8/11/26: Trump Fled Air Force One, Mearsheimer Says US Lost War, AOC 'Woke One Was Crazy', Dem Says 'Establishment' Is Racist Slur

25:32It's what we keep saying here. Like, you're just a few, like, bad situations away from a genuine nightmare. And we have that. You know, we have A-10. We can put it up here. The oil in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve has now fallen below 300 million barrels. That's the lowest since 1983. The minimum amount of oil needed to safely operate is about 70 million barrels. That number, I think it's been in dispute from what I understand because that comes from the current energy department. That previously they had released 172 million barrels at the beginning of the war. I believe that distribution ends in the next month or so.

26:09So are they going to have to just keep drawing it down? Like, what's that going to look like? What about China? I mean, the Chinese emergence as the power, the most powerful oil buyer in the world was totally unforeseen in this entire war. Are they, how much longer are their reserves? We have no idea. They don't publish it. And so all of these like big question marks is also like you said, is Iran just going to sit back and take it? If I were them, I couldn't. that would be a slow, that would be being ground to your death. However, resuming the war, you look, they kill a few American service members.

26:44America starts to accept more risk. Maybe we lose a few pilots. We could kill hundreds of thousands of them literally in a single day if we wanted to. But that's not, that's bad too, right? Beyond the moral implications that would devastate their country, would lead to a disaster for them as well. So their leaders, they're in just as much of a vice as Trump. But honestly, the stakes for them are higher. And with the stakes for them as high as where they are, it makes it a lot more dangerous. Well, because that's the thing, is Trump thinks that allowing the economic pressure to build on them as they continue to be under sanctions and unable to do what they need, charge the toll and straight-up for booze, as inflation is increasing, as that economic tension increases for Iran, he believes that will lead them to give up concessions at the negotiating table.

27:33I think it is far more likely that it leads them to escalate. I think that is a much more likely outcome here. But you're right. We're talking about, listen, we're running low on precision, long-range missiles. But we have a ton of, you know, dumb bombs that we could just drop on them. 2 ,000 pound JDAMs and whatever that we could just drop. And it would entail more risk to our pilots. But that is a possibility that continues to be on the table. So it's not like we are out of anything and the cupboards are completely bare on everything. There are still a lot of there is still a massive amount of destructive capability that we wield if we were to choose to take that increased risk to our own service members.

28:15Right, exactly. And that's what that's actually what makes me afraid. And I think that this is still and I still think we might be in the opening game. You know, J.D. has called it the middle game. I don't think that's accurate. it. You and I both know memorandum of understanding alone was a Titanic, you know, it just even trying to get it was a Titanic task and fell apart instantly. So now we're just trying to get back to the memorandum. We haven't even talked about nuclear issues. I think this is going to happen for years. I think it will literally be years and years and years. Trita told us yesterday the conditions that Iran laid out were not even this is what it will take to get a deal.

28:51It was this is what we will require to even start talking to you again. So I do, it really does feel like we've been to this play before. I mean, our whole lives, adult lives have been watching these forever wars get started and then just kind of drag on forever and be put on the back burner. And some new, worse status quo was established that people are just forced to accept. And with oil, I mean, it's$4 a gallon. The White House seems to think that's acceptable. maybe that's just reality now. $3.50,$4 a gallon for as long as it takes. If the other side of the world has a total crisis, sucks to be them.

29:31We can't bail them out. By the way, you know our Japanese yen thing that you covered? It didn't even work. No, I know. It's already collapsed by 50%. Yeah. You know, I mean, the tools of our empire, they're in big trouble. South Korea too. But that's the reason we care is because, and we covered this all in the segment, is because it has major implications for us because they are the largest foreign holder of U.S. treasuries. So if they're forced to sell treasuries to, you know, hold up their own currency and repatriate their own cash, then that means that our interest rates on our treasuries goes up.

30:03That means it costs way more for us to service our debt. And that becomes a really big problem, a really big problem. So that's why Besant, you know, had his little shopping to-do list by, you know, billions of dollars of Japanese yen, because it doesn't it's not just, oh, poor Japan. They're struggling, which they are. It's poor. You know, it's this has major implications for us, too. And that's why that's why this is very precarious. So on the one hand, I think the Trump plan of low keying it is aimed at muddling through getting through pushing the it off to the next president. On the other hand, it continues to be very volatile and fragile.

30:40And I'm not sure that that is going to be a strategy that can work given the specific dynamics of this conflict. Like we'll just have to see. Agreed. All right, let's get to Dems. My name is Arnold Bogarty. And prior to me, I enrolled in Rasmussen to become a nurse. I spent 16 years in the military, 12 in special forces as an Army Green Beret. And I was recommended to Rasmussen by a former student. She said she loved the culture. It was a family atmosphere. I went to visit the campus. The facilities were amazing. I knew before I left that that was the school that I was going to attend. Rasmussen University.

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32:32From relaxing beach days to unforgettable moments with the people who matter most, your next vacation starts here. Travel through July 31st, 2027. Start your vacation today at applevacations.com or through your travel advisor. It is election day today in Minnesota, in Wisconsin, and also actually in South Carolina. Darlene Graham on the ballot here to replace her brother. But before we get into the specifics of these elections, there's an interesting dynamic here with AOC when she was being asked at some of the old tweets and comments of Francesca Hong and other DSA-aligned candidates whether those were going to be a problem for them going forward.

33:13Let's go ahead and take a listen to what she had to say. It's possible to win the Senate. So I've been focused on those legislative reasons. What do you make of those controversial statements I'm sure you've seen? I mean, she's, you know, the Thanksgiving dust-up. She says she doesn't, you know, still believe that. But, you know, abolish prisons, abolish police, which is also positions that have been taken by a lot of the progressive candidates who have won. How do you get around that? Yeah. Those are not positions that are supported by - Right, I mean, I think that a lot of these races, even right now, they'll have a tendency to be nationalized.

33:50Yeah. But these races ultimately are local, and all politics are local. My understanding is that Francesca Hong has made clear her present stances to her electorate. Yeah, she's moved away from a lot of that. Right, she's moved away from it. And I have a local city councilman that has this saying, woke one was crazy. Woke one was crazy. Okay, that's so true. And I think that what's important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying. I mean, did the movement go too far with some of those positions? I mean, you briefly supported the idea of defunding the police. Well, you know, I think that during this time and during, especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton window.

34:38We were shut down. There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns. And I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. And I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful. I think that when we talk about crime today, it's fundamentally different than the way that we talked about crime in bringing crime down, right? And I think that we all share in the goals of having as low a crime rate as possible. I think that during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.

35:21And I'm grateful that these candidates have the opportunity to present who they are to their electorate and what they're campaigning on in this moment. So she's referring there to Chiyose, who's a councilman for New York. Is he the one who came up with this? Yeah, he's the one. And he's the one for people who don't remember, who thought about challenging Hakeem Jeffries. And then ultimately, you know, DSA at Zoran's urging decided not to back me, decided not to run in that primary. But in any case, this captured a lot of online attention. I'm curious for your thoughts on this, Auger. I could give a whole diatribe about this.

35:55because Crystal and I are going on John Stewart today so we can't let this blow out to be too long I would say Woke One is Crazy is the most like it is the biggest cop out of all time because look you either held the position or not in my opinion everybody's still woke they just don't admit it anymore I mean or they have to explicitly apologize so for example Zoran literally had to tell the cops I'm sorry for saying defund the police I think that's a very positive development, actually, because it required a little bit of accountability. This is a massive cop-out. Like, if you support defund the police, say it.

36:29Like, if you support, you know, little kids being castrated chemically, say it. Like, you should say that. If you support mass rioting and looting and want to, you know, put your MLK quotes out there, you should stand by that. Or you should have the decency to tell people, I was totally wrong, and it was a total disaster. So people's lives were ruined. People literally died. The murder rate skyrocketed. It was one of the worst, in my opinion, movements of probably in modern American history. They almost lost the election because of it. And, you know, they tried to deny it for years and years and years.

37:02And, you know, saying woke one is crazy is just it's not enough. Like I would compare it to the way that you probably feel about Trump and you want accountability. Your Trump regime, that's my woke one. Like that was my woke one. That was my radicalizing event. Like I lived through 10 years of actual total cultural insanity. And to just say woke one was crazy, it's like it's not enough for me. And I think for a lot of people too, you'd be like, well, what do you mean by that? Like do you change your position? And I do think a lot of these candidates trying to have it both ways is frankly bullshit.

37:32Like Abdul El-Sayed literally lies about saying defund the police. He chickened out apparently on coming on the show because we were going to debate property tax and it just canceled for no reason. One of the things I was going to ask him was like, dude, you claim that you never said it. You said it. We have you on tape. Why don't you admit that you said it? And if you change your policy, then you should say that. But, you know, a lot of these people just want to walk away. Francesca Hong today was asked about some of her old tweets. And I forget exactly what she said. She said, as somebody who was studying to be a sports journalist, I just wanted to put all my different hot takes and opinions out there.

38:05I'm like, no. Like, you said Thanksgiving should be canceled. Like, you basically, you know, you said you were uncomfortable at having a half-white son. That's fucked up. Like you should pay penance for that. You should have atoned for that. And so I don't know for look, I mean, she's not going to win me over ever, like in terms of AOC. But for somebody else, if you hold those positions, we're going to have to have some serious cultural dialogue about what exactly all that means. So, yeah, I don't know. I think that they should take notice of the most successful DSA politician in the country, Zoran Mamdani, who had to straight out come out and be like, yeah, I was wrong.

38:41I apologize for that. And then appoint Jessica Tish. Like, unless I see something like that, I'm like, I don't believe you. I mean, I think so a few things. First of all, the conversation that you want to have is just not going to be feasible in this Sunday show quick hit where she's being asked these questions in 30 seconds. And so I think what you see with her saying, well, one is crazy. And with Francesca Hong saying basically, I put out a lot of hot takes on Twitter. I don't stand by all of them. She cleaned up her Thanksgiving thing. No, I don't want to cancel Thanksgiving, et cetera. I think you see a recognition, an increased level of pragmatism among the left that you did not see at that point.

39:24And I think part of it comes from the fact, I mean, first of all, just it was an intense time with COVID and lockdowns and BLM and George Floyd being murdered and all of these sorts of things. So part of it is that. And part of it is the fact that now the left has a real chance to actually be in power. so you have to not just put on a tweet you have to actually govern and you have to you do have to appeal to a broader election so i think there is a level of pragmatism and i also think there's a learning of just like you know the approach it didn't work it didn't work um to your point it led to a it led to a backlash you know there was never any criminal justice reform that was passed you could point to some local examples sure but coming out of black lives matter there was no mass criminal justice reform at all.

40:14The police were not, in fact, defunded. And so I think there has to be a reckoning with that. But to me, it's a positive step forward for people to be able to say, OK, that wasn't it wasn't strategically savvy. I don't think we're in that same place. Here's where I actually stand and be able to move forward. So, you know, I understand what you're saying about AOC. And listen, she still holds position that you just disagree with. And Francesca Hong also holds positions that you just don't agree with. And Zoran does as well. So they're not going to like apologize and come to you on that. But this is a kind of recognition that, yeah, there were some excesses at that point, you know, both in terms of the tactics, in terms of the rhetoric.

40:54And it didn't end up ultimately working out. I just feel like it's a it's a pass that isn't fair. I mean, Ryan has said this. Like, it's not just me. I see other leftists saying this. They're like, guys, this ain't going to cut it. Like, you're going to have to apologize. Like, you've got to have straight out. That's actually not what Ryan said about this. He said he thought she did a pretty good job of handling this in the situation. But the other thing that I want to point to is like, you know, for all the conversation about woke one and and all the criticism that I had of it and have of it, you know, continue to have of it.

41:23there is a very authoritarian woke to under the Trump administration right now that, you know, has a far, far wider reaching and more powerful effect where you're not just talking about Ben Shapiro getting shouted down at a college or whatever. You're talking about people being deported. You're talking about people being arrested. You're talking about mass surveillance, NSPM 7. And so it's also hard for me to get worked up about that at this point, given the way that specifically, quote unquote, anti-Semitism is being used to imprison people, deport them and completely crush dissent and to label them as terrorists by the federal government.

42:04I think you're totally right. So I think that has to be put in context here as well. I don't disagree at all. And again, I apologize to Ryan. I had interpreted it as him talking about because I what I saw, what he had said about the whole woke one thing. He's like, no, there needs to be like a reckoning in terms of how that era was handled with cancellation. But I think by defining it as just Ben Shapiro, like that's not what happened. Right. Like the murder rate went sky high because of the George Floyd protest. That is an empirical fact. It is just simply true. I think that also was part was driven by COVID.

42:33There's no doubt about that. Partially. But there is. I can show you the data the day before the protest and the day after the murder rate went sky high. It only just recently came down. The only reason I think that a lot of DSA is getting in a way with a lot of its nonsense today is because that the murder rate has gone to like 2012 era. So people are no longer having to worry about the concerns that we have. Like, I don't forget. I remember, you know, what that looks like and the destruction of this entire city. So that's where I'm like, OK, it's not Ben Shapiro, right? Like it's a it's a genuine like mass cultural hysteria which took over.

43:07And still, I think most of the left believes like I don't I still think. that they do believe that. So you're talking about - Believe what? Well, I think that they still believe in a lot of the anti-racist bullshit. They just, you know, kind of phrase it a little bit differently, but it's like, okay, okay, I'll give you a good example. It's very easy to say a lot of this anti-Semitism hysteria is bullshit. Do you have the courage to say it about affirmative action? No. I mean, I don't think so. Like, I don't think a lot of, you know, maybe true Trotskyites, Jacobin, I read a nice Jacobin article yesterday about this whole woke one situation, which made a lot of the same points that I'm making.

43:40The Trotskyites at Worldwide Socialist Web were the original anti-woke people. But like, you know, the median liberal voter was appalled at the minority majority districts getting struck down. Like, they still believe in affirmative action. Well, I mean, that's what that is. Well, there is there is a deep legacy of racism. And you can say the argument and the alarm doesn't come out of nowhere. Right. There was there was, you know, George Floyd was murdered. People were horrified. And by including people on the right, I mean, Sean Hannity doing a segment about how horrifying that was. Hey, I was horrified.

44:14Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, so there is a historic legacy of discrimination against black Americans specifically. And I think, look, I'm not a supporter of affirmative action, so I don't put – but I understand why people say, OK, this group, there is a legacy here that we have to deal with and have to reckon with. We can continue to have mass disparities in terms of health and in terms of wealth, etc. And it's not tied to like, you know, pretending criticism of a foreign government is actually racism against this particular group. It's based on actual reality, history and current outcomes. Yeah, but you and I both know that, you know, when I say a minority majority district is affirmative action or is bullshit, you know, today, I'm going to be called a racist.

44:56Like it's that still exists. And I know it. I mean, if I try to have the combo of trans is another one. I mean, it's one of those where you also have to admit that racism is not only alive and well, but is being really stoked by the current Republican Party. And we can we discussed a very recent example of that guy, Amir Hassan, I think his name was. Yes. Who the other guy whose name was like Tom Jones or something, very standard white guy name, had literally dropped out of the race. Amir Hassan is backed by Trump and literally just because he has a Muslim sounding name loses in a Republican private.

45:29about it. That's Islamophobia. It's not racism, but I mean, we can guess. Okay. Bigotry. Bigotry. Sure. I'm not denying that it exists, but do I support affirmative action for Amir Hussein? No, honestly, I don't. And so. Yeah, but I'm just saying like to just dismiss concerns because again, I don't even support affirmative action, but to just dismiss concerns over racism as some like liberal hysteria, I think it's preposterous. Well, a black lady is literally about to be the next governor of Georgia, which would have, you know, most of the Georgian founding fathers rolling in their graves and nobody who's bitching about minority majority districts.

46:00No one's saying that there are. I don't think the general view is that no progress has been made. I also don't think that your view is that one black lady in a high level of representation means that the problems are solved. 16 years ago, I started working as a CNA in the hospital. I loved it. On the day I decided to enroll in the nursing program at Rasmussen University, because afternoon, my 35th birthday, I was hanging out with a friend and they had just questioned me what I was going to do with this next chapter of my life. I immediately had said, I want to go to nursing school. So I actually had contact information from an advisor at Rasmussen, contacted her and actually ended up starting like three weeks later.

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48:08Apple Vacations, where your story starts. Part of this will be put to the test, not just in the primaries on the Democratic side, but also in terms of the general elections. And one of the test cases here is very likely to be Francesca Hong in Wisconsin. She has been leading in that primary the entire time. She's a state rep from Madison, Wisconsin. We had her on the show. Emily and I interviewed her. She's put B2 up on the screen. Polls could be wrong. I think we all found that out in Michigan. I would expect a polling error, frankly. But they have shown her leading by easily by double digits in all the recent polls, you know, starting in July.

48:54She previously had two opponents. One of them dropped down at the race and said, hey, the writing's on the wall about who the nominee is going to be, meaning her. Her other opponent is David Crowley. Stewart's still in. He's backed by the governor. governor. He is the more establishment candidate. She has a lot of wild posts from woke 1.0. There is no denying it. And unlike Zoran, she has not. She's done a little bit of this. But he did the like, I'm going to delete my tweets and I'm going to apologize. Abdul does a similar thing. I'm going to delete my tweets. I'm going to just like, you know, he hasn't apologized.

49:26I'm going to move forward. And he's just lying about what he said. But in any he deleted the tweets and really distanced themselves. She's kept the tweets up and is doing less of that rhetorical distancing from her past. So that has led to a lot of concerns about whether or not she'll be able to win a general election in Wisconsin for governor, even in a year that is very, is, you know, going to be a very, very likely a wave year for Democrats. Well, and look, this is where, let me give my flowers to at least some of the DSA for attacking her opponent, David Crowley, who claims he's a black man, not that it's relevant, who says that by calling him, quote, establishment, it's a racist slur.

50:06Let's take a listen to B5. I'm trying to figure out who the establishment is, right? I think that when we talk about the establishment, I don't know who that is. I'm a kid that grew up in 53206 zip code. My parents was drug addicts and suffered from mental health. I worked extremely hard to be where I am today. And so when people try to call me the establishment, I look at that as a slur, particularly as an African-American candidate. And so I have never ran for office to protect the establishment. I've always been here to protect the people. That's my foundation. That's what I'm going to continue to do as a county executive and what I'm going to do as the governor of Wisconsin.

50:40That's woke 1.0 if I've ever seen one. It's a colony establishment. I do think that is an important point as well, which is that a lot of the origin of woke actually came out of the neoliberals, the Hillary Clinton campaign as an attempt to weaponize identity against the left. We're seeing a lot of that playbook continue to this day. Didn't work, but almost did against Abdul El-Sayed. They attempted something similar against Soran. And so very interesting to see that playbook rolled out here as well. Let's go ahead and put B6 up on the screen. There's Wisconsin's dumb establishment really freaking out, scrambling to try to stop Francesca Hong.

51:19And I think all the scrutiny of her past tweets and her positions. And obviously, all of that is completely justified. I do think there's been less curiosity about why it is that this random Madison state rep jumped out to such a large and seemingly, seemingly insurmountable lead. And Ken Klippenstein lives in Wisconsin and has been tracking a lot of this. And the interesting thing, and actually, what's her face, Dana Perino on Fox News gave Francesca Hong some credit for this. the campaign she's run has been, first of all, very, very grassroots heavy, you know, using the DSA organizing model, you know, doing having actual community members reach out to people directly who have a connection to the campaign and are passionate about it.

52:05They're not just being paid to knock doors. She's also and actually we could put this B9 up on the screen, talked about some of this strategy. She also, I think, has honed in on some of the issues that are not only a concern to the Democratic base, but are more broadly across ideological concern. And I'm specifically talking here about data centers and flop cameras. And she also is the only candidate I think I've seen who has specifically addressed NSPM 7, which I think is more of a specific concern for the Democratic base. But on data centers and on pushback against AI generally and on flop cameras, she has really separated herself.

52:44There was a famous debate moment that Emily and I played on the show where all the Democratic contenders at that point in the race were asked if they would support an AI data center moratorium. She was the only one that raised her hand. No, Crowley has explicitly actually defended the ability for localities to get data centers, which, again, I don't even know why politically that's why you would do so. Put B9 up here because it kind of goes into that. And look, you know, I don't like Francesca Hong, You know, not my cup of tea on a variety of different levels. I do respect that she came from an organizing background and that she was able to use her organization to fill these no kings protests like in Milwaukee, which are full of the most standard.

53:31I mean, have you ever been like or driven past like these are like old white. Maybe I'm just speaking from where I live, but the vast majority are old white boomers. No, I think that's fair. Like Kamala, diehard, you know, every single one of my neighbors who has no king sign had a Kamala sign. Like these are very traditional kind of Democrats. And she had brought thousands of people to these no kings protests. And that really filled out and like made a connection with them. So I'm like, OK, that's that is traditional grassroots political organizing. The question is actually something I talked about yesterday with gubernatorial races.

54:06Gubernatorial races are very different than national. Like we were talking about Abdul. The fact that he lied about defund the police, no one's going to give a shit, like in my opinion, because you know what? At the end, you know, Mike Rogers has said some crazy stuff about the 2020 election. What it comes down to when you vote national, especially in the Senate, are you going to vote to confirm a Trump justice? Are you going to vote to fund ICE? Are you going to vote, you know, to these are high stakes, massive votes. Your individual opinion, especially as a freshman senator, it basically doesn't matter.

54:37Oh, you're going to introduce Medicare for all? That's cute. All right. We all know this shit's not going to pass. Maybe, you know, one day in the future. At the end of the day, the most consequential votes you will make are funding, no funding, impeach, not impeach. I could go on forever. Governor is very different. And this is where with Francesca Hong, I mean, especially like you're literally going to be in charge of law enforcement budgets. Like you're going to be administering the day to day of the actual state. Like, do you want a lady who's, you know, literally diagnosed bipolar to be running that?

55:06I mean, I'm not trying to come across prejudice, but it's a genuine question. You're like, this is somebody who's a diagnosed and admitted past of mental illness, of bad judgment with tweets and comes across, like, frankly, very strange in a lot of these interviews. Now, having good political instincts nowadays, all right, you know, it's possible. But having that person run your state, people are much more willing to buck the national politics at the state level. Now, today is very different, as you well pointed out. In the state of Virginia, you have a guy who was on his text message says, I want to murder.

55:37What did he say? I want to murder Republican children or something like the children of my Republican opponents. He literally said that. I don't think he quite said that. I think I think it was like I don't remember, but they were they were wild. Yeah, he was no like he's like, I want to commit homicide against my opponents. He won the election. I mean, he won a statewide. That man is in charge of my rights as a Virginian. That who is currently running the state attorney general's office and decides prosecutions and stuff. He won. So that's important to say about what it could look like at the state level.

56:15But there's enough evidence. We live here near Maryland. Maryland loves to blue state. Larry Hogan. Vermont had a Republican governor. Massachusetts had a Republican governor. You know, these blue states are different. They buck the national trend all the time. And so that's why I would say that she has much a much less of a wind at her back than any national candidate. If I'm a D who is running in 2026, the best position I could possibly be in is to run for Congress or run for the United States Senate because the stakes are so high whenever it comes to impeachment and funding and all of the other issues that people are paying attention to in the day to day.

56:58Running the governor's mansion, you're negotiating property tax and whether this factory is going to get built here. And that's super important. Don't get me wrong. But it doesn't motivate people. in the same way that we have seen, at least traditionally, it could be a very different moment. Yeah, well, and we'll also see how powerful the data center politics are. Oh, well, that I already think we already know. You know, she's going to be very clearly different from Tom Tiffany, is that his name, who is going to be the Republican nominee. And I do think she's being underestimated a little bit.

57:31I've watched, you know, we interviewed her. I've watched a lot of her interviews and the way she communicates on the ground, et cetera. And she has a very sort of unique style where she is both soft-spoken and also very confident. And so anyway, I think – and I do think that she – obviously, the Democratic base has found her to be very appealing and very credible. So I don't think that that should be discounted. It is a major feat that one of her opponents, the one who dropped down to the race and was like, obviously, it's going to be Francesca who wins. He was lieutenant governor of the state.

58:03Like these are not nobodies who she's up against. and yet according to the polls, again, we'll see, she's running away with it. Let's go ahead just to give you a little bit more of a sense of her and her opponent, David Crowley. Let's play a little bit of their bios here so you can get a sense of both of them. It's so stressful to get by these days and I know a lot about stress. I work in restaurants. I started in this kitchen 15 years ago and you might recognize what's across the street. A lot of people in that building don't get why it's so hard to get by right now. Working hard doesn't mean you can always keep up.

58:40One wrong step can lay you out flat. This is by design. Don't let anyone tell you we can't do this. We can build a Wisconsin where we share the table. I'm Francesca Hong, and I'm running for governor because I know that together we make better possible. I didn't grow up in the halls of power. I grew up here and here and here. Evicted three times as a kid, having to pick up yourself and everything you own off the curb. It'll break you or it'll make you. I'm David Crowley, and I didn't want any child to go through that. So I became a community organizer. I went on to serve in the state assembly where I saw what happens when extremists had total control and I'd had enough.

59:30So at 33, I returned home, elected to lead the largest county in Wisconsin, helping create thousands of new jobs, cutting our carbon emissions in half, balancing the budget, all while delivering the largest property tax cut in our history. So to the single mom in Eau Claire looking for affordable, dependable child care, I hear you. To the union worker in Sheboygan taking an extra shift today to make the end of the month a little bit easier, I see you. To the dad in Platteville, working towards your degree after tucking your kids in, good nights. I am you. I'm David Crowley, and I'm running to be governor for all of us.

1:00:10Wisconsin, let's get to work. Sager got excited when he said he lowered the property taxes. Yeah, all of a sudden. Won him over right then. All of a sudden, I'm all in for home. Fuck that guy. You're gonna go home wild. Look, being serious, I said this to you while I was playing, that's like an ad from 2002. Like, it's a crazy ad. I mean, look, again, you don't have to take my advice, whatever. But that is the most boring political ad hoc. It's clearly not worked so far. But all right, so let's move on for Wisconsin quickly and take a look at Minnesota, which also has a marquee race on the ballot that's gotten a little bit less attention.

1:00:41Put B3 up on the screen. So this is also for this is for Senate. Open Senate seat. You've got Angie Craig, who is a current very moderate, I guess you would say, congresswoman, very corporate aligned, et cetera. And then you have Peggy Flanagan, who is the current lieutenant governor, more of a lefty, Medicare for all, not directly DSA backed, but, you know, that type of candidate. And it has gone the lead. I think this one is very close. The latest poll has Craig up by two. The one before that had Flanagan up by 14. But that was before there's been a new onslaught of money that has come into this race.

1:01:20So I do not think that Peggy Flanagan is going to win by 14 points. I think it's going to be very close and I think it's a very difficult race. And, you know, there's a lot. Look, Minnesota has been ground zero for a lot of things. Black Lives Matter. But that's kind of, you know, I think in the past in terms of the politics there in the primary. But now you have the whole the fraud scandal, which caused Tim Walz to say, I am not running for reelection anymore. And Peggy Flanagan, obviously, is part of that administration put before up on the screen. There's been a lot of back and forth about who's to blame for the welfare fraud scandal.

1:01:55It's really—this is really—Minnesota's image has really taken a hit over this because part of what they were very proud of in the state is, OK, we pay kind of high taxes, but we have really good government, good services, well-run, et cetera. And so this kind of strikes to the heart of how people think about Minnesota. And then, obviously, the other thing is Minnesota being ground zero for ICE. and this is where Alex Priddy and Renee Good were killed. Angie Craig is critical of ICE but doesn't want to abolish it. Peggy Flanagan does want to abolish it. Angie Craig has taken some bad votes in terms of increasing ICE funding and powers.

1:02:33So these are some of the fault lines in this race. And obviously, like I said, Minnesota has really been a powder keg on some of these issues. And that's part of why. Yeah, part of why there's a lot at stake here, I would say. And we put the polls up on the screen. Yeah, we did. But you can put it back. But the latest poll has Angie Craig up by two. So very, very close. That's what I was saying. It's very tight. And I actually do. Well, I mean, it's tight, but also you have multiple Flanagan ones previously, which had her up by like plus 30. So who the fuck knows? Like we have very small amount of likely voters, which are even sampled in front of this.

1:03:04I do think that the fraud thing being a scam. I mean, that, you know, to loop it all together to our woke one discussion, that's healthy. People should actually be like, hey, you said X, Y, and Z. You led to a disaster for our state. It led to a bilking of the state treasury and becoming a national laughingstock in front of the nation. Like, sorry, like that's actually a huge problem and people should be held accountable for that. So internal reckoning, just like I'm saying in terms of these primaries, it is healthy and it is good. And I don't like Francesca. I think she needs to do a hell of a lot more to literally come out and to be like, yeah, that was ridiculous in all that I said.

1:03:40But it is at least healthy to see some of these people be held to account. I also think that woke one was crazy is probably now the left most that you're even going to be allowed to go. Like she talked about the Overton window. The Overton window shifted in my favor now. I got Zoran over here apologizing to cops. And so woke one was crazy. If that's – if they're at least going to have to say something like that or be held to account for it in a moderate, like by a debate or even internally in a primary, I do think that's healthy. I hope to see more of that, too, in a future Republican primary to be asked about affirmative action for for like bullshit anti-Semitism.

1:04:18It's like if I ever get selected as a moderator, I'm sure you'll see some of that. So anyway, well, it's what it's called democracy, you know? Yes, I agree. And I do think that it's healthy. Like I said before, the fact that now the left actually has is governing, is winning, has a chance at power. I think it leads to a higher level of pragmatism where it's not just you're not just posting online to get like points for your radical chic. You know, you're actually trying to put together a winning coalition and appeal to voters and be able to win. And to me, that's a very positive development for the left.

1:04:53Although some people on the left are sort of being dragged to that kicking and screaming. Well, they will be dead-enders in any movement. I mean, if you read a history of leftism, having disagreeable radicals is literally— That's the whole history. Frankly, that is the history of leftism, part of the reason I don't. Correct.

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