Were Midterm Ads Always This Bad?

0:00Most AI knows data. Toast IQ knows restaurants. It helps turn Detroit 75's numbers, plus what works across thousands of restaurants, into insights we can actually use. That's AI that's worked a double without a lunch break. Visit toasttab.com to learn more. Pay testimonial from an actual Toast customer. This is Hannah Berner from Giggly Squad. O-Pill is the first over-the-counter daily birth control pill available in the U.S. let's be real getting a birth control prescription is not always easy and it's so much admin in fact about a third of women face barriers to access prescription birth control between scheduling appointments missing work class or just trying to exist it's a lot but now opil is putting birth control in our control opil is a daily birth control that's fda approved full prescription strength and estrogen free and 98 effective when used as directed grab it online or at most major retailers, no prescription or doctor's appointment needed.

0:56So if you're thinking about birth control, check out OPILL to see if it's right for you. Use code GIGLY for 25 % off your first month of OPILL at OPILL.com. That's code GIGLY at OPILL.com. Birth control in your control. We love to see it. Hey, it's Mary, and I'm here to ask a favor of you, but it's a favor that in the end is really kind of a favor to yourself. We're running a listener survey right now. It'll be up all the way through the end of midterms, maybe a little after, and we're asking you to weigh in on the show. We're going to use the information you give us to think about how What Next should look and sound going forward.

1:35You can find the listener survey at slate.com slash whatnextsurvey. That is slate.com slash whatnextsurvey. Thank you so much for weighing in. It means a lot.

1:51As we inch closer and closer to November 4th, I have been asking myself this question. What does a billion dollars buy you these days?

2:06This is my question because a billion dollars certainly does not buy what it used to. A billion dollars is how much was spent by political operatives in just the first couple of weeks of October this midterm season. And this election is set to be the most expensive political cycle in history. All this money, it is going to canvassers and operatives and most visibly to you and to me, ads. Lots and lots of ads.

2:37There are ads that are funny, ads that are rage bait. And then there are ads like the one Vivek Ramaswamy wanted to air in Ohio.

2:50A reminder, Ramaswamy is running for governor in the Buckeye State. His Democratic opponent is a physician named Amy Acton, and this ad features her mom. It's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem. She is a liar. She lies about her past. What this ad leaves out is that Acton reported horrible sexual abuse as a child. Abuse that was allegedly perpetrated by her stepfather and enabled by her mother, who fled the state with her daughter's alleged rapist. Now, that same mother is calling her daughter a liar. My daughter needs help, and she can't help you if she needs help herself.

3:37If you think she'll make your life better, you're fooling yourself. It will only get worse. Yes. So, the mother of Amy Acton, who is 82 years old, the New York Times subsequently reported they found her living in her car with her cats. Yeah. I called up my friend Molly Jong Fast to wade through the sludge with me. She hosts Fast Politics. Basically, she accuses her daughter of being a liar. Now, her daughter has not spoken to her since 1978. When they were at, like, a court hearing, right? Yes, because she, Acton and her brother and a previous child not related to Acton all accuse the mother's husband of raping Amy.

4:26This whole thing is a mess and almost everyone can see it except the usual suspects, President Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance. I have to admit that I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America. And then in the wake of it, Cook Political Report shifted the gubernatorial race from toss up to lean Democrats. So I think we can fairly say it's possible this ad backfired significantly. Right? Yeah. I mean, I think I immediately had that take, too.

5:07But there's a question of, like, does Cook shift a little bit late? And so was this the Hail Mary path? The shift had already happened. Right. Of a campaign that knew it was in trouble and then made it worse? All of which brings me back to that question I started with. What does a billion dollars get you these days? Because there's no doubt the GOP had a funding advantage going into this midterm cycle. And sure, they were leaning on a few very particular donors, like a certain trillionaire who loves the letter X, for instance. But still, I think it's tempting to look at what happened here and ask the question, is the political money machine broken?

5:49Like spending like this, this wild spending we're seeing from Elon, has it finally gone too far? OK, so if you look at the 2025 cycle with that Wisconsin judicial election. Where Elon spent a ton. Right. Elon spent it was the most I think he spent somewhere north of 50 million dollars. It was the most expensive judicial election ever. Spoiler alert. Democrats won. Democrats won. Elon danced with a cheese hat on his head, said he loved Wisconsin. The Wisconsin people were like, no thanks. This time he tried to not do the cheese hat in the hopes that people wouldn't know it was him. What we saw is the filings.

6:33I don't know. I think what you're saying is it's unclear if the political money machine is broken. but it is clear that maybe Elon Musk is broken for the Republicans. Well, I would say political money obviously works. The problem for Republicans is like you can do that kind of stuff when gas is$2,$3 a gallon. When gas is$4 or$5 a gallon, all anyone's saying is like, I can't afford to fill my tank up with gas. And I think that I don't think that you there's no room for cultural warriors in a world where you can barely get by. Today on the show, billions of dollars might not buy an election. Not this time anyway, but it sure can shape what you see on TV.

7:29Molly and I channel surf to see what's working and what isn't. I'm Mary Harris. You're listening to What Next. Stick around.

8:06Thank you. What made the ACLU intervene? What's at stake? Because a case is never just one case. It can shape how people are treated for generations to come. You can listen to Make the Case wherever you get your podcasts or find it on YouTube.

8:46www.ernesta.com

8:54any style when you order five samples for only$10. 500 orders a month was manageable. 5 ,000 is madness. Embrace intelligent order fulfillment with ShipStation, the only platform combining order management, warehouse workflows, inventory, returns, and analytics in one place. What used to take five separate tools, ShipStation does in one. Automate fulfillment and rate shopping to ship up to 15 times more with up to 90 % savings. Go to ShipStation.com and use code AUDIO to try ShipStation free for 60 days.

9:31In this conversation about ads, I kind of want to start here, which is like attack ads aren't anything new. Just ask Michael Dukakis, who, you know, in 1998, I was watching the Willie Horton ad, which is the ad that's sort of associated with being the ad that killed a campaign, you could argue. in 1998. He was running for president against George Bush. It has a key element, which I think you see in a lot of attack ads, which is just it stokes fear. It uses the image of a black man as this warning. Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison.

10:08One was Willie Horton, who murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him 19 times. Despite a life sentence, Horton received 10 weekend passes from prison. And you look at this ad, it really does feel like a progenitor. It's very different, but it shares DNA. Going back, like, given how freaked out people are about socialists this cycle, I went back to be like, where did attack ads come from? 1934, like, people making newsreels about Upton Sinclair, who was running for governor of California. and it's just, it's really interesting. It's like, you can see these newsreels with people who may or may not have been real and they're just doing the same things we see now.

10:57The people who look like immigrants and look scary or have accents or whatever, they're the people who are for the socialist and the people who look nice in their suits are like, no, I don't think so. Mr. Branson, have you decided who you're going to vote for? Yes, sir, for Abton Sinclair. Have you any reasons why? Why? Because I believe he's the best man for the job. I've always been a socialist and I believe he'll do the best for the people and for the working, especially for the working people. So, OK, not new, but I do think there's an extreme that we're at right now on, frankly, like from Republicans.

11:34And then also I see a little bit of it from Democrats, too. So I wonder if we can go through the ads that have skeeved you out the most. is there one or one genre that you see and you think whoa this is something new i mean so the ai ads yeah i think are the biggest problem so those are the ads and again like remember we don't live the way we did during the dukakis age so like there's no shared television experience at this moment so you don't have like everyone tuning in to 60 minutes especially now so you're not going to have that kind of you're going to see these ads like on your feed, not on your TV.

12:21And they rely on virality, like people spreading them for you almost. I mean, the one I'm familiar with is the Tallarico one where he it's A.I. Tallarico sort of dressed up as if he's in Sound of Music doing favorite things. But the implication is that he's going to turn your kid trans. Boys in white dresses with blue satin sashes, girls dust with hormones till they grow mustaches, changing the gender of all your offspring. These are a few of my favorite things. Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm talking about. You know, just the AI ads where it's none of it's real. So the question there is like you have no regulation, right?

13:05There's no regulation. God forbid we regulate anything. I remember it's like in Trump one point out, he'd be like, I'm going to take away one regular. I'm going to take away 10 regulations for every one regulation I do now. Like nobody even cares because there's no regulation. It's just like whatever. It's so wild, though. Like, couldn't you sue like for a definite? I don't know if it would be defamation or something. It's like it's like you're using someone's likeness in a way that they haven't agreed to. And making up a story. Yeah. So those kind of AI ads, I think, are really destructive. I mean, the fake mailers.

13:39I mean, it's just like it's just on steroid lying. We have, you know, but Tellurico has gotten the most of it because anti-Tellerico PACs have gotten the most from Elon Musk, who's the least interested in, you know, like there are normal donors in the cycle where they might care if it turns out that they're spreading lies. Whereas I don't think Elon will necessarily care. Well, I think we should like paint the picture there where it's like Elon Musk is giving a lot to Texas. Right. Elon Musk, you know, has a lot of business interests in Texas. For sure. Elon Musk is also very, very interested in trans issues because of what happened with his kid.

14:23And so you have this kind of supercharged situation where in Texas, which is also the most expensive place to run political ads, it's a huge state. You just this is where you're really seeing things go crazy. Like there's an ad where James Tallarico is literally desecrating a Bible, which is wild. So here's what I would say about Texas. Elon Musk has had Greg Abbott has basically been like Elon Musk's ATM when it comes to anything you want. So Elon Musk has a town. He moved to Texas because he didn't want to pay California taxes. So he's pretty invested in keeping Greg Abbott there. Gina Hinojosa is, you know, she's not as ahead as— The Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

15:15She's not as ahead as Tallarico. But she's a—I've seen polls with her ahead. I mean, at least in a dead heat. I mean, what's so interesting about Texas, if you look at Texas right now with a redistricting, So they redo like five seats because they thought that Donald Trump was going to forever have these Latino voters. Yeah. And Democrats actually did something very smart here. And I can be very critical and people get mad at me. But like they ran candidates like Bobby Polito. South Texas. We are mothers, fighters, abuelos, entrepreneurs, the hardest working people in this country. and we deserve a leader who fights for us like we fight for our families.

15:59He's a famous singer too, but the point is he's going to win. And his opponent was like, you're not a real candidate. You sing at Quinceaneras. So he went and sung at every Quinceanera. And like, that's a great candidate. OK, I'm bringing us back to ads because it's interesting to me that you're saying it's not about ideology because there's this whole other class of ads that I think is worth talking about, which is just generally anti-liberal. Like using pictures of liberals, like why are these liberals smiling? Why is Ilhan Omar smiling? She's smiling because she registered to vote. She voted.

16:37Well, she's smiling because you haven't voted. There's a version of this that's actually very personalized. I think you can get on social media where it uses your name. Like, hey, Molly, they're smiling because you haven't voted. Why are they smiling? because Christopher hasn't made a plan to vote yet. They know if voters like you sit this election out, they're one step closer to a radical socialist takeover of America. Christopher, don't lose your chance to vote. And then a couple of folks I work with here at Slate have seen this ad that, you know, it's called Full of Hate. Today's liberals are full of hate.

17:10They hate America. They're obsessed with skin color. I can't even show my face because my skin is white and they'll spew hate at me. But it's interesting because it's basically painting an entire ideology as bad by using very specific people involved in that ideology, usually black, brown people. And it's interesting to me because it is really taking a whole ideology and trying to make it bad. Anyone associated with this, bad. And I don't know if that works right now, but we will see. I mean, I don't think it'll work right now. I think this stuff may work in a normal election cycle. Right now, this is just not a normal election cycle.

17:49You have a president who is more powerful than any president ever. He is also pretty much more unhinged than any president ever. He's done things like go to, you know, try to go to war for Greenland, threaten Canadians, do tariffs on Canada, go to trade war, be like, you want to sell your soybeans? Well, fuck you. You can't sell soybeans anymore because we're going to have a trade war with China. You know, like, I mean, it's just the nonsensical nature of it while he's like digging up the reflecting pool and tearing down the East Wing. Like, I don't know that there will be another. I mean, maybe there will be.

18:32Maybe things will just get worse and worse and worse. But my sense is that this is probably the last election where Democrats can run against like what is just unfettered craziness. And so pure, pure, pure just drama. And like, so if you're a normal voter, a normie voter, I mean, if there's a really good piece in The Washington Post today about this, like if you're a normie voter who's just like a truck driver and you're just you don't follow politics, but you for all of a sudden it's another thousand dollars a month to fill up your car with gas. You are going to be like this needs to stop. After the break, the Democratic ads that gave us pause, and even a couple of ads we liked.

19:20But quick reminder before we get to that, we've got a listener survey going on right now. You can take it at slate.com slash whatnextsurvey. That is slate.com slash whatnextsurvey. Weigh in.

19:39This episode is brought to you by Home Chef. Can I tell you what my next month looks like? I've got like five family birthdays, two weekends with house guests, a little trip out of town. And oh, yeah, every day we all got to eat. It'd be pretty nice to eat without actually having to cook while simultaneously not feeling that post-takeout hangover I sometimes get. this is where Home Chef comes in. Home Chef delivers restaurant quality meals right to your door for less than eating out with way less stress than meal planning. Home Chef makes cooking simple. It's fresh food delivered, easy recipes to follow, and meals that taste great.

20:19It takes the stress out of your week with convenient weekly deliveries. It'll keep your fridge stocked and it'll eliminate meal planning and grocery runs. No shopping lists, no complicated prep. It's perfect for busy, schedules. And right now, as we head into the holiday season, it's pretty busy. Home Chef is also not one size fits all. They've got 30 meal options each week with choices for different tastes and dietary needs, including calorie conscious and even GLP-1 friendly meals. And people really love it. Home Chef is rated number one by users of other meal kits for quality, convenience, value, taste, and recipe ease.

20:56Customers say they spend less time planning, shopping, prepping meals. Plus they say it's affordable. Home Chef customers say they save an average of 86 bucks a month on groceries. For a limited time, Home Chef is offering my listeners 50 % off and free shipping for your first box, plus free dessert for life. Just go on over to homechef.com slash whatnext. That's homechef.com slash whatnext for 50 % off your first box and free dessert for life. Homechef.com slash whatnext must be an active subscriber to receive the free dessert.

21:34This is Hannah Berner from Giggly Squad. O-Pill is the first over-the-counter daily birth control pill available in the U.S. Let's be real, getting a birth control prescription is not always easy and it's so much admin. In fact, about a third of women face barriers to access prescription birth control between scheduling appointments missing work class or just trying to exist it's a lot but now opill is putting birth control in our control opill is a daily birth control that's fda approved full prescription strength and estrogen free and 98 effective when used as directed grab it online or at most major retailers no prescription or doctor's appointment needed so if you're thinking about birth control check out opill to see if it's right for you.

22:16Use code Giggly for 25 % off your first month of OPILL at O-P-I-L-L.com. That's code Giggly at O-P-I-L-L.com. Birth control in your control. We love to see it.

22:32We've been talking about ads and an ad that has given me pause on the Democrat side has been in Michigan and it's been around Abdul El-Sayed. And it came out just, I think, in the last week. Yeah, because it's not his ad. It's the ad. I know exactly the ad you're talking about. It is the Young Turks. It's Dumb Cenk's ad from when he ran from president in 2020. In case you don't know, Cenk Uygur is the co-creator of the Young Turks, the left-leaning political commentary show. We've got to describe this ad, though. First of all, it doesn't read as like a political ad. I think if you initially turn it on, it's two people at the grocery store talking about prices.

23:14Yes, but it's so it's not El Saeed's ad. He did not create it. It has nothing to do with him. And basically it's an ad with people going to the grocery store to buy food, which happens to be much more expensive under Trump. And they are talking about how much of their, you know, they have to, they can't spend all this money on food because they need to save some money to send to Israel. You're going to have to put those eggs back. They don't like eggs anymore? No, they like eggs. But we have to set that$7 aside for killing Palestinians. What? I mean, don't we give Israel$4 billion a year anyways?

23:53Yeah. And now we're giving them another$26 billion. And then there's this very ugly moment where they sort of repurpose the Trump is for they them language, only they pop up like a picture of Netanyahu. And it's like, eee, gross. Yeah. Quite anti-Semitic. Yes. Why does Mike Rogers care so much about what Israelis want and so little about what you want? Mike Rogers is for they them. Abdul El-Sayed is for you. And it's just I was like, why are we doing this? Well, why is Chank doing this ad? Why does Chank do anything? Because he's Chank. And this guy does stuff like that. I think he thinks he's raising money for his PAC.

24:45At the end, it says, you know, to give money to his PAC. But it's not. I mean, I think it's gross. I think it's gross. And I think it's bad. But I don't think and I actually don't think I know this has nothing to do with the Democratic nominee in Michigan. But then, I mean, I guess I also see stuff like in Iowa, you got Josh Turek. Right. And he really wants to talk in his ads about trans stuff. As a Paralympian, I also know it's important to have rules. It's why I oppose males competing in female sports, something that is already illegal in Iowa. I'm against taxpayers paying for sex changes, too.

25:18Anyone tells you any different is lying. And I'm sort of like, why? Why do we have to do that? Why are we doing this here? So what I would say about this, and again, like, I'm not here to defend anyone. I'm just here to explain the trans stuff. Trans stuff. These are people's lives. So in the 24 cycle, there was an ad that Donald Trump ran endlessly, and I'm sure you saw it, and it was Harris is for they, them, and Donald Trump is for you. And the Harris campaign had a moment where they had to decide whether or not they were going to push back against this ad or not, and they decided to not. and supposedly the information from that is that that was the ad that really won Donald Trump the election.

26:14I've heard that argument. I mean, like, I think I think the interesting pushback to that argument is like the way that Harris answered the question, like this begin this ad begins with her talking about, you know, health care for prisoners and giving them giving them trans health care. The way she answered it was so muddled, which is actually just how Kamala Harris answered questions, that that was actually the real problem. And I think that's an interesting argument here. And what Josh Dirk is doing in these ads is he's like, I'm not for health care for kids or kids on sports teams. And I'm like, why are we going to give life to this?

26:48I mean, look, here's what I would say. I'm not convinced that, like, I don't think you should throw anyone under the bus. But I also think that Iowa voters are not woke and they're not like if they go in. You don't win in Iowa by appealing to us. You don't win in Iowa by appealing to even our grandparents. Right. Like you win in Iowa by getting Republicans to hold their nose and vote for you. And so I think that they gamed it out this way. Do I think it's morally correct? No. But like they're going to be like this cycle. We're not going to have to do stuff like this. But in 2028, the person who runs for office is going to have to.

27:36If a Democrat wins, they're going to have to not espouse a lot of the views of 1.0. And I think there's also like you could do a message that's like they want to talk to you about the cost of trans health care. Right. And like you're paying for all these things. You know what you're actually paying for? You're paying for Donald Trump's corruption. And you know what? That's way more expensive. You know, it's just sort of like those sorts of things. I think there is a way you can do it that is not just like selling people out. Yeah, I do. I also, though, I just like I would say the fact that AOC is saying that woke one was crazy is like a sign that it is very hard to walk and chew gum.

28:16And I don't know what's going to happen in the 2028 cycle. But, you know, in 2020, like I just would say if you're a candidate that thinks they're going to be president, don't stand on a stage where they're going to make you raise your hand. you know like do you believe in trans pledge allegiance to anything but the flag right just don't raise your hand because they're gonna ask people you know yikes though yikes i mean like come on they're supposed to be moral leaders tell me a politician who's been a moral leader i mean that okay that's but that's a failure of the politicians well then you would have if you think your politicians are supposed to be moral leaders then you need to get ready to lose elections because I'm telling you, I mean, I wish it were true, too.

29:01They are tools. They are tools that do things for you. And that is why you vote for them. And you vote for the one who you can argue with the best. Yes. I hear you. They're atrocious. And like you and I have been covering these people long enough to let's be honest here. Vote for your favorite dirtbag, side Molly Zhang fast. Yeah. I mean, I'm just I'm telling you, like, so what would I say about Josh Turek? Josh Turek as a professional athlete, he's a paraplegic who is running for Senate in Iowa. It's a state that voted for Trump and voted for Obama. He knows that if he wins, he wins by one, two points.

29:39So I think he's trying as best he can to just get in there. But I also do think he is a professional. Saying nothing was an option. I don't know that you needed to say that. I don't know that you needed to have an ad that's like, I don't believe in health care for trans kids and I don't believe and girls and boys, whatever he was saying. I don't know that you needed to say it. I think Democrats need to be focused on winning. And I think in Iowa, he thinks that that's winning. Do I think it's morally atrocious? Yes. Do I think you shouldn't throw trans kids under the bus? Absolutely. Do I think that like there is a do I think that it also doesn't like the Senate is never going to have anything to fucking do with kids sports?

30:16Your mouth to God's ears. Like, I hope they don't have anything to do like like working on your communities, people. Right. But I'm just saying, like, as a governor, like, you could at least make the case that that will be a legislation that maybe will come down on your desk. As a senator, like, probably you're not going to do a federal. I mean, even if you do, you're going to vote against it anyway. But I think Democrats should win. And if you're running in Iowa and that's what you feel you have to do, like, I think that the pundit class should give these people a pass, even if it's like makes us uncomfortable.

30:55OK, let's not end on bad vibes. I want to talk about ads that you found compelling this election cycle, like what you thought was working. What do you have? So the pick another protein ad. I don't know if you saw the Scott column in Mississippi. Yeah, it's a great ad because, first of all, Cindy Hyde-Smith is just a terrible candidate. And you have her doing an interview with a local reporter. Price of beef continuing to go up. You know, you have so many proteins to choose from. Pick another protein? Shit, I'd rather pick another senator instead. Pick another protein? She done lost her damn mind.

31:35I'd rather pick another senator. Pick another protein? What the? Pick another senator instead. You and I both know from living in America for our whole lives that Americans do not like it when you tell them they can't have something, especially something they could have last year or a few months ago. And so she says pick another protein. And basically you have everybody in Mississippi being like, why don't we just pick another senator? And why it's good is it's catchy and it's funny. You get to hear Mississippi accents. It's also based on something this candidate actually said. So it's like really coming back at her on this like particular thing.

32:17She can't really run away from it. For sure. But you also get like a taste of what Mississippi is, you know, people grilling, people eating. It's got a sort of nice vibe to it of like what's happening. The ad I saw that really stood out to me is in Texas and it's a Tallarico ad. And the reason I liked it is because it has the benefit of being true. It sort of looks at all the different Tallarico ads and is like, have you seen these ads? Have you seen these ads? This is who pays for all of them. Who is that? But who's funding these stark money groups? Elon Musk. This summer, Elon made some of the largest political donations in American history.

33:00He's now spent more than$180 million to defeat James Tallarico. He's almost single-handedly bankrolling the effort to install Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate. But why is the... It's just a very clear representation of exactly what's happening. It is correct. And it's also bad for Ken Paxton. You know what I mean? It has the benefit of being true and also good for the person who's saying it. Ken Paxton is really... And like, I think we talk about like when kids study this in college, Ken Paxton will be he's like the Roy Moore of corruption. Right. He's uniquely bad. And also you had Trump talking about how with Ken Paxton, you had Trump being like, I don't like the way he dresses.

33:49I don't like the way he looks. I don't like the way he speaks. He's a weird looking guy. You know, there's a real sense in which like even Donald Trump doesn't like him. Yeah. In some ways, though, you know what? I also wonder whether it's a little quaint to talk about ads. Like I think about this other thing that's happening in Texas at the moment where some people are reporting they're getting mailers that are not ads at all. They are just like, here's a mailer from this organization to the family of this child who lives there or the children who live at this address. And we're going to tell you how to be emancipated from your parents and how to change your gender and these sorts of things just to raise the salience of the issue of like trans kids, for instance.

34:33And it just feels really bad that like we have someone who's so wealthy at this point. We have so much money in this that they can spend money on an effort like this that isn't really even about getting off the getting out the vote. It's about just demonizing people, creating an environment where maybe you vote for the person that they want you to vote for. I don't know. It feels bad. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's all bad. But I agree. I think like the ads, you have to, ads don't have the kind of power they used to have, which is just like media doesn't have the kind of power it used to have. So, I mean, I remember in 2016, there were all these conversations of like when and when not to air Trump's speeches.

35:19Now it's irrelevant, right? He can air it a million different ways. He can live stream it. He can whatever. Yeah. Right. So I don't know. It's just a different set of problems now. But I don't think ads are I don't I think it's sort of the machine behind the ads. But I don't. But I also think at this moment and I don't think that will always be true. But at this moment, it's going to be hard for Republicans to buy this. Yeah. It may not always be true. But I think for now, for this moment. Molly, I'm so grateful for your time. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you.

36:22Generations. And I'm Mary Harris. Go track me down on Blue Sky. I'm at Mary Harris. Thanks for listening. Catch you back here next time.

36:42There are two types of business owners, those who are busy and those who want to be busy. Toast is designed for both, with tools to keep you humming and help turn grind into growth. That's how you turn busy into business. Toast, built for busy. Hi, this is Nikayla Matthews-Oconley from SideHustle Pro. This holiday, the difference between buyers just checking things out and checking out comes down to the last few clicks. PayPal Checkout is a trusted conversion engine fueled by 400 million active PayPal and Venmo accounts. Add pay later and turn holiday shoppers into regulars. 96 % of Paylater shoppers are repeat users.

37:21PayPal is built for all business. Get started at paypal.com slash business. Disclaimer, PayPal Paylater data, eight markets, March 2025 to February 2026. Repeat users more than one Paylater purchase in the past year.