Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman go over the latest polling in some battleground states, none of which look good for Biden. They discuss how Donald Trump has unleashed surrogates to appear at his trial in New York and then help him violate his gag order. JD Vance has been the most vocal of these surrogates as he hopes to get picked for Vice President. They dissect what it means that Elon Musk is cozying up to so many authoritarians before finishing with Clarence Thomas lamenting how mean people are to him.
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I needed to recalibrate ground, but yeah, I'm good today.
Well, you know, it's funny because I had something happen today that might be a microcosm for the entire, you know, country, which is in order to make the lock work on the gate near the sidewalk of my house, they had to make the door thinner or whatever, or like whatever.
So they ended up just grinding out their edges around the lock.
And so it works great now.
I can unlock and lock it with a little switch, but it looks absolutely horrible.
It looks like dog shit.
So now I got to deal with that.
Well, I mean, yeah, that's the way it works, right?
I'm glad your gate works.
That makes me very happy to hear that my friend Nick will be safe.
Yeah, the gate works, but it just doesn't look good at all.
I mean, you win, you lose.
We're going to figure out how to make that gate look good again.
We're going to make that gate great again.
Yes, absolutely.
That's what we're going to do.
Well, everybody, we have a completely packed show.
We've got a brand new bunch of polls.
We've got centrists being centrists.
We've got Trump Listen, a VP picking strategy we've never seen before.
Elon Musk just musking it right up, and Clarence Thomas can't stop complaining.
Just a reminder, before we get going, go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast and support the show.
Keep us ad-free, editorially independent, keep us growing.
We really need people to support us because we are not a multi-million dollar corporate media news outlet.
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patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
Oh, wait.
Also, if you tell just one other person about this podcast, that really, really helps with word of mouth.
Get them over!
Yeah, just one.
Just one person each.
It'll be awesome.
I hear from people all the time who are like, you know, I never thought about recommending this podcast, and all of a sudden now me and my friend talk about it.
So, yeah, why not do it?
And by the way, if you go ahead and subscribe to the Patreon, you can get the Weekender Edition on Fridays, which is another episode that you get to hang out with me and Nick, and I think it's worth it.
Nick, we gotta start with campaign 2024.
That is our corporate news media package with graphics all over the place.
Nick, we are, I don't know if you're paying attention, we're almost to the summer.
We're almost to the summer of a presidential election.
This campaign is one of the weirdest that we've seen in a long time.
We'll get into that, but a brand new series of polls are now out.
New York Times, Siena, and Philadelphia Inquirer have polls out right now that show that dedicated voters in five battleground states are leaning toward Donald Trump.
They are the following.
In Wisconsin, right now it appears that Biden has a two-point lead, 47 to 45.
Pennsylvania, Trump is up 47 to 44.
In Arizona, 49 to 42.
Trump leads in Michigan by 49 to 42, which that should send some people into a panic mode right now, thinking about changing some things.
In Georgia, 49 to 39, which is a reversal from 2020.
Nevada, 50 to 38.
There are other numbers here too, Nick.
In a poll with RFK Jr., he's currently at 10%, which according to my expertise is double digits.
Leaving Trump up 40 to 33 without RFK.
He's up 48 to 42.
This is not a great place to be in mid-May of a presidential election.
It doesn't look great.
Well, I mean, I suppose if we want to use the insights of past elections, then yes.
But then I also feel like we can't do that anymore in this new uncharted territory of Trumpism.
I am surprised by Pennsylvania, though.
I would have thought that would have been at least a lot more looking like Wisconsin would have looked like.
That is a little bit concerning for sure.
Pennsylvania is a worrisome one.
It is.
And I think there's a lot of stuff that's going on here.
First of all, before we get into the analysis of what's actually going on in these polls and we take a look at like where it's coming from or what's happening.
Nick, I have studied more.
You know, I was getting ready to say every presidential election and sort of the ins and outs of it.
Let's be honest, there are some of them out there that it ain't worth a damn paying attention to them.
In the history of America, there were some really bizarre, like not at all interesting elections.
This is a really odd one.
When we covered 2020, Trump and Biden were not campaigning for the presidency because of COVID.
They released some videos every now and then.
Trump, of course, famously had a couple of rallies that killed his voters and killed some GOP luminaries.
There is not much of a campaign going right now.
And Trump will occasionally have a rally.
He'll go out and say some weird shit, talk about Hannibal Lecter.
Joe Biden, I think, is averaging maybe one or two rallies, maybe a month if it's a busy month.
This is a strange, strange election that we're looking at.
And these numbers, I think, are reflecting some things that not a lot of people are touching on.
I'll get to them in a second.
How do you feel about what 2024 looks like as a race in general, right?
Well I you know it's funny the thing if you're gonna it just feels like the abortion issue is supposedly going to draw so many people out regardless what these polls look like now.
It's been indicative of that in terms of any special elections we've had since the assault on abortion has happened by the GOP.
So, it's the extreme optimistic version of what will happen in November, but it's some version of that where people come out of the woodwork and are steadfastly committed to keeping abortion safe and legal, and that is going to reverse these numbers.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe that.
I'm not saying necessarily that Biden isn't going to win this thing, but I think this election is both about all of the things that we've been talking about and also none of them.
First of all, you know, in 2020 is a referendum on Donald Trump as president.
Joe Biden obviously made the promise that he was going to bring the country, quote-unquote, back to normal.
We found out not only could he do that, but also couldn't do that, but that normal wasn't good in the first place.
I feel like this election right now is shaping up to not really be about either of the candidates.
Like, Donald Trump obviously is an existential threat.
Right?
I think everybody is sort of voting one way or another based on Donald Trump, but not necessarily as the person.
He's not making a case.
There's nothing that he's really coming out for.
He's sort of all over the place, and he's promising, you know, to carry out this Project 2025 stuff.
But like, one of the things that's happening here, and one of the most telling numbers, Nick, In this poll, 70% of the people answering in this poll said our political and economic systems need major change.
14%, which is not a small number, say that they need torn down completely.
My guess is that the majority of that 14% are on the side of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
They want authoritarianism.
They want a dictator to come in and move things around.
But 70% of Americans saying that our systems don't work and they need major change, that's not a good election to be an incumbent during.
You know what I mean?
That's not a contest to be the person in charge.
I think abortion, unfortunately, and we'll get into this in a second with some of this dumbass advice that Mark Penn rolled out that we have to react to, Like, abortion hasn't been made the major issue.
We look at it, and we think it should be, but also there's been no plan.
There's no promise of what's going to happen if Joe Biden gets reelected, other than Donald Trump will make it worse.
Right now, the question is, Are people happy with the way things are?
And they're not.
And by the way, they wouldn't be happy with it even, you know, if Donald Trump was in power, but it just so happens that Joe Biden is the incumbent and there hasn't been a message that has said, here's where we could go.
Here's what we could do.
That's been non-existent.
You know, it'd be nice if the 70% and maybe if you dig deep enough, you can figure it out.
When they say the systems aren't working, I would like to kind of have an idea exactly which system they're talking about.
What is it?
Political and economic systems.
I mean, that's a pretty broad.
Umbrella.
I know.
And so if they were able to, I mean, we can get a little bit more, you know, drilled down on that, then at least it gives Biden something to say, okay, we understand that these things aren't working.
And like, listen, people will respond when you get a knowledge that it doesn't work and that there's, here's a plan.
That's why I think Bill Clinton was probably the best at this, right?
He would be able to identify issues like that and then very clearly explain what they could do to make them work better.
Whether they actually did or not, at least he was able to address it in a way.
He was great at saying it.
Yes.
And so that's a big thing.
That's half the politician's battle.
And I don't think that Biden has that, anyway, that innate ability to communicate that kind of thing.
But I don't think that they even understand.
I mean, I'm wondering, do we have an answer to that?
Like, what exactly, when you're asking, what is it that's gnawing at people?
They're going to say, like, inflation or something.
But what can we get more specific than that?
I think people have a better understanding than that.
So for instance, one of the things from this poll that is very obvious is that Biden has had an absolute bottoming out with young voters.
And by the way, you and I and everyone listening to this understand why young voters are turning against Joe Biden.
We know what that is.
It's not just the Gaza situation.
It's also not just student debt relief, which people expect.
It's the fact that he hasn't said to them, here's the country I'm going to create for your future.
That's not there.
And every one of them understands that they're getting a raw deal, and they right now do not have the possibility of having a better future.
You know who else is emerging?
Black voters.
And that's a problem, Nick.
And by the way, there's a reason why that's happening.
What happened in the beginning of Biden's term?
All of these voting rights were being absolutely decimated, particularly in red states.
I'm sorry.
To be 10 points underwater in Georgia tells you everything you need to know.
They told those people, hey, quiet down.
You're going to have to organize better and we'll take care of what's going on.
Have you heard Biden or really any Democrat recently talk about voting rights?
Have you heard them like give any sort of a plan of how they're going to bring back the voting rights protection?
Nothing!
They feel a deep sense of being betrayed in the same way that not just young people but women have.
There's no plan to codify Roe.
There's been no plan for, really, any of this stuff.
It's just, we're not Donald Trump.
I promise you that he's really dangerous.
And, by the way, he is incredibly dangerous.
Let's not go ahead and, you know, play around with that.
But, like, there is a real feeling of, this administration has not listened to us and has not responded to us.
And it's not just the voting rights in themselves.
It's also that during the pandemic in 2020, there were a lot of concessions made to help people vote in general, right?
Drive-by voting and all sorts of things like that, which I don't, a lot of those Republican states have gotten rid of wholesale, right?
We don't have any of that now.
We've always understood that like the easier it is to get to vote, then the more people will vote.
And the more people that will vote means generally the Democrats will have a better chance of winning those elections.
So without a lot of that, and by the way, what I'm just described there is what they what the Republicans would say is illegal voting.
Right.
They would say all those things are not that there should have been allowed and that's all illegal against the Constitution.
And so that is also the bigger fear, right, is that suddenly, if Democratic voters are not presented with the same kind of ease with which they got in 2020 to vote, then they won't vote and it might not even be that they're for Trump.
Or they're against Biden, they just won't cast their vote because it's a hassle or what have you.
And the problem is it's too close for this one.
The calculation might have been, well, there's some young people that aren't going to vote for me because of Gaza.
Well, we can handle that.
But now when you factor in sort of the entire future, like you described, as far as laying that out and giving them some sense of hope.
Yeah, and I just want to, before we get to Mark Penn and his ridiculous prognostications and advice, I want to give free advice on this podcast.
That's what we do when we feel it's necessary.
We know that there are Democratic strategists, consultants, and Biden administration members that listen to this podcast.
I'm going to go down the list, Nick.
Wisconsin.
You know how you win Wisconsin?
You go to Wisconsin.
And you go ahead and also, and this is my advice for Michigan, you go in there with the unions.
You all of a sudden say, you know what's great right now?
What's happening with the UAW?
What's happening with young people unionizing their workplaces?
That's what they care about.
What else does Michigan care about?
They care about what's happening in Gaza.
That is a big reason why he's losing in Michigan right now, numbers-wise.
Pennsylvania?
You need to go into Pennsylvania and you need to tell voters what your plan is to codify women's reproductive rights.
That's what you need to do.
That's what they want to hear.
Arizona?
You probably aren't going to win Arizona this time around.
You can make it close, but, you know, that is what it is.
Nevada is going to be a little bit weird, but that's also a union state.
Go in there with the UAW, talk about being with them, and also, by the way, every time you get a chance to talk, talk about voting rights and talk about abortion.
Period.
That's what you need to do.
And the fact that that stuff isn't happening, like, they're lucky that they're only behind by these numbers right now.
It could be a lot worse.
And I'm sorry what we saw in 2016 tells you everything you need to know.
If you lose Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan as a Democrat, you're not going to win the presidency.
That just isn't going to happen.
And so, like, something major needs to change at this point.
Well, let me ask you this.
Biden made a big deal a few days ago about going to Foxconn or talking about Foxconn factory that they were going to build in Wisconsin.
You know, Trump made this big deal.
You know, Trump is all about announcements, right?
He loves announcements.
He loves telling people what's going to happen.
Absolutely.
Yeah, and so like the call with Ukraine was simply not even about opening an investigation into Biden.
It was simply announced that you were going to do it.
And he did the same thing there, where they had made, they sort of created this announcement and made it all this buzz.
They got a big, you know, photo op and all that stuff, but it ends up being a total sham.
And there was, there's not nearly the amount of jobs created that he said they were going to be, or any kind of economy boost in the way they were going to get it.
So that does sort of touch upon what you're hoping he would do, but I wonder if it's gonna have enough teeth to those kind of things.
I personally think what Biden needs to do, and Listen, there are people listening to this, again, who are professional consultants.
Some of them are going to pump their fist, and others are going to gnash their teeth at what I'm about to say.
Do you know what Biden actually needs to do, Nick?
He needs to figure out a stump speech.
The people around him in which he says, you know what?
I've done some good stuff in my presidency, but it's also been thwarted in a lot of different ways.
Here are the places where we haven't come through.
And you know what?
Like, we know from his approval ratings, even among Democrats, we understand that everybody understands that this presidency has been held back by a variety of things.
Go out and say, hey, here's where I've come up short in this first term.
Here are the plans to get it fixed.
And I think people will listen to that.
You know what doesn't work?
Consistently saying, you better vote for him.
You better vote for him.
If you don't support him enough, you're part of the problem.
That doesn't get people to vote for a person.
You know what I mean?
Like, that sort of political sycophancy doesn't actually work.
It turns people off.
And matter of fact, it's not that they are necessarily going to go vote for Trump.
They're going to become disillusioned by the process.
You need to build a larger tent by talking about what you can do for people and the changes that you can make.
And that hasn't been communicated yet.
I mean, I think they already are disillusioned by the process.
You have to get them illusioned by it, I suppose.
You have to get them illusioned by it.
Yes.
But does MAGA?
So calling out and exposing what Trump did to make this whole farce of promising jobs, whatever, in Wisconsin, does anybody on the MAGA side hear Biden say that or even just look around and realize that and actually come to the realization that Trump doesn't have any clothes on?
No.
No.
Absolutely not.
None of them are going to pay attention to that.
Like, what is happening with MAGA is you have a solid group of people who are going to vote for Donald Trump.
And most of them you're not going to move.
And by the way, I don't think anything can be done for 2024.
I think a Biden administration and anything that comes after it can move that number, can start to make inroads with some of the people by addressing material conditions.
Like, you know, I'm from Indiana, Nick.
Barack Obama won Indiana in 2008, right?
And why did he do it?
Because he came in and he said, hey, guess what?
You guys have gotten a raw deal.
Let's talk about it.
I think a state like Indiana, which is just like a true red state, I think could be won over.
But you have to have a track record.
And Biden doesn't have a track record so far.
And you have to talk about that.
You can build those numbers.
Seems really obvious.
Yeah, it is pretty obvious.
You know who it's not obvious for is Mark Pinn.
For the listeners of this podcast who don't know, Mark Pinn is one of the more sort of detestable individuals.
He's a pollster.
And by the way, that should make everybody's skin crawl already.
He was a pollster for Bill Clinton, as you mentioned, and Hillary Clinton.
He has a long, long history, Nick.
of basically any time something gets brought up, he has one answer and one answer always, and that is, you need to move to the right and get in the center.
That is every single time he's asked any question.
So, Penn in the New York Times reacted to this.
Let's take a look at what he has to say.
President Biden appears behind in all the swing states, and his campaign appears all too focused on firming up his political base on the left with his new shift on Israel, a $7 trillion budget, and massive tax increases, and his failing to connect on the basic issues of inflation, immigration, and energy.
Nick, real fast, I just want to go through this because Mark Penn is an absolute dumbass.
Let's go place by place here.
Has he appealed to the left by a new shift on Israel?
Is Biden on the left when it comes to Israel?
No, he is definitely not.
I suppose what he's trying to refer to is the notion that he's not going to send arms when they go into Rafah, like to make it seem like he is pushing away from Israel.
That's not gonna sell it to the... I mean, it's been how far left we're talking.
No.
Joe Biden with a $7 trillion budget.
Is the president solely responsible for the budget?
Does he just make up a number and throw it out there?
Is that how that works, Nick?
No.
He's got influence on it, I suppose.
Okay.
Massive tax increases.
Nick, is that popular?
That's popular, well, but no, it's not popular, but I'm unaware of any massive tax increases, are you?
Well, right, because there's not.
Like, he's basically saying that, like, the Democrats saying that they might tax the rich is not going to be popular.
Is that true?
No, everyone loves when the rich get taxed and pay their fair share.
The basic issues of inflation, again, immigration.
By the way, I don't know if you paid attention, Nick, but this weekend the Biden administration got rid of restrictions on how you treat child immigrants in detention, which great work, Biden administration.
We love it when you do that.
Also on energy, am I wrong or is Joe Biden not absolutely bullish on oil?
I believe we are pumping out more oil domestically than we've ever had.
Oh cool, okay, so he's full of shit.
By pitching too much to the base, he's leaving behind the centrist voters, I can't believe Mark Pym brought this up, who shift between parties from election to election, I believe will be the key factor in deciding the 2024 election.
He says a bunch of stuff about being dragged to the left, right, because Joe Biden is just, oh my god, what a blazing socialist.
I just want to say, before we get into the analysis, I'm going to use some political jargon here.
since swing voters are fewer in number.
And it's true that in today's polarized environment, Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have about 40% of voters each, and nothing will change those people's mind.
But in the remaining 20% of the electorate, voters have disproportionate power because of their potential to switch.
It's simple math.
Take a race tide and run up five to five.
If one voter swings, the tally becomes six to four.
I just want to say, before we get into the analysis, I'm going to use some political jargon here.
This is stupid.
This is really, really stupid.
This isn't at all how any of this works anymore.
There's not 20% undecided voters.
You win an election based on whether or not people come out to vote who weren't going to vote anyway.
That's how you win in this modern era.
This is absolutely stupid and wrong, and the idea that Joe Biden has become a raging leftist, I'm so tired of hearing this, Nick.
I believe me, knowing you as long as I have, I know how tired you are, how upset you are.
Tired?
You know, all I wrote on this in my notes would be, was that, I said, 1992 called, they want their op-ed back.
This is like, he's in a, you know, I don't know who he's trying to appeal to, I don't know who's going to read this and actually say, oh, that's right.
Oh, you know who it is!
You know who this is appealing to.
It's appealing to liberal voters who believe that the Democratic Party is becoming too left as it's moving to the right.
And people who are so disconnected that they don't even realize that his whole thesis is wrong.
Do you know what I realized this morning?
And it happened, Nick.
I was drinking my coffee.
It was like in The Usual Suspects when you realize who Keyser Söze was and you drop the coffee mug and it just breaks into a thousand pieces.
Do you know what the political center in the United States of America is now?
And this is true.
I sat around with this and I checked my numbers.
Do you know what the political center of the United States is right now?
No.
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney neoconservatives.
That's the center of the country now.
Wow.
That's who it is.
Is it not?
I mean, yeah.
And by the way, and again, it makes you wonder if that really is the center.
The right is still wringing their hands over like some, you know, woke mind virus thing, right?
When in reality, it's been moving that direction anyway.
Bill Kristol has the woke mind virus.
David Frum has the woke mind virus.
Rick Wilson, infected.
Like, that's the political center of the United States.
The idea that you need to move to the center, it literally means you need to become a George W. Bush-era neoconservative.
You know, when you mention George W. Bush in that sense, it just reminds you of the kind of quality of candidate that they continually push out from this party.
And if there is one thing that's moving, as we're moving to the right, the quality of candidate is moving down.
And by the way, we include George W. Bush in that decline.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
We need to make that very, very clear.
Speaking of declining quality of candidates, Nick, Donald Trump is in court.
I can't be bothered to care what Michael Cohen is saying in a courtroom.
Again, this whole soap opera thing is absurd.
But guess what, Nick?
Wild and wacky.
We're starting to have some celebrity sightings in these court cases.
That's right.
As Donald Trump is dealing with testimony from Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, this hush money trial in New York City, we're starting to see some Republican luminaries this morning.
J.D.
Vance, not friend of the pod, total asshole that we could not hate more, was in attendance.
Tommy Tuberville was in attendance.
Rick Scott has shown up at this.
At this point, Nick, at this point, Donald Trump is more or less encouraging his VP nominee candidates to show up in court for his indictments and his trials to show support.
He's telling people like JD Vance to go on cable television and support him.
And can you believe it in 2024 that we have reached the point where that is now something that you need to do in order to win a VP spot with a major party's candidate.
You have to show up for their court hearings.
Yeah, I mean, it makes perfect sense of the way Trump operates where you have to, you know, pledge fealty.
And you keep hearing these people who like they'll get fired from work in the White House because of like horrible security clearance issues they can't get or just being horrible people.
And he keeps them on and they don't go away.
And then the next thing you know, because he was he did that for them, they're willing to do anything to keep their position underneath him.
But it is it actually makes sense as far as having other people talk about this trial for him, because He's not allowed to.
Yeah, he can't do it, so he has to have surrogates who do his dirty work for him.
And on top of that, Nick, you know what it reminds me of?
It reminds me of a Mafioso boss.
It really is!
It's like when you get brought in, your subordinates need to come in in order to stand behind you.
I wish that we could get, like, I would pay good money for this, a live feed of JD Vance's brain.
This is a person who built his entire career, he became incredibly wealthy by selling out poor people and his family, and then Nick, he became a senator.
He became a United States senator, and he has to go into a New York City courthouse and stand there as Donald Trump's crimes are just completely elucidated, like laid out for anybody to pay attention to.
And he's doing that in the hopes that he could be the VP.
And by the way, what did Donald Trump do to his previous VP?
He told his supporters more or less to hang him.
And ruined him within the party.
And I would love to get, I would love to see the mental math that's going on there.
That's a beautiful mind, uh, like Dante's Inferno type situation.
I mean, that said, if I were in that position and I would want to be the VP, I mean, this is actually good.
It's clear.
It's easy.
Like, okay, great.
I know exactly what I need to do to get his attention.
And, you know, if I can craft the right sound bites that he'll hear on the news later on that night, then I'm, I'm golden, you know, versus wringing your hands, wondering, does he like me?
Is he going to pick me?
Like, at least here you can be a little bit more active in what you're trying to do.
But again, the funny thing is, I think Trump is going to get fed up with his surrogates at some point and then do it himself and then have to continue to pay more and more money or ultimately serve prison time for contempt.
Well, and by the way, one of the things that we see from Donald Trump, because he's a malignant narcissist, he hates the people who look up to him.
He hates them.
He hates anyone who appreciates him and sucks up to him.
What has he done time and time again to these Republicans?
He has absolutely, like, demanded fealty from them, and while they're down licking his boots, he will crush them.
You know, and, like, to show up like that at these court hearings, I have to assume, like, there is a thrill for that.
Like, you're making a United States senator debase himself.
And by the way, J.D.
Vance can debase himself all that he wants.
I wish him well in that pursuit.
But, like, literally, it's like, what are we asking at this point?
We're literally asking these people to go in and say, I'm fine with these crimes.
And what did we see, of course, from Tim Scott?
I will not accept an election that Donald Trump doesn't win.
Or I will be fine, like, overthrowing an election if Donald Trump tells me to.
Like, it has reached a new level of debauchery that, I'll be honest, I look at this stuff, I'm one of the more pessimistic analysts out there.
I didn't expect this.
And by the way, J.D.
Vance, congratulations.
This is where you've ended up.
Well, shouldn't J.D.
Vance be a little bit more busy than this?
Shouldn't he be, you know, actually doing his job as a senator?
Like, how is he able to take time off a whole day or two, whatever it is, to go to New York and grandstand like this?
This doesn't make any sense to me.
I don't know how anybody would support that.
Evil never rests.
That's the whole point.
It can't rest.
It's like a shark.
It can't stop swimming.
Somebody, by the way, is going to email in there and go, it's not true about sharks.
They can't stop.
I know.
I get it.
But, you know, for the metaphorical sense, it cannot rest.
Speaking of J.D.
Vanson debasing himself, Nick, there was a really telling moment on CNN.
He went to talk to Dana Bash.
And he was asked about, for those who hadn't seen, Trump on the way into a courthouse, like one does, saw a camera and said, Jews who vote for Biden should be ashamed of themselves, which is great from Donald Trump.
That's a wonderful thing for him to bring up.
And Vance was asked about this and pressed, I think for good reason, about the hypocrisy of this.
And I think he, I think what gets brought up here is a pretty good point that we need to get into.
I think the fact that Donald Trump is talking about Jews in that particular context does not mean he doesn't think the same lessons apply to a whole host of American citizens.
Yeah, because he did say that any Jewish person who voted for Joe Biden should be ashamed of themselves.
I want to move on.
But he's made similar comments about a lot of different groups of people, Dana.
I don't think anybody could look at the presidency and the conduct of Donald Trump and say, this is a person who's somehow anti-Semitic.
And I think whether you're Jewish or not, you should be looking at the record of Joe Biden.
He had dinner with Nick Fuentes, who is an avowed anti-Semite.
Dana, you should look at the record of Joe Biden and recognize that whether you're Jewish or not, his presidency has been a disaster for the American people.
I want to ask about what we saw this past week, and it's going to continue this week.
The trial in New York.
It is Dana, by the way.
Is it Dana?
It's not Dana?
It's not Dana.
It's Dana.
I've always said Dana.
All right.
Well, anyway, so for those at home who don't remember Nick Fuentes, who we've covered on this show, Nick, let me see if I get this right.
He's a Holocaust-denying neo-Nazi.
It doesn't go.
Holocaust denying is not accurate enough.
I'm sorry.
No, he actually, weirdly enough, he does that anti-Semitic thing where like he denies that the Holocaust happens, but he wishes it was bigger.
You know, it's like one of those like total assholes.
Nick Fuentes, who has played, you know, footsie with the GOP for a very, very long time, was recently reinstated on X, which we'll get into in a little bit.
But here, it is bringing up something that I think is very, very important to remember, which is, and by the way, we've talked about this, any anti-Semitism anywhere is poisonous.
And like, at any of these protests, or at any of these pro-Palestinian protests, if people are saying anti-Semitic shit, they need to stop, they need to be told not to do this, it's wrong.
But the Republican Party and the Right, they have been openly anti-Semitic for years!
We've watched it, and what are they doing?
They're now dogpiling onto this because they see it as a cudgel that they can use, and pretending as if what we've seen now for years, not just with Nick Fuentes, but with all these conspiracy theories, like all the stuff that they've done, Pretending that they are the ones who are actually like going after anti-semitism and that they are somehow or another great friends with the Jewish people like it is so repulsive and disgusting and of course JD Vance gets in front of it because he is repulsive and disgusting.
I mean, we shouldn't kick a guy when he's down, but I'm not sure I have much more to add to that because your ability to put Vance in his place is so thorough.
I don't know what else to say.
It just it just makes me I start picturing like all the other the normal rational Republicans, whatever that even means now.
And all these people who are supposedly smart and are supposedly reasonable, who are all willing to just ignore everything that they're seeing in front of them or refuse to believe what the facts of the matter of any of these cases or any things about Trump.
And that still vote for him.
It's that helpless feeling that that gives us, you know, a lot of anxiety right now heading into November. - Can I ask you a question?
How does it feel for you to watch the subject of anti-Semitism being used almost as like a ball?
You know what I mean?
Like being thrown around.
Like it's an actual problem that needs addressed, obviously.
And I mean, we've had years now where neo-Nazis are marching around like chanting Jews will not replace us.
They've been called very fine people.
We've watched, we've seen Fox News basically turn into like an anti-Semitic 24-hour news platform at this point.
All of these conspiracy theories have done this.
Now all of a sudden we're also looking at, you know, we can't have nuanced conversations about what's happening where and where anti-semitism is showing up.
What's that like?
What's the feeling there?
Because I watch this and I get nauseous.
All of it just disgusts me to no end.
Yeah, no, that's a good description of how you feel.
I would feel also just a little scared.
Yeah!
It's, um, if you really studied the history of, like, you know, how Jews have had to exist in culture or in society, this happens continually and unfairly, and we see where it grows towards, right?
And everyone can say, oh, that'll never, ever, ever happen here, but we've already kind of had people dipping their toes in that as well.
We've had, you know, an Academy Award-winning documentary that showed a Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939, That's not that long ago, you know?
And so, you know, we had a red scare, which also kind of doubles upon, you know, anti-Semitism, too, for later in the 50s.
It's like, it is scary.
It's scary because it does start to reveal, like, yeah, are we on that path again and have to do this all over again, which is sort of the same idea.
Like, we have to do all the progressive things that we've battled for to achieve again.
You know, everything is now resetting and going back.
And that's sort of what it's, it's, it's a similar, you know, feeling that way.
But also there's a fear.
It's, it's, it's, It sucks, man.
And another thing that bothers the shit out of me, and we're going to talk about Elon Musk, unfortunately, because he's made himself one of the most powerful people in the world for a variety of reasons.
Nick, we covered it.
This guy was basically retweeting the protocols of the elders of Zion.
Like, as soon as he took over Twitter, that was like one of his main things.
It's all he talks about, it's all he brings up, and then all of a sudden he's like, he gets called out for it, he loses millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, he hops on a flight, he goes and hangs out with Bibi Netanyahu, then all of a sudden the ADL is like, thanks Elon for calling out, and it's like, what the hell is going on here?
This guy who has been absolutely openly anti-semitic is now using this as a cudgel even though he's still going ahead and laundering these conspiracy theories.
It feels, Nick, it feels like we all fell into like the Dairy Queen blender.
Where they do the blizzards.
You know what I mean?
And I realized through my research that this is how power protects itself.
It will hide behind anything.
It doesn't matter what it is because it doesn't actually believe anything.
It doesn't actually like stand for anything.
And meanwhile, it will use whatever is at its disposal in order to protect itself and in order to like further power.
And the fact that this has become the thing.
When we have very real anti-Semitism that needs to be taken care of and addressed, and these assholes are using it as a political weapon that they don't even believe in because they've been espousing anti-Semitism for years out in the open.
Well, to talk about what the difference between what Musk is able to do now, because, you know, there's been a lot of rich people that have tried to ingratiate themselves with world leaders to gain a business advantage forever, right?
That's always happened that way.
But Musk has this incredibly large social media influence, right?
And that's what changes the whole thing because he can now shift the discussion, which is what makes him a lot more attractive to a lot of these world leaders who maybe wouldn't in the past return his calls.
Yeah.
And that's the other thing is it's like, what is the advantage there, right?
Like, Netanyahu had a situation where he had everything to gain to bring Musk over, you know?
And just be like, oh yeah, I know you've been an open anti-Semite, but you can help us with a problem.
And unfortunately, we have a whole host, I recommend to everybody, this is a great piece in the Times, actually.
Ryan Mack, Jack Niekus, and Alex Trevely, it's called Elon Musk's Diplomacy.
Like, they track down specifically how he's worked with a whole host of right-wing authoritarians.
We're talking about Bolsonaro, Modi, Malay, Xi Jinping, Netanyahu, and basically what he has done, not just with the resources that he has with like Starlink and Tesla and SpaceX, But with Twitter, he's basically picked out all these right-wing authoritarians.
And by the way, I just want to say off to the side, he will absolutely do this with Donald Trump if he's re-elected.
No doubt about it.
No chance.
He will absolutely go that way.
He's agreed to censor things on their behalf.
He's agreed to help with tariffs, crackdowns.
He's interfered in elections left and right.
And Nick, what's he doing it for?
He's doing it for influence, but he's also doing it for resources.
We're talking about lithium.
We're talking about whatever these countries can give him.
He's more than happy to do their bidding for him.
For the record, countries have done this for forever.
We know this.
This is what nation states have always done.
Now we have a billionaire who is in a position, not just with communications, but with technology and influence, who is now doing what nation states used to do.
It was wrong then, it's wrong now, and it's even more disturbing that now you have an individual who's doing this.
Right.
Well, you know, it's funny because, you know, originally he was begging Trump to come back onto Twitter.
And that was really gross and disgusting because he knew it would help him and his business.
But never.
He endorsed DeSantis.
So he first gets into the whole political realm.
Well, he gave DeSantis a rub, but he didn't totally endorse him.
Yeah.
OK.
I mean, it felt like an endorsement to me.
It certainly gave him the platform to announce his candidacy on X or whatever in a in a whatever like a fiery display of incompetence, I suppose, is the word.
So so so there's going to be some work there.
I think that Trump might not be so excited to talk to Musk yet until somehow Musk convinces Trump, which gets scary here, how is he going to be able to convince Trump that he's actually behind him all the way to get, you know, whatever concessions he's going to want to get.
It is disgusting.
It shouldn't be the ways that societies work, but it has been.
And so I don't know.
So it's not surprised.
It's disgusting.
Not surprising, Jared.
I will say this. - Okay.
Again, people listen to this show.
Hopefully this gets through.
Elon Musk deserves to have his ass drugged to Washington D.C.
and have the screws put to him.
Period.
He has, I mean, my God, I can't imagine how many laws he's broken.
I can't imagine how much trust he's, you know, we did our interview last week with Roberto Gonzalez.
Like, how much of a role Musk has played on acts bordering on treason, you know?
Like, this is the time.
If you want to, like, change things, you'd better go after Musk now.
Because this right now is part of this, like, worldwide right-wing authoritarian movement that's taking over, along with the help of billionaires who are anti-democratic, and that is exactly who he is.
If you want to nip this thing in the bud, you need to get going now.
And I'm talking before the election.
It needs to happen.
You need to make a show of it.
People hate Musk.
They understand that he is a danger.
Go after him now, because I'm telling you, he is going to turn all of his resources over to Donald Trump trying to get him elected.
Because he knows, much like Modi, much like Xi Jinping, Netanyahu, Bolsonaro, Malay, all of those people are happy to play ball with Elon Musk.
And Nick, you and I both know Donald Trump is more than happy to play ball with Elon Musk.
And like, if we keep going down this road, it's going to get bad.
I agree.
I agree.
We can't have people like that with that kind of power.
You know, and no one should have that amount of power anyway, right?
No one should have all that power.
A disgraced, awful person.
But at the very least, this kind of a person with this kind of personality should be far away from the levers of power.
Should be as far away.
And speaking of people who should be far away from the levers of power, Nick, we're going to finish this episode talking, unfortunately, about Justice Clarence Thomas.
This last week, in remarks to a conference for the 11th Circuit, he let loose.
He let it fly a little bit, Nick.
He said that he and his wife, Jenny Thomas, who is as curious as it gets, have, quote, faced lies and nastiness.
He said, quote, they don't bomb you necessarily, but they bomb your reputation or your good name or your honor.
And that's not a crime.
He also called Washington, D.C., a hideous place.
I have some thoughts on this, but what are your initial reactions to Justice Thomas getting a little bit loose in this interview?
You know, it actually is interesting.
Part of it is good, because it tells you that he hears.
He's aware.
They're not in an ivory tower, closed off, shut off.
They don't hear criticism.
They don't hear all that stuff.
So that's good.
It won't have any effect on his judgment, unfortunately, which I think would be part of the thing.
But I gotta tell you, Jared, my first thing, and I think I told this before we started recording, is, hey, if this job is too difficult for you, and you really aren't into it, Then, please, go.
The door is right there.
Get your ass in your favorite RV that Harlan Crowe bought for you and tour America's highways and byways, my friend.
With a collared, short-sleeved shirt on.
I mean, really.
With a polo on that Harlan Crowe bought you.
Absolutely.
Yeah, so it's like, you know, fine.
Don't complain.
Life's too short, man.
Go enjoy it.
Get out there.
So I'll say a couple things because you and I are in agreement here.
First of all, Thomas is 75 years old.
He's been missing a bunch of court business without any explanation whatsoever.
He needs to retire, first of all.
Second of all, I personally think what is being revealed is this.
I love watching these assholes squirm as like they're corruptions being brought up.
And by the way, everybody, and this goes back to the centrist you and I were talking about, please don't go after the court like this.
Oh my god.
Go after them!
Point out what they do.
Make their lives a living hell.
These people do not face elections.
They should more or less be treated like pariahs in this society for taking away people's rights by, you know, corporatizing this world, by rolling back progress.
They deserve it.
And you know, all of them, they are so soft and brittle That if a little bit of critique of the fact that they've taken God knows how much money from billionaires and millionaires like rankles them that much, get the hell out!
And that's the whole point is all of these judges, Nick, they love this sort of like special existence where they live in a bubble where nothing ever touches them.
They're revered.
They're taken care of.
These people shouldn't be able to go out for dinner without someone getting in their face and telling them how disgusting they are.
And for the record, I think all this money given to Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court justice was not just corrupting them to rule on certain cases.
It was to keep him in the position.
It was to keep him from leaving his position because he felt like he didn't get paid enough and he wasn't respected enough.
I think that we're looking at a real possibility.
Not only should the court be packed and not only should it be reformed and a whole bunch of reforms come down from the top, I think that these people should be harangued out of service.
I think that that is a really, really good strategy that people should follow because they've earned it.
They've earned us treating them poorly and criticizing them.
And maybe this is the secret weapon.
Maybe they need to be called out on their shit and they need to be made to feel like they should leave public service.
You know, it's funny.
I have some stories I tell about certain, like, Hollywood stars when I talk to them, when I see them.
I've had certain things prepared.
I wanted to say if I ever did run into so-and-so, I've been able to do a couple times.
And I would imagine like, yeah, that Clarence Thomas, you know, I'm in Starbucks and he's in line in front of me or something.
And I'd probably ask him something like, how does it feel to be the second most corrupt justice ever compared to the guy, the number one guy being the guy who sits next to you right now?
Something like that.
I would probably want to make sure I make sure that he hears that I think that he's as corrupt as possible.
And yeah, it's it really is too bad.
And you know what, it is concerning.
He's missing all these things.
No explanation generally means health.
And, you know, the other problem then becomes, well, I guess we control, sorry, we, the Democrats control the Senate just enough Yeah, I don't know how that whole thing is going to play out, but I will say this.
yeah you could do it right because the republicans did it but you know i worry that we get in that situation where the republicans are going to be able to hold it up and not get by it and not let biden replace the supreme court justice and that would be terrible yeah i don't know how that whole thing is going to play out but i will i will say this because of the way this system works the world was made better the day that anton and scalia died that because they have lifelong terms and he died and he he was an incredibly dangerous and destructive judge and It was made better.
The world will be better the day that Clarence Thomas steps off of the bench or he dies.
Period.
And people, I'm not, you know, I'm not an advocate for violence, so I think that people should make it very clear to Clarence Thomas, wherever he goes, I don't care if it's in an RV parking lot.
I don't care if it's outside of a Walmart.
I don't care if it's at this conference for the 11th Circuit.
Like, whatever it is, you shouldn't be able to walk into these rooms and have people stand up and clap when you are not just corrupted, but you are part of an ongoing effort to not just make people's lives worse, Nick, But to make people's lives shorter and more miserable.
Like, these people are not due any respect.
And if you're told by people, hey, hey, hey, it's the court.
It's our institution.
You don't understand history, and you're turning your back on the very, very real damage that pieces of shit like this cause.
I hope he retires.
I hope he's retired by the time that we have finished recording this.
Period.
Would you like to just clarify and make sure that people understand that you mean natural cause of death?
Sure, yes, I do.
I think that, like, the world would be made better the moment that this person is no longer on the bench, and many of them.
I hope that they get harangued out of public service.
I hope that Pete, like you said, Pete, go up to them and say, I think it's an absolute shame that you do what you do.
Like, I think that they deserve that, and that they have been, all of these people, Nick, they have been held up to be like priests.
And priestesses, you know what I mean?
Like there's some sort of holy class of judge.
And like, I think coming face to face with the fact that people not only revile them, but that their corruption is open for everybody.
I think it will, we've seen them.
I mean, how many speeches have they all given at this point?
They're like, oh, it's just the lack of respect we get.
It's like, my God, what else do you want?
Yeah.
I mean, listen, Thomas is going to listen to a case about January 6th, knowing that his wife was instrumental in planning the thing.
And he won't recuse.
It's like, what else do you need to know?
It's disgusting.
It's absolutely disgusting.
I love that.
They've been dealing with lies and nastiness.
And by the way, has he literally refuted anything that has come out about his corruption?
Oh, absolutely not.
They try to, like, explain it away, like, well, Alito was the one who did the thing, like, you know, someone's got to sit in that seat, right?
One of the greatest all-time bullshit lines of all time.
Yeah, but Thomas has also been pretty much the same idea.
I thought it was legal, you know?
I was told, somebody told me once I could write that off or whatever, you know?
He literally, I love, by the way, that he equates people revealing his absolute outrageous corruption with bombing.
It's the equivalent of being bombed.
Yeah, yeah.
That's how much of an affront he has.
People have been talking in his ear for a long time about how great he is, and that's what happens.
Yeah, it's what happens all of a sudden if somebody, like, reveals the corruption at the heart of it, like it's being bombed.
All right, everybody.
That's going to do us for this episode.
We will be back with the Friday episode, The Weekender.
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Alright everybody, until then, you can find Nick at CanYouHearMes.