We're back. We are back. Um, a little bit later, but just more informed because it's 45 minutes later than we would have started.
Indeed. But it is better late than never, as they say. The show must go on. Welcome to the...
The show must go on. And the raging perspective with that's true.
You're cancelling the joint venture. I get it. You say partner's perspective. So used to it. I totally get it. Uh, welcome to the five. I'm Jessica Tarlov. Just kidding.
I'm Jesse Watters. Kidding.
Definitely kidding. Uh, this is a raging perspective. It is the partner's perspective and raging moderates having a proverbial Substack baby every Wednesday, today at 12:45.
And if you guys haven't yet bought Jessica Tarlov's book, I Disagree. It comes out in less than a week. We are in crunch time.
I know. Here. I'm annoying myself. Well, I always annoy myself about this. Um, I actually have like the actual thing sitting here. It looks good. Yeah, it does look good. A lot of Photoshop on that baby, but what can you do? I'm gonna just touch my hair through it. We see the comments. I know I'm annoying about my hair. I'm working on it. Okay, let's get into it.
Let's do it. Something's happening in Dallas. Yes. A midterms convention. Oh, I bet you're Charlie Kirk's uh anniversary of his passing. A midterm convention, too. Well, that's tomorrow. Yes. And it's also very sad that he was assassinated. So I'm just saying because you said it like... I mean, to be clear. Yes, it is a major convention even though it's not actually a convention because there are no delegates or anything. So Trump palooza or whatever is probably the better way to describe it. And it starts today. It's a two-day event. A high number of very big deal Republicans, especially those in battleground territory, are skipping the event. The GOP has been offering up free tickets to help fill seats at a time when Trump's approval rating is at an all-time low and oil hit $100 a barrel again as the chaos in the Middle East continues to intensify and we continue to kind of not talk about it. Um, Trump is trying to compete with the NFL kickoff. This actually surprises me from a programming standpoint because if there is one thing that he does know, it's TV.
And why would you do that? I never understood it. I mean, you know what I actually think happened? I think that they royally messed up the dates because this year the NFL for the first time is having opening night on a Wednesday, not a Thursday. Typically, it's every year's on a Thursday. This year they have one on Wednesday and they have another game tomorrow on a Thursday because you have two. Just blowing up both nights of your convention. Correct. So I think whoever scheduled it is not a football fan or is just maybe probably used ChatGPT um to find the dates.
Do you think a beta male scheduled the Dallas midterms convention? It would I would I would not put it past them. Um, did Mike Rogers schedule the midterms convention? Is he even speaking? No. Well, no. I don't think he's on the list so far. Uh, Susan Collins not going. She's in a tough race. Um, he doesn't make it easy for people that actually have to appeal to moderates and independents, um, let alone lefties. And also he's not doing that hot with MAGA at this uh moment. Anyway, what are you hearing about the vibes at the event thus far? You know, reporting has been trickling in. I'm sure you also have some sources on the ground.
Vibes are sad. I mean like it's a bit of a kind of people just don't understand why we're why they're doing it. Um, and folks on the ground in a way there are just as many Democrats on the ground for counterprogramming as there are Republicans going to this convention and uh it just doesn't make much sense. Trump's calling it the greatest thing ever, the biggest rally ever. I mean he's doing his thing, but I'm going to be honest with you. I think these ratings come out tonight and I think it's going to be so bad. I don't know who's watching it. Like I don't even know who knows that it's happening. Most people don't even know it's happening and then the people that know it's happening aren't watching it. I'm not staying up until 11 PM watching him speak. Not gonna happen. Um, so if I'm staying up it's because the US Open insists on cramming all of the matches into...
I have so many thoughts on that. I'd rather I'd rather yell about that. I was really sad to miss the Shelton match. Yeah. I can't like 3:30 ending though. Yeah. I think the US Open, I mean this is not new. You know that it's been happening. I know. But it's worse. Yeah. Than I mean I rarely I don't know if there has been a 3:30 end. Anyway, it was very exciting. No. Um, and this all uh all-American male semi is pretty cool. Um, what? Okay, so this is about Trump and now the midterms is fully about Trump and that's how he wants it. He says he's going to go to 35 swing locations at the same time that swing state Republicans are literally stripping him off of their websites. How do they play this? Because I, you know, live in perpetual fear of whatever the October surprise might be that's coming and, you know, I never want to count chickens before they hatch. I know that Democrats still have problems with voters, that there's still not a lot of enthusiasm for them and what we're offering. Uh, a lot of it is just I hate this guy, so I need to go in a different direction and you guys are the vessel for that. Um, so what do you think? You I imagine it's just like greatest hits at this rally, but how do you expect the next sixish weeks to play out?
It actually doesn't feel like the election's only six weeks away. Um, 55 days. It's crazy. To me it feels like this election's like months away. Like it does not feel like it's right around the corner. And it is. I mean, I think that I've said it from the beginning. I still think it's going to be a closer election than many people realize. Yeah. At the end of the day, like the country converges as we get towards election day. It's very rare that you see it become even a bigger split between voters between today and uh November. And I think that you'll see them kind of come closer. I think Democrats will win the House of Representatives. I don't think they'll have an issue doing that. But I think the Senate's going to be a much up it's a harder challenge. I still think and I've said this on I think almost every single live we do is that people like James Talerico, they have to run like they're underdogs because they are underdogs. Yeah. Like Ken Paxton is still the favorite in this race. Even and people are going to say, well, look at polls. I don't really look at these polls, especially in Senate races because if you look at especially like, for example, the Fox News poll, which is rated as an A poll, every single summer shows Democrats leading in all these states. And then every single fall, Democrats lose in every single state. And so, I don't look at polls. I look at um what's happening on the ground. And on the ground right now, I think everyone I think Democrats need to put in the work to win.
Yeah. I mean, I don't doubt that. I totally agree. And James Talerico is running like he is behind and I mean, really, he's just within the margin of error anyway. I do wonder if this Dallas situation will give Paxton a lift that he needs or if really everyone is just like, please open up the piggy bank. That's all that we care about at this point. Because the money that's leaking out, it's very small amounts if you think about how much it costs to run these races where they're like, oh, amazing, like Dear Leader is handing out money from MAGA Inc. and it's like $4 million which James Talerico can raise in a tweet.
Well, I don't know if you saw but Ken Paxton, you know how I know he's like really worried? So, number one, he talked about women in a positive way on Twitter and he's getting completely flamed for that. Um, like what did he say about us? Well, so there was a report out that said that in the last month or whatever, women made up about 95% of those who were hired in the job market. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And Ken Paxton essentially was like, 'Oh, wow. Thanks to President Trump, women are leading the charge.' And the internet, the Republican party blew up on him. They're like, 'How dare you? Like this is sexism. Like your support.' Like it was crazy. Um, like genuinely like crazy. But so that was number one. I was like, 'Okay, interesting. He's like talking nice about women. That's how I know there's issues there.' But then I saw this tweet last night and now again this morning. He's giving out 7 million free eggs to Texans. The office of Ken Paxton, the attorney general's office, the official account, found seven million eggs and they're giving them to Texans. Free eggs. You don't just give away free stuff in an election year six weeks before an election. That just that doesn't just happen.
No. And at least make it something more substantive like an entitlement like give people back their Obamacare subsidies. They would like that more than some eggs. But it is interesting, you know, as a comp too because James Talerico is doing this big grocery drive as his counterprogramming. So maybe Paxton is trying to get in the fridge, if you know what I mean. I know what you mean. Okay. Well, it was pretty obvious that one. Okay. Uh, it is the 25th anniversary of the attacks, uh the 9/11 attacks this Friday, uh which feels very surreal to me. Uh, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is releasing more than 170,000 pages of city records documenting the government's response to 9/11 and its aftermath, launching the city's first public portal dedicated to 9/11 records. But as the commemoration begins, we're also seeing controversy. Former mayor Rudy Giuliani says he doesn't want Mamdani at Friday's ceremony, and just yesterday, Trump falsely claimed that firefighters carried him away from the site of the attacks. Um, we have been going back and forth about Trump's fireman story. Um, but I want to start with the release of these city records. Um, you know, just upfront and for people who don't know this about me, I grew up near the Twin Towers. My family was evacuated after 9/11 and my dad passed away from a 9/11 related cancer. And so getting these records is incredible and deeply personal for lots of people. Um, not just, you know, folks in the first responder orbit, but there were millions of people affected by this. You know, commuters that were sent back to their offices that weren't safe. Obviously, the people who lived in the area and then relatives of those folks. And since the news of this broke, uh was it Tuesday night that it came out, you know, people have been flooding the 9/11 victims site uh to register because there's, you know, going to be a whole new wave of people that they're going to want to track and follow their health outcomes uh because we know obviously what happened to older people that were living within the zone that had these unhealthy levels of asbestos um that uh Christine Todd Whitman and other important officials said were safe for us. But now tracking what happens to the children of 9/11. So you know people in my age bracket and even younger. I was like I said a senior in high school. Um, so I think that this is a huge win uh for transparency and for the 9/11 community and the... you know, seeing that this is what Mamdani is doing when there were several mayors before him who would have had the opportunity. I'm not saying maybe the 170,000 that are coming out now and apparently there are more still to come but something because this community and Jon Stewart was talking about it uh with Mamdani standing behind him, this community has been begging for answers and if they're scared about the money that they're going to have to shell out and the lawsuits like that's coming for you anyway and there already is a fund uh for people who were affected by the terror attacks in this way. Um, I don't know, it feels like a big, you know, people against the elites moment and that there's some silver lining or shimmer of light for the people.
Oh 100%. Um, I mean listen, I think that this should have been done a long time ago. These files should have been released if the mayors had them. And I think shout out major props to Mamdani for doing it. I think the officials who knowingly withheld information uh back in 2001 uh from the public, I mean I think that they lawsuits, I mean to the extent that there is a criminal prosecution angle I'd be open to that. I mean like you need to significantly investigate both the folks in charge um on 9/11 and in the aftermath after 9/11. Now no one's perfect, right? Like people are going to make mistakes, but the Harding memo uh specifically to me uh was proof. I mean it's like one of those like the Erin Brockovich moment, right? Where like you find that one memo that they've been hiding for so long that proves they knew that this was bad and they went through with it anyway. That memo, I mean the people in charge are complicit. Um, and uh I think it's a real telling stat that more people have died after 9/11 than on 9/11. Um, and so yeah, I mean I'm just I'm glad that there's some transparency.
What do you think of the group of 9/11 families and it is in no way a majority opinion, but you know they are uh victims' families who don't want Mamdani there. And you know, Councilwoman Vicky Paladino has been all over TV um talking about how he shouldn't be there. Um, what's your feeling on it?
