- Hey everybody, welcome to the my correct podcast. I'm Georgette Sexton here with my friend Nick Houseman, who is under the weather after we covered the Democratic National Convention. Miss hanging out with you in person, how you feeling? - I'm hanging in there, I'm better than I was yesterday, but you know, you shake a bunch of hands, I guess, and then you rub your nose, and then next thing you know, sinus detection of the wazoo, but every minute it goes by, I feel a little bit better. - Okay, good. Ask me how I'm doing. - How are you doing? - Nick, I don't know if you know this, it's the most important story in the world today. There is a possibility that Oasis is reuniting tomorrow. - Wow, that's a big story. - Yeah, thank you, I appreciate you pretending like you give a shit. It is one of the biggest things to happen in a very, very long time, and I'm secure in enjoying that for myself. I suppose maybe it'll be the ones that will save. I don't remember, did I like Oasis? I think I was, I don't know if I was a fan, I don't think it was excruciating experience. - You've had to appreciate Oasis, good song writing, melodies, be the last type stuff. I've told the story on the podcast, maybe on a weekend or episode, I had tickets to see them years and years ago, I wanna say in 2006, and they got in a wreck in Indianapolis, so I never got a chance to see them. They're at the top of my bucket list, and Nick, I'm telling you right now, if it comes true that Oasis reunites tomorrow, number one, I'm gonna feel great. I'm gonna feel supersonic, if you will. - Oh no. - And I'm gonna see them live. If they perform somewhere in the world, I'm going to see them live. I just need to put that out there, I need to put my stake in the sand, it's going to happen. - I mean, I'll be happy for you. I will cheer you on as you do this endeavor, but does it further prove my theory that Rock and Roll is dead? - Well, I'll tell you what, if a band that released their first albums 30 years ago, like is now, it will likely, unless Taylor Swift is touring next year, will likely be like one of the highest grossing tours, I think it says a lot. - Yeah, I mean, remember, my whole point at the end heard it was that we just haven't had a band, like in their prime for 20-some years, that's like feeling arenas in the Rock and Roll genre, like Oasis or like Coldplay. - Again, I think it's one of those things, Oasis came out in the 1990s and said, hey, guess what, we're great. And you're going to recognize us as great. And guess what people did, they recognized, they really, yeah, you're great. And that is something we don't necessarily have anymore. So I'm in a good mood for that reason. By the way, I'm also in a good mood. People really enjoyed our convention coverage. And if people want to go back and listen to those episodes, I think we had some fantastic coverage. Nick being in the arena, me being out in the protest and on the streets and then coming together and comparing our experiences, go to patreon.com/muckrakepodcast. We're going to be covering the rest of this incredible presidential campaign. So, so weird, patreon.com/muckrakepodcast. Nick, before we get into a lot of what we have to talk about today, and there's a whole lot to get into, with a few days removed and you suffering health crisis, me floating on the incredible waves of OASIS possibly coming back together, how do you feel now a few days removed from the Democratic National Convention? How is it coalesced for you? What are your thoughts today? - Well, I think ultimately, I was thinking about this this morning that I think we're just resigned to being very much a policy light. This is not going to be a campaign. That's going to delve into some serious issues. And I think that they're worried about getting on the wrong, like getting too progressive on certain issues, like maybe even gun rights to alienate some of those voters. And so they're going to kind of attack center, I suppose, like they always do anyway. And then sort of, maybe, I guess it's not shred water, but they're going to try and find that middle ground there where they can kind of attract enough people where they can win this thing. - So you're looking back on it now. Do you feel like it was a pretty successful spectacle? - Yeah, I thought, I mean, listen, we went over it if you go to some of those shows. A couple of days were actually running pretty well. It had good momentum. I know it long, but they had the right momentum. The programming seemed to have a purpose and they understood that. Unfortunately, the last night had so much filler that, and even if it ended early, that that was a problem. Something was amiss. Something was off. They were trying to like have these dance points, like I told you, and music breaks. And it really killed a lot of the momentum in the vibe until we got Kabbalah speaking at the very end. So, unfortunately, it had to be the last day. That's my last impression was a little bit uneven, a little bit problematic on that stuff, but 'cause they were pretty good with it the rest of the time. Will they get a bump? What do you think? - Well, we're already seeing a bump, and we can get into the numbers in a second. I do want to go on the record. I was really happy that Zach Galifianakis came out in the last couple of days and said, "Hey, Democratic Party, I support you. "You need to move away from celebrities a little bit." And he's exactly right. The Democratic Party has become so enamored with celebrity support. And we've seen that for years now. They have been going out and trying to get surrogates out of celebrities, everyone from Bruce Springsteen, who I love dearly to the parade of people who came out. It really does highlight honestly the divide between the Democratic Party and a large swath of Americans because it is the party that largely represents sort of the professional managerial class and Hollywood and used to be Silicon Valley. Now it's the spattering of that in corporations. It has stuck with me how that worked. And sort of the presentation that was given, I do believe, and I've had a number of conversations, I had them at the convention and I had them after the convention. There were a lot of people who walked out of Chicago feeling like the jubilation of the convention was effective in terms of like getting people motivated and excited and feeling good, but that it did strike a stark divide between how it feels to have a new candidate who has momentum and people enjoy and also how much hard work is needed to be done and how much stuff actually needs to be taken care of and solved. So it feels a little uneven for me a few days afterward, but I still think it was a successful convention in terms of what conventions are supposed to do. I have seen a number of polls that I think I've told you, I've seen a lot of different polls within internal Democratic Party polls that have had her up as much as eight points. These are polls that have been held very, very closely to the chest. The Democratic Party is afraid of telling people that Kamala Harris is in the lead. They wanna be the underdog in this and that's how you build a lot of momentum. Now all of a sudden Nick, we're seeing mainstream polls. I'm not talking about internal polls that are starting to show Harris around seven points up on Donald Trump. The electoral college maps are all over the place. It goes everywhere from her having a resounding victory, a mandate to put it another way, to Trump eking out an electoral college victory. There is no telling at this point right now where this thing is going to go, but there has been a bump. There has been a little bit of a shift in terms of the narrative of this race. And again, we don't know exactly what that means or if it's gonna stick around. Things could change while we're recording this podcast, but it does appear as if there's been a post convention bump. - For sure, I mean, I'm just perusing 538 just 'cause they kinda average all these things together. And the day before the convention, Harris was plus 2.6 on their thing. And then by today it's plus 3.6. So, you know, and that's got a lot of noise and a lot of different polls in there. So that's very much a bump when you see something like that. I do wanna comment on the notion of the celebrities because we are in this age of influencer, right? And while Bruce Brinkstein isn't like an influencer, like some people are now, there has to be a risk reward in terms of how many people that they can influence to vote. We used to have it all the time. Get out the vote, we used to have, what was it, get out the vote, what was the MTV thing? - Rock the vote. - Which didn't really do anything. - Yeah, but, you know, it's been there. And so that's really interesting. I took part in the Creator Content Program, which was a bunch of influencers. For the first time ever, they had influencers get credentials, which were similar to the mainstream media, of whom we're pretty upset about the whole thing it sounded like. And you saw some interesting coverage and you saw some viral videos that went out from that. And I have to imagine there's a benefit to that. And certainly, I think that young people are much more engaged than they ever have been. - Well, the question is, and this is something that not a lot of people want to wrestle with, the question is how much of that content is actually making a difference for people and how much of it is feeding the appetite of people who are gonna vote anyway. You know what I mean? And the Democratic Party and our sort of political apparatus, they don't know yet. They have no idea how that stuff plays out and exactly how this stuff, I mean, eventually the algorithms are gonna be there, the data is going to be there. We have no idea whether it matters that Lil John made a surprise appearance during the rock and roll hip hop roll call. We don't know, right? And we don't know how much like creators or whatever, because I'll tell you Nick, I watched a lot of the DNC creator content or whatever we're calling it. There were a lot of people who were like, "I can't believe I'm here at the Snapchat ice cream social." Like whether or not that made a difference, there were a lot of people who got credentialed for the Democratic National Convention, creators, streamers, you name it, who got online and they were like, "This is lame as shit. "I still don't support the Democratic Party." And it did not appear that the Democratic Party understood some of the people that they brought in. This is still a really weird and wild and woolly environment that people still haven't caught up to yet. - Yeah, I wonder if anyone spoke to that either. I mean, it was obviously implicit that they wanted positive coverage while they were giving us access. I mean, having covered the NBA, I get it. Like, they don't want you to be shitting on the product. So yeah, I mean, by the way, just to throw us out there, I have a call tomorrow and there might be somebody coming up in the pipeline, Jared, that would be very exciting for creator content. Not running the DNC now, 'cause it's after the fact, but the connection made of the DNC. So we'll see, but I'll keep you updated. - Is this the thing that you were working on while we were waiting on the protest to start? - Probably. - Okay. I am fascinated by the possibility of this thing coming together. - Yeah. - That's not the win some basketball and politics and very exciting. - Well, I mean, what's not the confluence there? That is very fascinating. - And I just single-handedly destroy my basketball channel. We'll find out. - It might very well just detonate it, you know? I can go away, but we'll see. But yeah, I think now in a few days, we can say it did what it was supposed to do. Questions still linger. You and I, quite frankly, we're not exactly convention people. Like we're not able to shut off our brains and just be like, yeah, let's go. Like we have to analyze this stuff. We have to look a little bit deeper. That's one of the reasons we have this show. So like conventions are not necessarily geared toward us. Like I can't, you know, it's like how we watch movies. We can't turn our brains off. And we're political sickos and we can't turn our brains off, but it does appear that the convention was able to convey the excitement and the motivation, what that turns into, and whether that is ultimately a positive thing. And I have some doubts about it that remains to be seen. - Exactly. And I think really all it is is the bottom line is the polls. What are they gonna get from this and when they're not? And they're coming in, we kind of see it. Yes, there's a bit of bump. And that was the biggest thing. And they had, you know, very little time to put the whole thing together with Kamala being the centerpiece. So that's another reason why things could be a little bit more uneven than you would expected. Since most of those things are so rehearsed and timed down in a minute when they have a lot of time to plan them. So overall positive thing, I think it gave a chance for everyone to come together. And, you know, that joy, the vibe was there. There's no question. Having gotten away from Biden and the cloud that was like just hovering over him for the last year. So, you know, watching the Republicans' response to that too has been a little spicy. - It has been. And I wanna talk about that. I just wanna make one quick comment, Nick. One of the things about my reportage from the convention was talking about what I saw outside of the convention and the brutality and the fact that the question of Gaza wasn't really broached all that much at the convention. I've been really disheartened and sickened by social media's response to these things, which are basically like these people need to shut up and like we'll deal with it later. I still think that's poisonous politics. I still think like you cannot sit around and say that these things don't matter simply because you wanna win an election. The discourse is not good is what I'll say. And there's more time to talk about that later, but it is a troubling thing that there are elements within the liberal ecosystem or the pro-hairs, pro-Biden, whatever you wanna call it, that many of them are still behaving in the way that we've been talking about a little bit, which looks a little bit like supportive of Trump. And that needs to be at least put out there for further analysis, further investigation, but there is some like troubling little things out there with that. - Well, it shouldn't be surprising. Remember Hillary's campaign was just treading water and running the clock out the last month and a half, right? - And it got ugly for a while, for sure. - Yeah, so they don't want to ruffle the feathers. They don't wanna upset anybody. So they're trying to ride this, you know, the fine line between these things. And I listen, I agree that it would not have been hard to have a voice from the Palestinian side. They were probably worried that someone would go off script, but I don't think it would have been that hard. I don't think they would have alienated that many pro-Israel voters. I'm sure that's what they're doing. That was a calculation. You know, I did like what Kamala said about it. She did have like the, what, three sentences. And at least there, that was something good. And like, and what we would expect her to say. But again, there are ways where you could probably get more people together on this. They had to sit in, which by the way, I was unaware of the time. I had to see it later. I guess I walked out the other side of the stadium. But, you know, it wasn't making hay and what they weren't making it a big deal. It wasn't guarding the traction. They had, I guess they hoped it would. So we'll have to see if that's gonna end up being a thing. I think that the campaign is sort of calculated that it's not. It's not worth getting into, right? In terms of the polling. - And a campaign works like that. I think my biggest concern is with the base and with supporters, which for about a year now since October 7th have engaged in some pretty bad faith shit. And I'm keeping an eye on it. That is what it is, to move on, Nick. So we have this successful convention that happens. And almost immediately, Donald Trump, who is floundering, Nick, from one speech to another, he can't decide if he wants to limit immigration, increase immigration, he can't decide how he feels about abortion because obviously he doesn't give a shit about any of these things. There are a couple of noteworthy things that we need to discuss first and foremost is that the September debate, next month's debate with Kamala Harris, is now, it's unclear if it's going to happen. Trump has lashed out against ABC in just the most ridiculous and embarrassing way. Apparently the campaigns are fighting over whether or not the mics will be left on or whether or not they'll be muted. It appears, in the same way that you and I have talked about in the past, it appears that Donald Trump is setting up the situation where he can walk away from this debate. So we're not even sure if these two candidates are going to get in the same room and actually debate each other or not. Again, up in the air. - I mean, as far as I could tell, it'll only hurt him because I don't think anyone thinks that he's gonna beat her in a debate. I would have thought he wants the mics on because he could talk over her and try and get her off her game that way, right? So this is just a blatant attempt to just get out of it, whatever he's just saying. - It's the equivalent of a person talking so much trash about how much better they are at basketball. And then the day of the big one-on-one game comes around. They get the ball and they're like, "Is this regulation?" It's like, "Is that rim the right?" "Ah, this is done, we're just done." I think at this point, they are literally just scurrying and trying to figure out a way that they don't have to go into a debate. I'll be honest with you. I think Trump's scared of her. And I think that that shows in how this campaign has been working. I think he's so unsteady after Biden dropped out. He knew who Biden was and he got in that debate and what happened happened. I think he's legitimately terrified of getting on a stage with her and debating her or even like really dealing with her at all. I think this is a lot of cowardice that's coming across. - Well, make no mistake, what he did in debate versus Biden was nothing. It was Biden. - Yeah, no. He won the debate by basically doing nothing. - Yeah, you know, if you went through it now, I know we did it in reaction, he could have properly debated in like five or six different times, really hit Biden like he should have, but he's not even listening. I think he barely was listening to what Biden was saying anyway, so yeah, his inflated sense of worth is really frightening. I mean, to the point where he tries to make it seem like he's better looking at the comor, you can see that clip. - It's fantastic. It's really fantastic watching a person drown in their own delusion. It's great. - Yeah, but the problem is, is that we see someone drowning in their own illusion and then we know that there's millions upon millions of people who are cheering this on. - No, they are, they're begging to drown in it with him. And okay, so let's go ahead and say right now, do you think this debate happens? - You know, I think he has to have it happen, right? I mean, I think he'll be, I'll think he'll, I bet you'll be down in the polls even more by then in September, which is what? It's coming up a couple of weeks. So I think, I don't think he's going to have a choice. I think he's going to need to have this, the spotlight on him like that. And so I think it will happen. I'm going to say 70, 30 is happening. What do you think? - I think it's probably 60, 40 is where I'm putting it. I think this debate happens for the exact same reasons that you just laid out, which is he needs it. He needs it bad. And the least he can do is throw a Hail Mary and see if it lands, because this ain't working. The only way that this works right now, and I've said this before, something big happens. Something economic, something geopolitical, something very, very large and unseen happens and it shifts things towards him, or like they have figured out how to steal the election. That's pretty, or there's a third one which is that the Electoral College is an inherent, minoritarian institution. Those are the ways that this happens at this point, but he is floundering. And like if he wants to make up any kind of ground, he has to debate her. - I agree. And there's three things going for the Democrats right now, which they're going to do, they could do. One would be they're going to cut interest rates, which gives you the economy. - Well, the Democrats aren't doing that. Let's be technical, but yes. - All right, I mean, I used to argue that all the time. There isn't the Fed and the White House are separate, but you know, whatever. That also, you know, a ceasefire in Israel, between Israel and Gaza. You know, again, the reporting was that Trump had insisted to Netanyahu he better not sign that deal. But you never know, they might ultimately throw out enough pressure to get that to happen. That would be a big boost. And then there's a debate. Was there one more thing either way? So there's some things going their way that they could really capitalize on and then will force, maybe Trump to do something really drastic, which I'm really hoping for, which is maybe switch up his opinion. - Well, we'll get to that. We have to first cover the fact that Nick Seismick, political activity, independent, presidential, I about called him nominee. Nobody nominated this asshole. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Just an absolute, like, wonderful, wonderful vanguard of great ideas and energy. He has dropped out of the presidential race and immediately in North Donald Trump. Let's hear a little bit from this beautiful parrot. - Three days ago, I was honored to receive the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. We're very proud. Thank you. (audience applauds) We're very proud to welcome Bobby to our cause. He's really a terrific guy. He's a terrific person. And he's gonna do a lot of great things. I have no doubt about it. Catch some very good ideas. Some ideas that people weren't listening to, it's turned out to be right. - Okay. - Wonderful. Anytime you can get up and say that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has some great ideas, like you're nailing it. - Ah, man, I mean, so, you know, obviously what happens is he goes to Kamala and says, I would like a, I'll step down if you give me a cabinet position. - Which, by the way, is what happened? For people who don't know this, RFK went to Trump and Harris and tried to barter each of them for his endorsement. - And, you know, obviously, they went running for the hills, the Democrats. I mean, like-- - Well, Harris didn't talk to him. And by the way, good on her. - Yeah, right. And you can't put him in a cabinet. Like, you can't be anywhere near the education. He can't be anywhere near health. You know, it's like, I don't know where they would even put him anyway. So, of course, then he's gonna run and then endorse the guy. You know, I would be surprised that Trump made him pay something to get in this position, you know. - Well, so, first of all, you know, Trump and him have so much in common, including, you know, allegedly sexually assaulting people. On top of that, I have to imagine, it's probably fun for Trump to hang out and be like, hey, remember Epstein, we had so much fun with that guy. - Yeah. - Like, that guy was a hoot in a holler. Jeffrey Epstein loved that guy. Like, they, I assume that they're having a great time reminiscing about Jeffrey Epstein. - Yes, reminiscing about high-fiving. So, yeah, it's gross. And, you know, the fact that, like, RFK is, his wife was pregnant and he wrote these diaries and carrying out, you know, 30 affairs in that one year. And then the wife, ultimately the divorce, he takes the kids from her and then she commits suicide. It just sounds awful. Who he is as a person and what's happened in his life. - It's incredible what wealth and privilege does to people and how it rots them from the inside out. I just want to say, first of all, I think it's incredible that RFK just immediately went in and endorsed Trump. And by incredible, I mean, completely and utterly predictable. The questions that people are asking, I think, are fair, which is, has Trump promised him something? I assume Trump has promised a lot of people a lot of things that they didn't end up getting. But also, let's be frank. Look at Trump's first administration, who he put in his cabinet. It was intentionally created to put people in power over cabinet positions that they wanted to destroy. I would not be shocked. I really, truly wouldn't be shocked if Trump has promised RFK Jr. the FDA and would put him there. He would be the perfect destroyer over the FDA. I wouldn't be shocked if that's the case and it has made this ticket so much more dangerous. - Well, I just want to hear the clip of him talking with Trump standing next to him 'cause I think there's something illustrative that I want to talk about. Also, if you notice, Make America Great Again is not the slogan on the chiron. It was Make American Democracy Great Again. Obviously, starting to realize, right, there's something going on here. And I think the hitting them with the Project 2024 is really working as a threat to democracy and they're kind of panicking now. - Well, that's how you destroy it, as you say that you're going to make it better. And Project 2025 is absolutely still the guiding Bible of this entire thing. And by the way, Make Democracy Great Again is all it means is they want to destroy it. That's literally it. - So here's Bobby on the stage with Trump overlooking it from behind. - And I want you to ask, go again, don't you want a safe environment for your children? (crowd cheering) - Oh, you want to know that the food that you're feeding them is not filled with chemicals that are going to give them cancer and chronic disease. (crowd cheering) And don't you want a president that's going to make America healthy again? (crowd cheering) - Okay, good times. Trump is saying they're behind him. Now, he's got an issue, he's got a disease that makes his voice sound like that. And he's had treatment to make it a little bit better, I suppose, but you know that Trump is sitting there listening to him. - He hates it. - And he just is crawling out of his skin, he can't handle it. And I don't know how that's going to work. That's why, that might be the biggest reason why he wouldn't switch and put him in as a VP instead of Vance, I think, because he cannot stand listening to him talk. - No, he doesn't want to be around anybody who doesn't look or sound exactly how he wants them to. Do you know what this reminds me a lot of, Nick? This reminds me a lot of that disastrous press conference that Trump had back in 2016 with Sarah Palin, where Palin came out and, you know, it was like Bible loving, gun, totem, you know, all that stuff, the root and tutank crap. And Trump, I mean, Trump uses these people like Kleenex. I mean, you know, Doug Burgum could not be reached for comment. You know, I don't even know, is Doug Burgum still alive? I mean, like Trump was trotting him out, like a show pony for a very long time. I think he's using RFK. I think that's exactly what happened here. He'll take anybody who wants to endorse him. And we'll talk more about the VP speculation, which is what it is. But let's be very, very clear, Nick. The right wing is absolutely salivating all over themselves. There is just absolute, un-based lies being sent that this is going to give Trump a 10-point bounce in the polls. I'll talk in a second about why that's not going to happen, but the amount of like hope and delusion that these people are absolutely consuming is off the charts right now. And they need it because of how bad this campaign's floundering. - Oh, I agree. And by the way, don't be surprised if we find out that Bobby Kennedy, a R.R.K. Jr. gave a substantial sum to the Trump campaign. - Sure. - Because I suspect that he always does this for endorsement so on and stuff. He makes sure that you have to pay him something and contribute. So he's trying to buy his way in the politics as a last-ditch effort in seven years old in a way that he never really dipped his toe into it before. It feels like it's just a sort of legacy here. It's gross. And I don't think it's going to help. I think we would have already maybe even seen in some of the polling some indication that it would help. And I don't think it's moved at all in the last several days. So the nadier of the R.F.K debacle was back during the time in which it was Biden versus Donald Trump. That was when he had his moment where... And I think, Nick, if I remember correctly, I think it was like three or four points in the polls. And that was it. Like he kind of got near that. I think it was back during the primary season where everyone was just absolutely exhausted with these two choices. But let's make it all so clear. The people who support R.F.K. Jr. or have supported him, they did it because of one issue and one issue only. And that is because they were die-hard anti-vaccine people. Period. They had Joe Biden, who of course was pro-vaccine. And Donald Trump, I want to remind people, he was the one who greenlit the expedited vaccine. And Trump does not apologize for that. He puts that as one of his major achievements of his presidency, which by the way, probably is the best thing that he did as president. And if you pay any attention, and unfortunately I listen to and watch too much Alex Jones, I have to keep my eye on this stuff. I watch too much of him and the associated content creators, you name it. Him and everybody else who tries to give Trump a pass on this. And Nick, they believe that the vaccine has killed tens of millions of people. They literally believe that more people have died because of the COVID vaccine, like many times over than the Holocaust of the 20th century. They believe this to be one of the biggest mass murders of all time. And if you listen to these shows as they make excuses for Trump and Nick, the excuses, you know what they are. It's, well, he was misled, he didn't understand, it was the evil deep state that led him astray, which by the way, if he's going to be led astray and killed tens of millions of people, why would you want him to be president again? You know, like it really boggles the mind. But when they take collars, when they actually get brave enough to let people come on, almost everybody's like, why are you supporting Donald Trump? You need to be supporting RFK Jr. So of the points and of the support that RFK has, maybe some of it will go to Trump. Maybe if I had to be generous, he'll get a half a point to a point from RFK. The idea that he's going to get a 10-point bounce, I mean, you might as well go look for the Loch Ness Monster in unicorns, man. Like that is just the delusion is off the charts. - I mean, if you were able to establish world peace, you might not get 10-point bump. - No, no, like if 9/11 happened, you might get a 10-point bounce as George W. Bush, friend of the Democratic Party could attest to. But like, you're not going to get a 10-point bounce by this absolute disastrous embarrassment endorsing you. It's incredible watching them try and talk themselves into it. - Oh, yeah, well, this is when you get that desperate, that's where you are, and it's going to get worse. That's what I'm really worried about. I'm wondering, you know, we saw some stuff about Kamala and saying that she's a drunk, and that's why she laughs so much. You know, I mean, it's like they're gonna, when you're desperate, you start to grasp for a lot of different-- - Then what's Chinese communist agent? Manchurian candidate. I mean, like, literally, that's what they're dealing with right now. - Wait, you know what, today it was, that it took a picture in a park with two different dogs and whoever posted it used the same name for both dogs. That's really weird, Jared, and they tried to say it was weird. You know, none of it is gaining traction, at the very least, right? None of this stuff is gaining traction. You know, they've moved on from even trying to continue to keep Biden in this race somehow, right? Can we keep making him the focus? And Hunt, they hunted when-- - They literally believed that they put a gun to Joe Biden's head and made him drop out of the race and that he was going to show up at the DNC in the middle of Kamala Harris's acceptance speech and say, "I've been wronged, I want it back." They literally talked themselves into believing that. - Yeah, yeah, I mean, if they have the ability to talk themselves into following Trump, then they could talk themselves into anything. - I completely agree. So on that note, let's talk about the next piece of delusion from the RFK endorsement, which is that many, many, many Republicans and MAGA supporters are talking themselves into the possibility that Donald Trump is going to dump JD Vance, which by the way, I love this story, it's not true, it's not gonna happen. I personally enjoy it on a level that I really struggle to communicate. The idea that he's going to dump JD Vance and bring RFK on as his running mate. It's not going to happen, but the fact that people are so into this idea, Nick, I think that's pretty telling. - Right, I mean, again, as you get down the rabbit hole desperation, everything gets into the play. And we saw that people thought that, like, JD Vance is torpedoing this on purpose, or the people who are running Trump's campaign are doing this on purpose to him. And everyone's out to get him. Everyone's trying to, you know, make him lose this race. And they don't realize that it's simply Trump. It's the guy behind the wheel here. - You're sure it won't happen. I think that-- - Oh. - I'm gonna give it a 16% chance of that. - That's a huge number, and it's not going to happen. Just to lay out some clear, concrete facts, Nick. I said this, I think it was last week or the week before. Donald Trump is actually a really bad campaigner. The only reason he won in 2016 was a confluence of events and also the political ecosystem and how things were failing at that point. He's a terrible campaigner. People do not have to sabotage him. He's terrible. He made the decision to bring J.D. Vance onto the ticket because he thought he was going to run away with this after the debate with Biden. And by the way, again, he sold off MAGA to a bunch of tech fascists for tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. J.D. Vance, it's not that he's sabotaging things. He's legitimately this terrible. And for the record, I always bring this up in order for context. Shame on the Ohio Democrat, Nick. For not beating this asshole, the same way that they let DeSantis get a second term and a mandate, even a first term, they should have defeated this guy. The fact that they didn't is on the Democratic party. He's that bad. He's that truly awful. Did you see him at the donut shop? Oh, yeah, what are you talking about? I watched that clip so many times. He has no idea how to interact with another human because he hates people, hates them. Yeah, and also, those are supposed to be sent up way ahead of time, right? The fact that they had somebody say, "I don't want to be on camera." Like, obviously-- Never should happen. --in randomly and hope that they have a good new thing. So whoever's running his comms is really doing awful disservice to him anyway. And then they had him on Krista Wilker and meet the press to talk a little bit about some of these comments he's made about childless women and how they maybe don't deserve full voting rights. Basically, is what he was saying, right? Yep. So should we hear-- here's the answer. I love it. Let's get our JD Vance moment. Krista's version of cleanup on aisle six. Look, I regret, certainly, that a lot of people took it the wrong way. And I certainly regret the DNC and Kamala Harris lied about it. But do you regret what you said, Senator? Look, Krista, I'm going to say things from time to time that people disagree with. I'm a real person. I'm going to make jokes. I'm going to say things sarcastically. And I think that what's important is that we focus on the policy. There are certainly going to be things that I say. If I'm elected Vice President, people are going to say, well, I wish he had said that differently. I think it's most important to actually be the person I actually am. And to say, those sarcastic comments were made in the service of a real substantive point. This country has become too anti-family. It's too expensive to afford a house. It's too expensive to afford groceries. Don-- All right. You know, you're in this world. What do you think? What's that? Do they prep him right for that answer? Nailed it. Nailed it. Dead to right. Nick, first of all, and we have a video component over on YouTube. If you want to check it out, feel more than free. I don't know if you've noticed. The eyeliner, it's down. Like, it is obvious that this shit is getting to JD Vance, the things that people are saying. And why? Because he's not a genuine person. He's not comfortable with himself. When he said that about Waltz, he was projecting his own feelings. Second of all, you have had weeks now to come up with an answer for the childless cat lady bullshit, which never should have been said. He was trying to pop Tucker Carlson. That's why this happened in the first place. Because all these online right-wing chuds, all they care about is making each other happy. They don't care how awful it is and how off-putting it is. And now that it's out front, we all can see how future it is. You had weeks to figure this out, Nick. And that's what you got is sometimes I'm going to make sarcastic comments. I also want to say very quickly, there's a rhetorical thing we need to notice here, Nick. Did you feel a little bit in that interview, in that answer? As un, like, unapologetic as it is, there's a little bit of backtracking in it. Like, that is not Vance. Like, this shit is getting to him. And I think what's happening, Nick, is the way that he is absolutely shitting the bed as the VP candidate. I think it's starting to dawn on him, that if this doesn't work, and it's not currently working right now, he's supposed to have a long career ahead of him. He's supposed to get reelected as Senator. He wants to be President of the United States of America, the heir apparent to MAGA. I think it's becoming clear to JD Vance that he doesn't have it. And on top of that, that maybe he needs to rethink what he's doing, which is a delicious thing because this person cannot stop changing in order to try and make other people happy. Oh, for sure, and if Trump loses, he's going to make sure that JD Vance is a scapegoat. So he'll have that albatross around his neck if he ever tries to run again. Do you think for a second that if this ticket goes down in flames that both sides of Trump and Vance aren't going to go nuclear on each other, blaming each other? Like, think about what that's going to be because JD Vance will turn on Trump the moment that he thinks it's necessary. And what's going to happen if this thing falls apart is that this thing is going to get uglier than anything we could imagine. For sure, and you know, it's never a bad piece of advice to tell someone, you know, really be your authentic self, you know, but I gotta tell you, Jared, I think in this case, he can't be himself. Be someone else because yourself sucks. Yeah, try it on for a minute and see it because I think that might help. You know, JD Vance, one of the main pieces of advice as a longtime strategist that we always give is be yourself. The best advice I can give you is figure out the shit somebody else. 'Cause you are terrible. And the TikTokers have really done a fantastic job of spurring him. And again, it's doing well in the survival because the people on TikToker are young, TikToker are young, they're engaged. And they know about these things. They see this guy, which is great. You know, I think back when Rock the Boat was out there, nobody voted when you were 21, 22, right? It was really hard to get motivated to do that while you were in college or whatever. It's so different, it's much different now as far as, you know, my kids, they're plugged in and they are aware of these issues and they have a voice, they wanna be part of this process, which is exciting. Just a very quick thing, and I haven't pointed this out before and it's been, you know, rattling around in my head, like a ball bearing and a spray can. The reason why the childless cat ladies thing didn't work and is so shitty is because it puts the onus on the individual for what the system has done to people in terms of wanting to have children and wanting to be financially secure, which is it's incredibly expensive to have a child now that is a systematic problem. It puts it on the individual. And by the way, the Democratic Party, and I said this, I talked with a friend of the pod, actual friend of the pod, Pete Dominic. You know, the issue here is that the Democratic Party for the first time and God knows how long has got communications down, messaging down. There are other issues. What did they talk about? We need to make it to where people can afford to have families. That's the difference in the message and that's JD Vance's entire thing is he wants to blame the individual for what the system has done to people. - For sure. I mean, she wants to be able to help first time home buyers with their mortgage. She wants a bigger child tax credit. All those things are huge. And really, when you enact those, you can see how positive that effect is. I mean, when they were doing COVID relief too, we saw there's a huge percentage of children out of get out of poverty. And, you know, however briefly it might be. And we saw Tim Walz's thing with making sure kids can have breakfast and lunch when they go to school. It really is a, they need to continue to hammer that because it enforces the Republicans to get on the wrong side of that thinking, "Well, we can't just let people have food for free." And why, how are they going to work for it when they later when they're adults? They're just going to get a hamburger in it. I mean, this is where we're at when we have a-- - It's cruelty. - Country of all time. And we have kids who are just going hungry every day. - For no-- - It's just, it's abject cruelty. And that's the part of Vance that actually appeals to people. Nick, on a different subject, you've been watching what's been going on with Judge Cannon and the Trump case. You want to give people an update? - Sure. Well, you know, we have this issue where she's basically throughout the case because the basic legal argument is that Jack Smith is not, was not appointed properly. The problem is is we've had, you know, 56 or 60 years of precedent where the head of the Justice Department can appoint an independent prosecutor or an independent investigator to deal with these things. And we knew about this when she was doing this weird questioning about who pays his salary. Whereas a judge in her situation should not have any care of like, who's paying Jack Smith's salary and make it worse, Clarence Thomas tipped her off in his decision on the immunity case, saying that like he shouldn't have, it shouldn't be able to have anything to do with this. Now, the irony, the sweet irony is, is that without special councils like Jack Smith, we wouldn't have had Kenneth Starr. And so now it's not okay to have that when it's going after their guy, but Kenneth Starr, who went so far above and beyond his scope of what he was supposed to be investigating to get anything on Clinton, embroiled our country in a rabbit hole of horribleness for a while. So it's a problematic thing that even touches upon the fact that Trump wants to put RFK in at the head of the FDA or wherever he wants to do it. They want to dismantle out of the government, things that are designed to protect Americans and keep them safe. - So I just want to make one quick note, which is, yes, Kenneth Starr abused his authority. The person who embroiled the country in a big giant crisis was Bill Clinton. - Okay, there it is. - Is that fair? - Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, he had that affair with Monica Lewinsky, and-- - Let's call Boston strikes. There would have been nothing to have been found if Bill Clinton hadn't have done what Bill Clinton did. So Kenneth Starr abused authority. Both things can be true at once, and that's one of the things that we have to establish. But to go back to the canon thing, and everything that you're talking about, Nick, our judicial system is so screwed up. It's such a mess. And like the Maga world has only taken advantage of problems that have been there forever. Eileen Cannon is, again, like Trump, a symptom of a larger disease. And one of the things that I do think that we need to talk about, like as a country, as people who are trying to fight authoritarianism, we need widespread judicial reform. And I'm not just talking about how judges handle things, how authority works, whether or not people should be held accountable. Nick, I'm talking about like reforming the entire Supreme Court. One of the things that I have been feeling lately is we don't need to just like pack the court. We don't need to just give them term limits. Those things are great. I hope that that all gets passed, like it should happen. We should have direct elections for Supreme Court justices. Like we need to go in the exact same route that we did with the Senate in order to start reforming all of this stuff. If you hate what's happening with Eileen Cannon, and if you think it's a miscarriage of justice, not just you, but the listeners and everybody, like we need to take a look at this, see it as the symptom, the canary and the coal mine that it is, and start getting serious about actually reforming our institutions that have created this crisis in the first place. There are a lot of Eileen cannons out there, Nick. There are a lot of judges at every level who are corrupt and also ideologically driven and unfit for their office. And we need to take a long look at that and how this thing has worked and we need to do some things really, really differently. - I agree. I mean, the electing them is interesting. I certainly think that like term limits could be something effective and then also, just having a much more robust ethical guidelines for them to have to adhere to would be important. - There's no reason for this to be an undemocratic office. None. - Okay. - There's none. I mean, the Senate was like that until the 20th century when the progressive movement demanded it. It's time we do that. And by the way, I know everybody is yelling at their podcast right now. It's time to get rid of the electoral college. - Yeah. - It's time to root out all of this shit that has sustained minoritarian authoritarian power. - You know, one thing we didn't even cover, it's gone completely under the radar, was the Supreme Court ruled on a case in Indiana for a mayor who took a bribe, after, like got the money in the bribe after the company did the work in the city. And they ruled it that was not a bribe because it happens after the work was done. And the guy, you know, after the game, the contract and they did all a thing, then he paid them off. That, talking to some lawyers, is something that's so egregious and unbelievable that would have been ruled that way. So we are moving toward a situation where there's more of that stuff's going to happen with the current makeup of the court. And, you know, Trump wins, supposedly, you know, they're gonna, Thomas and Alito will step down. He'll replace them with equally horrible people. And then much younger. And then we're really in trouble. No, that's exactly right. It's institutionalized corruption, which is one of the landmarks on the way to authoritarianism. Like then you have specific hierarchical classes. One class is not even hiding their corruption anymore. And by the way, Donald Trump is not the first corrupt politician or figure that we've ever had. Like this has been an ongoing problem during the entire course of the United States of America in liberal democracy. But you cannot allow it to get to the point where you have institutionalized corruption, which is what's happening right now. - Are you writing the book about why Kennedy stepped down? Justice Kennedy? No? Somebody needs to write that one. - Somebody needs to get on that thing. - Yeah. There's a whole Timaldi in there somewhere about why he stepped down when he did and what pressure they put on him. - I'm never going to hear Kennedy's name, Justice Kennedy's name now without thinking about Timali. So I appreciate that. - Yeah, well, canada. - There you go. Well, speaking of decline of empires, Nick, this is a story that is tailor made for the final segment of a Muckric podcast, which is due to a complete inability of the Boeing corporation to do anything. Besides, mysteriously have their whistleblowers and witnesses against them end up dead somehow, but we don't need to talk about that. Because of an inability to create actual workable projects, particularly for the United States government, we now have a situation in which two astronauts, SUNY Williams and Barry Wilmore, are now stranded on the International Space Station. And not only are they stranded, Nick, it's not like they're there for a couple of days waiting on a car to get fixed so they can get home. It looks like they will not be able to return to Earth until February of 2025. Thanks Boeing, we appreciate all of your hard work. What an American champion company you are. You know, if they hadn't already been maligned with some this serious issues, like they're planes falling apart in mid-air. You know, you say that like it's a bad thing. Like you want airplanes to make it where they're going. Yeah, I mean, I don't know about it. Well, you don't fly here that, you know, which on that-- This is one of the reasons why I don't fly. Yeah, so I'm not gonna lie that when I'm sitting there near the exit row and looking at that door and wondering what's gonna happen. Like, you know, it's in my mind now. But maybe you could say, listen, things happen when you could drive you out to space. Helium leaks and whatnot. But it's an interesting take now because Musk gets to come to the rescue with supposedly a better technology and safer was now whatever. He had actually called this way back in like '07 '08. There's an interview with him saying that people like Boeing are gonna be-- We're coming for you and we're gonna end up having, you know, better systems and we'll be more, you know, smaller companies that can do things on the fly better. We'll find out how safe that is gonna be, but Boeing is teetering here and it's a real problem. They need to fix what's going on. So there's a lot going on here that we need to talk about. First of all, the fact that Boeing is a company-- This is what happens when you have giant corporate monopolies. As they get to the point where they cut corners, they're trying to save money and accelerate profit any way they can. As a result, it's put God knows how many people in danger. The second thing, Nick, people ask me all the time. They say, why didn't the government reign in Elon Musk? He's obviously a criminal, he's obviously anti-democratic, he's dangerous, he has all of these contracts. Why doesn't the government do something? Here we are. It's because literally you have two people stranded up in space at this major, major operation in the International Space Station. The only option they have is to call Elon Musk because they have created one of the most historically powerful and wealthy oligarchs in history because he's a parasite on the United States government. They rely on him from everything to Starlink, to maintaining the military industrial complex and all of their systems. And guess what? Elon Musk is going to be the person who uses his ill-gotten wealth to rescue these people from the International Space Station. The third thing I want to say, Nick, is that throughout history, when you look at major empires, like the world-striding empires, what always happens is not only do they overextend themselves by, I don't know, doing things like creating international space stations, that eventually, over the course of time, the wealth transfer that is necessary for empire, particularly private business and industry and corporations, it leads to them becoming more powerful and essential to the government than the government is to them. And what happens? Eventually, the Roman Empire sends a letter to what would later become Great Britain, and they say, hey, we can't help anymore. We don't have the money, good luck, take care. I hope the Vikings don't overrun everything. And what happens? You literally have an empire that starts dying under its own weight and all the obligations and all the relationships and the mercenaries that they've relied on. This is not being told like this. This story is not being talked about like what it actually is. It's the failure of American empire and American capitalism. And it is a major thing. I don't even think it's gonna be in the history books. It's not even basically on the main page. I think this is a huge telling story. And I think people would really do themselves a good service by paying attention to it. - That's interesting. Boeing has to be mortified. - Oh my God. - That SpaceX is gonna come in and rescue them and help them out, right? Because they couldn't get their act together to get something else up there to get them down, right? So all of those things are true. And we're moving towards something that looks probably more like don't look up the movie. - It looks a lot like, and by the way, I love these stories that talk about the International Space Station. It's like in 2030, when it's due to be decommissioned, they'll use spaceships or crafts to drag it into the Earth's orbit to drop it in the ocean. I trust this implicitly, Nick. I don't think this will be a problem at all. I think this is gonna go along great. I think Musk's track record with every project he's ever done, I trust them completely. I don't think that that could possibly ever go wrong for a second. - Well, why don't we just show it out in the deep space? I guess you can't do that 'cause that might break the prison that General Zod has trapped in as he's going back in. - It is, this is nightmarish shit all the way around. And I just think this is a really big story. I just wanted to put our eyes on it because it is really, really disturbing what this country is becoming. All right, everybody. That's gonna do it for the Macquarie Podcast. We will be back on Friday with a Weekender reminder. patreon.com/macquariepodcast. Our audience is growing, our support is growing. It has allowed us to do things like go to the Democratic National Convention and report from it on the scene, which again, we really appreciate the people appreciated that 'cause we did as well. All right, everybody, if you need just before then, you can find Nick here. Can you hear me? I'm YouTuber Syston. Peace out. [MUSIC PLAYING]
