Beau Bayh Discusses his Indiana Secretary of State Race

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0:39Meiselas:The latest Economist poll has Trump's approval in Indiana. Net negative 17 points. Can Indiana turn blue? Can critical national races there in Indiana turn blue? Or as I say, just turn back to competence, turn back to democracy. And if there's anybody who can do it, it's Beau Baille, a seventh generation Hoosier, who's running for secretary of state in Indiana, Harvard undergrad, Harvard Law, was a member of the Marines, and now he's running for secretary of state. The MAGA Republicans are so scared of Beau Baille at their recent convention, They replaced the sitting MAGA Republican Secretary of State, a guy by the name of Marcel, with a new guy who nobody really even knows who he is.

1:28Meiselas:And that guy right now is apparently running against Beau Bai. Let me bring in Beau Bai right now, who's running for Secretary of State in Indiana. Beau, great to see you. The people of Indiana, they know you. They know generations of Baes in Indiana. You're running, though, right there, right now, devoting your life to public service. Talk to us about, you know, this race, though, and what you're seeing when you're like, you know, I often do these videos and people say to me, hey, Ben, don't get our hopes up. Don't, you know, say, you know, Indiana could have a Democrat in a position like Secretary of State.

2:07Meiselas:Talk to us about it, though. Are you seeing a difference there?

2:11Beau Bayh:Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for having me on, Ben. And this is real. The momentum we're building here is real. And don't take my word for it. Look at what the other side has done. They've replaced the sitting secretary of state at their own convention a couple of weeks ago, not because he was incompetent, which he is, not because he's corrupt, which he also is. They replaced him because they figured out that he was going to lose handily to our campaign. And so there's real change happening here in Indiana. People are fed up with the high costs. They're fed up with the insider dealing that's infested our state government, and they're ready for honest leadership.

2:43Beau Bayh:That's what this campaign is about, and we couldn't be more excited to get our message out here in the next few months.

2:49Meiselas:You know, here we are two years into Trump regime, but setting aside that Indiana now has had many, many years, perhaps decades of Republican control now at the highest level, people view Indiana as a as a red state. So you can't say that, well, you know, in terms of the problems people are facing, it's a both sides issue. I mean, one side has been in charge pretty much. And, you know, for a pretty long time at this stage as Indiana shifted red. And to me, the issue is, you know, have these Republicans delivered to the people of Indiana? And it just seems with all of the prices going up, with housing being inaccessible, it just seems the answer is resoundingly no.

3:36Meiselas:We got to try something else. Yeah.

3:39Beau Bayh:I mean, just your viewers may not be aware, but the secretary of state, the sitting secretary of state in my state, Indiana, has spent$92 ,000 of our tax money on a luxury SUV for himself. He's hired his family members to pay some six figure salaries. He's taken trips all over the world and won't tell us who's paying for them. He's given out millions of dollars in no bid state contracts to his largest campaign donors. That type of nonsense is the natural product of 20 years of the same group of insiders controlling everything our state government of single party Republican control. There's no accountability.

4:13Beau Bayh:And so that's why my first act as secretary of state is going to be to open an independent audit of this office to regain the trust of the five million registered Hoosier voters in our state. and try and get this thing back on course where we're running our elections competently, honestly, not injecting partisanship and nonsense conspiracy theories into our electoral process where it shouldn't be.

4:33Meiselas:Talk about your background. I gave a little bit of the primary, 30 years old, a lawyer, Marine, Harvard Law, and you're now running for office. Let people know a little bit about yourself and why you've decided to step into this race.

4:51Beau Bayh:Yeah, I'm the seventh generation of my family born here in the state of Indiana. And as you hinted at the top, I hinted to at the top, I was kind of raised in a family of public servants. You know, my granddad served our state in the United States Senate. And one of the things that I was most proud of in his service was he authored a law called Title IX, which has allowed millions and millions of young girls all over our country to compete fairly in college athletics. So every time I see someone like Caitlin Clark here on the fever, Sophie Cunningham, who's just an amazing superstar woman athlete, I think about him and the millions of girls that are inspired to achieve things through college sports.

5:23Beau Bayh:You know, he authored a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 at a time in our country when the Vietnam War was raging and young people were fighting and dying in a war in Vietnam. They didn't have a right to vote on whether that war continued. My dad served as governor of our state and instituted the 21st Century Scholars Program, which has allowed millions of kids here to go to school debt free if they did all the right things and just live really fulfilling lives. And that's inspired me to make a similar impact in my life in service. That's why I joined the Marine Corps, because I owe this country so much.

5:54Beau Bayh:I love my country. And for those of us who love our countries, love our states, love our country and love our state, it's not good enough to sit on the sideline. If you don't like the way things are going, you have an obligation to raise your hand. That's what I'm doing here. Things have gotten completely off track in our state government with corruption, insider dealing. The rest, that ends November 3rd.

6:14Meiselas:You know, I do a lot of coverage of how there's been a vibe shift even over the past two years, and particularly over the last six to nine months, especially, I think really beginning to accelerate even more with the cover up of the Epstein files, which I think brought a lot of people who may not have been seeing it to say, whoa, if you're willing to lie about that, got it. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, this and the other. And then you have inflation surging and then all of the promises by Trump not delivering on those promises. And if housing was accessible, which Trump now calls a big yawn in MAGA Republic, the big yawn when it comes to housing.

6:59Meiselas:If things were affordable, I think we'd be in a different issue. But saying that people are suffering right now and feeling pain isn't a talking point. It's the reality of people. And so to talk to us when you see people out there, I mean, are you seeing a vibe shift? I just want my viewers go, Ben, don't get it. You know, whatever. Don't get our hopes up. This is what you tell us. And then the election happens. But I'm seeing a vibe shift in red states of people saying, I can't. I gave it once. I did it twice. Some people. I tried it three times. OK, I just I can't right now. Not anymore.

7:31Beau Bayh:Yeah, I get all over our state. I come from a more rural agricultural state. And so I can't tell you how many times I'll be somewhere in my state and I'll hear about a rural hospital closing. Those hospital systems primarily operate off of Medicaid funding. And people are having to drive across county lines into other states hours just for basic health care services like that. I can't tell you how many times I'll be talking to farmers in my state. The cost of diesel, the cost of fertilizer, the cost of gasoline is through the roof, making it really hard for them just to get by because of the war that Donald Trump started in the Middle East.

8:07Beau Bayh:And it's particularly insulting to the people, the hardworking people of my state when he says that affordability is a hoax, when he says that he likes inflation. Well, I got news for him. The people in my state are hurting. And that type of rhetoric is disrespectful. And that's one of the reasons you're seeing people wake up to some of this just nonsense.

8:26Meiselas:You know, I want to get your take on this and what you're hearing from Hoosiers, because I think it's extra disrespectful. And he then compounds matters by treating people in your state and others like they're stupid. Like he'll go, guess what, everybody? As part of my deal with Iran, they are going to buy all of your produce and corn and all of that stuff. So you're going to get rich. the truckers, Iran is going to now lead to an energy boom. And then you hear the people in Iran saying, like, do we know what are you talking about? That's not in the MOU. And like, he just goes back and then just tries to remember, you know, on China and soybeans.

9:04Meiselas:He's like, don't worry. 13 million metric tons. It was like, OK, that's half of what it was a year before. You reduced it in half. And you think that we're supposed to give you a It's just constant stuff like that. Yeah.

9:16Beau Bayh:No, it's the constant misinformation is meant to distract you. You know, what's the old saying? The adage is flood the zone, right? There's so many balls in the air, so much misinformation coming at you that it really is sometimes overwhelming. But that can't distract us from what we have to do. We have to deliver on making life more affordable for working class people in Indiana and beyond. We have to root out the corruption that has pervaded our government from the top down. It's bad. In my state, we have. statewide elected officials that are hiring family members and giving out no big contracts to large donors.

9:49Beau Bayh:That is everything wrong with politics. And that's why trust has just eroded in government generally. And we can't have that as a country because government, I still believe, can be a force for good, can really help people, not just in my state and beyond. But in order to do that, we have to rebuild trust and we have to make sure that the taxpayer is being respected and that we have people in office with integrity who are not just looking out for their friends, their family, and their biggest donors.

10:14Meiselas:Before we go, Beau, where can people learn more about your campaign and any final message to our 7 million subscribers about you and about your campaign and about this race? Yeah.

10:26Beau Bayh:So just our website is bowbuy.com. If you could go on there, check out our platform, chip in a few bucks if you can. We're fighting back against some of the MAGA super PAC money. So we need the ammunition to fight back. I'd really appreciate that. We're We're on all the social media platforms just at BowBuy. And the last thing that I'll leave you folks is with this. You know, I was in the United States Marine Corps. I was an infantry officer. I was in command of a whole lot of people. And one of the best things about our nation's military is that it draws from every walk of life. We didn't always agree on everything.

10:54Beau Bayh:We definitely disagreed when it came to politics. But at the end of the day, despite those disagreements, we were able to reconcile our differences and come together to achieve some really hard missions. And too often in our country and in my state, we have leaders that focus on all of the little ways to divide Americans, pit them against each other. But that's not leadership. We need leaders in Indiana and beyond that try and lead by bringing people together around what we do have in common, which will always be more important than the little things that divide us. That's beyond the policy. That is what this campaign, that is what this movement is about, rooting out the divisiveness, the fear and hatred from our politics.

11:31Beau Bayh:We can build something better.

11:32Meiselas:Bo Bai running for Secretary of State, Indiana. Thanks, Bo. All right. Thank you, man. Everybody hit subscribe here. Let's get to 7 million subscribers.