The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart - Blue Wave on the Prairie? with Josh Turek

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

As Democrats across the country work to flip red seats blue this November, Jon is joined by four-time Paralympian and U.S. Senate candidate, Josh Turek, to discuss the "prairie populism" fueling his campaign in Iowa. Together, they unpack how Iowa voters are responding to Trump, Turek's approach to working across the aisle, and the common-sense policies he says can bring people together. Plus, Jon answers listeners’ questions about useful idiots, the downside of a Democratic win, and Sixers in 6?! This episode is sponsored by: GROUND NEWS - Go to https://groundnews.com/stewart to see how any news story is being framed by news outlets around the world and across the political spectrum. Use this link to get 40% off unlimited access with the Vantage Subscription. UPWORK - Visit https://Upwork.com/TWS right now and post your job for free. NPR - Listen now to the NPR Politics Podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:  > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast > TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod   > BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic  Producer – Gillian Spear Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Associate Producer - Rebecca Rottenberg Music by Hansdle Hsu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Nice travels. Hey folks, welcome on the weekly show with John Stewart. And I am aforementioned John Stewart. Today's program, a little bit different. So Tuesday, September 29, originally we had scheduled one, Senator Bernie Sanders. A young gentleman, you may not be familiar, a senator from the great state of Vermont, who has some ideas about economic populism that I don't know if they're reflective of a change in his thinking, but it may be something he has consistently proffered for me. many, many years, but he is unable to join us today, unfortunately. So we do look forward to being able to feel the burn at a later episode, but, but, but we are sticking with our senator theme instead of going with an actual senator right now. We are going with an aspirational Senate candidate from the great state of Iowa. We're taking a little turn. This is a little This is an opportunity for our audience to learn a little something about what's happening out there electorally in the heartland.

And so we're going to get to our guest for this week, who is running for the United States Senate in Iowa. He is a four-time Paralympian candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa. Josh Turrick joins us. Today we welcome a prairie populist to the program. He is running to be the senator for the great state. of Iowa, Josh Turrick, who is a candidate, as we were saying. First of all, Josh, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. It's quite the honor to join you. Oh, truly, truly, Josh. You know, I'm curious, what's your last name again?

Turik. Josh, is it? Is that I can't? Yeah, Turich. No, I'm just, I'm responding to the fact that you are surrounded by Turuk wallpaper. If the people can't see it on the thing, Josh is right now sitting in, they've got him in a corner, and he's got the Iowa State flag, to his left, and he appears to be in a kind of AI-generated Turek box, we'll call it. It's real. We call it the Turek dimension, and it's because far too often when I do these interviews, I forget to say the website. So it's there, Turek for Iowa.

How is it? You're now, this is the final stretch, man. This is, what do you got now? A month and a half? 35 days to the finish. How long have you been on this road for running? You were in the state legislature and I. Yeah, yeah, still am. It sounds like I'm going to be going into a special session here on Friday, actually.

405 days, 410 days. It's been quite the journey. In one year, we've taken this race from Solidly R to toss up to leading in the polls. It's been an incredible journey. Well, let's get some background for those, because your race, as important as it is in Iowa, and you're, you and your opponent are running to replace Jody Earts. is that correct she was she dropped out after uh mentioning to everyone in iowa that we're all going to die no matter no matter what she does in terms of policy we're all going to die anyway so what difference does it make we're all going to die then the very smug condescending apology in the graveyard yeah that's uh that was a political abatross for that i i would agree uh so you're both running to do that you know it doesn't have the national profile that like el sayad has gotten you know that where people can really dig in on sort of

bigger personalities or these kinds of things. So just give us a little, a brief run on what, you know, Iowa has not had a Republican senator for 30 years. Is that? Oh, no, we've got, we've got two Republican senators right now. I mean, a Democratic center. I apologize. Democratic center. Yeah. Yeah, the last one that we had was Tom Harkin, the father of the American with disabilities act and my political hero. Right. And it's basically a much more rural state. Yeah. Pretty even divide between urban and rule. But I would say that, you know, one of the modern political divides is urban versus rule. And so, yeah, I think that that's one of the reasons why we have shifted more to the red than almost any other state over the last decade.

But I think at our essence, we have always been a common sense state. I've been saying that for a year that we're a common sense state that's masqueraded more red than what we actually are. 30 years, we elected Senator Harkin along with Grassley. And we twice voted for Obama three times for Trump, more Obama-Trump counties and any other state in the union. And in Trump's last midterm, we ended up winning three of the four congressional races, almost won all four. And so I think we're a common-sense state. Seems to be moving back into a sort of more purple direction. Is that the feeling out there? Angelin is certainly swinging back our direction. And it's because Iowans are hurting and uniquely hurting. Oh, let's talk about that for a second, because that's,

And then we'll dig in on the common sense aspect of it. But what is it about the economy in Iowa? Because it is not growing. It is in a difficult place. I don't want to say it wrong, but you're last. I think you might be last. We're fighting for the last for a lot of things. Yeah, 48th for income growth, 48th for personal income growth.

One of three states already seeing our economy contract, basically dead last for nearly every health care metric. like OBGYNs, mental health providers, mental health supports, Medicaid reimbursement, Medicare reimbursement. Just in the last six years since Ashley Henson went to Congress, we've closed 842 health care entities in a state of only 3.2 million. You've closed 842 health care entities in the state of Iowa. And by the way, state of what, 3 million? Yeah, 3.2 million. That's correct. 3.2 million. Okay. So you've closed 8. Wow. Okay.

We've closed 160 independent rule pharmacies. We've got a cancer crisis. We have the second highest rates of cancer behind only Kentucky, only state with a growing cancer rate. Is that based on pesticide use? Is that a farm-related statistic? There's a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons would be the nitrates in the water. And that comes off of the runoffs?

That's correct. Yeah. Right. But, I mean, look, we've got a lot going against us, at least on the cancer side. Older state, poor state, massive health care deserts, particularly in the rural areas, some of the highest levels of binge drinking, higher levels of smoking, highest levels of radon of any state. And then we've got this nitrate issue that we're not addressing the water quality issue

at the state or the federal level. And then we've got public education, which was the point of personal pride for all Iowans, essentially the gold standard, including being on our quarter foundation and education. we've dropped to the bottom half. And now we lead the nation in foreign foreclosures, largely due to tariff policy and because of this war in Iran. So Iowans are hurting and uniquely hurting. And is that a turn that happened?

You know, you're a lifelong island. You're born and raised there. That's right. Yeah, born and raised in council bless. So tell me a little bit about how the atmosphere turned, you know, it's is it that it's always been at least you know in in the time that you've been sort of more sentient and cognizant a difficult place because you know it is not you know we talk about now it's the gilded age and and tech is coming in and all that but it's always been a kind of

hands-on state and so union work really important blue collar work really important farm work really important. All of those industries have suffered over these last 40 or 50 years of kind of the Reagan era on forward, yes? Yeah, I would say that. I would say, you know, certainly we're living through some form of a second gilded age and you're just not going to amass that amount of wealth, particularly in like an agrarian, you know, ag community. And then I would say over the last 40 years as well. We had the first farm crisis when I was just a little kid in the 80s. And we ended up losing half of our small family farms then at that time. Basically, farmers were told get big or get out. Right. And now we're heading towards what I've been calling a farm again and a second farm crisis.

But 70 of our 99 counties, the rural communities, have lost population. I mean, we're essentially the only state that hasn't doubled in size in the last 100. years. It's in zero population growth. I mean, we're not keeping our young people. And so what, you know, in your mind, it seems like it's not unreasonable to think, okay, they turned away from democratic policies because they felt like that exacerbated the crises that were going on there. And they think they're going to, we're going to place this bet now on Trump and Republicans. But that clearly has not, not only has it not paid off, it seems to have sunk the state further underwater. Yeah, I think so for sure. I think that's why you're seeing, you know, all these farms close. I mean, the big, big, big issue, I think, I actually believe that Iowa has not shifted on economic policy. Like when I'm out there, I call myself a common sense, pretty populist, and I'm out there saying we need a livable wage, affordable housing, driving private equity out of housing, health care, nursing homes. I say health care is a human right. You need to do something about the water quality crisis, public education. And everyone agrees with me on that.

And they particularly agree with me on driving out the naked level of corruption that we're seeing. Where I think Iowa has shifted is shifted culturally. I think, look, I understand. I come from the Redis District that's represented by a Democrat. Right. What did Trump win your district by the one that you are now, the representative of? Yeah. The community of Carter Lake, he won by 18 points.

My community of Council Bless, he won by 10 points. I was able to win my district by six points. So the only way I was able to win was by going out and dragging my wheelchair upstairs to have conversations with independence and Republicans. Let's also make clear, and for those who are not familiar with your story, and it probably would make sense to grab a quick biography.

You are in a wheelchair due to a condition known as Spina Biffitt, I believe? That's correct, yeah, due to my father's exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. Yeah, people don't realize the downstream effects of those kinds of talks. Expoxic exposures. I say I'm an example of the generational consequences to these forever wars that we find ourselves in. And when you say you drag your wheelchair up, is it not ADA accessible?

Well, personal residences are not required to be ADA accessible. And then I know that people will think about a state like Iowa and say, oh, that's a, that's a very flat state, but no, where I live is in the look. One of, one of two places on earth that has what's called the Los Hills. And so where I live is very hilly. And so to be able to get out there and talk to essentially anyone, I am dragging my wheelchair up 10, 20, 30 stairs. And always when I would get up to the top of the stairs, the very first question I would get would be, how in the world did you get up here? And I would say, well, that's how important your vote is to me. And especially in the re-election, what I would say is, look, I only won my first election by six votes. Six votes. That's true. Yeah, I was the only Democrat to win a competitive election on the western side of the state.

won by six votes. Yeah. That's wild. How crazy was the recount process? You know what? Honestly, it went really smoothly. We brought in one R, one D, one independent,

went through. And you cooperated? Wait, did the other side storm the capital of council bluffs? They did? They just let it go? And it came back exactly. Six came back six.

That's incredible. And did your opponent concede? Yeah, she did. actually, shockingly. What is going on in Iowa? Hey, it's, you know, there's a real Iowa nice. There's a, there's a kindness and a genuineness and an authenticity to the people in Iowa that exist almost no other place.

Look, the algorithm is killing us. The algorithm, the, the way that it incentivizes, the hostility and weaponizes ideology and all the, it just, it's, it's not right. But the antidote, the antidote is information. And that's where ground news comes in. news. It's this website nap. It's designed to give readers a better way, an easier way to navigate the news. It pulls together every article about the same news story from all outlets all over the world and puts them in one place and not, not incentivized for like the worst, most hostile,

most partisan take. It tells you where it's coming from. You can see starkly in black and white how these different organizations and algorithms are manipulating the information that we get. They show you how reliable the source is and who's funding it. Who's funding it? Follow the money. Know who's behind the headline.

Oh, who is this Rupert Murdoch fella? He seems delightful. He seems to have a somewhat pointed view of the world. I'm telling you, man. The Nobel Peace Center has even mentioned and the ground news is an excellent way to stay informed. Noble Peace Center. That's, I think, the one that Trump started.

I think it's the 3D prints Nobel Peace Prize and just hands them out. The platform's independently operated, supported by its subscribers, so they stay independent, and they stay mission-driven. They don't get sucked into this slop. If you want to see the full picture,

go to Ground News. They can help you through the noise and get to the heart of the news. Go to groundnews.com slash Stewart. Subscribe for 40% off the unlimited access vantage subscription. Discount available only for a limited time. This brings the price down to like $5 a month. That's groundnews.com slash steward or scan the QR code on the screen.

I'm curious, Josh, how you said it shifted culturally. Do you think was that the biggest, and let's not pardon the pun, the hill for you to climb, was it to convince people you weren't a cultural liberal, or is it that you weren't? What is it they needed to hear from you that made them feel comfortable giving you their vote? A variety of things. Well, first, I, you know, even if I was speaking to the most ardent Republican, I would always find that even if it was just out of sympathy, they would say, okay, well, I'm going to give you five minutes of my time because you're crawled up here. Okay. And then I would tell him my story.

I'd say, look, this is who I am. This is where I come from. This is what I'm fighting for. I got involved into politics because the privatization of Medicaid in Iowa was leading to a thousand percent increase in denial rates. I was working in health care. It was assessing and providing power wheelchairs, manual wheelchairs for people with progressive conditions.

So conditions like muscular dystrophy and Lou Gehrig's disease. And I would say, you know, I think we need representation up there and for the average person. I don't come from wealth or privilege. My family grew up really humbly, went to the goodwill for the clothes, shared clothes, and I said, I think we got a lot of people from privilege. I don't think we have enough people up here with life experience that have gone through real struggle, both economically and health care. And I would find that, you know, a five-minute conversation, people would agree with me.

But I also wasn't afraid to say, look, I don't think that Biden did a particularly good job on the border. And we need to have safe and secure borders, along with having an easier pathway to earn citizenship, because I'm married to an immigrant and I've gone through the process myself. But that's still an economic argument. I mean, basically, you know, if the difficulty of Democrats to get traction was cultural. And I don't imagine in Iowa, I don't know if you have the kind of let's caricature them as the DSA Democratic Party wing where they're saying defund the police or whatever caricature is being put out there. Was it you selling your biopsyllum?

along with your economic message that you thought made them comfortable hearing the message to give you a chance. How did you counter whatever misconceptions or prejudgments they might have had on democratic cultural issues, whether it's religion or LGBTQ? You know, we've been told that the country, that the Democrats have shifted so far left that they are no longer in any way, to the common sense good people of the heartland. Would you say that's accurate? I would say that the Democratic brand is certainly damaged. And, you know, there certainly were houses and groups of people that I would speak to where just even the term Democrat is a pejorative.

So, yeah, I think being willing to say that, you know, like, for example, the border or saying, you know, I believe in the Second Amendment. I think that we can have common sense gun regulations in place and also protect communities, but also protect the Second Amendment. So I think showing some distance between the party. And then also even the way I define myself, I would say, you know, you define me as a Democrat. I define myself as a common sense prairie populist. And they would say, what does that mean to you?

I'd say, well, everything through the guise of what is best for the people, what is best for the workers, what is best for the middle class, is being hollowed out. And people would say to me all the time on the doors, you know, I'm not going to vote for every Democrat. You might be the only one I vote for, but I like your kind. You're a JFK Democrat. You're an FDR Democrat. You're, you know, Tom Harkin, Prairie Populist. And so I think making that distinction allowed them.

But, you know, what we've lost in places like I was we've lost Blue Dog Democrats. You know, it's so it's interesting to me because the way you describe your positions doesn't actually sound that different. different from the Democratic Party platform. I mean, I think that generally like even ardent liberals would say like, well, the Second Amendment is Second Amendment, but we could use some common sense goals there. So I'm curious, it's so interesting to me that, and I don't know if it's from where they get their information,

but that you have to set yourself apart from Democrats to earn their trust. if that makes sense. Yeah. Well, and I think that oftentimes we, this, it's overly simplified too. Yeah. That, I mean, by the very nature of having a binary system, you're going to be, you're going to be a big tent party.

And so you're going to have why. I mean, I say oftentimes, especially up at the Iowa legislature, there, there are times where I have more agreement with my moderate Republicans on issues than on my most extreme left wing, you know, Democrats. and so then they end up putting us into overly simplified buckets of, well, this is the progressive or this is the moderate or this is the establishment. So that's why from the very beginning I said, I'm a common sense. And common sense might be the most important part of this.

I think that's what's truly lacking in D.C. along with empathy and a variety of things. But common sense, prairie populace with the guys not necessarily being this overly tribalistic, you know, always going with the party. what's missing in D.C. as well is we got to get back the country over party and saying, no, no individual party has a monopoly on good ideas. And what I've always tried to look at is whether it's a Republican idea or democratic idea, what is best for my constituency, for the state of Iowa and for the people, and always through that guise of what is best for the

middle class and what's best for our workers, because as you're right, we're living through this second gilded age and the middle class is being hollowed out. are they viewing Trump's policies through that lens? You know, you sort of talk about common sense. When they look at, I would imagine that Iowa faces disproportional damage by tariff policies, for instance, and the Iran war, I would think disproportionately Iowa's economy is vulnerable to that. Would that be fair? 100%. I've been saying that I think that the tariffs and the war in Iran has hurt Iowa more than any other state. When you go out there and you speak to farmers, in particular, the rural

communities, first to level set, you go out in rural communities in Iowa. It looks like a vacuum cleaner has gone through those communities. They've lost population. The main streets are desolate because we've done nothing to look out for the small brick and mortar, small businesses. We've just looked out for the large multinational corporations. I say that you have four pillars in the rural communities to be successful. And that is, you've got to have a grocery store, Well, snap cuts disproportionately hurt rural communities, so we're closing grocery stores. They might only have a gas station as an option. You've got to have a pharmacy because we've done nothing on pharmacy benefit management, the middlemen.

It has really hurt the rural independent pharmacies. I told you the number of health care clinics that we've closed. You've got one in five Iowans that are on Medicaid. Two and five of those are in rural communities. You know, the big beautiful bill, 110,000 Iowans losing health care, 119,000 Iowans, seeing their health care premiums double or triple because of the loss of the ACAs, thousands more losing basic food assistance just to give tax breaks to billionaires. That really hurts rural communities.

Then you've got to have a functioning public school as well. And because we're giving public money to private schools in the last three years, we've closed 18 rural schools are consolidated. All of that is hurting these rural communities. Then you add that on to the fact that the administration gives $20 billion to our Argentina so that the Chinese can buy their soybeans. Meanwhile, we create more soybeans in any other state in the Union. And bring in beef and bring in 500,000 pounds of beef.

That's exactly right. And then the tariffs, I think farmers need markets, fair markets more than any other group. The commodities prices went upside down. That's why we leave the nation of farm foreclosures. Then you add in the coup de grace here, which is the war in Iran, which has led to gas prices going up more in Iowa than almost any other state. diesel being at an all-time high as farmers are going in to do harvest and then seeing a further increase on input prices like fertilizer costs. So you're having farmers that are looking at their bottom line for fertilizer for next

planting season saying, this isn't going to work. I'm going to be upside down and we're already leading the nation of farm foreclosure. Is there any offset on that for biofuels and ethanol and things? Because I know Iowa obviously, you know, huge in ethanol and biofuels and things like that. Is that price also up? Does that help offset in any way the damage done by tariffs and the higher diesel? Well, not at the moment. I mean, we actually, we just saw soybeans drop another 40 cents yesterday. I mean, you're basically looking at it being at break-even point. Horn has gone up slightly, but that's because the yields are looking like they're going to be particularly low.

There's some ways that we can add in some demand with like a year-round E-15 program. but no, at the moment, you're going out there, and I'm talking to farmers. And the word that we hear the most is betrayal. They're like, look, we've supported Trump. And these policies, particularly on tariffs and the war in Iran, it's killing us. And used to go out and rule I when you'd see a lot of Trump flags and a lot of Trump signs.

Right. They are gone. Let me ask you, does it then shock you, which it does be, that this is even close, that whether you have a D in front of your name or an R in front of your name, The party that they put their trust in, which are there's a Republican governor, there's two Republican senators, there's a Republican president. They control the Senate. They control the House. They control the judiciary. These policies are uniquely harmful to the type of economy and the type of population that Iowa has. How in God's name is this even still a race? Because of Citizens United and the lack of campaign finance reform, they have dumped $55 million.

into this race and you've got billionaires like, oh yeah, like Musk and Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers that have just, I mean, money has just reined in on this state to try to buy off this election. Does the information that Iowans are getting, is it so distorted? Like, they know the facts on the ground. They feel the realities on the ground. What kind of commercial about you could they run that would make people go, well, I'm getting poorer.

My cost of living is going up. But what do they say about you that that somehow challenges what they're feeling on the ground? It's always the most ridiculous stuff on culture wars, you know, that I'm in favor of having open borders, which is fundamentally incorrect and illegals to be able to get health care benefits or vote. I mean, it's all just culture war nonsense. And it's, I mean, this is why I say that we've got to go up there. And one of my number one priorities is going to be to root out the naked level of corruption that we're seeing. You look at the current administration. I mean, the Trump administration making himself $2 billion more wealthy.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter was selling his peanut farm to not have a conflict of interest. I'll tell you the woman that I'm running against Ashley Henson. In just six years of going up to D.C., up to 15 times more wealthy, since she was going to sell all of her stock, still owns up to $5 million of insurance stock, has essentially had her husband operating as a shadow lobbyist for the insurance industry. And then, even though she's now a multimillionaire,

taking $50,000 of taxpayer dollars to give herself a luxury DC apartment, as she's taking millions of dollars in corporate pack money. Whereas I'm not taking a nickel of it because I want to be representing people, not corporations. Is there a fatalism about Iowa voters that you talk about? Because obviously you make a strong case about, you know, the corruption, the self-dealing,

the fact that they won't divest from their portfolios and they're making money on insider training. But to Iowa voters, is there a sense of fatalism that, hey, man, that's both parties, that's politics. I guess I'm curious about why these culture issues are so sticky in the face of reality and facts. I'll tell you this, that this is certainly one of the issues that I think has moved the most in the 400 days that I've been in the race. Okay. Is I'm hearing more and more and more from Iowa and saying, no, this is a level of corruption that I'm not comfortable with. and we have to address it.

And so even when I'm talking to an extreme conservative saying, look, we need to root out this corruption on both ends. We need to overturn Citizens United. We need to pass the Disclose Act. I'm in favor of term limits banning members of Congress from owning and trading stock, putting mandates of members of Congress to host annual town halls because they should be accountable to the people.

That is unanimously agreed upon in Iowa. And the other thing was say, I don't think there's a fatalism to this. I think that the one thing that gives me hope in this is that regardless of how much money you spend and what you tell people, you can tell them the sky is pink and, you know, Josh is a horrible piece of shit. But the reality is when they're going to their grocery store, they're seeing their prices, they're seeing farmers going into foreclosure, they're seeing their communities hollowed out

and decimated. Meanwhile, you know, someone like Ashley Hintz to becoming 15 times more wealthy, that, you know, that's enough. And you can't lie to what people are experiencing firsthand when they're going to the gas pump. Right. When farmers are seeing what their input prices are, what their commodities price are, that is directly because of her votes and because of the current administration. And they're ready for change.

The great news is we don't have to win this thing 100 to zero. I just got to get one more vote than our. What if you had to win it 100 to zero, though? That would be impossible. Wouldn't it now? That would put you back in your Paralympic days where you're like, we got to dominate this team. Yeah, that's right. Has your, is your background for you?

Because it's really a pretty remarkable story of tenacity. You know, is that the kind of thing that you think prepared you well to, again, overcome what is, in many ways, a caricature of what a Democrat could be? What prepared you well for this? For sure. Real quick, you're a big basketball fan. I know this. You're a Knicks fan and, right? This was a great year for you.

Congratulations, first time since 73. Very kind of you. I was excited for him as well. The basketball is at its best when the mecca is rocking. Thank you. Have you ever seen Paralympic wheelchair basketball? I have indeed. For those who don't know, it's like it's sometimes called murder ball.

It's basically... No, you're confusing two sports. Oh, is that true? Yeah, murder ball is quadrugby, played by quadriplegic and is an exception of sport. But wheelchair basketball can be very rough as far. It's not murder ball, but it's not. It's like rugby in wheelchairs. Yes, that's correct.

But an amazing sport in everyone that is playing, especially at the Paralympic level, is dedicating their life to it. You know, you're playing professionally. I was training eight, nine hours a day to be able to represent my country. And I was a part of the team that went, we went 28 years as Basketball Nation without winning a gold medal. And I'm really proud to be a part of that team to be able to break that streak. You would ask me about what has prepared me well.

Two things. I think growing up in the way that I did. did in a place like Council Blas in a family that we went to the goodwill, we shared clothes, went to the free summer lunch programs, had the wrong color lunch tickets, and also growing up with the health care adversity that I grew up with, 21 surgeries by the age of 12, spending a lot of time by myself at Shriner's Hospital. I think the majority of time for people that go through that kind of experience, it breaks them. But the ones that it doesn't break, it builds a mental strength and character that can't be broken. I say to people all the time, this is very hard

what I'm going through. This isn't the hardest thing that I've gone through in my life. Sitting in a body cast by myself with no air conditioning in a room with 30 other patients, you know, as an eight-year-old. That was the hardest thing that I went through. But that really put... Well, you haven't gotten to the Senate yet, Josh. You know, admittedly, the cast in the room is very tough, but the Senate, I've been down there. It's no fun, Josh. Well, I think, one of the most difficult parts is we're running a damn gerotocracy up there. And I say, well, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to join, you know, we're going to expand the disabled caucus up there with myself and Tammy Duckworth, but we're expanding that more by the day with people

like Mitch McConnell joining me in wheelchairs, just due to age. Or Grassley or any of these guys. I mean, you know, they're talking about he's in, I think he's, I don't know if he's now 107 or 108, but I think he just turned 94, 93 or 94. 94. And he's probably only going to run for two or three more terms, I would think. Hey, John, how about this? He has been a senator. I'm 47 years old. He's been a senator as long as been alive. He's born in 79. He was elected in 1980. He's been involved in representative government since 1958. That's the Eisenhower administration. And I don't understand, Josh, this is the thing that drives me crazy. Why there is no accountability from the voters, I do believe there's a certain

inertia that sets in because they can look at the conditions on the ground. They can see the tangible results of the terrible policies and votes that are made supposedly on their behalf. And yet it's still difficult. Are there, for instance, like with Trump voters, is there a bridge that you have not been able to cross with the Trump voter, like whether it's a conspiratorial mindset or something along the lines, your life experience, your personal story, the ideas that you're throwing out there were there some people that are just like can't get past the the D? Absolutely. Yeah. But what gives me hope again is one, we've got 30% of Iowa voters that are independence.

They're the kingmakers in this process. And over and over and over, I have run into people, as I've done this for 400 days, gone to all 99 counties. So many people in rural communities, farmers, young people, I mean, when I went to Iowa State, did some tailgating up there, I was at the University of Iowa, and lots and lots of young men in particular saying, I voted for Trump, but I cannot stand this naked level of corruption. I've had enough. He's disappointed me. And so I think that there's a lot of, let's call them, classical conservatives or moderate Republicans that no longer align with what they're seeing with MAGA. And lots of people sitting around and just looking like, what is, like Ronald Reagan used to say, you know, when he first

ran, are you better off than you were four years ago? I mean, that's one of my messages of like, are you better off than you were two years ago, four years ago, six years ago, when Ashley Hinson went up to D.C. And by every single metric, we are not. Dead last for nearly every economic metric. Health care, water quality crisis, cancer crisis, public education failing and now leading the nation in foreign foreclosures, gas prices, skyrocketing. necessary war and Iran, we need change. And I think that lots of Ians are looking around saying, this isn't the state that I knew where I grew up in. We got to have change. So that's what gives me hope. I got to tell you something about work. The biggest pain in the ass would work is when you

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We often spend a lot of time in this political era talking about who are these rural conservative voters. How do we talk to them? How do we read? reassure them that we're not crazy and we're going to do there. But let me ask you the flip side as well. You know, Iowa has cities. Iowa has the kinds of problems in, you know, urban areas that many do, whether it's housing and security, food, you know, the types of issues that occur in all the cities. We know how you're making your case to those who are, have moved away from the Democratic Party, are more reticent. How do you make your case? to the traditional base of the Democratic Party that is no longer enthusiastic that the Democratic Party

is responsive to their needs, either that they've gotten fatalistic. How have you made the case to that community? Well, I think that we've we've fired up the base. I mean, excitement seems to be at an all-time high right now. You know, they're looking at a situation where in Iowa, we can probably duplicate what we did in Trump's first midterm and win three congressional seats. We're pulling ahead in a gubernatorial race. We've got a once-in-a-generation opportunity to be able to win this Senate race. I mean, this is the first time in Iowa since in 1968. We have an open governor's race, open Senate race, and two open congressional races. And so, I mean, people are fired up. They're out knocking doors. And I think that what I'm excited about is we've

got the right candidates with the right message and the right work ethic. I think far too often what's happened, particularly in Iowa over the last decade, is too many people that have run as Democrats, candidates have run in Iowa, have looked at this as an incorrect math problem, where they have just exclusively focused on urban turnout. But no, this is ultimately at its core a rural state, and you've got to be willing to go into all 99 counties, including the deeply red counties, get directly in front of them, not vilify them. What I say when I'm in front of them, just like I have family members like my father, two-time Obama. voter three-time Trump voter. I said, look, I understand why you voted for Trump. He said he was

going to lower your gas prices, lower your energy prices. He was going to keep us out of forever wars. Like, everything has been the opposite. Meanwhile, he's only looked out for the halves, for the billionaires and the large corporations, his friends, while all of you, the rural communities, the farmers, the middle class, struggling just to make ends me. I want to go up there and actually work for you for the people because I've been there. I've experienced that same thing myself. So has your father, do you think he's going to vote for you? Has he moved towards your camp or no? He's still a little hesitant, still does trust you, still thinks not going to go this way.

Still 50, 50. No, he's a, the straw that broke the camel's back was Trump put out a video the other day, you know, supporting Ashley Henson and criticizing me. He's like, I can't believe he can just lie about all that about you, Josh. And I said, oh, you wouldn't believe what else he's lying about, dad. there's all kinds of stuff. How is your dad not in a commercial for you now? Oh, he is. Not saying, look, I was a Trump.

Oh, okay. He's, well, not about that. He's actually, he's in a commercial talking about his experience in, in Vietnam. Oh, wow. And, you know, in an early interview, he had said, you know, I went to war, but Josh has been through hell. And he wants to go up to D.C. to go and fight for the people. I say that, you know, one of my political North stars is a quote from Franklin Delano

Roosevelt, where he says, the test of our progress of a society is not whether we add more to those with abundance, but whether we have enough to those with the least. And I've seen the least. I've been around it my whole life. And I think that government has an obligation to take care of the most vulnerable citizens, the elderly, the poor children, the disabled. And I think it's an obligation that we fall far too short on far too often.

Josh, why didn't you hear the siren song of right-wing populism? What was it about, you know, you and your dad have very similar, stories. You were raised in the same place. You had the same economic troubles. He, having fought in Vietnam and seen how we abandon veterans once they come home, especially to fight their own battles with illness and disability. He saw what you went through with your medical journey. He saw what you had to fight with. Why did you and he diversed? It's a great question. You know, the very first time that I voted, I ended up voting for for W. Bush. And so I was a registered Republican. I think that the more time, a couple of things,

the more time that I spent, you know, I've been a director of a nonprofit organization for more than a decade around disabled kids, my time in assessing and providing mobility devices, seeing the difficulty for individuals, but also my time abroad, I played professional wheelchair basketball in places like France, Spain, and Italy. During that time, it certainly made me appreciate the infrastructure that we had in place with like the American with Disabilities Act. But it also made me see some of the huge advantages of the health care system that was in place with like a public option that you had in a place like Spain. And the huge advantages that it was providing, you know, the most vulnerable in society.

And I think as well, you see your country far more clearly with a little bit more distance. And so in the same way of like the way JFK described himself of why he was a Democrat because he believed in looking forward, not back, because he cares about people's jobs, their wages, their health care, their civil rights, their education. This is the reason why I'm a Democrat. Because in our essence, I believe we care about the little guy. We care about the middle class. We care about the worker. And I think ultimately, if we're going to get back to winning in prairie states, because we have a long history of winning in prairie states. Sure.

Lafollett and Wisconsin. I mean, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota. I mean, Nebraska. You have to remember. Nebraska. Yes. We had Bob Kerry and Governor Ben Nelson in South Dakota. We had Dashel, 30 years harkin.

If we're going to once again win in prairie states, it's got to be with an eco-economic. economic, economic populist message, a prairie populist message of going out there and not just being the lesser to evils, being a corporate Democrat saying, no, you're not going to have to hold your nose going and voting for me. Right. You're going to say, I believe in this guy. The affirmative case. Correct.

Yeah. I believe in him. I believe in his message for the state, for the country. I'm going to go and vote for him. And I'm going to tell all my family and friends to go out there and vote for him. You know, there's the big divide about the Democratic red and blue and all that sort of thing. I am interested, though, in the divide between urban and rural. And do you have policies that you think are or ideas that diverge from those two groups?

Is that a difficult tightrope to walk? That you have policies that you think, boy, rural voters might, I think, buy into that. But urban voters, boy, they're not going to be positive about that. Or have you not faced that? No, I think that there certainly are policies that are going to be more. salient and important. For example, when, you know, I'm talking about ending these tariffs and putting, for example, we need to pass a damn farm bill because we're three years overdue, or a right to repair, mandatory of country of origin labeling, year-round E-15, those issues

are certainly more salient in rural communities. But regardless of where I'm going in Iowa, urban areas, rural areas, I'm hearing the exact same thing, the exact same story. And that is people telling me over and over, Josh, I am struggling just to keep food on the table. Both me and my wife are working and we're still going to the food bank. I'm struggling to keep the electric bill. I'm having to, if I'm taking my medicine, I can't afford it. I'm having to make this impossible choice of this month, do I take my pills or pay my bills? And with this war in Iran, I can't keep gas in my tank. It is a consistency all across Iowa saying, I'm making more money than I ever have. And it's going not as far. Meanwhile, everyone up in D.C. and people like my opponent, Ashley Henson,

are getting more and more wealthy, but that is not trickling down to me. Right. And is she, you know, I don't know much about her, to be perfectly frank. Better. If you were to look at, if you were to look at the Mac or to Micah, that's snarky. I like that. You know, what do you think has allowed this inequality to take shape? Because I think, Most people would agree the economy is, at the very least, unbalanced, that we have for too many years favored investment and capital over labor. And, you know, now the buzzword on the right is, oh, so you're, you know, you want socialism. Well, no, I want to stop privatizing things that don't work well in a market system like health care, like Medicare, like all those things that are getting ruined by privatization.

Correct. And insurance and all those different markets. And rebalance so that labor gets a fairer shake, the same shake that money gets. Yeah, 100% agree. I mean, the move is always the same, whether it's education or health care. It is defunded to the point where it appears like it no longer works. so then we can privatize it so that it doesn't function, and we can make millions and billions of dollars and profits off the backs the most vulnerable.

This is such an important cycle. I want to slow down for a moment because I want to have the audience really understand it is a cynical cycle, but it is an important one. So walk us through a little bit, your knowledge of, you know, the medical cycle and how that is, how that is done. Yeah. So, for example, in Iowa, the privatization of Medicaid, which was the reason why I got involved in this. You know, as I said, I was providing power wheelchairs for individuals with progressive conditions.

And over and over and over every day I would hear from these folks saying, Josh, I can't get a direct care worker or I can't get a wheelchair. And I would say, why is this taking place? Well, the privatization of Medicaid. And then I found out we'd never had a permanently disabled member ever in the history of the state. You know, the worst state of 150 years. And so that's what inspired me to run. And so what takes place, you know, before Medicaid was privatized in Iowa, you would go and talk to any person with the disability. They would say it wasn't perfect, but it was functioning.

Now, after we have privatized it, we've got 27,000 disabled individuals in Iowa that are on wait lists. The longest wait list currently is nine years for care. Denial rates skyrocket. Holy shit. Yeah. Can you imagine if that's your son or nine years? Nine years. That's the intellectual disability waiver. That's correct. So what would they do? So before they privatize it, okay, maybe it's bureaucratic and maybe it's not quite as responsive as you'd like it. But is the idea then that the Republicans would say, oh, this system is fraudulent or people are taking too much of advantage of it. So we're going to cut it or we're going to put requirements on it. And the system starts to collapse.

Yeah, it's always under the guise of waste, fraud, and abuse, and we're going to make this far more efficient. Well, you're not. What you're doing is you're denying services and supports to individuals. By denying them those services, you maximize profits on the back end. And especially with what we're seeing with AI becoming more and more ubiquitous in this region. Yes. I mean, we're seeing just blanket denials to individuals because they realize there's a certain portion of the population that will, die, unfortunately. Another portion, especially whether you're dealing with severe physical disabilities

or intellectual disabilities, they will not understand that they can appeal, they can appeal again and get a fair hearing, which Iowa disability rights is one, basically all of their fair hearings. And so it's this really horrible cycle of we are just going to deny, deny, deny, we're going to make you go through all of these additional steps and hoops, prior authorizations, you know, face-to-face doctor visits for ridiculous things. Like, you imagine I need a wheelchair pair and I've got to go visit my doctor, the ridiculousness in that. You've got to show him that you actually need.

Because the systems are set up adversarial. How do I, hold on, how do I show him if my wheelchair is broken? Right. How do you even get there? Am I supposed to fly there? Oh, it's, it's insane. But the adversarial relationship, especially of these healthcare systems, and by the way, your father can probably talk your ear off about how,

the VA was set up adversarily. That's correct. That basically under the guise of, because they, their whole goal is to not spend money on the veteran in the same way that the insurance company, their whole goal is to maximize, you know, your monthly and not give you money to spend on, on that health care. That's how they make their profits. So under the guise of waste, fraud, and abuse, they set up an adversarial system. Correct.

for that 95 to 97% of the people who are just trying to access benefits they've earned have to jump have to be their own lawyer, doctor, advocate, while trying to navigate grievous injury, grievous illness. It doesn't function. And now we're seeing the exact same thing in Iowa with public education, which again, as I said, was a point of personal pride for all Iowans, the gold standard. And now we have given public dollars to private schools with essentially a blank check.

So what has happened? Now we spend $1,200 less than the national average per pupil. We have gone from basically number one in public education down to depending on the metric of use somewhere around 33. Always the same. Privatize it, defund it, and then maximize profits to large corporations. Meanwhile, the average person falls further and further behind. And I don't understand why the state would think that, you know, these types of services, education and health care, would function better through what almost looks like a private equity system. Well, particularly on education, I mean, it's, I've said that public education was an American idea because our founding fathers recognized that for this beautiful experiment of democracy to function long term, we needed an educated electorate.

And to see, you know, what I've seen far too much in my time just in the legislature is this imbalance because so much of the education funding goes through property tax where you've got affluent communities that end up having services and supports that are more similar to like a Division I college. Then you've got less affluent, less affluent communities that end up running out of paper. I mean, every single kid, I think the single greatest indicator of future success in life is access to quality education. and that shouldn't be you have to win the genetic lottery to have that. Well, teachers will tell you, too. I mean, for God's sakes, these teachers have to put their own money. And Lord knows, they're not paid very well in the first place. But oftentimes, they're funding their own classrooms.

Have you debated your opponent yet? Not yet. We've got two on the schedule, November the 7th, and I think the 13th are the two. But I'm excited. October. Please don't say... Yeah, that's right. Okay.

I think you might have said November the 7th and 13th. Oh, did I? No, no, no, sorry. October, October 7th, then October 13th. Okay, because if you did it November 13th, I just think that'd be bad planning. Fair. Fair point, my friend.

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No, no, they were in D.C. Oh, that was in D.C. Yeah, yeah, they all went there, including my opponent. Yeah, my assumption is he'll come here and get out on the stump for them. But again, Iowans can't be deceived what they're seeing. seeing directly. Iowans are hurting. They're hurting uniquely and they're upset and they should be. And that's urban areas, rural areas. And people, particularly islands, they don't want to be represented by someone that has used their position of power to make themselves more well. I mean,

15 times more wealthy as she's voting to cut health care in a state with a cancer crisis and a health care crisis, food assistance and social security just to give tax breaks to billionaires. as she's voted five times in favor of the tariffs, seven times in favor of the war. She's got a lot to answer for. And Iowans are upset. And I think that being a common sense, prairie populist out there with my message of, you know, I don't want to just represent Democrats in the Senate. I'm really proud of my time in the legislature. I was recognized as one of the most effective and one of the most bipartisan.

And I've said, no party has a monopoly on good ideas. I will go up there and I always will vote what is best for the people of Iowa. and always through this lens of what's best for the people, what's best for our workers. Is she, so in terms of her attacks on you, you said the one about open borders, does she have an attack on you that you most fear that seems to have been most effective,

that's holding you back? What are the final types of things that you need to counter that could help you make your closing argument? What I need to counter is what's behind me here, and this is why they put this up is, I'm not taking any corporate pack money in this. She's taking millions of dollars of it. Name recognition.

It's, well, it's name recognition, but it's also raising money. I mean, down the stretch, she's already got $55 million into this. How much money does she have now? $55 million has come into the race. And, I mean, it's pouring in from the super PACs. I mean, it's Elon. It's coming from the Koch brothers, Americans for prosperity all over the place.

And this could end up being the most expensive U.S. Senate race per capita in American history. I mean, they are dumping the money in because they're looking at the same poll numbers. And so what keeps me up at night is can we raise the money? And so behind me here, if people want to help us out,

turikforayua.com, chip in a few bucks, because if we can raise the money and we can be competitive on paid communications, we're going to be able to win this thing. Have you thought about doing ads on what $55 million could do

for the people of Iowa that is not, that would not. You know, what if Elon Musk and the Koch brothers poured $55 million into Iowa to help improve conditions there? Amen to that. Again, it is immoral and grotesque. The amount of money that we spend on this, we could end homelessness. We could make sure every single child never goes hungry.

We could make sure that we had affordable health care for people. The amount of money that gets dumped into these elections. That's why I want to go. It is. It's grotesque. It absolutely is. And this is the problem. You have outsized influence from billionaires in large corporations that are able to buy off the political process. I say, we can have oligarchy or we can have democracy, but long term we cannot have both. And so we're going to have to address this very, very quickly. Or we're going to see a furthering of this wealth divide in tax avoidance. And we're going to see a furthering of this second gilded age,

at least 100 years ago when we had the first gilded age, we broke up. We broke up monopolies. We broke up standard oil. We went after the Rockefellers. There was an urgency to it. The FDR, the New Deal and everything else, there was an urgency to it. That's exactly right. And my hope is out of this second wealth divide that we're going through, that we end up arriving at some form of second, you know, FDR, New Deal, where we actually have representatives up there in Congress in the U.S. Senate that are fighting for the people and are going to go up there and legitimately work on, you know, a livable wage, affordable housing, affordable health care, drinkable water, functioning public schools, infrastructure, and addressing corruption.

and make America competent again, that sort of thing. Yeah. And let's make sure that we bring back, you know, not only hope and positivity and inspiration is something I'm really trying to lean into because I'm seeing that there's been an intentional cynicism and nihilism that is set in due to the fear mongering. But, you know, let's bring back empathy. And again, what we're missing in D.C., we got 70, what is it, 73, 74 millionaires

in the United States Senate. We don't need more multi-millionaires. We need more people from places like Council of Los Iowa, like me, with lived economic struggle, health care struggle, because when you've experienced it firsthand, you will have a different level of empathy. You'll have a different level of fight, and that's what we need.

In U.S. Senate, we need fighters for the people. And at some respects, look, you're a great case example of seeing how good policy can make huge difference. Like the ADA that Harkin championed And, you know, that I'm sure makes a huge difference in people's lives. I say that I am the American dream of that in no other country on earth could someone with my economic background, my health care background, ultimately go on, win gold medals,

represent my community in the Iowa legislature, ultimately run for U.S. Senate. But all of that was because, I mean, I went to public school in Iowa when we were number one in public education where we had a fully funded AA so that me as a disabled child had the services and supports that I needed that, you know, I had my health care through VA because of my father's service. Like I only ended up going to college. My parents couldn't have afforded it was because of a wheelchair basketball scholarship and because of the help of vocational rehabilitation. Over and over and over, these services and supports that I needed were there for me. I want to make sure that these same, you know, supports like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, are.

are there for the next generation or affordable homes because now the average age of a home buyer is 40 years old. Right. Josh, I'm curious if you and you're like the team that's working on this for you talk about, you know, here in New York, Mom Donnie was really good about lighting up social media to kind of, you know, they had a very strong game of lighting up on social media that helped mitigate maybe the difference financially in the amount of money that. that people were spending.

Do you have the same sort of discussions where you are? Is it, how do you mitigate the difference between the amount of PAC money that they're getting thrown at and what you have other than just having to raise it from small donors? Are there other strategies? A lot of it is small donors. I mean, sometimes it can feel like, you know, I've showed up to a, to a gun duel, you know, carrying a knife because, you know, I've made it really, really clear that I don't don't view a lot of these issues as morally ambiguous of, you know, I'm not taking any corporate

pack money in this because I do not want my hands tied to corporate interest. If I'm able to get up to the U.S. Senate, I want to be able to go up there and fight for the people. And as broken as the U.S. Senate is, I really still believe maybe in this, you know, you say you haven't gone up to the Senate yet, I still believe in this kind of beautifully naive, optimistic way that at its best, At its best, when it's functioning, the U.S. Senate is still the greatest vehicle for societal change. And I hope if we can elect folks like myself and some of these other amazing candidates that we've got running, that we can actually bring that back and be willing to work across the aisle like I've done in the Iowa legislature and be able to help the people because I know this.

There's a lot of Iowans that are hurting and struggling, and they don't feel heard by their representatives in D.C. right now. Is Iowa a kind of not completely unique, but still small enough that you can personally help mitigate the money difference? Because you can touch more islands than, you know, you're running in California for Senate. You're talking about, you know, tens and tens of millions of people. You know, if you've got three million people where you can, through force of your tenacity, make yourself seen and heard to so much. many more percentages of Iowans. Yeah, absolutely. We've got 3.2 million Iowans. We've got 99

counties. It is a big state bigger than what people realize, but I still believe, especially as a state that has had, you know, the Iowa Cox is for all this time. Retail politics are still king. And Iowans have a unique demand on them, on you

as a candidate, myself, of they want to see and hear from you directly. But in a unique way that, you know, maybe only a few states you can do this in, I've got the ability through every single day, working as hard as I can, doing as many forms as I can, events, I can get in front of as many of the 3.2 million islands as possible. And what I have learned representing a very, very rural community is if you give me five minutes to get in front of somebody, you know, I'm not going to

win them all over, but we're going to trim the margins. And all of these votes that I went over are also double votes. It's one out of her column and one in my column. Sure. And in many ways, It was the Trump strategy. You know, look, he was very smart to go into cities and say, what have you got to lose? What have they done for you? You know, to make the case that promises that have been made even by Democrats have not materialized. And I think you're in probably a really good position. Do you feel, you know, good ground and volunteer game?

You feel like you got a nice little army behind you? I think we've got a small, which is becoming larger by the day army of volunteers that are going out every single day, knocking doors. you're working as hard as we can every day to get the message out. That means through the old legacy medias of certainly radio as more farmers are spending times in the combine. We're spending a lot of time with local newspapers because anybody that's still getting a small newspaper, certainly a voter. Television is still king because this is an older state.

And then new forms of media, you know, this ever-evolving landscape with putting out good quality content on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok. but I think the message is really resonating. And I think that there is there is something unique about my story, my background, my resume, and my politics focusing on the issues that apply to all 3.2 million Iowans, this common sense, very populist message that is really resonating with people all across the political spectrum. And I think that's what's going to help us get across the finish line here.

Well, I wish you certainly all the best. And I won't keep it too long because I know you got, you got your work cut out for. you. But I really appreciate you spending the time with us today. Josh Turrick, who is running for the U.S. Senate in the great sit, Emma. I appreciate my friend. What does a sunny getaway with Air Canada sound like? Sunny Jamaica moves to its own rhythm. Rio comes alive long after the sun goes down. Philippines slows everything down. And just when you think you've heard it all, there's Sunny Lima. However you imagine your sunny escape, Air Canada can take you there. Book hot fares and vacation packages today.

Nice travels. I don't understand how it's close. I really don't either. Same girl. Like, I don't, it's fucking blow. It's blowing, it's blowing my mind. It is so obvious. Yeah.

It's literally like, so the ground has turned to feces and it's raining acid. and no one can go outside, all due to the policies of the people in charge right now. So, you know, it's about 50-50. We don't know. We don't know. No, I know. It's crazy.

And it's like the whole time, I'm just like, I can't believe it's close. Like, are the people of Iowa aware of what you're saying? Like, I think this is their lived experience. Yeah. It does make you wonder, though, is it a question of what is the information that is being beamed into people's skulls because it is when you lay it out with like look the guys tariffs have made your lives unaffordable the Iran war has made getting to the different unaffordable

places unaffordable yeah uh we're going in to try and uh change that around he's giving everything that he could possibly give to you know the class of people who don't need it you know what do you think of that and you're just like, well, I heard that the CIA was making. You know, you don't know where they're getting their information, what they're, and maybe it is that the, that the money that is being spent is enough to challenge reality. Yeah, or just that. I mean, you think about a state like Iowa where it is geographically, like Iowa is well below the national average on issues like illegal immigration on issue even in like having like a foreign born population like i was extremely white and you see how animated they are by the issue of immigration it's just untethered

from the reality but it's not like he is a guy who is no he's not like defund ice and open the borders and also by the way talk about a state that relies on low cost yeah immigrant labor to exploit like come on people you can't have it both fucking ways. But that's just, it's just like reality doesn't seem to really play it then. I feel like that's going to be the legacy that Trump administration has been the reality distortion field that he has been able to create through. I mean, J.D. Vance even was sort of upfront about it, which is like, hey, man, if I've got

a lie to get what I need to do that. Well, I think, because people said to them, they go, you know, they're not actually eating the cats of dogs, right? You know that. He's like, does it matter? You can just say shit. Right. You can just say $5,000 if we win the midterms.

I guess you can say, I mean, even this steel mill. Yeah, that he announced for 2030, like, did anything ever happen with the Foxcom plant in Wisconsin? No. Nothing happens with any. But what did you say? We've got $30 trillion of investment coming. And you're like, is that? Promise.

Do you remember there was a great, I thought it was really revelatory about what these pledges are like? do you remember early on in the Trump administration, there was a dinner where he was sitting with the Titans of Tech. It was. Yes. And Zuckerberg was at the table. And they were all talking about the big pledges that they were going to make to this country to do that. And Zuckerberg, and it's on like a hot mic where he turns and he goes, what should I say? 500 billion.

What do you want me to say? Trump's like, make it a big number. And so it's just fucking. A gazillion. It's made up. Talk about fake fucking news. It's monopoly money. It's like it doesn't matter.

Bastards. What do you got for us, Brittany? All right. We got three this week, John. Oh. John. Oh. Oh.

Is this a bad one? I can tell by the giggle that this might actually be a bad one. No, I'm just preparing myself. John, do you think business leaders and politicians consider Trump a stable genius or a useful idiot? Oh, I mean, I don't know that they've ever had a more useful idiot. I think, again, going back to the statement about how much do you want me to say I'm giving you? And all I have to do is, let me get this straight. If I've given you a million dollars for your ballroom, I can have a $5 billion

dollar Pentagon. He is the best investment. Any of these business leaders have ever made quid pro quo corruption. He even said when he came in about foreign business, hey, I don't want it anymore that we can't bribe officials in other countries. He stated it explicitly. I want us to be able to bribe other countries' officials. And certainly, if we're going to do it overseas, why shouldn't we be able to bribe officials here?

And so it has been the store is open. And if I'm one of those exploitative corporate raider type individuals, this is the great, greatest thing that has ever happened. And they've got the money. I mean, that's what's been so crazy to me about this midterm election is like all of the corporate money has been flowing to the president's pack, the president who is term limited, the president who is not on the ballot this election? Like, is there anything more obvious than what's going on?

And the president who is not, look what he's amassing. No one even knows where the Venezuelan gold is. Like no one knows where the oil is going. He is now, you know what he reminds me of a chipmunk? I don't know if you, I don't want to get into what I've been doing every day. Or Disney Princess over here. At the exact same time. Every day.

Instagram knows. But you lay out far more than any chipmunk. I don't know if you've ever seen a chipmunk. This is not a large, this is not a chupacabra. They're very, very little. And yet I'm giving them nuts that are bigger than their heads. They come in, they take it, they move it, and they're just store. Are they going to need all those nuts for winter?

They are not. I have overpopulated their Fort Knox, but they still hoard it anyway because it's just who they are. Do these Trump people have more than they will ever need in a thousand lifetimes? course, but they keep hoarding it because it is who they keep exploiting. This is the great. They have finally found the golden teat and it is us. Yeah. And they keep doing it because they can.

Who's stopping it? Nobody. In fact, the Supreme Court continues to make it easier and easier to suckle upon the golden teat of the people. Well, they're like, I also have a hoard of acorns that I need. That's right. Listen, everybody, I believe the chipmunk theory. is the one that's really going to...

You know what? Get Jason Furman back on the show. I want to talk to him about the chipmunk economic theory and let him smug me out. All right. What else we got? Next. John, is the downside of Democrats winning back

the House and Senate that Schumer and Jeffries will get more airtime? Oh, my God. It is at this important time of Sukkot, which is the Jewish holiday of backyard building you can take a loo love and they um look i think what's going to happen is they're going to have to fucking do something they're going to have to deliver they're not going to be able it will not be sufficient to make their entire personalities opposition to

whatever Trump politics are. They're going to have a, they're going to have to have a prescription for rebalancing this economy in a smart and urgent way. And that is not, I am not confident that that is in their DNA. I'm not confident that it's in Schumer's DNA,

certainly, which means I'm actually hopeful that he won't be there as the leader. That they will come in and say, we're not we're not going to go down that corporate test path again we are going to make the changes that the american people are demanding that we make in an urgent way that is not bound by some idealized vision of what the parliamentarian might think is okay fuck that like if you if you are granted control if you if they give you the ring do something with it god i hope

You bastards. But in reality, John, they're just going to fuck it up. You know, chipmunks, when they legislate. They rise to the challenge those chipmunks. All right. And last last. And to not least. By the way, I have named them.

Don't think I haven't. Alvin? Felix and Oscar. So the two that come most often, Felix is this. He is the most high functioning chipmong. This is what the people want to know, actually. He sounds so insane. He is so smart about how he always comes in.

He gets the biggest stuff first, the almond, the pecan, the acorn. He grabs those. And then he'll come back and he'll throw a bunch of sunflowers. He's a go. But he's got a very prescribed system. He is a gorgeous chipmunk. The stripes on the body are symmetrical. He is a Kardashian of chipmunk.

Just a beautiful chipmunk. And then fucking Oscar comes in. And Oscar looks like he's been through it. And Tracy keeps saying, she's like, I think it's because she's coming through the hollies. And I'm like, no. No. I think he's an alcoholic. Like he comes out.

His tail's like a little fucked up. And he's always got like a little cow lick and things. And he's just like, what do you got? What do you got a sunflower? Is that a sunflower? Get your life together, Oscar. Put one in there, tries to like grab an acorn in his hand. You can cingrant.

Yeah. Anyway. Sorry. I forgot what we were talking about. Go ahead. We have one more questions. All right. John, the NBA season starts next week.

So when we get to the end, are you prepared to say at Sixers and Six? I will never, I will never, I don't care if they win it. I will not acknowledge it. It will, it will know. Listen, I can be impressed by their off-season work. And by the way, not a franchise known for its good off-season work. Like, that is a franchise that is much more known for like, what if we bring in James Hardin and Ben Simmons?

Those guys got to work great together. Like it's never been a functional franchise in that regard. I mean, trust the process. Like, are we talking about a process like the Iron Age? Like, how long is this process? It's become a punchline. That being said, boy, what an impressive offseason. Like the idea that you could turn Paul George into Jalen Brown and LeBron James

and add that to Tyrese Maxie and Ed. Edgecombe and Embed. Like that is a formidable, you know, that, they're going to be tough. And for us not having Mitch anymore. Yeah. I understood some of what you've just said. That's hilarious. That was for Oscar, not Felix.

Jillian is Oscar. Britney is Felix. Yes. Fuck yeah. I'm a mess. I'm a mess. I'm a mess. Great show.

Brittany, how do they keep in touch with us? Twitter. We are weekly show pod. Instagram threads, TikTok, Blue Sky. We are weekly show podcast. And you can like, subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show at John Stewart. You can do all those things.

Thanks again. Our producer, Brittany Mehmedevich, producer Jalian Spear, video editor and engineer Rob Vitola, audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, our associate producer, Rebecca Rotenberg, and our executive producers, Chris McShane, Katie Gray. We will see you next week.

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