We're on the TV, Scott, or the computer.
That's right, ladies. Hello.
Oh my god. Women's hockey team, Detroit Lions hat.
That's right. I'm feeling good, Jess.
Yeah, I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good because it's election day.
Uh, no. I just feel great. I just feel—I don't know. I'm feeling very American. I'm hopeful. I feel really good. I couldn't sleep last night. I got up. Well, you guys had a big, great show.
Yeah, yeah, with Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was—she literally got a standing ovation. I can't get over there must have been like every—I don't know, every Democratic woman in New York was there. Just like, I mean, it was just—I, it was staggering the reception she got. I love that she's greeted that way, and anytime I see her, I do the same. But when it's happening, I just think, how much would this woman give to trade the presidency for this? Like, having won the presidency versus how much would—how much would we give? Yes. Let me get no tariffs, no one around, no corruption, confidence in government, no Secretary hags, friends abroad. Our allies would still be our allies. Oh, we'd still be doing a lot of trade with Canada. Gas would be at three bucks, not 4.50. Women wouldn't be dying of sepsis in emergency rooms. I mean, there's just a few things that might be a touch, a wee bit different. She probably wouldn't let any megalomaniac addict dial back Starlink. We would probably at this point be forcing Putin to come to the negotiating table to give back land in Ukraine. Yeah, things would be just a scotch different.
Just a scotch different. Maybe we needed this. Maybe we needed to learn.
I like me. What do you think? I like me with the hat on because you saw less of me. I just—I have the hat on and I start thinking I'm reasonable looking. I take the hat off and I look like me. I am riding very high right now. I've had two cups of coffee. I've had no breakfast. I am super excited about today. I am sick of being cautiously optimistic. I've got an American surfboard out and I'm going to ride a super tsunami today, Jess. I'm going to go deep in the pipe. I am going to shred. We're not going for no blue wave or red riptide. We are going for the super tsunami today. How are you feeling, Jess? How are you feeling?
I mean, I feel good, but not like you. I'm just, of course, even with the surf analogy, I'm like, what if there's a big Republican shark that's coming to take like one limb?
Uh oh. Is—have you identified the shark?
I've been spending a lot of time listening to data people because they're the only folks that I can trust in this. And hearing everybody say that they have made corrections to the polls for the fact that we could be underestimating Republican turnout. And we know people come home. No, no, it's a good thing that like these models actually are on the more conservative end.
Yeah. One of the strangest things—this is the first election I've ever seen where typically whoever's behind starts to tighten. I've always wondered if that's just the media trying to keep us glued to our phones and our TVs, but everything I've seen is saying the gap is actually widening. Anyways, we welcome everybody to our live Substack.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, when I do like this, hello ladies. Hello. There's no editing it out. There's no editing it out. You're welcome. I did it last night and that was the moment that Secretary—Madam Secretary Clinton—thought about the series of bad decisions she had made that led to a point where a guy was rubbing his belly. Anyways, before we get started, we'll be live streaming all week to break down the election results as they come in. So, make sure to subscribe for all our coverage. All right, let's get into it.
Woo! Millions of Americans are heading to the polls today while another 50 million have already voted early, outpacing the last midterm cycle across key Senate battlegrounds. Both parties made their final pitches Monday. But Trump's closing message was anything but conventional. Shocker. Standing in front of the newly reopened Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, he joked about renaming it after himself, then spent another 20 minutes detailing his renovation projects before finally turning to the economy and the midterms. Just hours before Election Day, the Supreme Court also denied the administration's emergency request to set aside 20,000 mail-in ballots in California. Meanwhile, JD Vance and Don Jr. went to Ohio, urging Republicans to reject the crazies and get out to vote. Nothing like hearing you should reject the crazies from Don Jr. As of this taping, Polymarket has Democrats at a 77% chance of winning a majority in the Senate with leads in all seven battleground states. Let's take a look at MAGA's closing message.
President Trump, since he came down that golden escalator, has saved America. Oil prices are plunging now. They're plunging. They'll be down. I hope people realize that when they go into the voting booth.
President Trump took a bullet for you. He bled for you. He faced life in prison for you. And what he needs from you tomorrow is your vote.
Uh, does somebody have those pictures for me? The pictures. So, this is what we took out. And this is the pipe inside here.
President Trump loves America. He loves this nation. And he's delivered more for us in two years than any president has in four or eight years.
And by the way, we resurfaced the granite. This granite was all resurfaced. And it's in, you know, because it's granite. It's got a—
The Democrat Party has said they do want extremist, pro-jihad, America-hating, 9/11 supporting monsters like Hassan. They want to pack the Supreme Court. They want to make Ohio a state. I don't know how it works, but you know, they can do these things and get away with it.
You'll still be able to do what you do, work with Democrats, even if they do.
Well, if that happens, I guess I'll become Mr. Veto. I'm not going to let them run. And then at some point, we'll probably make deals. That's what's happened.
Scott, what if we make Ohio a state? What will happen? They could make Ohio a state.
So this is the campaign speech you give after your molly dealer is back from Tulum. I mean, this is—and supposedly he's been rumored that they're trying to groom him to be president or to run. I would love it. That might be the first donation I give to a Republican candidate for president. Is it Don? Don? I'm so on team Don Jr. You should absolutely announce now. Announce now. I'd like to see he and Rahm Emanuel discuss issues at the next Davos. Okay. All right, Jess, anything that stands out to you about the final day on the campaign trail? And also, let's talk about early voting numbers. What do they tell us about these races?
The early voting numbers are monster level. As of 8:30 this morning, Democrats surpassed their entire 2022 turnout in Florida. We're going to talk later in the show about, you know, going by the clock, early signs of what kind of night it's going to be, and some really big races in Florida are going to be indications of that. The North Carolina numbers continue to be the most impressive of the bunch. I have the feeling that Roy Cooper will be jumping ahead on people's lists of someone that they want to have in the mix come 2028. Michael Whatley—a bad candidate—and there has been some good journalism around all of the bad decisions that President Trump made when it came to candidates that put Republicans in this position. Obviously Ken Paxton being atop that list, but Michael Whatley, you know, pushing Darlene Graham to run for the full term in South Carolina versus just being the six-month caretaker after Lindsey Graham passed away.
What are the odds in South Carolina right now?
It's a toss-up race. I don't know what the couch ads are. My expectation is that Darlene Graham is going to win that race. But if she wins it by five or less, that tells you something about what people are doing and their willingness to vote for the other team and dissatisfaction with Republicans. I liked this from Lakshya Jain, who's a pollster. He said, 'We've updated our model. Senate has 53 for Democrats, 47 for Republicans, House at 239 to 196.' And then he writes, 'The data unambiguously says something. It's just that nobody seems to actually believe it. We'll see if that's warranted.' And that's what this game has been. And I was listening to Nate Cohn as well, G. Elliott Morris, friend of the pod, you know, all saying the same thing, which is there's not a lot that you see in the data that you could use to make the case that this is even going to be a decent night for Republicans, but we're all standing—well, not you. You're fine. You're belly out having a great morning, but everyone else is in the fetal position. And I was thinking back about Ann Seltzer's poll. Remember that Iowa poll that randomly, you know, out of nowhere had Kamala Harris up? And Galen pointed out, which was a good reminder, that the thing about the Seltzer poll is that it was an outlier in all of this. There are no real outliers at this point. You look at these high-quality polls, you know, everything from Fox News, New York Times/Siena, Wall Street Journal, NBC, the Atlas Intel poll came out, which was, I think, the most accurate of 2024. It has Dems winning all of the key races that we're looking at. Minnesota with the closest margin actually in all of that. So, the data is telling us something. But perhaps the most important number for today, a new Election Day record, the highest ever national average for gas and diesel: $4.12 a gallon for regular gas and $6.28 a gallon for diesel. Mhm.
Putting aside partisanship, which is a very hard thing to do. If people are, like you say, driving by these enormous election billboards every day, which are your gas prices, they are seeing prices that you have never seen before on an Election Day.
Well, in addition, it's sort of the sum of all fears. You have in a lot of the swing districts, it's where people drive the most. In addition, we've talked about this, the swingiest of swing voters are men. Men drive on average 30% more than women. And then when you look at actual jobs growth, there has been jobs growth over the last two years. The majority of the jobs growth has gone to female-led industries, healthcare specifically, where it's 70 to 80% of the employee growth is women. And then the industries that have taken the biggest hit and have seen a destruction in jobs are manufacturing and transportation, which tend to be 70 to 80% men. So the most vulnerable, if you will, are the most likely to swing their vote from one party to the other, right? Women aren't as fluid. Young women aren't as fluid in terms of who—young voters in general are fluid, but the most fluid, likely to go one way or the other, have no allegiance, are young men. And this economy has been especially hard on young men. Young male college graduates, their unemployment rate is actually quite high. Unemployment is sort of at a historical average, even slightly below if you go back far enough, except for young male college graduates. So, the voters who are most likely to swing their vote, are the most fluid, are the ones actually being hit hardest. And in what is an incredibly unlucky and lucky piece of data for Republicans and Democrats respectively, is the gas prices seem to be having the greatest impact in exactly the wrong states for the Republicans, the swing states.
So, what kind of Democratic leadership are we likely to see if the party takes back Congress, or what changes in leadership do you think we'll see if things go our way today?
Well, obviously you'll have Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries. He's laid out pieces of the agenda. It's all focused on affordability, which is I think a good thing. Robert Garcia, who will be the oversight chair, put out a statement about focus there and we'll dive in and look into the Trump family. I almost wish that those things would not be said out loud yet because I feel like that's actually one of the strongest arguments for a partisan Republican to either come home and vote for Republicans or to get off the couch. If you say—I mean, it's not impeaching Donald Trump again. I think we've definitely learned our lesson about that. But even the word investigations, you see how much it shows up in speeches that President Trump is giving at these rallies. You know, 'they're going to come after me, they're going to come after me.' And there are a lot of folks who felt that that was an animating factor in their vote in previous elections. And so I would like to focus on the 'are you better off today' election versus, you know, what are we going to do with our gavel in oversight. Though I obviously think it's important to dig into Epstein file cover-ups, all of this money that they've been making. Even, you know, Trump being out there at the reflecting pool, it's a choice and he's a builder and he loves those stories. I would add though that there were only, I don't know, 60, 70, 80 people that were out there with him and he spent very little time actually focused on the elections. Hakeem Jeffries again, it's affordability. I would still love my three bumper sticker policies to be released where you just say this is what a Democratic agenda looks like, this is how we'll be able to enact it if we get this kind of margin in the House. If we, you know, hope and a prayer, if we are lucky enough to have the Senate, maybe we even have a couple of extra votes in all of these governor's mansions and state legislatures. There are enormous opportunities for trifectas in a lot of right-leaning states that we're not even paying attention to. That's how you actually get these agendas through. And I would like more, but I understand that with this particular election, when the incumbent is so unpopular and it's a referendum on what the Republicans are doing, that maybe it's enough to just say we're not those guys and we're going to try to reverse as much as possible that's putting a strain on your wallet. Do you see anything floating around in the kind of policy area that's exciting you about what Democratic control could look like? I mean, obviously Trump will turn into this Mr. Veto, but it's still worthwhile to put things out there. And if the margins are big enough, you might actually get, you know, some Republicans to side with you. And who knows, maybe there's a miracle to be had.
Yeah, I think they need to outline their agenda. Even if it doesn't get through, they can start to outline stuff, start to debate it, start to socialize it amongst the American public. Something around the idea of a Medicare option for everyone. Something that moves us towards some sort of relief around the ACA subsidies, and it also gives people a sense that at some point we're going to address the fact that 40% of American households have dental or medical debt. And that's not to say to absolve those people of that debt, but to move to a more universal coverage model. And it might be incremental, but something that outlines that we are moving away from the privatization and the concentration of hospital systems and verticalization that has essentially monetized healthcare, much to the stress, anxiety and lack of well-being amongst the American public. Something along the lines of tax reform and an alternative minimum tax for companies. As a percentage of GDP, labor wages have never been lower. As a percentage of GDP, corporate profits have never been higher. So that means we probably need to readjust or reverse the flows of capital and prosperity from the owners or from the earners and the consumers to the earners. And we need to reverse those flows. I would propose a series of fairly serious antitrust actions, talking about a removal or modification of 230 such that we no longer have a profit incentive of the biggest companies in the world to create a series of shared lies. I would throw out there things like mandatory national service, commissions to talk about how do we take advantage of asymmetry around warfare and potentially take our military budget from a trillion and a half to 900 billion, 700 billion, while maintaining the most lethal fighting force in history, recognizing that our platforms are expensive and have to be manned and we're just not willing to. The B-1 bomber used to be a symbol of intimidation. Now they're intimidated and having to leave certain places because of a fear of a lawnmower with C4 attached can take them out. There's a ton of things. Something that would codify Roe v. Wade. It will get vetoed. It won't pass. But put it out there. Basically outline the agenda for a Democratic administration and say this is a preview. Don't you want to see this movie in '28? And this is how we improve affordability through antitrust. This is how we are going to create a more responsible fiscal program that will bring down interest rates on your credit cards, your mortgage. But basically occupy the space you command and get Trump to veto something that helps people get medical coverage. Get Trump to veto something that says we are going to get money out of politics. I mean, so fine, but outline your agenda. We need to move—the theme here is we need to move from the party of indignance to the party of ideas. So speaking of—
Wait, can I say something about that before we go more indignant? What will be very telling is what leadership does with all of these hopefully, knock on wood, winning candidates, because there are folks out there running either as Democrats or independents that have, if it goes as it is projected to, been able to persuade people of all political stripes to support them because they're talking about the issues that matter to them and have put forward solutions. So there's this great opportunity to take parts of the agendas from all of these amazing candidates and make that into your platform. This doesn't have to turn into a smoke-filled room like, you know, 'what do you think we should do? Should we take a bit of this or a bit of that?' Like, go to the big winners. If you know Zach Demsky flips Kentucky's 6th, which is a Trump plus 15 district, and it will be one of the earliest races to be watching tonight, go take a look at what he's been talking about on the campaign trail. Ask, you know, 'how do you think we could get this done?' and make it part of the agenda. And you can do that across the line. You can do it with House races. You can do it with these gubernatorial candidates. You can do it with these Senate candidates. And I think it's an amazing opening for Democrats to actually be able to show off the candidate quality in a deeper way, to say, 'We see you and we hear you.' Because Democrats are still 10 points less popular than Republicans nationally. And every time I see that poll question, I'm hoping that it ticks up a bit more, and it doesn't really move much at this point. They like their candidate. It's they don't like the party brand. And part of the problem with that is obviously a messaging problem. It's what Republicans are saying about the brand, but it's the fact that they don't hear substantive stuff out of leadership that makes them think that we've got a clue as to how to drive the country in a better direction. So, I'd crowdsource this baby from all of the good candidates that we're seeing out there.
Yeah, this is—look, this is a lease, not a mortgage. They've agreed to date us. They're not marrying us.
Yeah, maybe just a one-night stand. Like, 2028 will be here fast.
Yeah. So, they need to get on this and outline a bold vision and definitive agenda and just say we're going to workshop it, and if the reflecting pool guy wants to veto it, we're 24 months away from telling people this is our agenda. Our agenda should be pretty well sketched out by the time the presidential race kicks off, which will be, quite frankly—
Yeah. And put Republican candidates on their heels and have them defend. Well, why aren't we going to get rid of or rescind the Republican tax cuts on corporations and start to pay down the deficit? Why aren't we going to have something resembling universal health care or restore child tax credits? Why aren't we going to rein in our military budget while embracing new technologies to create a more lethal fighting force? I mean, put them—have them, as you said, I love what you said, when you're explaining, you're defending, or you're losing.
You're losing. And I don't even think we—I think immediately they draft these pieces of legislation and have votes on them, and they'll pass, and then let the president veto them.
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Let's move on. Democrats already have their sights set on one of Trump's biggest allies, Elon Musk. If they take back Congress, Musk could face a wave of investigations into his time leading DOGE, mass federal layoffs, government contracts, and his potential role in Ukraine, specifically throttling back Starlink, which put Ukrainian citizens and their army at undue risk. Trump, meanwhile, says he'll protect his allies and has even floated pardoning Musk. How serious—what do you think of this, Ed, Jess? What is your kind of prediction around what happens with respect to Elon Musk post a Democratic wave, assuming it happens?
Oh, he's going to have a rough time, these investigations. I do not think that this should be about, you know, litigating giving SpaceX stock to kids, even if it's linked to Trump accounts. Like, if you're talking about taking money away from Americans that way, you are losing. And by and large, people think the Trump accounts are a good idea. I hope that it's not about that. I hope it's about the substantive potential, at least ethical violations—I don't want to say crimes necessarily—that Elon Musk has committed. So everything from what he did with DOGE, firing all of the inspectors general that were looking into his companies, exploring his government contracts, you know, potential monopolies there, and what went on with Starlink and Starshield is a really big deal. And there are lawyers who think that you would have a case if you were exploring what exactly Musk did, what the DoD did that ended up resulting in loss of life in Ukraine. And obviously accidents happen, but it seems like from very good reporting, you know, not from left-leaning outlets, you know, from the Wall Street Journal, that there were pointed decisions made or actions taken. And I would love to get to the bottom of that. I think, you know, the fact that we have a system where a single individual can pump this much money into an election is a broader conversation about campaign finance reform. But if you are to talk about investigations early, which I guess Robert Garcia and Democrats are, Elon Musk is one of the names that I think is definitely worthy of putting at the top of your list. Do you want to aggravate him more? Maybe he could say that he's going to put you in jail.
Well, my prediction is we are going to be watching, and it's going to make for great C-SPAN TV, an Elon Musk doing this as—he'll look like a worker from Hot Topic who uses ketamine every day to get through—
the day. Sitting in a congressional hearing with congressional staffers constantly handing representatives or senators pictures of kids or mothers in Africa who died because they didn't get their HIV medication, or people who have been killed in Ukraine because Ukrainian defense drones could not launch because, unexpectedly, the guidance systems on their defensive drones were cut off. I think we are going to have that image.
Now, the interesting thing will be if his lawyers will advise him to take the Fifth, but there's some question that if he's in fact pardoned by Trump, if you're allowed to take the Fifth, because the Fifth is meant to exonerate you from self-incrimination. If there is no self-incrimination because of the pardon, there's some legal question as to whether you are allowed to take the Fifth when testifying in front of Congress when you have been pardoned. And also, a pardon absolves you from federal prosecution. My understanding is it doesn't exonerate you from state prosecution, and I know it doesn't exonerate you from prosecution by authorities in the UK or Canada.
I think that the West is coming to a recognition or realization that the idolatry of innovators that infects the United States has created an atmosphere where these individuals are held to an entirely different standard because of their wealth and because they're perceived as innovators, which is the new means of saying a spiritual person. What the Taliban and al-Qaeda look to for someone in spirituality as being a blanket for being a good person and exonerating you from what I feel are not good actions in the US. Our new religion is technology, and we exonerate people from standard norms of behavior if they're seen as an innovator. I think that is going away, and he is going to be held to the same standard as, like I said, the CEO of Northrop Grumman that decided that our Ohio-class submarines should not be patrolling the South China Seas and [__] with their guidance systems. I think that person would be hauled in front of Congress and would be severely questioned, and there would be talks of legal action against that person. I think that is coming. I think the worm has turned on Mr. Musk.
And just as data centers have become a vessel for the anger around income inequality as it relates to AI, I think Mr. Musk is about to become a vessel for anger at income inequality around this notion of the brotopia and technology, where these guys think they get to live by a different set of standards than the rest of us. I think he is about to become a vessel that will be filled with anger, a lot of it justified, about what's gone on the last four years.
Do you think Trump sticks by him? I know for on in the pardon sense, but there have been a few instances where Trump has done things that have really upset Elon Musk, like provisions in the big beautiful bill, for instance, where they fell out over that for several months. Do you see them like staying on the love boat as we go forward towards 2028, or is it going to be a bumpy breakup?
I have no idea. I'm not certain. I think Donald Trump has absolutely no loyalty to anybody.
I mean, the guy doesn't get along with his wife. She's not even living with the guy. He has no loyalty to anybody. He's purely transactional. If he can convince Trump, I wouldn't be surprised if Musk says to him, 'Look, just give me my pardon. I'm going to go buy $5 billion of Trump coin, and you'll be able to sell this when you're...' I mean, there's so much backroom dealing here. Or at the same time, he may go, 'Remember when you tweeted that I was in the Epstein files? Well, I'm not going to pardon you. That still sticks in my craw.' So, who knows? I don't think anything is a given with this guy other than pardoning himself and his family. I don't think he has any sense of real, what you would call, real enduring loyalty.
Okay. So, beyond the midterms, another major question is what Trump will do next in Iran. The US military struck Iran's Qeshm, I believe, island on Monday, the latest in a series of small-scale attacks in recent weeks. Some officials described them as defensive measures to prevent Iran from targeting commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. But Trump is downplaying the prospect of a return to war, telling reporters, 'We haven't been doing any fighting for months.' He says he's in no rush to resume strikes as negotiations continue through Qatari mediators, but his advisers are divided. JD Vance is pushing for a diplomatic deal, while Netanyahu and Pete Hegseth want to resume fighting. Others are urging Trump to stick with economic pressure. Here's Trump talking about the Middle East this morning on a call to Fox.
But what's going to happen after the election day, after today? What's the next?
Well, we'll see. Look, I'm not looking to, you know, kill lots of people, but if we have to, we'll have to. But I'm not looking to do that. And the Strait of Hormuz, we have total control of it with the Navy blockade. I mean, everything's going good. Everybody respects us again. I'm at 99% approval rating in Israel. Can you believe it? In fact, if people ever got tired of me in the US, I'll move to Israel, become prime minister. Now, as far as paying Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, I have made a deal that we give Israel $4 billion a year, but it gets cut off at the end of the year.
Why? Because they don't need it, Brian. I mean, I asked them. Because they don't need it, and because why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El Sad when they don't need it? It's a bad talking point.
That's a big deal. And I know that they flirted with this, but saying it publicly, and Bibi did not want that out in the ether when he was running for reelection just last week. I was like, 'Oh, excuse me.' And because he's, and then acknowledging we want to take away this talking point from candidates like Abdul.
I actually agree with him on this. I mean, first off, 99% approval rating is... I'm going to go out on a limb here. I haven't looked at the data, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say the president may in fact not be telling the truth.
But I agree with him. I think we should cut the aid to Israel. When we first started, I think they were a $40 billion economy. Now they're 700 billion. They have their own money. And also to be clear, that $4 billion, we don't show up with dollar bills and give it to Netanyahu. It's money that is used to purchase US weapons. It's basically a stimulus payment for the purchase of US arms. At this point, the Israeli economy is one of the strongest economies in the Gulf and in the world, and they can afford it. It's just not worth it. It's not worth the controversy. It's not worth the talking point. The president is right. I think it's better for Israel if we don't give it to them. It takes away the talking point of people who are, you know, pro-Israel, as I am. That is okay. The argument of that should be spent on American kids. Okay, just stop. They can pay for their own social services or their own weapons. I actually agree with him.
