Blue Wave Building in the Strait of Hormuz

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26:10Let's talk about how bad the politics of Iran are getting. Let's pivot to some good news. For Trump and the Republicans who will be on the ballot this fall. A bunch of them just got classified briefings from the Pentagon about the war. And some of them do not seem happy. Mike Rogers, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said senior officials failed to provide basic details about the scope and direction of the military campaign. That's according to the New York Times. Roger Wicker, chair of the armed services over in the Senate, said he could see why Rogers would say that. He wouldn't go quite beyond that.

26:41He was like, let me just say I could see why he said that. And here's a surprising MAGA voice of reason who was in those briefings. Nancy Mace. What was it about today's briefing that you found so concerned in terms of the idea of the United States possibly putting troops on the ground in Iran? You've got to be careful about what I say because it was in a skiff and it was a classified setting, but there was frustration that reverberated throughout based on the information that we were receiving. And I'm Maga Mace. I am a conservative, a foreign Republican, and I support President Trump. I think he's done an excellent job.

27:20But when we're talking about troops on the ground, that is a different stage in an operation or in a war that has a significantly greater gravity than any other thing that we've talked about. I mean, reading between the lines with what May said and what some of these other Republicans are telling reporters about these briefings, it sure seems like they were briefed that they're going to be some kind of ground troops on the ground in Iran soon, whether it's on Carg Island or wherever the fuck it is. And I didn't have a lot of details beyond that because they all seem pretty freaked out. Yeah, it seems quite bad.

27:55It makes sense because I'm sure they got to, for the first time, ask questions about like, what's the plan? What are we doing? What do we know? How do we get out of this? And there are no good answers to those questions. So Nancy Mace is running for governor of South Carolina, which I forgot until that interview in a crowded primary. Obviously, she's Nancy Mace and usually unwell. But what does her answer tell you about the politics there in some of these races? You know, it's interesting because if you look at the polling, which we're going to dig into in a minute, but there is among Republican base voters, MAGA voters, there is a high level of support for what President Trump is doing in Iran.

28:32Will there be a high level of support for$200 billion for that? That's an open question. But so she's not actually doing – she's not capturing something that you feel right now. But South Carolina is a state with a very high military and veterans population. it is she's maybe thinking ahead about where things might be a week from now two weeks from now three weeks from now a few months from now about where people are going to be but like i think i i'm not going to give nancy mays credit for being like sincere here but it does seem like she went to the briefing wanting to support trump and came out believing maybe not that trump is wrong here but that he's being poorly served by the people who are running this war Yeah, I mean, none of them can do the most obvious thing, which is to criticize Donald Trump, because he is the big boy at 80 years old, who has decided to fight this war and is the decision maker.

29:28But they are too afraid. So they can't do that. So they all try to like blame someone else or talk around it. But you can tell the people who are in, you know, who have to run for office or in tough races, or even the people who just like been there a while. and have been through other wars are starting to think this is a little bit crazy because it is. You can't think it's not crazy. If you have any amount of sanity in your life, you can't think it's not crazy because it's fucking bananas. It makes no sense what we're doing. No one can answer a question about it. There is no explanation. We're a month into it.

30:01There is no strategy. There is no objective. There is no end game. The gas prices are going up. If you spent your entire life fantasizing and possibly purient ways about a war with Iran like Lindsey Graham. This is very exciting. If you're just someone who hasn't thought about this for two seconds, it's just getting your news from the Fox News propaganda channel on the war, then maybe you think things are going fine. But if you actually think about it for a second, it's insane. It was also telling how Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance spoke about it at the cabinet meeting. We could have played clips forever, but we didn't really have the time.

30:40But like Rubio, all he could say, continued to say is like the people running Iran are religious lunatics. They're religious lunatics. Like that's all he can say because he's like, OK, here's something that's true. So I can keep saying that. J.D. Vance went on something about like, you know, some of these some of these guys, they walk in to to a store with a with a vest on with with with bombs in the vest and they blow it up. And imagine if it was nuclear. Imagine if the bombs were bigger. Like it made no fucking sense. He's talking about like random suicide bombers. Was he talking about them here in the Middle East?

31:15He doesn't even know. Like he's way that guy is like does not want to be any part of this, although apparently he might be leading negotiations. It is interesting to watch both of those two who may have political futures beyond this try as hard as they can to avoid talking about this war. Yeah, Rubio's was, which I saw, I only saw clips of J.D. Vance, but Rubio, he basically has tried to define success as what's already happened. So no matter what happens next, no matter who's in charge, no matter what deal is struck, no matter when the straight opens or not, Iran was dangerous. There are dangerous people in charge.

31:52Those people are now dead. We are safer because of it. Like that is his, he's trying to, like that's not how the world works. That's not what's actually happening, but that's the case he's trying to make. And I think in his mind, anything that happens after that is Pete Hicks' fault. Yeah, that is true. It feels like Trump's getting ready to do that, too, since he basically has said a couple times this week, Pete wanted the war. Pete doesn't want the war to end. It was Pete's idea to do the war, and now he's really sad that we're going to have to end it. So, yeah, they are preparing to. Pete's going to be doing his next briefing from under the bus.

32:22So all these Republicans are clearly seeing the same polls the rest of us are. People are pissed at this point, mostly because of the war's economic impact. Mortgage rates increased for the third straight week are now at a five month high. Gas is now at an average of$3.98 a gallon, expected to keep climbing. A new forecast on Thursday said inflation is headed back up this year. And all of this is why Trump's approval rating is already hitting record lows for his second term. Now under 40 percent, according to three new polls out this week from Quinnipiac, AP and Reuters. A new Fox poll has his disapproval at 59%, the highest in either of his terms, with half of those strongly disapproving.

33:02Poll's even worse on his handling of Iran, where he's underwater 36 to 64. What a week not to have an episode of Polar Coaster. But for those of you who don't yet get the message box, which you should be subscribers, which crooked.com slash yeswedan, go subscribe to the message box. But here you're just going to give us all a free preview, maybe? of what you said in the message box today? I will. So Trump's position is even worse than people think it is. As you point out, his approval rating is lower than it has ever been. He is under 40 in three polls this week. As Lakshad Jain in the argument points out, Trump is not just unpopular.

33:39He's more unpopular than any modern president at this point in their presidency, including Donald Trump in his first term. It's tough. He is underwater on every single issue. His entire political strength, The reason he's been able to survive every other problem, period of political turmoil in his career has been because people trusted him on the economy. That is over. He is 20 points underwater on the economy, 30 points underwater on inflation. In a couple of these polls, Trump's economic rating is now lower than Joe Biden's was at any point in Joe Biden's presidency. Wow. And then there's another point here, which I think does not get enough attention.

34:17I hit on this in the message box is, it had always been true since Trump came down the escalator that yes, Trump drove intense opposition among Democrats. He also drove intense support among Republicans. And so Trump being on the ballot or Trump being out there campaigning, yes, it would drive up Democrats, but it helped Republicans because it would drive up Republican turnout too. That is not true anymore. In Nate Silver's polling model, the number of Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump is two times the number of Americans who strongly approve of Trump. Republicans like Trump, they don't love him anymore.

34:52And you can see that in the generic ballot, right? In a CNN poll last month, I think you guys might have mentioned this on Tuesday, but the number of Democrats who are highly interested in the election or motivated to vote is much higher than the number of Republicans. And when you just ask among those who are highly interested in the election, how they're going to vote in 2026, the generic ballot expands from five points to 16 points. I mean, this is the makings of an absolute 1994, 2018, 2006 style political disaster. And I left 2010 out for a reason I can explain if you're interested. But it is like the conditions are there for just an absolute disaster for Trump and the Republicans this fall.

35:35Why'd you leave 2010? Because 2010, I think, is different because Obama was much, much more popular than any of these other presidents were at that point. And you had 10 % unemployment. But the thing that really hurt Democrats was that we had had two consecutive wave elections. And so there was this huge number of seats that were in enemy territory that the wave receded in 2010, and they all got left behind. But yes, if you want to compare it to 2010, Trump's numbers are abysmal compared to Obama's at that point. I keep seeing these polls and it's it's look it's lovely it's the best part of my day to see polls where Trump's uh under 40 but you know the election is uh with other Republicans on the ballot it's the midterm election coming in November and you know the generic ballot like you said it's been it's so the the average the Democratic lead on the generic ballot right now is five and a half points in Nate Silver's average that said this week the individual polls have sort of been all over the map.

36:39There's been a big range. So just this week, it was Democrats plus 11, plus 10, plus eight, plus eight. There's a Quinnipiac polls, Global Strategy Group, Emerson. And then you had like Reuters, where Trump's approval is very, very low. YouGov Morning Consult that only has Democrats up like between two and four points in those polls. So it could be much bigger than five and a half at this point. It is notable, of course, that in all these polls, the approval rating of the Democratic Party is still in the shitter. Now, the Republicans aren't more popular either, but like maybe like a point or two more popular than the Democrats in these polls.

37:16But Democrats and the Republicans are sitting at like 30, 35 percent favorability in a lot of these polls. Now, among independents, Democrats are slightly more popular than Republicans, which, you know, is probably good for the midterms. And of course, some of that Democratic weakness is just Democratic voters being pissed at the party, but still going to vote Democrat. But I do wonder as you look towards the midterms, like, do Democrats need to start making more of a case against the Republican Party in general and not just Donald Trump? Or do you think that they're just so tied to Donald Trump that it's easy to, if Trump's approval is way down, then people are just not gonna vote for Republicans?

37:54History would say that in the midterms, making it about Trump is sufficient. Is enough. There is, like, the way I would think about this is a two-step process. Voters leave one side, and you have to persuade them to come over to your side. Step one has happened. Step two has not yet happened. There are opportunities for that to happen. There are things we're going to have to do. The Democratic approval rating, as you point out, is abysmal. Also, if you compare Republican versus Democrat trust on the issues, yes, Trump is 30 points underwater on inflation, but we're essentially tied, generic Democrats tied with a generic Republican on inflation.

38:28And some of these House races are sort of a generic Democrat versus a generic Republican. We're going to have to continue to make that case. That individual Democrat is going to have to show why they are better than a generic Democrat on inflation or cost of living and a whole host of other issues. And so there's a lot of work to do. The way I would put it is this is a historic opportunity for the party. The political storm clouds have aligned as such that we have a shot to have a very, very big election. We have work to do to get there. That includes improving the party brand. It includes our candidates running good races.

39:04It includes having enough money to be able to compete in some of these Trump plus 10, Trump plus 12, Trump plus 13 seats that are on the cusp of possibly tipping if we do everything right. It means being able to compete aggressively in all these expansion Senate states like Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Alaska, maybe even Florida. And so there are a lot of ways that we can stumble on the way of the altar here, but the opportunity is there as we sit here today. And if this work continues, if oil prices and gas prices continue to go up, the opportunity is going to get even bigger. And again, this is not just about 2026, but it is about setting the table for 2028, because for every extra House seat and especially Senate seat Democrats win this time around, it's going to help our chances of having majority if we get a Republican president in 2028 and then can actually pass it.

39:56And that means, and I think the Senate map is instructive here, right? Which is like, it used to be that we're like, oh, maybe we're close in Texas or wouldn't it be cool if we won Alaska? But it's like, no, no, no. Now, Texas, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa. We need two of those four and North Carolina and Maine and to hold Michigan and New Hampshire in order to win and Ossoff and Georgia, sorry, to have a Senate majority to take the Senate back. And then the map doesn't get a whole lot easier in 2028. There's not a lot of pickup opportunities in 28 for Democrats either. So then you'd have to like hold more seats in tough states.

40:35And maybe I guess, wait, Ron Johnson's up in Wisconsin then in 28. And McCormick is up. And McCormick in Pennsylvania. Yeah. No, no, no, that's not true. Sorry. Federman's up. Federman's up. Federman's up. But like, this is a little bit of bad luck is you would have almost wanted. Yes, we have all that. Like maybe this year we have a shot at some of these Senate seats. we would not have in a different year. Also, we have a bunch of Democrats in tough seats who we'd like to have up in a great year like this. It was like Joe Manchin was able to cruise to re-election in 2018. It would have been great if we could have re-elect Ruben Gallego or Mark Kelly or Ralph E.L.

41:11Warnock or Tammy Baldwin. It's not the best year to have this happen, but the opportunity is there. And your point is, if we do not pick up a significant number of sentences, even if we don't get to 51, We're not we're not are the next Democratic president in 2029 is not going to have a governing majority to start with. And again, just like want to get this in people's minds, too. You might think, OK, well, Trump's out Democratic president, a Democratic president without a congressional majority passing a bunch of executive actions. Not going to fly. Yeah, because we have this Supreme Court. We've seen what happens and everyone's just going to get incredibly cranky with good for good reason at that Democratic president.

41:51and then we're going to lose the majority. Then we're probably going to lose, you know what I'm saying? So it's just like you really, it really is important, you know, go to Vote Save America because we're focused on giving you stuff to do to help take back the House. But there's also Senate races. There's plenty for everyone to do. But you're right. It could be a historic opportunity because of the political environment in 2026. And we need to put the fucking foot on the gas to pick up every single seat possible. And that's going to require not just Trump fucking things up, but Democrats getting their shit together.

42:32Pod Save America is brought to you by Stamps.com. It's staggering that to this very day many small business owners are still making post office runs or are stuck with expensive postage meter leases. We're staggered. We're staggered by this. Falling over. Staggering. It's 2026. Enough. Enough. Basta. mail and ship when you want, how you want with stamps.com. With stamps.com, you can send from your computer or phone 24-7. No long lines, no low supplies, open anytime. Print postage on demand and get up to 90 % off carrier rates like FedEx, UPS, and USPS. Schedule carrier pickups right from your door and get carrier-compliant labels every time.

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43:39That's right. One of the podcasts. OGs. OGs. And you know what? For good reason, because Stamps.com, super helpful. Great way to save time. Right now, you can try stamps.com risk-free for 60 days. Go to stamps.com and use code PSA to get 60 days risk-free. 60 days gives you plenty of time to see exactly how much time and money you're saving on every shipment. That's stamps.com, code PSA. Stamps.com, code PSA. The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes, and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Preddy was executed by ICE and Border Patrol.

44:23That is not a headline. That is a human life. And it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst, then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show, Runaway Country, we go where the headlines hit home, from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard.

45:07New episodes of Runaway Country drop every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.

45:37president's home in Mar-a-Lago, where Trump himself voted on Tuesday, along with Melania and Barron. Now, you might be wondering how they voted, since this is what Trump said earlier this week. I hate mail-in ballots because basically it's a way of cheating. Hates them. Hates them. Let's hear how he answered a question about this at the cabinet meeting. You mean I used a mail-in ballot? You probably said, yeah, I did. You know what? Because I'm president of the United States. I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine. You were in Tall Beach, sir, the last few weekends.

46:08That's right. And I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn't be there because I had a lot of different things. But, you know, we have exceptions for mail-in ballots. You do know that. Oh, yeah. So, okay. So you had a lot of different things. So you used mail-in voting because it was more convenient. Is that what you're saying? Okay, cool. You know, look, it's unique to a president to have to work on Election Day and maybe not be able to get off work, to go to the polls. And so those people who can't get off work to go to the polls should be able to mail in their ballot.

46:39Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, it's a great case. Isn't that interesting? He makes a great case for mail-in balloting right there. He also said, he's like, and we have exceptions. We have exceptions. If you're sick, if you're on a business trip. And I'm like, oh, really? How are you going to implement those exceptions? You're going to require a doctor's note from people, an employer's note that they were on a business trip to get their mail-in balloting done? What the fuck is he talking about? It's so stupid. It's so crazy. It's so stupid because it's also worth remembering. His campaign aggressively encouraged mail balloting in 2024.

47:08Yes, of course, because Republicans know that they need mail-in balloting as well. You know what state has led the nation in mail-in balloting for a very long time? Florida. And you know who had usually benefited for a very long time before COVID? Republicans. Anyway, let's talk about that race that Trump voted in. And obviously, he also endorsed the Republican candidate. That didn't help. What do you think of those Florida wins? Is the blue wave going to bury Mar-a-Lago? Well, look, with our current climate policy, eventually, yes, John. Something is. Yes, yes. A wave will do it of some kind.

47:45Electorally or otherwise, yes. Like, these are big wins. They are indicative of the political environment. It's about an 11, 12-point swing in the district that has Mar-a-Lago. A big swing in the Tampa district where that Democrat was outspent 10 to 1 in the race and still won. Wow. And we spent a lot of time in 23 and 24 pointing out that special elections were not perfectly predictive, that it's a very different political environment. We were succeeding in them as Democrats because we had a base of high propensity voters who turn out all the time. Now, two interesting things here. One, yes, there was very good Democratic turnout in these races, but that's not why the Democrats won.

48:23The number of votes received by both the Democrats in these districts dramatically exceeded the number of registered Democrats in the district. And so the only way they could perform that well was to do very well with independents and Republicans. Another thing that our friend Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report has pointed out in a piece today, special elections have been pretty predictive of midterms. So both in 2018, Democrats were winning special elections by about 11 and a half points, and they won the national popular vote by nine points. And then in 2022, Republicans were winning special elections by about four points, and Republicans won the popular vote by three points in that election.

49:03You know, I was going to ask you this because I was looking at the swing in that Mar-a-Lago district between the last Republican who won it because Trump won it by 11, but the last Republican won by, I guess, 19. And I feel like all of these, the swing from 24 and so many of these special elections ends up somewhere between like 15 and 20. And it's just like it keeps hitting there every time. And I'm like, it's weird because, you know, we're seeing the generic ballot at, you know, five and a half right now, some 10 or whatever. But all these swings from 2024 have been in the in the high teens.

49:37I think the average of all the special elections since 2025 has been about 12 points, I think. That's been the performance above Kamala Harris's number. Yeah, I feel like in 26, I feel like the last couple months of them have gotten a little – I mean, there's a small sample size, but I feel like they've gotten a little bigger. There have been a couple gigantic ones this month. These things are always very – you've got to look at all of them because they're very race-specific. You could have a very bad candidate. You use the Trump number, not the previous House race in that House district with Mar-a-Lago because it probably was not particularly competitive because the Democrat didn't run a real race.

50:17So you throw them all in there. Right now, the special elections look like 2018 in terms of margin. Wow. Well, that's exciting. Except for the generic ballot. We have work to do. We got work to do. All right. which are currently still a complete mess, just as millions of kids and families are traveling for spring break. Security lines are hours long in some places, all because TSA agents haven't been paid in a month. Many have stopped showing up for work. Nearly 500 have quit. Problem hasn't been solved by Trump sending in ICE agents to stand around all day in the airport. That hadn't fixed it.

50:53But just now, Dan, breaking news. Oh, wow. We have breaking news. Trump has truthed. he has he said that he is instructing the department of homeland security to pay tsa which apparently he could have done all along i guess you know i don't think that's how that works that's what he so here here we go i'm gonna get through i'm gonna just read you that his statement there's a lot of this is exciting life radical left democrats crying chuck schumer they've you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's see. The Democrats almost destroyed our country, asylums, blah, blah, blah. You've heard that all before.

51:33Okay. Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true national crisis, I am using my authorities under the law to protect our great country, as I always do. Therefore, I am going to sign an order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen, congrats to you, Senator Mullen, to immediately pay our TSA agents in order to address this emergency situation and to quickly stop the Democrat chaos at the airports. It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it. I want to thank our hardworking TSA agents, blah, blah, blah, and ICE, of course. That's it. Thank you for attention to this matter, DJT.

52:10That seems bad. What, you think it seems bad? Yeah, I think it seems bad because that says Tell me why. Because that says there's no deal, which means there's no law being passed that sends money to the Department of Homeland Security, that they can then take that money and give it to the workers. We have a response from Chris Murphy. He said, the national emergency is that he can't cut a deal, that he's a bad negotiator. I don't think that's grounds for a national emergency. We made progress today. We've been actively talking all day. So the backstory here is Congress has not been able to reach a deal.

52:44It seems like one option that has been discussed is basically funding everything in the Department of Homeland Security except for ICE. But then also Democrats, even if they do that, still want some reforms for ICE. Not as much, I think they'd be willing not to do as many reforms as they originally asked for, but they want more than the White House was going to give them, which is basically nothing. And so that was the sticking point, but I'm not quite sure what the challenge was there. Like, I don't know why you can't just, because I know Democrats were trying to just fund TSA and Republicans were blocking that.

53:19So then why not fund all of DHS and just leave ICE for another negotiation? The sticking point was, if you want to get nerdy about this, is that if you fund all of DHS except ICE, you're still funding CBP and HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, and they do immigration enforcement. And so they would be proceeding. We'd be paying them to do immigration enforcement absent reforms. And if we remember, it was CBP officers who were involved in the killing of Alex Preddy. It also seems like they were going to get a deal. As our old boss, Pete Rouse from Obama World used to say, nothing motivates a senator like the smell of jet fumes.

53:58And once John Thune said, well, I guess we're not going to be able to go on recess if we don't fix this. It was pretty sure they're headed for a deal. So Trump has fucked this up. It's not clear how they're going to pay for it. Like, are they going to take money from ICE and give it to them, which seems cool, but definitely not legal. Maybe they'll get some from the big, beautiful bill. But riddle me this. I mean, I'm like, yeah, like I ever say nothing matters, but that's definitely not how the power of the purse works. Like Congress didn't fund them. Like you can't maybe he's getting a rich person to pay them.

54:32I don't really know what's happening. No, no, he's he's he's he's he's he's clearing an emergency. It's the authority under the law, under the law, of course. So here's here's a question, Dan. So the Department of Homeland Security then is still shut down. No one else in DHS is getting paid. Trump is paying just the TSA workers with some emergency funding that we don't know where it's coming from yet. Why then, for the last two weeks, have Republicans blocked Democrats' efforts to simply just fund TSA? Because it's very easy to, they could right now, with a very simple vote in the Senate, in the House, just say, OK, we're going to fund TSA and let's negotiate the rest later so we can fix the airports, which Democrats have been trying to do.

55:15Republicans blocked that and now Trump's basically doing it anyway with some magic money. As America's favorite soybean farmer would say, he's jujitsu-ing you, John. We're jujitsu-ing the Iranians with their own oil. I honestly have no idea. I don't even know what to say because it makes no sense. It seems crazy. Maybe it's so crazy it'll work. Someone pointed out Eric Wasson from Bloomberg. He said Trump did the same likely illegal move to pay troops during the fall shutdown. And it was just too politically toxic to try to stop it in court. So, you know, so it's illegal. But who's going to court to say don't pay?

55:56Yeah, that's probably what's that's probably what's happening here. That is probably what's going to get Amtrak sues. Get people back on the trains. Hey, you know what? It's like whether the Republicans finally said yes to the Democrats attempt to fund TSA or Trump just just does it with magic money that we can't find. Who cares? I guess the airports will get fixed. Although, it'd be nice to have those 500 TSA agents that quit back, probably, huh? Yeah, it seems like things are not going to be perfect anytime soon at the airports. I also don't understand how this is going to get any kind of a deal now at DHS, because what's the pressure to get a deal now that the airport chaos is going to subside?

56:38Yeah, if I was a Coast Guard or FEMA worker, I'd be pretty pissed right now. Right, because they all have to get paid. Yeah. And how much magic money is there, John? Who knows? Who knows? We're spending, how many billions have we spent in Iran already? He's just, Scott Besson's going to turn on the presses and start printing those Donald Trump bucks. Get those printed for some people. Yeah, we got to fucking build the ark too. Yeah.

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59:45Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst, then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show, Runaway Country, we go where the headlines hit home, from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of Runaway Country drop every Thursday.

1:00:23Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.

1:00:50the one and two spots. If you're not familiar, California has a jungle primary system where all candidates, regardless of party, compete in the same primary with the top two vote getters advancing to the general election. Here in 2026, two Republicans are running in the primary along with around 10 ,000 Democratic candidates. I think that's the number. And according to the California Democratic Party's poll, those two Republican candidates, Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, are polling at around 15 % while no Democrat is polling higher than 10%. So this is a fucking mess. USC had to cancel a debate this week that would have featured the two Republicans and four of the leading Democratic candidates because USC's debate criteria locked out four of the lower polling candidates who all happen to be either black, Latino or Asian who pushed back pretty hard until the debate was called off.

1:01:42What'd you make of that before we get into the broader issue? The mistake here is the criteria included not just polling position, but also money. So that led them to include Matt Mahan, the low polling, but mayor of San Jose, who also has a lot of money because people like Sergey Brin and a lot of tech people are funding his campaign. and so once you put you I think you could have made a credible argument that you were going to stop at Tom Steyer Eric Swalwell Katie Porter they have been three four and five in the polls and bunched up together for a very long time with a decent size gap between them and everyone else but once you included Mahan in there it seemed like a very I understand why people would be upset about that because you shouldn't be able to get on a debate stage just because Sergey Brin writes a massive check to your super PAC yeah it does seem like that the criteria was laid out before the debate when they all agreed.

1:02:33So it's not like they made it up as they went. Yes, yes. Point taken. But I think the larger challenge is there's a debate on April 1st and I think there's one on April 22nd and the Democratic candidates were not included in the USC debate. Javier Becerra, Antonio Villaragosa, Tony Thurmond, who's the superintendent, state superintendent in California, Betty Yee, who's the former state comptroller. They have all made apparently an informal pact that if not all of them are included in a debate, then none of them will participate in the debate, which seems like unwise to me for the next two debates.

1:03:07I think it's a mess. Because I think Becerra and Villarosa did qualify for the next debate, but I don't know if they're going to – and I think they accepted. And now are they not going to go because Yee and Thurmond, who are polling at 1 % and 2%, aren't going to go? I don't know. Broader question, what happens now? Primary is June 2nd. Ballots are already printed. They will start getting mailed out in early May. what a California Democrats need to do to fix this mess and avoid accidentally electing a Republican governor. It's a classic collective action problem, John. Everyone's incentive is to keep things exactly as the way they are up until the exact moment where we nominate two Republicans to run for governor in the most democratic state in the country.

1:03:50I mean, there have been several polls now, right? I think it's six. I think we're at Just one of the maybe vote hub or someone who does a polling average. We've just hit the criteria to actually keep an average going. And it's bad for Democrats. Well, but here's what's important about these polls. So you got the two Republicans who are either in the one or two spot or one or three or whatever else. And then Tom Steyer, Eric Swalwell, and Katie Porter are all in like double digits in most of these polls. I think a few polls, maybe Katie's at eight or, you know, someone else like they slip here and there, but most of them are in like double digits in these polls.

1:04:28then Becerra, Villarosa, Thurman, Betty Yee and Matt Mahan are all none of them have topped five in any of these polls, 5 % many of them are like one or two or three so it's like these candidates are just they're just going to stay in even though they think and like here's the thing Matt Mahan you're like okay well he's the mayor of San Jose and so maybe you know people don't really know him although now he does have a lot of money so we can get on air. He joined the race late, but put him aside. Becerra has won statewide. He was the attorney general of California, served in the Biden administration.

1:05:05So clearly he's got name ID. Vieragosa ran statewide. Mayor of LA ran against Gavin Newsom when Newsom ran. So he ran a statewide campaign. And then Tony Thurman and Betty Year at like 1 % anyway. But like what? I don't know. If you're Becerra and Vieragosa, like what are you doing? Or Matt Mahan at this point. Like what are you doing? Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I mean, it is. The problem here is that California is basically a 60-40 state, and the 60 is being divided up like 12 ways, and the 40 is being divided up two ways. And the math is very bad for Democrats, if that's the case. Now, there is a big chunk of undecided, and that undecided is mostly Democratic.

1:05:42And so what you have to hope is that when that undecided comes home, it comes to one of the candidates who has an actual chance of winning, right? If the undecided allocates evenly amongst all 12 candidates or whatever it is, then we stay in this problem. It's also – I wrote in the aforementioned message box a month or so ago, like, now it's not time to panic. I don't think it's time to panic yet, but we're getting close to panic time. And people are going to – like, what's going to have to happen here is people are going to have to think about what's best for the party and the state and not themselves.

1:06:14It's going to include all these candidates who do not have a shot to win. Because if you do not have support now and you do not have money to become known in the most expensive television state in the country, you are not going to win. There is no path to winning. It can't happen. So the best thing you can do is drop out and endorse someone who has a chance to win. So that's it. So failing that, it is incumbent upon everyone who has a platform, from Gavin Newsom, Adam Schiff, Alex Padilla, people who talk into microphones, people who post on social media, to at some point in the near future say, these are the candidates who have a chance to win.

1:06:55Pick one of them. And a vote for anyone else is a vote for a Republican governor of California. This actually went down in a house race or two in 2018. Yeah, I remember that. Because this comes up periodically when you have a lot of Democrats running and two Republicans, you're going to end up in this situation. And we've successfully navigated those. That's easier to do at a House race level than a statewide level. But people are going to have to say, and it's going to be uncomfortable because the most, most, most, most likely scenario is those three candidates are going to be Eric Swalwell, Tom Steyer, Kitty Porter.

1:07:27Right. And I was going to say, like, that's it. But it's like, you know, I guess you got, what, another week or two. Let's see another couple polls. If anyone breaks up, it's like nothing's happening. California is a huge state. It's an expensive state. No one knows who anyone is other than the governor and the senators. These candidates, even though you're right, Becerra was the attorney general and Biden's agency secretary and a member of Congress for a long time. No one knows very much about him. The same thing. All these other people you're mentioning, other than Matt Mayhem, are state elected officials.

1:07:59They have run statewide and no one knows anything. And they don't have the money to introduce themselves. The system here sucks because of how expensive it is to run ads. And the state's too big to go around and meet everyone. And local media is so hollered out that you can't even have an incredible earned media communication strategy to get well-known because no one sees that shit anymore. And so this is where it is what it is. And it's going to be uncomfortable. We're going to have to make some tough decisions to ensure that California does not have a Republican governor. One thing that these Democratic candidates and every other Democratic official in California could all work together or decide together on is to elevate one of those Republican candidates and attack that Republican candidate instead of the other one and to make them a bigger deal.

1:08:48because I was thinking about this when I was reading Gavin's book and Tommy and I interviewed him like he talked about how in his race it was him and Villaraigosa and he knew that if in the general he felt good about winning but it would be a tougher race against a fellow Democrat Villaraigosa than it would be a Republican and so he elevated John Cox as this Trumpy Republican focused all of his advertising negative advertising on Cox and nothing he barely mentioned Villaraigosa and then sure enough, Cox won second and Viragosa got third and then Gavin Cruz to victory. And obviously this is a different situation, a different composition of candidates, but I would imagine if they all decided we're gonna all go after Steve Hilton, he's the boogeyman, he loves Trump, he's on Fox all the time and make him the big bad guy, then like maybe he gets more Republicans and then Chad Bianco falls.

1:09:35Well, I think so in the Cox-Newson race, I think Cox got 38, got 40%, right? Right. And so when you add up what like I haven't looked at the average, but in general, it seems like Bianca plus Hilton's getting to like. 32, 32. Yeah. So you have what you're probably doing. You're taking that 8 percent of Republicans who don't know that the poll that the election is happening and putting them towards one of them. It's not clear you're it's not it's not a zero sum game among two Republicans for what Newsom was doing, if I recall correctly, is there was one Republican of consequence who had any chance of making it.

1:10:08and he was making sure Republicans knew that this is the person to vote for. That's their guy. And so I think it's a slightly different situation. If it was because he was just moving one Republican ahead of a Democrat, which is easy to do given the size of the Republican electorate and the fact that most Republicans don't turn out in a primary because there's generally not much for them to vote for. Here it's different because I'm not sure you're going to lower Bianca. You might just raise Hilton. And we also say there's no one in charge. This is like... I was going to say, I wonder if like Newsom or Kamala Harris at some point...

1:10:37Or Kamala Harris, another person. who has a platform here. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like at some point, I wonder if one of these statewide officials who's popular, I mean, they're probably, you know, these campaigns are doing polls. I'm sure they've tested the power of some of these endorsements and not like I think endorsements make a huge deal, but in a situation like this where we're in a narrow range of, you know, one or two percentage points separating some of these candidates, I think it could probably make a difference. Yeah, for sure. I mean, Calvin Harrison. Of course, they'd all have to do the same.

1:11:05Yeah, that's right. Like this fucking state, you have like, Gavin Newsom like endorses Eric Swalwell and then Kamala Harris jumps in and endorses Katie Porter yeah and then someone comes in and does Steyer and then we're right back where we were again yeah my fucking mess oh but anyway yeah I mean right now it's one of those three and I know like Matt Mahan has like got in the race late but you know he's got a lot of money and he's you know spending it on ad so we'll see I think maybe like another another week or two see where these candidates are maybe maybe suddenly everyone will be like oh Villaraigosa great we want him back in state government or Becerra.

1:11:37I don't know. But like, I really think we're like a week or two away from just like, no, it's those three candidates and that's it. Yeah, we're five weeks away from ballots going out. So fuck. All right. Well, that's something to look forward to here in California. That's our show for today. Also a reminder, No Kings is tomorrow. We got another No Kings day. So make sure you make a plan to get out there. You can go to votesaveamerica.com and you can find out a No Kings location near you. Alex Wagner will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with independent journalist and Trump target Don Lemon.

1:12:11Check it out. Have a good weekend. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a Krugend Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

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1:13:16The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes, and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Preddy was executed by ICE and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life. And it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course, they're doing all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing.

1:13:57They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst. Then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show, Runaway Country, we go where the headlines hit home. From communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of Runaway Country drop every Thursday. subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.