The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3682 - Corporate PACs Splurge; Virginia's Data Center Revolt w/ Robert Weissman, Brennan Gilmore

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

It's News Day Tuesday on The Majority Report On today's program: Graham Platner is accused of raping a woman in 2021 as reported by Politico. Platner has lost all of his endorsements, and the DNC is threatening to withhold funds if he stays in the race. Jake Tapper cynically tells the survivor that progressives will tell her that they don't care about the sexual assault and will vote for Platner anyway because they just need to win. Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy claims that when Republicans have a bad candidate then they get rid of them. Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen joins the program to discuss his piece entitled: "Corporate Supremacist Super PACs Drive $500 Million Midterm Spending Surge." Brennan Gilmore, Executive Director of Clean Virginia, joins to discuss Virginia's fight against unchecked proliferation of data centers throughout the state. In the Fun Half: Wall Street Journal reports that New York City has not built apartments at this rate since 1965. Scott Jennings claims on X that he spoken to the reportedly brain-dead Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes about Senate history and more. Marc Andreessen says that Dr. ChatGPT is better than any human doctor. All that and more. Join Emma for a virtual DSA event, find info 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: ZOCDOC: Find and book the right doctor https://Zocdoc.com/MAJORITY SUNSET LAKE CBD: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com.  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @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 show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.

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and at majority.fm. Again, for a limited time, get 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash majority. And now time for the show. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is to. Tuesday, July 7th, 2026. My name is Emma Vigland, in for Sam Cedar, and 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, Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, will join us to talk about the corporate PAC spending spree in the midterms. And later in the show, Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia, will be with us to talk about the state's fight against data centers

cropping up everywhere. Also on the program, Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is accused of rape with corroboration and loses almost every endorsement in rapid fire succession. Maine Democrats scramble to find a replacement before a key July 13th ballot deadline.

This process could include a pop-up primary or a convention selection. Graham's got to drop out before the 13th, and then the real deadline to pick a candidate is the 27th. Just a disaster. I'll be talking about this in a second. In better Senate news, though, Abdul al-Sayyad and APAC plant, Haley Stevens debate tonight. So, something to look at,

for you. Trump curses team USA after twisting FIFA's arm to reinstate the U.S.'s best scorer, Belgium destroyed them last night. Scored like, what, three or four minutes in?

Bad omen. The Knicks know that well from game three. Trump's in Turkey today. He is expected to restore sales of F-35 jets to Erdogan, even as Netanyahu rages. A new associated press poll finds that one third of U.S. adults and half of Democrats think Israel has committed genocide.

That's a lot lower, honestly, than some other polls I've seen, by the way, like Quinnipiac. But it's becoming a consensus opinion at some point, within the Democrats at least. Iran fired on at least two ships attempting to bypass Iranian-controlled waters in the Strait of Hormuz. threatening the MOU. An Exxon mobile executive, who's worked there for 17 years, is leaving to join Trump's DOJ's renamed Energy and National Resources Division that used to be about the environment. The Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce age verification technology in the state,

a win for the big tech lobbying for it, alarming privacy advocates. A federal appeals court has blocked Trump's DOJ from accessing voter rolls. in Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island on an emergency basis. The Tennessee National Guard deployed at the urging of Trump shot and killed a 20-year-old black man in Memphis over the weekend.

And lastly, Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized for three weeks now, we know. And his staff won't say why. In a democracy. All this and more on today's majority report. Welcome to the show, everybody. It is Tuesday,

Newsday, Tuesday. Sam is out for the rest of the week, as he tends to be, when horrible news stories drop. We'll just start, obviously, with the Grand Platner story. I reacted a little bit on Instagram last night. You can also check out my episode of Left Reckoning with Matt,

which we recorded probably 30 minutes after we got the news, so it's a little raw, I would say, right? Yeah, pretty immediate reaction there. We were going to just take a, victory lap up around Mallory McMorrow and took a little bit more of a somber tone to start things off um so yesterday afternoon rumors were swirling about another negative grand platinum story that was set to drop unlike the new york times story from a few weeks ago that was written in a tone that sounded like there was a sexual assault allegation in the piece but did not contain that

content it was about his unsettling behavior and a lot of the worst of what was alleged was aggressive grabbing. And the only named accuser in that piece that had the worst accusations was somebody who has worked in Republican politics. This story is immensely credible, serious, and it has corroboration in the piece. It also sheds new light on that story. Because it seems now, in hindsight, that it was written in that tone, perhaps because they knew about this accusation, this woman was interviewed for the story.

that original piece. But for whatever reason, they were unable to corroborate it or she did not go forward fully with her accusation. And that is why the Republican, who I mentioned there, Fifeield, she said after the piece was published that she felt betrayed because she had heard that there was going to be an allegation of sexual assault that was in the piece that would have made her experience seem, you know, obviously more of a pattern. and now we know what that allegation was.

That it would be supportive of a broader allegation of Platner, not just, yeah. Yeah. So trigger warning, I'm about to say what the piece alleges. The woman accuses Plattner of entering her home without her consent in 2021. He was intoxicated, she says.

The woman accuses Plattner of forcing himself on her. when she told him to stop. She accuses him of ejaculating inside her even as she told him not to. Politico corroborated her account with notes to her therapists and messages

with a man that she dated in 2022. There are lurid details in the piece that add to the credibility in my humble opinion. She talks about remembering him knocking over an antique sewing kit

and that kind of sent to chill down my spine just because, you know, there's just details in that that ring true, I guess, as a woman. You know, there's an immense amount of betrayal right now. Platner insisted multiple times that nothing knew was coming out. The fact that he knew that this particular woman was interviewed by the New York Times and still went on Chris Hayes and other platforms and insisted that nothing else was coming is unconscionable

because he knew that she was one of the women that was identified. Platner and perhaps the campaign itself has violated the trust of many supporters. I would include myself in that. However, obviously, I do feel a responsibility as a woman that, you know, perhaps, I don't know, I'm still thinking about this, but I believe in redemption, restorative justice, and that is what had driven me to support Platner despite some of his past.

But when we're talking about forcible rape and sexual assault, obviously, there is no excuse. And immediately, once I read the story, I knew that he had to drop out of the race. And so I'm sorry if there are any women in the audience that feel that I failed them. I take that super seriously. I carry that with me. And I'm sorry. So, you know, I still maintain that what was said in the New York Times was not disqualifying, but what is alleged here just absolutely is.

And not that it should matter, given the, not that it should matter, given what the details were and what the corroboration is, but this individual, this woman who is accusing him, supports his politics, and that is why she was reticent to come forward in the first place. And I'm sorry if myself or anybody, you know, I'm sorry if I contributed to that culture. And so I'm reflecting on that myself.

Now, the national media is going to try to blame this on DSA. I'm already seeing this. he was not endorsed by DSA. Like Gonzalez in Colorado, you can't just call someone a DSA-style candidate. They're not a DSA candidate. Because DSA candidates come with infrastructure and internal democracy.

And in this case, sorry? In vetting? Exactly. In this case, you have to ask this question. Could said DSA infrastructure have worked to vet a candidate like Platner? or another candidate who could have represented these positions without this baggage.

I mean, there's an item in the, in the Wall Street Journal this morning about how, you know, he was rushed through a vetting process. In hindsight, obviously, that was a massive mistake. That article's from late June. Oh, late June. I'm sorry. I guess I just read it. It has new salience now. And, you know, for DSA and stuff like that, you know, the people within the chapter can decide with an internal democratic process who best represents their goals and who best represents the interests of DSA. And I don't, it's a counterfactual. Who knows if DSA was involved in this particular race.

If things could have gone differently. But do not fall for people trying to tie DSA to this. They still will try to blame the left more broadly. Last night, Jake Tapper interviewed the accuser here, Jenny Rassikot. I'm sorry if I'm not pronouncing her last name correctly. And this interview was painful and difficult. But Tapper's framing here, I think, is indicative of why we're seeing victory lapse from the likes of Nero Tandon over a sexual assault allegation. There are going to be Democrats who say, I believe you, but I don't care.

Yeah. I'm going to vote from anyway because we need a progressive voice in the United States Senate. Are you going to be okay with that? Are you going to be able to handle that? I'm not saying it's the right answer or the right response. No, I have friends who feel that way. And that's been a hard pill to swallow. And I guess I need to not ask potentially.

Maybe I need to not ask in order to not care what they do. I understand. I understand that the state of our political environment is so much so that we need a lot of change. And he's offering that change. And, you know, I'm not mad at anyone who has voted for him all along. If he wasn't who he was, I would be voting for him as well. And going forward, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if there's anybody that is saying that you have to vote for him now.

Like Tapper kind of said that declaratively in a way where he said progressives as well. You heard that? This is a rabid Zionist who's attempting to say that not only the left that supported Platner, not only are they anti-Semitic, they're pro-rape, and they want you to look past this. Is there anybody who has done that that's credible? He's lost every endorsement. I mean, except Bernie and let's get to it, buddy.

But Warren, Rokana, Ruben Gai, I mean, like everybody. Unlike Cuomo, who these people endorsed through two as a Democratic primary candidate and a general election primary candidate after everything was out about him. Yes. So, yeah, this is how they're going to try to frame this. And the thing is, is that the left was the party in this primary. that was actually serious about defeating Susan Collins. You know, unlike Schumer and the DSCC and Kirsten Gillibrand,

we didn't clear the field for a geriatric centrist who couldn't muster 20% in the primary. They cleared the field for younger candidates because Mills, battle tested Mills, it was her time. That's what Schumer said. And many of those candidates kind of crowded into the governor's race, and they're going to be new characters in this story. because our democracy is truly at stake here, and they will be some of the people that are considered to take over for Platner

when he eventually withdraws because he cannot withstand this and should not withstand this. If there are people out there that think that Janet Mills would have generated the necessary enthusiasm to defeat Susan Collins, I've got a bridge to sell you, and that bridge is named Sarah Gideon in 2020. It's named Bellows in 2014, both of whom got walloped Democratic. establishment picks against Mills and by the way, Bellows is now being floated as somebody to replace Platner. I mean, it's, it's a mess.

And the thing is that, you know, to be corny about it, the Bernie, not me, us stuff was always where we were at. You know, this is about the movement and the platform. Whoever ends up being the candidate here in Maine, should support what the main Democratic primary voters supported. It wasn't just Graham as an individual, the cut of his jib, his flannels, or his voice. It was about cutting off arms to Israel. It was about taxing billionaires.

It was saving local hospitals. It was about Medicare for All. It was about a new kind of politics. And you know they heard that platform and they said, hell yes. So the question now becomes, who can take up Graham Platner's popular, platform, a winning platform to take on Susan Collins. This process is not ideal, as I keep saying. There's a deadline next week, July 13th, for Platner to drop out. That's the ballot deadline. And then after that happens, the party has the opportunity to nominate somebody new and July 25th via a pop-up

convention or a primary, which is obviously what I would favor some sort of blitz primary, um, to choose the nominee. There could potentially be some way to salvage this. Maine DSA endorsed Troy Jackson in the gubernatorial race. He's considered a good candidate to take up this mantle. But again, this is less than 24 hours later. So we're still figuring all this out, but- I've seen that Nerov Shah moderate in the governor's race has, uh, already staked that he

won't support Israel. That's the litmus test and they understand that if you want to get out of if you want to to take a platinum place on the ballot. It's too early to say as of right now, but let's at the very least listen to Republicans here trying to take a victory lap. Here is Kevin McCarthy, one time speaker of the House, who says that Republicans would never nominate such a person. This is the claim. Donald Trump has been found liable in court for sexual assault in court of E. Jean Carroll, let alone the dozens of accusations of rape and sexual assault that have been

leveled against him, let alone him being in the Epstein files, all that. Here is Kevin McCarthy trying to say that the Democrats are the moral degenerates. you know, the party that just is universally now calling on Plattenor to drop out. In that party. All right. So they managed to take him out, let's just say, in the next day or two. Then they replace him. They rig their own primary.

With no primary, no choice. It sounds a lot like Biden, right? So they're going to pivot and go to Kamala Harris, because I think had they had a primary, Kamala Harris would not have won. So the person they select now probably wouldn't be able to win a primary, and it gives the people in Maine a very short amount of time to really learn who they are. And does that, do Maine voters hold the party responsible for that going forward between now and the election? I think it's too early to tell. They should, but you just listen to the individual here that,

terrible what's happened to her, her own friends knew and would still vote for them, because they just want to win. That is a true mine virus right there. That's a sad place. Look, we're celebrating 250 years. The one thing I know about Republicans, when we had a very bad candidate and found out, we didn't vote for that person. We walked with it.

For better or for worse. When Matt Gates came forward, we got rid of them. Yeah. Kevin McCarthy, as always. Yeah, Matt Gates. So, Matt Gates, you know, the guy you had a very public personal feud with, you, Creighton. What about Donald Trump, bro?

Donald Trump. What about Roy Moore? What about Pete Heggzeth? Like he is so pathetic and petty. It's just an opportunity for him to dunk on Matt Gates here. And by the way, Jake Tapper just like lobbed that up for Kevin McCarthy to dunk the basketball, basically. You know, by insinuating that there would be all of these Democrats in Maine that would want to vote for him anyway, even though we're not seeing that. Let's pull up the own Discord server from Platner supporters.

This was in the immediate aftermath of the allegations. This is somebody writing 357. I mean, this must have been minutes later. I don't necessarily want Graham to win. I want his and our political ideas to win. He's not coming back from this, and we should find someone to carry on the ideals now. People can be flawed and become better.

But hanging your movement on the coattails of somebody credibly accused of sexual assault is the exact thing we are trying to be better then. Let's go to the next one. There's more. If this is all true, I'm obviously the most heartbroken for this poor woman who lived through something no woman should ever have to endure. But I'm also, to a lesser extent, heartbroken for all the volunteers who believed in Graham, his message and this campaign and really thought he was a vehicle for change. Let's keep going. Graham had great policies.

I hope someone whose character aligns with those policies step up. Man, I'm in so much pain. He needs to drop out now. A little bit more. I mean, not even a minute despite corroborating screenshots and messages between her and her friend. Well, this is somebody criticizing somebody for not taking the accusation seriously. So whatever, you know, the fact that Tapper claimed that without any evidence shows his bias that we were already aware of. It is the same bias that has fueled the fixation on Platner prior to this point.

but the reality is that he has shown himself to be a liar. He has lied to us. He has lied to the public. And there's nothing to say anymore now, except, you know, disavowal. And again, he's under more scrutiny as a moot point. Yes. Yeah. I mean, McCarthy is mad that Matt Gates voted to oust him and was one of the other seven or eight Republicans.

I forget the exact figure that oust him from Speaker. the house the first ever ejected by his own party in late 2023. So now he's like, you know, Republicans, they did the right thing about Matt Gates and did right by me, me, me, Kevin McCarthy. No, everybody knows which party covered up the Epstein Files, buddy. But of course, we will have much more to say about this in the coming days and later on in the show. But first, a word from one of our favorite sponsors. You know, lately, I've been thinking a lot more about plastic and microplastics, not just the stuff we throw away, those tiny particles that we don't even see. You know, plastic doesn't just disappear. It breaks down in smaller and smaller pieces and sticks around in our environment.

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That's blu-land.com slash majority. Again, make the switch today. Get 15% off your first order. order by going to blu land.com slash majority. That's blueland.com slash majority. We will put a link to that down below in the video and episode descriptions and at majority.fm. Quick break. And when we come back, we'll be joined by Robert Weissman. We are back and we are joined now by Robert Weissman, co-president of public citizen here to discuss their new report entitled Corporate Supremicist Super Pax Drive 500 million dollar midterm spending.

surge. Robert, thanks so much for coming on the show today. Hey, it's great to be with you. Same here. Before we get into public citizens findings, I just wanted to briefly talk to you and ask you about last week's Supreme Court decision on campaign finance law. It was a six to three decision, just weakening our campaign finance laws even more. We already know that Citizens United essentially led to the explosion of super PACs, opened up the floodgates of independent expenditures, so-called independent expenditures. What does this case mean, which ruled that political parties can now coordinate with candidates or lifting some of these limits on their coordination with candidates?

Yeah, well, the main thing that's still left, the remnants that remain of campaign finance law focuses primarily on the limit on direct contributions to political candidates. And right now it's about $3,500 per candidate per cycle. So you can do it once in the primary, once in the general election. And with everything else going on in campaign finance, that's the one remaining good thing. It's not as consequences as it should be because so much else is happening, outside spending, super PACs, et cetera. But still it matters. And because there's this core limit on what a person can contribute to a candidate,

there has been also a prohibition on direct coordination between political parties and candidates because the parties can accept a lot more money, up to about $250,000 from each donor, twice over primary and general election. So the idea was, well, you can't have coordination because if you're trying to have a limit on how much a person can contribute to a candidate, if they can just contribute 10 or 100 times that to a party and then just have it effectively spent in coordination with on behalf of the candidate, you destroy the actual effective limit on direct contributions to candidates. That had been widely understood.

It was considered a core anti-corruption measure, even with a very narrow definition the Supreme Court tolerates for defining corruption. It was viewed as anti-circumvention. Like, you shouldn't be able to circumvent the limit on contributions to candidates. And the 60 majority overturned that. It's a direct overturning of a decision that's only 25 years old. Brett Kavanaugh wrote the decision. He basically said, yeah, that's old history.

The logic, we've destroyed every prong of logic that was in that 25-year-old decision. So there's no reason to adhere to precedent. And we're throwing that decision out. And it's all sort of dressed up in the fetishization of the First Amendment. We have to give people the right to spend as much money as they want, because the founding fathers command of that. That's kind of the core illogic of the Supreme Court jurisprudence that comes to campaign finance. And practically it means that we've now really diminished the meaning of the only significant remaining restraint in campaign finance law.

Because big dollar donors can make the $3,500 contribution and simultaneously make a $250,000 contribution to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party or whatever, whether you clear, understanding that it's going to be spent on behalf of the candidate that they think. It's incredible how much this relies on Supreme Court decisions from the 1970s, both Buckley v. Vallejo and then I think Balati also stands out to me in my mind, right, where you merge this notion of money equal speech, which was the Buckley v. Vallejo decision disastrous as it gets with a judicial adherence. to the idea that corporations can act as people in the political ecosystem,

those two decisions married together to increase corruption in our politics. But Citizens United exploded it by essentially saying that any curbing of outside spending on this race, as long as it doesn't include quid pro quo corruption, would be a violation of these corporations' incredible, right to free speech as human beings under the law. It makes absolutely no sense, but yet they'll throw out precedent that's even more recent, like a 25-year-old case, in order to justify upholding this, you know, these 1970s-era case law that has led to, I would say, the destruction of our democracy.

Because as this piece in public citizen, this study, looks or analyzes one third do we have this chart guys figure one let's pull this up here because it's astonishing uh we we have we have it uh here we can show it on screen so that this first chart figure one there it is this is your analysis here so 2010 you can see 12.8 million dollars was spent that was the year that citizens united was decided in corporate political spending. In 2026, which we are around a little over halfway through at this point, or at least this cycle, $517.5 million. That's one-third of the total $1.58 billion spent in corporate spending on federal elections since that case was decided, Citizens United, in just 2026. Robert,

your reaction to public citizens findings here? Yeah, so you're describing all exactly right. So 2010 was the decision Citizens United handed out by the Supreme Court. And it's just as you said, that case said that corporations could spend whatever they wanted to influence elections, short of direct contributions to candidates. And then in subsequent decisions, they said, well, if it's true for corporations, the principle is true for everybody. And the main original effect of Citizens United was to lead to this gigantic surge in spending for outside spending groups, dark money groups, and especially super PACs funded primarily by the super rich. So the top 100 donors are responsible

for about 70% of all funding for Super PACs. And that's held true every year since Citizens United. It's totally banana republic stuff, just 100 people. Corporations, if they took advantage, primarily by moving money into dark money organizations that didn't disclose where their funding came from. So we didn't know about corporate spending. They would give it to, like, for example, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber of Commerce spent money in elections, but they didn't identify who their funders were, even if it was Exxon and Philharic or whoever. What's happened in the last couple of election cycles and now is exploding is that this inhibition that corporations had and sort of outwardly spending is falling away.

And of course, corporations have more money than even the richest people, more money than God. And they can, if they choose and the cultural restraints, because the legal restraints are gone, if the cultural restraints fall on corporate spending, it's going to go through an entire new level. So why the trend has gone up is who broke the mold in the last election cycle was the cryptocurrency industry, which is not an important industry whatsoever. But they decided their future depended on getting laws passed. to legitimize the otherwise illegal behavior that they were undertaking. So for them, it was worth it.

And they made a big bet about spending $150 million in the last election cycle, and they had some significant success. And that success translated immediately into legislative action. So not only Republicans working for crypto, Democrats who were standing against crypto as a scam and who wanted it properly regulated, about half of them now are very open to supporting what crypto wants because they fear the effect of opposing them. Other industries looked at that experience, which was stunning, and said, you know what,

us too. So what we're seeing now is huge spending from the cryptocurrency industry, huge spending from the AI and big tech companies, who obviously are the biggest companies of the planet, it can spend infinity if they choose, big spending from the online prediction market, online betting companies and prediction markets, and then some other sort of random companies that are giving funds to Donald Trump because they're ideologically aligned. And as you say, that decision was 2010, we're 16 years later, but a third of all corporate spending since that decision was handed down has happened in

just this election cycle. And this election cycle is really just getting underway. And this is already surpassing when you talk about all the success in the cryptocurrency industry's terms in 2024. It was already a record, $461 million of corporations spent in the 2024 election cycle in 2022. So it's, let's put that chart back up, actually. Thanks, thanks, Matt. So 2022, just to show how they're quadrupling down on this and because it's paying off, this is an investment.

$184 million in 2022 in corporate political spending. They double themselves more than that in 2024 with 461.5 million. And as we just said, in 26, it's not even all the way through the primary cycle. And they've already exceeded 2024 levels. Maybe just your thoughts. Yeah. You know, AI is surging throughout the economy and society. And there's huge pushback on these AI companies.

on every issue from data centers to the abusive effects of chatbots on kids to problems with deepfakes and politics and unauthorized intimate deepfakes to concerns about how it can be used to foment terrorism on and on so there's this rising demand for regulation of the AI companies and AI companies are now saying you know what we'd rather not and we think we can buy our way out out of the regulatory problem by spending money in elections. And that's the fight that we're going to have. These are the big, when we take AI companies, people should understand that's really big tech.

So the spenders are open AI and Facebook, but we're talking about Google and X, GROC, whatever. All the main big tech companies, Amazon, are the AI companies. So it is the biggest companies in the world now choosing to spend directly from their corporate treasury on politics If you're a $3 trillion company, it's nothing to you to throw $100 or $200 million into the election cycle.

But that's gigantic money in our elections. And it's for sure going to have massive impacts. The question that remains is how much are they going to spend and how much the public pushback will offset that? And the only good thing about this is we are seeing in this election more than I think than any recent one. Progressives saying, particularly in primaries, yeah, I'm not. funded by the corporations and you take all the money you want, but I'm going to run against you precisely because you're getting all that corporate money and making it a political issue and trying to turn the advantage of corporate political money into a disadvantage for the

recipients. That's the only way forward. Of course, it would be much better. This money wasn't flooding into our system in the first place. Some crazy names that are outlined in your piece. I mean, in just in terms of like super-packing. contributors. You mentioned some of them, but of course, Andresen Horowitz is super involved. You mentioned Open AI. You have draft kings and fan duel

that they're trying to make sure that you know, this gambling economy that's totally unsustainable is cemented in all 50 states across the country, the prediction markets that you say. But one name that was fascinating to me was I saw John

Vlasto named, who used to be the chief of staff for Andrew Cuomo and is now a top staff or for the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, who said last year that they are building a strategy to ensure that, quote, pro-crypto voices are heard in key races all across the country. So this is the top of the Democratic Party endorsing corrupting cryptocurrency money in primaries. Yeah, well, if you want to be fair to them, it's someone who was in the Democratic Party.

was, I'm sorry, yes. The revolving door. Yes. And it's not working on behalf of crypto and the AI companies. You do the same thing now for the AI companies. But it's just, it's not a coincidence to me. I'm sorry. I misspoke a little bit.

It's not a coincidence. Yes. You don't have to be fair to them. It's exactly right. It's a total revolving door corrupting system. And that is the remote, most remarkable thing that's happened, particularly with crypto. We're seeing it now in real time with these prediction markets. They changed the dynamic in Washington in ways that I have never seen almost overnight by the massive spending they did in the last election cycle.

They took credit, maybe a little more credit than deserved, but not totally undeserved. They took credit for defeating Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio. It was a great senator in a tough race. They spent a ton against him, and he lost. and everyone in Washington saw that. And Democrats started quaking and said, it's not worth it to us to fight these guys because we might lose our jobs.

So you're seeing reversals of positions throughout the Democratic Party on crypto. And then it's made worse by people than there's money advantages for individuals. Yeah, I can leave Chuck Schumer's office and go work for this big industry, make a lot of money for myself personally. I've got all kind of connects back into the party.

And that's how the corrupt system works. Yeah. And, you know, Kirsten Gillibrand, I would say also in the Democratic primary is one of the biggest boosters of cryptocurrency. And it's not a coincidence to me that these are two senators based in New York. And you have these financial firms that are heavily invested in crypto too and have been for years. So it's, and both, by the way, I mean, Gillibrand's the head of the deal.

SEC, like these are power players in Democratic senatorial campaigns. Yeah. I mean, the crypto thing, you know, I don't know how much viewers, listeners know or engage in crypto. It's a scam, right? It's just a scam. We've been on top of that, Robert. And it would be fine if, and it wouldn't be fine.

It would be a horror if it was just a consumer scam and the people invest in it lose money, which they're going to do at some point in time or already have, actually. Bitcoin goes up and goes back down, and it's got no inherent worth. Because the industry is being so politically effective, and exactly as you're alluding to, it has now started to seep into the actual financial system with big banks saying, well, there's a ton of money to be made on this, or why don't we come part of the whole system? And so what should be this little ridiculous niche snake oil rip-off industry is now becoming part of the overall financial structure. And it's creating real financial risks foreseeable

financial risks in the future that, you know, could be part of a trigger of a future financial crisis. And if that were to come to pass, it will be able to look back in time and say it's exactly because of this political spending that that thing happened in the future. Yeah, well said. Just before we wrap here, so Dark money is not included in this report. And a big storyline in this primary cycle is APAC money with these pop-up super PACs flooding primary races. Can you distinguish those tactics from the corporate PAC spending that you analyze here in this report? Yeah.

I mean, it's, I'm happy to do that. And you know, this is people's attitude is these are the interesting subcategories, but basically the whole system is corrupt, that's correct. Don't worry. You got the story right. That's it. So we're talking about disclosed spending where we can identify which company or which person made a contribution to the super packets.

It's published every 90 days or whatever. It's also possible to make donations to entities, nonprofit organizations that don't disclose. They're funding. Those are dark money organizations. And then it's possible for money to slosh a rate. around between those things. So you can run money into a dark money organization, and the dark money organization can make a contribution to a Super PAC that does disclose its funders, but all you know is that it got a contribution from a dark money organization. You don't know

who the original donor was. So that's part of what's going on. The other thing that's going on with APAC and absolutely with crypto and other industries is either they're using different kinds of front groups or they're not. But They're not advertising on their issue. So this is true for APAC, and it's very true for crypto. When crypto was running an ad on behalf of a candidate or attacking a candidate, it doesn't say, hey, here's their position. This is the most pro-crypto candidate there is.

You should vote for them. They don't disclose or talk about crypto at all. They talk about what their position is on drug pricing or where they are on good wages for America and stuff like that because they don't think they can't win their issue. They just have money. So they run on issues, they're spending their money on things they can. And APEC is doing the exact same thing. They're not campaigning on candidates' support for Israel or against Israel. That's why they're spending the money, but their ads are running, whether it's whatever name of the entity that's running the ad, the ads have nothing to do with Israel, Gaza, foreign policy, Middle East, the war, anything. It's all about what they think is going to work.

So it is layers of deception and, you know, this real degradation and corruption of our democracy. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, one of, you know, the institutions still kick in challenging corruption and the Trump administration, despite their best efforts to shut groups like yours down. Keep up the great work. And thanks so much for coming on the show today. We're kicking hard. It's great to be with you. Thanks. Thanks so much. Quick break, folks. And when we come back, we'll be talking to Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia,

to talk about, it's sort of related, but Virginia's fight against these data centers in the state and their Democratic governor standing in the way. We'll be right back. We are back and we are joined now by Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia, here to talk about Virginia's fight against the unchecked proliferation of data centers throughout the state.

Brennan, thanks so much for coming on the show today. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Of course. Let's start here. It's timely that you're on with us today because this interview clip was released yesterday. Governor Abigail Spanberger of Virginia spoke to Politico. and she was asked about a data center moratorium in her state. Here was her answer on whether or not she supports a data center moratorium. Some of your former colleagues, including Frank Pallone, top temer grad on energy and commerce,

want to see, they basically say, let's do a moratorium now and then figure out sort of the long-term strategy later. Do you disagree with that approach? I mean, I disagree with that approach from a couple perspectives. One, the perspective of a Virginia where data centers have been part of our economy for quite some time. And so if we were to end that kind of in one fell swoop, that has a major impact on jobs in Virginia, union jobs, electrical jobs, certainly the building trades. It has a major impact on many of our communities, also many of our rural communities that see great benefit when they choose to, because we've got local control on this, when they choose to invite or welcome or approve. data centers, they see that benefit. Additionally, from a national security perspective, and that's my background, former intelligence officer with CIA, and certainly that was a large

focus of mine at the federal level. Data centers, the need for data centers, processing of information, there's a national security implication here in Virginia, and we don't, as a nation, want to cede that ground. As a nation, we should show leadership in what it is that we require and how it is that we utilize, whether it's advanced manufacturing or data center technologies and investments, to meet the goals that we have on the environmental side, on the affordability side of our priorities, but kind of walking away from a technology that is going to continue to proliferate is walking away from the table. So your reaction to that, I mean, I think she's absolutely right that there is an outsized

amount of influence of the national security state in Virginia. I mean, it's literally where Langley is. But Virginia, I mean, you tell me, but from what I'm reading, Virginia is just outpacing the rest of the country just in terms of concentration of data centers in the state. That's absolutely correct. We're the data center capital of the world. There's close to 700 data centers here now. They're a quarter of the energy demand of our state. And, And I think what Governor Spamberger doesn't acknowledge in that quote there is that this is just the beginning of the crisis of data centers in our state. It's already gotten to the point where it's impacting everybody who lives in the state in terms of the energy bills that they pay in terms of those that are located near them in terms of water use, land use, and increasingly environmental hazards as data centers just this week had to turn on their backup diesel generators, which are creating new fossil fuel pollutants in the state. All that is the snapshot in 2026, but because of the AI buildout, that is going to double or triple in terms of impacts in the coming years.

And so we have a huge problem on our hands. I think Governor Spanberg is quick to acknowledge the good about data centers, but we really need her to step up and recognize the danger and the impact on every Virginia. And we haven't seen that type of leadership from the governor yet. What is the impact on the everyday person in Virginia right now? So Clean Virginia, the organization that I'm the executive director of, focused specifically on the energy impact. And I wouldn't say that's probably one of the biggest. You know, let me step back. In 2020, Virginia passed a landmark clean energy law, the Virginia Clean Economy Act that set us on a path to net zero in 2045.

In the last five years, that law has completely been cast aside by data center. and the energy that they demand. One data center project can demand as much as an entire nuclear power plant, as much energy is used by one city. And all of that new infrastructure that's being built to respond to that demand is being socialized and paid by every customer around the state. That is a core economic problem here. It's a core corporate welfare problem that Virginia has failed to address.

And we've seen bills rise over $100 in the last five years, they're set to double even more in the coming 10 years. So that's when we focus on, certainly, you know, we are not going to meet our clean energy goals with absent a significant change in direction. But there are a lot of other concerns as well. It used to be that the data center impacts were rather local. So the vast majority of data centers were built around Northern Virginia. And it's interesting she, you know, talked about the national security implications of this, National Security played a role in why Virginia became the center of data centers 20, 30 years ago. And that cost, of course, came from people's tax dollars as well. So the history of

Virginia, the history of people subsidizing what has become a real clear example of corporate welfare dates back 20 and 30 years. It's now gotten to an extreme point. But, you know, that used to be just in Northern Virginia. But now because these data centers are so energy hungry, we're seeing massive transmission projects that are cutting through farmland and the central and southern parts of the state. We're seeing large gas plants being built along the James River in communities where they see no positive benefit from data centers at all. And what is she deliberately conflating data centers, which is just like kind of like a general computing center with AI data centers that are so much more energy intensive and are really over

the past few years the drivers of higher energy costs in Virginia but also across the country? Yes. The conflation of what data centers do really works to the benefit of big tech companies. There's a lot of data that's passing through Virginia data centers, which is crypto, online gambling, pornography, everything that goes into the internet. But the data center industry, the data center coalition here loves to say that, you know, this is the backbone of the healthcare industry, of the national security industry. But there's no separation. There's no triaging in terms of what is important for us as a society, what is important for national security. It all just gets bundled into a pro-AI, pro-big tech push by data centers so that they can roll over state

legislators and others and get the laws pass that they want pass. So yes, that's a conflation that we see from political leaders. It's a conflation and talking points that we see from the industry all the time. And a big part of us fighting back against it is saying we really need transparency in this industry to see what are the legitimate areas that should never be shut off and which ones do we need to balance against the other needs of Virginia, not to go broke from paying an election bill. Can you talk about the sales tax incentive for some of these companies and how they've been abusing it?

Yes. And when I talk about corporate welfare, this is probably the prime example. So a tax incentive was passed in Virginia back in 2008. And the idea of the tax incentive was to attract data centers, who at that time, I can't remember what we were doing on the internet in 2008, if that was a Pokemon Go or what. But we weren't talking about the same level. of data processing that we're talking about now. And the idea was let's attract some of these, you know,

significant large businesses to rural communities in Virginia, and let's do that by offering them a tax break on Virginia's 5.3% sales and use tax. So that was the initial public policy goal of that. It then, with the advent of AI in particular, but even before that, with the ramping up of the data center buildout, it became exponentially greater, to the point where we went from the,

budget impacts of that tax incentive being $1.5 million to now in the last calendar year, $1.9 billion. So this is a giveaway that comes out of tax funds in the Virginia budget that is a straight giveaway to data center. So this became the, I think, the flashpoint for the data center fight in Virginia politics and in our legislature over the last 12 months. And frankly, it's a fight that proponents of more response. data center development have been losing dramatically. The legislature, which receives tons of money from both big tech companies and our utility companies, and I should mention Virginia is the Wild West on campaign finance. We have no limits. We have no caps. Our elected leaders take millions of dollars. That's what my organization was created to fight. All that money pours into the legislature, and then all good data center bills die. That changed significantly in this 25, 2016 session when a, you know, a popular senator from the Hampton Roads part of the state, Louise Lucas, who's got a big Twitter following and has a, I'd say her thumb on the pulse of

what the people of Virginia want, said, hey, enough's enough, we have to end this tax exemption. And that created a big battle between her and Governor Spanberger and the Speaker of the House, Don Scott, over the tax exemption. And that threatened to shut down the Virginia government. It created a budget fight that lasted months and was actually only resolved about two weeks ago now. And the resolution of that was that the data centers would start paying more. And they said we'll pay $600 million annually. That's still a really raw deal for the Virginia taxpayer.

Instead of giving the $1.9 billion that they should give in sales tax, they're only giving $600 million of that. But the legislature and the governor largely kicked the can down the road on this question. of what is the fair, what is a fair share for data centers? You know, are they actually paying a fair share? Spamberger mentioned the national security implications. Like, what's your assessment of the Pentagon and the federal government's role in the proliferation of these data centers in Virginia and how complicit Spamberger is with, you know, I would say what is a key Trump agenda item because they've kind of gone all in on AI because it's the only part of our economy that's growing and they have an internal report. The Treasury Department that I read yesterday

that says that it looks like a bubble, which it definitely is. But at the very least, like, this is what the administration's going all in on. And Spamberger in their backyard is kind of in lockstep with this policy. Yeah, you know, I can't really say a lot about it. And that's because one of the fundamental problems with the sector in Virginia is it's completely non-transparent. We just don't really know what the role of the national security infrastructure is in the data center layout. I'd say it breaks down in sort of two general areas. One is the AI race against China, the AI race, the international race, the fight for superiority. And I'd say that the argument a lot of time goes to, we need to do whatever the data center and the big tech companies

want because we're in this existential race with China over who, you know, controls the primacy of AI. And then the more, I'd say, operational national security argument, which is, you know, the backbone of the Internet is in Virginia. This was created there in the 90s or in the 80s to service the, you know, military industrial complex that grew out of World War II. And if we, you know, in some way endanger the actual fiber backbone that our national security agencies rely on, there's a fundamental national security threat to the United States as well.

So those are the two areas that we often see this debate go into. But, you know, it's kind of an ace up the sleeve for data center proponents because we're, you know, fighting them with a public voice and we've got 50 different advocacy organizations in Virginia who have a coalition to fight for more transparent, better data center law. And if they can just pull out the scar that says, sorry, you know, the United States will blow up if we don't do everything that big tech wants, It's a tricky fight. Lastly, Abigail Spamberger's popularity and her honeymoon is kind of over. Some bad polling has come in.

I think we've in many ways attributed it to the lack of fight after there was the statewide ballot initiative about redistricting. And then the state Supreme Court said on procedural grounds, you can't do this, even though democracy said this is what they wanted to do. and Spamberger said, I'm not going to fight this. But, I mean, what, of course, you're looking at is another big piece of this. I would imagine just the outrage about utility bills being out of control because these data centers and with her being supportive of Virginia being the data center capital of the country, essentially. What are you hearing about her and why perhaps, or from, what are you hearing about her from regular Virginia residents? and what is your assessment of like her honeymoon period,

at least being over when you look at polling? Yeah, there was a lot of outrage during our General Assembly session over a number of different vetoes that she took or that she made on collective bargaining on a few other issues. On the data center issues specifically, yeah, I think she was on the wrong side of public opinion on this one. And I think it has led to a dip in her poll numbers. Some of the polls that I've seen were, you know, honestly not reflective of the anger that we saw in more active political communities in Virginia, and she still remained pretty high, although a significant dip from the 17% she won by.

But I think that this is that this is heading in a really bad direction for her, because the impact of these data centers, the impact particularly on people's personal economics, is only going to grow. And in the next two to three years, you know, I think the storm is here, but we're going to be having a hurry. Hurricane force wins around this issue of data centers as they start to get downstate as the economic impacts start to grow even more. And, you know, next year, there's going to be an election season in Virginia for the Virginia House of Delegates in the Senate. And the Democratic Party is going to be sending mailers that say, we've done a lot on affordability. But in that same mailbox, people are going to be getting a bill from Dominion Energy. And it's going to be twice what they paid five years ago. And which one are you going to believe?

And I think they're very well maybe an electoral backlash if the Democrats in Virginia are not seen as on the side of the people on this issue. And as of now, they're not. Brennan Gilmore, how can people support Clean Virginia and your advocacy on pushing back against the growth of these data centers in the state? There are a number of great organizations that fight this issue. You can go to Clean Virginia.org, sign up for our mailing list. Piedmont Environmental Council is another organization that's doing a lot of data center work. There are a number of others, but information about that coalition and about the fight is at clean virginia.org. All right. Well, Brennan Gilmore, thanks so much for your time today of Clean Virginia, executive director.

Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks for having me and thanks for covering the issue. Of course. With that, folks, we're going to wrap up the free part of the this program and head into the fun half. The one breaking news update we have is that Bernie Sanders has asked Grand Platter to drop out of the race. So that's basically... It's just a matter of when and what the...

Processes. Yeah. So that's essentially every endorsement that he has. And there you have it. Matt, what's happening on Left Reckoning? You can get Emini's immediate thoughts on the story breaking yesterday. I mean, I'd read the story like 10 minutes before we recorded it, but I think our reactions were pretty much in line with what we said already today. And you can hear us expand more on it.

And we also talk about McMorrow and Haley Stevens and Abdullah Sayed. So Michigan funner stuff, if you can call it that in the second half of the interview. So check out Left Reckoning right after the show today. Check it out. Folks. What else do we have? Oh, of course, mentioned this yesterday. A week from today, I am going to be doing a Zoom event with DSA to, and we have that link right down there, right?

To launch their 2026 to 2017 or 27 program. Mike Johnson's been, you know, all over this fear mongering. You've probably heard about it. It's the Workers Deserve Program. Next Tuesday, July 14th, I'm going to be the special guest at the launch call. It's virtual at 8.30 p.m. Eastern. You can check it out, folks.

July 14th, we will put a link to that down below in the video and episode descriptions. Join the Majority Report.com. Please help. Keep us resilient in these turbulent times. You can IM the show, and we'll read your IMs on air. And I think that's all we got, right? Oh, I just want to mention also, sorry?

Just Coffee.coffey.coop, fair trade coffee, tea and chocolate. I'm like, I have had so many messages in the past 24 hours. I'm trying to find this one. Here we go. If you guys could just pull this up really quickly, because we have a little bit of an update from Oliver Larkin. Oliver Larkin, our candidate, DSA endorsed candidate, who joined us last week.

We have exceeded our goal for the majority report link, the specific MR audience link, to fundraise for Oliver Larkin. We've raised over $5,000, $5,300. The goal was $3,500. I feel like folks, can't we get it up there? I think we can. but great job guys. Thank you so much to this audience

for supporting Oliver. You know, polling, we've seen Bernie Sanders, what did he overcome a 20-point deficit that was totally missed in Michigan back in 2016? This is a beach district too. Yeah, I mean.

Check in with four hours. Exactly right. This is like the kind of district where you could really catch people sleeping with some low turnout. So I've been impressed by the progression of the Larkin campaign and I think like even you know uphill battle or whatever It's worthwhile building this sort of infrastructure out in Florida Yes and having a counter message to a standard Democratic Party one as we're entering a

A future that I think is pretty rocky for the top two parties and and yeah, I think it there's a out there's a chance he could win this I wouldn't put anything past it. After Zoran beat Andrew Cuomo, I mean, I feel like anything's possible. But I'm very impressed by the DSA efforts. Also, DSA just endorsed Cory Bush. So St. Louis, you got to march in orders. Hell yeah.

And, yeah, it's, you know, just again with this Platner thing, perhaps if he had been or somebody in that race, you know, he was a part of some larger organizational movement structure. there would have been red flags about his drinking and some of his, his lying. I got an Emma, um, soundboard. Oh, you, why is that really me? No, no, I accidentally had a majority of port open. Oh, okay, okay.

So, no, I mean, I, I, perhaps that would have been flagged. Like, there is a, I bring up that because Andrew Gillum is in the news today, again, who, you know, was a, almost beat to Santas. Almost beat DeSantis and came out of that primary as the more progressive pick and had a lot of, you know, issues with partying and drug use that had been uncovered. And he was just arrested again. I mean, I feel badly for the guy. It seems like he struggles. That was another candidate that was untethered from like a larger organization, but ran on a progressive platform. And I, I'm, as we work this out in real time, I just think part of why we were so defensive of Platner with the New York Times story is that we are not naive.

about the headwinds of running against the establishment and even, I think perhaps Bernie's reticence to even say something immediately until just now is because he has a sensitivity about like the personal smear attacks that go against any candidate that's on the left. And this information, I mean, is out there for a lot of people, like damaging information for a lot of members of our of Congress that you'll never hear about ever because there's no incentive and there's no machine that's pushing it to the forefront. I'm not saying that's the case with platinum. But I'm just trying to sit like with this particular case and this credible case. But you know, it is when you have a structure and organizing behind you, it gives you more of an

advantage than being on an island with a progressive platform because it's just like what we're up against is is enormous the money and the influence in the power it's enormous when we had grandma for the first time and you know I remember hearing he said he was a fan of the show and all this sort of thing

I think that's good but this was also in the wake of Zoron marching through the Dem primary here and I thought well he doesn't have DSA how was he going to make up for what DSA provides and in my mind at that point it was the volunteer base

Graham inspired a volunteer base because the truth is, like, people will mobilize around the right ideas in this country. The problem that I missed was what he was missing was this vetting. And there's also a problem where the Democratic establishment, as we'll call it, vetting process was void here because we know what they're vetting for, which is do you support Israel and ramming AI data centers through your constituents' throats. That's what Gila Brand and Schumer are concerned with. So, yeah, that vetting process was entirely, I mean, disregarded. And so a guy who would never run for state or at office, unlike Abdul Siyadh, for instance, when a lot of this stuff will come out, beat the establishment candidate because, and I'll say, like, check out Matt Christman's Twitter feed.

He's right about this. That brand is completely dead. And they would like to just gloat about this platinum thing instead of addressing why that brand is absolutely dead. Why Michael Bennett lost in Colorado? why this party is dead. And, you know, this is just, it's a big shame because there was a lane here. And somebody who, you know, didn't have issues with consent should have filled it. Yeah.

I mean, Red River Valley writes, and when a candidate doesn't have a political or organizational record, they only have their past and their identity. I disagree with that. I think they also have their platform, which matters a lot to me. And that's why I supported him. I didn't love hearing Emmeline on his past and identity as a veteran as a veteran as that's only got rhetorical force, which hasn't seemed to work in the Dems favor so far.

You know, fair criticism. I don't think I did lean on it. I would say, um, I am still, I still don't like the impulse to cast out veterans from the left. Like any working class coalition, any coalition that's going to challenge the 1% is going to include veterans.

Um, I think I heard Ryan Grimnate at this point. Like the Russian Revolution included former soldiers. Did it not? like you know I in many parts of the country this is a way out for a lot of people and some

people are looking for a sense of purpose and that that is I'm not going to be dismissive of that and I'm also somebody that believes in redemption restorative justice now obviously we didn't have all of the information

at our disposal and as soon as I heard about this you know we were quick to say that he should drop out So I still maintain that I don't agree with the arguments that we should not accept veterans into the left-wing coalition. I think regardless of, of, yeah. I don't think it should be a special, like, boost to them. And I think it's like very secondary, frankly. Yeah.

Frankly to like what the voters want. And the reason that Platner was interesting to us is because main voters reacted to him almost immediately. and started filling town halls for the right ideas. Yes, and the veteran piece I still thought was poignant if he was somebody who was criticizing the forever wars who wanted to cut off arms to Israel. Like, I, none of that stuff for me, you know, is something that we should be dismissive of.

He resonated. It just, he just was, he can have good politics and not be somebody who has redeemed himself sufficiently and who has made really, really significant mistakes and hurt people, including, So many people on his campaign and volunteers who trusted him. And so I hope he does some self-reflection. With that said, we're going to head into the fun half.

64-6257, 3920 is the number. We'll probably take a call or two today. See you there. Okay, Emma, please. Well, I just, I feel that my voice is sorely lacking in the majority report. Wait, look, Sam was unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World. So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show.

It is Thursday. Yeah, I think you need to take over for Sam, but... That's cool. Sir, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this. And I'll tell you why. So it's offered a twerk, sushi, and poker with the boys.

Twerk? Sushi and poker with the boys. So it's offered a twerk? Yeah. Sushi and poker. Uh, that's what we call. is twerk sushi and i just think that what you did to timpool uh was mean free speech that's not what we're about here look at how sad he's become now you shouldn't even talk about it because i think

you're responsible i i probably am in a certain way but let's get to the meltdown here twerk ugh sushi and poker with the boys oh my god twerk wow sushi i'm sorry i'm losing my fucking mind so what's offered a twerk yeah sushi and poker with the boys logic twerk sushi and poker with the boys I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. Add this debate seven thousand times. A little kid. I'm like a little kid.

I think I'm like a little kid. I'm like, just don't understand. So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but like, I absolutely think the U.S. should be providing me with a wife and kids. That's not what we're talking about here. It's not a fun job. That's a real thing. That's a real thing.

Willie Walker. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. It has like the weight of the world on the shoulders. It was so much easier. One of the majority report was just you. You don't want people saying reckless things on your program.

That's one of the most difficult parts about this show. This is a pro-killing podcast. Left is best. Trump. Violet twerk. He fun is real. A terrible theme song. I Bumbler.

Emma Viglin, absolutely one of my favorite people. Actually, not just in the game. Like, period.