cover of episode Brooke Rollins on Strong Women Around Trump and Dan McLaughlin’s Final Election Insights

Brooke Rollins on Strong Women Around Trump and Dan McLaughlin’s Final Election Insights

2024/11/1
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Jessica Spencer: 佛罗里达州的修正案3不允许个人种植大麻,这与该州宪法相抵触。修正案3中存在大量虚假信息,例如关于医疗大麻卡的误导性说法。投票反对修正案3将维持现状,医疗大麻用户不会失去他们的权利。佛罗里达州的立法机关无法规范娱乐大麻的公共吸食,这将对小型企业造成不利影响。修正案3赋予大麻产业广泛的豁免权,这将使大麻产业免受产品责任追究,并使未来对大麻产业的监管变得不可能。高浓度四氢大麻酚含量的大麻产品对儿童构成严重威胁,修正案3未能对大麻产品的营销和四氢大麻酚含量进行监管。

Deep Dive

Key Insights

Why is Brooke Rollins grateful for Mark Cuban's comments about Trump supporters?

Cuban's comments highlight Trump's positive track record as an employer for women, giving her a platform to discuss strong women in Trump's administration.

Why does Brooke Rollins believe Trump is the best boss for women in American history?

Trump's administration had more women on senior staff than any other, shattering the glass ceiling.

What concerns does Brooke Rollins have about China's influence on U.S. policy areas?

China's influence is pervasive across education, economy, and national security, posing a significant threat to U.S. leadership.

Why does Brooke Rollins think the U.S. military is currently weak?

The military is being undermined by DEI initiatives and progressive policies, sending a signal of weakness to enemies.

What does Dan McLaughlin predict for the U.S. Senate race?

Republicans have a high chance of winning at least 51 seats, with potential for up to 55 if they sweep key Midwestern seats.

Why does Dan McLaughlin think Democrats are escalating their rhetoric in the final weeks of the campaign?

It's a mobilization strategy to energize their base by focusing on hot-button issues like Trump's threat to democracy and abortion.

What does Dan McLaughlin think about J.D. Vance's performance in interviews?

Vance has handled adversarial interviews well, showcasing his work ethic and ability to connect with voters.

Why does Andrew Gould oppose Arizona's Prop 140?

Prop 140 is overly complex, violates the separate amendment rule, and introduces ranked-choice voting, which is confusing and disenfranchising.

Why does Andrew Gould think initiatives like Prop 140 are a problem?

They amend multiple sections of the constitution, making it difficult for voters to understand and for officials to implement.

Why does Andrew Gould believe judges should engage more with the community?

Judges can become isolated and lose touch with public sentiment, which is crucial for understanding the impact of their decisions.

Chapters
Jessica Spencer discusses the potential effects of Florida's Amendment 3 on marijuana legalization, addressing public safety concerns and the impact on medical marijuana use.
  • Amendment 3 does not allow individuals to grow their own marijuana plants.
  • The amendment does not provide legislative control over public smoking of marijuana.
  • Corporate immunity for growers and sellers is unprecedented and poses significant risks.

Shownotes Transcript

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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds.

And on our social medias. I'm looking at Kylie, who's sort of shaking her head at this. It's on the website right now. It will be on. It's on Salem's website. OK, so and we're going to have it up on ours also here very shortly. So you definitely want to check that out.

And that was fantastic. We had wonderful guests for that. And as always, we have wonderful guests for our show today. We're jumping right in. Our first guest, Jessica Spencer, Director of Advocacy for the Florida Vote No on Amendment 3 campaign, a coalition of parents, teachers, law enforcement, and first responders dedicated to preserving Florida's public safety by opposing the legalization of marijuana. Jessica Spencer, welcome to the program.

Thank you so much for having me. So, Jessica, let's just use this sort of the Q&A segment for our voters in Florida. We have stations in Tampa, Orlando and Miami. So let's start with this. Is it true that individuals cannot grow their own marijuana plants in Florida? Yes.

Yes, this amendment. Thanks for bringing that up. That's a good question, because we get this a lot when we are out and speaking and talking to individuals who are really interested in the legalization of marijuana as, you know, personal freedom. Right. And in other states, they've allowed it.

individuals to grow their own plants and home grow their own marijuana. And unfortunately, for those that are interested in being able to grow their own marijuana, this amendment does not allow for that. They did not use the word, the authors did not use the word cultivate when referencing marijuana.

individuals being able to grow their own marijuana, but they did write in the word cultivate when referencing the industry. So no, we would not be able to allow individuals to grow marijuana here in the state because it would actually violate the Constitution at that point. Now,

There's actually a lot of disinformation. One of the things you're referencing is something we experienced in Arizona where the industry is going to be profiting millions and tens and hundreds of millions of dollars off this rights to the bill and not necessarily to the benefit of citizens or to the state. But there are also a lot of misinformation being passed around. We've been hearing that people are being told that if they have a medical marijuana card and they don't vote for this amendment, they will lose that. Right.

That is that's true. We've been hearing that as well. And it's it's not true. It's true. We've been hearing that, but it's not it's not a true statement. And unfortunately, you know, the people that are concerned about that, that, you know, are a part of the medical marijuana program, which is a well regulated program here in our state.

they will not lose those benefits. Medical marijuana is and was a constitutional amendment. And so that is in our constitution. This would not do away with that. And they would still be able to access their medicine through the medical marijuana program here. So that is absolutely not true. A vote no on Amendment 3 keeps the medical marijuana status quo. Personally, I think you've got to be high to think someone knows how you voted. Yeah.

That's just not part of our system. Right. Is it true that the legislature can come in and just regulate the time and place people can smoke marijuana or possess it? No, they can't. And what you're referencing is, you know, this conversation we've been having about public smoking. A lot of people are extremely concerned about public smoking of marijuana here in our state, which we are already smelling. And we're not supposed to be smoking marijuana, medical marijuana.

You know, Jessica, I always thought a good thing your campaign should have done is you should have gone like when you go to these candle shops or something, find one of those manufacturers and just light marijuana scented candles all over the small businesses and just say, do you want this smell forever? Yeah.

That would have been an amazing thing to do. And you bring up the small businesses, and this is why the chamber is very concerned, because businesses, restaurants, your hotels, your public parks, your sporting arenas, et cetera, we will not be able to say that you cannot smoke recreational marijuana because the authors, again, they did not cross out the word medical. So the only thing that our legislature can actually manage is the smoking of medical marijuana, not recreational.

And, you know, the proponents have been out there saying, don't worry about it. You know, we can legislate this. We have a very conservative legislature and they're going to fix that for us. Well, first of all, it's more lies and more excuses from them about their poorly written amendment. They're already acknowledging that there is an issue.

And they're relying on individuals believing that the legislature can manage it, which they can't because we can't write laws that are inconsistent with the language of a constitutional amendment. So effectively...

Your small businesses that you reference, if you are going to light those candles, your restaurants, et cetera, they can't put up a sign that says you can't smoke marijuana here because they will be violating someone's constitutional right. We're talking with Jessica Spencer, director of advocacy for the Florida Vote No on Amendment 3 campaign, which is the push to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida. Jessica,

Can you explain – this is something other states have not done well and I think Florida's bill is worse in this regard. The corporate immunity –

for the growers and sellers. Yes, yes. Wild. It's actually wild. It is unprecedented. We have not seen this in any other state. They have written in, and it's actually on page one under their, what section is that? Public policy number four and five. But five is what you're referencing. And yeah, it's wild. It's unprecedented. It is a broad sweeping civil and criminal immunity for

anything that they do in this industry. And again, you know, we, we look and if you think of what happened with this industry in Massachusetts, right, there was an employee that inhaled some dust. She unfortunately and sadly died. And, you know, I,

I suspect that if this was to happen here in our state, I can promise you that the industry's lawyers are going to shield themselves from any lawsuit for any wrongdoing for anything that they do with this language.

It also even covers product liabilities. I mean, they go right down from acquiring, cultivating, processing, manufacturing, selling, distributing marijuana products and marijuana accessories to adults for personal use shall not be subject to criminal or civil liability or sanctions under Florida law. It's never been done before. Jessica, I want to outline a specific scenario under this because I don't think people understand the risk of this.

People think we're growing marijuana so it's like plants and planters and it's all healthy and organic. But that is not at all what this industry looks like in its back rooms as they're prepping. So when you're talking about the edibles, when you're talking about the various concentrates, waxes, so forth and so on, there are really heavy, hardcore chemicals used to extract the THC and other elements from the marijuana product.

to make that stuff. So if you ended up with an adulterated batch of that that ended up poisoning and killing numerous people, it's very likely under this law that they would be totally exempt from any liability. It's not even very likely. It's a fact. They have written in...

civil and criminal immunity for anything they do. Anything they do. So that perfect example, if that happens or further on down the line, we find out that one of these chemicals or one of these preservatives or whatever is being used is unhealthy for us, we can't even go backwards and say you can't use that particular adulterant. You can't use that pesticide. You can't use that what

it may be, we have no recourse at that point. And we're looking at a constitutional amendment. And so if this passes with the language as written, this will forever be enshrined in our state constitution as is, and we will not be able to make any adjustments to it in the future. Does the chamber feel that if this passes and you start smelling like Denver, Colorado...

that businesses will pick up and leave or move production facilities to other states. For example, I have a home in the Sarasota area. I would probably sell it. It's just not something I want to be around and smell. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a fair concern. I mean, I'm already thinking about, goodness gracious, I love my state. And we're a heavy tourism industry, too. You know, and I don't think families want to come to Florida and go and visit the mouth and be subjected or have their children subjected to the smell of marijuana or the shops everywhere. You know, and this industry doesn't.

They indicate, you know, in a Florida Trend article, July 2024, that this will be a $6 billion industry, that they're going to triple the market. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's a fair concern for the small business owners. It's a fair concern for the hotels and the hotel chains, understanding that they can't ask people to not smoke marijuana in their hotel. It was a fair concern for me when I picked up a rental car in Palm Beach to go to an event at Mar-a-Lago that stank of weed. Yeah.

Jessica, so for example, I'm in a gated community there. I have an HOA. Can the HOA do anything? Say you can't be smoking outside?

You're violating the Constitution. I mean, this goes from the legislature enacting laws and local municipalities, local businesses, local neighborhoods. You would be violating someone's constitutional right to smoke recreational marijuana. So let me ask you this question. So we often get great guests like you on and don't know enough about their background. But you used to be the project director for Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition and so forth. Yes. Why does...

doing this alarm you? And how does it affect children? You know, I don't think it necessarily alarmed us 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, right? Because we were talking about a plant that had, at that time, very low THC content. It was, you know, 0.75% back in 1975. But we fast forward to the present and we're looking at an industry that is trying to make these products more and more potent. We're looking at the raw herbal flower at upwards of

35% THC. We're looking at the oils and the waxes at 70 to 95% THC content. That's a problem. That's an issue. And when we talk about a, quote, safe and regulated market, well, you can't make marijuana safer. In fact, you're making it more dangerous. And there's this concept and thought process of, oh, well, what about the alcohol and tobacco industry? We can regulate that.

Well, sure, because that's a statutory regulation. We're talking about a constitutional amendment. So there's a definite concern for our children and for our adult population, of course, as well, because the THC content is so high. But yes, I'm absolutely concerned for our children. There was just a recent study that came out. I believe it was the Journal of American Pediatrics. And, you know, we see an increase of use pediatrics.

in states that have recreational marijuana. The thought process that the black market goes away or youth use is reduced is an absolute fallacy, and it's a fantasy world, especially with these products that ultimately at the end of the day when we're looking at gummies and candies and bright colors, et cetera, are targeted for children. And this amendment does not have any language in it that would allow us to regulate the marketing,

the THC content or anything related to recreational marijuana because they didn't write that language in. Jessica, we have just 30 seconds left. How do folks follow you and support the work you're doing to oppose this amendment?

Absolutely. Again, thank you so much for having me. I urge everyone to please read the amendment before you go into that ballot box. Know what you are voting for and vote no at the end of it because this is not good for Florida. And they can find us and our information on knowon3.com. And that's know-on3.com. Fantastic. Jessica Spencer, thank you so much. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back.

Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds, folks.

It's been a rough couple of days again in the stock market. The Democrats are not good at this economic stuff. The market is up. The market goes down, down, down. You need to put your money in a place where it's secure and where you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return. Put your money where Chuck Warren does. You put it with invest, Yrefi.com. Go to invest, the letter Y, then refi.com. Learn how you can earn that fantastic rate of return in a portfolio that is secured, collateralized,

And you can get your principal back at any time, no fees, no penalties. It is a fantastic opportunity to check them out, invest the letter Y, then refy.com or give them a call at 888-Y-REFY24. All right, jumping right in with our next guest, Brooke Rollins serves as president and chief executive officer of the America First Policy Institute. She was formerly director of the Domestic Policy Council and chief strategist in the White House under President Donald Trump.

where she also previously served as director of the Office of American Innovation. Brooke Rollins, thank you for joining us. Welcome to the program. Well, hello. It's so great to be with you from another great state of Texas. Just one state over from you guys, so really happy to be on. You're pretty close. So we have that niggling little mess called New Mexico in between us. We've got to figure out how to handle that one. I know. Well, listen, we're going to turn them red.

They don't have really a choice between being between the two of us. No, they do not. That's a longer-term project. So, Brooke, you graduated Texas A&M. You graduated the University of Texas Law School, ranked 16th in the nation. You were president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation for 15 years. And according to Mark Cuban, you are weak and dumb because you support Trump. How do you feel about that?

Is this not the greatest thing ever? Everyone said, aren't you so offended? I said, no, I am grateful because he has given us the most amazing opportunity to get this message out. And I, you know, it's funny when I was in the last White House, I was next to President Trump for three years, which was amazing, running a large part of his policy agenda.

And I loved every second of it. You know, he's extremely has high standards, extremely demanding. But if you hit those standards, he gives you the key to the kingdom. And if you don't hit those standards, you're fired. Like it's just there's no in between. So for those of us that were there with him and it was, I mean, Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Sanders.

Kayleigh McEnany, Mercedes Schlapp, these amazing women that were in the White House, but also in our cabinet and in Laura Trump. I mean, it's just amazing. So I've been trying to tell this story, guys, for years. Donald Trump is the best boss for women in.

In the history of America. And no one really wanted to talk about it until Mark Cuban opened his big dumb mouth yesterday. And now everyone's talking about it. So this is great. Well, Brooke, I think Sam and I were talking before you jumped on. The reality is Mark Cuban and the left believe that comment. It wasn't a misstatement. It's the same thing about Joe Biden's garbage comment. Let's make no mistake.

That side of the aisle, their donors, their activists believe that Trump supporters are garbage.

They believe for some reason you vote because your husband's telling you how to vote. And just talking to you, I just already know who's the boss in the house. I mean, it's just – they believe this. That's the problem with it. Chuck, have you ever met a Republican husband who was the boss of his household? No. Neither have I. Ever. Ever. It's never happened. Let's be clear. Come on. So I just –

And I'm glad he brought it up because I'm glad it gave an opportunity for these quality, high achieving women that we have so many on the right of right of center out there talking about it. I mean, I was laughing with my daughters who both went to law school and they just rolled their eyes.

Yeah, exactly. It is. It's amazing. And, you know, the idea on our side that you put family first always. And, you know, my greatest accomplishment is not being in the last White House. It's not hopefully helping President Trump get reelected. My greatest accomplishment by far is my faith and my husband and my four kids.

And then the rest follows, right? And that's just who we are as conservatives. But we're also called by God to ground our lives in Scripture, which also calls us to fight for those who are the least among us, right? To fight for freedom, to fight for family. And so what President Trump has done, what he did in the last White House, what he continues to do, what conservative leaders continue to do,

is to provide that path, that avenue of that life of meaning where you have the opportunity to fight for all of the above. And I think what you find in that is a joyful, vibrant, amazing group and movement of people. But within that people, in many ways, the backbone of that, really just like the backbone of the family and the home, are the moms and the wives. And that's really how you see...

the leaders of the America First movement. I mean, we had more women on senior staff in the last White House than any White House before, Republican or Democrat. And again, I kept popping my head up and saying, hey, why isn't Time Magazine, where's Newsweek? Why isn't the New York Times talking about this? I mean, talk about a glass ceiling that was shattered into a zillion different pieces. That was in the last Trump White House with the

with the senior team he had. So now that we're talking about it at this literal inflection point in American history, four days out from, I believe, the most important election we've perhaps ever had, and it is women that are going to make the difference. And that's why I think this is so important, so timely. And I, again, want to thank Mark Cuban. You know, Brooke,

One of the things that I think is really interesting is it sort of comes down to what the ideal woman on the left and right looks like. The left has this picture of a woman who's not married, who is militantly focused on political issues and so forth and so on. Right.

And then on the right, obviously, it's more the traditional, you know, build a family, do all this. The dichotomy between those two we know from numerous studies is that people who build lifestyles like women on the right, which are successful, which have great careers, but also build balance with family and lifestyle, are much happier.

Most studies show it. I mean, every study shows the same thing. Yeah. All this, all the studies show that that's right. And, and I think, um, it doesn't mean you can't have an, a, an amazing, meaningful life without children. Uh, there's no doubt. And, and I know a lot of incredible men and women, um, who have really built something very special. Um, and for whatever reason, don't have children. Some people just can't and they choose not to adopt. And, and,

And so those are God's children, too. It extends beyond just the children and the family, though. Part of it is just how you interact with other people where it's not always this scolding thing. Every time I'm around Democrat women, they're scolding everybody. When you're around Republican women, they're building everybody up.

Well, and here's the thing, I think. It's, you know, the left, if you don't think or live exactly the way I do, then you are horrible. You're trash. You're trash. You're garbage. I'm going to yell at you. I'm going to degrade you. I'm going to humiliate you. I want nothing to do with you. I think that if I believed in a hell, right, then that's where you belong if you don't agree with me. Right.

The right, which is just so ironic, right, that it's the right. We are the ones that are building the bigger tent. We are the ones that want everyone to to to take part in the American dream and the American experiment and that we can agree to disagree. You know, I am as a very proud American.

MAGA woman for seven, eight, nine years now, and having been a key part of the last administration, building the America First Policy Institute in the dust of January 6th when so many people were saying that our movement was dead. I said, no, we're just getting started. We have to double down. It's going to end up being a launch point. We're going to be coming back with more from Brooke Rollins in just a moment. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. Folks, stop big tech from tracking your every move. Experience true freedom with 4FreedomMobile. Visit the number 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage, digital security, and total freedom. Use code BATTLEGROUND at checkout to get your first month of service for just $9 and save $10 for every month after that. Again, that's code BATTLEGROUND at checkout. Visit the number 4FreedomMobile.com today. All right.

Right. We are continuing on now with Brooke Rollins. She is the president and chief executive officer of the America First Policy Institute. We were talking a lot about the comments that Biden and Mark Cuban and others have made. I want to move on to a little bit more, you know, a permanent issue in what the U.S. is dealing with, what the next president will be dealing with. Brooke, you've done a lot of work recently talking about the Chinese policy.

China's growing threat. They are really moving to usurp the United States position atop the global leadership. Tell us a little bit about what you've been working on there.

You know, thank you. It's a really important question. And when we launched America First Policy Institute three and a half years ago, interestingly, we did it with policy centers. I based it on what would have been the second term agenda as President Trump's chief domestic advisor, policy advisor. I'd begun to build out that second term in 2020. And when we launched AFPI, we had 20 policy centers built.

If you look carefully, I've never explained this before, we don't have a China policy center. We have a China policy initiative. And the reason is this, because whether it's education, the economy, national security, whatever it is, the pernicious Chinese influence

influence into every one of the key policy challenges facing America is darkened by what China is working to do or is already doing to take our country out from under us. And here we are worried about DEI and, you know, putting tampons in sixth grade boys' bathrooms and having drag shows and instead

The Chinese are building a military to take over the world. And these are really important questions facing America and making sure that everyone understands what's at stake. And for the next administration to have a ready-made, well-organized effort to ensure that we're protecting America first.

It might seem like not a real issue when we have like these ads the Navy is running that feature these LGBTQ plus sailors like doing the drag shows on the ships and all this stuff. But that sends a signal that is not a signal of strength to our enemies, especially when China's military advertising and propaganda is about their ability to go kick butt.

Are we setting our military up for failure through these DEI initiatives? There's no question that the United States military today is in as weak a position as

And that we need to understand what the world, the danger of the world that's in front of us. I've heard a lot of people say, and I'm not a foreign policy expert, I'm more domestic, but my foreign policy team, including General Keith Kellogg, former director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, and so many others,

I've heard many say that we are as close to World War III as we have ever been, and people don't realize it. And part of that is that we are weak on the international stage. Now, the four years of President Trump 1.0, we began to readjust, right? We were seen as strong. There were no new wars.

The president, I believe, was managing the challenges on the international stage in a way that his predecessors, both Republican and Democrat,

had not done back until since Ronald Reagan. So there is no doubt that it can be fixed, at least in the short term with a strong CEO in the White House. But the long term, guys, is what we've really got. We've got to begin to build toward and restrengthening our strengthening our military and putting back in place the ticket for

the pieces that are needed to ensure that we can remain the world's superpower and in so doing avoid world wars that look like we're moving toward.

Brooke, last question. We have just about a minute and 20 seconds left here. Real quick. Do we need to start getting serious about protecting our power grid? Because that seems whether it's an EMP or direct attack, we have talked to numerous people. That seems like it is a major area of weakness that somebody like China. And easy to fix. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes, there's that. That's really, really important. And, you know, we brought Lee Zeldin, who is remarkable, former congressman of New York, on to to basically run the China initiative, which then ties to the power grid. There's just so many pieces at play here are ports, power.

our transportation system, everything that is necessary in order to protect America. And the grid is certainly one of them. But here's what we know. We know that the America that was born in the darkness of 1776 under the tyrannical government of Great Britain and against all odds with George Washington and then setting up a new government against all odds, we know God's hand.

has been on this country from moment one. Abraham Lincoln and what he faced in the late 1800s and bringing our country back together. It's time to do it again. Brooke Rollins, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate having you on the program. Folks, you can follow her on Axe at Brooke L. Rollins or at AmericaFirstPolicyInstitute.com. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back.

Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Our next guest up today is going to be Dan McLaughlin, senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at the National Review Institute. But before we do that, we've got to tell you again, go to check out the website, invest the letter Y, then refy.com. Learn how you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return on a secure collateralized portfolio. When you invest with Y Refi, you're doing well for yourself and your family by doing good for others. And if you're interested in learning more about Y Refi,

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So instead of supposed to be in a stellar week with a focus message for Kamala, there seems to be various hiccups along the way. And the one is we'll start with was Joe Biden calling Trump supporters garbage. And now you have the White House denographers or reporters saying you guys can't do this.

What do you make of this? I think the one thing Sam and I were talking about earlier is the reality is I believe Joe Biden believes that. I believe the left believes that people right of center are garbage. What are your thoughts on this? Well, first of all, it's entirely in the spirit of this campaign that the final week is basically the Trump campaign making a big mess and the Harris campaign somehow managing to make –

roughly as big or maybe bigger a mess, and neither side doing anything at all to really help themselves, although Trump did pull the garbage truck stunt, which reminded people of sort of why they at least enjoy watching Trump, because, you know, he has good television, if nothing else.

Yeah, I mean, this is really – Biden really stepped in it, and he certainly reminded everyone why it is that he's not the candidate anymore because he just can't help himself.

What do you think about the Liz Cheney hit? I mean, Trump clearly was talking about putting her on the, you know, she should be on the front lines and maybe basically her opinion would change. Now the left is saying Trump wants to put a gun in her face. I mean, does the press, I mean, look, you deal with folks like this a little bit. Do they understand that their credibility is just completely shot with each time they do this?

Yeah, it's ridiculous. And it's – again, yet again, Trump does something bad, and instead of hitting them for it, they make it worse, and they distort it. And you sort of have to – you get stuck sort of trying to explain to both sides, no, actually, this was bad, and no, actually, he didn't say what they say he said. So –

But, yeah, it's just the insanity of it. I mean, I think this particular controversy is going to – it matters a lot less than the garbage gate stuff because it's really inside the beltway about the Cheneys who really represent a pretty small –

sort of slice of, you know, most Democrats still can't stand them because they're the Cheneys. It's been really interesting seeing them feature the Cheneys in this campaign. Like, I don't know where they think, what voter group they think that is getting them. Yeah, the only thing weirder than that would be if a Republican campaign was running around touting the support of a Kennedy. Ha ha ha!

Touche. Love it. All right. Let's talk the U.S. Senate race. I think we pick up between 52, 54 Senate seats. What do you think is going to happen?

Yeah, I mean, I think the here's the thing. I think that the bottom line is that Republicans have a lot of reason for hope and not a lot of reason for confidence. I mean, if you're looking to get to 51 Senate seats, I think there's a very high level of confidence that they'll get there because they're they're winning. They're winning West Virginia. So lopsidedly, nobody's even bothered to poll that race. Yeah.

You know, I mean, Montana, Montana, every everything we've seen shows that John Tester's number is up. His luck has run out. Yes. You know, he's he's he's pulling like seven points behind Tim Sheehy. So those two seats, you know, unless something really wild happens, those two seats are in the bag. Baby Dog Justice would be winning that race.

By even more than Jim, actually. Absolutely right. But yeah, I mean – and the seats that Democrats are trying to pick up are all long shots. Again, would require things – a real shocker at this point for Cruz or Rick Scott or Deb Fischer to lose or Jim Banks or somebody. So –

What we basically got is a playing field now where there's four real battleground races in the Midwest, right? Right. You know, Democratic incumbents Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. Right.

and Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, and then you've got the open seat in Michigan where the Democrats are running Congresswoman Alyssa Slotkin. All four of those races, the Democrats have been ahead the whole time. They're still ahead, but their candidates...

are still running you know well below fifty percent which is a couple of points below fifty percent which is in brown's case like three points below which is not where you want to be at the incumbent and so it's really it really is gonna you know the old cliche comes out of turnout but it really is those races are going to be dragged along by presidential turnout

And so if it's a really good night for Donald Trump across the Midwest, yeah, I think you have a pretty good shot now. You know, it was one thing a few months ago when the Senate candidates seemed to be running way behind Trump. They're not anymore. They're running a couple points behind him. But, you know, I think at the end of the day, if Trump has a good night across the Midwest and sweeps a bunch of those seats,

those seats could come in and you could get very, very quickly to 52 if you get your Rob Brown. And then maybe all of a sudden you get to 55 if you pull in all three of the other Midwestern seats. Can you imagine the meltdown CNN would have with that 55 Senate seats? Yeah, that would be, that would be nuts. And, and I mean, I gotta be honest. I'm much more invested in the Senate than I am in, in the presidential race. But yeah,

And I would not entirely rule out, although it's a real long shot, I would not entirely rule out Sam Brown taking out Jackie Rosen in Nevada. Well, the numbers are increasing there. We're actually doing work up there, and it's changed dramatically the last three weeks. I mean, it's really changed, and that would be one. If Trump can win that by two or three, there's a real chance Sam Brown wins that seat. Yeah.

Well, in here in Arizona, I've said for a while now, if Trump wins by five, I think Kerry Lake ekes out a victory on his, you know, behind him. That may be possible now.

Well, I mean, she's closed the gap. We're skeptical, but yeah, her polling has improved to the point where she's not running like 10 points. No, no, no, no. So, I mean, yeah. Anyway, that will be – like you, I'm more invested in the Senate stuff than the presidential, and I just think 55, they would completely melt down.

Well, speaking of meltdowns, Dan, you had a piece out very recently in National Review. Democrats are melting down on purpose. I thought that was a very insightful piece because you've seen the last couple of weeks Republicans have been saying, look, Democrats are in a panic. They know they've lost. But you point out that's not panicking. It's not knowing they've lost. This is a strategy. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Yeah, I mean, basically, I think if you talk to political professionals, most of them will tell them, yeah, I mean, yeah, you can still put your foot in something down the stretch like we've seen with the garbage stuff. But basically, the last two weeks of a campaign, you're not going to persuade anybody. Anybody out there who's open to persuasion is going to make up their own mind. They've heard all the ads. They've seen all the mailers. If they haven't decided yet –

There's not much else you can do to move them. So that's when the campaigns really switch into mobilization mode. And so this kind of mounting tone of hysteria coming out of the Democrats, maybe it is a sign that they're losing. They know they're losing and they're panicking. But I think if they were winning, if they knew they were winning, they'd be doing the same thing one way or the other. What they have to do is get their people up to a fever pitch,

about, you know, Trump's going to end democracy and, you know, abortion and all this stuff. And, and, um,

You know, and that's why they're narrowing to talking much more about just those two or three topics that they know are kind of the hot buttons that really inflame people, because that's what they want to do. They want to get their people so charged up that they absolutely make sure they all go out to vote. Well, they've tried really hard on this abortion issue in Arizona, and it's just not working. It's going to pass here, but like 52, 55 percent.

And they've tried – they've really pushed it hard on TV. They pushed it in the legislature. And I think the common theme with people I talk to who are not really political are just shrug their shoulders like, whatever. Interestingly, Chuck, I do think the 52 number is fairly right now because we've seen some polling. If you have a turnout shift, that could actually lose here.

Yeah, that's true as well. So, Dan...

The idea of passing any kind of a state constitutional amendment with a pure majority in one election is kind of ridiculous anyway. That's why Nevada does it twice. All right, House races. What do you think is going to happen there? I mean, I think the most – unless the presidential election is like insanely close.

I think almost certainly whoever wins the presidential race is going to take the House with them because the House is so close. I mean, I do think that that's one of the things that maybe goes into the thinking of why you see Trump going to places like New York and California. And you see Harris making a detour to Texas. You know, there are House seats all over the map in noncompetitive states. And

You know, you can afford a little bit of presidential candidate time to try to fire up the voters in those states because you do need that help if you're going to try to govern.

Did Kamala Harris make a mistake not picking Governor Shapiro as her vice presidential candidate, Ronnie Mason? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, look, I mean, we'll see, because if it ends up that she wins Michigan very, very narrowly, it might be that, you know, that sort of the real –

you know, opposition to Shapiro among, you know, frankly, Muslim voters, as well as sort of some sort of radicals on the Democratic side would have been a problem for their ticket. But clearly Shapiro is much more talented than Waltz. He has much less baggage. I mean, we saw how poorly Waltz fared in the debate with J.D. Vance. You know, you

I mean, Waltz, I don't think every I don't think a lot of people, even people like me who had watched Waltz's extremism carefully in Minnesota, realized quite how much trouble he was going to get into with just sort of serially getting caught lying about stuff. I mean, he's he's a bitch. He is a habitual liar.

Yeah, and he was supposed to be – what he was supposed to be was the guy who added this kind of gruff, normal guy, Midwestern thing. And he's weird. He threw that in advance, but he's legit weird. He's actually weird. By the way, do you think – the one thing I appreciate about J.D. Vance is that he's taken on all commerce for interviews. Do you think he's helped himself by just doing these multiple interviews?

Oh, absolutely. You know, what I've said about Vance, and I am no fan of Vance, but I was no fan of Mitt Romney either. But I sort of said about Vance what I said about Mitt Romney after watching 2012, which is like he's given us everything he's capable of giving us, right? Like his flaws are just the stuff that's built into him, but he has absolutely busted his tail.

He's gone everywhere. You know, he's made the most of the things he's good at. He's put in the work. You know, he's the one guy really of the four on the national ticket who has really stood in the ring over and over again with, you know, hostile interviewers and, you know, talking to everybody. I think he's absolutely done everything you could ask of him. I literally had nine women text me yesterday about J.D.,

the Rogan interview and they're not political. They were big fans and they said, oh my goodness, I really like this guy. And then of course, being women, they were upset that I didn't watch the, you know, listen to the podcast so they could talk about it more. But I'm just telling you this, this unscientific method of nine women just texting me out of the blue, just saying I was just so impressed with him. That really surprised me and impressed me at the same time. Yeah. And, you know, and look, I think there's, you know,

I think we've gotten too accustomed to having these old, not very articulate candidates at the top of tickets. And I think there is something to be said for somebody who's just younger and sharp and is comfortable sitting down in that situation.

He's been really good, I thought, the past few weeks. I think he's handled, like you said, the adversarial interviews very well. Okay, really quickly, because we only have a minute left, you had another piece out I wanted to touch on. A competitive race in a racially gerrymandered district could decide the house. Which race is that?

And can you give us like the 30 second rundown on what you see there? Yeah, it's Alabama's second district, which was a Republican district. And what they did, the Supreme Court ordered that a second majority black district be drawn in Alabama, which kind of required them to to do some real serious gerrymandering to to make a district that is minority white, at least. But it's it's still very politically divided. They drew something slightly more.

Around a 50-50 district. And so there's no incumbent. Caroline Dobson is the Republican candidate. She's, you know, a non-politician. The Democrats are running this guy Shamari. Tough race. Yep. Thank you so much, Dan McLaughlin. Folks, follow him on X at Baseball Crank or at National Review Online. Breaking Battlegrounds back on the air next week.

Hi, folks. This is Chuck Warren of Breaking Battlegrounds. Do you want to prepare for a secure retirement? Grab a pen and paper right now and write down 877-80-INVEST. As our loyal listeners know, Breaking Battlegrounds is brought to you by YREFI.

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We have a fantastic program that we did yesterday. You definitely want to check that out. If you're listening to this, make sure you go on. It will be up on our sub stack. But we did a co-branded episode two hours with the Seth Leibson show here in Arizona talking about all our predictions in the battleground states. You guys definitely want to check that out. We had some fantastic guests there.

One of our new guests has been coming on, Chris Silliza, formerly of CNN. He's been fantastic on this program. You definitely want to catch everything he said. And he is the happy warrior, is he not? You know what? Boy, he seems – he is a happy warrior and like a bunch of others –

Everything's changed when they left CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times. All of a sudden – Nate Silver, Cuomo, Mark Halperin of ABC. You see them now and you just don't get repulsed because they've had these chains taken off them. And you just feel like you're getting an actually balanced view of what's going on. I'm getting honesty. Yeah. And it's not like they're – they're not Trump. They're not conservative. But it's like I get honest things. So like –

Chris has really hit on this garbage comment by Biden because the left keeps pushing his apostrophe. It goes, just watch the video. You don't need to do anything else. Just watch the video. For someone in talking to him who clearly values fairness and honesty and accuracy, it's got to be. I mean, it's clearly very liberating to get away from some of these outlets where they can go back to doing that. You get the sense Chris is very positive.

to be able to call balls and strikes without a biased umpire standing over his shoulder. Editorial pressing on him. A friend was dealing with NBC News this past week for two weeks on a story. And I asked him every other day, he would call and we would talk and say, how's it going? He goes, well, it's still illegal. And I just sort of watched this process play how they put their thumb on these stories. And it's just remarkable. And I'm sure they did that all the time. They did. They did.

Moving on, we have our next guest in studio. And thank you so much for joining us, Andy Gould, partner at Holtzman Vogel, specializing in appellate commercial litigation and constitutional law. He is a former Arizona Supreme Court justice. I'll bet, Andy, you're not disappointed to be missing some of the controversies there the last couple of years. After retiring from the bench in 2021, he worked as senior counsel for First Liberty Institute, litigating religious liberty cases throughout the United States.

And you have been leading the fight against something that, again, this is referencing Arizona Prop 140, is a sort of – pardon the expression, but sort of a bastardized version of ranked choice voting. It's really kind of the craziest version of a ranked choice voting system that we've seen proposed in the country. Right.

And this is something every state they get this, they're moving on to another state. If you're listening to this and you're in Florida, if you're in Texas, if you're in San Diego out there, anywhere you are, this stuff's coming for you. If it hasn't gotten to you yet, they're coming for you. Andy, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the program. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. Chuck, it's great to be here today. Can you give us a little bit about this bill, what it would do, how it would change things, and then why people need to vote against this? Well, as a general matter, I would say anytime you look at an initiative, you need to read it. Don't look at the summaries. Read the whole thing, because there's always so many things in these initiatives and props when they get on the ballot that

that are buried deep in there. Prop 140 is one of the most complicated, convoluted initiatives I've ever seen. It amends 18 different sections of the Arizona Constitution. And so, you know... Can I stop...

Do we need to potentially go consider some change to the law to say you can't do amend that many different sections? For example, there was a study that I sent with Sam yesterday from Washington Times that you have to have college degree to understand the language on initiatives on the ballot. And I believe that.

Well, I mean, there is a doctrine in Arizona. It's called the separate amendment rule, where you are only allowed to make one amendment of one section at a time. That's actually the challenge that we filed to Prop 140. The Arizona Supreme Court, my former colleagues, didn't see it that way. But that in and of itself is a problem. It's a log rolling issue. It's this idea...

I can give you a couple of things you want and I get a couple of things I want. And that's not the purpose of initiatives. Certainly not constitutional amendments. Sam, not constitutional amendments. I mean, to me, you have to respect the document. And this Prop 140 does great violence to our Arizona Constitution. So just at that level. And in terms of being able to understand it, you know, Chuck, you made a point about being complicated documents.

I've gone to a number of these clean election presentations are required, I think, by statute. And I presented against Prop 140. And what they do at every one of those forums is somebody from the secretary of state's office gets up and reads the initiative for the prop. And every time they've read Prop 140, I've sat there and thought,

wow, this is confusing to me. And I've been a lawyer for 35 years. I don't know how the average person can understand it. So just the idea in and of itself of, of,

Warping the Constitution with something that nobody can possibly understand, that's just a thing that shouldn't be passed in and of itself. Yeah, correct. Regardless of what the— What the intent of the bill is kind of doesn't matter. The process matters also. Your comment concerns me because you always hear great athletes. The game slows down for a great athlete.

Right. Whether you're Tom Brady, you know, things are slower. If you're a great hitter, the ball is slower. So with your legal background expertise, I imagine a lot of these things that us normal people would find difficult, you find easy. Right. You understand it. You can put the conclusions together. You can comprehend. But this you're saying, this is a mess. The ball is still really fast. The players are still moving fast. The play is not slowed down.

I don't even – I'm not sure that the people that wrote it understand what the play is. It's so complicated. And again, Sam, as you pointed out, we're amending the Arizona Constitution. So those should be careful. They should be limited. So that's just a broad objection I have. I think –

And perhaps even those that are voting for it, if you went to the average Arizona voter on the streets and said, do you explain to me Prop 140, you wouldn't get a single voter who could explain it to you. Not one, because nobody understands it. I've been debating some of the people who are in support of it. I was recently on the air with Chuck Coughlin.

And you did a great job in that, by the way, because he walked himself right into your trap. Well, and and and I thought at some point Chuck's going to have to explain this. And when he's finished, he will prove my point. It doesn't make any sense. So so that's sort of the global problem with it. The other problem with it, more specifically, it it.

talks about open primaries, and the claim is it's about open primaries. There's far more in it than that. First of all, the open primary idea is very complicated, but then they embed in the Constitution in two or three sections of our state constitution provisions for ranked choice voting. And as you pointed out at the beginning of our discussion, this is a movement all over the country. It's a lot of out-of-state money.

That is supporting it. It's almost 100 percent out of state funding. There's very little Arizona money behind. What percentage of their state? When I was looking at a rough calculation, I thought it was 15 or 20 percent is in state. I don't know. But I know it's a large proportion. They had just a handful of donors here who were like the bigger, you know.

Democrat donors. But then the vast majority of funding, Ford Foundation was a big one behind it.

I mean, it was all the Arabella. It's just a Soros. Arabella, which is also the same thing. I mean – Well, and then what you see in other states is a movement to reject it and to ban it. My wife's from Idaho. I was up in Idaho maybe four weeks ago. There are signs everywhere –

don't Californize our elections. Alaska's had a bad experience with it. Yes. They want to get rid of it. So we're behind the trend here of banning it and getting rid of it. This is a bad idea. I will try to explain it to you in the best way I can. But basically what it does is you have a ballot like you've never seen before.

It's it's columns of candidates. You have to rank these candidates from one to five or 10, however many are on the ballot. And then as that is inside the tabulator, candidates will drop out the bottom candidate and it'll take those votes and recalculate them. It's a black box at the other end is a candidate that spits out. You don't know.

what the results of each elimination round is. You could end up with a candidate that you rank number four. So it's... You literally could have somebody who has the right computer access who could just determine on their own, I pick this one and put that no one would ever know that they had done that because there's no way to track what happened. There isn't. There's no transparency. If you don't rank every candidate...

When your choices run out, your ballot, they call it a exhausted ballot. It's thrown out. You're disenfranchised. Your vote doesn't count anymore. So I don't know why we would go to this in a time where people are skeptical about elections. You have something that is...

It's not transparent at all. It disenfranchises voters. It's confusing to voters. It takes longer to vote, to fill out these ballots, you know, to rank every single candidate. Think about the time it's going to take. Incredibly complex. Very complex. And I've never really been able to wrap my mind around it. I represent a lot of companies that, you know, work with ballots and things like that.

There's only a handful of companies in the world that can tabulate these. And it's very complex even for them. It's very complex algorithms. It's extremely difficult to detect errors. You have to have very specialized experts. Look, this is a horrible idea. And to me, Chuck and Andy, the stated motivation behind this is like they keep trying to say, well, this is going to moderate the candidates that we send up.

Except that watch this country. We swing from cycle to cycle. Democrats have been way out there the last six, eight years with the woke agenda and all this stuff. That's pulling back. We're seeing that right now pulling back. Trump was a different candidate in his first two runs than he is now. He's pulled back in certain areas.

Voters are going to swing. We don't need to moderate it by creating an entirely new system. We need to moderate it by just getting educating voters better about who's running for office. Exactly. I couldn't agree with you more. It shows a lack of trust in the American people that we can't trust your choices. So we need to rig a system that gets results that we think are correct. Look, parties are a reflection of America.

And, you know, there's been some things I know people have had some concerns that the parties have moved to the far poles. That may be. But it's not the parties that are driving it. It's the American people. And there's other issues. And what we lack in this country, I would argue, is those types of leaders that bring people together and and help get them to make some progress.

some better choices, I guess. Maybe my words aren't the best. No, but... But it's leadership and it's helping people understand we have a big tent and we can't have everything, but let's get most of what we want. And, you know, that type of leadership, I think it's coming. You've explained it. Both parties are going in that direction. But the answer is not rigging a system that comes out with some result that, you know, some pseudo-intellectual thinks is the right result for the people.

Before we let you go, Andy, I'm going to throw something out. I know we didn't prep you for this. That's all right. I apologize. I'm a trial lawyer, so bring it on, Sam.

One of the things I think a lot of people don't understand is if you go back to the framing of the Constitution, they tried to write it in the vernacular of the day. It sounds like legalese to us because the language has changed more than because that's how it was intended to be written. Like the King James Bible. Would Arizona or other states now, because we've had all these initiatives come in that have really kind of chopped up our state constitutions.

Has the time come for us to seriously consider, okay, we're just going to simplify all the language. We're going to have study sessions for two years, whatever it is, go out there and come up with a simplified version, a vernacular version of our state constitution. Sam, I don't think you can do that. Now, going forward, it's certainly a good idea to keep things simple, but

One of the basic principles of constitutional law and statutory interpretation is the best indicator of the intent are the words themselves. Words have meaning. So when those words were put in the Constitution, they had a meaning at that time and that place. And we have to understand what that meant. Same thing with statutes. So to go back now and change it, we're changing what the intent was.

So I don't think you can vernaculize it. I think lawyers have gotten better. We're not perfect. We've gotten better at making things just the way people talk. And when I first became a lawyer many years ago, there was a lot of Latin and there was a lot of these phrases. Nobody knew what it was. It was boilerplate. I think we've gotten away from that.

But the words are important. So like it or not, we are in a position with the United States Constitution, the Arizona Constitution,

When that particular word is used, we need to understand what it meant at that time. For example, the Commerce Clause in the United States Constitution. Commerce had a very distinct meaning in 1789. And so it has a different meaning now. It has a much broader meaning and a much narrower meaning now.

And so to understand what the intent was and what the Commerce Clause meant, you have to know what it meant then. And I know that people don't like that, but that is the same thing that you do with any document that you're trying to protect and understand the meaning of it. So respectfully, I would say no, but going forward, let's do a better job so people can understand it. Love it. Love it. Yeah.

You know, talking with you, I get a little wistful, Chuck, and this is, again, it goes back to the voters. This guy was running for attorney general here in Arizona two years ago. You had a very good chance. It was a very competitive race, a number of people in it. I truly believe had he been our general election nominee, he'd be in there right now. No offense to Abe Hamadeh, who's a friend of mine. I'm not even going there, but...

How different would this state be right now if we had an Andy Gould or someone else in the AG's office instead of Chris Mays? I made the comment that losing that seat versus the governor was the gravest danger to the state. It was the biggest damage, the biggest hit we took in 2022. Because she's a train wreck. Well, you're very kind. Thank you, Sam and Chuck. The Attorney General's office is a hugely important office. I don't think people realize day in and day out.

the effect that it has. The real politic effect of it is far more directly impactful on their lives than the governor. No question about it. 100%. And so, you know, it is an important office. I certainly gave it my best. And, you know, that's the way things work out in life. I've got a great practice now. One thing I've learned, and I think young people have to understand this, a lot of life is failure.

You have to go out and you will fail. But that's what happens when you take risks. It's not the failure that matters. It's how you respond to it. You learn, you get back up and you fight another day. I don't like losing. I don't like failure. But I've always been a fighter all my life and I come back from it. And so, you know, it was a great experience. I'll tell you something. I wouldn't trade it for the world because I met so many great people across the state.

And, you know, coming from the bench, I'd been a lawyer for many years before, but then I was on the bench for a long time. And when I came into those LDs throughout Arizona, I learned how anxious and scared the people in the state are. People are worried about the future. It was just great to talk with them. And this is a wonderful state. We have great people in this state.

And I know in your past segment, the reference to people being garbage. Well, I grew up poor, so I guess I'm garbage too. They're not garbage. They're great people. They are concerned about our national security. They're concerned about how to put food on the table. There are many families in this state that

And in this country who are waiting for mom or dad to come through that door with that paycheck to eat, to pay the rent. There are many elderly people in this state that are waiting for that Social Security check, millions. And so, you know, they don't like the way the country is going right now and they're scared. And so my age's race taught me a lot about that.

It reminded me of things I went through as a young man. Would it be – I'm going to just finish with this. I know we're running out of time here. Chuck, I'm sorry if I'm stealing the thing. But –

Would it be a good idea for appointed officials, other Supreme Court justices, but also the department heads and states to go do that type of, I mean, listening tour? Maybe you're not running for office, but just go out and hold community meetings in small rooms all across the state for one month out of each year just to listen to those people. Yes. What happens is I can tell you on the courts –

With all due respect to my former colleagues, you get in a bubble up there. You're removed.

And now when I was a trial court judge in Yuma, I had to run. I lived in the community. So I couldn't go to a restaurant without somebody coming up to me saying, yeah, or, you know, you sentenced my brother to prison. But on the appellate courts, you're very, very removed. And I think similar things happen with public officials. You guys know this. You get people encrusted around you. You get removed.

And you're not in touch with what people are thinking. Bubbles are real. They're very real. And how you would do that.

I'm interested, but I couldn't agree with you more. They have to – I think it's – if nothing else, it's very important for judges, again, with all due respect to my former colleagues, to get down off that bench and walk out into that community and talk to people. Not your lawyer friends, not your judge friends, but just the people in your community and –

You'll begin to see things a little differently, I can tell you that. I think, to close here, Sam and I have talked about this a lot. One thing I'm looking for in the future when I donate to candidates and so forth is, do they have a friend or two that's been their friend or two for 20, 30 years who does not make money based on their position? Is there somebody who can just say, Sam, you're just being a jerk. Right. You're just being stupid. I'm not going to tolerate this. Right.

I think that would tell us a lot about their leadership ability. Well, that would be my wife probably. Yeah. And that's important. No, no. But, you know, it's true. I mean, you could tell a lot about a candidate by their spouse as well. It's a great story from The Simpsons that the head writer brought a writer in who was very talented, had done other shows, but was just a complete jerk. And so they brought him in and said, look, we're going to have Lefty Goat. No one likes you. You are consistently a jerk.

And they go, unless you can change, we're going to fire you. And the writer goes and says, can I have the night to think about it? So he comes back the next morning and he said, my wife said I can't be anything but a jerk. So I'm going to have to turn. All right.

You can't do better than that story, folks. Thank you so much for tuning in. We appreciate having you. Andy Gould, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. Well, and with the last break of the day, it is time for the part that, frankly, people tune into here. They're not here for Chuck and I. No. They are here for Kylie. Give the fans what they want. Kylie's Corner. The authorities need your help this week. Uh-oh. Everyone, yeah. So there's a man on the run.

I love when they start like this. So it began in Tennessee. You have to prep this so we can have man on the run playing when you say that. Oh, sorry. Okay, next time. Next man on the run. Okay. There'll be more. I'm sure there will be. So this began in Tennessee on October 18th. A man called 911 claiming to be Brandon Andrade saying that he fell off a cliff while running from a bear.

And that he was partially in water, he was injured, and then the phone disconnected. But the dispatchers were able to ping his phone, and they sent search and rescue out there, and they found a deceased man with an ID as Brandon Andrade on his body.

But when they sent his body off to the forensic center, it was determined that this man did not die from a bear attack, did not die from falling from a cliff. And he was, in fact, not the guy on the ID card. He's still unidentified. So they're working on sketching him up. So this wasn't Andrade. No, this is not Brandon Andrade. And that ID had actually been linked to multiple other crimes of a stolen ID.

And so they somehow connected the stolen ID to a man named Nicholas Hamlet. He's a 45-year-old out of Tennessee, and he's wanted for parole violation. This is the man that's on the run. They went to his house when they figured out who it was.

And when they showed up, he said he was someone else. So he was like, that's not me. I'm not Nicholas. The authority said, okay, bye. Then they were like, oh, that was him. So they went back and now he is on the run. Didn't they have a picture of him? I mean, it seems like they would give you a picture when you go to the house. It might be a really old photo, though. Who would think? I'm not sure. You know, there was some kind of, they left without arresting him at that moment. That is not...

So he's on the run, but he has connections in South Carolina, Alaska, Kentucky, Montana, Alabama, and Tennessee. He's not gone to any of those states, I bet. You think he's still in Tennessee? I think he's in a different state. I don't think he goes where people think he's at. I think that list of states suggests this man is a redneck. Yes. Rednecks are sneaky tricky. They are smart about this. All right, so Nicholas, he's 5'7", 170 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes. That's a good one.

That's the description we got. Do we have a picture of him at all? No, not yet. But when there is one, and when there's a sketch of the deceased man. So anybody with a 5'7", dad body. Yeah, 170 pounds. Brown hair, blue eyes. That's your man. That's him. I don't know. That's 10% of the white American males. What is the reward for turning him in? They haven't offered one yet. Oh, well.

Wait, why are we even looking for this guy if we're not getting paid? You know, if there's an update, I'll keep you guys posted. They seem very lazy about this guy. They're kind of like, eh. Yeah, this does not. I'm happy to say these are not my Phoenix PD. Yeah. Really. This is in Tennessee. What else we got?

Okay, so this is the one I was going to talk about last week, but we had a packed show. But it's actually a really sad story, and I think a little bit fishy, but it's still under investigation. So there's a 19-year-old girl and her mother who were working at a Walmart in Canada. And this happened on October 19th. And one night they were working together, and the mom hadn't seen her daughter for like two hours. And she usually sees her on shift, so she texted her. The text didn't deliver, called her. She didn't answer. Okay.

So she started to try to kind of panic. They had just come here from India together and they were working at Walmart. So she panicked. She asked for help. She wanted people to help search for her. And they ended up finding her on the on-site walk-in oven. And she was cooked to death. I've only heard about this. But...

They found her because an employee had reported leakage coming from the oven. But since this has happened... Folks, you can't see me. I'm sitting here shaking. But since this has happened, there's no way for the oven to lock. Well, it doesn't lock at all. So regardless, she could have gotten out. And in case it did, there was an emergency release button in there. So someone did this? Well, that's what...

It's still under investigation. They haven't said it was an accident. I did see something about this. And like basically they were saying there's no way this happened without a bunch of employees that work at different Walmarts have posted videos of like their walk in ovens being like there's absolutely no way to get stuck in here. And with the 911 call, it's being reported. The caller said someone's trapped inside the oven. How big is this oven? It's it's like a walk in freezer. They're walk in. Yeah.

Like I was watching videos and I could walk in there. That's where they do those rotisserie chickens and stuff. There is a special corner in hell for the person who did this. Not even just hell. Yeah. Oh. Special corner. Special room. That is horrible. Can you imagine? Oh, that's about the worst. I was talking with a doctor one time and having a very morbid conversation and asked him what's the best and worst ways to go. Yeah.

Folks, don't go with Sam to the doctor, but continue. But the best is freeze to death. Yes. Because you just fall asleep. You fall asleep, you get warm. Yeah. You're done. Yeah. It's like the least painful death you can have. He said the two absolute worst are burning and drowning. Yeah, I believe it. Yeah. I have the chills.

Sorry to be depressing. That's my segue. That's Kylie's corner. All right. Well, Jenna, what's your sunshine moment? I have a sunshine moment that's a little political. Okay, go ahead. It's a fun one. So with all the polls coming out, we're tracking, finding our favorite polls and which ones we think are the most accurate. Kylie, how many bets do you have down on this race? I don't have any. I don't have any. Really? I keep it to sports. Okay. Okay.

But Robinhood's... Just for clarification there. All right. Robinhood's offering some investing stuff, though, where you can bet through Robinhood on some of the candidates, which is fun. Yeah, so one of the best polls, one of my favorites, Kylie, you actually showed this to me, is the cookie poll in Minnesota. So there's a bakery that sells red and blue cookies for...

For Trump and Harris. For Trump and Harris. They're buttercream cookies. Sound very delicious. Okay, I do love a buttercream cookie. So they taste about the same, and they've been doing this since 1984. Wow.

And apparently the bakery has the winner of the cookie poll has won the popular vote every year except for in 2020 when Biden won the popular vote. But Trump was was Trump was the cookie champ. He was definitely the cookie champ by far.

So, there is no rule against ballot box stuffing when it comes to buying cookies. So, if you do want to go in and buy 30 different cookies for Trump, you can do that. In 2012, a supporter of Mitt Romney went in, and the night before the election, he bought enough cookies so that Romney would be won over the cookie poll. Yeah.

So this is like one of the betting markets. They showed there was like three people put massive bets in for Harris right during the debate, which then changed that line instantly, whatever, and then they were able to tout that. So you can stuff their cookie ballot box here. Yes, you can. Yeah. And you can vote early and vote often as well when it comes to cookies because you can just keep eating if you want.

I have a feeling Trump's winning this year. Yeah, Trump is winning this year. Even though it's in Minnesota, he's been winning the entire time. He started at a ratio of 1.5 to 1, Trump to Harris, and then it's advanced, and so now it's basically 1.9. Future diabetics for Trump. Exactly. I think what reporters have missed about—we were talking yesterday of Chris—

about these states that aren't swing. Chris Silliza. Chris Silliza. The swing states, the top seven, he doesn't think those change. I agree. But you have the states of New Hampshire and New Mexico and a couple others he was mentioning. I think the point people are missing, especially national reporters who just spend 24-7 on this, is this. Trump, for example, lost New Mexico in 2020 by 11. Right. He's probably going to lose by four or five.

And what people don't understand is, A, that it closes the national popular vote total down. A lot. It closes the gap. Okay. But more importantly, Republicans are going to leave this cycle and saying, we have a chance in the state again. And that's not what – that's what the press is not getting. Right. So, you know, if he goes and loses New Hampshire by two versus the 11 or 12 last time. Right.

If you are a Republican candidate, say, OK. And they seem to elect Republicans on state level stuff, right? And if I am a top Republican candidate or I'm the party, I can go to donors now. Right, right. So New Mexico, if you cut that to four or five –

That all of a sudden opens up. We can go up the legislature. We can go up to various county seats. This is all different now. And I think that's what people are missing about this. It's not that he will win them, but he's cut that margin by 50 percent to two thirds. What's really interesting and obviously, you know, I support Trump, but I'm aware of his weaknesses. If you had a different candidate, a Rubio, a DeSantis, something like that.

I think you would see partially not even as support for them, but partially as a rejection of the extreme woke agenda that Democrats. I think you would see states like New Mexico potentially flip Minnesota. New Hampshire for sure. New Hampshire for sure. Virginia for sure. Virginia for sure. Yeah, it's.

It's something that people need to be cognizant of as we look at our candidates going forward. Exactly. Well, folks, thanks for joining us this week on Breaking Battlegrounds. On behalf of Jeremy, Kylie, Jenna, Sam, and our wonderful guests, have a great weekend. Follow us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. Follow us on Substack, wherever you get your podcasts. Have a great weekend. Remember to vote and vote often.