The Race to Replace Graham Platner

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John is off this week. On today's show, Grand Planners has spent his campaign against Susan Collins and now there's a very crowded, very chaotic race to succeed him. The war in Iran appears to be starting back up again. Even though Donald Trump is confused about the name of the country he's attacking, that's a real thing. Then former North Carolina governor Ray Cooper talks to me about the campaign for Senate Alex.

Thanks for being here today and replacing John. It's a pleasure, although I mean, we all miss John whenever he's away. Crazy shit happens, Dan. It's true. He spends his vacations in the middle of online fiasco.

Let's either hear it or there. Okay, let's start with the Planners news. Two long days after Politico broke the story that Planners had allegedly raped a former girlfriend, Planners posted in a 11 minute video on Wednesday evening saying he would file the formal paperwork to withdraw his name from the ballot, but also sharing a lot of other thoughts too. Let's take a listen. As many of you know over the past couple days, I have faced some very serious allegations and I just want to make it clear.

This is all false. I think it's really important to understand why this is happening in the timeline, why this is happening right now. I only have until July 13th, until I am officially the nominee. This was the last week to try to get me off of the ballot. And that's why this is occurring.

It's not the false allegations though that have brought us to where we are. It's the fact that they are being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us. What comes next needs to come from the people. I'm not trying to dictate to anyone who it should be or how we get there, but I will say this. It needs to be open, transparent and democratic.

As of this recording on Thursday afternoon, Planners has not actually filed the paperwork to have his name removed. The deadline is 5 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, but there is reporting that he will wait until the event to do it. Alex, what are your thoughts on his decision to drop out in the message in that video? Asshole, asshole, asshole.

Those are my thoughts. First of all, nobody needed to hear a grandplatter, uncensored for 12 minutes. And the conceit in that video is preposterous. That I guess we're meant to believe that a rape victim is a crisis actor and that crisis acting as being used by the democratic establishment to get grandplatter out of the race. Never minding that Planners exit from the race greatly complicates the race and potentially throws it further into jeopardy.

And there's no mention, thankfully did not play the whole video, but he never mentions any of the women who came forward on the record talking about violence and aggression, if not outright assault and rape. He never mentions and pushes back on any of those things. He just says this is all part of a deep state plot. I mean, it's totally outrageous, but maybe the most egregious part of it, I think, is the fact that he suggests that the system is hopelessly flawed and corrupted and that machine politics would not abide and insurgent grassroots campaign. The mission of the establishment right now is to quash real reform and real accountability, which is you can have jaded views about the establishment and I'm sure there's every reason for Grand Platter to have some of those and for some of his supporters too.

But right now, if the goal really is to oust Susan Collins, Grand Platter needs to make people, he does not need to further disillusion his supporters. He does not need to spin paranoid conspiracy theories. He does not need anybody in Democratic politics and may need to feel like this system is entirely rigged against them. He needs people to believe that there can be a good outcome. He needs to put whatever momentum he has left into the next candidate and he's done exactly the opposite.

I mean, I just think it's completely unconscionable that this is the way this guy is exiting the race. I, my take on this is the subject line of your excellent newsletter, subject newsletter, How the Hell, which is Fucker and Pioneer. Like this, I agree with everything you said, what is so infuriating about this is, if you truly cared about getting people health care, about stopping a genocide, about making the economic and political system more fair in this country, that none of those things can happen if we do not beat Susan Collins. Exactly. And by going down this path of conspiracy theories to dis, to as you say, to disillusion supporters, he is making that less likely.

He's making it harder to accomplish things he did. This video is Trumpian in its nature. It is conspiracy theories, it's denial, it's making it entirely about himself. Now, throughout this video, he talks about how the movement they built and how whatever the process is that the main Democratic Republican, they must be true to that movement. Now, it is impressive for a first time political candidate to beat the two term governor of the state and beat the DSCC and Churchill and all that.

That is impressive thing. But like, just don't crawl so far beyond S. You got 150,000 votes in me. This is not the Robert Kennedy 1968 campaign. This is not the one 2008 campaign.

It is the smart thing for the party to do, to have a process that brings in the people who supported Grand Platter because we do obviously need them to win. But this whole thing that this was some magical messianic thing that he put together, that he himself, and he only he put together and it must pay respect to what he did, it's just fucking ridiculous. It's counterproductive, just go away. It's the best thing he can do for the things he claims he cares about. Of course, he's waiting till Monday.

It's like first of all, time is of the essence. It's like paraphrasing the bear, every second counts. And this asshole is waiting till Monday, just because give me a fucking break. Secondly, to what end? To what end? To what why?

File the paperwork, be done. We need to move, everybody needs to move on. I say this in my newsletter and I genuinely believe it. Like, Dan, we have a long history here, but let this be like the last conversation we have to have about Grand Platter because the focus needs to be on Susan Collins. And we're gonna get to Susan Collins after we finish their next 15 minutes talking about that.

No, no, no, I think, I will say. And I've said this before and I'm sure you agree with me on this. I'm sure. There needs to be at some point a real, I don't wanna use proctology as the word, but like a real examination of soul searching about the lessons learned here. Oh, we're gonna do that today on this podcast in just a moment.

Bless you, I'm getting ahead of myself. Yes, but before we get to that, because I do wanna have a conversation about how we got to this moment and I wanna talk a little bit about where you were right and I was wrong and why it was, which we will get to, I promise. But I wanna talk a little first about what happens next. I've previewed some of this on Polarco Store, my show for friends of the pod subscribers. If you aren't a subscriber yet, I really don't know what you know with your wife and maybe you should visit cricket.com slash friends to change that.

But anyhow, I'm a believer. Provided the partner does formally drop out. The main Democratic party has until July 27th to replace them. They said they'll hold a convention to pick a new nominee and we'll make all the details public soon, although there's been a lot of reporting on what it is and they claim that transparency will be of the utmost importance. What do you make of the convention idea?

Is there a better one or is there a way not to make this process so messy? No, I make it like, listen, I'm the last one to have a better idea, but I would like to see, I mean, there's been talk about town halls and debates. I mean, I think there has to be some, before these delegates make a call, if it is in fact the leadership of the state party that is going to decide who the nominee is, one would hope there would be some concession to both, those delegates and the public in the sort of, in the notion of choice by having a full or full-ish airing of their views. And that's obviously going to have to be fairly abbreviated, but there needs to be some difference to helping educate the public and the delegates about who these people are.

I've done a glancing search on the internet, but that's not sufficient. And they haven't had to talk about their positions in a false way. So I think that I would love to see some kind of public format where there, whether it's debate, town hall, whatever, that's moderated and that's official feeling beyond just interviews with the press and podcast appearances. Yes, and so the way that we think this is going to happen is it would be this convention, and I think would sort of model what would be like a brokered convention at a national party convention in an election year. And there would be, I think it supports a 500 delegates, the 16, I believe, counties in Maine, county parties with elect delegates.

I think it's over 600 delegates, that's what that is. 600 delegates from the 16 counties. And so this is going to be party insiders under all circumstances. And there's just no way for actual, you can't hold an election in this time period, so it's going to be this. This is probably, this is going to be messy for sure.

There's going to be candidates who they can't start. Second, but they're going to try to influence who the delegates are in all these places. They're going to put up slates. It's going to be messy. Now this is probably the best process if you want to involve as many people as possible and have those transients.

Because the other alternative is the state party committee just votes. And this is, we're in a weird bizarro version of 2024 where we're losing a nominee very close to an election about the same number of days actually. And instead of what happened in 2024 where just one candidate all the time becomes a nominee, we're going to have a process of some kind and these people are going to compete. And maybe one of them will come and stand out and hopefully at the end of this process they're going to come together. So there's no good answer here, I guess is my point.

But you know what? I'm looking forward to the mess. I think everybody is hungry for some sense that there is a real choice and there are real races. And this is not a foregone conclusion on the part of party elders and it's not a fetticom plea. And Maine is pretty, I mean, like from my podcast Runaway Country, we interviewed one of the people Dan Cleveland, who's, I know we're going to talk about this.

One of the potential replacements for Plattner and there is so much frustration at the idea that Washington and Chuck Schumer and outsiders and elders no better and have involved themselves in this race. There's real desire to have some openness in all this come what may. So as for who might run, potential candidates started testing the waters even before Plattner City was leaving the race. Here's a small sample of how they're pitching themselves. So I'm the only candidate that's demonstrated that I can win statewide with conservative Republicans and urban young people that are much more liberal.

Maine deserves a fighter in this seat and I will be that fighter. I will fight for Medicare for all because in the wealthiest country on earth, nobody should ever go bankrupt over a medical bill. I own a small business here in Maine. I created, built it from the ground up out of my garage, you know, employ over a hundred manors, pay a living wage, provide 100% of their health insurance coverage. I mean, I'm an outsider, I'm not an elected, I'm not a career politician, I'm never an elected office.

That was former Maine Senate President, Troy Jackson, the state's former top health official, Nirov Shah and brewery owner Dan Cleveland on your podcast Alex Runaway Country. They've all said they will run. So Secretary of State, Shena Bellows, former congressional candidate in political operative Jordan Wood, former Plattner staffer and congressional candidate Paige Loud, former Senate candidate David Costello, state rep Valley Geiger is considering running too, though she hasn't officially said so. It's a lot of people. Do you find anyone compelling in this crowd?

What do you make of them? I mean, listen, I talked to Dan Cleveland, who is the bar owner, the brewery owner. Nothing goes together like oysters and beer. And he was gonna run last, he has an interesting backstory. And so far as he was gonna run in last July and was told not to by the DSCC, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is of course under the ages of the purview of Chuck Schumer.

And as an example of just how fucked this process has been since it's an inception, right? And later dropped out of the race and endorsed, when he entered the race, Plattner had sort of won the hearts and minds of a lot of manors at that point. He subsequently endorsed the governor, Janet Mills, and then dropped out of the race. He's compelling as kind of a sort of surrogate for the every man working class, Maynard that Plattner represented, even if some of his biography was a bit hazy around the edges as far as his working class, Bon Fidez. Troy Jackson sounds like he's the person that most, he's gotten an endorsement from Ro Khanna, who was a key endorsement for Grant Plattner, at least from a national Democrat.

He I believe is a fifth generation logger from Algash, which is like, bless Maine and all their outdoorsiness, brewers and oystermen and loggers. He's a former president of the Maine Senate. He has some experience. He's a, you know, I think he has the progressive Bon Fidez that people are looking for. I gotta stop saying the word Bon Fidez.

Norev Shah is a really interesting one. He was acting, I think director of the CDC for a minute as well, which makes me a little worried, given that the CDC has become very politicized and, you know, former CDC director and someone who is gonna be asked about COVID. It's just like, I am not a vaccine denier or a COVID skeptic, but it's extra baggage in these insane and tumultuous times. I don't know what do you think? I am all tapped out on having opinions on Maine Senate candidates.

Like, the truth is I don't know any of these people well enough to know who would be a candidate. That thing is we're not really gonna know when it comes time to pick the person. This is a very abbreviated process. I hope there is someone in democratic politics who was investing more than the $6,000 that the Yahoo's recruited, Graham Plattner, used to vet him and to do like full vets on all of these people so that everyone knows really who you possibly can know, because whoever this person is, man, are massive scrutiny. Because if like one of the tests will be, like normally our Maine Senate candidate does something, not obviously what, Graham Plattner's been accused of here, but you know, it's a bad online, you know, in a different world, different rates of some bad online posts or something else, it'd be like a little speed bump.

In this race with this level of scrutiny, after what happened with Plattner, it will be giant news, you gotta make sure whoever we pick can withstand that scrutiny. That's, I guess that's sort of the main thing. Yeah, two weeks, no big deal, great time to do. Like betting town halls, convention, no problem. But big guy Graham Plattner's waiting until Monday to drop out.

Yes, yes, because we definitely can use the next 72 hours or so. It's fitting you're here for this episode because as many of our listeners know, every time there's been big Graham Plattner news or Maine news, it's just been a coincidence. You and I have been on mic together, either on Ponce America, on your podcast, on YouTube. At one point, Dan, we talked about doing just a Maine Senate podcast. Pause it, Maine.

I'll save the Maine. Why? If there's still a Senate race going on. Okay, I'm just kidding. We don't need to do something else.

But that's how in the foxhole we've been. Yes, we've talked about Maine more than anything else over the last year here. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We're finally talking about mental health. We're actually reaching out for help.

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And it needs to be said, you've been a platinum skeptic from the beginning. The very beginning. Before anyone, before the Reddit post came out, before the tattoo, before the more recent stuff, you were a platinum skeptic. And I will say here, that you were right. And I was wrong.

I don't want to be right, man. I did not, this is not about me being right and you being wrong. I was like even right, I don't even know what that means. I just... Well, you were right to be skeptical of your own platinum.

Yes, I was skeptical. Yes, I was skeptical. I do not want to take a victory lap. I do not want to take a victory lap. This is not a good moment for, I mean, first of all, it's not a good moment for grand platinum.

It's not a good moment for the women that he allegedly tormented and assaulted. It's not a good moment for the Democratic Party, because I think we're at real crossroads here in terms of how the Democratic Party manages candidate recruitment and what it means to answer the toxic masculinity of MAGA. And it's not a good moment because it's been taken off of Susan Collins. And so it's hard to take a victory lap. I mean, I hope out of this, there's a little bit, the thing about Grandma, I was not like some sage and like saw into the future or anything, but I was always just the bro glow was a little bit, I didn't get it.

I didn't like the way I was never a Janet Mills supporter, but I didn't like people summarily dismissed her. And I felt like- I just immediately dismissed her. Yes, and that's not to say that she should be the nominee, but I feel like there was always like a latent misogyny around it and I felt like in the retrospect, and maybe this is just hindsight, it's 2020 or whatever, but there are a lot of women in a lot of places who were like never really that on board and kind of felt a little bit sheepish saying, I don't know about that guy, he seems kind of like an asshole. I mean, I got into fights with platinum supporters, where the conics of the conversation was he has talent. He might be able to get the job done, but he seems like a dick.

And there was a real, and like the dickishness may not just be a sort of side effect of ambition, but maybe like a more complicated and potentially serious character flaw. And as it turns out, I think that's what it was. This is someone who's completely self-absorbed to the point of maybe almost like a certain psychosis based on that exit video, and certainly has some demons he really needs to wrestle with. Yeah, you know, I, when I say summarily dismissed, no, let me say what my actual word position was, because this is sort of how you and I first have this conversation was. I, Janet Mills gets in the race.

The DSCC in Doris R. Five minutes later, Chuck Schumer in Doris R. And we know at the time that the DSCC has been trying to clear the fields for Janet Mills, telling people like Hannah Pingree and these other candidates in Maine to run for governor and not run for Senate, because Janet Mills is gonna be, is the chosen candidate of the entire establishment. My view at the time was that I thought that was a big mistake for the DSCC, that if the DSCC is gonna get involved in a primary, they better be 100% certain that they have the best candidate. And I didn't think you could look at what happened with Susan Collins in 2020, what happened in the country in 2024, in declare beyond a shadow of a doubt that a 79 year old unpopular two-term governor was our best bet.

I was a given as grandpaitner was a better bet, but I thought the voters of Maine should pick it up. Now I was intrigued by platinum for sure. I'm not gonna pick that, I'm not gonna dispute that. Like everything in a lot, because I was wrong here. I don't like being wrong, it happens a lot, but I really, I've really tried to think about like where I aired in this.

There are a couple of places, and I'll say what those were. The first is, if I had a bias, or you can even say a blind spot, in politics, it's for outsider candidates who did not grow up their entire life wanting to be in office. Like that's why I like Barack Obama over here, Clinton, that's why I really loved better work than he was running for Senate, and was intrigued by his potential presidential candidate. It's why I supported Melanie Moro in the Michigan Senate race this cycle. Like that's what gets me most interested, or candidates like that.

I think they have the potential to be the best candidates, and they can make the best leaders, because they've lived a normal life, they're more human, they talk more like a human, and they're less risk-averse. The people who spend their whole lives deciding what mistakes not to make to avoid being, to avoid cutting off their path to higher office, generally, or not. Living authentic lives. Yes, and I think that makes you a better candidate. It absolutely does.

Now that will open your face a bunch, because those are those candidates are by definition, higher risk, they have higher ceilings and lower floors. And so that's why I was intrigued by it. I thought Debitsa's and College needed a higher variance candidate, someone who could do something different than Sarah Gideon did, or all of the people came before. And I was not convinced that Janet Mills could do that. And I do believe that that was actually the right call.

Not that Plattner was the right person, obviously. He was not, but that Janet Mills was the wrong candidate. Yeah, and we see that now. That's born out in Poland that we have even now. And the second thing that I feel on that and myself about is, as we went through this process, when I had first up in our session, we knew nothing about that.

And then we saw the online posts, and the things he said were horrible. And I thought there was a real chance that that could be disqualifying both and Mary in the general to voters. But I did believe, naively, apparently, the story he told about being a person who was dealing with PTSD, that dark time in their life, and drinking, and did a bunch of things, and then changed their life, improved. And I do believe that we should leave space for people who make mistakes to still be in politics. Of course, redemption and empathy are like things we need to cultivate as a society beyond politics.

And I believed that, and I actually still believe this, the story he told about how he got the tattoo was true. Now what I've come to, I do not believe that he knew it was a Nazi tattoo, and I certainly don't believe he was a secret Nazi for all the women that I think. Yeah, I'm with Tim Miller on this though. I think he got it, then figured out what it was, and then kind of use it as a cocktail point. He's only about, yes.

I think he lied about when he discovered that it was a Nazi tattoo. That I have come to believe. But this is a guy who was not shy about sharing opinions online, so I feel like if he really was a Nazi, we would know that. Now you could say that the Nazi tattoo, one thing you'll say is, anyone who gets a Nazi tattoo for whatever reason has a bad judgement, and that may be. But a lot of people in their 20s, when they're only from Warren Drunk has bad judgement, and should that be the most important?

I have a Celtic band around your four separate. I have not tattoos. I have a bunch of back tattoos, a bunch of butterflies that I regret now. They're not a shamrock on my ankle. I love that. They're not Nazi.

Better flies correct. I actually have no back tattoos. Just fucking. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't have a toe ring. Any two. But the other thing I regret, and this is where I really started to get very worried about Kren Puttner was, when the story came out in May about him sexting other women while married. And it's not that people can't make mistakes in the marriage and so run for office. That happens all the time.

It was that that happened so recently, that it really brought into question the redemption story that I had naively believed from him. It's one thing to make mistakes in a different part of your life. And then history, he made a bunch of mistakes. He changed his life. He started working. He got into politics.

But that wasn't the story. That wasn't the reality. But even then, as his wife said, they worked through with counseling. We all followed their fertility journey to get back. It seemed like it would be put behind them.

But it really made me wonder what the next thing was. And then he lied to everybody. And then he lied to everybody. But the thing that I look back on all of that is, don't believe a liar is a really, that's not helpful advice because how do you know someone's a liar until you find out later. What I think I should have paid more attention to was that back in March, you and I did a put-collective what's react, where we were looking at ads that were running in that race.

It's included the first negative ad that Janet Mill was launched against Platinum, which had a bunch of reading, like reacting to the things that Platinum had posted. And the one that were there, and you made this point to me, and it really was just been in my head for the last few weeks here, is like what he said about minimizing rape and that sort of inherent misogyny should have been a much bigger flag. Like that is a sign of something else. Not that I wish I had, I wish I paid more attention to that in this discussion. And that was separate in a part from some of the other things that he said that were just stupid and offensive.

That was dangerous and offensive. That just for, I'm gonna paraphrase it a little bit, but that was the right of post-race, that people should take some responsibility, not get so fucked up that they end up having sex with someone they don't mean to, which is deeply ironic considering the allegations against him. Can I ask you something, Dan? And I genuinely don't know what I think about this, because we talk a lot about Schumer, and obviously this was just a totally fakokkata situation, or the DSCC is intervening to great, the detriment of the race. But like Chuck Schumer's also picking candidates in a lot of other swing states, and putting the heft of the DSCC behind people like Mary Peltola and Roy Cooper and Sherrod Brown and people who are good candidates for those races.

And maybe they would have gotten there, regardless of Schumer's involvement, but like are we, and I genuinely don't have an answer to this, are we focused on this because he just did such a colossally bad fucking job picking the candidate in this race? What he did in Alaska, North Carolina, in Ohio, was he recruited Canada to clear the field themselves. They were candidates so good, so well known, so universally believed to be the best candidate that no one run against them. So it wasn't like there were a bunch of other people running, that Janimos was not a candidate. She was a part of the country.

Janimos didn't even want to run. Yeah, that's the other thing, right? And also made us a state with lots of Democrats, Alaska. The only one, the recruitment list for Alaska was Mary Peltola. There was no one else, right?

It was Peltola or Bust. Ohio, it was Sherrod Brown, and there was a long gap between one and two on that list. North Carolina got a few more Democrats who could have run, but were Cooper was far at the top, so once you got those, was it? It's where, I didn't like what they did in Michigan, back in Hilly Stevens. Texas element of all this as well, they could end up not working out for you.

Who knows? Yeah, my general view is churchroom that DSCC or VL should recruit candidates. They think some of the best churchroom was trying to convince them to do it. They should do that. When there was an active primary going on, and then they put their thumb on the scale, and they take that choice away from the voters.

Now, when I first wrote this, and was first upset about it, it's because the DSCC back-ended always won the primary. Politics has changed so much in the last two years that that's actually become an Albatross around people's necks, as opposed to this huge asset. But at the time it was, you're the DSCCC could pick the candidate and essentially take the agency away from the voter, which is what they were trying to do in May. That did not work in Maine. And so, it's not that the DSCC and Schum were wrong in every instance, just they were wrong in this one.

Yeah, well, and the dynamics of it are particular, and the outcome could have been meaningfully different if Chuck Schummer hadn't tried to clear the field and do what he did. And in fact, I think in some ways elevate Plattner in the course of all of that, right? He became a poster child for defiance and grassroots activism, and saying fuck you to politics as usual. The same thing happened in Michigan, whereby putting the thumb on the scale for Hilly Stevens, he elevated Abdul. And then one of the worst things that happened in Malagmore was a report, I think in Politico or somewhere else, that Schummer would be fine with either Hilly or Mallory.

So all of a sudden Abdul got to go out and say all the time, I'm the only candidate that Chuck Schummer poses in this race. And continues, I mean, continues to do that. Yeah, so do that. The thing I've been struggling with this conversation, I mean, this has been a, I would say it's not been a fun time online for a podcast associated with, Graham Plattner. Speak for yourself.

I mean, as you should have, have your moment. But is that another question? No, it hasn't been fun. It hasn't been fun. I've tried to struggle with what the broader lesson is here, because it shouldn't be that outsider candidates are bad.

But Dan, you're speaking so broadly, like this guy, you didn't have to know that he was a dick from the beginning. But once the Reddit posts started coming out, like I'm on for redemption, but there were a lot of data points. Yeah, no, that is the true. But I think when I was, like for example, there was this Biden aide who's on CNN today, who was saying basically taking Plattner comparing him to Abdul El-Sayed and saying, like also unvetted same consultants. And let's just observe because Abdul has run for governor and has been a government official in Michigan for a while.

So that's an absurd comparison. But it's this idea that people who are outsiders for first-time candidates are inherently risky because they haven't been tested, they've been vetted by the system. Right, that's right. Nobody should take a broad lesson about outsiders from the Plattner. Yes, because here were two other people who have had huge sexual misconduct, sexual assault problems, who are the insider candidates of Eric Swallow and Interquomo.

Right. There's nothing about being a creep that is exclusive to first-time candidates. That's also true. The other thing that, you know, the other, as we think about this and what it all means, like one story that people can tell, that's not an incorrect story, is that a bunch of podcast bros and democratic strategists and other dumb men online fell for the schtick of this narcissist, right? And that it was true that a lot of women, a lot of women in my life that I regret not listening to, like you and Sarah Longwell and other people who have raised these flags, you know, and this was like dumb men and much more faithful women.

And the loudest voices I think criticizing Plattner, particularly nationally were women. But then you look in Maine and Plattner beat Mills was beating Mills by like 15 points among women. A majority of that 150,000 votes was women. And so I just, you know, just reading Rebecca Tracer's very insightful piece and thoughtful piece about her support at Grand Plattner. Well, Michelle Goldberg has one as well.

Can I say something? Well, to your point about the podcast bros and other guys, I think, and I feel like I always sound like, you know, Brown University professor when I say this, there's a real crisis right now in terms of how the left responds to magus-style masculinity and like what it means to be tough and a warrior, but also progressive and a populist and like, what is that special alchemy? And like we got the left needs to build that person. They need someone who can be the antidote to all the, the just utterly toxic garbage male sort of the masculinity that is being showcased on the right, which is ultra retrograde misogynist and bad for the country. Set aside, setting aside bad for women.

And like Plattner was a unicorn in that way. He felt like, okay, here's someone who's legitimately a progressive and he's a man's man and all this. And that was, I think intoxicating to a group of men in particular who are looking for that answer. And it may be a latent desire, maybe an explicit desire, but I do think as a dude in the world who's a progressive, it's a weird, complicated time, which doesn't mean we should overly focus on men. I get it, but it is a problem.

I mean, I have two boys, like there is a dearth of real kind of like, there's, there's no playbook for how to be a guy in this moment. And I think if you're in the world of politics and you're in media, you're kind of trying to, you're bouncing between archetypes and you're trying to figure out like, okay, what's the way to be, what should we be supporting and championing? And Plattner was very attractive in that way. And I think that's part of the reason he took off at least in the online media space in a way that, I mean, Nimils never was going to, but even other guys in American politics haven't. I mean, he was just incredibly compelling in that way.

I mean, he was an excellent communicator, if you listen to, like his interview was like, into the New York Times podcast, like the interview he did with our friend Ben Rhodes about post-9-11-war. I mean, he was interesting and thoughtful and obviously like how he looked and how he sounded, you know, affected that, but it just was all bullshit is the problem, right? Yeah, no, he's a pig. Yeah, that's the problem. And that's what's so devastating is like, oh, it turns out actually like that brand of machismo is totally corrupted.

Which is, I guess. His particular, his machismo. This particular vehicle, like there was something Plattner was offering both in Maine and nationally that was compelling to a lot of people. The problem was that the person who was offering that was Grand Plattner, right? And so like how do you, like it's, like we have to spend some time and we're not gonna do it here, we can't do it here.

We're trying to figure out like what was it, I don't wanna overstate on Portland, this was once again 150,000 fucking people in Maine. This is not, you know, this is not. Right, but I mean, this was someone who's his advisor said that he could run for president in 2020. This wasn't gonna end in Maine. Yes, but every, I've been running a lot of Senate candidates consultants every time.

Yes, fine. Because they all want them to because it's very much in every consultant's interest. Everyone's to be David Axelrod, James Carval, you know, Karl Rove and so they're looking for those people all the time. It doesn't mean they actually would, he was a phenomenal phenomenon. He broke out in a way that like, I mean, this is a bad example, but in a way that, you know, Stacy, this is a good example.

Stacy Abrams did, even though she didn't win, a way that Beto broke out. And so it's like, yeah, there was something there and it's like, what was that? And how do you stretch figure what that is? It's separate from the very damage or a fucked up person, the pay-a-guess who said you did this. Okay, enough of Grand Plattner.

How much damage do you, like how fucked are we in Maine after all of this? What kind of shot do you think we have against Susan Collins now? I think, and I mean, I think my advice would be, say the word Susan Collins every time you wanna say Grand Plattner over and over and over again, because she is weak, but she is going to be a challenge. We don't mean to go to the numbers, we've talked about them a lot, but she over performs, or she has in most elections she's been in recently. This is the first one she's gonna have to face voters since Roe fell.

So, and I think that that's legit in a state that's what 60% of the electorate is female. You know, hopefully people remember the fact that she built the Supreme Court that overturned Roe. She was the critical vote in the Kavanaugh confirmation and fanciers herself a moderate, which is complete worship. I don't know, Dan. I mean, I think that the fact that I take it as a positive sign that in a way that main voters are desperate or they're so fired up about getting Susan Collins out that they were willing to overlook the initial phase of Grand Plattner's very serious transgressions.

I mean, that's, I guess, the silver lining, right? But, you know, the party's gotta manage this process in a way that doesn't further disillusion democratic voters. Grand Plattner needs to shut the fuck up and the focus really needs to return like a laser to Susan Collins. I think if we can, now this will be being less effful, if we can pick the right person, the right person might just be someone named generic Democrat with no tattoos. He doesn't know where to get to Reddit.

We are in a better place than we would have been with either Grand Plattner, pre, even let's say that this accusation never happened where Grand Plattner would have been, just everything we knew up until two days ago, that we had sent her for this new person to be stronger than that in stronger than Janet Mills would have been. Because even like in that New York Times standup poll from two weeks ago, after all the sex things that all came out, Grand Plattner was still more popular than Janet Mills. And so we have a chance here. Now, this is a state where using the New York Times poll, Democrats leave the generic ballot by 11 points. They want the Senate to be in Democratic cans by 11 points, I believe, 11 or 12 points.

So there is, and this is a state that's more Democratic than 2020. A lot of people, a lot of people who profile as Democratic voters move to Maine, particularly to the Portland area, starting around COVID. So it's actually a state that has grown from in migration. So we should still be able to win the race. It's gonna be really fucking hard.

Collins is gonna have so much money. She's had to spend almost none of it. There's gonna be a gazillion dollars. Big word trust. And pack money.

But I do think there's a chance we can make this. All, like every, this is what I was saying, this is my unsolicited advice to the planet people two weeks ago, like all this Epstein Island, you know, reordering politics, populism stuff is like, all that matters is that Susan Collins, no matter what else you feel about her, a vote for her is a vote to let Donald Trump control this. And pick Supreme Court justices. That's it. It doesn't matter how you feel about her.

It doesn't matter if you liked her personally. It doesn't matter if she got money for the iron bathworks or whatever else she is. A vote for her is a vote for Donald Trump. Two more Supreme Court justices. Full stop.

Like that's what people care about. That's what it's about. Don't let me be anything else. Don't ever come. I do believe we can still win this.

Totally great. I interviewed Adam Gentelson, former deputy chief of staff to Harry Reid and chief of staff, John Fetterman, the podcast. He is aligned with you that this makes the Democrats chances are better now than they were a week ago when platinum is still in the race before the political reporting. So there's that. There's that.

That was like a therapy session, Dan. I've had a lot to say for a few days here. So I'm glad we got some. I feel very honored that you wanted to share those things with me. I'm actually, if John was not a vacation, I would have suggested that we swap it out for you.

I feel better doing this with you. Well, thanks. I mean, we've gone on a long road to get out of it. We've been on a long, it's been a long-strange day. Yes, we have.

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Now let's turn to a new story of interest. It's just slightly more people than the main center race. And we're with Iran, which seems to be close to restarting any minute now. Shifts transcending the straight from moves started coming under fire again earlier this week. On Tuesday, the US military responded by hitting targets in Iran in re-emposing sanctions on Iranian oil.

Iran responds to that with shots at American installations. And at least we responded to that with more strikes and so on and so on. It's all a giant mass in getting worse by the hour. The good news is that Donald Trump seems to have a very good handle on all of this. Here he is at this week's NATO summit in Turkey.

It's a sea fire over. It's a sea fire down. It's the MOU dead. It's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over.

I don't want to deal with him with this scum. We had 111 missile shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan. Ah, the Islamic Republic of Japan. That's a headline story. I didn't even know.

I mean, not only has it become Islamic, they're also worthy of the United States right now. So much happened while I was in the book of the latter. We deep in main politics. We missed a lot of stuff around the world. So I'm sure Tommy and Ben cover this.

Yeah, well, thank God. Thank God we have them on watch. Yes. Things seem to be going well in Middle East, huh? Totally.

The line out of the White House is, according to Axios, I think today, we're going to slap Iran around a bit so they understand we're not fucking around. That's the strategy here. They are saying that this next stage of war could be weeks, could be months. But the essence of this stand is that Iran is not happy about the way things are going the straighter for moves and they want to reclaim control of it. And that is an unresolved dispute that is going to continue to fuck the global economy and could make it life incredibly painful for Republicans heading into the midterms.

And so I mean, the idea that anything was resolved by a page and a half docuSign, however, many weeks ago that was, is a joke, as is this administration's foreign policy. I am not surprised that we are here. I also am unclear as to how any of this resolves itself given the utterly, we are at loggerheads with the Iranians over the strait. They want ships to pass through on their side of the strait and register with the wait for it, Hormuz Transit Authority. Can someone get me an HTA hat?

And instead of the US, because that's how they're going to, that's how they're going to tax people or toll people or companies as they go through the strait. And the US is like, you know, go to the southern route. Don't register with the HTA. Use the side of the strait where Oman rules the water, if you will. That's not going over well with the Iranians and now we're back at war because the fundamental issue at the heart of this is nowhere close to being resolved.

The Wall Street Journal had a story that said that this is all basically happening because section five of the C's fire agreement that I would say Trump signed it, Versailles, is poorly written and has led to a lot of confusion about what a rainy control the strait actually means since it's so... They never really worked out because it was a page and a half because it's a joke because there was no diplomatic process and it's just that they wanted to get gas prices down. Yeah, they wanted to say the strait was open so that the market would improve and oil prices would start to go down even if the strait was not actually open. It's insane. Now gas prices have taken up a little bit.

They're not where they used to be. But you know, when you are so ambiguous about how, what the goal is, how this could possibly resolve itself, the diplomatic process seems, I don't know, he says they're kuku, I'm done dealing with them, they're sickos. Like, I mean, half of that is bluster or three quarters of it is bluster. But I've never been that confident in Jared Kushner and Steve Whitcoff, negotiating this process, though they are a cracker jack team of diplomats. And like, what confidence should we have that this doesn't stretch on off and on, not being called a war forever?

The only thing standing in Trump's way I guess is the appropriations process. In fact, these asking Congress for another $350 billion in Republicans may not be super stoked on doing that for months before the midterms. Yeah, it goes to the point I like to make about this, which is anyone dumb enough to start this war is too dumb to get out of it, which is where we are. Totally. As you pointed out, oil prices and gas prices have gone up a little bit through this, the stock market has gone down, ships are still passing through the strait, although it's still well below pre-war levels.

One third, one third of pre-war levels. But the administration has finally taken at least one step to help with gas prices. Let's take a look. We're here at the first Freedom Fuel Network gas station right here in Philadelphia, leading the charge to lower gas prices, $3.47. That's our 47th resident resident Donald J. Trump.

I mean, I thought it was a big news, but the greatest truth. I thought, let's keep going with your dog. Go to the good job. Thank you, Chris. Thank you for helping our country.

It's President Donald J. Trump leading the charge to lower gas prices right here at Freedom Fuel Network gas stations. You heard that right. The administration's big move is a network of so-called Freedom Fuel stations. They're mostly in the larger Philadelphia area and they're selling gas at $3.47 a gallon, $0.47.

Get it? Alex, I believe you have some thoughts on this initiative and I'm going to clear out and let you have them. Okay. First of all, nobody knows who's behind these gas stations. They just popped up around the Philly area.

They used to be like Sanoco stations or Texaco stations. There's just giant stickers on them and nobody knows how they're pricing gas at $3.47 because news flash, the reason gas prices are high is not because gas owners are stubborn and just need to be convinced. Get on the bandwagon of cheap gas. It's because they have to be because market is out where it's at. Now, there's some discretion they have in terms of sense and on the margins, but when gas is over $4 a gallon, it's not because they've gotten greedy.

It's because that's where the market is. That's where the price of crude. So this is all smoke and mirrors. This is a gas station, Potemkin village. I sort of delight in it because it is further proof that Donald Trump is a socialist.

These gas stations or gas station owners are clearly getting some kind of government subsidy to lower gas to $3.47. It is meaningfully lower than other area gas stations. And it fits in the suite of decisions Donald Trump has made to have the heavy hand of government get involved in private enterprise, whether that's extorting, Nvidia and Intel for stock that the government controls in order to get licenses or in order to establish trading overseas, whether that's the tariffs, whether that's the heavy hand of the Trump administration involved in the media and censorship. This is all the behavior of someone like Maduro or Putin or take your pick. This is not what free market capitalism is supposed to look like.

It is socialism, sometimes communism, maybe outright fascism and authoritarianism under the guy when it is politically convenient. What a joke. It's also stupid. What possible world is this going to make a difference by having a handful of gas stations in the Philadelphia area sell gas for a short period of time, for a slightly cheaper than other parts of it? It is they are spitting in the ocean.

Yeah. There are tens of thousands of gas stations across the country. Like there is a saying when you work in the White House, it's like you want to get caught trying. They are too big, congress won't work, but you won't see your trying. No one sees the call of ice trying.

They sent this video out saying they are doing this. And then in 99% of the rest of the country, people who see the video are then going to drive to the gas station and gas is going to be the same high price as it was before. So you just angered them because somehow then where you are not valuable enough to get one of these freedom fuel stations, you still have to pay the normal price. It's just so stupid. It's all done.

It's all done. I think it's honestly for Trump. Do you know what I mean? I think it's just a video that they can play for him when the baby gets angry. It's like one of those soothing like it's one of those um, you know, they're these little meat toys you can give babies they can chew on when they're teething and they get angry.

This is the sort of video version of that. This is this is Coco Mellon for fascist idiots. That's exactly what it is. Okay. All right.

One more consequence of the Iran situation we wanted to mention. Trump flew his new Qatari gives an Air Force one to Turkey. But when it was time to leave, he announced that he was sending the jet onto an airbase in England to give American station their chance to tour the aircraft and that quote, for old times sake, he'd be following in the old plane. He was of course lying. Then your time's reported that the secret service urged him to take the old plane because it was more secure and the new version doesn't have the same defense capabilities.

Alex, I thought the new Air Force one, which we paid hundreds of millions of dollars. We the taxpayers, hundreds of millions of dollars to rush into service was totally safe and perfect. Are you shocked by this? Shocked Dan. I did not realize that when Trump first of all, there he has two jets in rotation and I believe they're two more under construction right now.

So it's not like the entrance of this free Qatari jet did anything to help the American taxpayer or save us any money. I direct you to John Lovett and Tommy Viewtours excellent YouTube conversation on this very topic, which I found quite enlightening that clearly the jet is not up to snuff. Maybe they spent all the money on like warm nuts that are served right before right after takeoff or live flat seats or really fancy in flight amenities like face mist. I don't know, but it wasn't on securing the jet the way it needs to be because clearly they believe that there was some kind of national security threat flying out of Turkey. They asked people on Air Force one to lower their blinds, which I guess according to Tommy is what you do in a war zone and that the Qatari jet did not have significant missile defense systems on it to keep everybody safe.

So they had to fly the old baby blue Air Force one out of the threat zone. That's a problem. You don't want to have to have two jets in rotation because one isn't actually up to isn't secure enough. Generally speaking, you want the president to be on the safe jet all the time. It's like there's another version of this, right?

Which is the reason Air Force one exists the way it does. It's built the way it's built because in the event because the idea came during the Cold War, which is there is a nuclear war or some other war and the president has to stay in the air for hours and hours and hours to identify anywhere in the world to get the safety and be able to command the US military forces from there. And so you like at any point he could be on the new jet and theoretically something can happen in the world that could put him at risk. But you're on the new jet. It's not just like it's not a commuter shuttle.

No, it's just it's like once again and this whole thing is so dumb because the jet he doesn't care about that because it's not that often that the president is actually targeted like this obviously or that he is in within ballistic missile range of Iran. But because he takes the jet with him when he leaves, that's the thing. This jet does not go to president. Josh Shapiro, AOC, Kamala Harris, whoever else comes next, it goes to Donald Trump to fly around on as he visits golf clubs around the world. Fantastic.

Trump Force one. Trump Force one. What a disaster. But what else? I mean, everything Trump touches turns to shit.

So when we come back, North Carolina Senate candidate, former governor Roy Cooper. Lots of Americas brought to you by article. Article makes it effortless to build a home that lasts without the boutique markup. They're curated collections of mid-century coastal and scandy furniture are designed to make some attributes so you can create a cohesive designer look that will stand the test of time. Article stuff, it looks great.

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Spend it with me. Alex Wagner for Crooked Media presents live election results. We're gonna have John Favreau, John Lovitt, Tommy Bitor, Stacey Abrams, Dan Biper, Aaron Ryan and many more special guests to be announced and they're all gonna help us make sense of what's happening as the election results roll in. So here's what you need to do. Subscribe to PODS AVE America on YouTube and tune in on Tuesday, November 3rd at 9 PM Eastern, 6 PM Pacific for hot takes, catharsis and as many results as we can possibly analyze.

Jeremy Now is the Democratic nominee for one of the most important Senate races to this cycle, former North Carolina governor, Warren Cooper. Welcome back to PODS America. I'm glad to be with you, Dan. Thanks a lot. It's been a while, so it's great to have you on here.

North Carolina, a state near and dear to my heart, has been breaking Democratic cards for a long time. It's been since 2008, it's a Democrat won a Senate seat there. Talk to me about why you believe 2026 is gonna be different than all the other cycles that have emotionally traumatized so many Democrats from the country and North Carolina. Well, Dan, I've been having to convince people that we are having a tough race because people ask me what my biggest fear is and that a lot of people have put this race in the check mark win column. And you and I know the history of North Carolina just because I have a lead in the polls doesn't mean this race isn't gonna be very close.

We've seen so many Democratic candidates have a lead, have a lead, have a lead until they don't and we see Republican money pouring into this state at the end and we see great Democratic candidates lose by a couple of points. And as you know, it's been 2008 since we want to see almost 40 years we've only had two Democrats and both of them serve one term. So this is going to be a close race. I think this is different because people are hurting now. I don't think I've seen it like this because I've been out on my mixed stuff costs less tour.

People are telling me that there's just too much month at the end of the money for them. Their paychecks just are not keeping up with the cost of living and they are frustrated and they recognize that Washington DC is in chaos. That this president and administration promised them that day one that cost of living would be on top of the list and not only has it not been, they've actively hurt people's chances in that we've seen these chaotic tariffs at cost to everything. We've seen this war in Iran increase costs. We've seen this one big beautiful bill that ripped healthcare away from people and given the tax breaks to the billionaires.

People are frustrated and at the end of the day I think they know that I will be a senator who will put the people first, not the billionaires and we know that my opponent Michael Watley will do and say whatever this president tells him to do and say. And we know at the end of the day that a lot of money is going to come into North Carolina but we're going to win this race because we have to. I told my children the other day that my parents left me a better country that we had work to do to leave them a better country. I think all of us need to look within us and say, hey, what can I do to make sure that this country is the kind of country we want to leave to our kids and grandkids and that's why I'm running for the Senate.

You point out affordability is the number one issue in North Carolina is the number one issue all around the country is frankly the number one issue in our politics for basically since COVID as inflation went up. As you mentioned, you're on this tour of North Carolina. Tell me a little bit more and can you give me a handle of specific ideas that you would do to help lower people's prices if elected? The tour I've been meeting people across North Carolina, we call it the Make Stuff Cost Less tour. Very clear.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, we hear from Kwanah who's struggling to pay for groceries. She's a teacher. We hear from Meredith, whose kid Vivi's on Medicaid and Meredith's scared death that Washington is going to attack and take away Vivi's health care.

Pender's a farmer and we're all in North Carolina, the tariffs are killing him. So in my policy proposal, you can go to RoyCooper.com and read our proposals on what we're proposing to do to make stuff cost less. You can also help us out. You can also volunteer. We need people to help us in this campaign.

But first, we've got to work with Republicans and I believe there will be some who will be ready to work with us on taking back the Legislative Branch's constitutional authority here at Jackson Balances are critical. So taking them back on trade and tariffs, we've got to roll back these chaotic tariffs. And I think immediately that helps to reduce the cost of living. We've got to restore the health care cuts that have really wreaked havoc on people's pocketbooks and people's lives, their health. We've got to make sure that we are investing in education across the board.

I believe that when you look at all of the proposals that we have made like a child care tax credit because I'm hearing from people about childcare going through the roof and they're having to make hard decisions about whether one parent's going to work. We just need a Washington focused on people and not tax breaks for the corporations. And I think that we can make a difference. The government that works can make a difference for people and help them have a paycheck that keeps up with the cost of living. That's what I was talking about.

Gertrisshes and Gass, of course, and Gass because of the Iran war, but is utility prices. And one of the things, driving up utility prices is data centers. What would you do with data centers to either help lower the cost of electricity, slow the build, the build of these? Like, how are you thinking about this sort of mad rush to build as many data centers as possible? It's part of my policy proposals is that they must pay for their own energy.

Other consumers should not have to bear any cost from data centers. And we should encourage them to create their own energy sources and connect them to the grid. And I think many of them are ready to step up and do that. Of course, communities have to have input as to whether these are built there or not. But I think that is critical because we now have a demand for power unlike anything we've ever seen.

And we have a Congress and a president in Washington that has wiped away the gains that we made in clean energy that would have helped add energy to the grid. That's all been wiped away during the last couple of years. So we have a real challenge on our hands. So I think they have to make sure that they pay for their own. Your opponent, Michael Watley, is not particularly well known to a lot of people around the country.

He's not sort of one of these. You know, MAGA bad guys like a Ken Paxton or a Herschel Walker or a doctor Oz in previous elections. I understand there's some debate about his North Carolina roots and that he feels we'll name any members of your NHL Stanley Cup championship team down there. But what should voters either North Carolina or around the country want to help your campaign know about Michael Watley and who he is and what he would do? Well, first he's been a Washington DC insider for years.

He was a big oil and utility company lobbyist. He worked to be able to raise prices for oil companies and raise utility rates for utility companies. He still owns stock in those. And he served as chair of the Republican National Committee, his co-chair, pushed there by President Trump. And we're seeing that he's able to line his own pockets by advocating and encouraging the Iran War, pushing this one big beautiful bill.

He owns pharma company stocks. And we know that those have gone up because of this one big beautiful bill. He was also chair of the North Carolina Republican Party and recruited right-wing candidates like Mark Robinson, who's the self-described Black Nazi in North Carolina and stood beside and behind Mark Robinson. He has lied about my record. You mentioned that he's been telling people that he grew up in blowing rock, North Carolina.

In actuality, he moved to blowing rock from Michigan when he was 15 years old. And I don't mind people coming into North Carolina. You don't have to have grown up in North Carolina. People are full of North Carolinians when they move here, but just don't lie about it. But he's lied about my record, and particularly on crime.

But then you look at his record on crime, he appointed a convicted child sex predator who served time in prison to a prominent position in the North Carolina Republican Party and stood by him and reappointed him even though the party debated this. And recently the party has come in and passed a resolution saying, we aren't going to have sex predators appointed to positions of prominence anymore. He's also very recently stood by Trump's pardon of all of these J-6 insurrectionists, including those who assaulted a police officer and including those who went on to commit other crimes, some against children for child sex crimes.

That's the kind of record that Michael Whiteley has. And as I say, he will do and say whatever this president tells him to do and say, on the other hand, I will be a strong independent senator for North Carolina. I will put the people first. I will try to work with this president when I can. I did my first four years as governor.

He was president at the same time. I tried to work with him. We had to go through COVID and other things. But I will stand up to him when I need to. And there needs to be a lot of standing up to him right now in Washington.

I think the people of North Carolina are going to want that at the end of the day. You mentioned the attacks on your record on crime. This isn't a bunch of their ads. This seems to be their main strategy of trying to teach you. It was a pain to speak on crime and immigration.

They're specifically focusing on some early releases that you created in your time as governor. What is your response to those attacks? What's the true story here? Well, first, those stories, there are many lies being told in what they've done and they've had fact checks that have shown that they just simply are not telling the truth. I'm the only person in this race who's actually prosecuted violent criminals and worked to keep them behind bars while Michael Whiteley has appointed a child sex predator to a prominent position in the North Carolina Republican Party.

That's the difference between us on crime. People know my record as attorney general. They know that as governor. They've signed tougher bail laws. They know too that I believe in working to prevent crime by investing in early childhood education and in our public schools and in healthcare and in our communities.

I think that's critical. But they believe this is a soft bot. It is not. I think the people of North Carolina will hear that at the end of the day. Immigration is in crime.

We're tied together in Republican rhetoric these days. One of the tasks for a Democratic Senate will be or just a new Democratic Senate is going to be trying to find ways to rein in what is happening with ICE and what the Trump administration has said. We decided to have another person killed by ICE recently. How are you thinking about what you would do with ICE? How would you reformate or restrain it?

Well first we need secure borders in this country and we should deport violent criminals. This organization should be working to try and do that. But we also don't need what is happening now with people being picked up just because of what they look like. Often American citizens being put in danger shot on the street. It seems to me reasonable that officers who work with ICE should have the same requirements that state, local and federal law enforcement officers should have.

And I think that that is something that we need to do. Make sure that they have those same requirements. As we mentioned, your opponents, the former chair of the RNC, a couple of weeks ago the Supreme Court had a ruling which now will allow the party committees like the RNC and the DNC to spend unlimited funds on behalf on races like yours. How does that ruling affect your race with your opponent being the former chair of the organization that can now spend unlimited money? This is the worst campaign finance Supreme Court decision since Citizens United.

It allows virtually unlimited spending from these joint committees when a candidate and a political party or like the Republican senatorial campaign committee come together. They don't have any limits as they used to have. This puts more power in the hands of the very wealthy, of the billionaires, of the corporations. And I think you're going to see a significant amount of money flowing into races all across the country using this new device. It may affect our race even more than others.

Being that while he has been recently the chair of the Republican National Committee, he knows all the people there, he certainly has been talking about the fact that they're going to use this new tool. We all need to come together and get a grip on campaign finance in this country. We have to find a way to stop this madness. It's too much money in politics. I'll be first in line to find a way to overturn Citizens United.

But until then, we cannot unilaterally disarm. This takes power away from small donors. And I hope small donors will stand up and say, we're not going to let this happen. We're going to give these candidates even more, RoyCoop.com. It's a great place to go and to do that because we need to have a strong voice for everyday people.

And this new decision just allows more money into the system. It leads to more corruption. We see open corruption in Washington right now. In fact, my opponent, as I mentioned, owns individual stock. And when I ran for governor, I sold all of my individual stock.

I have widely held mutual funds. I'm doing that during the campaign. I will do that as United States Senator, regardless of what the law is. But I will work to pass a law that prohibits members of Congress and executive high executive officials from trading individual stocks. I'll support a law that stops allowing people to be lobbyists after they serve in Congress.

We need to get people to trust the federal government again. And right now, people just don't. So we have to elect people, not only who will fight to change laws. We're seeing that we have a lot of people who want to change the laws, but nothing ever happens in Washington on this. But who will set examples?

And that's what I want to do when I get there. And the way this money is going to come in, I hope it won't affect these elections because I hope that people will step up and help these candidates. We've got to take back the House. We've got to take back the Senate. We've got to make sure that we come back to the Constitution that the framers intended, where we have true checks and balances because right now we have leaders in Congress who simply will not stand up to the president.

And you need to do that regardless of party. You need to do that and that the branches need to push against each other in order to make this great republic work. I'll say this for you to make it easier. But the ruling means that the RNC has a lot more money than the DNC. The DNC has more money than the Democrats.

If we are going to, the only way we're going to take it is for people to go to websites like worrycooper.com and push back. Because it's not, we can win with grassroots nations. We are not going to match the billionaire for billionaire in this race. So I would do that for you to make that pitch easier for you. You said it better than I.

And I think you're right about that because they are, we can't catch up. The DNC just simply can't catch up before November. So we're going to have to have help from everyday people out there. The Democratic Party is in a bit of transition these days. And we have Democratic Socialists winning in New York City and Colorado.

We have progressive anti-establishment candidates winning here. We also have worrycoopers running in North Carolina and shared rounds running in Ohio. Is there a big, big enough for the party these days? Like how are you thinking about what's going on in the party? You're a two-term governor establishment figure.

There's this anti-establishment sort of fervor going on. How are you navigating all of this? Well, I understand why people are frustrated because government often hasn't worked at the federal level and people are mad. And so I get it. People are paying too much.

Things are costing too much out there. And they're frustrated. They don't have health care. They can't afford a place to live. Am I going to say it?

One bipartisan thing that they did, the housing bill that just got flipped on is just so frustrating. But look, I can just tell you what we've done here. I was a Democratic governor for eight years. I had a Republican legislature for eight years. And yes, I vetoed a lot of bad legislation and we fought over a lot of things.

But I found ways to work with them on recruiting good paying jobs to our state, to getting paper and a leave, to passing a law, to get our power sector to carbon zero by 2050. And finally, got a Republican legislature in the southern state to expand Medicaid, which has made a real difference. And we did that by getting their constituents in these red-rural counties to lobby them for it. Because when I would use my contacts with sheriffs in some of these counties, when I served as Attorney General and many of them would complain to me that essentially that a lot of people in their jail were struggling and needed healthcare.

And so they understood that Medicaid expansion would bring more help to their county, with medical services, and would help keep their rural hospital open. And when you have a tough on crime, Republican sheriff walking the halls lobbying for Medicaid expansion, it's very effective. And so we were able to work together on a common goal to get healthcare. These red-rural counties have benefited really more than anybody else here. 730,000 people in county now have healthcare in North Carolina.

And there are ways to work together. We saw it on the housing bill in Washington. We've got to have more people who are willing to sit down at the table, even if they have disparate opinions. When you look at goals, often our goals are shared, even if we are on opposite ends politically. We want a good education for our kids.

We want a good paying job. We want clean air and water. We want quality healthcare. We all want the same things. And we have to be willing to sit down at the table and find ways forward, find a way to achieve consensus.

I did that as governor time and time again. I want to do that in Washington. I believe that Washington could use a dose of North Carolina common sense. I'm ready to come and try and provide that, not only from a governor, attorney general perspective, a state legislature perspective, but I practiced law for 18 years and was a managing part of my small firm for a while. I had to make a payroll.

I have a lot of background that I think I can use in helping to shape legislation, walking across the aisle, trying to find a way forward because people just want government to work. And right now it's not. I think governor, I think it's a great place to end it. Governor Cooper, thank you so much for joining us and we'll talk to you again soon. Thanks, Dan.

Appreciate it. Thanks. It was so fast. It was so fast. Sorry to cut you off.

It's just been an hour. We've been doing this for an hour. No, I mean, I just meant like it was like emotional highs and lows. It was our last grand plan or conversation ever. Oh my God.

Mark that on your calendar. No, seriously. Okay. That's our show for today. Thanks to Roy Cooper for coming on.

Tommy will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with Gary Linnaker, host of the Rest Is Football and legendary England striker to talk about the World Cup and the politics of soccer. Talk to everyone soon. Bye, everyone. Pazimerica is a creative media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Ferris of Ari, with