front stuff, right? Has always been solidarity. And so you can't do a sister soldier the way Bill Clinton could

because you're more dependent on your base voters, you're more dependent on the voters who like Sister Soldier than you are on the people who would be impressed by it. And that's a real dilemma for him. And it's a one of his own making. And I don't see how he can necessarily get out of it. His theory seems to be that we are in an era where unapologetic masculinity wins for you.

And so he's going after, you know, he's talking. a bit like the Arab Pete Hegseth going all Chesty McBrosef trying to like challenge. I loved it when he went, he challenged Mike Rogers to one-on-one football, which, I mean, I guess is kind of a could be a thing. And I think he's in a dilemma that a lot of the Democratic Party are, like most of the DSA-type candidates, one in congressional districts or other municipalities that flipped blue places into bluer places. Sayyad is one of only one or two candidates,

or three maybe, candidates in the country who won a state-level primary and now has to win over basically median voters. And the problem he's running into, it's very similar to what Mike was talking about with Hispanics in Texas, right? There are natural modes of communication among Hispanic people about what's going on

with immigration that's causing even serious social conservative Mexican Americans, Hispanic Americans to regret voting for Trump because they see what's happening to their friend's cousin or the guy who works for them down at the shop or whatever and they don't like it. Similarly, Jews in Michigan are pretty freaked out. Jews in the country are pretty freaked out.

And they're freaked out by stuff going on the right, but a lot of it going on the left. And Piker represents a strain of DSA-aligned anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism that is indistinguishable for a lot of Jews from anti-Semitism, that Sayyad cannot disavowal full-throatedly. You just can't, because that's his constituency to a certain extent. And that's why Piker is, you know, just a huge albatross for him.

I still think the guy can win. I mean, Rogers lost that state last time in an election that Trump won. The state's more blue than people appreciate. Yeah. But Sayan's got real weaknesses because of this stuff. And with the African-American vote, you know. It also may be a challenge for Al-Sayed. if you're talking about authenticity,

and I do think authenticity really matters today in a way that it maybe didn't 30 years ago. The other problem with distancing himself from Hassan Piker is, I think he believes a lot of the stuff that Hassan Piker believes. I think there are plenty of indications that Al-Sayyed is anti-Semitic, just the same way that Hassan Piker is. The other challenge, though, I think, is this fight over independence.

We should make clear that even as we've seen the numbers of voters across the country who self-identify as independent, has risen and risen pretty dramatically over the past decade, as opposed to people who self-identify as affiliated with one or the other two major parties. It's not a huge group. It can be a decisive group, but it's not likely a huge group in terms of people actually show up and go to the polls. There's polling from the Detroit Regional Chamber. This is back in the late spring, but suggested that 22% of independence approve of Trump's performance. This is in Michigan.

while 65% disapprove of Trump's performance. So shows, I think, if you're Mike Rogers, the kinds of challenges you're facing running as a now-Trumpy Republican. Rogers also has, I think, challenges in the authenticity sphere because this is somebody who was very critical of Trump in the aftermath of January 6th made noises, like he was a never-Trumper and has since come around to offer praise for Trump in virtually every one of his comments on national politics. He often refers to Donald Trump. Rogers, on the one hand,

looks like a pretty good candidate on paper. He serves as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, worked in the FBI, long Michigan ties, one-house race is there. But as Jonah mentioned, he didn't do well in his last statewide race. Is there anything, John, that he can do to break through? And is there anything that he can do to win independence who are skeptical of Trump in the way that we were talking about earlier? Yeah, I think that you can be more forthright going after these primary voters who voted for Syed's opponents, Haley Stevens.

I think that you can create Democrats for Rogers and just go and ask for those votes. never hurts. But I do think that Rogers definitely has a lot of problems. I don't know. I mean, so he lost the last election against Alyssa Slokin while Trump was on the belt. So Trump wins Michigan, Rogers loses. Is that a sign that Rogers is that much more unpopular than Trump? Or that's just that Kamala Harris was that much more of a weaker candidate than Alyssa Slotkin. So I think he's, you know, the best kind of, not the best, but he is your standard Republican establishment Michigan candidate, you know, not super crazy or anything. But I do think he has avenues to try and peel off these voters and make an aggressive play for them, the people who voted

against Siyadh in the primary. So Michigan is one race that we'll be watching over the next couple of months. I ask each of you to come up with another race that you'll be paying attention to over the next couple months so that we can share it with our listeners here. John, why don't you start with the race that you're going to be watching and just walk people sort of through what the dynamics are. This is one that a lot of people are going to be familiar with. Yeah, Texas Senate is still just one of the most interesting ones, the fact that Republicans dumped their easily electable incumbent John Cornyn in favor of Ken Paxton, who was the Attorney General impeached by the Texas House of Representatives on corruption charges, whose wife, a state senator, has filed for divorce on biblical grounds,

alleging, obviously adultery, someone who, instead of campaigning in the United States in Texas, on July 4th, went to London with his alleged mistress. On the other hand, you've got James Talariko, the state legislator who has a long, sort of woke progressive record, someone who has said things like there are six sexes, used scripture, the Bible, to justify abortion. And just recently, CNN reported this week that in 2020, Telerico said that he linked capitalism to white supremacy and said these were both oppressive systems that need to be dismantled. Now he's run away from all this, but I just think that, you know, I'm both. sides. These are just fascinating what both parties have chosen to do in Texas, and that it's still

a toss-up with actually Tala Rico with a couple points lead in the average of polls. Trump, who endorsed Paxton shortly before the primary against Cornyn, after seeing polling with showing Paxton with the lead, has sat in the sidelines in terms of opening up that $800 million war chest that he's got. Senate Republicans have said they are not going to be spending the $100 million that it might require to rescue Paxton if he can be rescued. They've got competitive races, obviously in Maine and Alaska and Iowa and Ohio. And they're very clearly telling Trump, hey, if you want this guy that you endorsed,

you should help bail him out. And so far that hasn't happened. And Corny himself is talking about how much of a lazy campaigner, Paxton. So I just think it is fascinating, even though everyone's talking about that's the one I'm most interested in. Before we take an ad break,

please consider becoming a member of the dispatch. You'll unlock access to bonus podcast episodes and all of our exclusive newsletters and articles. You can sign up at the dispatch.com slash join, and right now we have a Labor Day sale going on where you can get 25% off a dispatch subscription. Speaking of ads, if they aren't their thing, you can upgrade to a premium membership. No ads, early access to all episodes, two free gift memberships to give away, exclusive town halls with the founders, and much, much more. Okay, we'll be right back. Welcome back.

Let's return to our discussion. this week especially has been so interesting to watch these Senate Republicans in their public comments about what Trump needs to do. He's not spending on behalf of Paxton. It was, I think correctly argued that his support for Paxton effectively ended that primary campaign, put an end to the career of John Cornyn. And you had John Thune in an interview this week was asked about this. And if he effectively said, hey, Trump needs to step up and spend this money. He left off the second part of the comment, which I think we can guess was running through his head, which is he's the one who got us in this position.

You know, get out there. There's been John Kennedy, senator from Louisiana, made similar comments, said it's time for Trump to sort of spend on behalf of these candidates that he wanted as badly. This is the kind of finger pointing and the kind of repercussions you usually see in the days after a candidate loses. But here we have it two months in advance where Republicans are pushing Trump to do this because they do hold him responsible for this. And I think it drives a lot of the frustration with Trump that you see among Senate Republicans. Yeah, I'm not sure actually how much Trump bears responsibility for his – I mean, Paxon defeated corner by 28 points. I do think that if Trump was going to stop Pax and he needed to get in early and go hard against him, he needed to keep him on the sidelines at the beginning. He obviously didn't do that.

So I think that to the extent that Trump could have stopped it, he needed to stop it before. got he needed to strangle the PACS. Yeah, he needed to make him ambassador to Aruba, like really early. Yeah. There were two contests, right? I mean, there was an early vote in the spring. I don't remember exactly when it was. It was in May.

And there was widespread belief among the Cornyn team that Trump was going to endorse Cornyn. And that Paxton might not even make the runoff or if he made the runoff that Corny's margin in that first contest would be so high that it would send a signal that Paxton was not going to win a runoff. He had the president's, Cornyn had the president's support, and this wouldn't be a competitive race. It is certainly the case that Republicans who have been involved with the Texas race sort of all along. I would say Cornyn Republicans, more traditional Republicans, believe that Trump shived Cornyn. And they say that he gave them every indication that he was likely to weigh in on behalf of.

Cornyn and then didn't. But you're right. You're absolutely right. In the final head-to-head, Paxton destroyed Cornyn, and it wasn't really much of a contest. Mike, what race are you going to be watching? Well, I'm going to be watching all of them, Steve, of course, but... It's the right answer. Thank you.

Thank you. But I do think Iowa 3rd, Iowa's 3rd Congressional District, will be interesting for a lot of reasons. So this is one of Iowa's four congressional districts. is represented like all of them by a Republican. This one is Zach Nunn. This district is interesting. It is, according to the Cook Political Report, an evenly matched district. It neither has a Republican nor a Democratic advantage is right down the middle. It is the wealthiest congressional district in Iowa. It basically covers most, if not all of Des Moines and its suburbs and then kind of covers a big rural spot south of Des Moines going all the way to the Missouri border. And it is the kind of place that you would expect in a good year for Democrats, for the Democrat to be competitive and possibly win. So if she does, and her name is Garriott, is her last name. I'm blanking, Sarah Garriott, I'm blaking on her middle name, is running against Zach Nunn in a state which I think is very interesting.

You've got a governor's race, an open governor's race there, Kim Reynolds, the Republican governor's not running for re-election. Rob Sand is the lone statewide Democratic official in Iowa. He is running for governor, and he is winning at this point in that governor's race. And I think most people in Iowa believe he's going to win. There is a competitive race for the U.S. Senate, an open Senate seat. Joni Ernst, not running for reelection, in which Ashley Hinson, a Republican Congresswoman, is about three points or so beating Josh Turrick, who is a Democratic,

state legislator, but he's got, I think, a potentially good shot. I've talked about that race before on the podcast. So the question for me is what happens in that House race because it is reflective of what's going on in Iowa. Iowa is a state where the Trump tariffs are very unpopular, very unpopular. It is a consistent, consistently in the polls, they've shown that they have been unpopular in this ag-heavy state that requires a lot of those inputs that have been affected by the, the trade actions of the Trump administration, fertilizer and other ag inputs, you know, machines that need parts that the cost of those parts have gone up as well. The war in Iran as well has had a lot of opposition in Iowa, in part for those economic implications as well, sort of went hand

in hand with what happened with the tariffs, but also because Iowa was sort of directly affected from the very beginning of the Iran War. Of the first four deaths of American service members, two of them were from Iowa, and so it was felt very acutely in Iowa, the effects of this war. And it's not a state that has a long history of being pro-war or pro-intervention overseas. So what happens to Zach Nunn? He's very, very well-regarded among Republicans, sort of a rising star. He is going to have a lot of money behind him. But can he withstand the wave, the Democratic wave?

That's what I'm going to be watching that race for. I think it'll tell us a lot about Iowa and also about other districts like Iowa's third. Yeah, I mean, that seems like exactly the kind of district that if there is, you know, if this ends up being a wave election, won't be as close as we think it might be as we look at it now. And if it's a wave election, we're going to be looking at, I think there will be a lot of those districts potentially in the House that we don't right now categorize as particularly competitive, but could get swept up in that moment. And I'm glad you picked Iowa's third congressional district.

Mike, because I was trying to think of something really sexy and clickbaity that we could use to tease this podcast with to get people to click in and listen, and you gave it to us. I appreciate that. Des Moines, baby, Des Moines. That's... I love Des Moines. It's so hot right now. Des Moines has some really good steakhouses. Jonah,

what race? You also will be watching all of them. Oh, yeah. Which is the correct answer. A noted Cephologist Jonah Goldberg. see, the word sephologist comes from Greek. The word sef means stone, and that's how you cast elections in ancient Greece, is by counting the stones. So that's sephologist watches elections. All right, I'm done.

No, I'm actually interested. I was trying to think about this. Like, I agree with McCormick, the Texas is the most interesting one. But it's also so cartoonish that I think the way goes is not all that useful as a test case for national trends. right? It is it is purely like it's a Japanese game show of an election, right, with just like crazy outsized personalities and human error. And I think the one that is the real test is the Ohio Senate race insofar as like people love to talk about turning Texas, you know, whether Texas can be turned blue, but Ohio turned red. Ohio was when we were growing up, the original swing state.

right? It used to be the bellwether and it has become a solidly, it's like a plus 10 plus 11 Republican state. I think Trump carried it by 10. And you've got this Senate race in Ohio, which has, you know, John Husted versus Sherrod Brown. Brown's trying to make a comeback. Brown represents what used to be considered like the left wing of the Democratic Party pre-DSA pre-Woke, right? He's like a classic populist, economic populist kind of guy. And if almost all of the arguments made in defense of Trumpism and MAGAism and protectionism and the new nationalism and all of this stuff, they are basically soaps to Ohio voters, right? Which is J.D. Vance's state, it's where he was elected to the Senate. It is, you know, all the reason we're supposed to have tariffs is to help the industrial Midwest that Ohio is supposed to be the poster boy for.

And Sherrod Brown is right now leading Hustead, the Republican, not by a lot, but by a couple points. And this is the place that's going to test the Trump strategy about whether or not, if you improve his favorability ratings, that will help Republican candidates. Because Trump's underwater, but not by a lot, like, by like 10 points or something like that. There was a Fox News poll that said that, I don't know, I can't remember exactly what it was like, 51% of Ohio voters said that Husted was too close. to Trump. So like 51% is a very small number. If the whole plan of this new ad campaign thing is to push Trump's favorability up five, ten points, then you should see the race change in Ohio more than in a lot of places, right? It is on the cuss. You should also see whether like Husted goes to this midterm convention thing. I mean, that's going to be very interesting

to watch. Who shows up at that? Who wants to be caught on camera applauding Trump's two speeches. This is the midterm Republican convention to be held in Dallas in... Next week. A week. Yeah. I think, Mike, are you going down? I'll be there. I will be there. To cover that. It's up against two debut football games,

which is not ideal. Two debut NFL games, yeah. And remember earlier when I was saying how Trump thinks it's all his money and that if he doesn't get a piece, then it's not worth doing? He's charging attendees $25,000 ahead to go to the convention. So it's not believe it's just amazing

So it will be I mean it's a fundraising It's not a real convention It's a fun yeah yeah But like the whole point is he's supposed to be spending his money Not raising money, right? I mean he's trudging candidates Republican elected officials

Yeah and Mike will not be paying the $25,000 To go cover the Oh, whoops But like the real test of the strategy Is to see where Trump goes to do his rallies Right it's interesting that he's going to Alaska They must see some numbers that Because Alaska is impossible

to poll. Bears eat all the polls. So it's like just very curious about the test because they have, the White House has better numbers than we get from public polling. Where do they think Trump can actually help? And if Trump doesn't go to Ohio and do rallies for Husted, that tells you something, not just about that race, but about a lot of these bigger issues that Trumpists and MAGA people and everyone else tells you are definitional to the, to the new right. And, So I'm just interested in it. Even though I find the actual personalities involved, the complete opposite of the Texas race.

Yeah. They are neither repugnant nor interesting. They're just two politicians. Yeah, I mean, Houston, if you talk to Republicans in the Senate, including Republicans of the Senate, who are not terribly enthusiastic about Donald Trump, they speak quite favorably about John Houston.

I don't know Houston, personally. I've never interviewed him or spoken with him. But in talking to his colleagues in the Senate, they portray him as a sort of work hard, get stuff done. Guy takes policy seriously, takes his job seriously. He's not, you know, one of these performative politicians. And the non-Trumpy senators in the U.S. Senate on the Republican side think that it would be a big loss if he lost this race to Sherrod Brown, particularly as it relates to a post-midterm fight over what the Republican Party is going to be.

Can I say real quick, though, in defense of Sherrod Brown, like as a reporter on Capitol Hill, like when he was in the Senate, he was always great to talk to. He always answered questions and liked to talk. And so I would say he's not uninteresting in that way. He likes to mix it up in a very kind of old-school liberal way that is at least interesting to me.

Yeah, but he's not my point. is he's got none of the ideological weirdness of Tala RICO and none of the personal baggage of Paxton. He's just like, it's like an old school, progressive populist, union hall Democrat, you know, you know. Former tariff enthusiast who is now running against tariffs, you know. That's right.

Yeah, yeah. All right, well, thank you for doing that quick tour around the country to talk about some races that we will be watching. We'll be doing more. We'll spend a lot of time over the next couple months talking about these races and the political dynamics, the implications for both Democrats and Republicans. But before we go today, I want to spend a moment in this not worth your time on something that

Jonah mentioned in passing in his answer, the NFL. Later today, the dispatch will hold virtually with people joining from across the country. Our fantasy football draft, and my question to you, Jonah, is if you are awarded the first pick in the draft, do you take Jamir Gibbs or Bijan Rosh? Robinson. We'll throw a curveball and take Jamar Chase or Pukkah. So my first thing I would do is Google those three names. It was four names, Jonah. It was four. If you say so, I just heard a combination of vowels and consonants. So I will say, I have not participated since the very first one that we did. And I had a secret advantage in that for years, my editor at Tribune Media,

Yes. Great guy. Pat Fitzmorest, actually is literally one of the country's top fantasy football analysts. Actually, you know what? I forgot about that. When you mentioned that to me, as somebody who's been doing fantasy football now for like 25 plus years, sort of embarrassing, I was in awe. I thought that was so cool. The Pat Fitzmores, because I followed his advice. He was rated like the number one fantasy prognosticators. Like, yeah, yeah, he's unbelievable, super smart. a pure sideline of his the entire time I worked with him. And then he basically left traditional media to go do fantasy football stuff full time. And so I reached out to him and was like, what do I do? And he gave me some great. So I came out of the box pretty well the first time we did this. But then the problem is, I didn't want to keep bothering him about every trade. And so people started saying, hey, can I have so-and-so? Yeah, whatever. I haven't even know how to load the page to

look at this crap. So I got nothing for you. It seems fun. Like, I get it, but I just not, it's, I got nothing. Yeah, Pat Fitzmore, is that fantasy pros for those of you who want to check out his podcast? It's a very good podcast. He's very, he's very smart. He's a very good guy. He's a good place to go. If you do fantasy football, he's a good place to go for advice. Did you come in last place that year, Jonah, I think? I don't know. I don't think you did. I don't think I did, But certainly I came in first for people, if you measure it as how much time you dedicated to it versus final showing, I beat even the winner. We should have given you some kind of medal for that. I mean, that seems to be really worthy of an award.

John, do you do fantasy football? I have never done fantasy football. I am probably one of the very few football fans who is 40 plus who has never played in his life. And I will even make a case. So Jonah's not a football fan at all. Yeah. I just say at all. I was once one, but no, I'm not a football game.

But you don't like follow, you don't sit down on a Sunday afternoon and watch or make, carve out time in your schedule on Thursday evenings like some of us to make sure you can watch the game. But John, you are an actual football fan and you still have not done fantasy. Why have you not done fantasy? I mean, laziness is part of it, but I'd like to gussy that up with some intellectual principled reason. You know, we talk about tribalism here at the dispatch. tribalism so bad. This is where tribalism should run wild. You should pick a football team, follow it, love it, root for it, win or lose. And you shouldn't be playing a video game on your phone, racking up points and being distracted. You should sit down, you know, crack a Miller Light

or three or four, and watch the Packers win or lose. And you should be very happy or very angry for 24 hours and then forget about it. So I think that that is my gussied up intellectualized version of why I've just been probably too lazy. When I was a kid, I watched SportsCenter twice a day. don't really know much about the broader league these days. I love, first of all, I love that you're attributing your non-participation to laziness because it makes it feel like my participation is somehow really stepping up and like putting forth real, real effort. I might do three leagues this year in that case, you know.

Every few years, every few years my wife will just like thank me for only watching one or two football games a week and not playing video games. And I just want to thank all the other guys out there who are setting expectations so low that I can clear them. You're welcome. You're welcome. We need to get Renault commission a piece for dispatch faith called

the Protestant ethic in the spirit of fantasy football. So no joke. And I mean, I don't know why I do stuff like this or say these things or volunteer these thoughts because I know it will become a point of quick mockery on this podcast and probably now will follow me for years to come.

But this piece that I have wanted to write for years is a profile of my, I shouldn't even tell people. I'm very competitive about fantasy football. So I'm worried that if I tell people who I listen to, they will know what I'm doing and they'll anticipate my moves and be able to beat me. But my very favorite, along with Pat Fitzmore's fantasy football analysis, this guy named Sigmund Bloom, who does a podcast out of football guys. he writes these things. But it's like a combination of game theory, deep psychology, philosophy, and football. And he's hugely entertaining. He's a great podcaster.

And I have for the past, I don't know, 10 years in a row, wanted to spend time with him. He now lives in New Orleans in the weeks leading up to the start of the football season, just to get to know him right a piece. I think it would be a great piece. I have not done it. Maybe next year will be the year I finally do this. So we can put you down in the schedule for next year? Yeah, why do you put it down in the schedule?

Okay. Alert the other editors. Look, it might mean I need to go to New Orleans here this fall, taking some football games, expense it. Yeah. You might have to shelf the Taliban piece for a little while. I think it could be. I think it could be good.

Are they still in power? See? This is why I don't do it. Mike, do you do fantasy football? Have you been doing fantasy football? And did I see your name on the list of dispatches who are going to be doing to dispatch fantasy football league? So I, like John, I have never done fantasy football.

But I am rectifying that, I guess, oversight in my life. This year, I've joined the dispatch fantasy football league. Mostly in solidarity with my oldest son, who is about turned 12, and he is doing a fantasy football league with his friends and some of the dads of those friends. They're all in a group. And he was really excited about it and signing up for it and doing it. And I just thought, like, maybe I've failed as a father

to have not, like, done this and understand what he's doing. I couldn't offer any advice because I've never done it before. And so, like many dads, I'm taking an interest in my son's interests and by doing this fantasy football league, we will see how it goes. I have no idea what I'm doing. Look, the NFL, I mean, the NFL's cute. It's fine.

It's people seem to like it. It's just, it's not college football, which is what I prefer, which I think is much more fun to watch. And so I don't know too much. But I would say, I feel like I know a lot about where a lot of the stars in the NFL went to college, because I watch them play college football. But otherwise, this is just going to be an adventure for me and see how I do. I will also say I loved the league, which was a fantastic sitcom from about

10 years, 10, 15 years ago about fantasy football, about a fantasy football league. Highly recommend that. It looked a lot of fun, like a lot of fun on that show. So maybe this one will be just as fun. Sounds like a guy making excuses for losing already. The NFL is key. Oh, I fully expect to lose. I fully expect to lose.

So one of the best things about fantasy football in my mind are the punishments for losers. It's not universal, but it's common that whoever comes in last place has to do some predetermined, really silly thing. Among the more popular ones that I have seen, especially over the past couple years, is the loser, the person who comes in the last place of a fantasy football league has to go and retake the SAT or ACT as an adult. They show up with all these high schoolers and retake the ACTT and SAT and then have to publicize their scores, which is pretty great. I kill on the verbal. The math would be really bad. especially since you're out of practice.

There's another one where people are sent to a waffle house and they have to sit at the waffle house for 24 hours. And for every either, I think it's waffle or pancake that they consume, they can reduce. There's no pancakes at waffle house, Steve. There's no pancakes at Waffle House? No, it's in the name. It's the Waffle House.

No pancakes. Well, that doesn't mean they only excludes Waffle House. Serve waffles. Like Burrito Brothers serves casidias. They have no pancakes in the Waffle House. Trust me. The best tattoo I've seen was on Instagram several years ago, and it was a guy who had a brown mole. And I apologize if this isn't getting a little gross.

He had a brown mole on his leg. And the punishment for whoever lost this league was getting a tattoo. And the tattoo that he got on his leg, and I don't think he knew that he was getting this until it was revealed, until they lifted up. was a dog sort of sitting over the brown mole on his leg so that it's like. Yeah, we could put that in the show notes. That's awesome. That's great. David French, who participated in the dispatches fantasy football league for several years,

did in fact come in last one year, and we had a punishment. I'm going to push very hard for us to revive the punishments this year. I don't think we did one last year. Great. And as I recall, David either had to sing, he had a choice. He either had to sing a song. in a way that we could post it on our internal slack, or he had to write a brief essay about why working at the dispatch is far superior to working at the New York Times.

And he has not done that yet. So we need to circle back with David. Maybe we'll confront him the next time he's on this podcast to get him to do it. I suppose we could give him the option of getting a permanent tattoo instead. Or he can renounce Aquaman. That'd be fine. In an essay form, I think that would work. That's right. Anyway, we will let you know how the draft goes next week.

I have been doing my preparations. I don't know my draft slot yet. That really matters as you try to figure out what's going on. But, Joni, you are no help to me in the player that I should choose if I get the top. Yeah. Literally no one is shock. Probably will be Jimere Gibbs. Can I just salute John McCormick's journalistic integrity?

for insisting on referring to Ken Paxton's obvious mistress as alleged mistress. I just thought that was it was touching and quaint and very old-fashioned kind of journalism. It was really lovely. That's what you get at the dispatch. I mean, she is alleged, to be clear, for lawyers who are listening to be. Maybe there's really good friends, guys. I mean, reasonable doubt. All right.

Thanks for hanging with us. We'll see you next time. Finally, if you want to support what we're doing here, you can rate, review, and subscribe to the show on your podcast, player of choice to help new listeners find us. Speaking of support, here's a shout-out to a few folks who recently joined as founding lifetime members, Tracy Brady, Leonard Goodnight, and Ian Anderson.

Thank you so much for joining us. We're glad to have you bored. As always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns, or corrections, you can email us at Roundtable at the dispatch.com. We read everything even from the losers who come in last place in their own fantasy football leagues. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in. And thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode possible,

Noah Hickey and Peter Bonaventure. Thanks again for listening. Please join us next time.