I'm really good. How are you?
Good. Good. Welcome to the Raging Perspectives.
Just one or I guess we have two. We each have our own perspective, but one and they're very unique. Welcome to our latest episode of the Raging Perspectives featuring me and Jessica Tarlov, my amazing co-host. We go live every Wednesday at noon Eastern time and we are just now two weeks away from the midterm elections. If you haven't yet subscribed up here for Substack, down there for YouTube. Jess, how you feeling? Two weeks to go.
I actually feel kind of good and that makes me so uncomfortable.
Yeah, that means we're going to lose, right? Just kidding.
Did I just totally screw us? No, it's just like all of the indicators are heading in the direction of this should be a good night. I'm not in the blue tsunami territory. I think that that's crazy. Even though some of these metrics actually do mirror 2006, which like I can't even begin to process like what that would look like for us. And I mean this is our first topic, so we're going to get into it. But no, leave questions in the chat. We answer questions at the end of our episode. And also right after this on the ProfG Substack if you're a subscriber, I'm going to talk to Dan Osborne who is the independent candidate in Nebraska who has a very cool race going on. But yeah, let's talk elections.
Oh, I'm going out of order. We could talk about Steve first because I know but he said something today that I think everyone should hear. He called Vladimir Putin a humanitarian. Let's watch him speaking about Putin here.
Okay. Thank you.
He's a 75-year-old man and you talk so much about my president, President Trump being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir. And I salute that. I commend you and I thank you again.
Jess, what do you make about these comments from Steve Witkoff to Putin in that meeting?
Well, first of all, nobody's talking about Donald Trump as a humanitarian, except maybe a vicious autocrat like Vladimir Putin. And you know, this is following the release of an American prisoner from Russia. So, I get it that there has to be some degree of thank yous. But this is the same Steve Witkoff that said that Putin was definitely a straight shooter and decided that he didn't need a translator to have a conversation about complex negotiations with a KGB agent. So I think it's further affirmation that our diplomatic core and our I guess real estate developer slash diplomatic core is not up to the job. And I absolutely hate the fact that you have this going on at the same time as the American abdication of our support for Ukraine. And you see Zelensky who was on Fox and Friends this morning talking with Brian Kilmeade who has been a stalwart defender of Ukraine and the post-World War II global order which I guess doesn't matter at all to the Republicans at this point. But the contrast could not be more stark from cozying up to the bad guys and where we should really be which is supporting the people that believe in democracy and freedom and all of the good values that we hold dear. What did you make of it?
Yeah, I mean, listen, two days ago, Russia struck a park in the town of Kharkiv, Ukraine, killing a one-year-old girl by the name of Angelina as she was getting out of her stroller to go play at the park. They also killed an 11-year-old in that same strike, injured several others, including that one-year-old's mother. And I don't know how you can call someone a humanitarian when that same person is facing a war crimes allegation in the International Criminal Court for abducting mass amounts of Ukrainian children. That's like Donald Trump walking into Kabul, Afghanistan and calling the head of the Taliban a humanitarian. I mean it's just ludicrous. And I understand the whole point of view of this is diplomacy and you have to be nice to the opposing side in diplomacy and kind of play up Vladimir Putin. But this being flattering Trump and calling him a humanitarian, calling a statesman, that would work on someone like Trump. On Putin, Putin's just going to chew him up and spit him out. And so I think it's an embarrassment on the world stage.
Hard agree. What do you think of the latest round of reporting on the slowdown of the Starlink system that it was Elon Musk that implemented it? They're still pointing fingers at each other for who's actually responsible. But that little girl that you were talking about who, you know, I was focused on her perfectly tied little shoes, she's sitting in her stroller and then just blown to smithereens. There needs to be some accountability for what's gone on here.
Yeah, for sure. And honestly, my internet is also a little messed up right now here. So, if...
Is it a Starlink problem? Do you think Elon is slowing us down?
He may want to slow me down. I don't have Starlink. No. I mean, listen, I think whoever there's a reason why you see all this like Spider-Man finger-pointing, like you know that Spider-Man meme of like when they're pointing at each other. The reason why it's happening is because they know that the disruption of Starlink led to the deaths of civilians, which is a crime. They know that it is a war crime. They know that they could be prosecuted for it. They know the last thing Elon wants is an ICC arrest warrant for aiding and abetting the slaughter of Ukrainian civilians. But that is what he is doing here. If he was the one who did this, if this reporting is accurate and I know a lot of Elon fans like to watch the show sometimes. Well, the truth is if he is going to disrupt Starlink and it's going to lead to the deaths of Ukrainian civilians, then the allegations against him are justified in many respects. And so, that's why you have all this finger-pointing, Elon throwing Trump under the bus, Rubio throwing Elon under the bus. That's why they're doing it.
Yeah. Zelensky said this morning that he had good conversations with Secretary Rubio about getting Starlink back to normal speed. He also talked about what potential peace deal he would be open to. Do you think that this means there will be some forward motion? And I want to add that he was very clear about the quote unquote peace talks. This idea that's being floated that President Putin and President Trump will talk. Zelensky said, "You can't have those conversations without me. That's just not how this works."
Well, I mean, they're determining the future of Ukraine without Ukraine involved. I mean, that just doesn't make any sense. Like, they're drawing new maps for Ukraine, drawing out territory without Ukraine at the table. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. And I think that a lot of Trump's talk publicly is a lot of bluster and an effort to try to, I don't know, get Zelensky to capitulate and give in for everything. But Zelensky has been a wartime president for four years. I think Trump is completely underestimating this guy. I remember during the first couple days of this war, there were warnings from the Biden administration directly to Zelensky like you got to get out or else they're going to kill you. Your country's going to fall in a matter of days. And he didn't do it. He stood there with his people and he fought back and now we're four years later and arguably Ukraine is winning on the battlefield. And so I don't think Zelensky is just the type to just capitulate overnight just because Trump is demanding him to.
I hope so. Or I hope not, whichever way is the right way to phrase that. I find him to be completely inspirational. And we're short on great leadership these days. And he is that to a T even in his embrace of the idea that they should have elections and if Ukraine wants to go in a different direction, that's completely fine with him. But you need to make sure that it's safe enough that people could actually go to the polls since they can't go to a park at this point and so many of them are without electricity and heat.
All right, back to where we started. I'm feeling good, which makes me uncomfortable. Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg pouring $80 million into the midterms. This was just announced yesterday, including at least 50 million for House races as Democrats look to expand their majority. This comes as the new New York Times/Siena poll was released showing Democrats with a national House vote lead by 11 points. Dems are also leading the GOP on every leading issue, including immigration. Republicans do have this fundraising advantage. The RNC is moving more than 50 million to its campaign committees. A little bit more about the New York Times/Siena poll that stuck out to me. 75% of voters rate the economy negatively. So JD Vance being out there last night saying, "Well, the Titanic didn't get turned around in a day." Like, everybody knows that this is Donald Trump's economy at this point. 73% negative job rating for Trump on gas prices. 69% negative job rating on cost of living. 64% negative on the economy overall. 61% on tariffs and a 59% overall negative job rating and 67% amongst independents.
Not ideal in this situation and the fact that I guess his response is to just continue to talk about John Houston's ass at whatever rally he's at. But there was one thing that I wanted to ask you about from this and it was that Democrats are now seen as the party of the working class by a 13-point margin. So that's a real flip from the situation in 2024. Some progress was made going into the 2025 off-year elections when we got Mom Donnie and Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill. But what do you make of that? 13 is quite dramatic of a lead for the narrative about Democrats as the party of the elitist coast and that we only know about lattes and nothing of how to work with our hands.
The Democratic Party used to be the party of the working class. I mean, way back when and it still is in many respects. It's just there's a difference between what the party is and how voters perceive the party to be. And I think that's a very different split right there. So how the party is, the party is the party of the working class. It always has been. It always will be. How the party has been perceived well hasn't been, it's been perceived as the party of the elites whereas Republicans somehow took over the mantra of the party of the working class. And I think we're getting back there because and it's Republicans shooting themselves in the foot when Donald Trump says the economy is working for Wall Street. Like that is not the party of the working class. And so I think that the messaging coming out of the White House and ultimately the results over the past 18 months, 19 months are exactly why we're seeing this shift back towards the left.
Do you just feel like it is the response, the boomerang to cost of living is too high, so we're going to get this rating? Because I don't think it's this simple. I think that you do, you know, years and years of damage both reputationally but also on deliverables because there are, you know, amazing pieces of legislation like the ACA for instance, that you know, 20 million plus Americans are insured as a result of it. But people still feel like it's too expensive, for instance. And when you ask the average voter, you know, what does the Democratic party stand for? They don't necessarily have a cohesive answer about that. They know that corruption is now the number one or number two issue in the election and I do think that Trump and co have done an enormous amount of damage to the Republican brand writ large as a result of that but this feels like one of those like this is just a big referendum on Trump elections and that's how we got that plus 13.
Yeah I mean ultimately this election is a referendum on Trump that is the what the election is and it's all about Trump but the shift in the working class and who represents the working class and who doesn't is because like you said of Trump and it's kind of what I was saying in that because of the failures of the administration we're seeing these radical shifts in the polls. Now I will say this I don't trust any poll and I know you're a pollster. I don't trust any...
No, it doesn't. I want to talk about this Wedgewood situation.
It was crazy. So great. Okay. So, for all of you readers at home, it was just revealed yesterday that a poll that hadn't been around for that long, like about a year, but had put out a result that was pretty pivotal in Mallory McMorrow's decision to drop out of the Michigan Senate primary. Remember, it was a three-way race way back in the day. And the idea was then that the support would consolidate around either Abdul or Haley Stevens, but it put her in the single digits when that actually ran counter to what she was seeing in terms of fundraising and support on the ground and even some internals. So she ended up dropping out of this race and it turns out that this pollster, it was a complete fraud situation and it was taken incredibly seriously. It was integrated into some of the top aggregators that you go and check on a daily basis if you're that type of person, which I am. And they're acting like it was a social media experiment. This was a college kid, but there's an older man involved in it, too, who has this Cali betting account. Like, this has to go to court in some respect. And I cannot even imagine what's going on within, you know, the vestiges of the Mallory McMorrow campaign.
Yeah. I mean, I think it's pretty stunning to say the least. And I listen, I don't think Mallory McMorrow lost her race or dropped out because of this one poll. I think that there was a trend. I saw like the five polls before she was trending downwards. This poll definitely was a catalyst in that respect. But I think twofold. Number one, the lesson is stop listening to random polls on Twitter. And Twitter needs to not be holding such a weight when it comes to campaigns moving forward because what's happening on Twitter is not happening on the ground in many states. That's number one. And I think number two is it's an egg on the face moment for a lot of folks like the New York Times and others who just decided to blindly incorporate this into their aggregators without doing more research. I mean if the allegations are true, this is a prosecutor's dream. This is wire fraud through and through. You're literally defrauding the like because there was money apparently being exchanged hands or stuff. It's a I mean prosecutors are definitely going to go after whoever is responsible for this if there are criminal allegations there.
It's not the first time too. We saw pollsters earlier this cycle come out saying that they were fake pollsters or whatever. I think with like the LA mayor experiments.
I mean with Francesca Hong as well in the Wisconsin gubernatorial Democratic primary there.
Yeah. I mean my question is like at what point do we like start regulating the polling industry? I think the polling industry has fallen off the mark for a long time now. I mean, you can look back to Iowa and Seltzer. That wasn't a real poll. That wasn't a fake poll, but it I mean, the result was as though it was a fake poll.
And so, like, I think that we need to have a real conversation about the current status of the polling industry and where we go from here. Certainly the criteria for being able to get into these mainstream and kind of vaunted aggregators I think needs to shift. I also think the impact of the betting markets or the prediction markets on quote unquote political outcomes or political polling where everyone is now holding them up against each other. When one actually has a methodological background to it and you have people who have done this for decades doing it versus like a bunch of people who have an opinion about something and that's what you get with these Kalshi outputs or Polymarket is very very different. But I imagine that people will be certainly looking for a way to take these guys to court but you said Twitter isn't real life and I would say when it comes to Vivek Ramaswamy Twitter is real life. Do you see what I mean?
