SHOCKING GOP Plan to Fund War with Health Care Cuts

24:54It's also...

24:58So it's not just hitting the rest of the world, probably even harder than the United States. And we're already seeing that. I'm just going to read you a couple of quotes from different world leaders. South Korea's president today said, quote, the world is in turmoil over the energy crisis. The situation is so serious that it has even kept me up at night. The immediate problem is grave enough, but the outlook ahead seems even more unstable. The situation is worse than expected. Italy's defense minister. Of course, I have to make another hit for that. I am forced now to think. I am forced now to know things about what would happen in the coming week and the effects it will have on the economy and our daily lives that no longer allow me to sleep.

25:40Not a lot of sleep for foreign leaders all around the world. Yeah, there are ways the U.S. might be insulated. We have a lot. We have a lot of natural gas. And more helium than Qatar. but the possibility of a global recession will not spare us.

26:02I think this was it. I think this was like a world historic mistake, John. I'm really worried about it. Okay. I'm glad that, I'm glad that. Anyway, we're taking this seriously. We are taking this. Talk to us like in a couple of weeks, we can play back that clip when, Yeah, yeah, we're like 2000 points in the stock market and there's fucking, you know, gas lines everywhere. No, it's really fucking bad It's really bad and did that to prove a point we were highlighting. Yeah, highlighting the point and And and if this gets this information in front of more people, perhaps that was the goal too Yeah, and and the destruction Also, even if you open the straight things will not bounce back.

26:44There'll be ripple effects for a long time I genuinely think like you see this with Rubio. He's implying this a lot of times that that he's trying to tell the Europeans and other countries. We need you to open the Strait of Hormuz because honestly, Iran is like so mad at us. But also because it's going to hit you more because we do actually have more helium. We do have natural gas, right? We are insulated from some of this. But in the long term, the ripple effects of this, the way this will ricochet across all different sectors, all different countries, like it will come for us. We will not be spared.

27:12We are insulated better than other countries, but we are also more sensitive than other countries because our consumers are pussies. It's just like, oh, a couple cents. Like, no, Iran is banking on the fact here that, you know, American consumers paying higher gas prices is going to cause a much bigger political problem for Donald Trump, relatively speaking, than even some of these much more severe crises in the rest of the world. and we're not insulated because, you know, once there's a, if there's a global recession, God forbid, like that is going to affect the United States. You can't fucking escape that.

27:47And a recession while gas prices are cresting over$5 a gallon, people are already upset about prices. Like that is a worst case scenario politically for Trump and the Republican. And again, we were talking about the straight being opened again, but like that attack in Qatar on the natural gas, like it knocked out roughly 28 million tons of supply from the market this year. of liquid natural gas. That represents nearly the entire global supply growth forecast for 2026. It could take years, this is from the New York Times, years for the flow of liquid natural gas from the Mideast to return to pre-war levels.

28:23And that is just like, forget if the strait opened tomorrow, that's just, it's done, it's destroyed. And that might benefit some American fossil fuel companies. That might actually help some stock prices. But we will, consumers will not benefit from that. Consumers will pay for a global change in supply. Also, Trump's jawboning, him trying to calm the markets with his crazy truths, not really working anymore. It's already started. He did it. Well, first of all, did you see our new guy in Iran that we're negotiating with, the Speaker of Parliament, trolling Trump on Twitter now? I did see this.

28:58Heads up, pre-market so-called news or truth is often just a setup for profit taking. Basically, it's a reverse indicator. do the opposite. If they pump it, short it. If they dump it, go long. See something tomorrow, you know the drill. The idea that we're in a back and forth where you have Trump trying to work the markets to avoid him feeling pressure to end the war, and you have Iran trying to work the markets in the opposite direction, just so publicly, so baldly, because if the markets don't respond to what Trump is saying, he loses leverage in the negotiation. I mean, maybe, honestly, as I'm talking myself into seeing it as a sign for hope, John.

29:33Well, but I think that like when Trump, the latest truth, when he said great progress and stuff like that, it just didn't. It's changing the markets less. Like the markets are responding not as much as they used to. The price of oil right now is still now way above 100. It was like 110, whatever, 112. I don't remember which firm, but a firm has created a pressure index. So there's a taco index that a financial firm has created. And basically it looks at a couple different indicators to come together, to put them together to suggest the amount of pressure Donald Trump is under to argue for when he will cave on something important.

30:11And the reason I think that matters is because, yeah, you're right. The individual statements aren't causing the same kind of like corrections as we were seeing in the past. But I do think the underlying problem, and it speaks to what's going on in this conflict, too, is that the markets ultimately expect Trump to respect the markets. Right. That that that the whole mark, the whole kind of irrational optimism of the markets is based on the idea that Donald Trump cares what happens to these markets. And that is like not something that's going to show ups and downs, but is going to be baked into an overall expectation.

30:45Right. And the question is, when does that give? Yeah, well, that gives because at some point Donald Trump caring about the markets isn't enough. Donald Trump respecting the markets or being worried about the markets isn't enough because if the oil isn't there or the gas isn't there, you know, like, or the fertilizer isn't there, there's nothing he can do about it. It stops being a symbolic television fight and it starts being a real world consequence. Which is where you can see from the price of oils and the markets right now, like that is where we're getting to right now, where they realize like, okay, Donald Trump can care all he wants about the stock market and his approval rating and all that.

31:18So it doesn't matter. He can't stop it. he doesn't have the only vote here. One group of people who can't be accused of rational optimism are the MAGA types who've broken with Trump on Iran. There was a great Twitter exchange on Sunday where Ann Coulter tweeted, quote, this is Ann Coulter, watching Fox News assure viewers the Iran war is going super well and Trump is a total stud is like watching the same network assure viewers that the Dominion voting systems rigged the 2020 election and Trump was the winner. To which Marjorie Taylor Greene responded, quote, Fox News is now the fake news, brainwashing boomers to support what we voted against.

31:53What a what an exchange. I love it. There's nothing that makes me happier when Republicans get a taste for just a moment of what it feels like to be a Democrat like that. That is like they can't like what is happening? They're misinforming the public. They're inoculating them against the reality of what's going on on the ground in a way that I find displeasing. Brainwashing the boomers. they just they just started brainwashing the boomers hey hey somebody call the police fox news has begun brainwashing the boomers breaking news things didn't seem to be going much better over at cpac the annual conservative get-together that just wrapped in texas uh let's take a listen a ground invasion of iran will make our country poorer and less safe it will mean higher gas prices, higher food prices, and I'm not sure we would end up killing more terrorists than we would create.

32:50When it comes to Iran, how do you feel about that? I'm not happy. I'm not happy at all. I mean, President Trump ran on no new wars. I do question some of the things when it comes to are we just going to bend over everything for Israel, you know? This isn't, you know, what I voted for. What I voted for was domestic policy change at home and, you know, realistic foreign policy. I think a lot of people, conservatives, young conservatives right now kind of disillusioned with Trump. and I would consider myself one of those. So what could he do to win you back at this point? Not much. What a bunch of lib cucks.

33:23Was that a DSA meeting or was that? There was somebody. Matt Gates. There was somebody in the Times story said that MAGA is dying and that it was like a young person that said they felt like they had more in common at this point with the left than they did with older members of the Republican Party. Yeah, she was like a 27-year-old Florida strategist. MAGA's dying. What a quote. Politico's up with a story full of more quotes like that from young men who attended. And we played this last week on a couple of our YouTubes, but you've probably seen the crowd unexpectedly cheered. The mention of articles of impeachment from Matt Schlapp.

33:57What do you make of the seeming discrepancy between what the polls are showing in terms of MAGA support for the war and what we are seeing and hearing from both very prominent MAGA types and some of the attendees at CPAC? So if you break up Trump supporters by age, and this is what Politico did as well, that more than two-thirds of those over 35 think Trump has a plan when it's less than half of those under 35. Two-thirds of older MAGA men were willing to sacrifice American lives in Iran compared with less than half of younger MAGA men. If you get your news on television or through Facebook, kind of in the old economy, and the old economy looks a lot like what Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying about Fox.

34:35But if you're younger, you're not watching cable the same way young people. Forget MAGA, no young people are watching cable. So where are you getting your news? You're consuming it from digital right wing news, which is much less interventionist, much more heterodox generally. And so because it's an older coalition, a huge shift amongst younger supporters might not show as big of an impact in the polls, but it does represent where they're headed. And I think the thing that's interesting about what you're seeing here at CPAC, and I think the same can probably be said about Turning Point USA, is the whole old right-wing media machine that Fox News came out of, radio came out of, it existed to create a space that was in defiance of the mainstream media.

35:16And that was the enemy. The enemy was the mainstream media. And you were defying that, that consensus. But the attitude of whether it's Tucker Carlson or Daily Wire or any of these other or the Rogan kind of independent universe, it's less about defying any one institution or defining yourself against the mainstream media than it more is about just being comfortable with being heterodox and being willing to say when even your own side is wrong. I think that's a genuinely different vibe from Fox, as you would find and say, like the Daily Wire. And these young people are of that world, which is willing to be like, hey, we didn't vote for this.

35:51Like, fuck this. We're not. This is not about teams. Yeah. It's also very anti-institutionalist. Yeah. And Fox has obviously never really been that maybe when they first started. But like they are the institution. Right. Also, like one of the most common mistakes made in analyzing polls is that they are always, always, always a lagging indicator. and that a poll is telling you about what public opinion was two or three, four weeks earlier. I mean, just in the way that the poll was actually fielded, but also in just the way public opinion sort of filters down to folks who aren't paying as close attention to the news, but maybe still answer a poll.

36:29So like even today, you know, in Nate Silver's polling average of Trump's approval, he has Trump sub 40, like 39.7 for the first time. This is average approval rating, 39.7. He said his net approval is negative 17.4. That's the approval and the disapproval. Just by comparison, Trump was negative 19.1 after January 6th. So he's 17.4 now. Biden bottomed out at negative 20.5 after the debate. So Trump is like just in the worst territory that he's ever been and that other presidents have been. And to the point about the base, and Nate goes into this as well. Trump's strong approval, people who approve strongly of Trump, is down to 22.4%, which is its lowest ever.

37:15And the strong approval number has declined by more than his overall support, which means that like maybe you're not seeing it in like, do you like Trump or not like Trump? But the people who really like Trump, the base, the people who are excited about him, are down to 22%. Yeah, it's why you see a lot of reports about CPAC being a bit more space than usual in the ballrooms, that there's not the enthusiasm there was. Yeah, and there was a poll, I think it was the Harvard poll that came out today that showed more Americans prefer the Biden economy than the Trump economy. There's a lot of people re-evaluating the comparison of Biden to Trump right now.

37:54Yeah, I mean, and I think that's because at least at the beginning of the Biden economy, when the inflation was really bad, there was like, well, there was COVID, he inherited COVID, and then like over time, you know, people had less patience for Biden not having fixed inflation. But again, with Trump, the difference is he did this. Like it's been so rare that there's been a crisis like this, like an economic crisis, especially where you're like, not, oh, the president presided over a recession and maybe you can blame them for this or that. But like, no, no, no, this is a, he did the tariffs, he did the war.

38:26He just did them. No one made him do it, he just did it. The Trump kind of yo-yo of attention on him leads his approval rating to fall sub 40, if you're lucky, and then it bounces back to mid 40s thereafter and kind of hovers. I do feel like we're into the more end of the Biden term. He shouldn't be running. And we're still mad about inflation or post Katrina Bush, where he's kind of found a floor and there's no way off of it that people have come to a conclusion about Trump. I think that's where we're at. Yeah. Meanwhile, the the Yahoo's who are running in the midterms, the republicans they seem to be running some kind of experiment on just how unpopular they can make this war with voters in an election year i give you the following axios headline from monday morning that's undoubtedly coming to a message box near you quote gop weighs health care cuts to pay for iran war amazing just axios puts up that the the message box shapes uh spotlight on the cloud dan on spring break yeah dan's on spring break yeah he's with his family he probably just like what what should you hear that like presses three keys on a piano a little door opens up he takes the pole down to the message box cave apparently republicans in congress are thinking about putting together a big new budget bill that would fund both the war on iran and ice paid for in part by cutting medicare medicaid and obamacare just one idea we're just floating the idea but boy is it a good one um for my question here i'll just read you axios's why it matters bullet new efforts to reign in health programs are sure to be controversial and open the gop up to election year attacks that they're cutting health care to pay for an unpopular war no shit you think there's a uh steve's calice uh was asked about this and he said that they're looking for waste fraud and abuse and it's so galling it's so galling because it was a year ago when they They passed the big, beautiful bill and cut a trillion dollars from health care claiming it was waste, fraud and abuse.

40:26So are we meant to believe, Steve? They didn't get it all. They got to go back in. Did you leave some behind? Like the nuclear dust in Iran. Yeah. Like just some like a to go bag of waste, fraud and abuse that you were going to come back to later. I can't think of a of a less popular way for them to try to find 200 billion dollars to spend on the war on Iran. But but they're getting close. Now, this would be a budget reconciliation bill because they know there's no way they could get 60 votes in the Senate. It would only need 51 votes in the Senate, which Republicans do technically have. What do you think the chances are they can get to 51?

41:02And I should say, I guess I assume I said that assuming that the House will pass it. But I don't even know if I assume that the House will pass it. I don't I don't assume the House will pass it. They don't have that. They don't have that much wiggle room in the House. Less and less all the time. And Boebert has come out pretty forcefully against any kind of a supplemental. I don't think it gets better when the pay-fors are health care. But then again, some of these Republicans, even ones that haven't spoken yet, have one of the only places they've been willing to draw a line is they will not vote for bills that raise the deficit.

41:31So it seems like they will need to find some kind of a pay-for. So I don't know how this thing gets through the House. In terms of the Senate, you've got to assume Collins is a no. I mean, could you imagine? It's inconceivable that she'd be. I mean, look, she's, who knows? But you assume she's a no. You assume Rand Paul is a no. So they can only lose one more. Murkowski has expressed skepticism. She's a no. There's no way she'll do that. So then that's it. And then I bet like if she's a no, why would Dan Sullivan be a yes? Because he's running against Mary Pultola. Who just has a new poll ahead.

42:03Right. So it's like then you maybe lose Sullivan. You're right. Tillis is there. By the way, if Cornyn gets through this primary, we don't know when this vote will be. but you know before the before the vote cornyn's politics are fucked anyway you slice it but i would assume if you're in the senate what you're saying is we're not going to touch this unless the house passes it because i do think it's really hard to figure out how you get this kind of a thing through maybe they pick up john fetterman uh also on the on the side what a vote for john fetterman that would be we're gonna fully fund ice we're gonna we're gonna fully fund this war we're gonna cut your health now i i bet at the end the health care cuts if you if you had to ask them whether they'd rather stomach healthcare cuts or a bill that raises the deficit in order to fund the war i think they would go for i think i think this republic most republicans in this caucus would go for the deficit doesn't reconciliation like there are rules in reconciliation that so you're going to find some fake way to pay for it fake accounting bullshit yeah but look then but then then we're talking about parliamentarians again and you do have republicans in the senate who committed to that.

43:06I don't know how this gets done. The politics of this are dog shit. And Fetterman aside, got to assume you have not a single Democratic vote for this. Yeah, I don't think you do. I hope that's the same in the House, but you don't know. It's just that they couldn't make the politics of this worse. No, they couldn't.

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45:11Speaking of ICE and DHS, the agency is still closed nearly 50 days into the shutdown, despite the fact that the Senate unanimously passed a bill on Friday that would fund all of DHS, including TSA, except for ICE and Border Patrol. But then House Republicans decided to snatch defeat from the Jaws victory by rejecting the Senate's unanimous bipartisan deal, passing a bill instead that would fund all of DHS for another 60 days and then leaving town for a two-week recess. Trump then sided with the House right after signing a likely illegal executive order to pay TSA workers, which I guess is now happening, but raises the question of why didn't he do that weeks ago?

45:50Trump also still hasn't given up on coercing Congress to pass the SAVE Act and was asked about all of this on Air Force One. ISIS vital to the well-being of our country. And they are able to protect us from the animals. I think the Senate is playing it too soft. We're dealing with very sick individuals. The Democrats are sick. There's something wrong. They're like terrorists. The leader then told me that they do not have the votes to eliminate the filibuster. How will you get around that? I know, but that's part of being a leader. You have to get the votes. Do you have confidence in the leader?

46:24I mean, I like him so much. He's a high-quality person. But that's what being a leader is. You have to get the votes. You have to get the votes. He sounds like an online lefty pundit. It's leadership or a right-wing pundit, too. Go get the votes. Go get the votes. What do you mean that's what being a leader is about? You get the votes. Yeah. The like the one thing just to note that if Mike Johnson had brought the Senate bill that had passed unanimously to the floor of the House, it would have passed with a huge majority of Republicans and Democrats, a huge majority. It would have gotten through fine.

47:03So he's doing his own politics. He's protecting himself against a few members of his caucus. He's worrying about Trump. That's that's what's happening here. So now the House Republicans and Mike Lee and others in the Senate are trying to say that the Senate Republicans have, quote, buyer's remorse over their compromise. That's what Steve Scalise told ABC. And, you know, Mike Lee said the Senate should reconvene immediately. How did they fuck this up so badly? And like, do you think that flies? Oh, we actually had buyer's remorse. We didn't know. We didn't know that we were cutting a deal with the Democrats to reopen the government.

47:36It doesn't matter what they say, how they describe it. They left DHS shut down and went on vacation. Trump is paying TSA agents because that's what's been getting the worst headlines. But I don't see what the argument would be for why TSA agents should be paid, but not the other 50 ,000 or 100 ,000 people that are going without a salary who also work for the Coast Guard and do other all kinds of vital work that are also working without P that but that Americans don't see day to day when they're traveling. It's also retroactive, the EO that Trump signed for TSA. So he's now paid them for the two paychecks they missed.

48:11But no one knows what happens as we continue to go on and the shutdown drags on. Like there's no pool of money to pay them in the future unless the government opens up. So we're sort of going to be right back where we were. So like the lines in the airports are better today. But like what happens a couple weeks from now? Yeah. So let's assume that the filibuster continues to hold. And we don't have a reason to think it won't, though. I could see the Republicans realizing their only way out of this is with Democratic votes. And so they need to start threatening to remove the filibuster to get some Democrats to be more amenable to some kind of compromise.

48:42That's just one path that this could go. but assume the filibuster is holding democrats have a pretty simple position we talked about this with murphy chris murphy on friday senator from connecticut uh we won't pay for ice unless there are reforms and we've laid out those reforms now originally when this shutdown began it was so that there would be a negotiation over what the level of reform would be and the reforms necessary are impossible uh uh funding without the reforms would be unacceptable so you'd people on the left that say the agency and some other online warriors that are not ideologically from the left that like any kind of compromise is unacceptable.

49:20Meanwhile, because ICE is funded through the big, beautiful bill, the only way of changing ICE is actually through funding it. That's just the reality. So that's what the original contours of negotiation were. But now actually, we're actually trying to extract something else, which is to force ICE to live off the money that it spent on the big, beautiful bill without our votes. Right. But Republicans don't seem to be able to pass something without us. So I don't know what happens from here. But again, I don't understand. They have the if they do another reconciliation bill, they have the ability per the deal that was passed unanimously in the Senate to fund ICE without the Democrats because they just need 50 votes in the Senate, 51 votes in the Senate and they need a majority in the House.

49:59So just fucking open the rest of DHS like everyone else voted to do in the Senate, Republicans and Democrats. And then the Democrats can say, like, we didn't vote to fund ICE or to give ICE more money. But if the Republicans really feel so strongly about ICE, they can fund ICE through reconciliation. Yeah, I do think this starts to boil down to how they pay for the$200 billion supplemental plus additional money for ICE. Yeah. And then we get back to our last conversation about why passing a new budget bill is just so hard. Yeah, I will just say like one hiccup in all of this is if they really can't get to some kind of a deal without Democrats, if the House won't accept anything Democrats will accept and the Senate won't get rid of the filibuster, added political pressure on reconciliation, how can they possibly do a supplemental for Iran without funding DHS?

50:47You're telling me we're not going to fund the Coast Guard, but we're going to buy bombs for a war nobody voted for? They think it's going to. And that's probably part of the pressure, too. It's like where, oh, you're going to keep you're going to keep everything shut down. Maybe they can make the funding bill about DHS and not necessarily the war, which also seems fucking crazy. I mentioned earlier that both the Senate and the House are in a two week recess. TMZ has become very politicized now. The outlet. They're hungry for the juicy details of what members of Congress are doing while TSA staff are, quote, according to TMZ, selling their blood to keep a roof over their heads.

51:18They caught Lindsey Graham at Disney World and posted some of these photos with the headline, Lindsey Graham living in fantasy land as government shutdown drags on. TMZ also posted a story about Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia being in Vegas, though Garcia responded by pointing out that his dad lives in Vegas. And they quote, Speaker Mike Johnson should have never sent us all home, making it clear that the House could have simply passed the Senate's compromise. Garcia also said, like, call us back. We'll come back. We'll pass at any time. You know, what do you think about the recess as an additional pain point for Republicans in the politics of all this?

51:54And do you think it's enough for Democrats to just say what Garcia did about recess? Republicans, because of a fight between Donald Trump, Senate Republicans and House Republicans, that's who the fight is between. Kept the Department of Homeland Security, right, meant to protect us from all kinds of threats. Which are, you know, rising in a time of war that they started. They have not been able to come to agreement amongst themselves to fund DHS. There is an agreement with Democrats. We made one. We passed 100 to zero in the Senate. Not a single objection. 100 to zero. Passed a bipartisan funding bill to cover DHS and allows ICE to continue to operate, right, according to what Republicans wanted.

52:36Because ICE has sitting on tens of billions of dollars from the big, beautiful bill. and in the last moments, Republicans abandoned that and then left the city, just left while that is ongoing. So like, of course, we should be exploiting it. And yeah, Robert Garcia can go visit Vegas, you know, put a couple - Democrats can do whatever they want because it's like, like, you know, you want, Democrats have nothing to do with this at this point. If Democrats went back to DC and were hanging out in Congress, they still can't do anything. Yeah, like - They don't control Congress. They can't figure out, they can't solve the fucking Republicans problem for them.

53:09We do so much like so much of politics now is just like all these kinds of symbolic battles. And like the truth is, Lindsey Graham being at Disney World is like a symbol is an aesthetically bad thing, right? Because he should be in D.C. working. The problem is Congress isn't in session because Republicans don't know what to do anyway. And they all want to go do whatever they do on their recess in their districts and on their free time. For Lindsey Graham, I guess, is to go to Disney World with friends. I was like, oh, he's there with a nephew or a niece. He was just there with friends. Going on Space Mountain, apparently holding a toy for a young girl who was going into the bathroom.

53:48I was like, it's just very weird. I don't understand. Listen, I don't understand Liddy Graham's life. I don't understand it. I don't know what brings him joy. I'll tell you what brings him joy. Space Mountain? Dropping bombs? Dropping bombs in Iran brings him joy. Yeah, yeah. I saw him at, he was at, also he was at the buffet at the Contemporary. uh at the contemporary hotel i've been at that buffet i've been at the buffet me too on the hour the the the big the big mouse comes out says hi to the kids there with my nephew uh at the time uh so that's what lindsey graham is up to we should just stop there yeah speaking of home and security shutdowns uh did you see the washington examiner story about how um border patrol had to shut down several social media accounts that greg bravino tried to bring with him to retirement after being booted from minneapolis and Trump's good graces?

54:38It's a funny story. I did see that. You know, back when LA used to make television shows, people would talk about what showrunners would be the hardest people to work for. And inevitably it was like men in their like 50s who just fucking hated their wives and their lives because all they had was their jobs. And so like, even though the show would basically, they'd written the script, it's already done. And they'd be like, we got to keep working. We got to keep going. We got to power through because they didn't really want to go home. I feel like Greg Bovino maybe doesn't want to go home. He wants to keep working.

55:07He wants to keep posting. He wants to keep posting. He wants to post through it. Apparently he'd amassed 850 ,000 followers on Facebook, Instagram, and X combined. And so when they tried to take those accounts back because they were the government accounts that belong to whoever the commander is out in fucking California or wherever it was, he said, those are my followers. So I'm taking them with me. It's, hey man, Bovino, you want your RSS feed? You got to negotiate that at the top. So present Todd, I'm keeping it. it's ridiculous it's ridiculous it is funny because when you go to the twitter account now that used to be greg bovino and now it's just like you know whatever that central command for border patrol is it looks like an official account and there's no picture of any person attached to it but the the tweet at the top is guvner pritzker perhaps you'll get a clue and realize illegal aliens all caps will continue killing americans until they're removed like stein in nc and newsom with spelled O-M-E in California.

56:02This is your fault. Thumbs down, thumbs down. Just an official account with a lot of posts calling women sweetie. Exactly. Yeah, no, it's, yeah. Anyway, good luck, Mark Wayne Mullen, trying to get your arms around that department. All right, one last thing before we go. As you heard a bit earlier, Trump isn't letting the war and the shutdown get in the way of his real priority, building the ballroom, which he explained in great detail to the reporters on Air Force One, even flipping through visual aids that he'd brought along for the occasion. Let's take a look. These pictures we just made today, we have all bulletproof glass.

56:38We have drone-proof roofs, ceilings, everything's drone-proof. There's a view of the columns. Beautiful. And they are going to be made. They're going to be hand-carved. Ooh. Beautiful. Top of the line, there'll be Corinthian, which is considered the best, most beautiful by far. This is a view of it from the north, and that's, if you see it, it fits in with the White House. It's almost a twin to the White House. It's something we just wanted to pay tribute to the White House. And so that fits in beautifully. Let me just see another one. Here's another one. Excuse me, wait. I thought I'd do this now because it's easier.

57:22I'm so busy that I don't have time to do this. I'm so busy. But I'm fighting wars and other things. But this is very important because this is going to be with us for a long time. Very important. Times had an incredible piece this weekend titled, Trump's ballroom design has barely been scrutinized. Architects say it shows. What did you make of their critiques? I think we have a, we can actually, the Times did a, it's just yeoman's work here. Very tall. Very tall. Yeah, you see right there, it says very tall. Grand staircase doesn't lead to ballroom. There's another arrow that just says no entrance here.

58:03And then another arrow on the side that says entrance is actually here. One just says unnecessarily big. so yeah first also man when you're walking into a building and someone just says don't worry it's drone proof it doesn't make you feel good it doesn't make you excited about it so there's no way to build a i don't know what was 90 000 square foot ballroom uh without it being a hideous monstrosity you're adding a walmart to the white house so it's gonna be ugly uh i don't care how many corinthian columns you throw at the thing you know trump made that they made the point that just as it were ahead of schedule on the ballroom, we're also ahead of schedule on the war in Iran.

58:41I actually do think it's a good analogy because he knocked down the East Wing and that in a completely capricious and unplanned way, only to turn around and quickly kind of, based on just sort of sketches, approve a massive change to the White House. And the second you start peering at it closely, it raises all kinds of questions, questions that nobody seems to have asked because they're all being driven by donald trump who only wants to be told yes sir great idea sir taller than ever sir corinthian column sir also the first architect went the way of the first diatola yeah yeah uh they they they shit can the first architect this is the second one um and they also have like uh fake windows on the north side with bathroom stalls behind them, apparently.

59:32This thing looks like... I had not really, because there's a lot going on, really concentrated on how ugly and stupid this thing looks. But it is really bad. It's vandalism. These people are vandals. The ballroom is more than three times as large as the White House residence. So there's the West Wing. The White House residence is everything you see, mostly when you look at pictures of the White House. It is three times the size of that. What a fucking eyesore that's going to be. Yeah, so I remember, like, Ryan, remember we, like, made that graphic that showed— I couldn't believe what they were saying, that they were really making something this big.

1:00:12Because if you actually look at the footprint that they were talking about before we saw the plans, that can't be. It's so much bigger than the actual White House. But then you look at what they've actually laid out, and that is what it is. And as, like, these drawings make clear, Like it is going to it's just going to be a blight in that era. It's going to change all kinds of sites. It's going to be bigger than the White House. It's going to be more. You're going to see it because it's so big. So that's what you'll see. You won't see the White House. It's all you'll see. It's you know, when we first started talking about this and people were like really angry about it, I was like and they're like, oh, every Democratic candidate who runs for president has to like promise to immediately bulldoze the Trump ballroom.

1:00:49And I was like, you know, at the end of the day, it's Trump built it. But if it's a ballroom, that's nice or whatever. You know, I don't think any president should have put it in. I certainly don't think Trump would have. But like, you're really going to bulldoze it. That seems like this. Yeah, I think you fucking take this thing down. Them that's three times the size of the fucking residence. I think before we even get there, I do think like it's clearly been something that broke through for people. And the idea that we are at a time when people are spending so much for gas, when we're at war, when people feel like the Trump has fundamentally failed to care about the things he said he was going to do.

1:01:25The fact that they are building this monstrosity is just going to be a beacon of everything that has gone wrong with this administration. And we should use it that way. And by the way, I don't know how you're going to build something this big as quickly as they claim they're going to build it. He's already behind. He already fired one architect to get somebody who's willing to do this. So it is going to be, it is already a debacle and it will continue to be a debacle. And no, it's not the most important thing in the world that he's doing this, but as a symbol of everything, Trump represents this vanity project where he's kind of like vandalizing DC for his own egomaniacal purposes while the world burns, I think is like a fitting tribute.

1:02:04I'll tell you, if the approval ratings keep going down and they lose the midterms and all that, and it's like year seven and eight, and he's got us in whatever other fucking God knows what wars, and he's sitting at like 25, 30 % approval, he's going to be spending most of his days. He's going to be the foreman of the project. He's just going to be wandering around this old man in a ballroom. Look at that cornerstone, hard hat on, little light walking around like, oh, this was beautiful. This is Carrera marble. Beautiful stuff here. I chose every toilet. I chose every toilet. They said it couldn't be done to have this kind of a toilet here.

1:02:39I said we could have this kind of a toilet here. Just the smallest possible coterie of AIDS and sycophants around him being like, sir, the ballroom is going great today. It's amazing. J.D. Vance is in Iowa claiming that he never wanted the war with Turkey and that he actually wasn't for it. All right. Speaking of the midterms, Iowa Senate candidate Josh Turek stopped by the Cricket Studios on Friday to talk with Tommy all about his race. You'll hear that right after the break.

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1:04:26My guest today is running to be the Democratic nominee in this year's Iowa Senate race. Josh Turek, great to have you in studio. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. So you and Zach Walls, you're running to be the Democratic nominee. It's an open seat. We've invited Zach to come on too. We're trying to figure that out. The primary is June 2nd. I just want to say at the top, I am very bullish on Iowa this cycle. We have a huge opportunity in Iowa, I think, because we got Rob Sand running for governor. He's a great candidate. You have a wide open Senate race. You have three targeted House races.

1:04:57And you can run in Iowa for just a little less money than Texas, would you say? A lot less money than Texas. We're a cheap date. You're a cheap date. And a state that I think, for a lot of structural reasons that we'll get into, is primed for a flip. So I just hope people who are listening think about Iowa, invest in Iowa, because it's not the flashiest state right now in terms of like, you know, where the attention is in the media. But I think it's really important. Let's just start with your story, though. Sure. You represented the United States in four Paralympic Games. That's right. You said you won two gold medals in wheelchair basketball.

1:05:33More amazingly, I think I heard you say you got cut six times before you made the team. I did. Can you just tell us your story and your experience, like how you got there? Yeah. Uh, well, first born with my disability, born with a condition called spina bifida due to my father's exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. Uh, so I had my first surgery at one day old. I had 21 surgeries before I was 12, almost all of which took place at Shriners Hospital in, in, uh, Minnesota. Cause it's the only way that my, my family could afford it. Uh, yeah. And wheelchair basketball is one of the things that honestly saved me.

1:06:06As a kid, I was bullied really, really badly and actually ended up leaving public school briefly because of how badly I was bullied. And wheelchair basketball really gave me something to fight for and fell in love with it. Got a scholarship to play at Southwest Minnesota State University. Scored over 4 ,000 career points there. So just barely beat out Casual flex there with the 4 ,000 points. Something I'm really proud of. And then I had an amazing opportunity of something I didn't even know existed, which was to play professional wheelchair basketball. It doesn't exist here in the States. And I had the amazing opportunity to play and live in places like spain and italy and in france and australia by the time i was done between club and country got to live in every continent on or at least visit every continent play basketball in every continent on earth besides antarctica yeah and then the the highlight of my career without a doubt was was four paralympic games two gold medals and you're right i made my very first paralympic team straight out of college and that was 2004 and as you know as a basketball nation If you don't win, it's basically like gold or failure.

1:07:09And we got knocked out in the quarterfinals. Oh, no. And then they changed coaches. And I say there's a beauty and a beast to represent in the USA in basketball. The beauty is that you're going to have an amazing opportunity to win a gold medal. The beast is there's so many good players that you never know if you're going to have the opportunity to represent again. And they switched coaches. And for six straight years, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. And I just kept coming back and I said, eventually you are not going to take my dream away from me. Eventually I'm going to get so good that you're going to take me.

1:07:40And I finally made the team again in 2011, which was the qualifier for the Paralympics. And then in 2012, won a bronze medal in London. I led the team in scoring and rebounding. And that bronze medal means almost as much to me as those gold medals because it represents that hard work and struggle of trying to get back there. And then I had the great fortune of being able to end my career back-to-back gold medals. That was amazing with my brother. And you'd create a real deep brotherhood. That's incredible. I mean, like, okay, I mean, that's gritty as hell. Getting cut twice would probably end me, but six times?

1:08:19And you were just stuck to it? What were you doing with the rest of your time? Were you, like, working and then training? I was playing professionally. Okay, so you were playing professionally, training every day there, and then trying out for the team and just like just couldn't vibe with this coach it wasn't a matter of vibe i mean i i just you had to get bigger faster stronger better i mean you're looking at being one of the 12 best players in the entire country and but i had that discipline in that that work ethic of whether it was focusing on my diet or my supplementation or my sleep i was just willing to do whatever it took uh to get to that next level i would go and shoot a thousand shots every single day, rain or shine, hot or cold, go and lift weights every day.

1:09:01Most days I would end my day with a road push in my, in my everyday wheelchair. And I would go for somewhere between seven and 14 miles. I mean, I was just willing to do the work, which honestly, I think was some of the very best preparation for what modern politics has turned into like that discipline and hard work, uh, inability also to just ignore the external noise and just keep your head down and do the work. It's, it's really been great preparation for this. I was going to say, most politicians, we can't get them to show up to vote. So I feel like you're a little ahead of the game there.

1:09:29You mentioned spina bifida. Your dad served in Vietnam. He had Asian orange exposure, which is linked to spina bifida, caused spina bifida, but also I think makes you eligible for VA benefits, correct? That is correct, yeah. So I'm just curious, you know, that is a very different connection to the military and war than most Americans have. And we are at this moment, we're recording this Friday, March 27th. By the time it comes out on Tuesday, we could have troops on the ground in Iran and yet another crazy, in my opinion, regime change war in the Middle East. I just wondered how your experience of like hearing your father's story and going through the VA care process has shaped your views of these issues.

1:10:12Yeah. And we're looking at going into another forever unnecessary conflict that I've seen far too often in my life. It's not just my direct family connection. It's in my time in wheelchair basketball as well. I've played with so many men and women that have come back missing arms, missing legs that are just never the same. And then my daddy spent 22 months in Vietnam exposed to Agent Orange. And it's reason for my disability. And these conflicts, they don't just disappear. They have generational consequences. And certainly I'm living proof of that generational consequence. And for example, like a state like Iowa, we, even though we don't have boots on the ground in Iran, we are already paying a high price for this conflict.

1:10:59We've already lost three Iowans because the base that was hit in Kuwait. Those were largely national guardsmen from, from, from Iowa. And we're looking at spending a billion dollars there. No strategy, no idea what's happening, why we're there. and, you know, we've got a state like Iowa where we are dead last for economic growth. One of two states already in an economic decline. We're closing hospitals and schools, dead last for, you know, road quality. We could use that billion dollars a day in a state like Iowa as opposed to another unnecessary forever conflict. Yeah. I mean, there are a bunch of reports.

1:11:32We don't know if they'll actually do this, but that the administration was going to go to Congress to request$200 billion for the war in Iran. And I just, you know, I think in the beginning, there was this sense of like, should Democrats vote for it? Will they be called weak? Will they be told they're not supporting the troops? I hope by now Democrats in Washington understand that this is an enormous opportunity to show voters that we want to spend that money anywhere else. Correct. Anywhere. Schools, roads, bridges, like anything you want in Iowa, like not bombs that get dropped on, you know, faraway places and people.

1:12:04We cut a trillion dollars with the big, beautiful bill to people's health care. 110 ,000 Iowans lose their health care benefits. Thousands more lose their food assistance. We don't have money for the ACA subsidies to continue, which is another 117 ,000 Iowans looking at premiums doubling or tripling. We've closed in the last 15 years in Iowa, 250 more medical clinics than we've opened. And so we're closing nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities and rural hospitals all over the state, but we have money for an unnecessary war in Iran. It's just such a disconnect and it's not America first.

1:12:40No, it really isn't America first. And you're seeing a lot of Republicans get extremely pissed off and turn away from Trump. Changing gears a bit. So California Governor Gavin Newsom often talks about having dyslexia and like sort of the obstacles it's created in his life, how he's overcome them. I think President Trump must have caught an interview with him talking about that, probably in the context of his book tour, and now just attacks Gavin Newsom about it constantly. Here's one example I want to play for you and sort of get your reaction. Gavin Newsom has admitted that he has learning disabilities.

1:13:13Honestly, I'm all for people with learning disabilities, but not for my president. I think a president should not have learning disabilities, okay? And I know it's highly controversial to say such a horrible thing. The president of the United States, Gavin Newsom, admitted that he has learning disabilities, dyslexia. everything about him is dumb. So he's an asshole. What message do you think those comments send to kids in this country with dyslexia or learning disabilities, really any disability? It's gross. It's not the first time he's done it either. I mean, unfortunately, I've dealt with bullies my whole life and we've got a bully in the Oval Office.

1:13:55And I think my message would be to any disabled person out there, any disabled kids is don't let what anyone says to you, including the president of the United States, prevent you from living your best life or being able to live your dream. And you can look at someone like me. I grew up poor. I grew up disabled, 21 surgeries. I feel like I am the American dream. But I have the American dream because of something like the American with Disabilities Act, the father of the American with Disabilities Act, Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa. And don't let that define you. I think that's my message is that you you can ultimately be what you want to, and you can do what you want here in America and do not let anyone stop you or make you feel like you are less, including the president of the United States.

1:14:42And unfortunately I will say that, uh, you know, one of the reasons why I got into politics initially, I got involved in politics for two reasons. One is because the privatization of Medicaid in Iowa, it was driving up, uh, rates, denials and delays a thousand percent since we privatized. That was hurting the disabled population the most. Second reason why I ran is because there had never been a permanently disabled member in the Iowa legislature. We're a state of 150 years, governing body of 150 members. We didn't even have a ramp in the Capitol. It's the people's house. It should be open to the people.

1:15:13And the disabled population, one in five Iowans, blind, deaf, intellectually disabled, physically disabled, and yet almost no representation. One of the reasons why I'm doing this as well, running for the U.S. Senate, is I don't think we have enough individuals up in the U.S. Senate that are disabled that come from my minority group. I think you could make the argument that out of any minority group, we are the most underrepresented at every single level of government. And then additionally, I think we need more people in D.C. from places like Council Bless Iowa with real lived experience, both on the economics and on the healthcare side.

1:15:46Because when you have lived it firsthand, you'll have a different level of fight and you'll have a different level of empathy. And that's what we need. We need folks that are gonna go up there and fight for the people. and fight for our workers and fight for the middle class, fight for the people that can't afford, you know, to make political donations or have a lobbyist. Yeah. It's remarkable. I remember early on, Trump at a rally made fun of a disabled reporter, right? And it was like, it was like a big deal. Yeah. He made fun of this horrible. It was Serge Kowalewski. He was actually like, I used to work in the press office on the campaign for Obama and then the white house.

1:16:17And he was one of the scariest reporters out there cause he was so good. You know, like this guy was like the heaviest hitter. And then Trump's like belittling him for something. You know, he's the worst person in the world. And it's a decade later, he's still pulling the shit. We're kind of like a nerd to it. But your point about just the total lack of empathy in government and the lack of focus on, you know, people who he doesn't understand or who don't have a lobbyist or representation. And the interesting thing is that Iowa actually has this really proud history of having a fighter named Tom Harkin.

1:16:48It was like the greatest champion for a lot of communities. I mean, can you just talk about Tom Harkin and sort of what he means to the state and what he's meant to you? Yeah, for 30 years, we had the amazing opportunity to have Senator Tom Harkin as our senator from Iowa. He was championing issues like FMLA to make sure that you've got leave. And certainly he is the father of the American with Disabilities Act. And it's great because I now have a friendship with him. And they say, never meet your heroes. And he was everything and more and just an amazing human being. And this is one of the reasons why I'm also running for this is because for 30 years in Iowa, we had this amazing opportunity to have somebody that was really fighting for the people, fighting for the most vulnerable.

1:17:38the elderly, the disabled, the homeless, the poor, children, you know, the schools, a true prairie populace, the same way that I define myself, looking for a livable wage, affordable housing, affordable healthcare. That's what he was fighting for. And I think that this is a once in a generation opportunity that we have here in Iowa to win his seat back and that we can once again, from Iowa, having someone that's really fighting for the people. Yeah, I agree. It's once a generation opportunity. Iowa is a huge ag state and President Trump seems to be doing everything he can to piss off farmers, to make their lives harder, to destroy their industries and literally decades of work.

1:18:17In some cases, there's tariffs. There's Trump pitching a$20 billion bailout for Argentina, where a bunch of farmers are growing soybeans to compete with Iowa farmers. literally. Now there's this war with Iran that is preventing fertilizer shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, which is jacking up prices in America and starving people in Southeast Asia, potentially. What is the impact of Trump's policies been on farmers in your state? And what would you say to a listener who thinks, you know what, you guys talk about this stuff all the time. You act like economic concerns are what move voters.

1:18:53But then, you know, you know, You'll have these farmers who will get mad about some segment on Fox News and they'll vote on some culture thing. It's a real farm crisis, what I'm calling a farmageddon. Our farmers, we now lead the nation in farm foreclosures in Iowa. It is a massive problem. You're looking at commodities prices being upside down, and that is largely driven because of the tariffs. That's also because of us giving$20 billion to Argentina so the Chinese can buy their soybeans. Meanwhile, our Iowa soybean farmers just left out there hanging. These markets maybe will never come back.

1:19:30You're absolutely right as well. You're looking at fertilizers. You're looking at now somewhere between 25 % and 30 % of Iowa farmers do not have fertilizer. Meanwhile, we're maybe a month or two away from planting season. So what does that mean for them? Can they plant their crops if they don't have fertilizer? I mean, the yield will be way down? The yield would be dramatically different. I mean, you're already looking at all these folks being upside down. I mean, our farmers have not made money in a decade and now their commodities prices are actually upside down. So they are planting soybeans and they are losing money on that.

1:20:02And this is and it's not just exclusive to tariffs. They've been getting beaten up because of consolidation and anti, you know, we've not done anything to break up the monopolies. We've not done anything on antitrust and farmers are hurting. And I tell you, everywhere that I'm going all across Iowa, but the place that we are getting the biggest amounts of turnouts of Republicans is in rural communities. And the word that we hear the most is betrayal. And these folks will say, we turned out, we voted for Trump. And now look what you've done. And you go in these rural communities and they've lost, their pharmacies are gone.

1:20:38They've lost their grocery stores. Their healthcare clinics are closing, particularly in the rural areas. their schools are closing. We closed 16 schools in the last three years in Iowa, almost all in the rural communities. And you go down their main streets, it looks like a vacuum's come through there. And now we're leading the nation in farm foreclosures. These are folks that are waking up and saying, enough is enough. The state and the country needs change. And I think that they're going to be willing to vote for someone like me, a common sense prairie populist. The other area where I'm seeing a lot of accusations of betrayal is the Maha movement, the Make America Healthy Again movement, which, you know, I think sort of kicked off with vaccines and vaccine hesitancy, if not outright sort of anti-vaccine sentiment.

1:21:21But there's also just like healthy foods and getting dyes out of food. Right. There's a lot of it that's like makes sense, common sense. But it seems like a recent Trump decision to give immunity from lawsuits to companies that make the weed killer Roundup has infuriated those voters. I know Roundup has ties to cancer, can cause cancer. And I read somewhere recently that the highest concentration of Roundup is in Iowa, which also happens to be part of the cancer belt, which is sort of the highest concentration of cancer. What is the impact of that ruling on your state? And like, you know, I was talking to Rob Sand when he was in here and he said every single town hall he has, some person in their 30s will say, I have cancer, my friend has cancer, my family has cancer.

1:22:06And like, it didn't used to be that way. That is correct. Yeah, Iowa, we're the only state with a growing cancer rate. We have the second highest rates of cancer behind Kentucky, and we are quickly catching Kentucky. This is an issue that I actually think day by day is growing in terms of there's not a single town hall that I have done where I haven't heard this issue about addressing the cancer rates and addressing the water quality issues. And it is. There is a direct correlation to what we're seeing with the nitrate levels, with the pesticide levels that is leading unquestionably to the cancer rates.

1:22:39And certainly this is an issue that has touched my life personally. I lost my grandma to pancreatic cancer. My father, because of his exposure to Agent Orange, he's dealt with several bouts of cancer. And nearly the day that I launched my campaign, my sister got diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. And she just underwent a double mastectomy about two weeks ago. To tell you how broken the healthcare system is her, she has private insurance and her private insurance came to her and basically said, you don't have enough cancer. They said, because you, yeah, they said, because you only have stage two breast cancer, not stage three or stage four, we will not cover the PET scan to see if the cancer spread to other parts of your body.

1:23:17That's insane. So we did not know if the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes or any other place until she went under, under the knife. I mean, this is what is so fundamentally wrong with the healthcare system is you're maximizing profits It's just for the off the backs and most vulnerable. But absolutely, this addressing the cancer rate and addressing the root cause, which is the lack of regulations in place on what we're seeing with the nitrate levels. And there's some common sense things that we can do that the farmers are in favor of doing. We don't have to go after the farmers. We could put a lot of incentives in place.

1:23:48We could put incentives so that they don't put down fertilizer in the fall and in the winter. We can put down incentives so that they put down cover crops or have land barriers like many other states do. Or we can at least have an EPA that's well-funded and with some enforcement mechanisms in place and maybe droplets allowable with nitrate levels. But it's certainly something that is resonating with all Iowans, regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum. Yeah. I think it crosses across. All families are dealing with a crisis of someone. And Iowans are tired of us just looking out for large corporations and billionaires.

1:24:21And giving this chemical company, I think they got a national security exemption because some version of Roundup is used as like when like white phosphate or something, some military use. It's insane. It's awful. Anyway, so you're in a Democratic Party primary. I realize you are probably Iowa nice, but ultimately like voters are going to have to hear why you're better at the job than Zach Walls would be. What's the pitch and why do you think you're more likely to win in November? I will be Iowa nice and I won't say anything disparaging about my primary opponent, but I will say this. First and foremost, I think this comes down to electability.

1:24:57I represent the reddest district that is represented by a Democrat that was won on election day. The two communities that I represent, Carter Lake, Trump won by 18 points, and my hometown of Council Bluffs, Trump won by 10 points. And I was able to win my district by nearly six points. That is 50 % more overperformance than any other Democrat in the state. um my opponent comes from a harris plus 37 has never even run against republican so i know that i have proven results of being able to resonate with the 35 of the voters that are independents and also with moderate republicans even though i was so far down ballot i actually got more raw votes than kamala harris did i know that there's something specific about my story my background my resume uh that really resonates with independents and with moderate republicans And I know that especially my story, the hard work of focusing on the economic populism, that's going to resonate with a lot of people in rural communities and with farmers.

1:25:53Second, I would say that it's meaningful and important that the people that have left the race, like J.D. Scholten and Nathan Sage, the people that know us best, that were out there on the campaign trail with us, have endorsed me. I also think that it's really important that I've got far more endorsements of the people that work up at the Iowa Capitol with me and with Zach. They know us the best. I've gotten by far the most amount of endorsements there. I think that that means a lot to me. And raised the most money since I've been in the race. And then I also think that there is an authenticity and a credibility that I think really, really resonates.

1:26:28I come from a working class family, a working class community. I'm the only one in this race that's not a millionaire. And I think that that's what Iowans are looking for. They're looking for someone that's genuine, that is not doing this for the position, for the money, for the fame, but is really doing this because we need people in D.C., not from wealth, not from privilege, but are really going up there to do like what Senator Harkin did and fight for the people of Iowans and fight for small businesses and fight for small family farms and fight for social and economic justice and fight for social safety nets that are being eroded.

1:27:01these social safety nets like Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, and are going to go up there and fight for people's health care and a livable wage. And my state is really, really struggling, like no other state, dead last for economic growth. Yeah. So right now the attention's on like Texas and some of the other states. Do we want to keep it that way? Do you want people to pay more attention to Iowa? Do you like that the national media is focused elsewhere and you can kind of just run your own race focused on Iowa issues? You know, I don't want this to be siloed. I don't want this to be about, I want to get to the U.S.

1:27:33Senate and to heck with everybody else. And so I like the attention being on Iowa. And my message to your viewers would be the very best place to invest this year is in Iowa. Iowa, I understand that people on the coast will say Iowa is a red state, but we are not. We are a common sense state that has masqueraded more red than what we are. 30 years we voted for Senator Harkin. We're a state that has voted twice for Obama, three times for Trump. We have more Obama-Trump counties than any other state in the union. but in much more recent history, Trump's last midterm, we won three of the four congressional races.

1:28:05We almost won all four, three points away. And in the last midterm that we had, we were 1.5 % away from having three of our six statewide officials being Democrats. That means your average Iowa voter went and voted for three Dems, three R's. We also are a state that has bottomed out. And sometimes I think you have to bottom out as a state like Kansas did before people are willing to go a different direction. But we are dead last for economic growth. We're 48th for personal income growth. We're one of two states already in an economic decline. We're basically dead last for every single healthcare metric, closing healthcare facilities all over the state.

1:28:40We lead the nation in cancer rates, and now we lead the nation in farm foreclosures. We have bottomed out, and then we have no power of incumbency. This is the first time since 1968 open governor's race and open Senate race and two open congressional races. Iowa is going to be the center of the political universe. This is a state that we can legitimately see flipping three congressional races. We can win this open governor's race and we can win this open Senate race. I mean, we had an independent poll that came out that showed myself and Ashley Henson tied. So that's why I want the national attention in that regard of this isn't just about me.

1:29:13This is about we in Iowa have this once in a generation opportunity where if we go and we're organized and we're coordinated, we not only have the opportunity to change our cities or change our communities, you know, change our counties, we can fundamentally change the state. And the amazing opportunity we've got in Iowa is if we're able to flip these three congressional races, we flip Congress. But then the amazing opportunity, which people would have said was blasphemous to talk about a year ago, which is you need four states to flip the Senate, maybe North Carolina, maybe Maine, that looks really good.

1:29:46Ohio looks very good with Sherrod Brown, but seat number 51 in the U.S. Senate, majority control. I believe it's Iowa and we can win this and we can win it with a candidate like me. I think, uh, I think we should be investing a lot of money and time in Iowa. If voters want to, uh, if they like what they're hearing and they want to help you out, where do they go? Yeah, they go to my website, Turek, T-U-R-E-K, the number four, Iowa, Turek4Iowa.com. Uh, we are not taking any corporate PAC money. We're relying off of individual donors. And so if people all around the country hear this, please support.

1:30:17We really can, we can win this race and we can not only change the state of Iowa, we can change this country. And we can once again have in the U.S. Senate someone from Iowa that is fighting for the people like we did for so long with my political hero, Senator Tom Harkin. We can do it, folks. Well, Josh, great to meet you. Thank you for coming. Yeah, thank you for having me. Best of luck at the campaign.

1:30:40That's our show for today. Thanks to Josh Turk for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday.

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1:31:43You