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Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss the ramifications of standing up to Donald Trump and insisting that the 2020 election was not stolen as Liz Cheney gets destroyed in her Wyoming primary. They go in depth on the fumble of a candidate that is Herschel Walker, plus Dr. Oz's crudités gaff and the awfulness of Kari Lake in Arizona.
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Welcome to the Weekender Edition of the Muckrake Podcast.
I'm Jerry D. Sexton.
I'm here with Nick Halsman.
Nick, how was your week, man?
You know, it was a whirlwind.
But, you know, I'm here.
Got some stuff done.
I feel good about where the things are moving.
The way the country feels okay for a day.
I don't know if I'd say bad.
I mean, it's fine.
People are back in school, Jared.
I don't know about you, but LA, the traffic becomes just overnight when the school people go back to school.
It's untenable.
I don't know how people can handle this.
Well, I, listen, I don't know if I feel like things are moving in the right direction, but it certainly feels like there's an inherent energy.
It feels like the worm has turned a little bit.
Is that fair?
Yeah, I'm telling you, I'm positive today, man.
Okay, I like that.
And luckily, we'll get to talk about Liz Cheney being bounced in her primary and also Just a heads up, this is going to be a show where Nick and I are going to be diving deep, deep into the muck of the Republican slate going into the midterms.
If you wanna listen to the whole episode, obviously, as always, go over to patreon.com slash smuckrakepodcast.
We depend on your support.
I know you like this podcast.
I know you like what we're doing, and things are growing.
We need your help.
Patreon.com slash smuckrakepodcast to support the show, join the community, all that good stuff, listen to this podcast.
But Nick, we have to start in the great state of Wyoming today.
The great state of Wyoming, it is great.
Yeah, it's fine.
Cowboys and stuff, yeah.
Well, as predicted, and as everybody knew was probably going to be the case, Republican Representative Liz Cheney lost her primary bid in Wyoming to get reelected.
It was an absolute slaughter.
It was nearly by 40 points to Harriet Hageman, who is a real treat, by the way.
And of course, Liz Cheney lost this primary because she has been standing up to Donald Trump for a while now.
And she knew that it was coming.
Uh, that is true.
There was no, uh, there's no secret.
And that was the thing.
It wasn't like she, uh, all of a sudden realized or, you know, she said it herself.
She could have tempered everything down, what she was saying, and she could have tried to accept everything.
And, uh, instead, um, you know, decided that this was more important.
Years ago, I won this primary with 73% of the vote.
I could easily have done the same again.
The path was clear.
But it would have required that I go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election.
It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic.
That was a path I could not and would not take.
You know, and we're going to dive a little bit deeper into what this means and where this thing is going.
I think I speak for both of us, Nick, when I say that what Liz Cheney has done has been courageous.
It has been a feat of courage.
to stand up to the party to look at her own political fortunes and understand that she was going to lose this race and she was going to suffer consequences.
Her family's been put in harm's way because of this.
I'm not ready to go ahead and slap the hero or redeemer or savior label on her, and we'll talk a little bit about that in just a second.
But just a salute.
Well done making the right choice here.
Yeah, she's doing the honorable thing and that's what you're supposed to do and, you know, Al Franken quits because of this weird picture.
She does what she's supposed to do and she's gonna lose her position.
Like, that's just sort of the price that she was willing to pay.
Yeah, I feel like, you know, at least she could have made a concession call to her opponent.
Couldn't she have made a call and said something like, you know, good job?
She did.
She did do that.
She did?
Are you sure?
Hannity told me that she did not.
It's very strange that they couldn't just, you know, at Fox News and with the Republican Party, they couldn't just accept the fact that she had been drummed out of the party.
They had to make up this dumb lie that she hadn't conceded the actual race.
And, you know, but the funny thing was she said that, yeah, Liz Cheney let the voicemail, but all it said was, Hi Harriet, Like, why, like, is it, maybe, hey, maybe, the line dropped, maybe her cell phone, you know, like, couldn't finish the rest of the voicemail.
Probably not, though, but it was very strange, these people.
Our modern political moment is so stupid, as we're going to talk about throughout the rest of the show.
Yeah, I have to tell you, I think it tells you everything you need to know about the Republican Party, that Liz Cheney, and by the way, one of the most effective Republicans in Congress, They just absolutely booted her ass out of the party by nearly 40 points, simply because she called it what it was.
She called Donald Trump out for obvious things that anybody who pays any amount of attention and anybody who actually examines this knows to be true.
They drummed her out of the party for telling the truth.
It's really frightening because she said she won her race by 70 points, 70% the last time or whatever.
It was crazy.
No one's gone that extreme in two years ever.
You know, the thing that's interesting is that the Democrats have been propping up some of these really extreme candidates to make sure they won the primaries.
What they weren't counting on probably is that the moderates that they were forcing out After they lose are certainly joining hands with these crazies and like encouraging their followers to join part of the, you know, maintain their Republican roots and, you know, cheer for that team.
That is where that strategy the Democrats have been using is going to backfire on them, right?
Because they figured maybe these moderates would just sort of fade away or not do anything.
Keep your eye on Liz Cheney.
Who knows?
She might end up saying, hey, you know, we got to have, hey, hey, what's her, how would you say her last name?
Harriet Hageman.
We have to have her back, you know, we have to support her.
I refuse to learn.
I refuse to learn.
This person is not a serious person.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, we saw the primary debates.
I mean, talk about feeling, you really want to feel bad for Liz Cheney, feel bad for her having to stand on stage with those guys.
It's tough.
It's really, really tough.
And, you know, what Liz Cheney is going to do now, there are already plans to start up a political action committee, which more or less is going to battle Trumpism.
I mean, everybody and their mother expects Cheney to throw her name into the Republican primary for the presidential election in 2024.
I mean, I think we can go ahead and say safely that she's not going to get the nomination.
There are within the Trump world and among the Trump base, there's not really anything you can say to them.
There's not really any appeal that you can make, particularly if you've been branded a traitor.
And as we've seen over the past couple of days, as by the way, Nick, I think we've been predicting this for over a year now, already mainstream Republicans and liberals in the media are already saying, you don't want that Ron DeSantis.
You might have some problems with him, but I guarantee you he's not as bad as Donald Trump, and they're already embracing him and accepting him.
I think it's already becoming apparent that the energy in the Republican Party, whether it's the extremist, the leftover Trumpist, or the people who are looking to quote-unquote redeem the party, they're going to move towards DeSantis.
It's not going to be toward Liz Cheney.
It's not going to be to Mike Pence.
It's all moving towards DeSantis and possibly, I don't know, somebody that we haven't even talked about yet.
But this is not going to turn into this like dream that people have that Liz Cheney is going to rescue the party from itself.
There's no rescuing the Republican Party.
It's done.
It's done.
And DeSantis has now gotten the endorsement of the radical left-wing media outlet of Alex Jones and InfoWars if you saw that.
Yeah, you know, that's a big get.
Print that out, put it on your wall, man.
You did something great.
But let's not overlook what you said about Liz Cheney because, you know, there are people that will run for president with the long game in mind and that's going to get them on the national stage a little bit and, you know, get them, you know, for maybe a few more cycles down the path.
Eric Swalwell would have judged those people, right?
Liz Cheney is not in that position where she's going to run just to kind of get herself going.
We all know who she is.
She's been around for a long time.
So, they're interesting.
So, why would she run, really?
And again, kudos Pat on the back for what she did, but you can't help but be cynical and imagine she's doing this for other motives as well that will ultimately benefit her monetarily or career-wise.
And, you know, so it might not be, I'm not ready to give her a complete, you know, free conscience on this one.
Well, and you know, this is something we talk about all the time, which is you cannot keep blameless heroes when looking at politics.
You can't do it.
They're not saviors.
They're not messiahs.
They're not perfect.
I understand some people, Comey's coming to save us.
Miller's coming to save us.
Garland's coming to save us.
Liz Cheney is coming to save us.
You name it.
I mean, we know pretty much how this works.
Liz Cheney will probably have a book that comes out next year and she'll get an incredible amount of money from it.
Undoubtedly there will be a, I'll go ahead and predict it.
Are you ready?
There will be an ABC news documentary that will be named something like laying it on the line, you know, like all this stuff happens.
And meanwhile, you have to understand the presidential politics are an exercise in narcissism, a Enough people come up, and my God, how many people probably have come up to Liz Cheney and said, you should run for president.
I think you could really make a difference in the party.
And eventually you start, you know, drinking your own Kool-Aid and you start thinking, you know what?
I think maybe I could save this party.
And the problem in all of this, as we've talked about ad nauseum, You can't be Liz Cheney with your dad, Dick Cheney, making ads pretending like the Republican Party wasn't a problem before 2016 and Donald Trump.
You can't sit around and pretend that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush didn't steal the presidency.
In 2000 and carry out a worldwide terror campaign that killed upwards of a million people.
You can't sit here and pretend like the Republican Party is just lost for a moment.
It's not.
It has reached its ideological terminal limit.
It doesn't have any principles left.
The only thing it cares about is power and control and benefiting the wealthiest and the most powerful.
That's it.
Gosh, you're making Grandpa Dick sound like such a not nice man.
Didn't you hate that when he popped up on all these social media threads?
And people are like, Dick Cheney saying what needs said.
It's like, good God, get him off my screen.
But you only had to wait about 20 seconds in that to realize he's just doing this as a way to like, you know, prop his daughter up a little bit and try and get her some votes.
But interestingly enough, this may be the other reason why she's running.
Perhaps she's going to run to make sure when Trump runs he will lose because she will take enough votes that will, you know, ensure that.
That could be her falling on the sword.
Again, another one of those things.
Okay, pat on the back.
But I think the book thing is right.
She knows she's going to be well taken care of and will not have to worry about money.
She doesn't worry about money anyway.
I think that family anyway.
So it doesn't necessarily matter there.
But yeah, that might be the other reason.
She might end up being like, you know, let's be that person that's going to siphon enough votes off that we can just ensure Trump goes away.
But, you know, Trump might be running for prison.
You know, we mentioned Eugene V. Debs when we were talking about the problems Trump is having.
Eugene V. Debs ran for president from prison.
Maybe Donald Trump will be the second.
I don't know.
Maybe there's a real possibility.
Oh, yeah.
Newsmax always, you know, I wish I had this cued up.
They're at that level.
Like, you know, you can still run from prison, right?
So he'll probably do that.
Like, they've already assumed that he's going to be indicted and going to go to prison.
So that's fine with me.
I'll take it.
You know, listen, this reality is so screwed up at this point, I wouldn't rule it out.
I really truly wouldn't.
The Geraldo interview.
Before we jump into this slate, and my god is it, a technical term I'm looking for is coconut bananas.
I mean, it is some real batshit crazy stuff.
But flavorful.
Oh, flavorful.
I agree.
They're not boring.
Amy Gardner at the Washington Post was crunching the numbers.
We are now at 54 of 87 GOP candidates with roles in election certification who have actively and openly embraced the big lie and election denial.
That's 54 out of 87.
This party has been completely turned over to the lunatic French.
Amazing.
It is worth saying that, you know, the polls are indicating that the generic Democratic ballot for both Senate and Congress is very positive for the Democrats, by the way.
Just throwing it out there.
So maybe what you're talking about is, you know, people are slowly coming around to that and the younger people are getting more involved and so hopefully that will end this fever.
Well, let's take a closer look at this gaggle of assholes.
First off, simply to get my own thing across, we're going to go to the Peach State.
We're going to go to Georgia.
And down here in Georgia, in the Senate election, right now, Nick, Raphael Warnock, who, by the way, like I don't agree with completely politically.
He's a competent, professional, dependable individual in his first term.
Well, and of course, he came in a special election in his first term as a senator has already played a huge role.
Like sometimes senators like to sit on and let things sort of catch up to them.
Warnock has played a huge role.
He was the driving force in trying to cap insulin prices.
Right now, as of today, depending upon what poll you look at, Warnock is up 3-8 points.
Only 3-8 points against Herschel Walker.
And we'll get to Herschel as a candidate here in just a second, but for those who don't know, Herschel Walker is a Georgian hero.
He's a former Heisman Trophy winner, one of the greatest college football players of all time.
I have to tell you, one of the worst political candidates, maybe ever, and we'll get into the specifics of that.
The news that's coming out of Georgia, Herschel Walker, who basically has not campaigned because he can't talk, he has no actual understanding of issues or what's going on, and every time he opens his mouth, he makes things worse.
He has now finally agreed to debate Warnock.
And here's the thing, Nick, this is chef's kiss.
The agreement to the debate includes that they will both be told the questions in advance and also that the debate will include, and this is no joke, everybody, visual aids that will help the candidates understand better the questions that are being asked.
Sure.
You know, cheerleaders, the pom-poms on the sideline, like a football game, right?
I got to tell you, I know that everyone's like, oh my God, they're trying to fix this thing for him.
Herschel Walker is such a disaster that I don't even know if he'd be able to perform in a debate where he had everything given to him, he memorized his answers, and there were visual aids that were working at like a kindergarten level.
Nick, it's real bad.
Is this the part of the show where we share a clip of him talking?
Well, I want to give people a quick little background on this and then we'll get to this.
I don't know how else to say it, disturbing clip, but everything about Herschel Walker is disturbing.
First of all, we don't even need to talk about his incompetence.
We need to talk about the things that are already just on the record.
This is a habitual chronic liar who's lied about his businesses.
And by the way, Nick, what I'm getting ready to say, I can't believe this is coming out of my mouth.
He's lied about being involved with the FBI and law enforcement like a child.
As one does.
As one does, he's lied about multiple children, including to his own staff, who they just keep uncovering one like hidden child after another.
This guy has admitted, as you're getting ready to hear, has admitted wanting to murder people.
He's been accused of abuse.
He's been accused of just randomly playing Russian roulette.
Here, let's listen to Herschel telling his own words.
...for the poor law enforcement.
Y'all didn't know that either, did you?
I spent time at Quantico, at the FBI training schools.
Y'all didn't know I was an agent?
No, you didn't!
Y'all don't care, but anyway.
Yeah, I've been in law enforcement before.
So, I grabbed my gun.
I said, I will kill him.
Herschel Walker, one of the Highland Patrol.
I'm gonna kill him.
I got into David, one of my many.
I took off on 183.
And I still remember the voice of Herschel.
People been disrespecting you all the time.
People always doing stuff to you.
You never done nothing to nobody.
And all of a sudden, this other voice, a hush of your parents, and raised your ears.
Yes, they did.
No, they didn't.
Yes, they did.
I thought I was losing my mind.
As I got closer and closer to where I was going to be meeting this guy, I started to pray.
I said, Lord, I need some help right now.
I said, I need you to help me.
I said, I'm about to do something stupid right now.
I need you to help me right now.
I remember getting to this where I was going to meet him at.
I got out of my car, and I put my hand on my gun.
As I walk into this truck, Before I could see the guy, I saw the sign on the back of his truck that said, Hunk, if you love Jesus.
And that's what calmed me down.
Nick, he's talking about murdering another person.
Well, you know, he's talking about voices in his head.
Yes, yes, yes!
Which, it's not the first time he's admitted that he hears voices in his head.
So, I don't know why the murder thing kind of flies over.
To me, I'm like, he's got voices telling him to do things.
That frightens me as much as anything else.
It's awful.
And here again, I want to reiterate, Hershel Walker right now, based on polls, is trailing anywhere from 3 to 8 points behind an actual, competent, professional person, Raphael Warnock.
That soundbite was years ago, right?
He's really gotten himself help since then, right?
No, no, he hasn't.
It's just as bad.
It just keeps getting worse.
And by the way, just to go ahead and reiterate, he did not work with the FBI.
That's just some derangement.
Nick, this guy has no credentials whatsoever outside of being famous and having been recruited specifically and personally by Donald Trump.
This is the future of the Republican Party.
It's not about finding anybody who can even use the levers of power.
This is simply about putting out cultural heroes, known entities, which, by the way, we'll talk more about in just a second, unfortunately.
This is the future of the party.
It's finding people like Herschel Walker who have no capabilities, no competence whatsoever, and just expecting cultural wars to pass them through.
Yeah, it's also fascinating that Trump was the guy that brought him in because Hershel Walker is directly connected to the USFL, which is a team that Trump owned and basically destroyed that league by his own ownership and influence across the league.
Yeah, listen, he's the black guy they want to run against another black guy, right?
This is sort of what they're going for.
That's as cynical as it gets.
Yeah, and this is who they picked.
I still feel very good about Warnock.
I don't feel like he's going to lose this race, right?
I mean, are you afraid of being someone in Georgia right now?
Well, I'll tell you, if I had to put money on it right now, I would probably predict at this moment, and by the way, we haven't talked about Brian Kemp, the governor in Georgia for a while, who stole the election from Stacey Abrams.
Brian Kemp right now is just basically throwing one haymaker after another, saying, if I get reelected, I'll reimburse your taxes.
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