Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway.
So before we get started, make sure to subscribe to stay up to date and support our show. All right, Jess, let's bust into it. We're less than a month from the midterm elections and Trump has been out rallying for Republican causes. He's promising another round of checks for voters, saying he'll send nearly $800 to 20 million seniors on Medicare.
Okay, we'll come back to that. PredictIt has the odds that Dems sweep the House and the Senate at 63%. Wow, the worm has turned. And polling shows Democrats leading in gubernatorial races in Republican states, including Iowa, Ohio, and even Texas. Trump also seemed erratic when speaking at a rally in Ohio over the weekend, and promised a big surprise in November. Here's a taste.
If the Democrats win, you will end up in a 1929-style economic depression. If the Republicans win, you will each have $5,000 in your pocket and economic success for our country like we have never seen before. The mutilation of your children. Can you imagine, like 10, 15 years ago, saying that, ladies and gentlemen, we will not have men playing in women's sports? Will you defend it? Tariffs have been used against us for years and years in China, in Japan, in South Korea, in Canada. Data centers benefit local communities. We want them. Look, there's so much money to be made for Ohio. You can't just turn them off. They'll go to China. China is, you know, a lot of people think it's sort of a PR attack by China. Could be. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not such a believer in that, but there's probably a little truth to it. And I know more about inflation. I know more about everything than anybody in this room, anybody anywhere in the world. Well, there's a woman sitting right over there, she's a housewife, but she's very good. She's got a natural instinct for business. Just get out and vote. If you do that, we're going to win and we're going to win big.
And we're going to shove it up their ass. Okay.
I'd love to do that. I'd love to. So Jess, I'm on the East Coast, which means it's very, very late.
That's how tired you are.
So I'm on the West Coast. And while typically I'm up for something shoved up my ass, it's just not what I want to hear at this, at O-dark-hundred hours from an obese 80-year-old man. That's not who I want shoving anything up my ass. Your thoughts, Jess?
I also would like to keep my ass Trump-free. Yeah. So even though $5,000 would be...
I wouldn't even do it for $5,000. $6,000 maybe. $6,000 maybe, but not $5,000.
$6,000. Don't let that get out there. And we're live streaming. So...
How did... whatever happened to that guy? Um, so give us, give us an update. This is your sweet spot. Talk to us about the midterms and how, how things are looking.
Well, I'm sure that our producers are happy that we moved away from what would be the thumbnail, you know, $6,000 ass man, Scott 'Doc' Galloway, up too early on.
The midterms and ass play. Anyways,
It's like so much good news that I'm uncomfortable.
I don't know how to process.
It's nerve-wracking. It's like, okay, things are going too well here. Like, I prepared for the show and three minutes ago a friend texts me, 'Did you see this?' And I thought, 'Oh my god, what is it?' You know, is the Russian plague here? Oh, no, no, no. It's just Gallup. Knock, knock, knock. The voter ID for Q3: Democrats up 11 points. It's the largest quarterly margin recorded for Democrats since the first quarter of 2009.
We all remember what was going on there. It's nuts. It's also this time, you know, right before the election where there's just so much data pouring in and you have to be very careful about what you trust and what you don't. But everything is moving in the same direction and that is a good thing. You have, you know, some results that make sense to me even from great pollsters, like the big poll from the weekend was the New York Times Siena poll, which is historically very, very accurate. Really nailed it in 2024, was one of the first polls to pick up the signal that people who used to historically vote for Democrats were considering Donald Trump. Obviously, that came to fruition. Like, they have Ashley Hinson up by one in Iowa. That makes sense to me. It's Iowa. Susan Collins up three in Maine. That also makes sense to me. Adam Hamilton tied in Kansas, which would just be a bonkers result. We haven't sent a Democrat to Washington from Kansas since 1932. So it's been a while. But they had Tyler Rico up 51-45 and now he's been over 50% in a few polls, which is the important threshold where obviously, you know, you're going to win if that's the case. Sherrod Brown up in Ohio. Mary Peltola up by seven in Alaska and Al Sayed up by five, which is much more comfortable than the Fox News poll which only had him up by one. You know, the NBC Telemundo poll also had a lot of really good results. Tons of focus on what's going on with Latino voters. Republicans have just completely [messed] the bed. But Donald Trump only has a 27% approval rating with Latinos right now. Historically, Hillary won Latino men by 31, Biden by 23, but Trump won them by 10 in 2024, and today Democrats are up 24.
Wall Street Journal: 11% of Trump voters regret their vote. They feel betrayed and they are struggling financially. 87% say that Trump's economic policies have made the economy worse. 91% give the economy a negative job rating and 93% give Trump a negative job rating himself.
I don't know where you want to dive into all of that. Oh, and I will say also the DCCC, the Democrats, the House committee, are thinking that they could pick up as many as 240 seats and now they're dumping money into another six races. All districts that Trump won from between 10 and 21 points. If this is going to be a polling error, it is going to be the polling error that should destroy the polling industry at this point. This is beyond the quiet Trump voter in 2016. And, you know, people saying with 100% certainty, or at least 99%, that Hillary Clinton was going to win. A lot had to go right for him. That is the way the dominoes fell. And some models made room for that, like Nate Silver's. But this is bananas. I don't know if the kids say bananas, but I say this is bananas.
Do you think polls, or I read somewhere, and I'm curious if you think there's merit to this, that polls have a tendency to have a bias favoring Democrats?
It depends on the poll. I mean, there are some surveys that are very famous for having Republican biases, but I have seen that most of these, and certainly the A-rated ones, which are the ones that I like to discuss because why waste your time talking about, you know, a sub-par pollster that came up with something that you liked, you can have a top-tier pollster that said something that you liked. They've been looking under the proverbial hood on what the sample looks like and I have not seen anyone ripping these apart on that basis. And Tony Fabrizio, who is the president's pollster, his own work is finding that Democrats are winning in states where we have no business even being competitive. And I think that's how you end up with Donald Trump doing a direct-to-camera saying, 'I'm going to pay you $5,000 if I win to every single American,' or if my team wins, because the alarms are coming from within the house, right? That his own advisers are saying we are in a complete crisis mode, which is why we need you in Oklahoma and Alabama. He's in Ohio. That should be, you know, a flip for Sherrod Brown obviously, and a flip in the governor's mansion. And you have Vivek Ramaswamy, did you see this? Like trying to pick up that kid where he's like, 'Oh, I'm going to pick up this kid now.' And yes, it was not a baby, but the kid went limp. You know, how annoying is that when you're trying to pick up your kid and then they just go limp and you can't do anything. But anyway, it was like the most humiliating moment. And I guess I had a sad Saturday night, but I just watched that probably like 200 times on replay.
I like that. I immediately wanted to go check that out. And this is another giveaway. I'm just trying to... I can't help it. I feel like we always have a tendency to go out as a politician and it's just sort of, are voters this stupid? So, vote for us, $5,000. Vote for them, we cut your kids' genitals off. Like, voters buy that. That works. That bumper sticker works. What do you think of this $100, or this another giveaway to seniors now? I assume some will go for it, but when they looked at it, and I haven't seen people look at who believes him about the $5,000 for everyone, but, you know, he floated this last month. And it was something like only 13% of voters thought that it was true. And when you are running an emperor-has-no-clothes administration and only 13% can see your imaginary outfit anymore, you're in a lot of trouble and they're flailing. And you see at this moment, and I get it that it's exhausting and I can't imagine at 80 keeping the schedule that he does and, you know, flying all over the country and, you know, sitting on Zoom calls. So, you see he was on like a G7 call and refused to turn his camera on, which...
I do that a lot.
Yeah, but you're not the leader of the free world. You're just the leader of the pod.
I don't know. We have a lot of influence here, Jess. I don't...
Oh, is that how this rolls now?
But he does. He seems like he is fed up with this and he resents the fact that he has to be out there campaigning for people. I mean, a lot of them who don't even want him to come, frankly. But that...
they should be doing better. And he doesn't understand why the folks down ballot are less talented than he is. And he's a great retail politician. You know, he created these amazing relationships with people, those who love him really love him and enjoy him. The problem is the cult is softening, you know, chipping away at the seams and Democrats are, you know, running around with an open bag saying, you know, just come, you know, come with us, come with us. The question will be, let's say these midterms are incredible, and I think we can all agree, you know, there are individual candidates that are doing an amazing job, but in general I don't think that people feel as if the party, the Democratic Party, has a clear, compelling message as to why the future will be better under a Democratic presidency, you know, heading into the years to come. And I'm curious to see what they do with that, like what that turns into because this will be, you know, your second-to-last at best, but, you know, maybe just last anti-Trump election because he won't be on the ballot in 2028 despite what the folks in that Ohio arena feel.
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Do you think Democrats are shaping up message-wise, or is this a full rejection-of-Trumpism election?
I think our candidate quality is outstanding. When I look at the candidate in Alaska, I just... every time I... or I hear this, Rob Sand, and every time I hear I get a clip of a Democrat challenging a Republican incumbent, I'm like, right on. I don't know who's in charge of candidate quality, but I think, okay, you know, some of the people they have running and their messaging, granted the Republicans don't have a lot to work with right now, but people are calling it a blue wave. I think a better description of it, I wish I could credit the guy who came up with this, is a red riptide. And that is Trump is just dragging every Republican out to sea. There's just so little... they have so little to work with right now. They're trying to run from him. There's the other thing I'm thinking about. I'm going to...
Let's bring this back to me.
I'm going to a retreat for the regents at Big Bear in Lake Arrowhead. When's the last time you were in Lake Arrowhead, Jess?
But I'm sure it's lovely.
I haven't been there in 40 years when I was invited to the student government retreat as the president of the interfraternity council, which I'm grateful I am not right now.
For a lot of reasons. Anyways, one of the issues is whether or not to reinstate the SAT at the University of California and make it mandatory. They have to, you know, right now test scores are optional.
And it's a longer conversation, but one of the things that's come back from the faculty, from the math departments across the University of California, is there's a lot of kids who can't do basic math, basic fractions, and I think that plays really importantly to Republicans. I generally think Republicans think a great strategy is to neuter US education because anybody who believes that a handout in an economy that is running two trillion in deficits, this is what it is. Say they give whatever it is, a trillion dollars and a $5,000 credit to every household, whatever it is, say it cost us $1 trillion.
When you're running a deficit, it means the following. Okay, America, if America were a household, it makes $50,000 a year. That's its income. It's spending $70,000 on credit cards and its credit card debt right now is $400,000. And the terrible thing about this credit card debt is when mom and dad die, the kids get the debt. So the kids at 21, 31, 41 wake up and they have $400,000 in debt. And essentially what this offer is is the following: you get a note, and we've all gotten these things in the mail saying, 'Congratulations, we've increased your credit limit on your credit card.' So, despite the fact that you owe $400,000, you can now spend $410,000.
That's all this is. It's saying, 'Okay, I'm going to give you an increased spending, but be clear, your kids are going to owe this money. This money isn't free.' We don't... this isn't... if the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does this, if Kuwait does this, Qatar, which is the wealthiest country in the world, does this, it kind of... you can take it and say, 'Wow, that's real money. I'm getting real money.' All you're doing with this is borrowing. Your credit limit has been increased, but your kids are going to have to pay it back. And people seem to go for it, and I think it reverse-engineers to a lack of basic math, reading, and writing in K through 12. I just can't... anyone who claps through this, it's like, okay, do you understand basic arithmetic? Do you understand the concept of debt? And one of the things I was talking to some high school... I met with a bunch of high school principals, like, is there an opportunity for a class called adulting? What is an interest rate? What does that mean on your credit cards? You know, STDs, like basic adulting. What does it mean to buy a house? How do you know when to rent versus buy? You know, living with your parents, that hormone that's coming over you right now that makes you believe that your parents are awful people. No, they're not. Most of them are your allies. It's like a basic adulting class. And then just basic, you have to... What's exciting, I'm going very off script here. Some states in the South who've just gone back to very basic education, reading, writing, or, you know, reading, arithmetic, so to speak, are just outperforming.
The Mississippi miracle, which is leading the way.
Almost like, kind of for lack of a better term, work mastery. Like, how are you feeling?
Anyway, it just shocks me. No easier way to understand somebody who never did algebra than anyone who claps for a giveaway in a debt-driven or in a country that's running at a deficit. All right, let's move on from... let's move in from... move on from kids who can't do math to the US. I don't know if you saw the story. I thought this was fascinating. The US has abruptly pulled all 12 B-1 bombers out of a UK air base after commanders received urgent intelligence about an Iran-backed plot against the base. This comes shortly after British police arrested five men in vans near the base who were later released on bail but remained under investigation, and a dual British-Iranian national was separately arrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. Jess, what do you make of these threats? Has this changed the situation in Iran?
Yeah. I mean, so the pulling them out, it was the culmination of like a few weeks of threats and then very suddenly everything had to happen quickly to pull these bombers out. We don't know yet what the new piece of information was. But starting back in July, the IRGC issued a statement to the UK saying that letting the US use the bases makes London responsible for US actions. So, you know, Andy Burnham, new on the job, but probably doesn't like that. And they said any base used to launch attacks on Iranian territory is a legitimate target for our forces. And I think that's really the theme of what is going on now. And I was, you know, reflecting a lot on our conversation last week when I brought up that we were at 80% the level of oil, you know, pre-war that was now getting out. Now it's even higher than that. And you were cautioning me and our listeners saying we need to actually understand the totality of what's going on here. There are a lot of other factors at play. You know, namely that it used to cost you $50,000 to get a tanker in and out and now it's $1.3 million. And since September 28th alone, there have been seven confirmed hits on tankers. Right now, that Saudi pipeline that the administration, you know, is so proud of that they've been touting, shut down because a tanker reversed course because of an IRGC warning that it'd be attacked if it continued. So Iran might be on the back foot and their economy is certainly crashing, you know, in complete freefall here, but they still do have the weapons capabilities to make this really hard for us. And that's why the oil prices are hovering at 30 to 40% above where you would expect considering how much oil is getting out because of the cost of getting it there. And then there are, you know, a lot of countries that are getting their oil at discounted prices. Things are moving faster in Iraq than for, you know, the free world as we see it. So, you know, a lot of negatives, I would say, going on here too. And I think it's why the administration has actually been quieter about taking the proverbial victory lap because every day I open up the rundown for The Five and I think, 'Oh my god, they're getting so much oil out. This is going to be the lead story, the lead story.' And, you know, it's election time, so domestic politics always is, you know, featured front and center. But I keep thinking, why isn't this the lead story? And then you think about this aspect of it, right? That you're paying so much more to get it out that the prices aren't dropping by what they would expect or what they needed. And that is just objectively dangerous. And now our allies can't even have our planes there because Iran is going to be targeting them. So what were your thoughts?
Just the word, the one word that comes out of Ukraine and Iran is asymmetry. It's going to reshape warfare, and if it doesn't, then we're in real trouble. And Timothy Snyder, who I had on Prof G, said something scary. He said Ukraine is the innovator around warfare, but within 60 to 90 days the Russians copy it and can produce it at scale. That we talk about the incredible fighting force of Ukraine, but unfortunately Russia is absolutely upscaling through trial and error the lethality of its armed forces. We produced 20,000 drones last year and Ukraine produced a million. And this is reminiscent of... Ukraine was able to sneak a truck into Russia and then the truck pulls over to the side of the forest, pulls back its cover, and then several trays of drones with explosives are launched further, further, kind of deepening their strike capabilities. And that's what they think happened here. And that is, strategic bombers are our most expensive deterrent.
A B-1 costs hundreds of millions of dollars. And this, you know, they were forced to move because potentially of a van that might have, you know, gotten into the base somehow and the people they pulled out of the van were Iranians. So it's asymmetric warfare as it's designed. Cheap threats force an expensive response. And it's really, I mean, the future of warfare is just going to be, we have these expensive platforms. We have B-2 bombers that probably cost, you know, these are, I think these were B-1s, but B-2s cost one or two billion dollars. And even worse, they have two very expensive soldiers in them. And when I say expensive, I mean Americans just don't have an appetite or stomach for seeing a guy in a uniform or a casket and his son and dog near the casket. They just... we are not... we have a glass jaw. One, it's the risk tolerance for sending an expensive piece of equipment built on an expensive platform with an individual that is becoming antiquated warfare. You want a fighting force that is so courageous and scary and willing to die, and there's nothing more willing to die than an unmanned drone. And by the way, you can just launch thousands of them. So this is basically Iran is bringing the war to its allies using asymmetric warfare.
And you know, the war has followed us home to our allies, and the UK let us use its bases, and now it's the one with suspects on its soil. It's really one of the big pivots here that we don't realize the impact it's going to have on US power or ability to deploy power around the world. Our bases used to be security. People were willing to give a lot to us in exchange for us putting a US base on their soil because what it meant was, oh, don't [mess] with us, kind of a mini Article 5, because there's a US base here and attacking us, we can respond with the most incredible military in the world. Now these bases have gone from security to bullseyes. I mean, I think China has one base overseas, we had 700. You're going to see ours go way, way back. I'm just going to re...
Allies are like, 'All good now. Thanks so much. Pack it up, please.'
Yeah, you should. Don't you miss your kids? So, we brought a sledgehammer to the region, and Iran, as the IRGC, has answered by threatening the tool shed. So...
Can I just add to... Yep, sorry. The point that you were making about what we have a tolerance for, that we don't want to see, you know, a son and a dog with the flag-draped casket, and I think that's absolutely true, but by extension the problem here is that this kind of conflict has not been sold to the American people at all and hasn't even...
been sold to the soldiers that were asking to engage in it. I mean, the fact that you're getting these reports from what life is like for them abroad, going back to families about the, you know, subpar living conditions, what they're eating, that, you know, bathrooms are broken, that they're not getting their days off that they're supposed to, etc. That doesn't happen when people feel bought in to what they're doing or that they have folks in charge that are responsive to their questions and concerns. And I'm sure that there are going to be some people in the comments or out there in life who will say it's not about that, right? If you know someone is in a position of authority and you signed up to protect and defend the United States of America, you don't ask questions. But after months being trapped on a ship, for instance, you do get to ask questions, especially when none of this is being explained to you. And you are also seeing headlines very few and far between that are positive for the US cause. You're just hearing things about people being denied benefits after their loved ones are dying, that more people are being injured or passing away in the line of duty than we're hearing about. Or that, to your point about the bases, that they're turning into sitting ducks, that they're out there with these makeshift bases where they're like putting up cubicle walls, essentially. I mean, that's how we lost our first servicemen and service women in this war with Iran, because they didn't put a roof on it. And so they were able to just, you know, chuck missiles in overhead instead of, you know, coming in the front door. And I think the real difference here versus past conflicts and where the administration misunderstands the mentality on the ground is that no one bothered to ask anyone what they thought of this. They didn't rally the troops. They didn't rally morale. And then you have this kind of fallout from it. Um, and I'm just curious. I mean, Andy Burnham convened this national security meeting about this. What's going on there? This is scary stuff that like 85 homes had to be evacuated as a result of this, even though they didn't find explosives in the vans that you mentioned. Um, so I'm sure that they're wondering, even though they haven't bought in or, you know, gone to war with us in the way certainly that we asked, UK, France, etc. Like, what's going to happen to them as a result of being understood to be our allies?
Yeah, it's, um, I mean, the ugly reality is Russia, with a superior military, thought that they were safe, and the asymmetry of war has come to Moscow. And the same fear is a real fear that our security forces have to deal with, and that is we went with sort of a certain level of arrogance and impunity and thinking we unilaterally have the power to go and attack Iran. And asymmetry is offering them potentially, like, you know, to basically say, well, okay, right back at you. We're going to start attacking your Gulf allies, even though they were our allies. But it's a real possibility that they could begin attacking our allies in the EU or bring something to the homeland. And I don't know if it was Warren Buffett who said that to believe that poverty overseas in different parts of the world doesn't eventually hit your shores is just naive. And arguably, what asymmetry is going to do is, you know, extend that notion of war, that it's going to be increasingly unlikely that if you take war overseas to believe that you're isolated or sequestered from it may become naive with these very inexpensive asymmetric vehicles where it's basically motorcycles and go-karts and drones that can strike you.
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Let's moving on. On Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Jeff Merkley introduced the Ban Flock Act. The bill would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers and cut off federal grant funding to state and local governments with contracts for the technology. That same night, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez made surprise appearances to introduce the Strokes before about 40,000 fans at Flushing Meadows in Queens. Bernie Sanders and the Strokes. I hear that and I want to slip and break a hip. Jess, the Strokes and blocking Flock cameras: are AOC and Bernie giving people what they want?
