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Co-host Nick Hauselman is flying solo on this episode as Jared Yates Sexton is busy, so he had to bring in the big guns as Pete Dominick, the host of Stand Up! With Pete Dominick, joins Nick to discuss the latest in the presidential race.
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Hey everybody, it's Nick Hausleman here, and welcome to the Muckrake Podcast.
This is the Weekender episode, and I have Pete Dominick joining me in a little bit to talk a lot about what's going on with the presidential race.
My co-host, Jerry Dasekson, is busy for today, so he'll be back as soon as possible, but I did want to talk a little bit about the Donald Trump unhinged press conference he had right after we finished recording with Pete.
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It's been exploding recently.
A lot of people are now joining and they're realizing how great these episodes are.
You want to get the whole thing, especially with Pete Dominick coming up in his conversation because he is great.
But before that, I wanted to share some clips I noticed from Donald Trump's press conference because they're pretty unhinged.
They're pretty crazy.
And as is normal when you have a Republican Party that is so desperate and realizing how a problematic place they're in, they'll recycle their old hits.
And so we got back to a situation where he started bringing up Hillary Clinton of all people in 2024.
With Hillary Clinton, I could have done things to her that would have made your head spin.
I thought it was a very bad thing.
Take the wife of a president of the United States and put her in jail.
He thought that was a bad thing?
He ran on that.
He literally ran on that.
In fact, do we all remember this, Jim?
But if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general To get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception.
There has never been anything like it and we're gonna have a special prosecutor.
So he did that in the debate back in 2016.
So this is ridiculous what they're trying to rewrite here.
Let's listen to the end of this.
But, uh, I was very protective of her.
Nobody would understand that, but I was.
I think my people understand it.
They used to say, lock her up, lock her up, and I'd say, just relax, please.
Yeah, he never said, relax, please.
He would encourage them as much as possible to be as full-throated in that lock her up chant.
Completely horrible stuff here.
But again, not surprising, but in the sense that it is now 2024, he's running against Kamala Harris.
He's not running against Hillary, but he's got to bring her up.
It's crazy, unhinged, horrible stuff.
They did get him a good gotcha moment here where they asked him about the referendum on abortion that's coming up in Florida, which is the state that he happens to be living in that he would be expected to vote on come election time in November.
And they asked him, here's the question, Well, I'm gonna announce that.
I'm gonna actually have a press conference on that at some point in the near future, so I don't want to tell you now.
Right.
He's going to have a press conference, just like they were going to announce, you know, Infrastructure Week every other week when he was running as, when he was in the White House as president.
So they caught him off guard.
He has no idea what the referendum is, which is, by the way, whether or not they will allow abortion up until viability, which is in the, you know, 20 or 22nd week of pregnancy, which would kind of return it back to towards where Roe v. Wade would be.
They followed up, though.
They asked another question about Miffy Press, Miffy Press Jones.
So here's another interesting response as part of that.
Would you direct your FDA, for example, to revoke access to Nifeprestone?
That's one of the things... So you could do things that will be... would supplement, absolutely.
And those things are pretty open and humane.
I don't even know what he's talking about.
What does it mean that they're open and that they're humane?
I mean, Mifeprestone can be sent in the mail and you take it.
It's how a lot of abortions are performed now these days.
So I suppose he's trying to say he is in favor of Mifeprestone?
I really can't tell.
Word salad stuff.
Again, he doesn't know, but now he's giving us a little indication that maybe he would be for it, but... But you have to be able to have a vote, and all I want to do is give everybody a vote.
And the votes are taking place right now as we speak.
The votes are not taking place right now as you speak.
The vote is in November.
Again, what is he talking about?
There are many things on a humane basis that you can do outside of that, but you also have to give a vote and the people are going to have to decide.
Humane outside of that.
I don't know what he's talking about.
Honestly, it just continued to go downhill from there.
We did talk with Pete a little bit about this, but I did want to follow up because they asked him about Kamala Harris's race.
He really he seems to think he's got a big percentage of the black voters who are going to vote for him and it turns out it's I think it's something like 70-30 right now in the polling for Kamala.
So he's in this weird, you know, denial of what he thinks and where he thinks these polls are going.
But listen to the answer, listen to the question and the answer on this one.
Mr. President, Kamala Harris's father is Jamaican-American and she went to a historically black college.
How is she only recently deciding to be black?
Well, you'll have to ask her that question because she's the one that said it.
I didn't say it.
So you'll have to ask her.
She said what?
She didn't say it.
She didn't say anything.
She's always identified as both Indian and black.
This is how he processes things, right?
It's really, really disgusting.
And I very much appreciate that question, but you'll have to ask her.
But I've known her for a long time.
And this is what they do.
This is what manipulators do.
You have to ask her.
I'm only asking questions.
I don't know what the answer is.
Trying to subtly, although it's not that subtle, stir up the race card, basically, from his end.
And remember, the Republicans are working on the basic emotions of anger and fear.
And this is what he's playing on, on the other.
I actually contributed to her campaign a long time ago because I was a developer.
I contributed to lots of campaigns of Democrats, Republicans, and some were liberal and some were conservative.
But you'll have to ask her about that.
But to me, it doesn't matter.
To me, it doesn't matter.
Suddenly, it doesn't matter.
He's bringing it up.
He's making it like it's an issue.
But then he tries to pretend it doesn't matter.
But here's the kicker.
Listen to this.
But to her, from her standpoint, I think it's very disrespectful to both, really.
Whether it's Indian or black, I think it's very disrespectful to both.
To me, it doesn't matter.
I don't even know if I have any more words to say to this.
It's disrespectful because she has an Indian mother and a Jamaican father.
I don't even understand.
In his addled mind, I suppose if she wants to say that she's Indian, of which she is, that somehow insults the other side of her family.
Or vice versa.
I don't know.
This is how these people exist.
And I guess I'm going to use these people.
This is what Trump is.
Somebody who doesn't understand the kind of, you know, any kind of complex racial dynamics outside of I am white and everybody else are black jobs and things like that, which he was never, you know, had to answer to when they asked him about that question earlier.
So at any rate, just want to give you a little taste of what's going on in this race.
It looks to me, honestly, like You know it is imploding.
J.D.
Vance is a clown show.
Trump is more and more unhinged and it'll get worse.
So as we're going to trace what's going on and how they're going to attack Kamala Harris and Walz, you'll see it'll get worse and worse and I have a feeling that those slim margins they need in certain swing states are going to dwindle and go away for them because of that.
Because those people are going to get turned off really quickly with this kind of stuff as they get more and more desperate.
Without any further ado, let's bring in Pete Dominick.
I had a great conversation with him.
And don't forget, if you want to hear the whole entire conversation, then head over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast and become a Patreon member, which is just a fantastic community of people.
You're not going to want to miss out.
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So please head on over there, check it out, and be part of that.
But here we are, and here's Pete Dominick.
Today, I'm going to bring in friend of the pod, Pete Dominick, who is the host of his own daily podcast, Stand Up With Pete.
He's formerly of SiriusXM, CNN, MSNBC.
He warms up the audience for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
And without further ado, Pete, thank you so much for coming on the show.
I am so happy to be here with you, Nick, and I'm sorry Jared isn't here.
I am nothing like him.
I couldn't be more... I'm like a real minor.
Commentator.
I mean, his, the things he says, the words he uses, the way that he speaks, you know, his passion.
But you know, I've had a, I've got a few things to say, so I'm happy to see you.
And I miss, miss you guys.
I know.
I know.
Well, you know, we did have a wonderful time at your pod jam in Las Vegas, which I hope we will do again in the future.
We're planning on doing it again next year.
You, I would love to have you guys back and, uh, but we'll see.
It's not nothing's official.
We're in talks.
We're in talks, but it was an amazing, amazing event.
The best thing I've ever done.
Absolutely, and I hope that people listening who didn't go are feeling those vibes and say, God, I gotta go this next time, because it really was something that will... I have a feeling, you know, 10 years from now, we're gonna, you know, sort of talk about, oh, remember that time in the first one when it was... Podjam 1, Podjam 2, yeah, it's like...
It's like WrestleMania.
Now it was a magical experience.
I've been doing a daily show for SiriusXM for almost 15 years and then on my own for 4 years and I've never had an event.
I've done stand-up appearances all over the country so I've always gotten to meet listeners and I've always enjoyed meeting folks.
The podcast has created a community much like yours has and with that community, you know, we met every week on Zoom and it was just so magical and I would highly recommend that anybody come on over and check it out because getting to meet in person that way in Vegas, the people that you've been meeting for almost four years on Zoom, many of which was just an amazing thing.
People just have great new friends and relationships in their lives that are so rich and nothing could be more rewarding than being involved with creating that.
Absolutely.
And, you know, if you want to talk more about Jared and, you know, behind his back, go ahead.
We're open here to hear any of the funny stories.
But even still, while I was gone, I was not here last week, and Jared had to do the whole show by himself.
So I haven't had a chance to weigh in on the happenings that have happened, which is Vice President Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz as her running mate for the 2024 election.
This guy came out of virtually nowhere.
I can't picture another person who's rose this quickly to this prominence.
Can you?
Sarah Palin.
Oh, that's a good call.
Sarah Palin.
So is this person, would you say that Pete Wallace is smarter than Sarah Palin?
Well, you just called him Pete Wolfe, by the way.
I did?
You did?
That's because you were looking at me, and my name is Pete.
So I'm not as smart as Sarah Palin, but is he?
Everybody's smarter than Sarah Palin.
Okay, that was probably easier.
What are your thoughts, though?
How do you think that that happened?
It just seems mind-boggling to me that someone could come from absolute obscurity to where he is now.
Well, the whole thing is mind-boggling, right?
Nothing has been normal.
If you told us 35 days ago that all of these events were going to unfold from the debate, from the assassination attempt, from Joe Biden deciding, after all the pressure, that he would step down and then support Kamala, and then Democrats would all come in and support her across the spectrum, we'd all be shocked by that.
But your question was about how did this guy come from obscurity.
You had a really short time to vet this out, and they had I think a deep bench, it's fair to say.
And they went with traditional paths.
Not nobody's untraditional that they were considering, of course.
People to judge as a transportation secretary.
The other guys were governors and senators, basically.
And one woman, I think they were considering maybe a couple, but Gretchen Whitmer.
So, you know, you look at the governors and you see what they have to bring to the table.
And then you literally bring them to the table.
And Kamala sits down with them, each of them, as with her staff, which apparently is really impressive.
She didn't always have the best people supporting her, but apparently reporters have been covering her said.
The people she's got now are true believers in her, and they help a lot.
So she sits down, and as one can imagine, knowing a little bit about Kamala Harris, at least the public part, and knowing a little bit about Tim Walz, that they would get along.
They did get along, and that is what was more important than anything else.
And listen, it's really hard to go viral these days with messaging.
It's really hard for Democrats to message.
And we've tried everything, including he's a criminal, he's a rapist.
All these things don't seem to stick.
But Tim Walz said, and he said this before in a campaign against, this wasn't new, but he called them weird.
He knew that that would work because it worked.
Well, he thought it might because it worked in the past against another opponent.
And it did.
And the fact that he was able to to do that and be this kind of avuncular, well-liked veteran, and she calls him coach, everybody calls him coach.
It seems like she knew and everybody else knew that there was no other choice but this guy.
And overwhelmingly, people seem to be pretty supportive.
For sure.
I mean, at some point, they can't keep telling Pete Buttigieg, hey, the country is just not ready for a gay candidate just yet, right?
At some point, they have to stop saying that to him, right?
When is that going to be?
Uh, doubtful that'll be anytime soon, because you're gonna have Kamala do her eight years, and then you're gonna have Tim Walz run, and who's gonna beat him?
So you're gonna have 12 years, at least, of Democrats.
Fingers crossed!
I don't know.
Pete Buttigieg will always do well wherever he goes, and, you know, maybe, who knows?
You never know.
There's so much uncertainty in predicting the future.
I've realized I'll tell you what, Nick, the most important thing I did in the last, you know, before when things were really bad, I guess after the debate, when we were just so desperate and very concerned, people were looking away.
People stopped listening, paying attention, participating.
I had a lot of listeners reach out and say, I just can't.
I just can't even listen to this anymore.
I got to walk in a field.
I got to go touch some grass.
And I just kept saying, because I'm an optimist, there is still a chance that Something could change, or that Joe Biden will win, and that we could get the Senate and House.
Maybe that's always going to be the case, and I tried to stay optimistic, but so many people just couldn't anymore, and now we see what happened, and I'm not going to predict anything else with the future, and what I'm going to try to be is optimistic and hopeful, because that's what we're seeing, and I just love that Tim Walz keeps talking about joy, and Kamala Harris bringing the joy.
I think that's another Really great way to message this country desperately needed joy since Trump was elected, then COVID, then Trump has not gone away.
We are so worried about project 2025, not to mention, you know, the, just the, the poly crisis that we are in as a, as a planet with climate and with so much more, and you get your own problems.
We all have that.
So hopeful and joy.
That's going to sell Nick.
I agree.
I think the one thing I would have said about Walls was that maybe he's a little older than I wanted him to be.
And they had some guys who were a little, you know, a decade younger than that.
Because, OK, if you want to play this out in eight years, you know, he's 68, 69, running.
I suppose it's not old.
I mean, listen, comparatively now, that's young.
That's fried chicken.
So I think that would be the one thing I had.
And it also sounded like maybe a guy like Shapiro, You know, in my mind, I almost felt like they had picked Shapiro.
Did you get that?
I got the impression from what I was reading and seeing and hearing was that, like, they kind of had picked him, there was a bit of a backlash behind the scenes, and then they kind of scrambled a little bit to make another pick.
I'm not sure.
I think, you know, I think they definitely were floating him to see what the reaction would be, and then the senator from Pennsylvania put a knife in him.
John Fetterman knifed Josh Shapiro, metaphorically.
Go on.
Well, he leaked both publicly and privately that Josh Shapiro is in it for Josh Shapiro kind of messaging.
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