The Dispatch Podcast - Will the Midterm Elections Be Secure?

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

How confident can we be that the 2026 midterms will run smoothly? When will we know which party has secured House and Senate majorities? Should we expect any meddling, foreign or domestic?Steve Hayes was joined by election experts Stephen Richer and Mark Sawyer for answers to those questions and many others. Then a panel including Jonah Goldberg and Mike Warren dove deep on the races most likely to decide congressional majorities and take a look at how candidates in competitive races are making their closing arguments.Watch the livestream here:https://www.youtube.com/live/oi4D0oVR6gQ?si=jigZpbvgh9hky57V Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Unlock unlimited free grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Shop online and get the same low No Frills prices delivered. Get your first year of PC Express Pass for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at no frills.ca. The new Subaru Cross Trek Hybrid is the most fuel efficient cross trek yet. That means less time filling your tank and more time filling your day. More court time. More ride time. More lake time.

More camp time. More go time. The new 2027 Subaru Cross Trek Hybrid. Consumer Reports top rated subcompact SUV. Stop by your local Subaru dealership or visit Subaru.ca to learn more. Consumer Reports is not indoors products or services. Hey everybody. Welcome to Dispatch Live.

We are doing a live stream dispatch live. Happy to have you joining us tonight. And I'm especially pleased to be joined by our. August panel here, and we will invite a second August panel in about halfway through the show. We are going to focus tonight on two main aspects of the 2026 midterm elections. We are two weeks and one day out tonight when we put this in the dispatch podcast stream tomorrow. It will be two weeks exactly from Election Day. Of course, people are voting across the country in states and districts, that are likely to be competitive.

And I want to spend our time tonight, chiefly focused on two things. We'll cover a number of different things. And, of course, we'll let the conversation go in whatever direction our panelists want to take it. But I want to focus for this first part of the conversation on election integrity here with Stephen Richard and Mark Sawyer. And then when I invite Jonah Goldberg and Michael Warren in, I really want to focus on corruption as a driving issue in this election. Surprising is something that's happened in recent weeks.

So let's start with Stephen and Mark. Stephen, welcome back, Mark. Welcome to your first dispatch podcast. We're thrilled to have you. Stephen, people who are regular listeners or viewers of the dispatch podcast, know Stephen. He's a dispatch contributor. He's been with us for a long time.

He's now affiliated with the Kato Institute. Harvard Kennedy School. He was a election practitioner, deep experience in the bowels of elections, knows election security inside and out, has been attacked by election conspiracy theorists and many others. Stephen Welcome. Mark is the inaugural Fund for American Studies Fellow at the dispatch. Started just over a month ago, one of the reasons. we were excited to bring Mark on in that very competitive process to have him join the dispatch for this fellowship was because he had experience working in election security and election and analysis.

So before we jump into the issues of the day, and there were lots of election integrity issues today, Mark, can you give us a little background for listeners and viewers who aren't familiar with you, where you've come from, what's your experience in this world? Sure, thanks. Yeah, thanks for having me on, Steve. Yeah, so my election integrity background really comes from spending a few years working for a private company that state, secretary of state's office, so the ones running elections in the states would contract with us to help monitor social media for threats of violence against election officials. You know, that was on the rise after 2020 with the pandemic and a lot of the storm election claims. And we'd also help them understand, you know, what narratives online were spreading and were dominant about the election process in their state.

So could they, you know, tailor their communication efforts or help, you know, educate the public and debunk some of these conspiracy theories? So spent a few years doing that, but I've also worked as an investigator, focusing on Russian influence operations, and been a poll worker in the U.S. and an election observer on a few elections overseas in Ukraine and Moldova. So kind of a smattering there, but very happy to be on and speaking with you and Stephen. Well, we're happy to have you. We are eager to have you draw on that experience and share your insights with us about what's happening in America today. So I want to start really big picture. And Stephen, I'll start with a question to you. This morning, DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen sent a tweet.

And his tweet read, I'm proud of the work of our. H-S-I-H-Q agents and our FBI partners on, quote, Operation Protect the Vote in California. American elections are for Americans, and every non-citizen registered to vote, and voting in our elections takes away the legitimacy of our republic. We will continue to root out voter fraud all across America and ensure our elections are free and fair.

And at the end of his tweet, he linked to an article in the New York Post slash California Post, where a reporter had been given, an exclusive access to this early morning raid, wrote a story up about the raid and about the threat of non-citizen voting. The headline, as it has been revised, now reads, Inside the biggest voter fraud bust in California's history as network of 28 democracy defying cons are snared.

The original headline, it should be noted, apparently included a reference to a, quote, voter fraud ring. The link from Secretary Mullins' tweet is now dead because that was inaccurate, inoperative. But this is a big, big story today. I saw Jim Jordan, the House of Representatives, frequent Fox News, guess he was tweeting about this. Lots of Republicans' coordinated effort to raise attention to potential non-citizen voting have pointed to this story.

Stephen, I guess let me start with a question about this story, specifically, did you have a chance to read it? What do you make of it and kind of look of it? Yeah, I did, and I read the first version that was titled A Ring, and I was wondering what the conspiracy was that was linking these individuals together, and it turns out there was no link between these individuals. And surprise, some people in the United States might have broken the law in the past. And we know this because the federal government has invested millions and millions and millions of dollars of federal law enforcement resources into investigating past election participation, especially with an emphasis on non-citizens voting, which is unlawful in every state in the United

States. They have rounded up about 120, I think, now, potential cases of non-citizens' voting in a past election. But for context, over 150 million people voted in the November 2020 election. We have about 200 million registered Americans able to vote. And so yes, I think that these, good, by all means, prosecute these people if they did something unlawful and knowingly unlawful. But this is very revealing that the federal government has gone to such extent. And they can't turn up a ring. They can't turn up a conspiracy. They can't turn up anything that is systemic or that is widespread. What they can turn up are about 120 instances so far of individual non-citizens who might have broken the law.

So I hear you say that. And I think that's a very important context. We know that this has been an emphasis of the White House. This was the subject of the president's Oval Office speech, much Ballyhoo, Oval Office speech. earlier this summer. This was going to be, it sounded like the centerpiece of the administration's campaign to really crack down on potential voting irregularities,

non-citizen voting, what have you. And Stephen, you, I think, made the point well that this is not the problem that they have suggested. It is. They have said widespread. They have said election changing. What they have not said is that this, is only a handful of people in every jurisdiction, in every election. And so again, context matters.

But what I think this does is this actually should give you confidence in the election process. Because despite the fellow that this federal government has moved mountain and birth to uncover any sort of widespread voting fraud, they have not been able to find it. What they have found are individuals who have broken the law amidst millions of other individuals who have been lawfully voting. And guess what? By all indications, all of these 120 non-citizens who voted illegally, potentially, they're not all Democrats. They're not all Republicans. And so that's another mitigating factor when we're talking about what does this mean for American elections writ large. And I would suggest that what it means is that American elections have not had,

a widespread problem. Mark, you've done some reporting on this for the dispatch, including just this past week. Is that your sense that this is, you know, a problem, a challenge, but not a widespread problem. What do you say to somebody, I can listen to Steven. I trust him. I like him.

He's a dispatch contributor after all. But I could also listen to him and say like, yeah, you know what, Stephen, even if you have a few of these, that's a problem. And in elections where they might be decided by a handful of votes, it matters that a handful of people could be fraudulently trying to vote or are non-citizens that aren't eligible to vote. What have you found, Mark, and your reporting on this recently? Yeah, no, I think it's a good point. And I think it's key to think about, I mean, every vote does matter, unlawful votes cast, do matter. But as we're looking at, you know, validating the voter registration roles, as we're looking at, you know, looking for non-citizen voters, you have to think also about the tradeoffs and the risks of potentially disenfranchising or, you know, suspending the registration of voters who are citizens and are legally registered and yet are accused of being non-citizens.

So, you know, as Stephen mentioned, federal governments moved, you know, used all of their resources to look into this. States have as well. The Save Database, which is something that was discussed a lot this year. It's a database that has been used by a long time, used for a long time by the U.S. Customs Service to look for, basically verify whether immigrants are eligible for receiving benefits. That database was overhauled early in the kind of doge days of Trump 2.0 and has been used to now look for non-citizens on the voting rolls. And a lot of states, red states have like Texas, Missouri, you know, they've embraced this tool very early, but it's been shown to have a lot of problems. And so in the process of flagging potential non-citizens, there have been many cases where eligible voters who are citizens, who are registered, have had their registration suspended or, you know, put in limbo for a while.

So there's always tradeoffs when we're looking at, you know, actions like this. What happens if a, what happens if a citizen is, is incorrectly flagged and, you know, determined if he had a non-citizen who's attempting to vote, there may be something illegal taking place, what happens, you have a sense of what happens there and how a citizen would go about restoring his or her rights to vote? vote. Yeah. So it, I mean, it really depends on how their voter registration was initially handled. And that's going to vary from state to state. So in Missouri, for example, the initial list of flagged voters that, you know, you know, they believe might be non-citizens was sent

directly on to county officials and they were supposed to validate it themselves. And if I remember correctly, you know, suspend the voters on the list until they had been verified. In that case, county officials, you know, they, they went through with a fine-tuk comb and were able to, you know, determine who had, you know, who was eligible to vote. But in North Carolina, for example, they took a more cautious approach and basically just sent out letters to people who showed up on that list of flagged voters and said, hey, we think you might not be a citizen. You know, if that's correct, you need to remove yourself from the, from the voter. rules and made it a voluntary process. So states are taking different approaches, but really, I think

one of the main concerns here is the burden of proof should not be on the voter to prove their citizenship when in every state they already have attested to their citizenship when they registered to vote. You have to, you know, attest that you are a U.S. citizen. So really it's a, and this is being played out in the courts as well, this idea that, you know, the burden of proof shifting to the voter to prove citizenship again above and beyond what they already have. Yeah, Stephen, one of the things you hear from, you know, groups that would characterize themselves as pro-democracy groups, voter rights groups, is that the mere fact of this campaign, of this effort in itself could have the effect of suppressing votes from people

who are legal and might be afraid of being flagged in one way or another as a non-citizen, as a voter. Is that something people should be concerned about it? How significant would that problem be if it's a problem? I don't know. We don't have the empirics behind that yet. My view is that Americans vote if they want to vote. I tend to believe that even if there are impediments, even if there are scary things out there. But it is why the National Voter Registration Act, one of the few pieces of federal legislation pertaining to election administration, has a quiet period 90 days before the election so that no sort of systemic mass overreaching.

hall of voters happens 90 days before election. Why is that important? Maybe one reason is what you just suggested that, Steve, but the main reason that they were thinking about is what about those false positives? What about those people who are accidentally flagged who shouldn't have been flagged? Well, if you do it 90 days before an election, that person still has plenty of time to get notified and then to take the necessary steps to be in good standing in time for the election. I think part of the scary thing about this California activity is that are we going to be able to resolve this in in sufficient time for those votes to be properly adjudicated, properly tabulated, if they should be. I want to ask about, again, some big picture concerns that people have. People I've spoken to

Republicans and Democrats who, you know, for for a year, probably in many cases, most of their adult life was ever really thinking about voter integrity or election security. This was just, it was an assumption. It was something that was sort of guaranteed. And in recent years, of course, in part due to President Trump and the issues that he's raised, in part due to the conspiracy theorizing, in part due to the cases of broad or non-citizen voting, however rare they might be, people giving those attention, people are now sort of focused more on election security. As you both look at the broad scope of the election. that are unfolding right now and that will happen on November 3rd.

Are there things that you are concerned about in this context today based on either the rhetoric that we've heard from the president, things you've seen from Democrats or just a general environment? What should the average person be concerned about, if anything, as it relates to the elections and the security of the elections? And Stephen, I'll start with you. I don't think you should. I think you should have confidence in the voting process. I think that you should celebrate the fact that there are more ways to vote than ever before.

If you want to vote in person early, you can do that in 47 states. If you want to vote by mail, you can do that in over 35 states now without an excuse. If you want to vote on election day, you can still do that in every single state. And I think that just all the conversation belies the fact that trajectory of both integrity and access. has been to improve, improve, improve, and I think that most of this is noise that will be resolved in post-election litigation or post-election online conversations, but for the purpose of the individual voter, go out there and vote. You'll be good. Mark, you buy that? Is that basically right? Yeah, I mean, I, I, everyone I've spoken to, like, election officials, election security

experts, you know, they've talked about it's a more challenging environment for them than ever. You know, there are rhetorical threats. There's, you know, maybe security threats. But at the end of the day, they've all expressed confidence in the, in the election process, in the, you know, the security and sanctity of every American's vote. So nobody I've spoken to is, you know, is really, really alarmed that, you know, the security of our elections is in jeopardy. I would say, for me, I find it really helpful to distinguish between a desire to interfere in the election and intent to interfere in the election and planning or preparation to interfere in the election. So, for example, we've heard the president repeatedly. He's expressed his desire to contest unfavorable results.

He mentioned he wished in the past that he had used the National Guard to seize voting machines. For example, the way that gets into planning or preparation to do so is just a lot fuzzier. It's hard to tell. I think, you know, when I'm thinking about the risks of any serious interference on a domestic front, I would say it also depends to me. It's important to know, like, what will the final results be? If this is a really tight race that comes down to, you know, one battleground state where, you know, you could really lean on local officials or you could send somebody into seize equipment and cast doubt on one race in particular, you know, we might see a higher threat level there than if this is really not going to be a close race. But I would say broadly, yeah, everyone I've spoken to has been, has spoken about the challenges, but they've expressed a lot of trust. a lot of faith in the resilience of our election system.

So I like that framing desire, intent, and preparation. Let me ask you about President Trump. As you point out, Mark, in the most diplomatic way possible, President Trump has pushed in these areas in the past. He continues to claim, despite the fact that there's no evidence, despite the fact that his claims have been debunked repeatedly now for six years that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, that he, that, you know, other elections that don't go as he wanted them to are as well. And he worries aloud about that happening

again in 2026. There was a story last night on 60 minutes about Utah and moves that the federal government had made in Utah. They didn't interview with the lieutenant governor of Utah, who I think, even correct me if I'm wrong, has brought authority over the conduct of elections in the state. And she expressed considerable alarm at what the federal government was doing in trying to get information about voters, about voting activity that the federal government is not entitled to get. And she was pretty concerned about it. We had a terrific report from our John McCormick back in September looking at Wyoming, where John went and talked to senior Wyoming statewide elected officials, including the Republican governor of Wyoming, who said, basically, the federal government's coming in.

We've got DOJ people coming in unannounced, demanding information, meddling in our elections, and we're worried about it. Stephen, what do you say? I take your point, and you've been consistent about this, and I will say it helps me sleep at night. We don't generally have a lot to worry about. Things should go pretty well. But when you hear something like that, how do you understand that? Are these just rogue DOJ officials who, you know, are the election equivalent of the mall cop where they have a little authority and they're damn determined to use it? Or like, could this be a dry run?

Could this be something that we have to really pay attention to? Oh, I think to use marks categorization, there is intent there. There is interest there. And that comes from the highest levels of the federal government. that comes not only from the president, but some of the leaders, for instance, Secretary Mullen, maybe Director Patel, and so on and so forth. So I agree with Lieutenant Governor Henderson of Utah to say that there are real challenges and there are real unprecedented actions that are being taken by the federal government. My point is that so far the election system has withstood those.

I have no reason to believe that the election system won't withstand them as they did in Wyoming during the primary, and I don't think it will impact the individual voter. So it's that the individual voter's experience will go unchanged, and I think that we will have a robust conversation after the election about some of these things, but at this point, I am still confident in the election administration. Can I walk you through a sort of a worst-case scenario or something that's been worrisome to me? And Stephen, you and I have talked about this before on previous issues, a previous episodes of the dispatch podcast, and that is the lag that we see in California every single election.

Horrible system takes way too long. You've said it takes way too long. You've been very aggressive in your criticism. But I wonder if it's not a coincidence that the president is raising the issue of non-voter participation, non-citizen participation in voting in California, that it's not a coincidence that the reporter from the California Post was allowed to tag along and has, I mean, they've got photographs of the offenders as they're being handcuffed. Raising the profile of the issue, we know this as a president who knows how to do that. He thinks it long and hard about creating moments about the way that things will be covered. And we know that there will be a lag.

There will be a number of races in California, including races that may well determine the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives that won't be called on a lot. Election Day on November 3rd, that might not be called for a couple days, might not be called for several days. Is it too conspiratorial to think, boy, there's something fishy going on here. And what they're doing in these red states is preparing, potentially, to metal in places like California or elsewhere. I think California presents a soft target for all the reasons that you've named. But, you know, pay no attention to what's going on with my left hand, my right hand is doing this. And keep in mind the fact that Donald Trump and everyone who is

part of the administration who was loyal to Donald Trump was saying that California's primary was fraudulent and that the candidates there had been cheated out of a fair election and that there were going to be mass prosecutions. Well, several months have passed and there have been zero indictments pertaining to widespread fraud or widespread error in California's primary. no election official has been charged with doing anything wrong. No political candidate has been charged with doing anything wrong. So I do think that this is a little bit sort of distract you from what's going on. But I also think that, look, this plays well in California for all the reasons you've said and many, many more.

Right, right. And the distraction, yeah, Mark, go ahead. I was just going to add. I think, I mean, this is a theme in all of the, you know, all the president's attempts to question the integrity of our elections is that the it's a lot about rhetoric there's a lot of rhetoric that goes out like even with the non-citizen voting the initial headlines you know this summer secretary mullin said you know they've identified 250 000 non-citizen voters in california nevada a few other states when you actually get a few months out and they've investigated and they work it down to

a few thousand and then in nevada zero they investigated every single one there's zero so there's these big splashy headlines, as Stephen said, to distract or to cast doubt. And then, you know, when it comes down to it, there's just, there's no teeth to it. So yeah, I think that we need to be vigilant about this for sure. But there's often this gap between rhetoric and action because they just don't have the legal standing or the evidence to be able to carry it out. And I would just say, yes, there are people who break the law in the United States. And yes, that is true of election administration as well. But I think the point that Mark made about tradeoffs is a crucial one to keep in mind that if we wanted to have absolutely zero shoplifting in our

stores, we would frisk every customer before they left the store. You would have no customers left after you did that. If we wanted to have zero fraud, and that was the only acceptable level in the United States, then everyone would have to show up at an exact scheduled time. You'd have to get a retinal scan, maybe you'd have to do a thumbprint, you'd have a full background check on you, and guess what? We would not have as many people participating. As it exists, we have a system that is very generous and allows a lot of people to easily participate and does a very, very good job, not a perfect job, but a very, very good job at minimizing any attempts at fraud. And so that is a compromise, a public policy compromise that we have managed and it works well, but it's why saying,

The only acceptable amount of fraud in elections is zero. I just don't think you understand how public policy works if you really are going to say that. President Trump, if you're watching this tonight, I just want to be clear that what Stephen was saying with respect to shoplifting was an example of what we should not do. He was not recommending that as a policy option for you because I think all truth be told, the president might want to frisk every single person who goes into a retail establishment. But the president votes by mail. The president votes by mail, but says that. voting by mail is you know is is is is open to to front I want to end on we just have a couple minutes left I want to I want to end by by pushing a little further I think I take

your your point both of you that the the likelihood of something actually being problematic of the federal government going after local election administrators of votes being challenged or taken remains low if I'm accurately conveying what you are saying here. Unlock unlimited free grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Shop online and get the same low No Frills prices delivered. Get your first year of PC Express Pass for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at no frills.ca.

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But you seem to be shrugging off the distraction stuff, and I wonder if that's a mistake. Isn't the distraction part of the problem? may be. I mean, I would think that the president, to the extent that he's learned anything in the aftermath of 2020, it's that he can fulminate and thunder and give rallies and make claims and not actually do much to change the actual results of the election. But boy, oh boy, can he cause a lot of trouble. And when we're looking at what he would do, what we've seen him do in the past.

Go back and reread the books from Bill Barr and the kinds of things that he said the president asked him to do to stay in power after he lost the election. Look at Mark Esper at the Pentagon and the things that he said the president did. Look at Mike Pence. Look at all of these things.

We know what the president is willing to do to stay in power to keep Republicans in power. If there's ambiguity in these California House races on election night, on the day after the election, why shouldn't we believe that the president will, for the purposes of distraction, maybe it won't end up changing results, but if he wants to throw that the majority, the question, the majority of the House of Representatives into question, he just begins to press his case in the middle of the count. That's what he wanted to do in Arizona until our friend Chris Steyerwald and Fox News called it for Joe Biden. Stephen, why shouldn't

we be concerned about the distraction and the other things, moving beyond the actual nuts and bolts of the election itself? Well, I think we should. I do not think that we should be numb to what the President of the United States is doing. I don't think we should be numb to the fact that the President of the United States called the 2025 Virginia redistricting election unlawful and fraudulent. to a certain extent baked it into the cake at this point. And I simply think that we've gotten pretty good as a society and as a system against defending about that sort of things. Now, could something be escalated? Yes. And this is the first time when the president has had people in positions of power who are largely abiding by his rhetoric on the election. And I think

what happened in California, not the prosecution of the 12 individuals today, but the fact that the Justice Department is telling election officials in California what to do in this election, not in a future election, not in the past election, but this current ongoing election, this is a market change from where they've been in the past. And I do think that this is an escalation. It's something to keep an eye on. Mark, last thought to you. Yeah, I would say my optimism about the resilience for election system is based on the checks and balance. as we have and the like just consistently um you know courageous consistent lawful actions of of election officials and and you know in in past cases um like you mentioned you know esper and

and bar like their refusal to carry out some of the more outrageous things that the president wanted to attempt um so yeah i i don't think my optimism is based on you know a that um you know the the distractions are not important or that there there will not be, you know, again, desire, intent, and even plans to interfere. But I'm hopeful about the resilience of our system. But we all need to be, need to be vigilant. And I would say just for individual listeners, that just looks like conversations with your, with their peers, with family, you know, sharing your own confidence in the elections and, yeah, having those conversations at home. Because at the end of the day, most of us won't be, you know, making these decisions

in polling locations in courtroom, things like that. Well, I remain nervous about it, but I will sleep a little bit better, having heard from both of you, since you know this stuff a lot better than I do. And you had two glasses of wine, so hopefully that's. I mean, one and a half. I did invite you to bring it. I wasn't supplying the wine, but I've got a good road of reserve a Diet. I mean, a Coke Zero, that works too.

Thank you very much, Stephen, for taking the time. Mark, it's your job, so you had to take the time. But we're equally grateful for you showing up. This was helpful. Thank you both for coming and have a good night. We will now bring in Mike Warren, who is the politics editor at the dispatch and editor or author of the Must Read newsletter Next Right, which people tell me it's getting more and more buzz. People can't live without it, Mike.

And then we'll bring in Jonah Goldberg, too, because he's a go founder. He can show up when he wants to. Guys, did you have a chance to listen to that conversation, at least the end of it? Are you reassured? Well, yes and no. Yeah. I'm reassured by the, you know, by Richard's argument that that it's actually really hard to do voter fraud, which I believe going in. but it was good to hear the details.

But, you know, my long-standing, basically since we've been doing this podcast, my long-standing argument is that Trump wants the headline more than he wants the substance, he wants the press release kind of thing. And I think he can still do any. Also, he likes to lay down the predicate to explain why he was robbed.

And I think a lot of this stuff is, for that purpose. The thing, and I put this in the YouTube chat, because it was kind of fun to be in the chat room as a spectator. I think one of the things that the Trump people, if they're doing what I think we suspect at some level they're doing, right?

Which is just lay down this narrative. If you look at his cratering of support among young men, among, you know, rank and file GOP people and the rest. It's entirely possible if he tries to do this. It's going to be a lot of eye rolling and mockery over, oh, God, more loser talk from this guy rather than, you know, let me get my Buffalo helmet and storm the capital.

And so, like, it would be bad for democracy. It would be wrong. it would be impeachable again if Trump tried to pretend that the elections were stolen. But at the same time, I'm not sure that even a big chunk of his own followers would buy it this time the way they did in 2020. Yeah. By the way, Jonah, I think that was a water buffalo lodge hat from the Flintstones that the guy had on. So I just want to. Royal order.

This is the kind of fact checking you can expect. if you subscribe to NextWrite. The Dispatch.com slash NextWrite, Mike Boring. I want to move on to corruption. This is super interesting. This has been something that we've been, to take people behind the scenes a little bit. I send a note out a couple days before the podcast.

I give people just a general sense, like, hey, this is kind of what's on my mind. This is what I think we'll be talking about. Here are a few articles you could read if you want to. Don't usually give exact questions. We don't want to sketch the conversation out, but broadly. this is something that I've been paying a lot of attention to.

And I think now for the past couple months, six weeks, corruption has been a part of those emails. There was a Gallup poll that was released in early September that found that corruption was the top issue on the minds of voters in this survey that Gallup has been doing, surveying top concerns of voters going back decades, really. And corruption had risen to the top. of its list. Then just last week, Fox News did a similar question. I think these are open-ended

questions. And corruption was the top issue in this Fox News poll, five points ahead of cost of living and inflation and some of the economic issues that we have long discussed as driving the potential outcome of the 2026 midterms. I guess I want to start this conversation on corruption by asking you, Mike, what accounts for this? Like, why is, why are we seeing this? Cruption is sort of always one of the answers that we get when we do these kinds of surveys. It's in the top 10. But why are we now seeing it, you know, at the top or near the top?

How much time do we have for this podcast? Keep it pithy. Keep it pithy, as Bill O'Reilly would say. There we go. So I think it starts with a, sense that the Trump administration, and particularly top Trump officials, and particularly Trump himself and his family and allies of his family, are in some way, former fashion, whether it's through crypto or some other financial dealings, that they're getting something. They're getting rich

or they're getting more rich than they were before off of the president's policies. And I think the Crypto stuff is a great place to kind of focus a lot of this because you not only have the Trump crypto currency, what is it, World Financial, something or other. World Liberty Financial. I was trying to remember what the middle word of that was. That's not only the Trump family is invested in that, but you've got Steve Whitkoff's sons. Steve Whitkoff is sort of the chief negotiator in all of these. conflicts that are going on around the world.

Chief capitulator, I think, is, is no. I was going to say you can tell how well the negotiate is going in Ukraine and in the Middle East. But his sons are involved in this crypto as well. That's been pretty publicized. It's been pretty out there that that has been the case. And I think you can look at any number. There were little bits of this in the first term, right? We had heard about Jared Kushner's siblings were going to benefit from a change to a certain type of work visa and that they had been lobbying that.

But it was like complicated and you kind of had to understand the specifics of that particular class of work visa. This is not complicated. This is pretty straightforward, right? They've set up this cryptocurrency. They are invested in it. And lo and behold, the federal government is much friendlier now to cryptocurrency. They're embracing it. They're having all these crypto bros show up at the White House.

It's all very, it all looks pretty scuzzy from, you know, just a layman's perspective. So I think that's where we can start. We can see also, by the way, the Trump administration, and Trump himself was backing a bill that, I remember, Marjorie Taylor Green, raised to stink about, that would lose regulations on cryptocurrency and those sorts of things. So you take that particular example, and I think that's a piece of it. I think you can look at the ways in which just everybody around Donald Trump and the Trump administration seem to be have their hands somewhere trying to make some money. you know, this seems to have been a big part of the problem with Christy Noam as well

and some of the issues around her and what she was, you know, potentially there were people at DHS who had invested in companies that DHS was then contracting with. So it's kind of all over the place. But I have one other theory, and maybe this will send this conversation off. the rails. But I actually think the Epstein files controversy is a huge part of explaining why people are obsessed and angry about corruption. I want to get it out there that like I actually don't think there's much that there's much to the Epstein stuff. Jeffrey Epstein was a bad guy and he killed himself in his in prison and he doesn't have he didn't have some big giant

client list that showed that he was, you know, that he was holding hostage all these people in the government. I do think he was friends with a lot of people and it was, and some of this information is embarrassing. But I think the cover up, the feeling that the Trump administration came in here, all gung ho about releasing the Epstein files, which again, don't really exist or they don't exist in the way that the sort of fever dream conspiracy there is think they do. And then the fact that he then blocked it, I think has so much to do with the corruption. And it explains why you're seeing this as such a high, what was that, 98% or sorry, 89% of people saying, yeah, yeah, saying that it's an important issue. You're not just picking up like resistance liberals in that

number, right? I think you're picking up a big chunk of people who believe that Trump was going to root out all the corruption, including the corruption that I don't quite buy is real, but the appearance of covering up, frankly, the actual covering up of trying to release this because it was going to be embarrassing to Donald Trump and the sense that this is a cover-up. I think that's a big part of the corruption story as well. So it's money and it's also power and influence. And people just, it's ironic because this is how Trump came into office in 2016, but I think people are looking at this and saying, it's all corrupt. Trump's part of the swamp now.

I think just to be precise about how we understand this survey having been conducted and the results of it, it is entirely possible that when Republicans are answering that they are concerned about corruption, they are not primarily concerned about Donald Trump and its corruption. Yes. They have been concerned about Democratic corruption for a long time. They remain concerned about it. Those numbers are basically flat.

what we've seen since the beginning of the Trump administration is a spike, depending on how you count at 15, 20 points from Democrats and independents, which takes the overall number higher. Jonah, I hadn't thought much about the Epstein files as part of that, but I think Mike makes a pretty good case that that could be driving some of this. That doesn't require, I mean, I think, Mike, your first example requires some level of sophistication about the crypto world and how it all works and the money that came from the Emirates.

and the EFstein stuff doesn't require any of that. And it's like, yeah, I don't know. This is weird. You know, this guy from the Justice Department went and met with Jeline Maxwell, and then she was sent to a less, you know, a non-maximum security prison. That seems weird. That seems corrupt. Like some of this stuff at its most basic level just like screams corruption.

And we have seen since the beginning days of the Trump administration a near daily drip of news stories like this. Some of them complex and difficult to understand like the crypto stuff. Some of them just in this past week, Jonah, our former Fox News colleague, Kimberly Gilfoyle, in revelations that I'm sure were a tremendous shock to you given our understanding of her deep sense of ethics and long time proven history of integrity, apparently sent a text message to somebody who was more or less a sugar daddy that she was greasing the skids for favorable IRS treatment. Honey,

honey, please, I need the money or something like this. She's asking him to pay off her Amex, $100,000 before her confirmation hearings, she had not want to be shown to have liabilities as she went to be scrutinized by Congress to be U.S. ambassador to Greece. Again, varying degrees of how, understandable this stuff is. What accounts for this? Yeah. So I agree with you, Steve, that the crypto thing,

like if I were a lawyer, I think the place I would look first is the crypto stuff, because I think it's just so freaking sketchy. And Annie McCarthy has done, yeah, but did yeoman work on this a while back about, you know, just sort of the Middle East guys buying this to prop up. this thing. So on the merits, I think the crypto stuff is a big part of it. But I agree with you, Steve,

that the average American probably wasn't paying that much of attention to it. I like the Epstein theory, and I think there's probably a lot of truth that. I hadn't thought of that either. I have one more sort of outside the box theory

and then one sort of basic punditry 101 theory. The outside the box theory is we've seen massive, massive uptake in people getting betting apps and going into the betting markets. Yes. And these people pay crazy close attention when it's their own money about people having inside information.

And there are chat rooms and podcasts and radio shows that talk about the stuff that normally would not talk about politics that are all of a sudden saying, Can you believe people are betting what's on the teleprompter, betting who's getting what's, you know, it was Trump's teleprompter guy who bet what, $400,000 on the words that would appear in Trump's next speech or something to that effect? I mean, crazy corruption. And the Super Bowl and all that and it becomes all put together.

And you think, holy crap, the elites have access to this information. It's pissing me off. I'm getting screwed on my bets. I'm trying to make my 12 way parlay. And all of a sudden, these guys are thrown off the odds, right? I know enough degenerate gamblers to see how they would just follow this

as far as you can imagine. So I think that's part of it. The punitry 101 point is at a time when rightly or wrongly and I'm putting air quotes on this, people are concerned about affordability the way they are. And all I mean by that is that

there are parts of the complaints about the economy that I think have a lot of merit, and there are parts of it that have more to do with vibes. And it's hard to disentangle that at the macro level. We're all just taking guesses about the macro economy, but we all know the microeconomy really well. And whether you like it or, you know, whether it makes sense to Kevin Hassett or not, people are freaked out about affordability for all the sort of different reasons. They feel like they're falling behind. You're not having Republicans lie to pollsters.

in ways that are bad for Trump, you know, for any reason other than the fact that, you know, they can only be telling the truth about how they actually feel that stuff, right? And in that climate, when you see Kim Guilfoyle talking about getting 100 grand from a donor, it pisses you off more. I mean, I just think that makes total friggin sense. It's like if you're starving, If you've ever read James Covell's King Rat, it's all about how like the commanding officers of this prisoner war camp in Japan, the Japanese prisoner war camp are eating well while everyone else is eating rats. And it makes you very mad.

And so I think that's part of it. I will also say that like, it's amazing. Earlier Mike said something about how some of the stuff when you're talking about the crypto thing, which I agree with them, it's complicated. and some of this stuff is obvious, like the Kim Gilfoyle thing. What is amazing, like, I don't know if you, I know I sent it to you, Steve, earlier today, this Axio story about Alina Haba's new husband, making a donation to the Kennedy Center and Rick Grinnell skimming, allegedly skimming. Allegedly.

Allegedly. Allegedly throughout this whole thing, allegedly everywhere. Allegedly stipulated. The amazing thing is, I got all sorts of my, I got all sorts of problems with the smart brevity thing that Axios does. Axios is great company. They're friends of ours, all that kind of stuff. But one of the things that the smart brevity is pretty good at is actually boiling things down so they're comprehensible. You look at the write-up of this Rick Grinnell corruption scandal thing.

which is very well sourced and all that. And it is, what comes through is that not only is there corruption somewhere in there. And I don't know if it's on the Hobbes side or if it's on the Grinnell side or a mixture of both. But the general sort of brazen stupidity of so many people in the Trump order of it of not trying to hide this stuff better, I think comes. through at a certain level. Like the general, Trump's just sort of shaking down donors for the, the ballroom and all of this stuff. And it turns out he's not giving his own money to it.

He's just getting donations from other. That stuff kind of breaks through, too, about how just getting donations for other people who have massive interests. Yeah. With the U.S. government. I mean, with the federal government. I think the average American who even isn't that clued into politics.

Yes. And just like there's enough there to confirm his or her populist biases already. And at some point it just becomes, as the British like to say, so much muchness that each allegation doesn't need to be true. It's just like you can't have this many allegations where Trump's explanations or the White House's explanations are so bad that you can't just can't discount the sum total of it. Well, add to that, Steve, can I exist? Yeah, yeah. Well, let me just add to that. Like, I think we've laid out.

This is why I said this. Like, how much time do we have? There's all of these points, right? There's all of these moments that anybody with any level of sophistication about politics can see something, right? How about wrapping this up with AI and Silicon Valley? AI and Silicon Valley are very unpopular right now. and like who have they been cozing up with? Who have they been doing summits with at the White House?

Right? It's Donald Trump. Like Donald Trump has become like the Silicon Valley or at least the AI side of Silicon Valley's, which is the only one that it really exists these days anymore. It feels like he's been cozing up with them as well. It's like you could just find anything that people are mad about in the country right now. Like Trump has something to do with it because I think in some ways he can't help himself and be involved in these things.

And then, I mean, I think the Alina Haba thing is important to look at and drill down. Like the specifics of it, right, are that the husband made this donation. Alina Haba's husband. Alina Haba's husband made this donation to the Kennedy Center. Rick Rennell, they accuse Rick Rennell of taking the money. And Rick Rennell says, no, I didn't. And nobody can account for it. And who's investigating?

This is the White House itself, which is like sort of. of it's like mind-boggling. But take the Kennedy Center, take the, all the beautification stuff that Trump is very interested in as well. I think you can throw that in there as well. It looks like sort of Trump's vanity project. All of that just can fuel the sense that it's like it's corrupt. It's the capital from the Hunger Games, right?

Well, everybody else is out here, start. We're running out of time, but I want to add my own pet theory to this. Some of you may have heard this, Jonah, you've heard this offline. So part of my view on this, the Gallup poll that was taken in early September predates the midterm GOP non-convention convention that took place in Dallas. But we have seen, particularly over the last month, these corruption issues rocket to the top of the concerns of everybody. Our good friend, Kristen Soltis Anderson, has some social media. posts out today where she says cost of living is issue one a and corruption is issue one B in this midterm and she points back to I think a focus group that she did with the new york times opinion

a few weeks ago about the the president being underwater on cost of living issues but also she says she writes this year a second issue has been rising in my polling ranking just below the cost of living but ahead of other concerns, it's not just the economy, it's the corruption too. Voters don't think the economy is working for them, and they think it's being rigged more and more in favor of a precious few who are cozied up to our nation's leaders. So, Jonah, just to agree with you, I do think that that's what we're seeing. It is the sense that Donald Trump has made $2.2 billion. since he was sworn in.

And most voters have not, right? Most voters are, you know, if they're making more money today, they're spending more money to buy ground beef. They're not seeing the same thing. And they look at this and they think there's something wrong. And I think that's a huge part of it. And it shouldn't be lost.

I called a couple of smart Republican consultants to ask them about this before we had our conversation today. And they say, don't lose sight of the fact that Democrats across the country are running ad after ad after ad connecting the problems with the economy and the fact that people can't afford to do the things that they want to do with this wealth in Washington with Donald Trump's increasing wealth but here's my theory a quick side note on that we're to listing points um they're also like Ken Paxton is known as a very corrupt dude Trump endorses him alleged what allegedly corrupt Jonah

allegedly let's be careful He's known as a very corrupt dude, whether public knowledge is, you know, conventional wisdom is correct. It's another matter. It's a good dodge. But, like, there's that kind of thing. And also, we also have been mentioned all of the pardons Trump has given out. Yep. Yes.

Which feeds into this idea that the insiders get special stuff. Trump has talked about giving out pardons to his entire administration. I mean, again, there are a lot. lot of people out there that would like pardons for getting rich on stuff. You know, and like it's the whole stew. Unlock unlimited free grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Shop online and get the same low, no frills prices delivered. Get your first year of PC Express Pass for just $2.50 a month. learn more at nofrills.ca. The new Subaru Cross Trek Hybrid is the most fuel efficient cross-track yet. That means less time filling your tank and more time filling your day.

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Consumer Reports is not indoors products or services. Yeah. Can I? I need to, I don't have it in front of me. but I wish I did. I praised Aaron Blake, who used to be a reporter with the Washington Post, now with CNN.

He had a tweet the other day, and I'll get the numbers wrong because I don't have it in front of me, but something like, of the 13 members of Congress who have been convicted of crimes, Trump has pardoned 11 of them. And of the, you know,

X number of people who the Justice Department is going after, they're all Democrats, basically. And so, yeah, this this looks like corruption but let me run my theory by the two of you Jonah I'm sure you'll say I'm crazy because you just love to say I'm crazy but Mike since your objective and wise you might find it credible and anything else nice to say about me before I before I answer I like your hair cut objective why thank you the so so here's the other thing here's my this is my unsfisk I

have no nothing to support this and it should be said that the Gallup poll as I said was taken before the non-convention convention in Dallas. So this isn't a result of this, but I think it accelerates the process. And I do think it's maybe one of the reasons. The Fox Bowl was taken last week. Right. So I do think this accelerates this

and catapults corruption to this top tier issue. Donald Trump at that convention in Dallas gave a speech. The big takeaway from the speech played on every network. covered in every newspaper. We talked about it here. We talked about it. The dispatch podcast, we talked about it repeatedly was Trump's pledge to cut a check to taxpayers for $5,000. But this was a conditional promise. If you send Republicans back, if my party, my Donald Trump

party remains in power, I will cut a check to individual taxpayers across the country for $5,000. My theory is this. People pay attention to this stuff who don't know what to make of the world liberty, the crypto stuff, it's all complicated. You know, they might see the Kimberly Gillfoil thing. And like, that's weird to ask somebody to cut you a check to cover your $100,000 amex bill. But if you don't understand or you might be skeptical, man, the MSM really has it out

for this Trump guy. I don't know if I can believe them that he's trying to bribe people. It seems like a thing the president of the president of the president. United States wouldn't do. And then you have the president of the United States on stage in public in Dallas making this promise to the American people, keep my keep keep me in power, keep my party in power. And I will literally pay you money to do it. I think that there's an insignificant number of people who heard that and thought, I didn't know what to think. I was tempted to write this off when the MSM was reporting.

I didn't necessarily believe the Democrats when they claimed that Donald Trump was corrupt. But my God, he's trying to bribe me for my vote. I believe it all now. And I'm now worried about corruption in a way that I wasn't. Is that, Jonah, I can see the skepticism on your face. No, I have an alternative take to that, but go on. No, please.

Give me your alternative. Actually, Mike, can you first tell me how wise and thoughtful that is and then we'll get Jonah's skepticism. And if you don't think it's wise and correct, then we need to replace you. No, it's a, yeah, it's a brilliant theory. And you can send my $5,000 check just directly to my house. We don't work this way. We don't work this way. I shouldn't, I shouldn't have revealed that here on air. No, I think, I think it's a brilliant theory. It's that, it's that, it's that, it's that thing where, yeah, you don't want to believe it. And then, you know, you don't want to believe that somebody, let's,

Your friend has a reputation of lying to you. Because, well, he's never lied to me about anything. And then he comes to you and you catch him and a lie yourself. And then it's like the scales fall from your eyes. I think it's a, there is probably, yes, a not insignificant number of voters who, who saw through it and saw it and said, wait a second, this is this. I see him do this all the time. And now he's trying to do it to me.

Yeah. I like the theory. And he didn't just make the argument in the one convention. speech in Dallas in early September. This has become a feature of his rhetoric. I mean, this is what he says to people now. All right, Jonah, bring your skepticism. Bring your undeserved skepticism. I don't, I actually don't think it's a crazy theory. I think, though it is more of evidence, it's more evidence for the point I made at the beginning of this conversation when I was saying that if he tries to claim the election was stolen

and that there was massive fraud and it unleashed the FBI and Cash Patel and all that kind of stuff, it's a sign that he's full of crap, right? It's like he has stripped the gears on his credibility even with some of his biggest fans. It's like it's old material. It's the stuff he always says.

And it's just, it goes to, his general lack of credibility more than it goes to like, oh, this is proof of he's corrupt. It's proof that he's full of it. And there's overlap there in that Venn diagram, right? But like, I think when he talks, people have figured out that he often just says whatever he needs to say to get people on board. and that emanates from the fundamental nature of his bad character, which is that he just says whatever he needs to say to get his own desires fulfilled.

And sometimes that's in service of corruption, sometimes that's in service of his own ego, right? I mean, like, just today he announced that New Mexico must change his name to New America. America. And part of that is like in his head, he thinks if you change the name of something to America, it's almost like changing the name of something to Trump. And he talks like that all the time, right? He was like, we could call it the Pacific Trump Ocean or America Ocean, you know, because these things are kind of the same thing. And I think that like that doesn't speak to corruption, but it speaks to the fact that he doesn't talk

about anything or say anything, Jack, that isn't in service to his own ego in his own interests. Again, President Trump, if you're watching tonight, Joan is not proposing that you call it the Pacific Trump Ocean. This was a hypothetical that he- No, no, no, no, Steve, you missed it. He said this in rallies about how they need to rename one of the oceans. Like, he's been flat out, like someone said to me, you know, we got to. But it's important to point out, this guy, Jonah Goldberg, who doesn't even know how to buy pants, is not endorsing. I am not endorsing. He will not finally convert me at this point to being all MAGA.

But he has said, like, he said in a rally, maybe two rallies. He said, someone said to me, you know, you got the Gulf of Mexico and you renamed the lake to America. We kind of need an ocean and a river. And he said, I won't do that to Henry Hudson, but someone can. come up with a good river. And then there's a question of the ocean. We do it Pacific or the Atlantic. I don't know. And then he does this. Anyway, my only point is that his brain, like, he can't stop himself from talking about Senator's asses. He can't get out of the Salipsism. And I think just people have figured that out. And they

see it as part of this whole larger construct of, it's cover for his correct. but the corruption is part of his larger thing about everything has to be about him very much on the front end here of going off the rails uh i do want to be responsive with some folks the comments we've had some questions about what we're drinking jonah what are you drinking uh fresca separate i'm not mixing them and irish whiskey which kind of irisks we want specifics we want specifics You can't just say Irish whiskey. James, this is your go-to. Jameson.

They're kind of synonymous. I guess. Enjoying this is a very nice Rota 1. 2020, it's a Rioja. My preferred region is Ribeiro del Duero, but I do like a good Rioja. Rota 1 is a very good Rioja. I was happy to have this tonight. Sort of a special occasion because I'm here with Jonah.

Makes it a really big night for me, my family. I wanted to point out that we did also have a poll in the YouTube comments. Typically, we like to restrict the comments to dispatch members. We will get back to that. We're going to have a comment section running on the dispatch website. We're happy to have comments from non-dispatch members at YouTube, but we usually address the ones from dispatch members. We ran apparently an unofficial.

official poll we got a good number of votes 64 votes Steve 64 votes stop the count so you don't even know when they stopped it Jonah they stopped it after seven minutes ago you know how many thousands of image right here it says seven minutes ago 604 votes how many how many millions of votes there are now so the question was should Steve do more food based not worth your times and for those of you are not regular your wrist listeners. I've lost you. Yeah, he's now muted. You muted yourself, Steve. And your excitement.

Your own conscience hit mute on your mic. Let's be clear, I did that mute myself. Jonah, are you in charge here? All of a sudden, my microphone goes out. So the results of that poll, more important than the Gallif of Fox polls on Trump and corruption, And should Steve do more food based, not worth your times?

Yes, 59%, no 41%. The voice of the populace has been heard. We will be doing more food based, not worth your times. So finally tonight, not worth your time. I don't have the sound here, but I wanted to come to you both with a question about a viral video. This is a throwback to the old Sarah, Isker, sort of generic, not worth your time.

What are the kids talking about these days? So actor Matthew McConaughey put out a video about the power of the independent voter. Six-minute video. Matthew McConaughey, who's dipped his toe into politics here and there. He's got a lot to say. He's very confident in the way that he says it. As he is in every line he's ever delivered.

in every movie he's been. So it gives a sort of a long discussion of the power of the independent voter. The independents can rise up. They can change the outcomes of elections. Basically, it's all in our hands if we're independent voters. And look, on the one hand, I'm very sympathetic to this. I'm encouraged at the fact that the country has increasingly moved away from partisan self-identification to more independent voter. self-identification. But I don't think Matthew McConaughey understands that there are a wide variety

of views in this group that people describe as independence and where people describe themselves as independence. So two questions here. And I'm actually much more interested in the sort of cultural secondary question than the first tangentially substantial question. Jonah, you first. Did you watch the video and does Matthew McCona have a point about the power of the independent voter? And two, more important. I did not watch the video. Great, skip it. Skip it. It doesn't even matter. Wasn't. No, this was an ambush. Wasn't. Don't worry about it. We don't care about that. Two, so Matthew McCona has maybe my least favorite actor in the country. And like everybody loves him and I can't stand him. He's smug and arrogant and he has this I'm so cool vibe about him that just

drives me nuts. It drives me nuts in the context of a political video like the one he's released today, even though I agree with some of the things. He says it drives me really nuts when he's strutting about the feel that the University of Texas football games just like everybody loves the guy. It doesn't work for me. Don't like him. I can't watch movies with him. I can't watch movies with them. The question to you guys is, is there somebody like that for you? For whom everybody in the world is gaga over this person and you're, you either don't get it or you hate it. So that's question number one. And then number two, if you haven't seen the video, I guess it'll be hard for you to answer. Mike, if you've seen the video, what do you make of the argument about

independence? I'm pretty sympathetic to some of it. Well, what is the argument of independence? Independence have power. It's a six minute video and he's very stern. He looks right at the camera and he's very serious. And he's got his, like, what's the, his, his catchphrase, it's all right, all right, all right. All right, all right. Yeah. Like, it's got that whole vibe going, which was hard for me to get through six minutes. Okay. All right.

Okay. But like, he basically says, hey, the, a lot of the country is independent. We should embrace that. We can make outcomes. People shouldn't be defeatist about it. Like your vote counts, like all that. I don't, I kind of like a lot of the, the mess. I think he's wrong about it and he's not sophisticated about some of it.

But that's okay. I kind of like the message. I kind of don't like the messenger. All right. So let me talk about the message first because I feel like there was a time sort of every couple of years since I started in political reporting where I would have to cover the, whatever it is, the third party or the independent political effort. You know, there was, remember there was Americans elect was one from about 14 years ago or so.

there was the no labels movement. There were all these movements that were supposed to kind of get whatever you want to call it, the independent vote. And I think you are right, Steve, that the problem with the mobilizing the independent vote is that the independent vote believes all kinds of different things. There's nothing actually cohesive about this group of voters, except that they don't actively identify with one or the other of the major political parties. You know, by the way, you talk to like Republican pollsters, for instance, and there is a big

sizable part of their coalition, of the Republican coalition, meaning the voters that they consider to be reliable and a part of who they expect to come out. And if they're not coming out, they try to actively go and reach them. Who call themselves independents, right? They are independents who are Republican voters, but they don't. don't call themselves Republicans. I think that's a very American thing. So I find, actually, I find it to be, you know, with all due respect to Mr. McConaughey and with all due respect to your desire to see people break away from the parties, I don't think this is a group of people

who you can even really call a group of people. I think they have too much diversity in what they don't like about the parties or what they don't like about the party that they would otherwise be aligned with to really make any kind of cohesive platform or for them to even be able to use their power. At the end of the day, people just, they do kind of self-sort. Mike Warren, opposed to diversity. That's the headline. What about an actor, actress who everybody else loves and you don't love? Or you really dislike, actually. Go further. Lean into it. I'm trying to think when it comes to actors and I don't have mine comes from music actually the one that I think of it. I don't have anything I don't have anything against the guy. Mine is the who mine is the who the who.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, you know, you could be wrong. You could be wrong twice. You can be wrong about McCona and wrong about the who. No, my, my view is my wife is going to spit in your food the next time you eat at my house. Great. My view is that Bruce Springsteen is overrated. Bruce Springsteen like has. like a stranglehold on a lot of people. I don't, I basically don't get it. I think the, the, the first couple of albums through Born to Run, Born to Run is a great album. I don't, I don't argue with that. But this idea that he's, you know, I think he started out wanting to be the next Bob Dylan. I've listened to Bob Dylan. I've read about Bob Dylan. You, sir, are no Bob Dylan. And I think I think Springsteen's overrated and sorry, sorry not sorry. All right, Jonah, you didn't watch the video.

I didn't really want to send it to you guys in advance. We could have played a clip from it. It's not really that noteworthy. This is why it's called Not Worth Your Time. If you have general thoughts on independence. Yeah, I'll do this really quickly. On the independent thing, I largely agree with Mike, independent doesn't mean a lot except that are a lot of people who are disgusted by both parties

and don't want the party and it's part of a larger sort of sensible people popular well that's the thing is that there are unsensible people who call themselves independence too um but i generally agree with the sentiment um the since we're talking about that conception of independence that Matthew McConaughey. I like Matthew McConaughey in movies. Of course you do. I'm less enamored with him outside of movies. Like when I hear him talk and do the swagger stuff that you're talking about, he annoys me.

But isn't that his character always? This is my problem with him. He's like, he doesn't even have to act. He's just just like arrogant dude. And that's him. And that's him in real life. And that's him in. There's some of that.

He makes it work for him. He drew me absolutely bonkers in contact. I don't know if people remember that. Did not see it. of me crazy um of that sort of independence are just sort of better people kind of vibe it's not quite an actor but he personifies it is as erin sorkin um i i i hate almost i mean like i i will say the social network is a good movie but like west the vibe of west wing the vibe of newsroom in particular, which brings me to an actor I can't stand is Jeff Daniels.

Yes. I think he's wildly overrated. But I got to say it like of like of actors I can't stand anywhere now. I'm going to date myself a little bit. But it plays into this. Alan Alda. I think Alan Alda is easily the most annoying, overrated actor. That is a long held.

grudge. Why? He plays himself. It's not just that it's not like, look, I mean, like, Jonas was pissed at the first season of MASH. Actually, I'll tell you, I don't want to turn this in the clock. But MASH, every season that followed the first season got worse. But anyway, um, also that's a really long Korean war, you know. It is a really long career with nine seasons.

But unlike, say Arnold Schwarzenegger, who always, plays himself because he can't act and people forgive him for it um alan alda can act but he just thinks real alan alda is better than the characters that he plays it's worth and he insists on being him in all of the things that he acts it um anyway uh i could go on for a while about this but uh i think my wife ordered a pizza for us so i'm going to go that's good so the other one the other one i mean there i've got a lot of these as it happens. I'm not a pop culture guy, as most people know.

But I've got a lot of these. The other one, the big one for me is Paul Giomati. Just can't even. I've tried to watch the John Adams, HBO thing. My wife loved it. I thought it was the best ever. Obviously, it fits the stuff I'm interested, everything. I just keep watching the first episode, and I just can't.

I just can't with him. So I've got a lot of those. We could revisit that. this on yeah I think we need to revisit this I mean like Susan Sarandon so anyway Noah Hickey

Noah Hickey look at Noah dressing himself up like he's a normal commenter like just putting it in this is producer prerogative right there that is not a bad take by the way all right we'll revisit this

this is a good one I need to get back to food takes next week I believe we have told not to do this by the people who are smarter than I am about how these things work. But I think next week we have, we are likely to have, at least tentatively scheduled Sarah Isker, Chris Steyerwalt, Chuck Todd, and then Jonah, because he's a co-founder, he can be in on anything. So a really good group of people, aside from Mike Warren, who's always in my top group of the smartest political people. Those are three of my very smartest political people. And then Jonah. So it'll be a good conversation next week.

week. I hope you'll join us again. We'll figure out a way. I got to figure out some food thing to make Sarah mad. Maybe I'll do another pop culture thing so that Jonah can go on and on about other people he doesn't like. But we appreciate you joining us. Thank you for sticking with us a little bit longer than we had intended. This happens again and again and again. Maybe at some point we'll just schedule it to go a little bit longer and no heck of you're fired. Lock unlimited free grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Shop online and get the same low, prices delivered, get your first year of PC Express pass for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at no frills.ca.

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