Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] You're listening to the Oklahoma Memo podcast, the fastest way to get smart on Oklahoma news, politics, business, and sports. Welcome to the Oklahoma Memo podcast. 0:16 My name is Ryan Welton, the founder and curator of Oklahoma Memo. It's your daily local news recap. It's, uh, just a tiny newsletter I send out six days a week at 7:00 A.M. 0:26 You can sign up at oklahomamemo.com/subscribe, and this is the Oklahoma Memo podcast, Grant and Ryan. It's our weekly conversation about national politics. Grant's in Detroit, I'm in Oklahoma City. 0:39 That's gonna come into play today. But first, how are you doing, Grant? I'm good, man. I'm good. It's, uh, it's been an eventful week here in Detroit. 0:48 Uh, it is, [laughs] like, the, the race this week on Tuesday, it was primary day on Tuesday, so I was back in my element of, like, full cornacky in all things, uh, here. Oh. Yeah. 0:59 You, you were, and I saw a lot of your vertical videos. It's, it always the highest compliment when somebody says, "Ryan, Grant, I don't know why, but wherever I go, I see you." 1:09 Uh, that's the way this- that's the way the attention economy is supposed to work. 1:13 Uh, and you being in Michigan, um, you were right at the heart of national politics this week with Abdul El-Sayed, uh, defeating, uh, what's her- Haley Stevens? Haley Stevens. Haley. Congresswoman Haley Stevens, yeah. 1:26 So Haley Stevens, your more conventional Democrat, if you will. Um, uh, Abdul El-Sayed, uh, probably, you know, aligns with the Democratic Socialist of America, but it's not another party. 1:36 It's just a wing, just like the Freedom- Yeah... Caucus on the, the right. Yeah. Um, so tell us what happened in that election, what does it say about Michigan, and does it really inform anything nationally? 1:47 Yeah, it does a lot nationally, actually, and we're, we're seeing a lot of that now, but like, so this race, w- we went into this race on Monday, Tuesday day expecting to see El-Sayed 1:59 just blow out Haley Stevens by double digits, 15, 16 points. Um, I was on a live stream with, uh, a couple guys who were the former founders of the, The Lincoln Project. 2:09 One of the guys used to run the Republican Party here in Michigan for a long time, and has now left the party, and sort of like in his, you know, nadir right now of, of this. 2:16 And we ended our live stream at like 9:30 because we were like, this, you know, El-Sayed's up 20 points, that'll close a little bit, but like, it's a double-digit win. Yeah, it, that didn't happen. 2:27 W- El-Sayed wins by one point. Neither candidate gets over 50%. It's like 48 and a half percent to 47 and a half percent. So what happens in this race is the polling is off by a lot, and there are a- Again. Again. 2:44 There are a lot of things that kind of happened all at once in this race as to why the polling is off, and like, I can go into that if you want me to. Yeah. Uh. No, no, I would love to know. Okay. 2:53 Hey, by the way, we're gonna talk about Oklahoma too. We really haven't seen that much in the way of polls, so I don't really have anything from Oklahoma to say- Sure... "Oh, watch out for this," but what happened? Sure. 3:03 So M- Michigan on one hand doesn't have a, like, super great pollster, uh, compared to other states, which is weird because it's such an important battleground state for both parties. 3:14 You would expect there to be, like, a real polling machine here, and there's just not, which, like, even, you know, this is my second stint in the state, uh, in, and in Detroit doing this kind of reporting, and it's still weird to me that, like, there isn't somebody who is, like, the gold standard of this thing. 3:30 There are two polls, one from the Glen Garren Group and one from Epic, uh, MRA. Those are the best ones. They have their own issues, um, with them, both the methodology. 3:41 Sometimes it's, you know, who their polls are for, who commissioned them that, like, weight these things differently. Uh, but both of them had El-Sayed up by a lot. 3:53 What I think happened here is, first and foremost, those polls spent a lot of time in, like, suburban white communities and on college campuses, so they might have oversampled around college campuses a little bit more. 4:06 That weights your poll a little bit differently, and then you get El-Sayed in, in the lead by a lot in those places because those places tend to lean more progressive than other places around the, the state itself. 4:19 I also think that turnout was a much bigger deal here. 4:24 Now, there's some of that we can't really know in Michigan, but like, when you look at the Demo- Democratic ballots cast, it was, like, one point, I think it was 1.6 million compared to 900,000 Republican ballots cast. 4:37 Michigan has an open primary system, so you decide which party you're gonna vote the primary, and then you just get that ballot. You can't go back and forth. Uh, which people right now are in the thick of this, like, 4:51 on the left at least, they're in the thick of this conspiracy that a bunch of Republicans crossed the party lines in this open primary to vote for El-Sayed to, like- Right... 5:00 m- make him underperform, but don't- But as you noted in one of your videos, that's not likely. I, I just don't think that's, that, that happened. Uh, 5:09 it, it, it doesn't hold a lot of water because El-Sayed is, at least in, in the polling, again, which might have been a little flawed, but was, was losing to Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate in this race, who was running unopposed, by, like, 10 points. 5:25 So he's, i- in that case, before this election, El-Sayed is the, the weaker candidate going into this race. So, uh, why would you wanna make him underperform? 5:35 Uh, unless your goal here is to, like, just never have a guy with the last name El-Sayed be in office. 5:43 Uh, or I've seen people say, like, the goal was to make him underperform and then stop short of actually losing, which, like, the amount of coordination that would take is just, uh, impossible. [laughs] Like- Right. 5:54 Right, right... for us to not know about it. 5:56 Uh, and like, some people have said, yeah, there are people online or, like, who have said that on, on, you know, been in interviews been like, "Oh yeah, I was asked to, like, vote for El-Sayed because, like, the governor race here was contentious, but, like, not that contentious, and it was, like, uh, still pretty contentious. 6:12 And then there are also down-ballot races that people cared about. So, you know, I, I just don't believe that conspiracy. 6:19 I do really think that specifically the Black community in Wayne County, and then in surrounding Oakland County, which Wayne County is where Detroit is, and Oakland County is, like, the, the next largest county outside of that, uh, I think the Black community was just underserved in this polling by a lot. 6:34 And they tend to be a little more, uh, moderate for a lot of reasons, especially when it comes to this race between Haley Stevens and El-Sayed. 6:44 But, and also, as I learned from one of your videos, aren't they maybe holding a grudge a little bit from 2024? 6:49 Absolutely, and that's what I was gonna say, is that, like, the president of the NAACP here in Detroit, uh, Reverend Dr. We- Anthony Wendell, uh, like, uh, or We- Wendell Anthony, excuse me, uh, i- is, 7:01 is, like, saying that, you know, a lot of the, the folks that he talks to about this are still holding this grudge about the uncommitted movement, which was the movement in 2024 at the DNC, the convention, to get delegates not to vote for the Biden-Harris ticket. 7:17 Uh, and I think I misspoke both in the show yesterday and in the video you might have watched, and I just said Harris, but my brain was on that track, and so I meant Biden-Harris. 7:24 But not to vote for the Biden-Harris ticket because of their stance on Gaza, and just vote as a protest vote, and then get people to vote in November, but a lot of people didn't. 7:34 Certainly here in Detroit and in Dearborn, Michigan, which has the highest Arab American population of the country, the state of Michigan does as a, as a per capita concentration. 7:43 So there's that grudge because a lot of people, especially Black folks here in Detroit, feel like that movement cost Kamala Harris her shot at the presidency come November, which would have been the second Black president, which would have been the first woman president, which would have been the first woman president who would have been a Black woman. 8:05 And so there's a lot, there's, uh, not a lot of resentment, but that's still there. Mm-hmm. And then there is, and I, like, I, this sounds like an argument to scapegoat the Black community, and it's not. 8:15 I just think that these people- But, but it's a reminder that all politics truly are local. Yes. 8:19 Well, and that, that people have, o- on an individual level, have their own things about them and the, and why they choose to vote certain ways. And the other reason is, is religion. 8:31 Black voters tend to be more religious, uh, more agnostic, so they believe in, in a literal God a, a much more than any other race in the country. They tend to be more Christian than anybody else in the country. 8:44 And then we know broadly speaking that, like, on a scale of who people would rather vote for, Muslim comes second to last, uh, which, like, it, for reasons I 8:57 would take a different podcast to unpack, I'm sure, but, like, it only beats out, you know, uh, atheist. 9:04 And so you roll those things all into one, plus the, the Harris thing, plus the fact that the Haley Stevens campaign, through their own funding and a lot of funding from the group AIPAC, which we can talk about in a second, 9:17 you know, a lot of the community in Detroit was just getting bombed with these Haley Stevens ads connecting her to Obama and the auto industry work that she did with him during his administration, uh, in, in the 2008-2009 crash and rebuilding of the auto industry. 9:31 And so there's those three connections that, you know, Haley Stevens has inroads then into the Black community in Detroit, Wayne County, and Oakland County that El-Sayed doesn't have. 9:43 Uh, and, and he's got ground to make up now as the nominee, as the candidate for this. Nominee's not the right word. The candidate for this, and that's just a real thing. 9:55 It helps that he was the, the head of the Wayne County, uh, like, health authority basically here for years. Uh, he came back to do that because he's from around here. Uh, and so 10:09 he's got a connection to this place, and, you know, the inroads into that community now that it's not a primary race are much easier to make. 10:16 But I think that that's why the polling was off, is that it just, these polls just didn't go into these communities in ways that they should have. And it's a shame, uh, because 10:27 Detroit, Wayne County itself is, is a Black majority community. You know, it's, it's 80% Black. And to not serve that community in these polls skews the race in a way that I think is, uh, just really interesting. 10:44 You talked about, uh, uh, polling and how, you know, who is commissioning them. That plays a lot into it. Even Oklahoma, um, there is one pollster who has always been a little bit head and tails over everybody else. 10:57 Um, but, you know, I always ask, "Who commissioned this?" W- was, and that will inform you as to why that person's in the lead or second or performing better than what you think. 11:07 But Gra- it sounds like this story that you're, um, telling here, this, this narrative of what happened really is a story that's only in its second or third chapter. 11:16 We're gonna have to wait and see how this plays out in November. 11:20 Um, and you noted before we got on that, uh, El-Sayed has one thing going for him, uh, or I, I should say that, um, well, of course, any Democrat is not going to be associated with the administration, but Mike Rogers is tightly associated with the Trump a- administration, and that might not be a good thing. 11:39 Yeah, and that's the, that's the thing here, is that, like, the, any Republican running right now has to be tied to Donald Trump, and that is a necessity of the party. 11:50 That is a necessity for them to get access to the money that the party has, and the necessity that, and the money that, that Donald Trump's MAGA Inc PAC has, which is about $400 million, which they're not giving out to people because the president, like, has certain 12:06 ... criteria that they need to meet for him to be able to open those floodgates. Uh, and it's weird that he's not done that yet in any of these primaries. 12:14 Not really, I mean, uh, he's kind of done it when it came to, like, unseating Massie and Cornyn a little bit. But, like, you know, it seems like he might have picked losers in some of those races too. 12:25 So- Yeah, and both Massie and Cornyn, those were personal. Those, and that's what I mean. Yeah. 12:30 So, like, all of these things are personal, and so now you've got, if you're Mike Rogers in this race, uh, and we could talk about it, you know, with getting our drum in, too. 12:39 But, like, or whether it's, in this case it's, it's, you know, a, a, a Maisie. But, like, you've gotta find a way to, to be on the side of supporting what is a deeply unpopular war in Iran. You've gotta find a way to, 12:54 uh, explaining that the economy is actually better, and that people don't feel the squeeze in the way that they do. Uh, which now seems to just be the line for that this week, uh, is just be like, "Suck it up. 13:10 Uh, e- yeah, everything's more expensive, but, like, shut up." That, that was the Dan Crenshaw- Yeah... line this week, and it was just like- Really? Well, that's not- He said that? Yeah, basically. Like, it was- Yeah... 13:21 there was a whole fight that's brewing among people on the right about a $20 burrito thing that is dumb, but, like, emblematic of they don't know their messaging on affordability. 13:30 The president continues to call it a hoax, uh, which is not for most Americans. You know, I, I wouldn't wanna be a Republican running or trying to find messaging on that. 13:41 Uh, ICE and its enforcement is deeply unpopular, uh, because every time they pop up in a city or town and start their, you know, heavy enforcement that the president still wants to continue, people die. 13:56 Uh, and every time that that happens, they get more and more opaque, and we see less and less into the operations of ICE, in- less and less into the detention centers, and people like that less and less. 14:07 Uh, and then you've gotta find ways to, you know, support people like Todd Blanche, like the other nominees that the president is putting up that have these sort of farcical hearings. 14:17 Uh, you've gotta find ways to support what is very clear corruption on the part of the president and his family, and that is, all of those things are rough positions. You're always defending. 14:27 You're never actually moving the ball forward for actual policies, and that's a hard place to be. 14:36 Which I think is why, in Michigan, in under 12 hours, the attack line that's coming out against El-Sayed is, "Hey, this guy's a Muslim." Yeah. And that's, that's kind of it. 14:47 There are some things, there was a pretty good ad that got released, uh, this week, and a pretty good, I mean, like, as a term of political w- you know, fighting, right? 14:57 Uh, because it wraps in sort of like he's gonna raise taxes, he's gonna, you know... Th- they, they said, like, he wants to empty prisons and all these things. 15:05 He doesn't, but, like, it, it's, y- they, they're aligning him with DSA candidates, Democratic Socialist of America candidates. He's not one, but, like- He's not, he doesn't consider himself a DSA-er? 15:15 He doesn't consider himself a DSA candidate. Hmm. He considers him- a pr- like, a progressive candidate and a Democratic socialist, but not a... But even that is too far for him on some things. 15:25 He considers himself way more in the, like, Bernie Sanders lite, AOC vein than he does an, a true DSA candidate. 15:32 He just does what, like, you know, they're kinda calling this, like, DSA dodge thing, where he sort of, like, dips his head in to this pool of people and then, like, dips out. 15:42 Uh, and, and that works to an extent, and, like, there are political dangers to that, too, if that's not the kind of candidate you are. But, like, that's a whole other thing. But, like, yeah. Like, it, it's, [laughs] 15:54 it is this thing where now the Republicans are just, like, using his full name, which is Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, to be like, "Doesn't that sound scary to you?" 16:05 Even though he was born 30 minutes outside of Detroit, uh, you know, h- is born and raised in Southeast Michigan. Uh, and, like, there- Hey, it's the, the home state of Kid Rock. Right. Kid Rock and El-Sayed. 16:18 Hey, people coexist. Yeah, Kid, like, Kid Rock grew up around these people. Uh, like, in, like, he is in and out of these communities all the time. Uh, he's no stranger to a halal market in Michigan, absolutely not. 16:34 Uh, there is, you know, the president saying that El-Sayed hates Jews, which is not true. Mike Rogers keeps saying the line that El-Sayed said that the United States deserved 9/11, which is not true. 16:47 That is a line that Hasan Piker said on a s- live stream, I think at this point it is, like, eight years ago. Uh- Yeah... like, uh, uh, like, uh, we, we are going back quite a ways. 16:58 Now, it's a strong statement, and Hasan Piker has apologized and attempted to clarify what he was saying in that. And, like, you and I before the stream sort of talked about the- Right... 17:08 Hasan Piker problem that El-Sayed might have in this race going forward. 17:13 But, like, and then I think all of these sort of progressive candidates who show up on Hasan Piker's extremely popular stream might have, uh, which is, like, you know, a l- getting involved in that way with Hasan Piker. 17:27 But, like, Piker's campaigned for El-Sayed quite a bit, so they're a lot closer than that. 17:33 Um, but, like, yeah, it just, there is no forward march policy-wise or message-wise that, like, a Republican can have right now, because they have to tie themselves to Donald Trump. 17:47 And so now what they've got with El-Sayed is just, like, scary, right? Scary. Right, very scary. 17:51 And- But, well, they, they, the goal from between now and November is what can we do to get the Republican base and Republican moderates to turn out? 'Cause if they don't turn out, 18:04 your senator's going to be Rahman Mohamed- Yeah. And like, you know- People else, El Sayed... m- uh, and like that, that works in some ways. 18:11 Uh, it didn't work in Michigan 8 this, [laughs] this week, where, uh, a guy, uh, Hassan, um... Oh, God, what is his last name? Uh, it, it is, it is a, a Middle Eastern name. His name is Hassan. 18:25 Uh, and he was a Republican candidate. He was the only guy basically on that ballot except for a candidate who dropped out, and because his name was Hassan, the guy who dropped out won the race. 18:34 [laughs] And so, like, you know, that backfired in this way. Uh, I, you know, I don't know if, if that will turn out in the way that people think. 18:45 I still think that the lack of enthusiasm among Republican voters writ large, uh, uh, for what's happening in the world and the midterms because, well, yeah, a lot of, all politics is local. 18:59 We only talk about things at the national level now. Uh, I think that's gonna play a much bigger role in this race, uh, still. And Republicans just don't wanna get out and vote for people. 19:10 They might get out to vote against El Sayed maybe. Maybe the governor's race here plays a role, but again, like, the candidate for that race, Jon James, he's a perennial, you know, 19:24 loser, uh, i- of these races, and I don't mean, like, he as a guy is a loser. Yeah. Like, he's a congressman. 19:30 Like, he just has lost a lot of these statewide races because, like, i- he's not a super compelling statewide candidate. Uh, and I, you know, ah, I don't know. 19:39 Um, and Mike Rogers himself is not a super compelling statewide candidate. He's a guy that, you know, hasn't really been around in Michigan politics for a long time. He was a congressman for a while, 19:50 and then he's lived in Florida for the last more than a decade, and kinda, uh, like, carpet-bagged his way home to run in this race. And, 20:02 uh, you know, uh, it, because they didn't have anybody else in Michigan to run for this seat that Gary Peters opened by leaving. So 20:10 it's, that part of it's gonna be an interesting race, and then, like, on the Democratic side, you're gonna, you're, we're already getting people within the Democratic Party, a group called Third Way, which is made up of a bunch of, uh, Biden, uh, m- some Obama people, but, like, establishment Democrat people from the Hillary Clinton days, uh, being like the DSA candidates and the idea of Democratic socialism, 20:35 which is still Bernie Sanders, AOC, uh, progressivism a la Elizabeth Warren and Chris Murphy, real people. 20:43 Uh, these people at Third Way are gonna spend $15 million to tell Democratic voters that that is a mortal danger, which is a quote- That-... to the party. Doesn't this seem like a big, big mistake? It, it is. 20:55 Uh, it's crazy because they're also not gonna listen to voters. They're gonna do this to spend it on candidates and, and party people, but it just doesn't make any sense. 21:08 The Democratic Party itself is m- is $2 million in debt, which, and they're being outraised in funds $132 million with the RNC, and this group that has money is not going to give it to the Democratic Party for its forward operation in the year in which the Democrats are going to win in the midterms or are expected to. 21:31 And, and what these Democratic socialist candidates are doing is reaching younger voters and reaching middle-class voters. They're not winning the working class, and they're not winning the super rich. 21:45 That is where the establishment lives still. Why? Lots of reasons. 21:51 But the Democratic socialist candidate, progressive candidates are meeting the middle, and they're meeting the younger voters, and that is where the future of the party is. 22:02 And so to not see those wins and be like, "Okay, why don't we develop candidates in this way? Why don't we talk to voters in this way and understand where their heads are at, 22:13 and, and spend this money and build the party infrastructure this way?" 22:18 is kind of beyond me as a, just a matter of, like, political analysis and understanding how politics works, um, especially right now when you've, as a party, you've got some wiggle room to, like, make some mistakes instead of cutting a, what is a very active part of your own party down. 22:38 Mm-hmm. It's very odd. Yeah. Uh, yeah. It's, it's not big tent, uh, like the Democrats have always, uh, you know, espoused them- No... to be. 22:48 Uh, the Republicans have always had a way of, uh, everybody getting together in the fourth quarter when we all have to be on the same page. We're on the same page. Yeah. You turn out the vote no matter what. 22:58 Because as you noted, uh, the t- real thing that causes people to turn out is they're really for somebody, or they're really against some- Yes. Yes. 23:08 And, like, the thing that we haven't talked about in this race is the influence of, of AIPAC money, which is the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, uh, which is the, you know, sort of, 23:22 sort of foreign influence, not foreign influence arm, PR arm of, of the conservative Israeli government that's been around for decades at this point, that spends tens of millions of dollars, if not more, every single year on American politicians. 23:35 Um, they, they support trips to Israel. They back candidates. They back issues. They are the most powerful issue lobby in the country, bar none, and that issue is supporting Israel. 23:48 AIPAC spent $30 million on just Haley Stevens' campaign alone. They spent $60 million total in the primaries. Half of it went here. And they vowed to support Mike Rogers. 24:02 Uh, really this, they vowed to get voters to reject El Sayed, which is a tacit support of Mike Rogers, and their estimate is they could spend up to $100 million in this race for the general, and that's just this race. 24:14 And so they're against, you know, Democratic socialist candidates like El Sayed who have, uh, a- and progressive candidates who have said, you know, "We don't want the United States to sup- continue supporting Israel." 24:26 Until there are some more strings attached to what that, that US relationship looks like. And that may or may not come to pass. That's a lot of money there. 24:37 Uh, a lot of these center-left Democrats, the folks at Third Way, have a lot of connection to places like APAC, and I'm not... 24:46 Again, like, this, this stuff is tricky because when you point these things out, it either sounds deeply antisemitic or you are, like, one step away from rubbing shoulders with people who absolutely are, and that is- Well- That's trouble... 25:03 let, let's introduce a, a conversation that I saw earlier this week between Jon Stewart and John Fetterman. Um- Mm. 25:10 And, um, it was really, really good because John Fetterman was basically saying, "I am always pro-Israel no matter what." Yeah. 25:18 Um, and John just pointed out, he says, "Brother man," he says, "There's a big difference between Israel and the Jewish community." Yeah. "They are different." Yeah. I haven't, yeah, I haven't listened to that yet. 25:29 It's like an hour and a half long. That was on my list of, of things to listen to while I, like, clean the house. My wife is out of town this weekend, uh [laughs] which is a good thing. It's a cleaning weekend. Yeah. 25:39 Uh, but because, like, I think that's required listening for people who want to understand where the, that, that part of the party is at right now, um, from what I understand and the clips I've seen of this thing. 25:48 But, like, yeah, th- that's absolutely true. Uh, and, like, people grapple with that. Um, Jewish Americans grapple with that, right? There is, there is a... 25:59 And, like, I am not a Jewish person, but I've, I understand and I've listened to a lot of these conversations and understand that, like, for a lot of, a lot of the Jewish community, the idea of, 26:10 of broader Zionism that maybe isn't wrapped up in the conservative government of Israel right now, but the idea of Zionism, a place for Jews in the world that is Israel, is deeply felt. 26:22 And so the, the, the struggle with that in the modern context of the world, both American domestic politics and geopolitically, is hard. And then on top of it you're getting all this other stuff, right? 26:38 So, like, the, the, which is the e- the eternal conflict of, of this and US-Israel relations. 26:44 But I do think that this race in Michigan will tell us a lot about how Democrats are gonna start talking about US-Israel relations. 26:56 I think people are gonna say some real dumb things, that I think they're gonna say some inelegant things that they maybe don't mean the way that they are taken, uh, which is unfortunate, but that's how communication works. 27:09 Uh, and I think maybe somebody will have a good idea about how to land that plane. 27:15 I think maybe it will likely best come from someone like Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania or John Ossoff, who are both Jewish men, uh, that, that might soften the blow a little bit for a lot of voters, 27:28 certainly Jewish voters. Uh, and I think, uh, we'll also see how the Republican Party responds to how the Democrats do that. 27:37 And, and, uh, without a doubt we're gonna see Republicans sort of circle the wagons in a way, but how much and how, what that looks like, that's gonna come out of this race, too. 27:49 And the sort of seeds of those conversations for 2028 and the presidential election, which I still think this will be a central feature no matter what happens with the war in Iran, certainly as the escalation ladder continues to be climbed, uh, that is gonna start here in this race. 28:04 So it's interesting that this race was the most important primary in the country and will now be, I think, maybe the most important general race to watch in the country for that reason, uh, because the Democrats will, yeah, need to hold this seat to keep power in the Senate. 28:20 Mm-hmm. They might not actually have to given some of the shifting winds in other states. So they could lose Michigan and like- And what's happening in Ohio. Right. 28:29 W- in Ohio, in Iowa, uh, you know, in, uh, in, um, uh, in Maine, uh, which, you know, that candidate is flawed, but, like, people just don't like Susan Collins. Uh, so that, you know, still could work there. 28:45 There are some real, in Texas, um, you know, there are some real places that, that Democrats could pick up wins that they weren't expecting. And so Michigan went, might have gone from a must-win to a nice-to-have. 28:57 Nice-to-have. Yeah. What you have described here is what, uh, uh, former VP of, uh, Griffin Media, uh, VP of Content, Chuck Alden, used to say. He says, "Democracy is messy." [laughs] Uh, and it is. Democracy is messy. 29:11 Uh, and it really is. These conversations are messy. And if we can, let's, you know... 29:15 I wanted also, uh, in terms of all the things that, uh, Republican candidates are gonna have to fight against, we get the breaking news today that, uh, unexpectedly 23,000 jobs were taken away from, um, the economy. 29:29 Yeah. And it's not just, uh, the job losses, right? Because it was, you know, there were job gains in, it was last month or the month before, right? It's, it's the volatility that Americans don't like. 29:42 It's not just the loss. People can handle the losses, uh, because we know what to do, right? Then we can make a plan, then we can, we can understand what's gonna happen here. It's the, it's the back and forth. 29:53 It's the chaos that people, that exhausts people. It makes it hard for them to plan their lives. It makes it hard for them to plan out their next, you know, quarter or six months or year, right? 30:04 People planning vacations, people planning trips, people planning medical procedures. Mm-hmm. 30:09 I was just talking to a friend of mine last night who they, uh, uh, thank God are, now she's cancer-free, this friend of mine, but they have some other surgeries that they were gonna put off for a little while, but they don't know what it's gonna look like with health in- health insurance things. 30:25 And the doctor was like, "Look, you need a lot longer to recover from this thing, but Like, I don't know what's gonna happen to your health insurance, and so, like, the, probably the second you can do this, you should do this. 30:37 And, like, we were gonna go on s- kind of a celebratory, you know, screw cancer trip, and now, like, that's gotta get put on hold because she's gotta do this other thing for the recovery because we don't know what's gonna happen. 30:48 And, like, that kind of chaos, and like, you know, it's that, but it's also that every single day with gas and groceries, right? It's, and it, and- It's, well, and, uh, chaos with anything. The markets don't like chaos. 31:00 I watch enough Jim Cramer and CNBC, Carl Quintanilla, uh- Yeah... to David Faber to know that the markets don't like chaos. We don't like chaos. We don't like our travel to be interrupted. 31:11 We wanna be able to plan things. The school year's coming up. We, uh, we don't want this constant heaviness of worry- Mm-hmm... on our shoulders, no matter whether the candidate is Democrat or Republican. Right. 31:24 Right, and I think that that sort of stability, uh, or this instability, and, like, this is a long-tailed sort of thing, and maybe hindsight is 20/20 here a little bit, right? 31:34 But this kind of instability is the kind of thing that we got at the end of the first Trump presidency. COVID regardless, right? Leading up to COVID, this kind of instability was w- what was there. 31:48 Uh, and it was constant, and it was felt every single day. And then we get COVID, and it, it's not the president's fault, but it is m- more destabilizing. Uh- Mm-hmm... 32:01 and, and as a president, he doesn't make us feel more stable. And 32:06 we're now in it again, but I think people forgot that that's what this kind of instability feels like in 2024, and I think a lot of people who did sort of gave him a pass because of COVID, and now we're back in it, and it's, uh, worse than I think a lot of people imagined. 32:22 And so which makes the polling for the midterms look the way it does now. Uh, and so again, g- it goes back to the thing we were just saying, like, tough spot to be in if you're a Republican running for office right now. 32:34 Pretty good spot to be if you're a Democrat running for office right now, and we're gonna learn a lot about both parties and how they handle this situation when one of them does not have a long leash and one of them does. 32:46 And w- we're seeing that play out in ways that are both predictable, I think, given the, the par- [chuckles] the parties' histories, right? Democrats find, find a way to trip themselves up in that longer leash. Yeah. 32:57 And d- and Republicans are, are sticking to their, their guns a little bit more because their leash is shorter. So it's interesting, and I, uh, you know, the next, what are we, 90, 89 days out from the election? Right. 33:11 Right. I haven't looked at it since. But, like, you know, it's gonna be an interesting little sprint here for the next three months. It is. I remember how, uh, most of us felt as prognosticators, pundits. 33:22 I was still in, uh, local TV news 90 days before the 2024 election. We thought, man, we thought it was a given Kamala Harris was gonna win. Yeah. And then it didn't happen. Yeah. But it is a lot more chaotic right now. 33:37 Yes. 33:38 And I w- uh, y- let's segue to Oklahoma just for a little bit because, uh, I don't know, um, you know, it might be thought that Democrats pretty much don't stand a chance here, but Grant, I don't know if you saw this, polling came out, uh, this week or late last week that had Gina Nelson up by four over Stephanie Bice. 33:54 Yeah. Yeah. It's- I mean, it, it's the same thing, right? 33:58 It is the same thing, is that, like, Stephanie Bice, uh, who, you know, doesn't do town halls, doesn't get out and do, do the retail politics that Oklahomans like, uh, you know, she has to tie herself to this economy. 34:12 She has to tie herself to these things that are deeply unpopular, and that, that is a hard place to be as a candidate, especially when you're not going to explain yourself, uh [chuckles] to, to people. 34:26 And, and if the only thing that people then are hearing is, is what Gina Nelson is saying, then, you know, that... I, I don't wanna be the Bice campaign. 34:35 Well, I think Oklahoma voters right now, I was talking to Susie Byrd. Have you heard of Susie Byrd? Probably- Why do I know that name? Well, well, well, she was an All-American athlete, first female All-American at OSU. 34:46 She's also running against Frank Lucas. Frank Lucas, nice man. I've met him. Very, very tall. Um- Yeah. Yeah... 34:54 but, but he's been the District 3 congressperson for, I don't know, 34 years or something, more than three decades. 35:00 She doesn't have a lot of name recognition, but she pointed out one piece of gerrymandering of District 5 that I found very interesting, where after Kendra Horn won, they basically took away part of Oklahoma City that was totally Democrat and put it into Lucas' camp, which would be an impediment to Gina Nelson except for the fact that it looks like she's doing all right. 35:21 Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, they, like, they, well, they broke apart. 35:25 They cracked up Oklahoma City in order to make that happen, and, like, that was the, the point, uh, was to sort of get rid of that blue lake that was Oklahoma City, and, like, ah, they're not really gonna end up doing that in a meaningful way, but, like, 35:38 yeah. Uh, I, Bice's campaign just is not gonna have an easy time going away from those things. And then which I think g- does bring us to, like, what we saw this week in the governor's debate. Governor's debate. 35:52 Uh, yeah. And, and, and I, so I, I, I watched, I watched it really closely. I took... I don't have, they're in the trash now, but I took all sorts- [chuckles]... of notes. Uh, I am a political nerd. 36:00 You're a political nerd. We've known that about each other for a decade. Um, and I enjoy, from both s- both parties, uh, watching, uh, good candidates. I enjoy a train wreck. I've always enjoyed a train wreck. 36:14 [laughs] But, uh, you know, I also understand kind of what's happening in Oklahoma politics right now. I don't believe it's about either party per se. 36:22 As I told Susie Byrd when we were conversing on a podcast yesterday, which will be posted at the Oklahoma Memo YouTube later today, I said, "Oklahoma is showing its populism, its independence." Mm-hmm. 36:33 Oklahoma, it's a red state. I get it. America thinks that. I'm telling you, Oklahoma is fiercely-... independent and populous, and it could go either way. 36:42 Um, but the AI and data centers right now and the smelter in Inola, the intrusion of federal mandates for the building of things that are going to impact local communities, Oklahomans are not having any of it. 36:57 I'll bring up the finger-pointing here in a second, but we saw this debate, Gentner Drummond and Mike Mazey. 37:03 This is not to take away from anything Cindy Munson is doing, but this part of the Oklahoma campaign has not heated up yet. We'll see what kind of candidate Cindy Munson is as a Democrat going forward. Yeah. 37:15 But right now, Oklahomans are all focused on this GOP runoff. 37:19 The Trump-backed Mike Mazey, who was a state senator for many years but has largely just been in wealth management, uh, ever since, and he bragged about in the debate, uh, the fact that he, he's built his company to, uh, a $1.6 billion book of business, which I don't think is the flex that most Oklahomans care about. 37:44 Um- Also, like what is, what is that reference then to people? Like, uh, nobody knows what you do. Right. That number doesn't make sense to people. Yeah. It just sounds big. Like, I... 37:55 And like, not for nothing, but I don't know if that line really works in the way that it used to. Right. The businessman executive, certainly in Oklahoma, I don't know if that carries the weight that it used to. 38:10 That was the president's line. That was, that was Stitt's line. And like, are people's lives measurably better? I, you know, I would argue that's tough to tell- Yeah... at best. Yeah. Uh, y- you know? 38:23 In Inola, the people, they're, they're being intruded upon by this aluminum smelter, or that's their perspective. In Okmulgee, uh, an AI data center that seems to have been predetermined for them. Yeah. 38:35 Um, Piedmont, Sand Springs, I could talk about towns in Nowata. Ascension Saint John is shuttering the local inpatient hospital. A- and rural hospitals just issues statewide. 38:47 I, a lot of, you know, Oklahoma communities have different things each one of them are concerned about, and I will tell you, the president's, um, 38:56 his, uh, co-contamination with the tech oligarchs is supremely unpopular in the state. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that, that makes sense to me, certainly as a, as a history of populism within Oklahoma, right? 39:12 Uh, that, that runs through it deeply and runs through the culture there, but it is also just this thing that like people know when they're getting had. 39:22 They know when they're being taken advantage of, and they also, and like Oklahomans I think know that deeply, again, like as a history of this thing, but like it's, 39:30 uh, especially I think there's a chip on the shoulder of Oklahoma voters, uh, constantly being told that they're a flyover state, uh, constantly being overlooked in this way. 39:39 It'll be interesting to see what happens because Oklahoma is a second-round Democratic primary state now- Hmm... which is very weird. Mm-hmm. Um, 39:47 which is what a choice for the Democratic Party, but an interesting one, and I think one that, uh, when it does happen, uh, when we talk about it, which will be a while from now, but like is fascinating to me. 39:57 Uh, but like, you know, like I think that that's why that exists, the thing you just talked about, that th- this stuff is deeply unpopular. 40:04 But like yeah, it's again, it is like t- having to tie yourself to the president's behavior, his policies, the outcomes of those policies, is not a position that people wanna be in right now, and Gentner Drummond doesn't have to do that because he didn't- Right... 40:19 get the endorsement [laughs] of President Trump. Well, let's just- And like- Yeah, let's talk about Gentner for a second. 40:24 At one point he alluded to the fact that, he alluded to the fact that he didn't get the president's endorsement, and he says, "Yeah, I'm trouble." And, and I think that's a- [laughs]... that's a net positive for him. 40:33 So just speaking as somebody who's a political nerd, I will say that from a debate performance, whatever you think about Mike Mazey, it's one of the worst performances. It reminded me of James Stockdale. Wow. 40:44 It was, it was bizarre. Yeah. The very first question he was asked about a smelter being built in Inola. For those of you who are not from Oklahoma, it's a town in eastern Oklahoma. 40:53 Um, and the president wants that aluminum smelter perhaps for legitimate reasons now, because we need to build, you know, we need to build missiles. Uh- Yeah, we're out of, yeah, munitions, yeah. Right. 41:04 So I'm not discounting the possibility that this actually might be necessary, but Inola, they don't want it there. 41:10 Um, and um, but the first question was about the smelter, and, uh, instead of answering, Amanda Taylor, Amanda Tanker- Taylor is a, a, a, um, an anchor in Oklahoma City News 9. 41:22 She asked the question, and then he immediately says, "Thank you for, uh, inviting me to the debate," and he goes in with what was really an opening statement, not a- answering that question. 41:32 And Amanda kept trying to, uh, interject and say, "Uh, let's stay, you have, uh, 90 seconds here." And then it's, at one point he looked at her and put his hand up as if he gave her the heck. 41:44 [laughs] And I'm telling you, I made it a note, he might have lost 80% of female votes. [laughs] You don't do that. You don't roll the eyes. You don't put up the hand. Oh my gosh. [laughs] What are we doing here? 41:59 We, uh [laughs] and like we both know Amanda pretty well. Yeah. And like I- The, the nicest person on the planet So nice, so smart, and like- So smart. 42:08 [laughs] And like I, I know the look 'cause they, like the cameras, they went, went back to her. Whoever was directing that show, producing that show, was like, "Get me back to the shot of Amanda." 42:18 And like they went back to Amanda, and like I saw the switch in her eyes- Yeah... like flip. It was, "Oh no, you don't." And I was like- Oh, no, you don't. 42:24 I was like, "Oh, she's gonna do the thing that she does when like people think she's just like the-" Right. Was she a Miss Oklahoma? The- Oh- She was a pageant queen for a while... I don't know. I don't know. 42:33 But like- I, I, she's from Texas I thought. Yeah, or originally. I don't know. Right. 42:36 She, I knew that she was in the pageant circuit for a while or whatever, but like, like, but people are just like- Like, "Oh, she's just a pageant queen," or whatever. 42:43 And then, like, she, like, does this thing where she, like, imposes how smart she is in, like, a Jackie O kind of way on people. [laughs] And it's like, it's very fun to watch it happen, not on- Yes... 42:52 be on the receiving end of it. I would love to see it more often. Yeah, it's very fun. Uh, but, but it also annoyed Craig Day, and I could tell it did. Yeah. 42:58 Uh, and they were, it, I, I honest- I say this not just 'cause I worked there, not just 'cause I like them, it was honestly the best performance by anchors. 43:06 I wish every, even at a national level, please watch this debate and, and study how they had control of it. Now, I will say this, Mike Macey's performance in the second half d- of debate was significantly better. 43:19 He would stick to the topic and whatnot. 43:21 But that's, this is just sort of like, uh, nitpicking over debate performance, which I think is a big deal because I watched Gitner Drummond in a public safety okay forum last night. He's a good candidate. 43:33 I mean, like, I'm watching candidates across the country, I'm like, "He's good, well-spoken, also super smart, um, and he just comes off as likable." 43:44 There's a, yeah, and there is a, a difference between, and I'm not saying Drummond, you know, can't do this, but, like, there's a difference between running for office and doing the job of the office, right? 43:55 There's, there's campaigning is a performance, and can you appear to be, in this case, you know, gubernatorial. 44:02 Can you appear to be the governor, uh, in a way that people need to see, versus do you have the actual skills to do that job? And, you know, Macey might have the skills to do that job. 44:15 Drummond might have the skills to do the job. That's not what they're doing right now, and it seems like every single time that it's put to the test, Drummond comes out on top when it, it comes to the show of that thing. 44:30 And that's important for people. That's important for Republicans to see. I, again, I don't know how much the president's endorsement is gonna mean in this race. 44:40 Uh, certainly right now, uh, the more that the president pushes for AI data centers, the more that the president pushes for the smelter. 44:49 There might just be people who are like, "Hey, I don't know if the president knows what's going on on the ground here." They might never blame Trump, right, for that, these things. Like, he's got bad advisors. 44:58 It's the Tom Tillis thing, and maybe they're just not telling him what's happening here on the ground in Oklahoma, but I can't vote for the guy who he endorsed because I can't let this thing go forward. Like- Yeah... 45:07 that might be how this shakes out. 45:08 And, like, whatever, you know, cognitive dissidence, uh, uh, MAGA movement has to wrap themselves in to continue to support Donald Trump, like, and, and the policies that go against what ac- they actually want. 45:19 Like, sure, uh, support the man, not the policy kind of a thing- Mm-hmm... maybe. But, like, yeah, that, that's entirely possible. And like- Well- I, yeah... 45:30 uh, you're familiar with the book, What's the Matter With Kansas? It, it- Yeah... posits a whole different thing, you know, why do we vote against our own self-interest? 45:36 However, over the years, Kansas, the state itself, has shown the capability to be more moderate or, and, and elect Democrats. They've elected Democratic governor. 45:45 Oklahoma had Brad Henry, but states can change, and I see Gina Nelson going up against Stephanie Bice. John Crosson, who I talked to on this podcast- Mm-hmm... going against Kevin Hern. 45:57 The one thing I'll say for John, even though he's a, he's a friend and we talk, is he has been very active in the ground game, and Kevin Hern, I just haven't seen that at all. So is it just gonna be... 46:10 I've ne- I haven't seen any Oklahoma races in the... It's in play when I'm watching MSNBC, CNN, whatnot, but I'm like, "Is, is this, is Oklahoma being, uh, under thought of for Democrats?" I th- I'm, uh, I think so. 46:25 The problem is that the Oklahoma Democratic Party is a mess, uh, and has been for more than a decade, uh, you know, uh, if not longer, right? It's just underfunded. 46:37 Uh, a lot of that has to do with how money got moved around in the Obama administration, but, like, also, you know, it's just, it was a loss, a losing state for Democrats forever, and so they're not gonna put money where they're gonna lose. 46:50 But also, I, I think the spillover from the Talarico race, if he wins in Texas, that, that might flip some things for people. If, you know, if there's a... I don't think Georgia happens as much, but I do think Texas. 47:09 Uh, I think if that race flips, I think people are gonna go, "Oh." I think there is something to the thing that I said before that- It can happen. Yeah. 47:17 Uh, I, I think there is something to the fact that for some reason the Democratic Party wants Oklahoma in the second round of the primaries, uh, which is interesting to me. 47:28 Uh- Well, I, just one thing that I just remembered, Andy Beshear, I don't know who he was talking to, but he, he said watch out for Cindy Munson in the governor's race. Yeah. 47:37 Like, I think, you know, I, I, I think that there is likely some money coming in, um, headed that way for, for Cindy Munson. I think, 47:47 I think partly 'cause Kevin Stitt sort of made some noise this year that people are like, "Oh yeah, Oklahoma." 47:51 Uh, and Markwayne Mullin, uh, because again, like when Mullin was first nominated to this job, I talked about the fact that, like, this is a weird thing 'cause now you've gotta, like, run a race and, like, all these political dominoes that might start falling, and you've gotta, like, uh-oh, like pour money in this Republican party into a place that you don't need to pour money into, and you're, you got, that means you gotta take it from other races that you might need, like an Ohio, like an Iowa, like, you know, like a Texas. 48:15 Uh, that might be a thing here where Oklahoma is not a, like, winnable, gettable state, but it might be kind of a, like a money sink state for the broader national parties. Mm-hmm. 48:27 And that, that might shake out, mean that the races shake out differently at the state levels. Right, because- And that's-... it's second round primary, they may have to actually start putting some money in Oklahoma. 48:36 Ooh, right, and that's interesting to me, and, like, that might start this cycle. That might start-... in the next few months into the midterms, into this governor's race. Uh, we'll see what Cindy Monson does. 48:47 A, an untested candidate, uh, has not had a lot of time to, like, sharpen up in this way, which is what primaries are for. That doesn't mean Cindy Monson hasn't been doing reps for a long time. 48:58 That doesn't mean she doesn't know what she's about. It's just- It doesn't mean she hasn't been on the ground. We just have really haven't- Yes... seen much attention, you know, uh, paid to her in anything else. Right. 49:07 Right. Uh, a- and, like, again, like, that makes sense to me, too, because the, the race itself is between these two guys right now. Mm-hmm. 49:16 Because that is an actual race that's happening, and, like, uh, you know, what, are you gonna cover every Cindy Monson rally? That, that seems, you know, every time she goes out, like, that's... Okay. 49:26 Uh, that, people aren't gonna buy papers for that, right? They're, they're not gonna tune in to the attention economy for that. So yeah, I get that part of it. 49:33 Uh, it, it's interesting, and I think we'll see what happens. But, like, uh, uh, yeah, I, I'm curious to see what happens, you know, should Drummond win this, this runoff, 49:46 where he has to land, uh, in this, like, does he, does he have to tie himself to the White House policies? 49:52 I, I've been told that if he wins, uh, from somebody who would know, who's an operator, who kind of understands the, uh, state of play, uh, that his tune changes August 26th, the day after the primary. To moderate? 50:06 Like, to- To moderate... to... Interesting. Uh, yeah, and, like, I believe that. I think Trump, you know, he wins- I believe that's who he is. I believe that's who Gitner Drummond- I- He's moderate... I do too. I do too. 50:16 I do too. Uh, uh, 'cause, like, I told you that, like, I, for some reason, I, in my head, I had remembered him as a Democrat for some reason, uh, and I don't know why. 50:26 Uh, but I think maybe it just, in the thing that I remembered him from, it just, I was like, "Oh, this is just, he's just a Democrat in Republican suits." Like, and that's, that's what- Which they call a RINO. 50:40 Yeah, that's just what- Yeah, which I'm, I'm, I'm not saying that, but, you know, it's, it's, but, but it, he does seem to be more palatable to the moder- to the moderate. 50:47 Yeah, I think in any other state, he would be, like, a Blue Dog Democrat. Yep. Uh, like one of the last ones. West Virginia, he might be, you know- Yeah... yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like a la Joe Manchin kind of a thing. Yeah. 50:58 Right? He might be a little more like that. So yeah, I, I think that's, it's gonna be really fascinating to watch this race play out. 51:06 And again, like the Michigan stuff, I think that, uh, as I've always thought about Oklahoma politics, there are real national implications about how the parties will respond to certain things- Mm-hmm... 51:20 that are gonna come out of Oklahoma, and I think, I, I think that this is an important one to watch. Mm-hmm. Absolutely, yeah. 51:27 As a, as a political junkie, I also like the fact that I honestly don't know what's gonna happen. I mean- Me too... 51:32 if I were, if I were a betting man, I, I think actually, uh, Gitner wins pretty, not handily, but, you know, within three to four points, which is pretty big. Four points, five points. Yeah. 51:42 Yeah, I, I think he does, but I, I won't be surprised by anything. 51:45 I won't be surprised if Macey does win, even though he really hasn't been a good candidate, but the endorsement from Trump may still weigh more in Oklahoma. 51:54 But I wa- I wanted to ask you, because we had sort of, like, three topics here. You mentioned Markwayne Mullin the other day. Uh- Yeah... excuse me, earlier in this podcast, not the other day. 52:02 Uh, but you mentioned Markwayne Mullin, and, uh, I, uh, Dylan Goforth, he, uh, works, uh, with The- Yeah... The Frontier. Dylan's a good dude. Um, he posted something about Laura Loomer's, uh, you know- Yeah... 52:15 message calling him Markwayne Muslim, and I commented, I said, "Looks like somebody got loomed." Yeah, yeah. Mark Mullin has had another bad week. Um, he's just, he's not having a great go of it at DHS right now. Uh, 52:31 again, like, well, I mean, lots of things about, like, I know, was Markwayne Mullin ready for primetime? Was he re- did he fully understand what he was stepping into in this White House, in this ecosystem? 52:41 Like, I'm not entirely sure. I, you know, I, I don't know if he fully understood what the president is like at this sort of intimate level. 52:49 But, like, yeah, Markwayne Mullin has a very bad, uh, governors meeting this week with the, the Governors Association, and- Held in Oklahoma City? Yes, led by Stitt. Uh- Governor Stitt, you bet... and a- 53:06 in this thing basically, because the governors are like, "Hey, we need more communication with DHS and with ICE because we don't like the way that you're treating our people." Uh, surprise, surprise. And, [laughs] 53:21 and, like, Loomer wants, because she's a racist and an Islamophobe, wants, 53:29 but I used to, like, focus on removing Muslims from the country as also part of their, you know, Sherman's March to the Sea of immigrants- Right... or whatever. And, like, I... So she, like, does this thing, and 53:46 a lot of this is wrapped up in the El-Sayed when it's wrapped up in what's happening in Spain right now, uh, with an enclave on, you know- Right, I saw that... 53:55 the coast of Morocco, um, which is not happening on mainland Spain, which I'm not sure that people when they hear this, I'm not even sure the president understands that. 54:02 Like, it's not happening in Europe, it's happening on an African side. This is not happening in Barcelona. 54:06 Yeah, it's happening in an enclave that's attached to what would be Morocco that's, Spain's operated since the 1500s. Uh, you know, it's, it's this whole thing, and, like, it's also happening on Twitter, 54:20 X, which is run by Elon Musk, who has become the world's largest spreader of, you know, anti, uh, a- anti-Muslim, anti, uh, immigrant, pro-great replacement theory rhetoric. 54:35 Uh, and that, that website is, uh, awash in that kind of stuff. So, like, yeah, Loomer does this thing to Markwayne Mullin, and- That's not great for him. 54:47 It happens extremely online, but also she has access to the White House, right? She still has the president's phone number, like, and he still answers when she calls. 54:55 And, like, I- it's another way in which Markwayne Mullin has, like, stepped in it with the president. 55:02 His only saving grace is that the Senate is leaving, uh, for summer recess, which is a month long or so, today or tomorrow, depending on what happens with Todd Blanche. 55:11 Uh, the president cannot afford to have another high-profile firing right now. It goes back to that chaos thing, that un- instability thing that we're talking about. 55:20 He needs somebody at the helm of DHS as we approach the midterms because there is something that is going to be happening with DHS and the election, whether it is before, on election day, or after. 55:33 They are going to do something. We just don't know what. Uh, you know, the... But also, like, for Markwayne Mullin, his big push with the election stuff that the president put out disappeared. 55:45 Like, all the stuff about all these non-citizens on the voter rolls, like, the date that that mattered was Tuesday this week, which is the start of a 90-day quiet period before the election, uh, that states cannot remove people from their rolls. 55:59 There's a Supreme Court case that might get in the way of this thing. That's a different thing. But, like, you know, that comes and goes. Poof, that story's gone. Nobody cares about that anymore. 56:08 But Markwayne Mullin didn't get this, all these states to capitulate in time, and so that's not good enough for the president. 56:14 Like, you know, his only saving grace is that the president just can't afford to lose somebody as important as Markwayne Mullin, and there's nobody to fill those shoes because no sane person would take that job right now. 56:28 And maybe they do under a new Congress. I don't know who, uh, but, like, maybe. Um, so yeah, bad week for Markwayne Mullin- Yeah... who might be looking at his colleagues in the Senate 56:41 and being like, "I kinda wish that I was back in the Senate picking fights with a teamster." Like, you know, I- I just- So let me, let me posit a, a crazy path for you. Um, I mean, look, 56:52 you don't get hired as a cabinet secretary to be there forever. It's like being the manager of a baseball team or a coach of a college football team. You get hired to get fired. It, that happens. Sure. 57:03 Uh, but so let's, let's say that something happens and Markwayne Mullin loses that gig. Um, he comes back home. Let's say Cindy Munson wins. I think Mullin might run for governor. I could see that. You know, uh... 57:20 Man, uh, I mean, like, is he popular enough? Does he have sort of the, like, swagger-ish thing? Yeah, he's kinda got it. Um, you know, there's, there's an appeal- I just, I just wonder what happens- Ah... 57:35 you know, if, if he, he loses. What does he do? Does he go back and run the, the plumbing company? I, I don't know. No, he goes into a, he goes into, like, a private sector DHS-ish thing. Like, he- Uh, a-... 57:47 you know, he goes into a- Like a think tank consultancy? And yeah, like, and I, I don't even think a think tank. 57:51 Like, he goes into, like, to, like, an enforcement, like, domestic, uh, Blackwater is extreme, but, like, th- these kinds of places exist. Yeah. Uh, yep, yep. 58:00 You know, he goes into that, like a private security firm kind of a thing that does these border security jobs or those kinds of things. Uh, again, not like a Sicario thing, but, like, like that. 58:10 Um, and he's just the liaison, the government liaison that goes back and forth 'cause he has access. So what you're saying is, you're saying don't cry for Markwayne Mullin. Yeah, I mean- He's gonna be fine. 58:19 He'll be fine. Like, anybody who gets these jobs will be fine. It's just like, [laughs] it's just like, again, like, I'm not sure when the president called Markwayne Mullin and said, "Do you wanna do this thing?" 58:29 Because Markwayne Mullin was angling for this job, if he fully understood what the in-the-room politics were like. Uh, I just, you know, 58:41 a- again, Markwayne Mullin was, was liked as a senator among his peers because he was, you know, a, a, kind of an okie in a way, right? Yeah. He could do that. Um- Right. He's the gym bro. He, he organized- Yeah... 58:53 the workouts. Yeah, yeah. 58:55 He was that guy, but he was not, like, a shrewd political actor, and I think maybe the White House was like, "Yeah, this guy will be the tough guy we need up there," and the president, like, I, was like, "I think I like him the way he looks on TV," but he's not good on TV. 59:10 He, you know, he stumbles over his words. He does not string together a, a really good, coherent idea about these things that m- makes people feel confident about where the White House is at. 59:22 And on top of that, then he doesn't, like, run a tight ship, and he's got kind of a hair-brained idea about airports and stopping people and arresting people at airports that is messing with travel, and that's upsetting people. 59:34 And, like, it's just, yeah, I, you know, I... Another thing this week for Markwayne Mullin that is rough, uh- Right. Right, right... 59:42 and, and, like, you know- We could do a weekly segment, Markwayne Mullin's, uh, very bad, very bad week. Yeah, it just- Or what happened this week... no good, horrible, very bad week for Markwayne Mullin. 59:52 Like, just, yeah. I... And, like, but this Loomer thing, I don't know if it'll catch fire or not. Uh, she's kind of streaky and, like, 1:00:02 uh, has few- less and less access to the White House, but has quite a bit of access to Mar-a-Lago, and so, like, still is in this world. Uh, I don't know. We'll see. It's just- Yeah... ooh, this, this man. Uh. 1:00:17 [laughs] Right, right. Well, hey, this is one of our first episodes in a while. The only one that we've done that's really been focused on the state you're in, the state I'm in. I know. It's, you know- It's very fun. 1:00:26 Yeah. Yeah. 1:00:27 It is a lot of fun, and I should say, um, you know, in the weeks ahead as we get closer to the primaries, as we get closer to November, we'll probably just, you know, we'll be talking a lot about, uh, the politics of politics and running races and what's happening. 1:00:40 But, uh, you always have something ready to go for Friday afternoon. What's coming up on Make It Make Sense with, uh, Grant Herms, which by the way, folks, easy to find, Mims News Pod. 1:00:50 Both on YouTube and on Substack Mm-hmm. And the Substack now is longer. You can just search Make It Make Sense. It's makeitmakesense.substack.com now. I changed the URL- Awesome... 1:00:59 uh, so peo- people could find it a little easier. Um, uh, uh, I don't know, the two-year anniversary, I was like, "I should probably, like, make this a professional-looking thing." Uh, and so 1:01:08 it- the, the thing that's happening on f- uh, for the podcast today is actually what was the live stream on Tuesday night. 1:01:14 So speaking of the politics of politics, is you get the real time look at how people who are like you and me do this, uh, like, as the numbers are dropping. 1:01:25 It's myself, it's Mike Madrid, uh, who was a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, now runs the Substack, The Great Transformation. 1:01:32 He's the author of the book that's behind me, this one right here, called The Latino Century. He is one of the best thinkers about just the shifting demographics of America right now, uh, of also a former Republican. 1:01:44 And then Jeff Timmer, who was a, again, a founding member of The Lincoln Project, and former di- executive director of the Michigan Republican Party, and one of the smartest people about Michigan politics, and Republican politics in general in the country, I think. 1:01:57 Um, and you s- you get a chance to hear us talk about these things in real time, a much deeper dive into the Michigan politics of this stuff, which are national politics really. 1:02:07 Um, so that's like an hour and 50 minutes of that, and it's a lot of fun. Um, 1:02:12 we do, like I said, dip out a little early, and so our, like, prognostication for how this race is gonna look does not shake out in the right way. 1:02:20 Yeah But I think the other nuggets of like- It was like, it was like the Atlanta Falcons live stream from the- Yeah... Super Bowl a few years back. Yes, yes. You're like, "We got this. It's 23. What could happen?" 1:02:28 Yes, exactly. So, like, I, I think that part of it, y- we know how that shook out. But I think the rest of it, the stuff that we're talking about, about how, like, what does this mean for the party? 1:02:37 How does this change the Democrats? How does this change the Republicans? That stuff, all of the nuggets of wisdom that come from Mike and Jeff, and occasionally I, as a blind squirrel, find a nut of my own. 1:02:47 Like, you know, I think those are worth listening to. 1:02:50 And then I really wanna point people to the, the piece of reporting I did this week on Wednesday, which is about the missile shortage that we have in the war in Iran, and the president's improbable plan to get the automakers also here in Detroit. 1:03:03 I had a very Michigan-centric week this week. 1:03:05 Um, he's trying to get the automakers, specifically GM and Ford, to overhaul their, some of their automaking factories to build long range precision missiles like Patriot missiles. They just can't do it. 1:03:20 It, it won't happen in time. Even if they could, they couldn't produce them in time for us to have them battle ready. And I talked to the automakers about this, and they are being extremely cagey about it. 1:03:35 Uh, GM seems to be in talks with Lockheed Martin to do some of this work. Ford is a little less cagey, but it's, it's an improbable, impossible thing, and 1:03:48 really undercuts the whole White House narrative that we actually are fine in the war here, and that we aren't virtually out of all of our LRAMs. 1:03:56 And, uh, it's a fascinating story about whether or not this part of the country is gonna return to this idea of an arsenal of democracy, and even if we could, if they wanted to. Um, so that's, yeah, that's us right now. 1:04:11 I should note, uh, historically, it's not that uncommon for these plants- Hmm... to adjust for wartime needs. And that's what I mean, like Detroit was known as the arsenal of democracy during World War II. 1:04:24 They built the B-52s, they built tanks, they built all sorts of munitions, uh, I mean, like tens of thousands a week, if not a day. Uh, and they were being shipped overseas, uh, for the war effort. 1:04:37 Uh, it's just we don't live in that economy anymore, and the changeover of a single auto plant from just one car model to another, even if it's from like an F-150 to a f- you know, 250, that takes weeks if not months because you gotta retrain people, you've gotta redo the lines, you gotta retrain the robots that are in those things. 1:04:58 It's a whole process. Now we're talking about not just changing from a car, but to a precision missile. Yeah. And then- That has to work... that has to work. Uh, and then, you know, a- which is, uh, a whole other thing. 1:05:13 So there's that problem. We're also talking about an economy in which the automakers are already struggling because people are driving less, they're not buying new cars. 1:05:24 The war in Iran is also hurting their raw material shipments, whether it's steel, whether the tariffs are, are hurting auto parts which are coming in from Canada, which for a lot of that trade happens. 1:05:33 The semiconductor chips that cars need aren't coming in from Asia because of the Strait of Hormuz. 1:05:37 There's a whole problem with all these car companies, specifically GM and Ford, poured in tens of billions of dollars into EVs, electric vehicles, under Joe Biden, and now this president considers driving an EV a disease, something he said this week. 1:05:51 Uh, and, [laughs] and these, these automakers have had just to eat that cost, and now you're asking them to spin up 1:05:59 a new production line at plants that they may have not thought about opening or changing, uh, for decades. Like, it's this whole other thing. So it is, it- And it speaks to chaos also, chaos- Yes... 1:06:11 for the company, chaos for the community, chaos for the workers. Yes. Instability. Yeah, right, and, and like I didn't even mention the thing that like it's not just the president signs this, this decree, right? 1:06:22 The Defense Production Act maybe. Uh, like that still means that, let's say it's a plant... Uh, there's a giant plant in the city of Warren, Michigan, uh, that's the GM plant or whatever. 1:06:32 Let's say they wanna use that plant. Uh, they're gonna stop making, uh, Jeeps. I don't even know what's there. Uh, like it's not Jeeps, whatever. Uh, but like 1:06:41 they stop making those, the auto workers union has to get involved, the city of Warren has to get involved, the state has to get involved. That timeline drags out. 1:06:49 Like we, you know, it's just this stuff is, like I said, improbable if not impossible, but it is this thing that is... 1:06:57 a- actively on an assembly line right now coming out of the White House, and it is a fascinating story Well, and it speaks to, uh, the planning and the forethought that might have to go into, uh, a long-term war that should have been- Well, right... 1:07:11 thought about a long time ago. Right, because either way, we are going to need to build more missiles. Uh, so what happens now? And that is a part of this conversation too. So yeah, it's, it's a really interesting story. 1:07:25 Uh, I'm glad I was finally able to write it. I've been kind of noodling on this thing for about a month or so, trying to get some people to play ball. Uh, so that's up now, uh, on Substack. Yeah. 1:07:34 That's a must-read, the must-listen this afternoon, uh, from the, uh, live stream from the other night. But what do you, what do you have in the world of Make It Make Nonsense? 1:07:42 Oh, this week, uh, it's the thing that I was talking about earlier. We talked a little bit a- on before we hopped on too. My wife is out of town this weekend, and I, when she's out of town, I clean the house. 1:07:51 Uh- And as soon as you said that, I said, "Oh- [laughs] "... Christie Welton understands that," because it's, uh, historically, that's, that's what I do too. Yeah. And it's not, uh, it's not meant to be mean. 1:08:03 It's just like the space is open. I can turn on some music, open the blinds, and I just- Yeah... go to town, man. We're cleaning house. I was unaware this was a controversial decision. Yeah. 1:08:13 Uh, but ha- I, I didn't know... like, have had some pushback from people in my life who are like, "Hey, that's mean. You're calling your wife, um, a messy, dirty person." And I'm like, "Well, she's not dirty. 1:08:24 I'm not not calling her a little messy." 1:08:26 But like, uh, it's, it's more like I can get up on a Saturday and just put my head down and work for 12 hours, and then when she comes home, the house is fully clean, and then we can hang- Yeah... 1:08:36 out and not have to worry about cleaning the house together. Right. Right. That sounds great to me. 1:08:40 Well, it's also, I'm a, a, it's not that I'm a believer in, like, feng shui, but I believe that f- uh, physical, uh, space is energy. It was- And we, we talk back to chaos and instability. 1:08:52 Look, I, it's, it's not even pejorative. It's like, take care of that part so that we can spend time together so that we all feel better. 1:09:01 There is real science behind visual stimulation causing you stress that- You bet... your, your brain is just taking in and you're not even, like, registering in, in a, like, a meaningful way. 1:09:12 But, like, your brain is just, like, filtering and, like, that's mess. That's clutter. That's all this stuff. Is this not why we have zoning laws? Yeah, right, [laughs] right, exactly, exactly, exactly. 1:09:22 It's why when you walk around, uh, you know, uh, any amusement park, and you get home, and you're like, "I didn't even do much, but I am exhausted." Right. And, like, that's what it is, right? 1:09:32 But it's, it's this thing, and, like, I also think it dov- this thing I do, it also dovetails with this, this online, like, trad wife, trad husband movement thing where it, these people don't seem to like their spouses and, like, don't wanna do this stuff to then spend time with their spouses. 1:09:51 And so it's this interesting th- thing that, like, I'm f- I'm learning about a lot of people that I, like, know, that I'm like, "Oh," and, like, not that I hang out with a bunch of trad people or whatever, but, like, it's like, it's, uh, it's like a, it's just like that thing is- Yeah... 1:10:05 is out there in this culture- When, when-... and it's like these things happened all at once for me this week... when guys like you and me, we just want the house clean. 1:10:12 We just, we just wanna pick it up, spend more quality time, just, you know. That's, yeah, I don't, I- I, I'm also, I'm also a Virgo. Uh, it's, you know, I, I, I, I, I love The Container Store. I like boxes. 1:10:24 I like bins, containers, love it. Yeah. I'm a Capricorn. I like a job. Yeah. I like to complete a thing. Oh, s- There's that... same. Yeah. I th- man, I've been watching Mad Men all the way through. 1:10:34 Um, and I never had watched all the... By the way, I should say I actually think it's the best TV series ever made. It is- Pretty good... perfect. Pretty good. In so many ways. 1:10:42 But there's the point where, um, he has to let Dr. Faye Miller know that he just married Megan. Uh, and she, she j- she gets mad at him. She says, "Don, you just like the beginnings of things." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 1:10:54 So you're, you're not like that. [laughs] You're a Capricorn. Yeah. I gotta, I gotta finish it. I gotta get to the end of it. And like- All right. Well-... I, I can't just leave a thing half done... the- But yeah... 1:11:02 the weekend, the weekend starts now. Um- Yeah... but I encourage folks to sign up for Make It Make Sense, makeitmakesense.substack.com now. Mims Pod, look for that on, uh, YouTube, both places. 1:11:13 I'll have the links down below. If you got a question- Yeah... for Grant or myself, put it in there. I would love to one day do a Q&A. Uh, but, uh, you know, uh, we'll see what happens there. 1:11:22 I, we get more comments than we do questions, Grant. Yeah. Yeah, so that's okay too. Uh, for Grant, I'm Ryan. Until next week, we'll talk to you later.
