Trump Collapses in Georgia as Election Slips Away

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2:56Ben Meiselas:Absolute exuberance and enthusiasm for Democrats in Georgia, while Donald Trump is collapsing in Georgia. Donald Trump's latest approval in Georgia from The Economist, net negative 27. May I repeat that? Donald Trump's approval in Georgia right now, net negative 27, according to a reliable pollster, The Economist. The first video I just shared with you, though, was the enthusiasm and exuberance there at a rally that took place this weekend for the Democratic governor candidate, Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Democratic Senate candidate, John Ossoff. This looked like a presidential rally to me, folks, and this follows the primaries where Keisha Lance Bottoms won the Georgia governor Democratic primary.

3:47Ben Meiselas:Democrats got more votes than Republicans did overall in the primaries, despite all of the MAGA billionaires throwing their money into Georgia. Democrats won both the early vote amount as well as the day of vote amount. Pretty, pretty impressive stuff. And you see Donald Trump there just absolutely flailing in Georgia. Remember Donald Trump's most recent appearance in Georgia, where he said the following, play this clip. Tariffs. Tariffs. Can you believe it? It's a tariffs. And I got to be before a court. Can you believe it? This is like men playing in women's sports, transgender for everybody.

4:31Ben Meiselas:I have a new one to add, voter ID. The Democrats don't want to give us voter ID because they want Then you have all of these MAGA candidates in Georgia in both the Senate runoff and in the governor runoff, which has taken place on June 16th. They're out there saying, Donald, we need your ballroom. Donald, we want to help you with your J6 weaponization fund for the January 6th insurrectionists. Donald, what can we do to help you stock trade more? You want to do 4 ,000 stock trades? You want to do 5 ,000? You did 3 ,800 in the first quarter, one every nine minutes. How can we help you, dear leader.

5:10Ben Meiselas:Watch what they were saying at some of these Republican Senate debates in Georgia. It's wild. Here, play this clip. And I think just from a fairness standpoint, if you're unfairly targeted, we should look into being able to reimburse you. And as on the ballroom issue, Jeff, that, you know, the ballroom is going to get paid out of private money. Wow. And then you have, just so you can see the two candidates, these MAGAs who are running for governor. I'll show you how CNN describes him. Let's play this clip. The governor's race here in the Republican side in Georgia is expected to have a runoff between Rick Jackson and Burt Jones, the state's lieutenant governor, extending this contest for another four weeks.

5:50Ben Meiselas:Now, Rick Jackson is a health care executive, a billionaire who has poured$80 million into this race, flooding the state with TV ads throughout this contest. But then you also have Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, who was a fake elector back in 2020 and was running with President Trump's endorsement. Now, one person to fall in this governor's race is the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. He is one of those people who had stood up to President Donald Trump when he had urged him to try to find more votes here in the state. Now I want to bring in the Democratic candidate for the governorship of the great state of Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms.

6:28Ben Meiselas:And Keisha, that speech yesterday in Atlanta with you and Senator Ossoff, I mean, that had vibes off the chart. So, of course, I want to talk about that. But, you know, lots of people are focusing in on Georgia right now. They saw in the primaries the enthusiasm amongst Democratic voters there, both in terms of early vote and day of vote. Donald Trump's approval according to the latest Economist poll in Georgia, like net negative 27 in the latest Economist poll. And you have a governor there who's not providing relief really to the people when it comes to the gas prices, which are caused by Donald Trump's catastrophic war.

7:09Ben Meiselas:Let's talk macro first, the environment that you're seeing in Georgia. You've been in Georgia politics for a while. Does it feel different right now with people finally moving away from Trump MAGA and this whole, you know, just dangerous movement that's caused the charm. Yeah, it feels very differently. As we are coming out of the primary, our primary was May 19th. What struck me was that we were outspent by tens of millions of dollars on the Republican side. They are completely saturating the airwaves. And we still outvoted Republicans in Georgia by nearly 150 ,000 votes. So what our team is calling it internally is just this quiet determination to march to the polls and make sure that voices are heard.

8:02And the interesting thing, we still don't know what else is to come. Governor Kemp has said that he will not extend the gas tax suspension. So gas prices will go up over 30 cents a gallon in the state. You've got the legislature going back into a special session the day after the Republican runoff, which will also be interesting because we don't know what's going to happen with these maps in the state. And then, of course, here's Donald Trump, just the gift that keeps on giving. So I think the enthusiasm that we saw from voters in the primary will certainly extend into November. We've just got to stay the course.

8:48Ben Meiselas:You know, it's so interesting you use the term quiet determination there. And I've often referred to that or the silent majority, if you will. But it's fascinating when you pull back a little bit because the people are really livid in a very public way. And they're really enthusiastic in trying to restore normalcy, democratic norms, care, compassion, enthusiasm, love what our country should really be about. But the loudness of that, I think, gets drowned out by a lot of the media narratives that get pushed, which is all of Donald Trump's distractions every day, which sometimes mask what's truly going on amongst the people, which we see whether it's with no kings or just every day a rally like the one that you held with Senator Ossoff that looked like an election day presidential kind of campaign a la Obama.

9:44Ben Meiselas:Like, that's what that rally looked like to me. Yeah, and that's what it felt like. It felt the magnitude of it was felt. The energy in the room was incredible. And again, you know, people are fed up. They were already complaining as we moved around the state about grocery costs, about housing costs. And then you add on top of that in January, health care costs went up significantly, especially for small business owners in our state. And then you add on top of that the war in Iran. So what we saw at the rally really is indicative of the energy, I believe, again, we're going to see going into November.

10:31And it's the energy we are feeling across the state. People are asking, what can I do? People are saying, I feel helpless. I don't know how to fight back. And in this election season, people are reminded that the power still remains in their vote. And the more this Trump administration and Donald Trump continue to try and tamper with that right to vote, I think the more determined you will see people be in making sure that they are exercising it and their voices are heard.

11:04Ben Meiselas:Talk about your opponents, the potential opponent in this race. There was a runoff on the Republican side. June 16th is when that runoff will take place, as I understand it. There's a MAGA billionaire and then there's a fake elector who are going against each other there in that primary. Regardless, I think both of them would focus on giving money to January 6th insurrectionists, golden ballrooms, and focus on, you know, Donald Trump's, whatever Donald Trump wants versus the people of Georgia. That's what they've made very clear regardless. So talk to us about the contours of this race. Yeah. So, well, one, I just want to just compliment Democrats across the state because we did consolidate early.

11:49There were seven of us on the Democratic side vying for the nomination. We were able to secure the nomination with 57 percent winning 158 out of 159 counties. So people on our side have consolidated in a major way very early, which is a tremendous gift for us because on the Republican side, there's still a very negative fight that's still playing out between them. You've got Burt Jones, the sitting lieutenant governor, who's made millions of dollars through his connections through the state, who is a fake elector, who has been advertising with Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office, giving his support to Burt Jones.

12:39Then on the other side, you've got this billionaire Rick Jackson, who has made billions of dollars through state contracts, who is vying for the attention of Donald Trump. And I didn't think that it would be possible to even be more extreme than Burt Jones. But Rick Jackson is really trying to run even further right than Burt Jones. He has one commercial where he has said you'll either be deported or departed. So the messaging and what they are projecting should be concerning to any voter, no matter the party affiliation. But they are equally terrible just in terms of their MAGA policies and their desire just to please Donald Trump.

13:33They don't have any concern for the people of this state.

13:36Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump's past was turning beauty pageants into very creepy things. He's making this Republican primary into yet another Trump creepy beauty pageant, it seems, over who can win Donald Trump's attention the most. And I just think the people of Georgia care about who's going to win for me. I mean, let's guess this political party, that political party got it. What are you doing for me? Because Trump, you came in and you made a lot of promises that you were going to make things more affordable on day one, that electricity and gas prices would be cut in half, that everything was going to be great.

14:16Ben Meiselas:And now we see it's the exact opposite. And frankly, Donald, you look like a loser because you've been telling us you were going to get a deal done with Iran now since March, and you're out there just lying about deals with Iran? Like who even does that while we're out here suffering? And so I want to give you the kind of final word generally. But what I loved about your speech and Senator Ossoff's speech is that you connected the corruption by Trump with the suffering of the people in Georgia and made it clear that we can't just be chasing all of his distractions. We need to focus on it because that's one of the main sources of the suffering of the people because those distractions are being used to enrich themselves at the expense of people in Georgia and the rest of the world.

15:04Ben Meiselas:Final word from you and where can we learn more about the campaign? So I wish it weren't so. I wish we didn't have to focus on Donald Trump, but we are where we are. And our campaign needs support. We have been outspent by Republicans already tens of millions of dollars, even as they fight it out in their primary. They're already running negative ads and sending mailers against me. Our grassroots dollars have made a tremendous difference. So if people want to support our campaign, KeishaForGovernor.com. You can also sign up to volunteer no matter where you are in the country. We can send you some phone numbers to call people in the state.

15:49Of course, you can support with your resources and just encouraging people to vote, to stay involved. We won a big battle when we secured the nomination May 19th, but the war will be held in November. And we cannot afford to have Donald Trump leading the state of Georgia in the same way that he is leading in Washington, D.C. Senator Ossoff is the number one target for Republicans. They have already spent money through a super PAC to try and unseat him. So this election should matter to all of us. So thank you for being concerned. Thank you for paying attention to Georgia, because I truly believe so goes Georgia, so goes the rest of the country.

16:42Ben Meiselas:Keisha Lance Bottoms, thanks for joining us, and we hope you come back again. Keep us updated throughout the campaign. I will indeed. Thank you. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. And I'm just going to say this on my own. She also wrote a great book as well that I read. Thanks, everybody. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.