Trump gets Nightmare News as GOP Tanks... in Alaska

0:00Ben Meiselas:Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile, with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just$15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird.

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2:03Ben Meiselas:With great everyday prices on 365 brand ground beef for the grill and ice cream for dessert, they have yellow sales signs on ready-to-cook beef or chicken kebabs too. Level up with savory marinades, spices, and rubs, and complete your cookout with a crowd-pleasing cherry pie and their balsamic chicken salad. Available at the prepared foods counter. Get summer splash savings now at Whole Foods Market. Donald Trump is getting a rude awakening in Alaska. That's right. The latest economist poll shows that Donald Trump's approval in Alaska is negative 13. Alaska, which is generally thought of as a red state, Donald Trump has a net negative 13 approval there.

2:47Ben Meiselas:Also in the latest Economist polling, Donald Trump is negative 19 in Texas, negative 16 in Iowa, negative 21 in Pennsylvania. Now Donald Trump is throwing a tantrum right now as Republicans may lose big ground in Alaska in the upcoming elections. Here's what Donald Trump just posted. The wonderful people of Alaska desperately want to restore free, fair, and honest elections in their great state and get rid of their disastrous and very fraudulent ranked choice voting and accordingly will vote to repeal ranked choice voting in the November 3rd, 2026 election. I want to congratulate the many hardworking American first patriots in Alaska, including my friends, Governor Mark Dunleavy, Senator Dan Sullivan, Congress member Nick Begich, and Alaska GOP chair Carmela Warfield, who are working tirelessly to restore true democracy to Alaska elections.

3:46Ben Meiselas:If you can't win with the current rules of the game, Donald Trump's plan is just throw those rules out in the garbage. Interestingly, Donald Trump mentioned somebody by the name of Nick Begich right there, who's part of this Alaska political family that just perennially has people run for office there and then destroys the people's lives in Alaska, right? I'll give you a quote right now from Begich. Begich said back in June of 2025, tariff-driven inflation hasn't materialized, he says, and everything is going great. In fact, inflation is cooling, Begich said. This is what MAGA Republicans think about the people of Alaska.

4:32Ben Meiselas:People there are suffering. There's a reason why Donald Trump is net negative 13. Now, Donald Trump has sent his biggest campaign recruiter, and his top campaign guy is a guy by the name of Scott Presler. And so Trump sent this guy out to Alaska, who's there right now trying to get rid of ranked choice voting. And he's also out there trying to register Republicans to vote. Here's the message that the Republicans are bringing to Alaska as they're clearly panicking with the latest poll numbers. Play this clip. Hey, everybody, this is Scott Pressler. I'm here with Jenny Beth Martin. We are in Anchorage, Alaska with a very respectful and peaceful message to our Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski.

5:23Ben Meiselas:Please, with our elections not having proof of citizenship nor photo voter ID, We just want to make sure that one vote equals one ballot and that no vote is going to be diluted by a fraudulent or illegal alien. Now, we should also remember that Alaska was the location where Donald Trump brought Vladimir Putin and then Donald Trump and Putin, you know, collusion in plain view in Alaska. Then Donald Trump was acting as though Alaska was part of Russia. Remember, Donald Trump's like, well, I'm going to get back to the USA after this meeting. When you're in Alaska, that is the USA. Here's just a quick reminder of Donald Trump and Putin in Alaska, a very shameful day in American history.

6:07Ben Meiselas:Indeed, I'll show you this clip right here.

6:23Ben Meiselas:Now, it should also be noted that Donald Trump is scheduling a drilling auction in an Alaska wildlife refuge. That's how Donald Trump believes that with this catastrophic war in Iran, how he says this is going to make America so much stronger and make gas prices go down. We're going to officially schedule an auction for the rights to drill in wildlife refuges in Alaska. In the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that's where drilling will take place. The home of grizzly bears, polar bears, gray wolves, and 200 species of birds, and also a land that is sacred to indigenous peoples in the region. That's Donald Trump's plan right there.

7:07Ben Meiselas:And it doesn't address the fact that with the Strait of Hormuz closed, oil is an international commodity. And so the price of crude, whether it's WTI or Brent, is deeply impacted by what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz. You can't drill your way out of this problem. That's just not the way the international oil markets work. So I want to bring in Bill Hill, an independent. He's running very close, neck and neck with Begich, for this Congress seat. It's the Alaska at-large Congress seat. There is a primary coming up in the next few months, and then they're going to have the general election. And Bill Hill is surging in the polls as Donald Trump is crashing in the polls.

7:51Ben Meiselas:So let's bring in Bill Hill. Bill Hill. Great to see you, Bill. I've got a lot of questions for you about this race, about Alaska. But, you know, maybe you can just tell me from the outset, how are the people of Alaska? What's going on right now in the great state of Alaska? Oh, yeah. I mean, Alaskans are hurting. You name it. You know, we're seeing the price of everything increase here. And Baggich has just voted against our best interests over and over again. You want to talk about health care and Medicare. He's voted against those things. Alaskan families, a large number of Alaskan families have about an average of a$900 a month increase with the lack of passage of the ACA tax extensions.

8:33And I know my family couldn't absorb that kind of an increase. So Alaskans are hurting. And then you throw on top of it these this war that's just driving the price of fuel up. A lot of our communities are off the road system and you can only get to them by flying there with a small plane. Some of the communities are actually running out of fuel and the price of that fuel is extremely high. Some of our communities, it's probably more than thirteen dollars a gallon for gas and diesel heating fuel. So we're really getting crunched hard. And the hardworking Alaska, Alaska is a hardworking place, but man, it's tougher and tougher to make ends meet, even if you're a hardworking Alaskan.

9:13And especially with the votes that Begich has done, it's just really putting the crunch on us and we need a change.

9:20Ben Meiselas:Bill, talk to us about this election, how important it is, who else is in this race. And when you're traveling around Alaska, what are you hearing? I'm hearing a lot of disappointment with Begich and his term in office, his first term in office. I'm hearing that he just doesn't connect with the Alaskan people. He doesn't represent them well. And he's really not connecting with Alaskans. Me getting into the race, it's really about, you know, this is personal for me.

9:56I have four children, seven grandchildren. Whoa, sorry about that. Um, and, uh, you know, I'm really worried about the fact that our, our state is a place where it's going to be very difficult for them to work hard and build good lives. And we need people who are going to be fighting for Alaskans every day in Congress. And that's not what we have. We have somebody who's there to sidle up to power and special interests and big money. And so, um, I jumped into this race because Alaskans need somebody who can really fight for them every single day. The hardworking Alaskans are just getting left behind by what's happening right now.

10:33There is a Democrat in the race as well. He's a pastor out of Anchorage. His name is Matt Schultz. And I think my campaign is just doing everything it can to show that we have the strength to beat Nick Baggage and his millions of dollars.

10:47Ben Meiselas:You know, Bill, sometimes we talk about Donald Trump's policies and they're so outrageous sometimes that we have a time to, we almost talk about it as parody. You know, he's doing the golden ballroom, reflecting pool, triumphal arches, or, you know, on one day Donald Trump is saying, you know, we have a deal, then there's no deal. And he's having fake negotiations in his mind. And, you know, it creates a level of, you know, mockery and, you know, how crazy is this? And there is that component. But what I sensed in your voice there, and as I sense in your campaign, is that there is pain being felt in Alaska right now.

11:30Ben Meiselas:And this is a state that you love. It's a state that so many people have such great pride in. And you think about your children and your grandchildren, and you think about their futures and what that could look like. And And under Begich and Trump, it's really grim and it's really dark. And that's what I sensed in your voice right there. Absolutely. And, you know, Alaska is such a unique state. I mean, and it's so massive. You know, we have over 200 communities that can only reach by air, by small plane. If you cut Alaska in half, Texas would be the third largest state in the union. And so it's very, it's a very big, very diverse state with these very remote communities.

12:12And then we have some large urban centers. So serving the state of Alaska means you need to be able to represent just this amazing variety of people because Alaska has one seat. And currently, Nick Begich holds it and he's not doing a good job for Alaskans. And I personally believe that someone who's in Congress should make every vote with the thought of what is best for Alaskans first and everything else is secondary. And that's what I intend to do.

12:38Ben Meiselas:So tell me, as you walk around Alaska, as you drive around and as you meet people, you know, lots of people there, obviously. Talk to us about what you're hearing from them. People are just concerned. I was back home last weekend for a couple of days. I've actually I've only been home for about two weeks since January when we launched this. But I had to go home because we were out of heating fuel at my house and there was no heating fuel available in our community for purchase. So I had to transfer heating fuel from our business to our home in order to make sure that we had heat and hot water.

13:18Not only are we seeing really high prices, but we're also seeing real instability in the systems that deliver the goods that Alaskans need. Alaskans are hurting. You know, you hear it around the state. There's real fear and ability for us to be able to sustain our lives. And there's a real disappointment in what's going on in our government. We feel like the government and the politics have left the working people behind. And you're just hearing it more and more every day.

13:44Ben Meiselas:Tell us before we go a little bit about your background, why you decided to run, and where can people learn more about the campaign, Bill? And any final words you want to tell our nearly 7 million subscribers? Great. Well, my name is Bill Hill. I'm a lifelong Alaskan, Dena and Athabaskan. I grew up in a real bush frontier lifestyle. If you think about chopping wood and packing water, no electricity, no telephone, no TVs, running dog teams, you know, that was the lifestyle. I have spent my entire life commercial fishing since the age of eight. I've been a 25-year educator in our state as a teacher, principal, and superintendent.

14:22I've been a construction worker, and I'm a small business owner with my wife. Most importantly, the father of four, grandfather of seven. I'm concerned about our nation. I'm concerned about Alaska's representation in Congress. And I think we need a real change. We need a change that really improves lives for Alaskans. You can contact my campaign or see more about what we're about and how we can truly represent all Alaskans and the hardworking Alaskans by going to BillHillForAlaskans.com. We'd appreciate it if you'd take a look at our race, take a look at what we're about, and show how we can tip this seat away from the Republicans and regain it for the American and the Alaskan people.

15:05Ben Meiselas:Bill Hill, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you. Everybody hit subscribe here. Let's get to 7 million subscribers and check back in though we want to hear more updates on the campaign absolute pleasure thank you so much for the invite and i look forward to speaking to you in the future everybody hit subscribe want to stay plugged in become a subscriber to our sub stack at midasplus.com you'll get daily recaps from ron philipkowski add free episodes of our podcast and more exclusive content only available at midasplus.com

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