The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 2734 - Republicans Are Losing Ground in Deep-Red States w/ David Dayen

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

It's Casual Friday on The Majority Report On today's program: The Republican brand has become so toxic that even ancient conservative Fox hosts Stuart Varney and Larry Kudlow are being forced to acknowledge the party's lies and incompetence heading into the midterms. David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect and co-host of the Organized Money podcast, joins to recap the week's news. Topics discussed include the midterms, AI regulation and more. In the Fun Half: Lina Khan speaks to The Atlantic about how AI companies are already subject to regulation and laws and how that seems to be absent from the conversation around these companies. Alex Karp gives a bizarre interview on CNBC that is too incoherent to be summarized. Mehdi Hasan asks Nancy Mace if she was drunk when she posted an AI image of her and Donald Trump on the same day the president endorsed her opponent. The polling in Kansa, Iowa, Idaho, Texas and more suggests that even the Republicans in the deep-red states are not going to have an easy election this midterm. Ben Shapiro is very defensive over the critic's reaction to his new racist ISIS movie. CNN reports that a military intelligence report derived from false information from ChatGPT almost led to an act of war against a Chinese vessel in the Middle East. all that and more. Please consider helping the Aldaghma family, they are the family behind Gaza Bakery, which provides bread and meals to displaced families, and Future Flowers Kindergarten, which gives children a place to learn, play, and experience moments of normalcy whenever conditions allow. On Sunday, October 4, Emma will be in Los Angeles doing a Bitchuation Room Live with Francesca Fiorentini at the Lodge Room. Get tickets here. To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AM Quickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: ONESKIN: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code MAJORITY at https://www.oneskin.co/majority SUNSET LAKE CBD: Head to SunsetLakeCBD.com and use coupon code 'Left Is Best' to save 20% your entire order. Follow the crew on X @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's YouTube channel: https://ww.youtube.com/Th3Discourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here: https:/www.youtube.com/@avaraiza  

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Casual Monday. Tuesday, casual Tuesday. Wednesday, casual hump day. Thursday, casual thursday. Casual thurs. That's what we call it. And Friday, casual Shabbat. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday. September 18, 2006. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority. report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, David Dayan, executive editor of the American prospect and co-host of the organized money podcast. So look back on the week and talk about the 10,000 pieces that he wrote this week, all incredibly relevant and well-researched. He is just a, he's a

monster. I don't know what to tell you. Meanwhile, polls continue to show a gathering midterm tsunami. Trump floats demolishing the Kennedy Center because that's what's on everybody's mind as we head into this midterm. Unfortunately for him, a judge declares he can't. U.N. mission finds evidence signaling U.S. war crimes committed in Iran. Russians head to poll. will find that they have one choice on the ballot. Warren and AOC introduce a bill to push private equity out of health care. And Kana and Massey get

218 signatures for their Epstein bill a discharge petition. But because Mike Johnson recessed Congress six weeks before the election, that bill will have to wait for the lame duck session. Trump administration is considering 12 data, uh, data centers built on public lands.

Meanwhile, Trump's IRS stops releasing data on unpaid taxes. Doge planning to move all government services to an AI driven platform. I'm sure that's going to work out great. And the second court of appeals finds that the, uh, customs, uh, Border Patrol can search your phone at airports for absolutely no reason. They don't need suspicion of criminal activity. They don't need probable cause. They don't need any reason other than you having a phone.

All this and more on today's majority report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, Emma Viglin out today. We've got a lot of stuff to get to today. You got to turn off facial recognition when you go there to the airport. You mean on your phone? Yeah. Definitely. Have password only because I don't think they can force you to do the password, but they can hold it up in front of your face.

Cool country. Yes. That should help the travel industry. I'm sure people are going to want to get on planes now. A couple of house cleaning things. One, you should check out our merch site, which is shop. Dot Majority ReportRadio.com. Do we have images of that stuff from the email?

We've got, we finally have a new version of the Pawset dog collar with the spelling P-A-W-S. This has been pretty controversial. people we've gone back and forth on this I think you should use the actual spelling of pause P-A-U-S-E because that's the that's what I'm saying it's just then it's cute

that wait why is your dog say you have dog paws and but whatever this is all just so you can meet people at the dog park or when your dog wanders over to somebody else's house and takes poop your neighbor will be like oh well never mind

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just scroll up. Yeah, look at that. We got the three majority report pens. We've got the whoopsie majority report baby bib, which is awesome. I wish actually we had an adult size. It's a great passive-aggressive gift.

definitely and uh we have uh for a limited time uh in fact on tuesday september 22nd 1159 is the last day for the jeffreys uh the major report um hakeem jeffreys cycle uh t-shirt uh let's pop into that and uh yeah and where's the other side of it okay there it is uh as you can see the jeffrey cycle uh path notion concept conversation leads you back to a path. We just need a notion of a concept and then have a conversation about taking us to a path. And we're on that path for the notion of the concept to have that conversation, which will lead us to the path, etc. We also have new color baseball shirts, blue sleeves. We'll still have the and the black sleeves. So check that out. Also, we've got an update.

on the family that we have been following for quite some time now in Gaza. You guys helped with this family getting out of Gaza and the Aldama family headed to Egypt. and those that stayed in Gaza spent much of their time. They're feeding people in Gaza. They have opened up another fundraiser through Chuffed, which I guess is much more friendly to Palestinian causes. And they're trying to raise fun to help Afaf's dad. This is a young girl with Down syndrome and grandmother and uncle to

resettle in Europe and then hopefully get the kids in the mom there too. They are in Turkey. Family members have funded the entire journey, but they need some help. So if you are inclined to continue to help or help for the first time, the Al-Adama family, please head over there. We'll put the link in the podcast and YouTube description. You know, there's, there's so much suffering there. And it is, you know, completely understandable if people feel like this is a drop in the bucket, it doesn't do anything. But it is, you're helping a family.

And, you know, you've, this audience has been able to change their lives. And so if you're interested, we'll have that link in the podcast and YouTube description as well as at majority.fm. All right, let's get into this. We got time for one or two of these. Here is the Republican Party and Trump is getting pilloried. And his favorability rating is in the toilet. But you've got, and we're going to talk to David Dane about this, Republicans are freaking out. They're spending the majority of their funds so far in seats and districts across the country

that no one would have predicted would need shoring up. Texas, Florida. These are deep red states. But it's because of segments like this. on Fox business news that I think has Republicans very afraid. Remember, Donald Trump promised everybody $5,000 if, of course, the Republicans win the election, not to be confused with the time that he promised $3,000 or $4,000 or an unnamed rebate on the tariffs, or the $1,800 or the ending of the Iran war.

this is a new offer. Don't forget the FEMA will help North Carolina if he wins. If he wins. But here's Stuart Vaughney. Okay. We mentioned this earlier. Treasurer Secretary Besson says, yeah, there is a way to deliver Trump's $5,000 dividend checks to all adult Americans without going into the deficit.

He didn't explain how we do that. Can you give $5,000 to every adult and not raise the deficit? I also heard Trump, you know, Trump is hinting of the fact that they've developed an anti-gravity machine, okay, and why you did. This is nonsense. There's no way in the world that you can give $5,000 to each family in the United States. That's about $1.2 trillion of additional spending and not go ahead and increase the budget deficit. I don't know how you're funded.

Where'd you get the money? That's the thing. Well, maybe you have to increase taxes, but do you have to put a wealth tax into effect? Are you going to have value at attacks? No, it's just nonsense. It's not going to happen. I mean, Varney doesn't even know what to say because he was hoping, like, can you stretch it out and make this more complicated? No, I can't.

Trump's just full of shit. Sorry. I wish I had more to say, but really, honestly. Can't even. I had one good joke, and that was it, the anti-gravity thing. And that's, I'm done. There's really nothing else to say. taking this guy seriously?

I mean, this is Fox and they're just laughing at him now. They're just laughing at him. Here is Larry Cudlow, also on Fox business. You'll recall, Larry Cudlow was, I think, the chair of the economic advisors under

Bush, excuse me, Bush, Trump in the first term. And it does seem like this is newsmaking in a couple of ways. One, in that Kudlow really thinks the Republicans are in trouble and they've been dropping the ball. You know, this is the type of thing that you say like a year out from an election. If you're saying this two months out from an election, actually, I guess we're now really

closer to five weeks. You're not saying it to be constructive. You're just saying it because we've already lost. Yeah, you're looking for a wreckage and a rat flea. And then the other bit of news on this is it's. seems like Cudlow completely sober. Good. Right now, you,

the leadership in both houses are bungling everything, sir. I say that with all due respect, and we are personal friends. It's not per- but you're bungling everything. Nothing is getting done. Your messaging is non-existent. You've lost your swag,

your swagger, your riz, or whatever the young people say. No one knows what the heck you're doing, sir. They had no idea. Yeah, you're welcome and this is part of the challenge we've got with all of our meeting friends out there. First off, I'm not sure why Langford said you're welcome, but I do, I am impressed. Like, where did Larry Cudlow hear Riz? Like, whenever I say Riz to my kid, he's like, how did you hear that?

Larry Cudlow is at least a year or two older than me. And so I, I'm surprised. You're not skittity. Yeah, go back a little bit. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go on, sir. They had no idea.

Yeah, you're welcome. And this is part of the challenge we've got with all of our media friends out there that continue to be able to beat up on Republicans and say Republicans are all the problem. But apparently the socialist Democrats in New York City, they seem to be perfect because most conservative media right now is beating up on Republicans and just ignoring the socialists who are running rampant all over the country. So I look back on what happened with the one big beautiful bill. Come on the housing bill.

We just passed. There's a lot of things that are going on that are good, and I understand. Nobody has attacked Mondami more than I have, for heaven's sake. That isn't the point. I wasn't saying that just about you. I was saying this is the challenge that we're up against right now. What is it that your policy is? Senator Leibbord, my friend, what is your policy?

Where are the tax cuts? Where are the spending cuts? Where's the waste fraud and corruption reduction? Where is all of that? Where is the reconciliation bill? where's the straight talk and messaging for the midterms? Where's the growth messaging? Where's that we're going to make it better for taxpayers and working folks messaging?

Come on, Senator. Cudlow is literally yelling at him that you're not even delivering Pablam. You're not even delivering the absolute platitudes that one would expect. You guys are a mess. And Lankford seems a little unhappy that his good friend, Cudlow, is. taking him on to the show to crap all over him. Look, this is Sinking Rats from a Ship Time. We're going to play this clip.

Did you play that clip yesterday of the congresswoman from Florida, stepping away from Donald Trump? Florida. Florida. Angie Nixon, in some polls, is tied in Florida. There's a poll that came out about Idaho, where the Democrat is. winning in Idaho.

And the guy's running against, it's not a Jew. I don't know if that's going to actually come through. I mean, who knows what's going on with these polls. But right now, it looks like a severe wipeout. We'll talk more about that with David Dayan in a moment. First, a word from our sponsor. Let's throw to Emma Vigland for. for today's

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Julie loves the stuff. My sister loves the stuff. I don't know what product she uses from one skin, but she says she's a fan. I'm not going to reveal it, but I do have a plan probably for a Christmas gift involving OneSkin once the holidays roll around. Oh. Yeah. I guess I won't buy my supply in advance. This isn't just my experience. One Skin's results are backed by four peer-reviewed clinical studies, and they've been

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Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code Majority at OnSkin.Co slash Majority. We'll put a link down below in the video and episode descriptions and at majority. fm all right quick back to me there we go Michigan Fist says I vote that we make Sam

use all the products advertise on the show just on the premise that he would end up with a Patrick Bateman style morning routine of care products is that the is that the case with Patrick Bateman? It's been a while since I've seen American Psycho but I'm willing to believe it

is he American Psycho? Yes I got confused I was thinking of Jason Bateman Yeah. Folks, quick break when we come back, David Dayan, executive editor of the American prospect and co-host of the Organized Money Podcast. We are back, Sam Cedar on the Majority Report. Emma Vigland out today.

Want to welcome back to the program, David Dayan, executive editor of the American prospect, co-host of the Organized Money podcast. David, you have been very busy this week. And we're in this like, there's a lot happening on like sort of a, on a policy front or theoretically, you know, at least, you know, a questioning things on the AI side, we'll talk about that in a bit. But of course, now it's, you know, the second, third week in September. And we're talking about the midterms that are now five weeks away. And these polls that are coming out are nuts. And, you know, I don't know whether, but, but, but, I don't know

whether but Idaho, uh, Kansas, Florida, Democrats leading or tied essentially in, uh, these three states, Tal Rico in, uh, Texas. You've got, uh, you outline in your piece, uh, from just four days ago, uh, about the PAC spending, which indicates just how scared Republicans are. Uh, tell us about that. Yeah, I think, I think that's almost a better indicator. we've seen so many polls that outliers during the primary people telling us that Abdul is up 20 points and he wins by one. So, you know, I always take polling a bit with a grain of salt. But if you're looking at where the political professionals actually think the battle is being joined, I think that's a better indicator of the,

overall landscape, maybe not race to race, but the overall landscape can be judged by where the main committees, super PAC committees are spending their money. And so I took a look at the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is the key Republican House committee. I looked at Trump's, you know, I guess it's called No Going Backpack, and America PAC, which is Elon Musk's. where are they spending their money? Where do they think the tough races are? And the truth is it's all in Republican territory, almost. 43 of the 49 seats that have gotten a little bit of money,

at least some money, are seats Trump won. Over 20 of those, he won by over nine points. And I think eight or nine of them, he won by over 13 points in 2024. There are races in there that include, a seat that Trump won 61.38 in Ohio. There's a seat that Trump won 6040 in Texas, and they're getting money from the National Republican committees, presumably because they're worried about losing those seats. In addition, there are several races that are gerrymandered seats. I look pretty much only at the House in this analysis. Jerrymandered seats that.

were designed and drawn specifically for Republicans to win. Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina. Ten of those seats are getting money from the main Republican committees. Actually, I think it's 11. And they're clearly not locked down, even though they were drawn as seats that Trump won by double digits. it you if you look at that you really get a picture of republicans knowing they're screwed they're going to lose the toss-offs and they're trying to salvage the you know outer edge to maintain at least some semblance of of power in Washington i mean this is they are um just trying to keep it from being a total slaughter let me ask you about those uh texas and florida seats uh the jerry ones, is, are those seats, their gerrymandar largely a function of a miscalculation that

the Hispanic vote that they got in those districts is going to show up again? Because if so, they probably made a big mistake. I mean, and I know you guys wrote about this, could their gerrymander be a dummy mander? And it turns out, at least to the extent that we could tell now, you know, one never knows. The answer is an unequivocal yes. Yeah, we wrote about it at the time. And it was clear that they were basing this on the Trump vote in 2024. And the Trump vote, particularly in South Texas, significant shifts from the Democrats to the Republicans that year. But every poll and, you know, survey of public sentiment in those communities has shown a dramatic shift back to the Democrat. And so, yeah, those seats in South Texas, the 28th District and the 34th District are held

by Democratic incumbents, Henry Quayar and Incenti Gonzalez. Those are double-digit Trump seats that those two incumbents are likely to win. There's also a seat, the 15th District. Monica Dela Cruz is an incumbent Republican in a seat. Trump won 5841. That is getting money because they're worried about salvaging that seat. The 23rd District, this is the one that Tony Gonzalez, he had an affair with the staffer and he resigned.

And the Republican candidate there now is a gun influencer by the name of Brandon Herrera. Oh, yes. I've seen him. He was the one who said that. children were come trophies. And, oh, yes. And he said the original, oh, yeah, no, I'm familiar with him.

He said, what was it, the Nazi? He was demoing a Nazi machine gun and called it the original ghetto blaster. Yeah. Now, it's amazing because And that reason is getting money, just to close the loop. Well, that's not that surprising on some level. You would think that people would be offended. It was a double digit. This is another double digit Trump seat.

So you look at it all, and there are six seats that are contested in Texas, all of which we're supposed to go to Republicans. If they all end up, you know, in a blue wave going to Democrats, Republicans will, after their gerrymander, have lost one seat in Texas. That's crazy. Hey, will you switch your headphones because you're cutting out a little bit with those? But as you as you do that, I will just mention that I've seen reporting. I think it was the Cook report that the Cook report did an analysis and said right now they think somewhere around like if you are in a Trump plus 10 or less district that. that you are severely endangered. And I think I saw some numbers that that would be about about 30 plus house seats or so,

maybe 20% of districts. But from what you're reporting, there are districts where it's even a wider margin. And in that case, like, the difference between, Democrats winning broadly in plus nine Trump districts versus like a plus 14 Trump districts is a huge number of of Republicans. I mean, in that gap right there sits a lot of the Republican party. Yeah, absolutely. And that's that's certainly what's being reflected in and where this spending is going. One of the more interesting ones is in Kentucky, where this candidate, Andy Barr, has moved up.

He's trying to replace Mitch McConnell in the Senate. He's the Republican nominee. But his seat went 15 points for Trump. It was 5742 Trump seat. Trump's MAGA Inc. Super PAC is spending, I think, $600,000 in that seat trying to save it. And we're only in mid-September, right? I mean, there's going to be a lot more money running into these seats. It's unusual to me this early to see that triage campaign,

to see these seemingly out-of-reach Republican seats, you know, seeing the money exemplify that they're nervous. There's probably going to be more as we get into the rest of the election. Another interesting one is Alaska. The at-large seat in Alaska, The fifth most spending from Republican Democratic committees combined are in that Alaska seat. This is the at-large seat where an independent named Bill Hill is essentially the Democratic choice. He's getting benefiting from House Majority Pack, which is the Democratic Super PAC campaign arm against the incumbent there, Nick Beggage.

So it's a really diverse number of seats. that Democrats really have a shot it. And what does it mean that it's being done so early? Is that a function of like, these are the most important seats for us not to lose? Is it these are the ones where we have internal polling that say we're in the most amount of trouble, cross-referenced with these we can't lose?

Or is it like we're not going to deploy, we're doing this early with these particular campaigns because we want to get a better sense of where the races are for other ones. I mean, what... I mean, you have to assume that the political professionals have some information. They're not throwing money at a 20-point-plus Trump seat because they're just flying blind. They have information, internal polling, what have you, that they actually need to get on the air so they can, you know, keep their base and make sure they win that seat. And so to me, for this to happen early means that they're already seeing that show up in the polling.

Usually those kind of threatened seats you might not see until later because they have a lot of Republican support in that seat. And the shifting wins of the election sometimes happen, you know, in the immediate, you know, days before the vote. To see it this early means that the wave is already starting to crest. Right. And let's just talk about that dynamic. And then I want to move to that dynamic of generally, particularly in a maybe in a midterm election, the idea of like people sitting on the fence moving towards the change, right? That would be flipping seats. That's generally the dynamic. A. And B, like the anger that must be out there to have people. people already deciding this early. Now, anything could happen. Donald Trump could give everybody $5,000 in the next couple of weeks. I'm joking.

Did you see the piece we ran, by the way, there is a candidate. Speaking of South Florida, it's this candidate Eric Flores in the 34th District of Florida. And he sent out a text message and it said, Oh, my God, I didn't need this. $5,000 check. You have received. President Trump has given it to you. Sign here, you know, click here for the portal to get the $5,000.

And if you click over, it's a fundraising site for this candidate, Eric Flores. And it's not even for campaign money. It's to retire his debt. He loaned money to the campaign. It's to pay him directly. I would love, I mean, is there a way to sort of track down people who have clicked through there to see their reaction? Because if, I'll tell you something, to be quite honest, if there are people who've donated to his campaign, I feel like we're all making a huge mistake with a passive income

opportunity that we could engage in. I don't know what it would be, but I mean, that's amazing. Honestly, honestly, the Democrats aren't, uh, get passing up that opportunity. The kinds of things you see really on both sides, uh, with, with spam fundraising. is most similar to elder financial fraud. Right. I mean, this is the pick up dementia victims. I mean, this is, I'm not even making this up. Like, if you look at those side to side, the kinds of appeals, they are identical.

And so this is taking advantage of people. And you see it, sadly, Adam Bonica, who's a political science professor at Stanford, has written some great stuff on this. he's compiled all the data and it's just as prevalent on the Democratic side, sadly. My experience, this one was new. My experience. The $5,000 check one was. Well, what's interesting about that too is that it's from a candidate. Like you see this a lot. It wasn't from a pack. You see this all from like there's we have a problem on the Democratic side for sure of like these fake packs that appealed to a Democratic voters and I and Citizens United. Exactly that one.

And then that didn't that guy like. run in some primary in Maine, yes. And, uh, against Platner. Yeah. Oh, was that, was that Jordan Wood? No, it was a different guy. Yeah.

Oh, all right. I didn't realize he was from that end, and Sydney's in United. I had forgotten that, but that is a scam pack. I don't know how else to really, uh, characterize it. All right. But this was from the candidate itself.

That is, that's impressive. Because you can't hide from that. Like, it's one thing to have a pack in front. of you. And the innovation of basically saying, we're giving you money. Here's your Trump money. And like, no, actually, you have to give us money. Well, that's not that innovative. The 419 scams of like, I'm a prince in Nigeria and I've got, I've got $100,000 for you in the bank, but I just need some advanced funds to get there. But be that as a mate. Let's pivot to the sort of the flip side of the coin, which is there are a host of Democratic, I know you call them front line or, you know,

running in purple-ish districts. It's tough to pick the hue in this environment. But they are running as not as the sort of Republican light that we have been told for years by the Democratic Party is the only way to run in these districts, but rather as full-throated populace. Yes. And so I talked to a bunch of them for this story. We called it the new majority makers. Because what we know is that as you correctly identify, the archetype of a majority maker, a candidate that Democrats put in a swing seat is, you know, they were either

in the CIA or in the military or they have some national security background. And then they take very vague positions on every single issue and, you know, they have a moderate cast to them and they get new Democrat coalition support or whatever. This is very, very different. So we've seen economic populace win these primaries in these swing seats, sometimes against D-Triple C backed candidates. And then instead of pivoting to the center in the general election, we've seen them continue to display all the hallmarks of economic populism. I was up in a district in the Bakersfield, California area, with Randy Villegas, who opened his town hall saying, my name is Randy Vegas and I'm for Medicare for all. This is a seat. Trump won by two points in 2024. He beat a D-Triple

seat backed moderate candidate in the primary and he's still running on Medicare for all. And he's still running in a way that is, you know, what would be term progressive. And we're seeing this all over the country. Will Lawrence in the Michigan 7th district, Sam Forstag, who's a union smoke jumper in, that's like the guys who parachute in fires to try to break the advance in Montana's first district. There are candidates in Pennsylvania and Ohio and Maine, all of whom are working class running on those kind of kitchen table issues, but from a progressive perspective. And we're going to get a test of this conventional wisdom that only moderates can win swing districts. We're actually going to find out if that's true because there are several seats where that proposition is going to be tested.

Let's talk about the implications if these candidates win and broaden it out there. But let's start back in 2006. I am quite sure you remember this. Rahm Emanuel was the head of the D-Triple C at that time. He was recruiting real corporatists. And this was the argument. And the reality is that election was in part about the war going really sideways, but also in part because Mark Foley, a Republican congressman was essentially caught as a predator with pages

in the house. And it was quite clear that the Republican leadership knew about it. In fact, I remember a press conference by the Republican leadership, which included Denny Haster. Denny Hastert who ultimately went to jail for child molestation of his wrestlers. But I can't remember who it was. He was a Buffalo congressman. I think he might have been the whip at the time. He had a press conference in like two weeks before the election where he was so determined not to take questions on Mark Foley.

that he invited all of his staffers' kids to be on stage with him. And somebody asked him, could you ask these kids to leave so we can ask you about Mark Foley? And he's like, no, I will not do it. They're my constituents, too. And that's how bad is. But Rahm Emanuel took credit and was given credit for a crop of Democratic lawmakers. who were, you know, we call them centrist, but really, yeah, it was Tom Reynolds, thank you, who were lucky because they ran, they wrote a wave.

What's the likelihood that we're going to hear the same, that this is going to be retconned in a different way if these populists win? Oh, I think it's very possible that they're going to say, oh, well, that was just the wave. and the key is whether they can win an election next time. So the goalposts will shift to progressives can't win swing seats, to progressives can't win swing seats twice. So, yeah, I mean, I think we're going to see that kind of shifting. But I think actually it's really important for governing

to have a different kind of and a different set of candidates in these districts. And a lot of people told me this. You know, majority makers get listened to. in Washington. So if there's a big piece of legislation, often you'll see the leadership say, well, you know, I have to talk to my majority makers. I got to talk to them to make sure this isn't going to hurt them in their swing districts. And typically that's sort of an excuse that covers for, I don't want to frustrate my corporate donors. And so, you know, I'll just blame it on the majority makers. I don't want to make their lives uncomfortable. If in this instance, the front line candidates,

actually ran on a record of or on a promise of getting something done. Then what's happening from below is that the people listen to in Washington are saying, no, you have to pass this in the way that most tangibly benefits constituents. That is a very different scenario than what we normally see in Washington. It's short circuits that excuse that is often given. And I think it would be really important for governing, let alone for the types of candidates who would end up, you know, being able to go forward in future elections. Right. And I mean, that is, that would be a fascinating development if you had frontline Democrats out there more progressive than the leadership saying, hey, we need to deliver on these promises to our constituents. or you're going to lose the majority in 2028.

It also, I wonder if it, how much does it influence the 2028 presidential primary? I mean, if we see guys like this winning in red states, it becomes, again, that argument about, you know, how are we going to win in red states? Well, here's a formula for it. Yeah. I mean, often majority makers, people who win swing seats are, uh, the political establishment thinks, oh, you must have some secret sauce. You must know how to win and win over in tough races.

You obviously have this wisdom that we don't have. And so we're going to have to follow your lead. Well, if that means that you have to follow the lead of Abdul El-Said. if he wins in a swing state in Michigan, a crucial state for the presidential election. You'd have to follow the lead of William Lawrence in a toss-up Trump seat who ran on data centers and, you know, pausing AI and getting rid of flock cameras. He was really a national leader in terms of sensing that shift and moving forward on it before anybody else. you would have to, you know, think about Randy Villegas running in Medicare for all in a district where 67% of the electorate is on Medicaid.

This is the number one district in the country on Medicaid. That's the other thing. It's like swing seats aren't all the same. This is a poor district in the Central Valley that is 73% Latino and has, you know, a lot of really serious needs. And so putting someone in that district that says, actually, I need help for my constituents rather than I'm going to take the midpoint between these two policies and, you know, we have to make tough choices to cut Social Security or whatever. That's not going to work in that district.

And so I think, you know, there's going to be a real change. And people have said that to me that this creates, you know, I hate the word, I hate the phrase permission structure, but it does. kind of create a permission structure for for voters, for Democratic voters who always sort of foreground electability, especially in presidential races, to say, actually, I can vote my hopes instead of my fears. And particularly in the wake of a Trump, Bush, I mean, Reagan, I remember all of this. This is the way reflexively Democratic voters have operated. I think it's different this time around, because there's a lot more anger, and it is, if not like a pure ideological anger,

it is a very partisan anger that we haven't seen quite in the past, at least in those years, but that sort of flight to safety from Democratic voters where they play pundit is going to be, is implicated in this if these guys win. And of course, as you say, you know, we're not going to get legislation over the next two years that Donald Trump is going to sign, I don't think, if the Democrats take both chambers, but it's going to set the table. But speaking of legislation, let's move to AI. You wrote a piece this week about, well, you wrote a couple of pieces, one with our own Whitney

Wimbish of the A.M. Quicky about congressional Democrats in hysterics, about the saving the world from AI. Why panic when you could just use existing laws? And also, the actual genuine fear is that would an AI slowdown tank the economy? And I think these stories are sort of related. I want to play this clip for you and get your reaction to this. This is, what number is this, guys? Yeah, it's, oh, yeah, this is number one. Sorry, this is CNBC. Joe Kernan on with Steve Eisman who was the the big short guy

and who I don't know if people saw that movie but you're well familiar obviously with that crisis having written one of the best books on the 2008 Crisis Chain of title

but this guy this is his theory about what's going on with AI and it sort of informs both ends of those stories that you had written this week. We didn't know what to expect with what we've created. Nothing to worry about? I think this is all nonsense. You think it's all nonsense? All nonsense. I think that there's something else completely going on here. I think the idea that AI, first of all, there's no evidence at all that AI has achieved artificial general intelligence at all. And most of the evidence

seems to point that it never will, or if it does, it's many, many years in the future. But the idea that this whole Terminator thing is nonsense. So I think some completely different is going on. And what I think is happening is that token maxing is over. The open weight models are taking big market share. I think these companies are very nervous. They realize that there are no moats around their business whatsoever. And they're trying to manufacture a crisis that will create regulation

and that they think they can then manipulate to create the moats, to create the duopoly that they want. Wow. That's what I think is going on. So that really is. You really are saying. You really are saying something. That's David Sachs.

But you and David Sachs could go to dinner and have a great bottle of wine. Exactly. I think this whole Terminator thing is garbage. But he's taking it. His garbage. Okay. All right. Well, you get the jest.

And this, I know, is right up your alley. And now, putting aside, whether AI is actually on the verge of becoming, you know, a threat to humanity or not. That is sort of hard maybe to assess from where we sit. But in terms of what the play of these big AI entities in the United States, this seems like exactly what's going on. Well, first of all, why can't I wear a hoodie on this show? You could.

I don't know, I have never, I have never. No, you have a formal dress code. Are you kidding? Look at this casual Fridays. It's casual Fridays. It's almost an offense that you wore a shirt with such a stiff collar. Yeah. So to move on, I mean, I generally agree with a lot of what Steve Eisen would just said there.

I think that we are too quick, perhaps. because of the sort of dominance of science fiction in popular culture, to immediately move to think about the risks of AI as, you know, SkyNet like, as Terminator-like. When there are smaller but still catastrophic risks to AI that are present right now, misdiagnosis in health care, chatbots helping kids commit suicide, you know, faulty, AI-fueled

transportation systems like Tesla's self-driving crashing in the trees. I mean, we already have problems, and we actually already have solutions for those problems, and it's called the law. There is no AI exemption to the law. And

my friend and co-host, Matt Stoller, put this very succinctly and I think very well. Why are are policymakers so frazzled and in a frenzy about adding AI regulation if they think the existing regulation won't work? Like you're saying that the laws that we have on product liability, the laws that we have on, you know, faulty products and faults within accidents, that nobody could possibly convict. Sam Altman or Dario Amadeh or Elon Musk for any of those things.

But we need more regulation. If this regulation doesn't work, it doesn't make any sense. And the only way to make sense of it is with something like Steve Eisenman said, which is these companies have a, they're looking at a really problematic financial balance sheet and they want to restore the ability to cartelize this industry so that they can increase their revenues in a way that meets the massive expenditures that they're making. And pacing the frontier, as it were, as anthropic CEO said, would reduce the burn rate on all of the infrastructure that they're building all across the country, while standardizing

and creating something so that maybe the Chinese AIs aren't allowed to operate in the United States would allow them to increase their token prices and therefore. increase the revenues. So, and of course, Anthropic is moving towards an IPO right now. OpenAI put it off, and Anthropic is moving toward one. And any investor that looks at their current balance sheet that has to be given to them as part of the IPO would say, what am I investing in here? So rebalancing that the financials is of utmost importance to a company that's trying to go public. And this ends up being a good way to do it.

And you have a piece about this, the idea of what will happen to the economy if AI falters. They have been engaged. It feels like they're all in this sort of like they're in this drag race on the PCH or up in a Kawanga Canyon, as it were, and they're just slamming the pedal to the metal, hoping that they're the ones who win. But the problem is, is that some of them are going to fall off the cliff, and there's going to be these sort of like empty shell of data centers around the country that God knows what you would do with them. I don't know. Maybe they're all suitable for laser tag locations or something like that. Like, I don't know what else you do with a, with a completely closed in a facility,

but. Well, they're basically warehouses, right? I guess, but I mean, Amazon can take over. But, but, but, but the, the, the point that you're bringing up is that there's a tension between what open AI and anthropic ones out of the next, you know, six months to a year from an economic standpoint and what Donald Trump and Wall Street need. So I've already described what Open AI and Anthropic want. They want to slow things down and try to cartelize and figure out a way to build that moat, as Eisenman said, essentially keep competitors out, keep Open AI out. You know, people have figured out how to do this in a much cheaper way.

The Chinese models out. Yeah. I mean, they figured out. how to do the main use case things in a much cheaper way, and they want to sort of make sure that those competitors don't come and undercut them. That's OpenAI and Anthropics M.O. But Donald Trump's M.O. is to keep the stock market high. And keeping the stock market high means continuing to engage in these capital expenditures on data centers and things of that nature. Right now, that's the thing that's propping up the economy. That's the only source of real growth. And so Wall Street wants to speed up in the same way and for the same financial incentives that Open AI and Anthropic want to slow down. And that's a real tension

here that can't really be reconciled. Somebody's not going to get what they want. And so that's, I think, at the heart of this as well. And if they don't, I mean, it's an interesting dilemma for the rest of us because if they don't slow down, they're just the, the bubble that they're creating, like a part of it is going to deflate. And as soon as like there is one less competitor for these guys, they're just going to pull back because they'll be the only game in town. If they get the regulation that they want, and we should say, Jeffries has a five-member AI commission that apparently are heavily, heavily supported by AI. So they're all just waiting for their marching orders,

how to create new regulations that ostensibly protect us from our future overlords. But it sounds like they really are designed to protect our future overlords from more, more benign overlords or less expensive ones. One of them, Valerie Foucher in North Carolina, and she was basically saved in her re-election from a progressive challenger by AI PACs. And so, yeah, that's going to be a real problem.

And, you know, I mean, I think that Democrats and politicians more broadly, they really like the idea that they get to go to Washington and save the world, right? Like, this is why it's on their radar screen. You know, this is what I, this is what I sign. I get to go in and I get to make decisions that save humanity. Making sure people have enough to eat doesn't have the same kind of pizzazz as this. And so there's this real growing hysteria, like we have to do something about AI. Using existing law, also not as sexy as, you know, doing something, creating something that will save humanity.

what they really need is more understanding of what they really want to do or what they really have to do. We have a piece up today about in the prior to the 1990s, Congress had its own in-house technology think tank. It was called the Office of Technology Assessment. And if they had questions, because, you know, nobody expects everybody in Congress to be a computer physicist or a computer physicist. or computer science whiz, if they had questions about technology, they would go to the OTA and say,

could you figure out what's going on here and recommend some ideas for what we could do, and they would do it. Now, in the 1990s, Newt Gingrich got rid of the Office of Technology Assessment. And really,

what we need to do is if Democrats take back Congress and take back the White House eventually, they need to staff up with people who actually know what they're talking about as far as this is concerned and can provide the technical expertise to arrive at a solution that actually makes sense. But until that time, we have product liability law, we have unfair methods of competition law, we have the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, because if you saw today,

that a recently unsealed case between the New York Times and AI companies shows that AI companies were hacking the paywall of the New York Times so it could scrape all of their content and responding to that with, you know, Ah, Nice. That's a direct quote from the head of Open AI, Greg Brockman. So these guys are, you know, there's a crime spree going on here with theft. and like real-world things that could be prosecuted, not just by the federal government, but by the states, or, you know, individual litigants could bring cases, in some cases where these have a private right of action. So, you know, I think that in any other context,

if companies with the profile of an open AI or an anthropic were, A, demonstrably doing things that were harm, and B, saying, we are building something that's going to destroy the world. In any other context, you would not let those companies continue to do what they're doing. You would haul them in for questioning, and you would start throwing around subpoenas and maybe indictments. And I think that's where we need to get to rather than, you know, breaking our brains and listening to lobbyists to figure out some new regulation to save the world. Right. I mean, that's the problem is that the regulation is really just going to be a cover for the type of regulation they're talking about. That's the thing is that we just say, I am in favor of any type of regulation that saves the world.

I just want to make that absolutely clear. I am pro saving the world. I don't want any of my words to be taking out of context or anything like that. But the problem is that they say, you know, I'm passing the, you know, the Sam Cedar Save the World Act. I'm a co-sponsor of the Save the World Act. And what's it going to be in there is just going to be essentially competitors can't participate. And we're the only people profiting off of this. And we don't even have to guess about this, Sam. I mean, the current Save the World Act, it's not the Sam Cedar Save the World Act. It's not the Sam Cedar Save the World Act.

I'm sorry, you're not there. But the current Save the World Act, which is being negotiated by Amy Klobuchar and Ted Cruz. Oh, okay. Well, as long as both John Fulm. Yeah. Yeah. As long as both.

It includes preemption of state-based AI safety laws, like the one in New York and like the one in California. It includes an antitrust exemption so that Open AI and Anthropic can coordinate on safety, they say, even though they can make things safe and work together to make things safe anytime they want to. They don't need

an antitrust exemption for that. Can't we repeal the don't allow companies to be safe act? And it includes a, you know, this has at least been talked about a self-regulatory body, much like FINRA, the financial institution

regulatory authority, which is a completely toothless organization. It is a captured organization. So, you know, rather than worry about ghost stories or things that we're hearing from people who, you know, basically have the same worldview as Sam Bankman-Fried, the effect of altruists who think about, you know, catastrophes 20,000 years in the future, rather than listen to them and get all amped up and with this idea that we have to do something, we could look at what these companies are actually doing and look at the laws that we're, we actually have and then imply them and enforce them.

Yeah, it's, I don't know. I think we should listen to Chris and Jillibrand's son about this. He seems to be completely on top of this and he knows exactly what's going. Or Chuck Schumer's daughter who was poached from Amazon to go work for Open AI. Yeah, well, I mean, she's obviously good at her job. Yeah. And so. Elite talent like that isn't going to sit on the sidelines very long.

How much of this skepticism that you're expressing here in this perspective, do you have a sense that there is a healthy dose of that amongst congressional damage? Because obviously, Jeffries has got a commission. So it's not like there's a committee that's dominated by it, but this commission has that like Simpson Bowles type of stink to it where it's rigged from the beginning. we know what's going to come out of it. The question is, is there a nascent movement amongst Democrats in the House to delegitimize this commission? Because we know what's going to come out of it. I mean, I think the, you know, this is going to sound a little weird, but the good news is Donald Trump.

Like, he doesn't want to do anything. And he's not going to do anything. And so instead of this, you know, quick spring. frenzy and panic-induced legislation, the likes of which we saw last in the run-up to, you know, or the immediate aftermath of 9-11 with the Patriot Act or the immediate aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapsed with the bailout and the TARP law. I don't think we're going to see that because Donald Trump doesn't have any interest in it, and therefore the Republicans don't have any interest in it.

And so, you know, what does that mean is that where we can. can go from here is, I think, with information collection. There was a hearing, a shadow hearing this week by the Monopoly Busters Caucus, which is led by Primalogia Paul and Christelousio. And they took testimony both from people who were inside some of these companies. I think they had a former meta-executive in there, along with people who have experienced real harm. They had a woman whose son killed himself after being encouraged by a chat bot.

So I think, to the extent, to the extent that I see skepticism, it's more of a yearning to actually know what's going on. And we are seeing that in some sort. Well, if Trump slows it down, through his term,

we'll all be gone by then anyways because of AI, 16 months out, right, is when we all get terminated. So I guess we get to wear a hoodie after that. After that, hoodie every day. There you go. David Dayan, executive editor of the American Prospect, co-host of the Organized Money podcast,

we will link to at least three of the pieces that you have written this week. On the topics that we covered, there are many more over at the American Prospect. again, just a reminder to people. Like, if you're not reading the prospect on a regular basis and then also not supporting it, you are making a huge mistake. This is what is being read in policy circles.

And to the extent, frankly, that, you know, and we're starting to see these grow, these different think tank shops, really, that are shops that are trying to promote policies for the Democrats to embrace, the prospect is so important because we don't have a progressive, we don't have enough juice behind progressive think tanks. And the work you guys do over there is really crucial. So thank you so much, David. I really appreciate it. Thank you, sir. All right, folks.

We're going to take a quick break and head into the fun half of the program, where in, oh, we've got so much fun. We got Kansas Senate polling. We've got Ron Wyke and Joe Rogan. We've got Montana Senate polling so we can talk about how Chuck Schumer really blew it with Montana. We've got Maddie Hassan and Nancy Mace. And they're not friends. And we have a very short. short clips of the new Daily Wire movie.

Is it released yet? Oh, it was released. September 16th. Well, why don't we buy it and just start playing some of it? I should have taken the day off and gone to the matinee. Well, I didn't want to say anything about where Emma is, but... Is this in theaters?

I'll check, but I would bet my life it isn't. At least not nationwide. No, well, I know it can't be nationwide, because We have too many areas in this country covered by Sharia law, and they would never allow it to air in the... You get beheaded and thrown off a building. Exactly. It's pretty amazing to see, like, Ben Shapiro get gifted somebody like Jonathan Majors.

I mean, I don't follow him that closely, but it used to be, like, in, you know, good movies. Who's Jonathan Majors? Are these the main character in the film, right? The main actor, and still completely, like, land on your face. This is, I would hope, will... be, oh yeah, I saw a clip of Jonathan Majors. I couldn't find this clip. I think they pulled it down where he's, he runs into a classroom with another guy and he has a gun and then a presumably an ISIS figure comes in with a machine gun and majors,

jumps in front of his buddy to protect him. They get, he gets shot. They both get pushed out a window. I think maybe following one flight. And then Majors gets up and he's got blood all over his gut because he got shot there, but seems to be completely impervious to being shot in terms of running the guy. He helps the other guy get up and he's the one who's shot. That's like diehard.

right where just Bruce Willis is just getting maimed and but at least Bruce Willis goes like for a second the next scene he's sprinting I apologize unlike the arrest of this office I don't read variety so I didn't know why Jonathan Majors was fed fallen solo but a domestic violence incident so that explains it I see Ben Shapiro's like oh we can get him Ben Shapiro's like we got him given what Jeremy Boreen was making nailed it I don't even need to go I don't even need to see the audition. It's like somehow disgraceful for even Ben Shapiro. Oh, I'm not going to say your name, but I just got this from a regular listener. He knows who he is. I just emailed you all a file of the full Daily Wire movie. It is at the majority reporters and producers email address.

I bet I know who that is. I'm going to guess too when we cut to break. Oh, okay. I speak to this person for like $15,000 a minute. Meg MCA. Meg MCA. That wasn't his blood. The bullet was critically injured. I see.

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Matt. What's happening in the Mat-Lek Media universe? Yeah, a new Matt-heavy Jacobin show coming up at 3 o'clock Eastern Time, right after the show today and the Jacobin YouTube channel. We're talking about the industry-wide mental breakdown about Hassan Piker and also centrists having bold ideas about paths and conversations, which we're all excited about. So check that out at the Jacobin-Magg YouTube channel.

Quick break. Fun half.