Carl, great to see you. Thanks for having me, buddy.
So, Carl, this Rubio speech is going to be a big moment for him. But hopefully, the world is listening. And you think this is the type of thing is going to get coverage and traction in Europe? Oh, absolutely! I mean, when the Secretary of State, who in his own right is a major world figure, decides to give a speech and to give it where he's giving it, of course it's going to have attention.
I mean, look, Europe is trying to figure out the U.S. You know, they they have been on the receiving end of. You know, two terms of you know two and one and a half terms of Donald Trump and four four years of Joe Biden, and the contrast between the two, weakness and strength, and you know they're trying to figure it out, and this will help them. This will help them enormously. Yeah.
So we'll hopefully set the tone there, and also find out if Russia is trying to destroy the world like China did, and maybe be candid about what's going on with the pneumonic plague. We'll talk about that, but the headline in today's New York Times not getting much traction. Ukraine gaining land back in Donbas, and they basically over the course of two years barely lost more than they gained.
So, what does that tell you about how this conflict is going?
Well, it's a disaster for the Russians. Let's be honest. The Ukrainians have shown themselves to be adroit and technologically advanced, and they have stopped one of the an army that outnumbers them, and have inflicted terrific casualties on them through the use of technology, drones, and and drone technology, and. You know the the Russians have have got to understand now that they cannot win this war, on the battlefield, and and they and they are coming to the point where they cannot continue to sustain their battlefield energies. I mean, they're they're they're running out of people.
The the losses that they're that they're suffering each and every month are horrific. If we could just, and I know there is not many around, if we could just get them some Patriot batteries, that's what they need to knock down the rockets. They also got to technologically figure out how to knock down these high-speed drones that are attacking them right now. I am convinced they will, but I just don't want a lot of people to die while they innovate. Yeah, my sense is that that they're holding on to some of the weapons that they could use to stop the the Russian assault, the incoming missiles and so forth.
They're holding on to them until the winter comes, because they recognize that in the winter they become enormously vulnerable. To now is the fall is coming on; it's getting a little bit cooler, but but you know they still have time to to sort of redo the jigger, rejigger the grid, or to repair that. A power unit or whatever, but but in the in the winter that that becomes a lot more difficult.
So my sense is they may be holding on to the the few that they've got in order to save them for the moment where the danger becomes even acute.
So I don't have to tell you three years to the day since the October seventh attack, and so much has changed since then. How close we were to expanding the Abraham Accords, and then how far that seems away now, and yet here is a day that. Twelve hundred Israelis lost their lives, and there is anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic protests around the world. Carl, not in a million years that I think that would be the case three years later. Yeah, neither did I.
I mean. You know the people who are apologists for what happened on October seventh. These people who, you know, and we've got some of them running for office here in the United States, and we've got others campaigning for on behalf of candidates running for office in the United States, who basically have been apologists for the attack on October seventh. You know, hurt people, hurt people. Says one of those candidates.
Yeah, and you're talking about the attack when a Hezbollah. When a the brother of a would be attacker in would be attacker ends up being Hezbollah, and he's saying, "Well, that's the reason why the brother was militarized because he he was killed and he was going to go out and kill children, and that was his excuse." Well, his brother was killed in Lebanon. Heard people heard where people. Yeah, turns out he was killed because he's a member of Hezbollah. Yeah, exactly.
And excuse terrorism. I mean, there is no rationale, no excuse whatsoever for the for the death of innocents. This was a deliberate attempt, not to you know have military on military. It was to to attack civilians and kill them. and And and the footage that we've seen of these, and the stories that we've heard, and the eyewitness accounts are horrific.
And yet, we still today have people are excusing it, and you know just. Just asking questions, they say about about Israel. When it comes to Iran, the president's almost on by all accounts. Very few people are saying Iran's winning, like they were saying three weeks ago. Yeah, the oil minister resigned.
You have the intelligence leader, their intelligence leader, come out and say things have never been this bad. The president over there confirming that almost no oil is getting out of Iran, and we're the beginning shutting down the banks. There's zero. There's zero getting out by ship. They're they're now having to you know sort of put it on a truck and take it to the take it to the the the east and bring it out via Pakistan, which is enormously expensive and not very lucrative for them.
So, look, the the president of the United States by standing tough has has achieved an enormous victory here in opening up the Straits of Hormuz and is winning the economic war against the Iranian regime. And they're gonna they're feeling internal pressure. That that are requiring them to realize they can't continue along this way.
So how does that play here? I know the president does not talk about the war much, except for it's a small sacrifice at the pump for now. As we look at the midterms, you you alluded to the Michigan battle. Mike Rogers, who you know well, was getting ridiculed by El Saeed for taking taking money from PACs and corporate donors. But here's what Rogers said back cut fourteen.
I've never seen a bigger hypocrite in my life. Who has been raising on the the West Coast from billionaires and hedge fund managers with AOC in New York City, raising tons of money. He has corporate money coming in through the Chuck Schumer pack. I mean, it's just nonsense. He says this to try to present something, someone he's not.
So that is some of the attacks. Medicare for all. Nobody cares about a streamer in California. I care about gas prices and food on the table. Do you know anything about the plans?
You want to drill less to bring oil down? Because do you know a Democrat that wants to continue to drill and and buy more oil? Yeah.
Look. Look. Think about this. The NBC poll net favorability of. People approve, disapprove.
What's the gap? Republicans are minus thirteen as a party. The president's minus eighteen. The Democrats are minus twenty-one. You know, so look, they have not offered a plan.
They've talked about these issues. Their ads are overwhelmingly about you know inflation and cost of living and healthcare costs and you know blah blah blah blah blah. But there's no there's no there there. You know, they were the ones who gave us the you know the the Inflation Reduction Act, which blew inflation up, and they have no idea that they're. What are they concretely saying about what they're going to do other than?
Blaming it on the companies when, in reality, it's it's at the heart of it. It's government. When the government spends too much, it creates inflation. When it applies tariffs, it raises the price of goods. And when you when and this all started is is we should recall when Joe Biden spent far more than we needed to spend to help our economy, and we ended up with nine percent inflation.
Yeah, that led to all of this, and the president's inflation rate has gone up. And you wrote about this considerably less than Joe Biden average over four years.
So that be something the president, the vice president, others should be bringing up.
So let's talk about some of the red states that are a challenge. Do you look at Arkansas as a challenge for Tom Cotton?
Well, I want Tom Cotton to get reelected, and the guy running against him is raising money. But I think at the end of the day, Cotton gets reelected. But you know, look—it's the Democrats are trying to widen the field and throw money into states like Arkansas and hope that something happens on election day to surprise everybody. What about Ricketts in Nebraska? At the end of the day, he look he's successful and popular, two term governor, and the guy who's running against him is running as an independent because the Democratic label in the state is so unpopular, you can't win as a Democrat.
So he's claiming he's an independent, but we now know from the background tapes he he is he's making comments that make him sound like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and dismissing supporters of Donald Trump. They got some footage of him talking at. At a fundraising event, and dismissing the good people in Nebraska who voted overwhelmingly to re-elect Donald Trump. It's tough to be an independent with that out there. What about in Lindsey Graham's case?
His sister's running. It went from solid R to lean R. Yeah, well, look, I think at the end of the day, she's going to win. But but it's always hard to get you know a spouse in. If you look back over history, when you have instances where the where the the office holder dies and a spouse comes in, or in this case, a sister is put forward, Darlene, you know, a family member, it's it's it's tough because there's just a little bit of reaction by some people.
Say, well, you know what, I I may have supported Lindsey, but what's this about a sister? Or you know, I may Have supported so and so, but you know I'm not. I'm not going to automatically go for the spouse. Muriel Muriel Humphrey was there forever, right? Yeah, right.
Exactly over in Minnesota.
So in Minnesota, Michelle Tafoya has never trailed by more than two points in a bright blue state. Yet John Thune made a statement that we're going to look at that and see if we should throw more money at it. What's he looking at, Carl? Just throw money at it. Yeah, there's been.
I met her two weeks ago. Very impressed. She's authentic. She's smart. She's articulate.
She's empathetic, and being able to talk sports with the outstate, you know, redneck farmer—that's a big plus. And she also has the advantage that she's running against a lunatic, this Lieutenant Governor Flanagan. She begins many of her events by having what do you call those land whatever's, you know, where you apologize, you know, just like you know, look, we, you know, the the the headquarters of. Yeah, the the headquarters of Fox is probably you know five hundred years ago occupied by the Winnebago Indians, and so we're supposed to apologize for the presence of Twelve Twenty One Avenue of the Americas. And she does this all the time, and she's also tied up to and dismissive of all of these scandals that we have, where vast sums of federal and state monies were being stolen by groups of crooks, primarily Somalia immigrants, who set up these phony childcare centers and phony medical centers.
And and we're stealing you know millions of dollars of our taxpayer dollars. And Flanagan is dismissive of it, and was part of the administration that oversaw it, that that that presided when all this stuff was being stolen. Has she effectively made that choice as you did? Do you think she's effective?
Well, you know, she you know time is the most important commodity in a campaign, and she got into the race. You know, Minnesota chooses its candidates late, so. But no, she's got. I think she's got time, particularly since she is who. Is and comes across.
I mean, you meet her and you know that this is a solid individual and personable and and articulate and and and and really empathetic. I don't get a handle on what's happening in New Hampshire. Johnson New does not want to do national media. He just wants to focus on New Hampshire. He doesn't want to be labeled with or against Trump.
Yet he's still trail. He's trailing by just a couple of points on the Real Clear average. What's happening? You know the family.
Well, that that's the key. The family. I mean, New Hampshire is. Everybody knows what Sununu means. The dad was a great governor of the state and served his country valiantly as chief of staff to President Bush forty one.
The brother. Chris Sununu was a very popular three-term governor, personable, outgoing, very funny. John Sununu, very smart, fantastic wife Kitty, served in Congress, was one-term senator, got defeated in in the Obama wave of two thousand and eight. But everybody knows what Sununu means. New Hampshire values: flinty, tough, do what's right.
Not being dictated to by anybody represents us well.
So I think you know the Democrats got a milk toast candidate, and I think Sanu has got a real shot at it. And full disclosure, he's a friend of mine, and I wrote him a couple of checks. But I, I, I told him, in fact, last time I saw him, I said, "When you get elected, you are going to owe your brother big time." He said, "Why?" And I said, "Because he's a very popular guy, and he's a lot more funny than you are." And I get the sense, yeah, they have a fun rivalry between them. Oh, you know that that that family. It must be fun to be around the dinner table at Thanksgiving time because they they are all smart and energetic and interesting people, and and the they're really terrific.
Yeah.
So, lastly, Texas. I know you feel about Ken Paxton, but what's the race look like? Ken Paxton call it now off my complaining, complaining that gas prices are going to kill him and the war is hurt him in Texas. Yeah.
So. First of all, we we got it. We we have two candidates who got weaknesses. The scandals surrounding Paxton, and then look. I live in Austin, Texas.
This is sort of Moscow on the Little Colorado River. It's a very liberal town. And and Tal Rico originally was elected to the state house from a district that a Republican representative in the suburban county north of us, Williamson, and then got redistricted almost exclusively into Travis County. And as a Democrat, you don't worry about any. The right of you, you worry about somebody to the left of you.
So he has said the most extraordinarily bizarre things that you'd expect to hear. You know, in the worst parts of you know the commie quarter of Brooklyn and Queens.
So I think at the end of the day, Paxton stands that you know it's a coin toss, and the question is, can Paxton make the argument that that his values, the Talarico's values, are not the values of everyday Texans, and that the seat cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of some.
Somebody who shares those views now. You know, on the other hand, you know, Talerico is going to be saying, "Do you really want to have this guy representing you, given his record and all the allegations?" So it's it's it's costing us a lot of money, though. I mean, in the last last thirty days, I think the Republicans have put a hundred and sixty-five million dollars into Texas. In the last twenty-four hours, it's five million. In the last twenty-four hours, they put down five million more.
I mean, the amount of money is just astonishing. Yep, it's more than I make in a day. Call get just a little bit. Call that was a good. That was a good joke.
That went straight by us because we all know you're a working stiff. That was a good. But you know, look, you know, you you take that paycheck, you deposit it, you pay your bills, and there's a little bit left over to take the wife out for a hamburger. If we're lucky, I know what's going on. Yeah, if you're lucky.
Yeah, exactly. Thanks so much.
