Inside America’s Political Future with Kimberley Strassel, Mollie & Mark Hemingway, and Evan Barker
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Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds with Kimberly Strassel, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. How are you doing? I'm good, Chuck. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me back. Thank you for visiting us in the Valley of the Sun. It is gorgeous. It's so beautiful right now. You wrote a column last week, I believe, that you and I should go bowling because I agree 100%. I think the biggest loser in this election...

And I think the biggest benefactor of that was the legacy media and what they did to, there's no other word, pimp Kamala Harris. And I know, I can count on both hands of people I know who are not, they're educated people, but they're not like you and I where they're reading the politics every day, right? Right, of course.

I know a dozen that just said, they pushed me over for Trump. I'm not crazy about Trump, but it seemed so weighed against him that I was just done with it. What are your feelings? Yeah, I mean, I know that's not the conventional wisdom. If you talk to a lot of conservatives out there, they railed against this media promotion of Kamala Harris and obviously the attacks on Trump because they felt it was an in-kind contribution to Democrats.

That's my argument, is I think we have to think about it another way. I think it was very damaging to Kamala Harris in the end and very damaging to the media. And part of it is the people that you mentioned that simply just couldn't take it. It just angered them so much. But here's the other way in which I think they really, really sunk their own cause in the end, is that when they decided four years ago—

But longer than that, Joe Biden was running for the president. They were going to ignore questions about his health even back then.

They were going to present him as the light versus Donald Trump. Right. They were going to, no matter what they did in office, as inflation soared and energy prices went up and the border fell apart, they excused it away and said it's all fine. And by the way, the only things that Americans really care about are trans issues and climate. And they allowed Democrats to continue living in a bubble and not course correct.

And that's a big difference if you go back from like the late 1970s when Jimmy Carter was president, when you had an honest press that related to a White House that they were in big trouble. Jimmy Carter fired cabinet officials. Right. He did a bunch of things meant to correct it. He didn't manage to do it, but he was at least aware he had a problem. Democrats went into this election and they honestly thought they were going to win. 100%. And I still don't think they've learned the lessons.

They are blaming everybody else for being racist, bigoted, xenophobic. It's none of those things. And I'm wondering, does it take more of the Jeff Bezos people to say, I'm just cleaning house here because you obviously don't get what's going on? Do you think that's... Because, I mean, I understand they just... Washington Post, I saw today, just fired, resigned, whatever, whatever you want to use. Well, fired. He's basically saying he's fired. They're political dissidents.

top political director reporter of the Washington Post. Have you seen that? I had not seen that. Oh, it's just like literally 20 minutes ago. And he sent this whiny text out. I just have no words for it. And my thought was Bezos, I think, is going to take this serious. Like, unless people start respecting us again of being fair and critical to both sides, no one's going to take what we do that's serious and important. And I believe we both agree. I think it's really important that the press is

there and active and strong. It's the microscope a democracy needs. I like to point out to people that as far as I know, there's only one industry that gets its own mention in the Constitution.

That is the press, because our founding fathers understood that it was vital for exactly what we were just talking about. To go out there, have a connection with the people, to ride herd on both sides of government, to call people out with neither fear nor favor, and to broadcast back to those parties how their policies are sitting with the nation. When you don't do that, and when the press is taken aside, a partisan side, and instead is acting as an arm of a party,

The whole system gets out of balance. I hope that what we see are more actions like network executives and newspaper owners saying we have to change direction and we have to do this seriously and we have to do it from the bottom up and the top down.

I worry, you know, we saw a little bit of this in 2016 where the press said, oh, me, oh, my, how did we miss this whole Trump thing that was going on and we just wrote him off and maybe we really need to have a rethink. And then they, of course, completely forgot that and wrote about Russia collusion for three years. So we'll see how lasting this is. I've been more encouraged by the Democratic Party, who I think you're finally hearing some members saying we really screwed up here and we've got to change policies and directions.

Well, there is no electoral path. There's no electoral path for Democrats if Republicans are getting 40% plus of Hispanic vote and 25% of black voters. There's no electoral path in the future for them. And so I think it's more of a fear, and I think it's more of a...

you know, a Christmas nightmare that they're just sort of waking up to. So it's interesting. Speaking of favors, so Mitch McConnell and John Curtis, Senator-elect of Utah, Collins, have done a lot of Republican senators a favor today by just saying we're not going to vote for Matt Geitz. And

I understand there was a dozen to 20 Republican senators that just did not want to cast that vote at all. Yeah, you know, we're out here in Arizona and I think you can hear the sigh of relief here. Yes, yes, yeah. But look, for good reason, and I've been saying this, I just wrote a column on this, that

There's already going to be some Gates defenders who are going to come out and say, you know, this is because Republicans lacked a spine and you didn't have sufficient loyalty to the president. And this was all made up. The problem is this, is that.

I can understand how Republicans, when there are allegations against Republicans, they have in their mind the recent memory of the attacks on Donald Trump and the attacks on Brett Kavanaugh. And they say, you know, this is the latest witch hunt against one of our people. I think it behooves conservatives.

to look closely at these as the law and order party and understand that sometimes where there's smoke, there is fire. And that gets to the second problem here is that Republicans are well-versed in coming out and defending other Republicans who are under false attack. Correct.

you didn't see republicans rushing to do that for matt gates and that's the role they understand they have spent time with and there's enough i can tell you if you walk the halls of washington everyone had good reason to suspect that this ethics report was going to be very very problematic uh... and i think i'll try on sort of uh... honesty and matt gates is our unit was i'm no different than you this is just like the steel dossier for me

I think they kind of fell for that and it wasn't the case and that that was proven out in the lack of support. Well and it's fair for Donald Trump to view people who are attacked on the Republican side. I have been the victim of these attacks and it can cloud our judgment but at the same time you wish someone would have said nonetheless. Nonetheless sir. This one's gonna be a tough

not just because of these accusations that originated in Florida, and most Florida politicals I've talked to do not defend him on this. Right.

It's just something you wish he would not have put himself into that, right? I think the other part of this, too. Yeah, absolutely. Don't put it in there. He's already got some other nominees that he's asking Republicans to kind of hold hands and jump. And I don't know if some of them are going to get through either. But this one was such a big one. And I think the other thing that was miscalibrated here is...

that for all Donald Trump has rightly spoken about the abuses of the Department of Justice and the desperate and urgent need for it to be reformed,

I think he underestimated how deeply Republican senators feel about that too. Correct. And how much they want someone in that job who is in fact not viewed as a super partisan, who is viewed as someone that can command respect, is going to drive reform, but that can get DOJ out of politics, not drag it further in, in sort of a firestorm over their personality and their ambitions and their issues.

I want to start this question here and it's going to carry over to our next segment with you. But what do you think the Trump administration needs to do the first hundred days, the first year to be seen as successful? I think you can see it in his first picks, what his intention is going to be. And I think that those are indeed the right decisions.

priorities he's broadcasting. One is foreign policy. Obviously, those were some of his very first picks. I mean, Elise Stefanik, we saw these, the ICC warrants come out for Netanyahu. She's going to go to this international institution. I can't believe they're even pushing that with him coming to office. It's just...

Talking tone deaf. They must be Democrats. Yeah. I mean, I think it was done on purpose. It was provocative. Yes. He picked a woman that's going to go and just, you know, be like, you really want to have this fight? Okay, let's have this fight. You know, obviously backing Israel. We'll see how things go in Ukraine. I'm not quite sure it's as easy to sort out as just make a telephone call. But, you know, so foreign policy won energy. By the way, Chris Wright, if you have not looked into this guy, he is a rock star when it comes to energy.

Tell us how. How so? Okay, so this is a guy who's just really, really, first of all, he lives, breathes, eats energy. He's a self-described lifelong energy nerd, but an energy entrepreneur too. Liberty Energy is one of the biggest frackers in the United States, but he has also worked in solar and geothermal and nuclear industries.

So he'll push all of it. All of it. And that's his attitude. I don't care where energy comes from as long as it's safe, reliable, and makes people's lives better is his argument. And by the way, they have this great document that Liberty Energy called Bettering Lives Through Energy. And I mean, they've got like 10 points and they're so common sense and so perfect that you just love it. But also his argument, and by the way too, if you actually care about decarbonization, if you care about climate change, the science

single biggest needle mover we have without a doubt and that has already proven itself and is amazing is natural gas versus what he calls low impact decarbonization efforts where you are spending tons of subsidy money on wind and solar and EVs and mostly what you're doing is shuffling around where the energy comes from. You're like that New York you're like the guy in New York that has the various cups pick the dice that's in the cups right? Yeah. Yeah.

We have about a minute left here in this segment here. What's one cabinet pick that has surprised you after Matt Gaetz? That has surprised me after Matt Gaetz. So one that has surprised me, but I actually think it's going to be really interesting to watch and a lot of good could come of it is Sean Duffy at the Transportation Department. Yes.

There was initially kind of another smirk and eye roll in the media 'cause it was another person from Fox News, but that forgets that this guy spent eight years as a Congressman, a respected Congressman from Wisconsin, and has done a lot of really neat things. He's a lawmaker, he knows his stuff.

And there was also a very cute comment from one of his colleagues in Wisconsin, Mike Gallagher. You know, he and Sean Duffy and his wife have nine kids. And he said, the other great thing is that the Duffys have so many children, they could probably fix 85% of infrastructure all on their own.

And he was also a prosecutor for eight years, correct? Yes, correct. Yeah, yeah. So it's a man with gravitas. Yeah, absolutely, I think. And, you know, it's going to go in there. There's a lot that needs to be fixed. FAA. Right, all that. You know, airline safety. Some really dumb decisions we've been making on infrastructure. But I think he's going to be a good choice. With Kimberly Strassel, Wall Street Journal. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We have with us Kendalee Strassel of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. How long have you been on the editorial board now? I'm back just this month. It was 30 years. Well, 30 years at the Wall Street Journal. Almost all of that at the editorial page. So tell our audience, what does an editorial board do for a major newspaper like the Wall Street Journal?

So, I think this is really important because it's a very big part of American journalism in particular. But, you know, all newspapers, most do, have a division between their news side, which tends to make up the bulk of all their employees, and then the opinion side. Correct. And the editorial board is the group that meets. And those unsigned pieces that you see that just say, we, the editorial board, believe this,

That's what we sit and talk about. Now, I have to say one thing I've always felt very grateful that I work at the Journal is that that's sometimes made a lot easier at the Wall Street Journal because we've had a consistent motto for decades and decades, free markets, free people. It used to be free markets, free men, and then people like me started to work there, so we had to switch it up a little bit. But when you have a motto that guides you rather than partisanship,

We don't really care what party is practicing free markets and free people. We'll support them just like we'll be critical of whatever party is not practicing free markets. So it makes a lot of, it's not like we sit around and are debating first principles. There are things we certainly, you know, new stuff that comes up or complex issues and we have little arguments and discussions, not arguments, but, you know, debates.

And then we all take turns writing editorials often based more on our subject areas. How many people are on the editorial board? Oh gosh, I don't know. I mean it's not a huge number. I think it's maybe up to ten.

For every political pundit in the world, that sounds like a great job. It sounds like you sit around talking all day. It's amazing. Well, if only. If only, right. Yeah, there were days. There are meetings. There's editorial writing. Some of us also write columns. We also do podcasts, and we do television. So there's a lot that goes on. That's fantastic. But the editorial page also includes our features, op-ed editors, books review people, all that.

Anything that's an opinion. Let's talk about free markets. So Donald Trump is really pushing tariffs. I've always felt when he does it, it is more of a negotiating point for him. I'm bringing a bat into the room and we can play ping pong or I can bring a bat. What do you want to do? How does the Wall Street Journal view this tariff conversation that he's putting front and center?

I hope that's what his strategy is this time around, too, because as free markets people, the history of the United States is, I mean, and you can just go look at Smoot-Hawley. I mean, it's right there in black and white what has happened when we have really ramped up tariffs. It's not good for the American economy. It usually ignites trade wars.

And also, it just it undermines the idea of trade and the very sound concept behind trade, which is that certain countries that better are producing other things than our other countries that can do it more efficiently. And rather than spend a lot of needless effort trying to do it here, it

effort resources and do it unproductively and inefficiently, you know, better to trade. That does need to be equal, fair. You know, there needs to be. And I do think Donald Trump has made some good points about inequalities and problems in trade deals.

But I don't know if the answer to everything, in fact, I'm quite certain the answer to all problems of the world is not tariffs. And I think there's going to be some real repercussions for the United States economy if that's where he goes. He didn't do that in his first term. And I just I seek to remind Trump people of that all the time. He was hugely successful with his economy by following a very free market Reagan agenda.

Well, I think that's why this Treasury pick is so interesting, and we still don't have it. No, no. And what you are seeing there is, look, you and I both know this. I mean, Republicans are all celebrating. They won the election, but there are battles still coming, and there are some real divisions in the party at the moment, especially on the economic party between Republicans

what I would call free market, Reagan conservatives, and what some people are calling the new right, which to me, because I'm old enough to sort of

sound a lot like Rockefeller Republicans to me. They're much more like, well, we're okay with subsidies as long as it goes to the right kind of people. Right. And, you know, we want to be friends with you. We don't necessarily need right to work because we want those votes and we're with the working guy. It's not really about, a lot of it's not about freedom.

and small government. There's a lot of industrial policy there, tariffs. There's going to be some real debates on the floor of the House between Republicans on these issues. As there should be. Yes. So talking about the new right, J.D. Vance, is he the new intellectual leader on the new right? Well, look, I think that they're clearly... And then this kind of got raised and pushed aside already in the first week, but there was this debate

The edict that came out, Nikki Haley's not going to have a position in my cabinet, Mike Pompeo, you know, even though these guys supported Donald Trump, they're up and comers in the party. And the word on the street is that that's the edict because they are clearing the way. They don't want anyone in a cabinet position where they can get any attention that might be a threat or give them some leverage to run against J.D. Bantz for the nomination next time.

It will be interesting to see what happens with that. What else do you think people can expect from the Trump administration? We talked energy. I think foreign policy, the market would be a choice I was very happy about. Yeah.

I also think what people are missing, and no one's talking about it, is that you're going to start seeing a lot of focus on Central and South America with Rubio, which is desperately needed. Overdue. I almost wish sometimes we'd put more emphasis on that than Europe. Absolutely. Overdue. We need to be paying more attention, in particular, what's happening right now in Mexico.

for instance, our nearest neighbor on our southern border. And their politics are really moving in some disturbing directions. We need to do some stuff to kind of... Everybody's excited about their female president who's basically a socialist. Exactly. But no one talks about her because she's female. And we've seen this happen in other countries before, and it never leads anywhere good. So I agree with that. The border, that was another thing I was saying, the first picks and priorities. Tom Holman...

I was, you know, there's a lot of I can see hand wringing out there about deportation, but I thought his initial comments were like this must be done in a thoughtful way. We're going to start with people who we know who are truly bad guys and then let's sort of see how plans develop. I hope Congress

does a border and immigration policy process where they start trying to get singles instead of grand slams. Let's put a bill out about more immigration judges. Let's put a bill out with the border. Let's do one single at a time, and before you know it, we win. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about more flexible. I love this idea, by the way. Seasonal visa issuance for people who don't want to live here. They just want to come work with you. They want to come up to do jobs that a lot of times Americans won't do.

and just in the summertime and they want to send their money back and go back home at the end of the thing. And we used to do that in the Braceras program. Yes. And it was a great success. It unfortunately went away. But we need to be talking about stuff like that. Well, it's not like we have Americans who don't want to do it. We don't have the Americans anymore. Well, there's that. We have a population decline, which everybody keeps ignoring. You're going to have to have some of these seasonal workers for various industries and so forth. That's absolutely true. We've got about 30 seconds left here. Are you hopeful for America's future?

I am. I'm always hopeful for America's future. That's that Alaska spirit. Yeah, absolutely. No, no, my gosh. I mean, look, my view always has been whenever someone says, oh, God, it's just so terrible. It's never been so terrible. I was like, huh? Actually, no one's caning each other on the floor of the Senate. We've done that. We've had a civil war. Like, things

indeed been worse indeed indeed and and we swing back and the pendulum swings again and we're gonna we're doing that again right now we just saw that in this election i agree kimberly strassel wall street journal thank you so much thank you enjoy your night here yes i will welcome back to breaking battlegrounds we're with the hemingways mark hemingway he is the editor of real clear politics or investigative journalist real politics see

And Molly Hemingway, you've seen her on Fox News a lot. She's the editor-at-large for The Federalist. Welcome. Great to be here. Glad to be here. So what has surprised you thus far with the Donald Trump transition? I'm not sure how much has been surprising except for the speed at which it's moving. He was ready. They are naming people regularly. I mean, Pam Bondi today after Matt Gaetz left, I mean, it's done like that. Within hours, yeah. Yeah. But I don't think the picks themselves have been altogether that surprising. The first...

administration I think you had a more traditional transition or I think Trump thought he had a more traditional transition so usually you run for office you have a hundred days everyone kind of comes together after you win and so he was working with establishment DC figures and the establishment really got to kind of put together that cabinet and it didn't work out as well for him as he might have hoped and so I think he knows a lot more now and so he's thinking about what he wants to accomplish in these agencies and who will help him accomplish it

I agree. What do you think the American people view as a successful Trump administration in the first 100 days? What do they need to accomplish?

That is a really good question. I mean, I think that getting one big legislative win out of the gate would probably be helpful. And these things might take time, but I do think that the Trump administration is working very hard on making serious structural changes. So at least signaling that in a big way, some big change is going to come to the federal government, specifically the administrative state, to make things differently. Those two things, I think, would go a long way. And I think...

This campaign, unlike the 2020 campaign, was very much like the 2016 campaign in terms of having a very clear set of issues that he was running on. Yes. The border was one, the economy was another, and a make America great foreign policy. And so that just gives you some really...

good things to do in the first hundred days. Obviously, what Biden did to the border, he didn't just it didn't take him 100 days to do it. It took him one day. Right. So Trump can kind of just go back to what worked in the first administration in the first hundred days and then work to make it more permanent for the rest of his administration on the border. And that's key. Also, with regulations, which

A lot of people don't realize, I don't think, how much deregulation played a role in the economy being so vibrant in the first term. And so I think we'll see some kind of anti-overregulation activity in the first 100 days. And then also I think he really means that he wants to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible on as good of terms as possible. I don't know if it can happen in 100 days, but it could.

Yeah, no, I think that what you're saying, the regulation is key and it goes back to what I was saying, I think, about the administrative state. I mean, obviously this is, you know, a big project of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. I mean, Musk's involvement in the campaign is almost like wholly that. It's interesting because Musk

He's a bit of a wild card, but he seems to have very different motivations. I mean, he's got all the money he needs. He doesn't care. His goal is to put a man on Mars, and he can't do that in a country that is completely sclerotic because it's overregulated. And he tells these great personal stories about, like, for every new SpaceX launch they have to approve, that they have to go out and do some tests

that the sonic booms aren't gonna be hurting the local seal population and things like that. And it's just totally absurd, and he's right about that. And so the people around Trump have a real commitment to that. And I think that that's gonna be, but it also dovetails in with Trump's personal vendetta against this administrative state that tried to undermine him. It's not, it harms his ability to rule and it's harming America more generally. - Molly, so Senator Casey finally admitted he lost a day in Pennsylvania.

But what they did in Pennsylvania, does that not... I've heard a lot of people who never believed 2020 was stolen. But now they're saying, you know...

Maybe he wasn't wrong about this. What are your thoughts on that? Because it was so bad form what they were doing. Right. The Federalist has put together a big election reporting unit which looks at the ways in which voting rules are manipulated or changed to privilege one political party over another. And that was a big issue because of what happened in 2020. People felt that maybe it wasn't all done correctly.

that the election was not won as cleanly as they would like to see elections.

Trump won so big this time that I don't know if people are realizing how narrow some of these victories were or how narrowly lost they were. And so little issues that only affect a few thousand or 10,000, 20,000 people, the way that we run our elections is really important and can affect that size of a vote. And so I do hope people continue to care about election integrity and improving the processes going forward. Mark?

Yeah, that's exactly right. But I think what people also aren't really taking into account that just the fact that Trump won the second time, how much that in a weird way sort of gives credence to the belief that there were problems the first time around. And again, obviously there are different ways of looking at this. There's a lot of crazy out there in terms of Venezuelans hacking voting machines in 2020. But there was also a lot of...

There was a lot of focus on that because they didn't want to deal with the actual sort of legitimate problems. Voting lists and voter list maintenance and whether people are unfairly getting out the vote in one area and not the other, whether they're counting votes the same way in one county or another. Mark Zuckerberg's Zuckbox thing where they took it. Which had a bigger influence than anybody talks about. Correct. We don't talk about it enough. We're going to take a break here with Mark and Molly Hemingway. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be 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. We're with Mark and Molly Hemingway. Thank you for joining us. Great to be here. How did you both get into this profession? We have very different stories. Mark knew from the time he was young that he wanted to be a writer. Yeah. Although I didn't necessarily think I would get into politics full bore. I was very interested in writing. And even to this day, I mean, I'm actually one of the few people in political journalism, I think, that actually enjoys the act of writing. I think most people just see it as a means to an end.

But, you know, that was sort of my career path, and I've sort of pursued it all along, and that's what I've done. That's fantastic. Yeah, for me, it was a second career, encouraged in part by Mark, and does not come natural to me. I studied economics and preferred math, but...

I have loved working in journalism and I love getting to write about all the big issues that are going on and also just I know there are a lot of people who want to know what's going on in DC and I like being able to report on it and tell people what's going on. It just seems like a nice thing to do. I don't know. We were talking about President Trump and his cabinet fix earlier. What do you think it signals with Marco Rubio, Secretary of State? I personally think you're going to see a lot more focus on Central and South America than people think.

But what are your thoughts on this? That's what I was going to say before you started saying that about Rubio. I mean, obviously he has some scores to settle with both Cuba and Venezuela personally, I think, which is a very good thing. But more than that, though, we've just been completely neglecting the Western Hemisphere. Our immigration problem is largely driven by the fact that Mexico is a complete narco state.

I mean, we need to be very honest about what Mexico has become and what an honest threat it is to the American way of life. I mean, their entire housing developments are being financed by cartels in Texas. I mean, it's a massive problem, and it's just kind of been swept under the rug. And Rubio, I think, is very, very well equipped to deal with that. At the same time, I think he's a very intelligent guy. He's been very plugged into foreign policy with the Senate for a very long time. So he's also very conscious of the broader strategic threats like China that we need to be focused

That's what I would say. I think that some of our greatest foreign policy successes were when we were fighting the Soviet Union in the 80s and the looming threat of communism. And there is a country that is communist-controlled and is expansionist, and it's China. And for some reason, it's taken Americans a lot to pivot to China and understanding what a threat they pose. When you look back at the Cold War and how we weren't just...

building up militarily, but we were also engaging against the Soviet Union economically, and we need to do that. We need to pivot there to China, and I think he's been very good on this issue as well. It's for Africa, for Central South America, China is basically a loan shark. We're going to give you money. If you don't pay me, I'm taking it.

They've been very effective in spreading their power that way. And we've ignored it. And they have all the benefit of being both a controlled economy and also having a large market that they've been able to play around in unfettered. On a highly speculative note, what do you think the chances are that U.S. military will engage the cartels under a Trump administration? I mean, this is highly speculative, and the producers of The Lioness or others will be very involved in this, but what do you think the chances are?

I would be extremely disappointed if SEAL Team 6 wasn't in northern Mexico within a month or two. I'm not saying this because I want to start a war with Mexico or anything like that. But I'm just saying that the actual honest-to-goodness national security threat relative to the things that we've been fighting is very real. It's absolutely real. But there are so many things that we could be doing long before we get an email.

I did not say I wanted the 101st Airborne in there. I said I wanted SEAL Team 6. I mean, whatever they do should be very surgical and I don't want to start a wider conflict. But absolutely, there's no getting around the fact that cartels have to be put in their place and I'm not sure anything other than

force is going to do that. But it's also true that, I mean, cartels basically control our southern border, but that is at our allowance of that. We are the ones who have, under the Biden administration, ceded control of the border to them. So before, you know, before military action, we could just also tighten up the border. I just hope everybody's getting a window in our marriage here.

Happy to disagree with you more on that, honey. No, I totally recognize what you're saying. The thing is we have to – it's in our best interest to maintain order above all else. I mean a big story of foreign policy in the United States in the last decade or more has been this liberal neocon interventionism where they go in and do things like blow up Libya, which as bad as Gaddafi was, there was some semblance of order. Now it's an open-air slave market and the largest conduit of migrants into Europe. So we don't want to do anything –

It's foolish. And that's because of the American optimism that people love freedom. And I think it's been a lesson we've all learned over the last two decades. Not everybody loves freedom. When you haven't had it, you don't necessarily love it because you don't know what it really is. And I think that's something... Or you might not have the belief systems necessary. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm an old-fashioned neocon, I guess, interventionist, and I've just learned they don't care because they don't know it takes time.

And so, you know, the one thing about this, as we're having a gab fest here about it, do you think we need to start focusing again on the demand? Because, you know, there's no cartels if people aren't taking drugs. It's sort of like the fentanyl crisis. You know how you prevent a lot of people from dying? Don't take drugs. What do you think we need to do on that?

Right. Well, I don't know. I mean, I actually do think the supply is a big problem. Not that supply necessarily creates its own demand. But there's a demand, right? What are we doing? Is there anything we can do? I think this is where economic policy comes into play as well. We have changed our economy. Some of this is just what happens as the global economy changes. But some of it is about how we have hollowed out a lot of our industrial working class and it

causes problems that lead people to make bad decisions and having an economy that serves everybody well would be great. And related to that, there's been a huge breakdown of law and order in this country, particularly in urban environments. I mean, I'm from Oregon, for crying out loud, where they kind of undid it, but they actually

made it so that they completely decriminalized all hard drugs. And people were doing hard drugs on the streets of Portland and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I mean, it was legal effectively. And so even just enforcing a lot more basic law and order so people don't feel as empowered to like do drugs out in the open or there aren't tent cities where people who are like marginally employed can just have a bad night of drinking and forget to pay a few bills and fall into a whole nother level of society that is destructive.

You know, basic law and order would go a long way, I think, toward dealing with that.

What else do you think Trump will do for law and order? Because it is an issue. I hear about it all the time. I mean, we have a lot of females on our staff. They don't like to walk alone at night. I mean, what do we do? I don't know. I actually think much of what needs to be done with that topic deals with city governance. Correct. And unfortunately, cities are mostly governed by Democrats. So what I mostly hope will happen is some kind of reawakening there where they realize that their policies have been very bad. Republican donors need to be reawakened.

to start getting involved in city elections again. I completely agree on that, but also you're starting to see some self-reflection on this. The Democratic brand is incredibly tarnished, and one reason why it's incredibly tarnished is

For instance, every major city on the West Coast is a giant homeless encampment. And people are making the connection between democratic governance and unsafe places. And so there has been some sort of recognition of that. And I think you see people like Gavin Newsom, who obviously has a terrible track record, but just to save his own skin, is trying to backtrack on a lot of this stuff.

But I do think this is where immigration issues can come into play. A lot of the crime is happening in illegal immigrant communities, and so tightening down the border there is important. But there are also all these other federal agencies that help create systems that enable crime and corruption, whether it's housing and urban development or other, or even HHS in some ways with its interplay with drugs. So there are many ways that people can work on it.

In speculation, do you think there's a chance Clarence Thomas and Alito will retire with the first two years of the Trump administration of the Republican Senate? Do you think they think that way? I'm writing a book right now on Justice Alito, and I...

I think that a lot of people on the right would not mind if while Republicans have control of the Senate and the presidency. But I also know that these are two men who have a lot left to give and might not be ready for that retirement.

Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, having said that, I mean, I think that obviously a lot of people are looking at actuarial tables and are a little nervous. And, you know, I'm sure there will be people that were looking hard at the question. But at the same time, you want to talk about two men that have really earned their place. And shaped the court. And shaped the court and done good things. And Roberts and Alito have both been on the same length of time. Right. Well, I'm just saying it's interesting.

It's possible, and there's some great legal people out there, but the idea you're going to get two people of that quality, Alito and Thomas. You might not be able to improve them. Yeah, it's, I mean, they're really something. Let's talk about the Department of Justice. What needs to be done to clean it up? Because it has become a highly politicized institution. Raise the building and salt the earth.

Just start over? Just start over? I mean, it's almost that bad. I do think the country, that the future health of the country is imperiled by the current Department of Justice. What they have done in the last eight years, not to speak of what they did prior to that that I don't think we were fully aware of, is republic threatening. From the Russia collusion hoax, which they actively ran and participated in against the duly elected president,

First of all, playing around with it before he was elected in 2016 and then afterwards. The law breaking and the lying and the leaking and the game playing, the effort to basically do a coup on that president. Then in the last administration running two of the most ridiculous politically

indefensible prosecutions of the previous president and major political opponent of the current president and nobody being held accountable. There are so many examples of FBI and DOJ wrongdoing that major reform, major reorganization, and major tearing down of what's led to this corruption is needed. I mean, since Watergate, there's been this real popular narrative that

The president itself could be this imperial bad guy or whatever. And so we need some sort of mechanism to rein in the president. And that has to be the Department of Justice. It makes no sense constitutionally. How on earth do you have an agency that responds directly to the president that is somehow also responsible for keeping him in check?

Like it creates all sorts of individual conflicts. And we got to the situation where the pendulum was swung so far in the other way that all the Justice Department does often in a situation like this, particularly with a situation where the federal government workforce tends to be so inherently liberal that all they do is try and impede Republican presidents. And they just simply can't stand. And it's not just presidents. I mean, when you also look at how little they did during the George Floyd BLM riots of 2020. Right.

Saying at one point, I think Christopher Wray said, well, there wasn't much we could do because a lot of their rioting was at night. And so it was hard to see what was going on relative to what they did during the January 6th protests and the pro-lifers who've been arrested, the school board parents who were gone after as terrorists. Like it's not just at the presidential level. It's all the way down to the very lowest of the low.

But the double standard is just so insane. I saw David Axelrod, Obama's campaign guy, tweeting today that this is before Pam Bondi was announced or whatever. It was disturbing that he was right for Gates and announced he'd step down. It was disturbing that Trump would have a yes man in the Department of Justice. I'm like, I'm sorry, Obama's AG, Eric Holder, called himself Obama's wingman. He didn't have a problem with that.

I mean, the idea that someone who directly serves at the pleasure of the president would enact his agenda, I mean, I'm sorry, that is the Constitution of the United States. That's what people voted for. We did not vote for a shadow government that operates on its own to go after the president. An unaccountable, unelected shadow government. Did the media, the legacy media, really hurt itself this election? I think so, and I could not be happier about it. They have been bad for decades, and this time they really showed how much less powerful they are.

They were this time than previously. And both campaigns seem to really play into the podcast, the radio, over the legacy media. When you think about anything interesting that came out of these interviews, it was not in a five-minute hostile interview of Donald Trump. It was in these three-hour long-form discussions with Joe Rogan or other people that he interviewed with. And so going forward, I'll be very curious to see how campaigns play that.

There comes a point where having the media so forcefully in your pocket is actually a negative. I mean, for the longest time, the fact that the legacy media in this country were basically an arm of the Democratic Party was this massive benefit. It was this massive megaphone to get their message out there. The problem is that we saw so many divisive cultural issues, like the trans stuff and things like that, bubbling out through the country.

Democrats were totally caught flat-footed by this because all they were doing was living in this giant echo chamber where the media was telling them that anyone who opposed their agenda on these extreme cultural issues and anyone that thought that there was an inflation problem in the country, these were people just totally out of touch that didn't know what was going on. But they still are too powerful and they still wield too much power. They cannot be allowed to, quote-unquote, moderate debates where they are as awful as they were this last cycle. Yes.

Well, yeah, they just, they put their foot on it. They just try to weigh it. Unfortunately, a lot of people, I think what really hurt them is people just saw these issues for their own eyes. It wasn't some esoteric D.C. policy situation. It's like, well, you're telling me the economy's good, but I'm having a hard time here.

Paying for my groceries, right? And I'm having a hard time putting gas in my car. I'm having a hard time paying my kids' comp sports fees. I mean, all these things they talk about that were reality for people. So when they read them, they're just like, why would I listen to you? Right. I think, yeah, that's exactly it. I mean, there were a lot of ordinary voters I ran into that could tell you exactly what the price of eggs was, you know, four years ago.

And Democrats just pretended like that wasn't a thing among many other things, issues where they were just totally blind to it. Well, Mark and Molly, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Welcome to Arizona. And this is BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. We'll be back with you later. 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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The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web. With a yourname.votewebdomain from godaddy.com. Get yours now. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren, and Kylie Kipper here in the studio.

We are fortunate, lucky actually, to have with us Evan Barker. She created quite a firestorm with her piece in the Free Press entitled, I Raised 50 Million for the Democrats. This week I voted for Trump. Evan, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you guys so much for having me. Glad to be here. So it's been a couple weeks since you published this. How has been the firestorm in your life?

Oh, I mean, it's been pretty intense, honestly. You know, when I, I thought a couple of months ago when I walked away from the Democratic Party after attending the DNC, I thought that was a firestorm. But the last couple of weeks, you know, being public and living in San Francisco and telling everyone that I voted for Donald Trump has been next level, I'll say. You didn't know such words existed, did you, in the dictionary that

that you've probably been called. I know. That sentence, as I just said it, I mean, it's pretty incredible. So, yeah, it's been pretty intense. You know, to be completely honest, I've probably lost about 70% of my social relationships. Really? And they didn't call... No, we want you to go over the story because, you know, while this got wide acclaim and was discussed...

Again, as we know, social media is not real world, right? And we want you to talk about this article and how you came to this decision. This doesn't mean you're Republican. It's just this was a choice for you. Exactly. Which is funny that your social relations would not want to sit down and try to understand why you made this decision. Because there's nothing I read in this article that makes me think that you have become MAGA.

Or that, you know, you're a full-blooded Republican now. You've gone independent, but you still have your principles and the things you believed in when you supported people like Bernie Sanders, correct?

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I don't really feel like my principles have changed that much at all. I think that the Democratic Party has radically changed. So talk to our audience here a little bit about the article. Then let's just talk about what you hope they learn from this and go from there. So you were a Democrat consultant. You've raised almost $50 million for candidates. You've advised candidates.

congressional campaigns. You even volunteered at the Democrat convention this year, correct? This year? Correct. Yeah, that's correct. What made you just... What was the straw that just said, I'm going to vote for Trump and I'm going to write this? And I believe you are wise enough to know that there had been some pushback, right? So tell me... So for you...

you had to be fed up, right? Because you knew there would be an outcome to this. You're not, I don't think you're naive. I was really fed up. I was extremely fed up and basically, you know, yeah, I've worked democratic campaigns a long time and you know, I would kind of explain it as like a process that's been slowly and then suddenly, um, I first started feeling disillusioned with the democratic party in around the summer of 2020 and 2021 and just some of the personal

personal experiences that I had working on campaigns with regards to like, you know, DEI and identity politics and just kind of like being abused by other staff members around that time. And, you know, and then it coupled that with just seeing behind the scenes the hypocrisy that the Democrats have when it comes to like, you know, espousing progressive values and

And, you know, being, you know, they like to pretend like they're like pro worker, pro working class. But then at the same time, you know, I would spend eight, nine hours a day on the phone with supposedly progressive candidates.

who would say something completely different to a donor or do everything they can to get in touch with the soroses or, you know what I mean? So it's just, it's a combination of just seeing them not adhere to their, um,

economic, progressive, populist values, right? Which is what I think somebody like Bernie represented when he ran in 2016. And instead, basically trade that in for a party that just represents identity politics and for lack of a better term, wokeness.

And it just completely felt hollow. And when I went to the DNC in August, I think I really had my breaking point when I was watching Oprah Winfrey speak and just how out of touch it was. And the fact that this like billionaire Hollywood person, you know, who's so far removed from her reality.

original experience of growing up poor in Mississippi, you know, that they chose her to be the messenger to Americans of, you know, getting their economic lives back on track. You know, and I come from a very working class background myself. I'm a first generation college student. Neither of my parents went to college. A lot of people in my family are in unions. And I thought about my grandma back home in Missouri and my mom who live on Social Security.

and you know they voted for obama and they are and they both have sent which should all trump and i thought about how much they've been struggling with paying for groceries and the democratic message of things so out of step with the reality of their lives

that I just had a breaking point. I went home and I posted this video on TikTok to 30 people, basically saying I was fine with never working for the Democratic Party again. And because I had come to peace with that, I was like, they are not going to change. And so I'm done. And I posted it online. And the next day, it got millions and millions and millions of views. I didn't expect that. And then that led me to writing op-eds and then eventually writing this essay for the free press that you mentioned.

So was your mother and grandmother's financial situation better under Trump than it was under the Biden years? Absolutely. A hundred million percent. So as they went and transferred their allegiance, their vote to Donald Trump and you still work for Democrats, how were your conference? Did you talk politics at home or just like, this is my mom and grandma and I love them? Or did you talk to it? And then when you made an announce that you're going to vote for Trump, did

Were they jubilant or did you have a conversation how you got there? Right. I mean, how did this metamorphosis happen with your family? It's funny because my mom is kind of like me where she voted for Trump for the first time this year, too. Yeah. She didn't vote in 2020. She felt sort of like just disaffected, I guess. Right. But my grandma had made the switch in 2016. Right.

And but she had also voted for Obama twice in 2008 and 2012. And yeah, I mean, they as far as my grandma goes, like I might love her so much. I adore her. And I was I never let politics get in the way of my relationships with people. You know, I. So you're normal. You're you're a normal human being that realized that you don't have to. You don't agree 100 percent with your friends and family.

Exactly. And I and I grew up in a place as a Democrat that was more red, right? Like Kansas and Missouri. And so I was used to having conversations with people that disagreed with me. And so that that is part of the reason why it's been especially difficult. I feel like I feel like I don't really deserve that. You know what I mean? Like all of the hate like I've never I've never done something.

something like this to anyone where I've just like turned my back on them completely because I didn't like the way they vote. And so it is kind of shocking to be on the other side. And it's like, wow, like liberals, progressives, you guys really are not the tolerant party here. No, no, I don't know if they don't see it. I mean, you know, that's sort of how they're reacting to,

If you look it up, it is the definition of a cult. You know, you just... Yeah. If you don't fit their identity, you ban people. And it is such a bad path forward for America. Right. You know, I have...

I'm fortunate some of my closest friends are liberal and we avoid some, you know, after Trump won, you know, we just didn't talk politics. We talked a lot of sports or some celebrity gossip. But, you know, I find that very disappointing and I'm very saddened for you that you've lost those social relationships. But it's times like this you find out who your true friends are.

Right. And it turns out they're very far and few between, and that's the reality of life, I guess. So it's definitely, I feel like this is a moment for me, like on top of just changing politically, I think spiritually, I'm going through so much growth right now and will probably come out of this a different person, you know, just based on everything. Yeah. Well, as they say in politics, if you want a friend, get a dog. I hope you have a couple of dogs. Yeah.

Evan, so I don't think – like I said, I think you're the old Ronald Reagan line. He didn't leave the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party left him. And you've not transferred over to Republicans. You're independent. What are things that you think the Democrat Party needs to get back to? Because right now what it seems to me, it's run by a bunch of hedge fund folks.

Yeah. Administrators who just are out of touch with people. Yeah, they are. And so I mean, are you would you say you're more of a John Fetterman type Democrat? I would say so. But, you know, I would say if I had that there's any Democrat that I actually would consider voting for in twenty twenty eight, it's probably John Fetterman. I don't really see anybody else.

at all. And right now, like the way that I view the Democratic Party right now is I think it's split into three different groups. I think that you've got the corporatist group, which is basically like the Democratic Party's version of the swamp, right? So like the neolibs and the neocons like Blaise Cheney's and you know what I mean? And they've all kind of like morphed together. And then you've got the progressives.

And the progressives are starting, I think, some of the progressive groups are starting to wake up and they're like, oh, okay, the only way that we can really win moving forward is by adopting economic populism. And we need to completely stop talking about all of these social justice issues.

and instead just focus on economic populism because that's what regular people of all races care about. And then you've still got the identitarian part of the progressive wing of the party, which is like the squad, right? Right, right. And...

And they are just obsessed with talking about race all the time and sexism and making everything about victimhood. And so you've got these three different splits. And I think it'll be really interesting to see... I think ultimately the party of...

is still controlled by the corporate as controlled by you know like the people with the power like nancy pelosi and chuck schumer will be interesting to see if they are switch side bears played by or if they just continue on with this like really generic sort of like milked head uh... hollow democrat

type candidate that they've been running, which is kind of what you saw with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, like these very generic just like Dems that don't really connect with people. I mean, people think that Joe Biden was so great, but he narrowly won against Donald Trump. You know what I mean? And there are policies that Joe Biden said I like. I think he did invest in manufacturing in the United States, which...

you know, to me, like that's why I ended up switching to Donald Trump is because if I look at Kamala Harris's plans and I look at his, to me, coming from a working class background, place like Missouri, you know, that was decimated by Bill Clinton's NAFTA, you know, bad Democrat trade policies. I,

I feel like Donald Trump cares more about bringing jobs back to the United States, about protecting the jobs that are here, you know, and also by infusing immediate policy changes that could change the lives of working class people like no tax on tips.

no tax on overtime, no tax on social security. Whereas somebody like Kamala Harris was just talking about, oh, I can give you a small business loan. Well, it's like, if you're somebody like my grandma or my mom, it's like, you don't have time to sit around and conceptualize a small business when you're just trying to get by day to day. My mom's never gotten back on her feet after COVID. She had a decent job

and then lost it during COVID, and since then has had a really hard time under this economy finding another decent job. You know, like she's worked off and on like different things, but like it's just, it's been hard for her, especially as a person who's now older. So anyway, that's kind of, that's what led me to Trump is that he ran on a platform of economic populism. And I think his policies will be better for working people.

What type of Democrat? So you've lived in San Francisco, and you've also been... What other blue cities have you lived in? Well, I've just been all over the place from working on different campaigns. Right. You've been in Vagabond. But I've also lived in...

Yeah, I've had Agabon for many years, but I've lived in New York City, and I've lived here, and I lived in San Diego. I'm not sure if that really counts. No, no, no. We'll call that a purple city. A purple city, but it's the New York in here. So of your social relations and the people you worked with in San Francisco, these Democrats—

What is their major concern? What is their overriding concern that they want to see accomplished with government? They are – I don't know what they want exactly. I think they want Roe v. Wade be codified or something like that. And so they view voting for Donald Trump as like –

you know, saying that basically like they believe that their rights are being taken away, even though like California is a hundred percent zero, zero rights with regards to reproductive justice have been taken away at all. So it's kind of interesting. And it has gone back to the States, you know, and you see it in a place like Missouri that voted overwhelmingly for Trump, but then also voted to protect abortion rights. So,

To me, it's just gone back to the States. And so I think that's a big issue for people here. I think secondly, I think they are like concerned about trans rights and. But why? But let me ask you, why? I mean, why is this? I mean, look.

My position on the trans issue is if you're over 18, do damn well what you want. I don't care. Damn. You know, I just don't care. Forcing a child or forcing a parent...

You know, we don't let kids, you know, we have to have a license. You know, there'd be certain age to drink and smoke. And so there can be differences on that. But why is this such a critical issue for them? I mean, are they do they know a bunch of trans people who are not able to switch? I mean, what is the cause? Why is it? Is it just a popular thing? I think the reality is that they...

They just think that the other side is like bigoted. That's what they think. They think that they're bigoted. They really, really do. They think that they now think the majority of America is like racist and bigoted. And I think it's like an immoral imperative for them more than anything else.

And but like I said in my article, the reason why people here like liberals in San Francisco are more passionate about these issues and issues of the economy is they're insulated from the economy. You know what I mean? They don't like they haven't been affected like people in other parts of the country that are more working class or middle class.

right, by grocery prices. And so if all you have, you know, if you don't, if you're not affected by like the day-to-day reality of life, then you're only going to focus on like these more abstract things like the end of democracy, which we, you know, I was honestly completely shocked that the Democrats decided to make their closing message. I was like, wow, you guys haven't learned anything. Um,

Well, they're not learning it now. I mean, it's about the immigration issue, for example.

Right. And I at first believed and I would say immigration is another big one for for for liberals here. And I at first to believe genuinely while I you know, even up to like a few months ago that the only reason that that that the Republican Party was so against immigrants had to have been just racially motivated or because they were xenophobic or something until I started.

Opening my mind and digging in and realizing that when you have like a mass group of people, like unfettered mass immigration, right, into this country, that actually it doesn't negatively impact the people in the top 20 percent. No.

It impacts people like my family, okay? Because they're the ones that are working lower-wager jobs and are having, you know, like businesses are not inspired to pay more, right? They're not inspired to raise their wages when you have just like all of this surplus of people that are willing to work for less money. And so there's actually like a very good like

populist economic argument against mass

unfettered immigration. And so once I started digging into that and I went back to the 70s, which is like we had the lowest numbers of immigrants in the country and just looking at like what was the average working class person or working class family making at that time in today's dollars adjusted for inflation was like $58,000.

And if you look at that today, it's like been slashed in half. And that's why back then people were more able to have like a slice of the American dream. And so I think it, you know, mass unfettered immigration really only benefits rich people like people here in San Francisco that want cheap labor. You know, they want, they want like cheap nannies. They want cheap gardeners. They want, you know,

And they like to say that, well, it's okay for immigrants to do these jobs because Americans don't want these jobs. Well, that's not true. People like my cousin in Missouri, he would gladly do those jobs. He just doesn't want to do it for $10 an hour. He wants to do it for a living wage, which is more like $20 an hour. Well, it's basically indentured servitude is what they like. Yes.

I mean, at the end of the day, that's what it is. And so they can go and make their fanatical claims that this is bigotry against immigration and things of that nature, xenophobia. No, you just want people that you think are lesser to pay them less. It's simple as that. A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I realize, oh,

Oh, sorry. No, no, go ahead. No, you're good. I feel like that argument, it's like it causes cognitive dissonance for them, especially seeing the results of this election. Some of them haven't even really wrapped their heads around it. When 45% of Hispanic people broke for Donald Trump, 20% of black men, 70% of Native Americans, like how can you continue to say that it's

bigotry, xenophobia. Here's the other point they miss, and Republicans miss a lot of points, but here's one point Democrats miss. So there's 65 million Hispanics in the United States, right? An overwhelming majority of those now are born in America. They're Americans. You know, the average median household income for Hispanics is now $62,000.

I mean, they're Americans, right? And they want good-paying jobs. I mean, that's why MSNBC always just couldn't believe what Trump's saying about the immigration. Well, he's just going to turn them off. Well, no. They're Americans.

Right. Exactly. So it's odd. I want to close here with a comment you wrote at the end of your great piece. Again, everybody, we're with Evan Barker. We hope she'll join us again some other time soon. She wrote the piece for the Free Press Call. I raised $50 million for the Democrats this week, and I voted for Trump.

And she closed with this, as the night in Palm Beach, Florida, melded into Wednesday morning and dawn neared on a new day in America, I crawled into the back seat of my cab to return to my hotel. My cabbie was a middle-aged black man. I asked him how he felt about the night. Giddily, he exclaimed, ready to make America great again.

And I think that is probably one of the most insightful comments that this cabbie made and that you were able to write.

And I thought about that a lot. Donald Trump does speak the same to everybody. There's no way. He says what he is. I mean, whether you're the prime minister of X or you're the cabbie in Palm Beach, he talks the same. And I think there's a real lesson on that for the elites and the Democrats. It's a real lesson for that the elites on the Republican side. I remember a governor in Utah, a gentleman was running for governor who ended up winning. He went out to a legislator's ranch and

And it was muddy. It was a cattle ranch. It was muddy. And he came out there in a suit. He didn't dress in cowboy boots. He didn't put jeans on. He went there in a suit, right? Because that's just who he was. And I remember this legislator slash rancher looked at him and said, you got my vote. And he goes, why is that? He goes, why is that? He goes, because you didn't try to dress down to me.

Right. And we can see through that. Yes. Most politicians don't understand. They write working people, regular people off as stupid because they didn't go to Ivy League schools like they did. And when you're authentic, when you're real, which Donald Trump 100% is, you know, he is himself, as you just said. Yeah.

And and it shows and it shows through to the voters. And so, yeah, Kamala was a candidate who looked like she was pandering, who looked like she wasn't authentic. You know, and she's not. She just she's somebody who's always wanted this. She's one. She's worked for this her entire life.

and therefore has no internal conviction. Say what you want about Bernie Sanders, but he's always been consistent, right? Yes, he has. And authentic. He's also authentic. And Donald Trump is the same way. And I think that that absolutely is a key lesson for all politicians to take away from this election.

Well, Evan Barker, I would call you a prodigal Democrat of the Dick Gephardt mode, and Democrats need to figure that out again. We appreciate you joining us today. We have Kylie Contact. She'd like to talk to you later this week about doing some writing for us and some administration things, if you have time for that. I know you're writing now. Sure, yeah. So love to talk to you about that. Again, Evan Barker, thank you so much for joining us. We hope you have a great day, and we'll talk to you this coming week. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye.

Well, Kylie, I'm telling you, I think there was a lot of people like her. Oh, I agree. In the millions. I don't think it was tens of millions, but I think it's in the millions where you saw Donald Trump win these Rust Belt states where he won by double digits in Florida. Yeah. And it was interesting. Like she was talking about the issues, the Roe v. Wade thing.

Which is funny that it tells me they're really not that educated because the states were passing it and giving them more freedom for abortion than any country in Europe has. Yes. I mean, it's incredible, right? And there's the stat that doesn't get talked about that much that says there's been more abortions post Roe v. Wade overturning than prior. Yeah. No, it's strange. I have some female friends in Sweden I do work with, and we were talking about the abortion stuff. Yeah.

When we talk about their limits, I think you can go up to 18 weeks later. And I said, well, on the ballot in Arizona and California, you go up to birth. They go, well, God, that's barbaric. Yeah. It's barbaric. Yeah. And they were pro-choice. And I think most Europeans would find that barbaric. But here we don't. And the second thing I found, which I find interesting, is when did the trans issue become the hill to die on? I still don't understand it. I don't either. And I'm not sure Evan did either. I don't know if it's more social signaling.

I don't know. It's odd, isn't it? It's very odd. And it was. I mean, how many trans people do you know? I know two. I will say I know two off the top of my head. And I have good relationships with them. But they, you know, they made the transition when they were adults. Yes. Both that I know made the transition when they were adults. And it was even when the first one that I had met was years ago. And it wasn't it was like they were fighting for similar things at the LGBT community or LGBT.

the community was fighting for. And I understood it then. I do believe everyone should be treated equal, whatever. But it's just crossed this line that now I don't agree with. Well, they want to be in your face. It's not about an individual choice anymore. You and I have discussed this. I would think we're quite libertarian on regard to what adults do with their time. But forcing children to do X

Yeah. I find odd. When there's many that have come out post being like, I wish I did not transition at 10 years old. There's been many spokespeople that have come out and. Well, we'll think how much what we wanted to be when we were 10 or 12 or 15. And, you know, a lot of times, you know, look, I don't want to get into that issue, but I find that interesting as she was talking about the hill they were dying on. The ones, the abortion, which clearly they don't read because most states have passed

further, you know, taking limits off. But the trans issue, number two, I just, I mean, come on. I just, I don't understand why that's your hill. That's just like you have too much. I'm going to tell you what's going to be interesting. I think if Elon Musk and Vivek are successful with their

And success can be tempered, guys. I don't believe they're going to cut $2 trillion. But let's go and say they cut $500 billion or something or people stop doing a hiring freeze on federal employees. So you start seeing all these professionals in these areas who don't get these DEI jobs, these professional jobs at universities or the government and things of that nature. It will be interesting to see if they get back to the working class populism again because they're not getting paid to do anything.

That would be interesting. What do we got for Kylie's Corner today? We have even more interesting things. I even have a clip from the inmates themselves. Oh my goodness. I love a good clip. A good clip. It's like we actually thought about the show before we walked in. We did. We did. Okay. So my first one I will talk is going to be my blood and gore. And then I have kind of an uplifting because Thanksgiving's coming up. So Daisy Link, she is an inmate in Miami.

She's been in jail for two years. She's waiting trial for the murder of her boyfriend. She shot him in the leg. And then there's a video clip of her walking away with a gun and says, you'll be fine. And then he ended up dying. Okay. So she's in jail. Did he die of a staph infection or something? Honestly, I'm not sure, but this isn't about him. So...

It's about Daisy. It's about Daisy. And her callousness. Yeah. So two years into jail, she calls her family and she says, I'm pregnant. And they're like, how is this? You have no contact with male inmates. So they launched an investigation thinking she was raped by a guard. A guard. Yeah. The obvious conclusion. Yes. It turns out that was not the case. The trans inmate? No. She was impregnated by Joanne DePaz, who was an inmate in a different part of the jail system. But they're...

jail cells connected through the vent. And so this is the clip on how they got pregnant. All right, go ahead. Go ahead, Jeremy. This is concerning. The pause came up with a plan. It's going to go down in history.

I don't know what my fate is. You kind of don't know what yours is. If we're going to go out, might as well just go out with a bang, you know? If it works, it works. But it definitely did. One of my friends has showed me. It drops right into my van. You can throw a pen into the van. It'll land right into my van. We had figured out a way to drop the line. It was a line that we had established out of, like, bedding material. I put the seam in a saran wrap every day, like, five times a day.

for like a month straight. He would kind of like roll it up almost like a cigarette and he would attach it to the line that we had in the vent and I would pull it through. From there, I had placed it inside of, it was, you know, the yeast infections, it's the yeast infection applicators. Oh my goodness. I had placed it inside of there and then from there, yeah, I administered it. So he would

into a rubber glove and then he would wrap it inside saran wrap and she would put it inside herself. And it's a less than 5% chance of this working. But it worked. And it worked and she gave birth on June 19th of this year. And now this has all come out post of the father actually is him and the baby now lives with his mother. How long is she? They have never met to this day face to face. Wow.

How long is she in jail for still? They don't know. She's still awaiting her trial. Oh, my goodness. So it's two years. Yeah. So justice is moving slowly. In the meantime, this woman has got pregnant through a wall. Yep. And he also was in jail for murder. He's first degree murder. She's second degree murder. So both of them were like, we're probably going to be here for life. This needs to be reality show. We have the golden bachelor with a bachelor, the bachelorette.

Now we have the jailmates. I think they were banking on that. They talked, they said, they tried this five times a day. They were talking for months leading up to this. And they were talking about how this could go down in history and how his friend told him about this plan. So apparently this is a thing, but...

Well, you know, people are very creative, are they not? They are. They are. I will give them that. But how do they feel about the trans issue? That's the issue I really want to know. What else do you got for us? Okay. So next week, I have a bunch of organizations lined up for our Thanksgiving week episode. Fantastic. They're really great. But I wanted to kick off this week by discussing Homeboy Industries. I actually came across them when I was looking up a dog groomer for myself. Okay. Did you find the dog groomer?

I got distracted, so not yet, but he definitely needs a haircut. But this is out of LA, so he can't go to puppy fades. But Homeboy Industries are the largest gang intervention rehab and reentry program into the world. So this organization was founded by Gregory Boyle. He became a pastor in 1986 to the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles. He wasn't liking how the LAPD was treating former gang members or people that were trying to get out of the cycle. If they were getting out of jail, he just saw that there was no way

Um, for them to kind of re get back into society. So he founded homeboy industries to provide hope training and support to former gang involved in previously incarcerated people, allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members to our community, which I like, I like contributing members to our community. Um,

So each year they support over 100,000 former gang members, whether it's tattoo removal, getting them anger management classes, parenting classes, therapy. They'll help them with jobs. So they've actually opened up programs like Puppy Fades where they give pet grooming services. They also have Homeboy Bakery, Homeboy Diner, Homeboy Catering, Homegirl Cafe. And so they have all these different programs that I think are really cool that are helping rehabilitate former gang members and...

What's their success rate with rehabilitation? I love when you hit me with those. Well, let's find out. Yeah, I'm going to look right now. Here's the thing. People think it's a failure if there's not like 70%, 80%. But even if it's 10% or 20%, that's 10% or 20% to have a new life. So they don't have percentages on the website, but they do have just this past year, 21,000 people took their class sessions. 21,000? Yeah.

Which surprised me how many gang members there are that we probably don't know. There have been 390 trainees, so job trainees being people that are involved in their various programs. They have trained 76 people on solar panel. Really? Installation? Installation of solar panels. This is from their 2022-2023 report. They had 11,840 tattoo removals.

8,000, you said? 11,840. Yeah. And then 3,680 therapy sessions. Boy, they're doing the Lord's work, as people would say. They are. That's amazing. I love that story. It's really cool. That's great. Thank you. So if you need your dog grooming and you live in L.A., San Diego, our San Diego listeners, drive up, help. And this is only L.A.? Currently, yes. But maybe they have the potential to expand. And they have that many gang members. Yeah.

There's a lot going on in LA. There's a lot going on in LA. Yeah. A lot going on. Yeah. Well, um, folks, thank you for joining us this week. Um,

Last night, Kylie and I sat at a gala next to the gentleman who was the producer for the show, the song Itsy Bitsy Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini. We did. That was a funny conversation, was it not? Yeah, we asked him if he had long hair back in the day when he said he was a music producer. And we wanted to see a photo, and he pulled it out of his wallet. Old school. Old school. Old school. Not a phone. Old school. And that hair. Oh, my goodness. Yep.

There's a lot of women who would like that hair. Oh, I imagine he was full, full, curly, big. Well, folks, thank you for joining this week on breaking battlegrounds. Next week, Sam will be with us here for our, um, for our Thanksgiving program. Sam this past week lost his father who was a major factor and, uh,

somebody he admired greatly in his life and our condolences to Sam and his family but on behalf of Kylie myself and Jeremy and the booth laughing at us the whole time this is Breaking Battlegrounds you can find us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote wherever you find your podcasts we'll talk to you next week