Latest results signal impending GOP disaster in midterms

26:30Brian Tyler Cohen:But we need some more Republicans to step up. Well, I appreciate your voice on this issue and I appreciate you taking the time today. Congressman, as always, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Brian. No Lie is brought to you by Shopify. So picture this. It's late at night. You're in bed, scrolling through your feed. We've all done it. And then all of a sudden, you see that one product you've been looking for forever. You click the link, you add it to your cart, maybe you shop around a little bit, but you finally go to your checkout. And as you're filling in your address, you realize you don't have your card anywhere near you.

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28:10Brian Tyler Cohen:Tommy, thanks for joining. Brian, good to see you. Good to see you. So we have a little bit of a meltdown by the president now. And it's aimed not toward any Democrats, but his own formerly most vocal supporters. I'm going to read just a little bit of it right now. I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they were, especially by the fact that... Yeah, it's incoherent. It's not on you. The reading is really hard because it's incoherent. Especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the number one state sponsor of terror, to have nuclear weapons because they have one thing in common, low IQs.

28:42Brian Tyler Cohen:They are stupid people. They know it. Their families know it. And everybody else knows it too. And he goes in to do personal attacks on each and every one of them, which actually kind of carries some weight. But as we see more of these, you know, these high profile Trump supporters or MAGA supporters, right wing podcasters speak out against Trump. Does this feel like a permanent break or just a speed bump where, you know, of course, everybody on the right eventually comes home to daddy because that's where the money is. That's where the attention. That's where the clicks are. I think in the media space, there's always room to come back, you know, because you're right.

29:18Like these, look, these folks, Tucker, I listened to Tucker Carlson's episode where he like firmly broke from Trump because of that Easter tweet where Trump threatened genocide and then said like, all praise be to Allah. It was like, open the straight, you fucking bastards. Standard Easter stuff. Yes, standard Easter stuff. Most, you know, important Christian holiday. The kind of thing you do, treat the F word if you're the president. Right. Praise be to Allah. Tucker, I think, was sincerely furious, sincerely offended, is sincerely worried that Trump is going to use a nuclear weapon in Iran. Like it was a 45 minute monologue, like unloading the clip.

29:52I also suspect, though, that this is the one of a series of episodes Tucker has done talking about his opposition to war with Iran. And, you know, he's like us, like he's probably seen numbers on the back end. He knows where his audience is going. He's someone who's known to kind of skate to where the puck is going, as Mr. Gretzky once did, I guess. Not said, did. So, yeah, I mean, I think like I think it's a very substantial break. It's a reshuffling in the party. They know Trump's a lame duck. They're trying to figure out like what comes next. That said, you know, a well-timed dinner at Mar-a-Lago or the White House could probably do a lot of fixing.

30:28Brian Tyler Cohen:Yeah, 100 percent. I wonder, though, like what kind of an impact this is going to have on the party more broadly. I mean, do you think that this has this has no negative impact? Because if Trump is a lame duck anyway, that this becomes what the new iteration of the GOP ultimately is. I mean, I just think that going into the midterms, it's going to be a turnout election. And if Tucker Carlson is telling his huge audience that Trump is like it wasn't just like he disagreed with Trump on policy. It's like he lied to you. He's actually in a way that is satanic. And at least for right now, I mean, regardless of what the GOP looks like moving forward, at least for right now, these midterms are going to be a referendum on Trump.

31:06Brian Tyler Cohen:Absolutely. And so you can pretend that it's going to be some, you know, like some some new post Trump world. But so long as Trump is still in the White House, there is no world in which these voters don't don't send the message to Trump by virtue of how they vote. Yeah. And normally when there's a war in the first month, there's a rally around the flag effect. Like George W. Bush got a 14 point bump on average. His father got like a 30 point bump. Even Jimmy Carter during the first month of the Iran hostage crisis got like a 30 point bump. Trump's approval rating has gone down four points. Right.

31:36Because like Democrats, independents, like normal people are like, why are we at war with Iran? When you add on top of that, like these kind of MAGA influencers, like you'll see people say, actually, you know, if you look at polls of MAGA voters, they're not moving away from Trump. Of course they're not. Like if you're a self-described MAGA voter, you are basically like a Trump fan. Right. But if they are hearing from close Trump friends, close Trump allies, people who have cachet in that world. Yes. Like Alex Jones, his quote was, how do we 25th Amendment his ass? Yeah. That was what he said on his show.

32:10It's like that is going to erode Trump's support with people he needs to turn out in the midterm to keep the house.

32:16Brian Tyler Cohen:Is there a world where some of these people are actually like, even if Tucker is going skating to where the puck is going and they're kind of seeing the writing on the wall and they're making it easier, you know, giving themselves a permission structure for the for the GOP, because these still these people are still Republicans for the GOP to, you know, have some post Trump iteration where they are still anti war. And Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens and Alex Jones can all come out and say, we opposed Donald Trump. It's, you know, he isn't reflective of this right wing movement.

32:47Brian Tyler Cohen:We are. And so we can still, you know, carry the mantle as the anti-war party. Is there a world where still they're going to be shedding some supporters by virtue of what's happening right now that like even Tucker and Megan and Candace and Alex's efforts to kind of claw back this this moral high ground that it's still going to that there's going to be people in their audiences that there's going to be people, you know, in this country who voted for Trump. We're going to say, you know what, like we forget what forget what you guys are trying to convince me of that you that you're still anti-war.

33:15Brian Tyler Cohen:I'm not buying it. Yeah, look, I think there are going to be a lot of mega voters who probably hear what Tucker and Megan and Candace are saying. And they're like, shut up. You know, like we like Trump. We trust Trump. You guys told us to trust Trump for like the last 10 years. So we're going to keep doing it. That group will exist. I think there'll be far more voters who are just like pissed that gas prices are going up. Yeah, that they'll be pissed that they feel lied to. I mean, that's what's so powerful about these arguments. Again, it's not just like some esoteric foreign policy thing. They're like, you said you wouldn't do this.

33:47Then you did it. You lied to us. And that's bad. And what what this really tells me, Ryan, is I think in twenty twenty eight, twenty twenty eight, there will be a big actually isolationist lane in the Republican presidential primary. And J.D. Vance thinks he can still fill that. I don't think he can anymore. I think there's a good chance. Tucker Carlson is the guy out there on the stump trying to fill that. So, like, stay tuned.

34:10Brian Tyler Cohen:No, I agree. And in fact, the way that you know J.D. Vance is already going to be trying to do that is that he and his team have leaked to Politico that he's a Iran war skeptic just days ago. They leaked to the New York Times that the lone skeptic in the room is J.D. Vance. That doesn't happen unless he or his team are trying to to get some play on this idea. But Vance is trying to have it both ways. He's trying to both be the skeptic in the room while every time he's confronted with this question, especially when he's confronted alongside Trump, he's like, I know what you in the media are trying to do with these gotchas.

34:41Brian Tyler Cohen:I'm supportive, you know, 100 percent of the way with Donald Trump. And you're not going to you're not going to cause some internal rift. And so, again, he I mean, it's just outright disdain for his own for his own supporters to to to to basically try to have it both ways and think that nobody has enough sense to recognize what he's trying to do. First of all, that New York Times story is Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. It was an excerpt from their book coming up. I think it's called Regime Change. change they got like they got verbatim quotes from like situation room meetings with like eight or ten people in them that happened a couple months ago and the war is still ongoing like yeah they have like verbatim quotes of the chairman of the joint chiefs in a like wildly sensitive meeting it was unbelievable and you're right on the vance front like vance were like he ran as a skeptic of wars but then in this piece it's like he knew trump was for it so he tried to advocate for like a limited military effort.

35:33But then he figured out Trump really wanted to do it. So then he told him to go all in. And like it's like, J.D. Vance, you've taken every single position. And like everyone in that story, they are now trying to get right for history and be like, oh, we thought it was a bad idea. We thought the Israelis were full of shit. But it's like, what did you do to stop it when you had a chance? There were 10 of you in the sit room making the call. Like if you didn't put your foot down then or say something then or make

35:57Brian Tyler Cohen:the case then like fuck you you you failed and you know as far as as far as vance is concerned like this is actually par for the course for him because he will take any and every position that he needs to take in order to advance himself personally i mean he calls this trump america's hitler and now he's the vice president of america's hitler vp hitler yeah and so he i mean he built his brand off of this idea you know that that for for uh what was his book hillbilly elegy and like looking out for the little guy. And now, you know, his major legislative achievement right now is a tax cut that overwhelmingly favors millionaires and billionaires.

36:31Brian Tyler Cohen:I mean, just every position that J.D. Vance could stake out, he's staked out. He has no longstanding principles other than his own advancement in politics. And frankly, it's worked for him thus far. But I think, you know, he's going to hit a wall when we get to the point where he tries to claim that he's on the right side of history when it comes to the Iran war. And and every every tangible example is going to show that that's complete bullshit. Yeah. At some point, he's going to run for president in 2028 and he's going to be on the stage with someone. It could be Tucker Carlson. It could be like a Rand Paul.

37:02And they're going to say, I actually voted to oppose this war. I fought this war before it happened. You were in the room. You could have made a difference and you failed. You didn't get it done. So.

37:11Brian Tyler Cohen:So let's talk about the specifics of what we're seeing right now. Obviously, this is all pretty fast moving. We're recording this on Thursday evening. But as of right now, the only thing that kind of delayed the total annihilation of Iran was that there was apparently a framework agreed to between Trump and Iran. And we haven't seen any specifics in the framework other than what Iran has released, which is like this 10 point plan. Nothing from the American side, as far as I know. But the Iranian agreement says that Iran reserves the right to be able to continue enriching uranium, to charge tolls for ships that go through the Strait of Hormuz, that the U.S.

37:54Brian Tyler Cohen:would pay for repairs. They want us to lift all sanctions. Lift all sanctions. So, you know, I want to talk about two things. One, what can you read into this based on the fact that that agreement was released, but we have nothing from the American side? And two, based on what I'm reading from that agreement, it doesn't seem like the U.S. actually got anything for all of the lives, wounded, money, global standing that we've expended by virtue of being there. Yeah. So like just the kind of like tale of the tape here was Trump threatened genocide. He threatened to exterminate Iran's civilization by blowing up all their power plants and bridges.

38:31And then he got to his own deadline. And it seems very clear to me that he received a lot of pushback and did not want to do it. And they worked with the Pakistanis, the White House, to figure out this way to like kick the can down the field for two weeks. And as part of the statements that came out about that delay, Trump said that the 10-point plan Iran put forward was a, quote, workable basis on which to negotiate. And I would imagine that when the Iranians heard that, they were like, are you kidding me? Like, this is the greatest negotiating job we've ever heard of.

39:03Brian Tyler Cohen:It's a goldmine. But frankly, they could have put anything out because Trump just needed an excuse to take an off ramp. Trump needed an excuse to not do the crazy shit he said he would do. Right. Because it was literally genocidal. Right. And so right now we're in this place where there's going to be some talks on Saturday. J.D. Vance apparently is going to lead them. Fucking Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner. Of course. Why wouldn't Jared Kushner? Right. But now like they have 10 days from that point or whatever to try to negotiate a deal that includes. I mean, you read some of the Iranian wish list.

39:33It's like end all hostilities, guarantee that U.S. and Israel will not attack Iran again. They want a ceasefire in all the theaters of war, including Lebanon, where the Israelis are still pounding the hell out of Hezbollah. They want all the sanctions gone. They want control of the Strait of Hamuz. They want money for reconstruction. Like it is a maximalist list. And so now the United States, we're in a position where let's think about the core goals of this war, preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. We bombed their sites again, but the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium is still sitting in Iran.

40:05And they are like saying that not only would they not give it up, but that they reserve the right to keep enriching. Yes, we've sank a lot of their ships and take out their air force and whatnot. But - Well, if they're able to charge,

40:16Brian Tyler Cohen:you know, this toll - Millions of dollars, yes. Then we're basically gonna give them a vehicle with which they can pay to rebuild all of this stuff. We're gonna fund their Pentagon budget by like three, four, five exit. Yeah. You know, like - Yeah. Multiple times. And then the other big issue was their support for proxy groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Again, if they have this windfall from putting a toll on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, they'll be able to give a lot of money to Hezbollah. So when you like look at the tail of the tape here and think like, OK, what did we get for this? We are Iran is in a stronger geopolitical position now than they were beforehand because they have pulled this lever on the Strait of Hormuz.

40:55And they figured out like they can control the global economy.

40:58Brian Tyler Cohen:So I want you to put yourself in Trump's shoes right now. What do you say if you're the White House and you're looking for some way to spin this as a win? Like how? I mean, I'm looking at this as we have at least 13 service members who've died. We have 400 wounded. We have oil prices surging. I think they're at like, I don't know if they're at like$150 per barrel. That's in turn going to raise gas prices here at home, but it's also going to raise the cost of everything because now it costs more to transport those things. We have our global reputation is just in tatters because we're led by a fucking genocidal lunatic.

41:36Brian Tyler Cohen:And so like, I don't know how you can spin this. And Iran now has, you know, with this plan in place, would give them the ability to rebuild their military from new and gain a lot of money. And so I don't know how you can spin this as a win. What would Trump call a win here? Like, truly, I mean, there's nothing he can do at this point that will end up in like an actually better place than we were in before the war started, I don't think. Like, maybe he can cut a deal with Iran where they will agree to ship out the highly enriched uranium in return for some huge concession, like getting rid of all sanctions on Iran.

42:12Maybe they'll give up this toll road through the Strait of Hormuz idea for something similar. But like, again, it's a massive concession. Like they will use, they will reap a huge windfall of money. They'll be able to sell oil again on the global markets. And then they will be able to rebuild their Navy and their Air Force and their ballistic missile program.

42:30Brian Tyler Cohen:And by the way, won't, won't, if there's a toll that's implemented, won't those costs be passed on to consumers? Because now there's a brand new expense, a brand new tax that's being imposed on every single ship that passes through, which will ultimately just raise the cost, just be passed on to those who need it. It's just a giant tax on the global economy, which I think everyone in the world right now would be willing to pay to get past this acute crisis. Because we're at a place where I think like a dozen ships went through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday. The average is usually 130. There's 400 some odd ships in a backlog.

43:03And that means that oil and gas isn't getting through. It means fertilizers isn't getting through. Farmers can't turn on their tractors, let alone plant crops. Like there could be a global food crisis. So things are going to get dire real fast.

43:14Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, adding to the confusion here is on True Social, I'm seeing another post where Trump says there are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait. They better not be. And if they are, they better stop now. President Donald J. Trump. So, again, this you would think that it would be a little bit outside the realm of of reason for him to complain about this when this is already listed in the framework that they publicly released. And we have nothing from our end to refute it. this is what Jonathan Carl from ABC News tweeted yesterday on April 8th that morning.

43:49This morning, I asked President Trump if he's OK with the Iranians charging a toll for all ships that go through the Strait of Hormuz. He told me there may be a joint U.S.-Iran venture to charge tolls. Quote, we're thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It's a way of securing it, also securing it from lots of other people. It's a beautiful thing.

44:06Brian Tyler Cohen:Make up your fucking mind, buddy. Yeah. And also, I'm sure that that'll happen right around the same time we have our joint cybersecurity task force with Russia. Yeah, I remember that one. That's a deep cut. It's going well. It's like, look, I mean, no one holds this guy accountable for anything he says because he just flails around all day long. But like when you look at the priorities they laid out going into the war and where we are now, it's a catastrophe. Never mind the like, remember when he was going to pretend to ride to the rescue of the Iranian protesters? Yeah. That's not going to happen.

44:34Brian Tyler Cohen:There's a pretty wide gulf between we are here to make sure that we can free the Iranian people from the from the yoke of the Islamic Republic to you're going to bomb the entire country and eradicate Iran from the face of the earth. Like that's a that's a that's a pretty big leap there. Yeah. And like, look, Trump didn't take that like genocidal step of bombing all the civilian power plants. And like if he had done that right, like every hospital doesn't have power. So everyone like on a ventilator or an incubator is just dead. But like they've bombed like 30 schools. They've bombed all kinds of civilian infrastructure.

45:08So like now they're leaving the people with of Iran with a new supreme leader who's the son of the old supreme leader, but much more hard line. And then the IRGC, like the military leadership in Iran has a much firmer grip. So these people now live in like a completely decimated country with an even more hard line regime. Like this is the worst case situation for the Iranian people.

45:27Brian Tyler Cohen:Last question here. We have seen how Trump went from Venezuela, which was a pretty easy regime change, to Iran, which was a pretty clear failure. Not going so good. Yeah. Not going great. But he's he's been pretty clear that he wants Cuba to be next. This question was asked to me by Alex Wagner on her show just a couple of days ago. And I want to get your thoughts on this, too, because there are two tracks he can take. On one hand, he can see that, hey, maybe regime change isn't such a good idea. it doesn't work out so well, so maybe I'm just going to take the L here and just not fuck up again?

46:03Brian Tyler Cohen:Or does he recognize, damn, my ego got real bruised on this Iran situation, and so now I need an easy win, and Cuba is not going to be the same situation as Iran, so let's try to end on top here. I am pretty nervous about what's going to happen in Cuba, because he's at Mar-a-Lago all the time. He's surrounded by a bunch of like, you know, kind of like hardline Cuban Republicans. Marco Rubio is his secretary of state, national security advisor and like kind of top advisor on foreign policy. Rubio's primary mission is regime change in Cuba. Now, like how exactly that would manifest is not totally clear.

46:43Like, are they just going to continue to starve everyone on the island? Maybe that's their path forward to regime change and then some sort of negotiated thing. Or will they like decide to tell the Delta Force guys to mount up again and do some commando operation? I mean, like the truth in the Venezuela thing, it's like I think time will tell if if it was a good outcome for the world, for the Venezuelan people. Like Maduro is a terrible guy. Obviously, it was an extraordinary military operation. But it was this close to going really badly because that lead helicopter pilot took like four bullets in his leg.

47:17And if that guy is killed and that helicopter crashes, like this thing is remembered very differently. Right. It's like so Trump had been dancing through the raindrops on these military operations until Iran. There's no guarantee that, like, you know, the Cuban military won't get off a lucky shot and kill a bunch of service members and something goes really wrong. So, like, God help us all if he thinks it's a good idea.

47:38Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, that seems like the right place to leave off. God help us all. God help us all. Well, look, I think it's especially important as Trump tries to collect people who are going to run cover for him as he engages in this genocidal lunacy to keep elevating the voices of folks who are going to actually do real work and let you know what's going on. So highly recommend if you're not yet subscribed to Pod Save America, click the link right here on the screen and also in the post description. Subscribe to Pod Save America completely free, but a great way to support their work and make sure these guys get in the algorithm.

48:08Damn right. Algo time. Algo time.

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49:54Brian Tyler Cohen:Thanks so much for joining me. Hi, Brian. Thanks for having us. So right now there is new polling that's out that shows you leading your Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan, by about five points. For those people in who are watching Alaska, who feel like Alaska is perpetually out of reach. What is your response in light of this new polling? Well, Alaska is actually 12 percent Democrats, 25 percent Republican and over 60 percent independent, nonpartisan undeclared. And so that just goes to show you right there, the majority of Alaskans prefer kind of a nonpartisan conversation. We have unique Alaska challenges.

50:36We are constantly looking and collaborating for Alaska solutions. And I think that if we just keep things plain spoken and common sense, you can reach anybody.

50:50Brian Tyler Cohen:So I want to talk about what you have been saying on the campaign trail to the voters of Alaska. Can you speak a little bit about your your plan to fix the rig system in D.C.? And I ask this, especially in light of the fact that, you know, a lot of fixing the system in D.C. or draining the swamp was in large part Donald Trump and Republicans platform in 2024. And of course, now we're seeing a situation where Americans are paying more for everything thanks to a trade war. Gas is more money thanks to the war in Iran, which, by the way, is a war that Trump promised he would never engage in. And so we've seen this song and dance before.

51:30Brian Tyler Cohen:And so how does that can you talk a little bit about what you're offering and how that kind of informs what the voters are expecting? Yeah, you know, I came up in a system in state politics in the legislature in the late 90s and the 2000s. It was a different time. It was there wasn't social media. Things weren't nearly as partisan. There people had a much more collaborative outlook at the state legislative level and in Congress. And so I took a 14-year hiatus. And so coming back has been just a real shock. And especially seeing the degree to which partisanship has clobbered up the system to such a degree, we have really a do-nothing Congress.

52:15We haven't, the U.S. Congress hasn't passed a budget since I think 1998. It's been continuing resolutions year after year. And now it's even going slower than that where there's, we're chunking it out. There's tranches of the budget that we're doing in sections or whole sections that aren't getting funded at all. This really goes to illustrate what a dysfunctional system we're currently in. And this is not some kind of partisan jargon. I think everyone to a person across Alaska is feeling that disconnect between our public servants and our lives. We can all feel directly, even though it's all happening in Washington, D.C., clear across the continent, we can feel the degree to which the shift has been focused to the agendas of the millionaires and billionaires and not the working households.

53:07So I just went out. I went to six villages on the Bering Sea coast and the lower Yukon. And the degree of hardship is just very palpable. When people are paying$10 a gallon for gas,$10 a gallon for stove oil, and they're having to decide whether to buy$5 worth of diesel to heat their home or a case of top ramen or cup of noodles to feed their family, things are very stark. And I just think that this feeling of being forgotten and left behind is just now a universal feeling.

53:50Brian Tyler Cohen:Are, you know, I'm sure that in a state like Alaska, which is which is historically a Republican state, how have those conversations gone with people for whom their partisan affiliation, their political affiliation is is kind of intertwined with their identity? I'm sure there's people there, you know, whose whose grandparents voted Republican and whose parents voted Republican and they've voted Republican. And that's a point of pride. And it's probably not so easy to just be like, oh, yeah, voted for Republican my whole life. My family's longtime Republicans. I'm just going to vote for a Democrat.

54:22Brian Tyler Cohen:Obviously, times are different now. But what have those conversations been like for people who are recognizing, you know, the what Republican leadership has has wrought? Well, I think, you know, there's a lot of soul searching going on among old time Republicans, people whose families have been Republicans for generations. And they look to people like Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt as standard bearers or either of the George Bushes even at this point. And then to where we are now, I think it's it can be very depressing. And I do have to say that for those people who have grown up Democratic generation after generation and have role models like JFK or FDR, these are tough times for Democrats as well.

55:19And the conversations that I like to think about are with the over 60 percent of Alaskans that proudly say, I'm an undeclared, I'm nonpartisan, I vote for the person I think is a good person. I vote for the person who I feel has compassion and understands what we're going through and is going to work really hard on our behalf. Those are the people that I'm really encouraged by.

55:45Brian Tyler Cohen:I want to talk a little bit about about what specifically you would like to see in the Senate. Can you talk a little bit about your your priorities, issues that you'll be able to champion if you're elected? Well, you know, I'm always real careful to make sure that I'm not over promising. And I am very focused on November 3rd. I'm obsessed with election day. And I want to make sure that people understand that this is not a foregone conclusion. We're still 210 days out from the election. things can change overnight. And we just have to make sure that we're disciplined and moving forward every day.

56:25But I also want to illustrate that I've had many, you know, two decades of public service under my belt. And I have always worked for Alaskan families and Alaskan working families and, you know, people who are living hand to mouth and always thinking of ways we can diversify our economy, boost our economy, get more funds to families that are struggling. And this is, I'm not talking about one socioeconomic bracket. I feel like most of us are in that feeling like we're struggling and financially we're losing ground every month. But, you know, I think when I talk about anti-corruption agenda, I am very serious when I say I find it unbelievable that these things aren't illegal as it is.

57:23Things like members being on corporate boards, things like being allowed to do stock trading. Even after sitting through confidential briefings, having that ability to do stock trades, it's just really surprising that there is such an ambivalence or just an okay feeling about the status quo. I think that a lot of folks don't know how much you can personally gain by being a member. And I think it's worth noting that the incumbent has quadrupled his personal wealth in the 12 years that he's been there. His agenda really seems to be for millionaires and billionaires and not the working people of Alaska.

58:14Brian Tyler Cohen:So I want to point out that in terms of airing commercials and ads in your state, it obviously is much different from a market like New York or California, you know, Los Angeles, whatever it may be. And so can you talk a little bit about for people who are considering where to put their dollars if they're contributing to campaigns, what it would mean to send 10 or 20 bucks to your campaign in Alaska versus another campaign in a major metropolitan market like Manhattan or Los Angeles or Dallas or whatever it may be? so alaska has one of the least expense i think the least expensive media market in the country but we really make up for that in terms of travel costs and as alaskans we are we were very spoiled by our um federal delegation in the past we really expect candidates we expect our representatives to to come to our villages to come and come to our towns and talk to us face to face and um that is extremely expensive.

59:16When I was in Congress and running for re-election, I got a phone call from DC saying, why is it 800 times more expensive to travel in your district than a standard house district? And it's just because we're so large and so spread out. If we were our own country, we'd be the 18th largest country in the world. We're really big. At low tide, you could put three Texases within Alaska. We have more coastline than all of the lower 48 combined. We are just a vast different state. Really, there are like six states within our state. And people really do have an expectation of face-to-face communication.

59:58And I find that face-to-face communication is the best. There's nothing that can replace that. And I've really enjoyed going out and listening to people. People have a lot they want to get off their chest. People have a lot that they are juggling and they want to talk about it with someone. They want to share their ideas for solutions. So and that takes a lot of money. It takes a lot of money and time to get even a yard sign out to the hinterlands, to a small village. It's about$25 per yard sign. And if you're living in a small village, that is the only way that you participate in a statewide campaign like this is putting up a yard sign in front of your house.

1:00:38So it's really important that we have yard signs and are shipping them out.

1:00:43Brian Tyler Cohen:I want to ask one more question before we wrap. And that is, could you give an example of a moment that stuck with you from the campaign trail that kind of serves as a pretty accurate microcosm for what your campaign represents? Has there been a moment or an anecdote or somebody that you've met that's really kind of put the whole thing into perspective here? Well, I went to a village on the lower Yukon and, you know, it's really hard for people who rely on salmon, not just for their economic household, you know, not just having that kind of foundational food source and that nutrient source, but really the ability to teach your kids how to be Alaskan, how to be native.

1:01:32You can't really do that with words or books. It really is taught through hunting and fishing and sharing all the values that come with that, learning how to read the weather, respecting your catch, sharing your harvest, firearm safety, gear safety, all of those things when we're not able to fish, when a community has been told for seven summers they're not allowed to fish, it's just soul crushing. It's both very concerning on an economic everyday level, but it's also really concerning on, you know, in terms of wellness, in terms of, you know, for so many people across Alaska, getting outdoors and participating in hunting and fishing is the bulk of their wellness plan.

1:02:22And to be able to then be told, you know, this is not something that you are legally allowed to do. And if you do it, your gear will be confiscated, your firearm will be confiscated. That is a very tough conversation to have. And especially if you're in a community where you're not talking to people in charge, people in charge aren't finding their way to your community to have these tough conversations. So, you know, and the fact that they're paying$10 a gallon for gas and heating fuel, and they know what it's going to go up when that first barge gets in after breakup, after after the ice gets out of the river.

1:02:58So we you know, there's just so much concern and we are ready for some good news and we're ready for people to start working together to help us dig our way out of these concerns. All right.

1:03:10Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, that seems like the perfect place to leave off. So I'm going to leave it there again for those who are watching right now. You can go to Mary Peltola dot com if you're looking to contribute. It makes a big difference. I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. If you're listening on the podcast, I'm going to put it in the show notes. Mary, I could not thank you enough for taking the time today and best of luck in the campaign trail. Thank you, Brian. Appreciate it. Thanks again to Jamie Raskin, Tommy Vitor and Mary Peltola. That's it for this episode.

1:03:38Brian Tyler Cohen:Talk to you on Wednesday.

1:03:52Brian Tyler Cohen:a 5 star rating and a review.