Welcome to a Numbers Game podcast. Thank you guys again for being here for another week. My episode earlier in the week on Monday on polling was a big hit with listeners. A lot of people found it super interesting. I think going onto the campaign season further around a lot more episodes like that. We're going to be talking about the roundup of Trump's first one hundred days and then upcoming elections in New York City, Virginia, New Jersey,
all leading up to the twenty twenty six midterms. I know that seems very far away, but it will go by fast. It'll be go by in a blink of an eye. And we hope that you this will be the podcast for everyone interested in elections and data and what's coming up. So please like and subscribe if you can.
All right, interesting poll came out over the course of the week and it was from Yale, the Yale the Youth Poll, and it looked at forty one hundred people between the ages of eighteen to twenty nine, and it found that voters between the ages of eighteen to twenty one, looking at the upcoming twenty twenty six midterm elections, were the most Republican of any voter, they were going to vote for Republicans by a twelve point margin, while voters between the age of twenty two and twenty nine were
voting Democrat by six points. They were the I think they were the most democratic of the second most democratic. That is a tremendous shift. That is a shift that we saw in the twenty twenty four elections, and it shows that Trump was really the catalyst or part of the reason that there was a generational change. I think
a lot of it was COVID. I think the lockdowns really affected this demographic, the way that the Iraq War affected my generation, the way that Vietnam affected the Boomer generation, the way that you know, the the Internet or the Reagan era, or rather the Reagan era affected gen xers. I think that this was COVID was a defining issue that turned a lot of young people, irregardless of other things that would make them Democrats into Republicans. So that
was very, very very interesting. We'll see if it continues into the twenty twenty six mid term elections. Republicans are climbing up hill in the midterm elections because of Justice. The Republicans can all the White House in the Congress, and typically in historical references, the opposing party usually wins the House representatives. That only hasn't happened I think since two for two thousand and two, so it's been quite
some time. In nine to eleven had just happened. So I think that there's a big, big, possible way that Republicans might see some surprising victories if young people actually show up and turn out and go vote. They don't have the best history of voting, but who knows, this
could be the year that everything happens. Another interesting thing also came out today was from not Today this week, rather was from the Amherst Pole was an Amherst you gov poll and they asked voters, if you had the opportunity to change your vote, would you Because we see this through the mainstream media all the time. Oh, these Republicans, these Trump voters, they're just they're agonizing. They're so upset that they voted for Trump. They can't believe. But they're so apologetic.
They're on their hands and knees, you know, the front of the office of MSNBC and CNN and saying, please forgive us for our sins. Well, they found that university of Amhmherst you Go poll found it only two percent of Trump voters from the twenty twenty four elections said that they regret their vote and would change it. Two percent is not an army of people, is not loads of people. It is not you know, it is not
what the meat is making out to be. It is a very very small fraction of Trump's very unique, large and different coalition that he built. He built on the backs of populism of the Maha moms and make America Healthy Again moms. I actually don't like the phrase Maha, but that movement that RFK did it that he brought in his coalition, bringing in interesting young people, having a young vice president. All of that stuff was his coalition and it's for the most part holding his question of
will they vote with me? This week to talk about the Trump coalition and populism is the great writer Batsya Unger Sargon. You've seen her everywhere, kirk Klipscho viral constantly. She was on Bill maher recently and that was huge, and she was out there defending Trump on the tariffs. We have a very interesting conversation coming up about populism, the Trump coalition, and the future of the Republican Party. Please stay tuned. Our guest for this week is the
iconic Batsia Unger Sargon. She is the author of two books, including Second Class, How the Elites Betrayed Americans Men, America's Men and Women, and a columnist at The Free Press. Basia, thank you for being here.
Thank you so much for having me. I am a huge, huge Ryan Stan.
I would even.
Say, I would go so far as to say, so, this is a real pleasure. It's been so exciting watching this podcast.
Absolutely blow up.
You deserve it. And everywhere you go, smart things are said and narratives are blown up, and.
You're just not afraid to say the truth. So thank you.
There's anyone who's blome narratives, it's you on especially when you're on Bill Maher. That went viral as anything, where you sat there and said, I am from the left and Donald Trump is my candidate, and I think he was You think that he was expecting you to say, oh, I am you know, oh I understand your opinion now or like because I think he basically was like, ah, that doesn't make any sense. Do you think that you were going to win him along? For that?
He was clearly expecting me to say what all of the conservatives on his show seemed to say, which is like, you know, yeah, we're Republicans. We don't like the far left, we don't like the wokeness, but we really don't like Trump either. And I was like, no, I am on the left and I really love Trump. I'm a maga lefty,
and here are all the reasons why. And I felt like he was sort of like he wanted to understand me, but I think more than that, he wanted to want to understand me, but what he really wanted to do was make fun of me, and so he sort of went back and forth between those two. It was actually
a really nice conversation. But the thing I learned from that is there's a narrative being fed to people on the left into Democrats, mostly by like CNN and MSNBC, which is that Trump voters like regret it, you know, like they'll find like the one Trump voter you know who's like, oh this is not what I vote voted for, and like have them on like every single day, and meanwhile we're out here being like I cannot believe how well this is going, Like I did not know a
person could work this hard, or a person could keep so many promises. Like it's just like that split screen between what they think we're feeling and what we're actually feeling is real and it's deep, and they're like sitting there like like in this fantasy, right, like that there's all of this regret and they're just setting themselves up to fail.
I think like again and again and again, right.
And I mentioned earlier in the podcast with the Universe, there's a universe of Amherst Pole, that University Amherst you gut poll that said only two percent of Trump supporters that they would vote for a different candidate given the opportunity, which if you watched I don't watch CNN anymore, not since I've not been on it, but if you watched the mainstream even left on on Twitter, they had this belief that there is just you know, readlines full of
you know, Trump supporters and who are like, oh man, I got it wrong this time, you know, And I have not found that in my regular life. There are moments of frustration with Trump because I think part of part of the problem is he tends to be all things to all people, so you don't always know what you're going to get. And there are times are I don't you know, I'm like, oh well, I'm not really font down with that one, like on the gold cards, but there are. But I would trade all of that
for the anti DEI stuff for the immigration stuff. And I was when I was coming up of age, I was eighteen years old. I was Regidemocrat, a Reagi Democrat because I opposed Iraq war. That was my issue. I was posed Iraq war and I was against amnesty for illegal immigrants. Those are the only two world views I even had, only political political opinions I had. And so I think I was a Democratic like a year and I was like, well, this is not going to work out.
But but I understand that voter though who of coming of age, we're not that different in age. You and I who during the Bush years, really were like this was not for me. And two, I think people a little older than us who are frozen more in time and think of the Republican Party as still the party of evangelical Christians from the Bush era. They don't even know how to frame the arguments anymore. Do you find the same thing?
Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, it's so wild. How nimble Republican voters have proven to be in accommodating the enthusiasm of younger people in the Republican Party and saying, Okay, yeah, failed wars, we're going to be anti war, you know. Oh yeah, okay, the social conservatism is a bit much for the younger generation, will be moderate.
It's you know, you know, oh.
Free trade, Wow, that really didn't work out. And now there are all these working class people who look to us as a home. Maybe we should deliver for them. And meanwhile, how stuck in the past the Democrats have been.
I don't think it's real on their part, because I think that they know that they lost labor, they know that they lost the working class, and they know what they did to lose them, which is they made this sort of deal with the devil, with the credentialed class and the sort of NGO soroast world, right, all of
whom endorse these vanity morals because they're so wealthy. So they sort of traded up in their view, but they can't admit that because to admit that would be to admit that they're the party of the rich.
It's so funny.
I was talking to somebody the other day in a green room, and he said, well, you know, I'm sort of like a classical like I want, you know, free trade, and I want us to stand with our allies, and you know, I'm sort of a classical Republican. And I said to him, you know, in two years, you'll be able to vote for a Democrat and feel really good about yourself, because that's really what the Democratic Party now stands for, right is like foreign intervention, massive funding of
American exceptionalism, regime change, and free trade with China. Whereas it's the Republicans who have proven really nimble and able under you know, the austice of Donald Trump to sort
of change. There are a few I don't like the gold card either, but I've had the opposite reaction to where I've had experiences where I'm like, you know, he's probably not going to be great on this, and then he'll turn around and be great on it, Like I don't know if you read the report from Axios from Markaputa that came out that when Trump heard that Elon Musk was supposed to be in that briefing on China, Trump actually said, what the f is Elon doing here? Make sure he doesn't go because.
Twitter, when you tweeted that, that's how I found that story. I literally read it really big deal, like.
He really understands the conflict of interest that Elon Musk has. People don't get this because they see, oh Tesla, like, you know they're made, you know, eighty seven percent are made in America.
Well that's true of the.
Cars that are sold here, but most Teslas are not sold in America. And every Tesla that's not sold in America is made one hundred percent in China in Shanghai. Elon Musk hat a choice to make his European and Chinese sold cars here, and he chose.
Instead to make them in China.
And Donald Trump one hundred percent understands that Elon Musk's fortune exists at the largesse of Jijiping, and so I was very very heartened to see that reporting.
I have found that. I mean, there are when I have Christians of the Trump administration overall. A lot of times it's through a communication issue where I sometimes they don't think that they're that clear with their goals. I think with the tariffs, they could have been a lot clearer as to what the goals are because Americas are willing to make sacrifices, but you need to be very articulate in what you are asking people to sacrifice and
why and what the intended outcome is. And it was a little messy, and I don't think that the I think the pr could have been better. I agree with the sentiment and the idea, and I also think there's just more than one way to really nail down that issue than than was being done. If it's to bring back manufacturing. One of the easiest things I've said, and I've written an article about this with The American Conservative, is that we spend billions of dollars in the Pentagon
on pharmaceutical drugs. It's one of the biggest buyers of pharmacchool drugs in the entire country. We buy from China. Why why doesn't the Pentagon say we're going to give a federal contract to people who make ibuprofen or anti inflammatory drugs, or you know, any kind of drugs but
exclusively made in America. And we could even do what Joe Biden was trying to do with some of his stuff, which was place based economics, where we say and preferably the contract has to be made in Wisconsin, or in Michigan or wherever, places that have been affected negatively by the wto stuff and China stuff Like that's a very less I don't want to say it's easy, but it's less intrusive to the market than tariffs would be, and it would be part of a more coe cohesive package
if it was all brought together. Do you know what I'm saying, we do.
Yeah, I kind of I kind of love. I thought the cast was kind of very important because like the way I say, what Trump is trying to do is he doesn't actually want these huge tariffs on the EU. What he wants from them as a commitment to buy what America is going to start producing. And I think what he's trying to organize as a kind of soft embargo on China, like a global embargo. In order for this whole thing to work, we need partners because we're
going to start wanting to sell. He wants basically for us to be able to sell more to our allies and buy less from China. And the way that I think he went about that was he sort of like picked up a baseball bat and sort of mosied on over to the global stock market and basically said to the global elites, that's a really nice stock market you've got. It would be a shame if anything happened to it. And he had to prove that he was willing to break somebody's leg in order for it to have teeth.
And now you see, like I think he did pivot. I think initially he was sort of thinking he was buying the well, actually, this is what I really think. I'm curious if you agree with me. I think he thought that the Navarro angle on the tariffs, the idea that they would raise revenue, which is not historically sending Trump has said about it because he doesn't believe the debt.
Ceiling is real and he doesn't really care about the deficit.
But I think, you know, he thought that the Navarro angle here that these tariffs would generate revenue, would help pass the reconciliation bill because it would help sort of convince recalcitrant Republicans that there was going to be another stream of revenue to make up for the fact that they were going to have to raise the debt ceiling.
And I think when he figured out that actually was hurting that exact thing, he went sort of he leaned harder on bestant and the best in argument, which is like, look, this is just unfair we you know, the national security argument, the idea that we're being screwed, you know, all this other stuff that Trump has been saying for a very
long time. So I think that the messines Is was like part of what made this Actually it was both a reflection of a very healthy conversation that's happening within the administration that it isn't like in lockstep, but also I think it ended up being pretty effective. You know, would these one hundred and thirty countries be begging for a deal if Trump hadn't literally like crashed the stock market and joyously. I mean he did it with such
like he was so confident about it. The way that he pulled that off, it was like, I don't know, there was something about that. I just kept thinking, like, you know, in two thousand and eight, as a senator, President Obama, I guess then Senator Barack Obama rallied the troops around the seven hundred billion dollar bailout of the
banks while ten million Americans went homeless. Those ten million Americans had to watch as those same crooks who organized the entire global crisis collected thirty billion dollars in taxpayer funded bonuses Obama as president, and it walked in and said, we're saving Wall Street and screw Main Street. You will go homeless and you won't get a penny from us. And what we just saw Trump do was the exact opposite. He gave the middle finger to Wall Street and said
I don't work for you. And I think that that message, I mean, it just I think it really resonated.
Yeah, I think that. I think there's a couple of things, so yeah, partially I agree with you. I think that Trump's madman approach to foreign policy, both military and trade, is part of the reason people are not willing to screw him away. They where with Joe Biden or Barack Obama, who they thought were weak. I mean, like just they
just didn't respect them in the same way. Although they have high favorable opinions because they listen to the right music, they don't or they go to the right opera, or they speak the right way, they don't actually think that they're strong leaders, and they don't have faith that they would actually step up. They think that Trump's a mad man, and they're afraid, you know, no one steps on Superman's case, especially when he's angry. So I think that's part of it.
But I think that if the goal was to reduce trade barriers, to have a bit more equal trading playing field with the EU, with Vietnam, with other countries, I think that there if that's the end goal, then it'll be a great end goal, right, That'll be a fantastic end goal. Is if the end goal is reshowing manufacturing, that's also a great end goal. If the end goal is kind of to roll back the last thirty years,
it's a great end goal. I don't know how you really get there though, but it but it kind of was like they're all our end goal, well which one is at first? And I don't really know how you kind of and I think the chaos of the different
messaging made investors shaky. And the problem also is you have a lot of tech stocks that were way over evaluated, and you have and so they were like they were they were shedding their stockholdings and using this Harris as the excuse, but they were, I mean, they were way over valuate it for quite some time. So you had kind of a perfect storm that really made people lose
faith that Trump could turn around the economy. I think that that has I think you listen, if there's any time you want to do it in an administration, it's now, not in the summer, not next year, not when the midterms are coming up. So that hopefully the economy improves.
If in ninety days Trump walks up with you know, Ursula van Lusha whatever her last name is, from the EU and the president of Vietnam over that is, and the Australian not Australian, but the UK Prime Minister Cure Starmer or somebody else and says, no tariffs on any of these people. We're having a United free trade thing. They're going to buy American goods that will absolutely real cause a bonanza on Wall Street. And then but they have to sit there and make some kind of agreement
with China. And the EU is notoriously weak when it comes to both Russia and China. Despite what their images, they're terribly weak on it. I will say the one thing I'm I don't want to say i'm hopeful for, but i'm i'm I'm fascinated that these are coming out of the admin is the willingness to increase the top top bracket of income to thirty nine point six percent from thirty seven percent, letting the old tax cuts expire that two point six percent in exchange for no tax
on tips, no tax on social security. David Shure, the Democratic data analyst, said, the best attack line for the Trump against Republicans is tax cuts for the wealthy. The worst attack line and the best attacking where the Republicans have is no tax on tips, no tax on social Security. And I think that becoming an economic centrist, which is what the Republican Party is doing, that's attracting voters like you.
This is really I think. I think that's the way forward for a midterm election strategy, is offering tax cuts on social Security and no tax on tips, and that would in exchange for a two point six percent increase on the wealthy to make it more balanced. Do you agree?
I would love to to see that.
I do think what Trump is thinking is he has to combine the tariffs and the tight labor market he created by controlling the border with some sort of pro business goodies on the other end, and I think deregulation is to that end. Cheap energy drill, baby drill. But I think the tax cuts were kind of part of
that as well in his mind. I mean that's how I kind of justify it, Like he wants a roaring economy that lifts all boats, and this sort of pro worker stuff is huge, and so that's kind of, you know, I see the rationale for it in that bucket. But I like what you're saying, and I would obviously prefer that on the foreign policy thing. I was once on the subway in New York and something happened to me, and I was like, this explains Trump's form policy so well.
So I was sitting there and there was a guy sitting across from me who was like a little crazy, you know, like the kind of thing you see almost every time you get on the side, twitching and like, you know, the exactly like a mild piece, you know, like kind of yeah, exactly like twitch and talking to himself and like, you know, making all sorts of facial expressions, having you know, like a little you know, grand all time.
And then the doors opened and someone really crazy got on, like one of these really crazy people where you're like, oh God, please don't let this person look at me like I that mildly crazy person.
Boy did he clean up his act quickly. He sat there like this and sudden.
If I had gotten on after the really crazy person got on, I never would have known there was anything wrong with him. He sat up straight, he was looking down, he stopped his twitching, he stopped talking to himself, he stopped singing because he was like, Wow, there's an actually really crazy person here. I better not draw his attention. And I feel like this is like the exact perfect
metaphor to explain Trump's foreign policy. You always want to be the most unpredictable person when you're dealing with people who are unpredictable, because, like you said, like that is how you get their respect. And I have to say it has been one of the most validating experiences I think of my life as an American to watch the same people who mocked Trump and sneered at him and made fun of him and laughed at him get on their knees and crawl over into the throne room and
start begging him for like an ounce of approval. I just can't get enough of it. And I don't know if you feel the same way, but it's just like I just you love.
To see it. It's like it's like an eighties like feel good. You know, fuck Redemption arc. I love it.
I mean there are times big tech people make me nervous. Who are all doing that? I can I just wait Parsa for one second. I want to say my favorite mildly crazy subway story person. One time I was on the subway and a lady. I was having a very rough day. I remember it very distinctly, and a lady looked at me and said, you look nice today, and I felt so like I was like, wow, this is like the greatest thing ever. And then I said, oh, thank you, and then she goes, no, not you, the
person behind you. And there was and there was no one behind me. There wasn't a soul behind me. And then she started talking to her invisible friend. And I was like, I'm still taking that compliment, like I'm going to live on that for quite a number of years doing Oh that is totally what happened. When I was like, it was like twenty two or twenty one. I'm still
living on that compliment fifteen years later. The yeah, I'm a little hesitant with some people like bergs of the world coming into like the picture of me and saying oh no, we love you. Now, by the way, please reduce the amount the FTC's trying to sit there and find us, from like thirty billion to seven hundred million. That makes me nervous. And there are times I hope Trump six to his guns. He has an immigration he has on he has on the tariff stuff he has.
I mean, we'll see what the judges look like. I imagined they'll be pretty good. I really hope if Trump, I said this before I Trump gets the birthright citizenship removed for non citizens, it will be I don't care if he's it's at home meeting Big Max. For the rest of the entire presidency. I like, this is the greatest president who ever lived, So okay, on what matters to me, he has delivered. And I think that's what the media cannot understand, Like why aren't you outraged all the time
about everything? Because what matters to most people is just a big picture, and he on that point. I mean, yeah, the stock market is a little shaky, but he's delivered more than he hasn't, And we haven't had a leader for four years who delivered at all, and in fact felt like we were attacking us as garbage. In the case of Joe Biden or you know, being openly hostile
to anything we've had. And the Democratic Party, whose whole political strategy is is decreasing people to the lowest possible value. Women are only their you know, their sex organs or the possibly having children. You know, LGB people are only trans fear mongering over over Sam six mac or or you know, black people are just the color of their skin or his thing. But we're just whether or not they know someone who's legally or illegal in the country.
It's always the lowest comminent denominator politics. And I will say, like Bernie Sanders doesn't always do that, a fetterman doesn't always do that. They don't all always do that, but that has been the common ring from the Democratic Party, which so why I think people really don't have a
fun opinion of them. And what we're getting through back to before is, you know, we're talking about people who grew up during the Bush era, people who people who now like are millennials sliding into middle age like myself and and we we are people perceive that those life experiences are what has trickled down to younger people. But for younger people, for people eighteen to twenty one and under thirty their life or twenty five. Really their life
experience was the COVID lockdowns. Their life experience was no prom no graduation, no sports events, know nothing, depression or all the rest of it because of Democratic policies that they can't get back, and that anger, I think will possibly fuel them, you know, the same way that Bush's you know, wars fuel millennials for last twenty years.
I think that's a really interesting point. I wanted to ask your opinion about something that I have been noticing and I'm very curious if you agree with me on
which is in the question of like succession. I feel like everybody thinks it's going to be JD Vance, But I I think like as someone coming, you know, from the MAGA left, like somebody who had like has I think a very clear sense of who the people are who gave Trump the victory, who like joined the movement, as well as just the kind of like normy Republican voter today. I think that the Republicans are in danger of misunderstanding what Trump got right, and I think JD kind of represents that.
Really. Yeah, well, who would you say would be like the success Well, first, why do you think that he misunderstands that, and who would you think the success?
Okay, so I think that Trump very successfully neutralized the abortion issue, not by not talking about it, but by talking about it in a very specific way. So it was my experience when I was reporting my book Second Class.
I was just traveling around the country interviewing working class people from both parties, and what I heard from, like the vast majority of the women that I interviewed, whether they were Republicans or Democrats, was basically some version of I would never get an abortion because I think it's wrong, but I would never judge another woman who was put
in the horrible position of having to choose them. And I think we've seen the ballot measures to ban abortion fail even in red states, and I think that position it's a kind of like pro life but anti ban, like an extreme tolerance while also like having a very moral You know, people like that would show up as pro life in polls, but I think that they feel very strongly the anti ban piece of that. And Trump made it very clear that he sort of agreed with them.
I mean, he kept saying he supports the exceptions he has said before that he supports abortion for twelve weeks, he says we should be more like Europe. He says that that he would he said again and again that he would veto a national abortion ban, and he really made no compunction about quite significantly sidelining and marginalizing and even making fun of Project twenty twenty five, which was what the Democrats tried to saddle him with as this kind of extremist, you know.
Like JD does that.
JD supports a national abortion ban. He said that, and I think he's quite vulnerable on that because he's a Catholic and he really believes that. He said repeatedly that he would support a national abortion man that he thinks it should be illegal.
On the twenty twenty two cent campaign you're talking about, he said it.
On multiple interviews.
I'm not trying to the time frame because that's when I worked on his campaign by ward on the pack side, so I wasn't. I don't know that, I think, and.
So on the on the social issues, I think he's very vulnerable. On the foreign policy, I think that he represents people think Trump's an isolationist, but he really isn't.
He has this piece through.
Strength idea he's a lot like Tulci Gabbard, like she hates terrorists. There's nothing she won't do to a terrorist, but she thinks that if you haven't threatened America in a significant way, you're not our business and you're not our problem. JD is an isolationist. So then on the foreign policy he's quite different from Trump. On the trade thing,
he's very good. I think he's solidly there. But if I would have to say, who is a person in Trump's cabinet who is much more aligned with him on all three of those issues foreign policy, aconomic policy, and social policy, I would say it's Marco Rubio. And I don't know why people aren't. Am I totally wrong? I could be totally off about this, but I will say.
Okay, so one odd thing, So I'll tell you a story that I've never told anyone. So I was a European trip planned post election. I was like, I was so burned from the election, like I'm going away. I booked this like seven months in advance, like I don't care who wins at this point, I am going away. And as I'm getting on the plane, like literally about to board the plane to go to the destination. I
was going to Spain. Going to Spain. I get a text from my friend Megan McCain and Megan's like, hey, would you talk to Tulsi for a second about her meeting with Trump and some ideas and just bouncing off ideas and I'm literally like walking on the line. I'm like, Tulsie, listen, you can't ask for multiple different things. You have to say you to the present, and I won't want and I can't help but be one. Use my hands when talking because I'm Italian and to be way too loud.
And I'm sure that people like checking my ticket where like this crazy person thinks he's talking to Tulci Gabbard. But true story. But Telsea and JD are very similar in their foreign policy, very very similar in their foreign policy and their allies within the ADMIN from what I understand in that, so I don't think that they're that far of a stretch. I like Marco Rubio a lot. I know Marco Rubio's chief. I've spoken to Marco Rubio, I think at least one time, maybe twice, but definitely
one time. And I see that Marco Rubio is a man who has evolved and changed a lot over time, and the man who he was in his early forties, when he was the wonder kin freshman senator that should be president immediately, super neo conservative, is slightly different. I read his last book on I don't know if you read it, but it was on trade and foreign policy in the working class, and he got a lot right. But when he was talking about foreign policy, the one
thing was very jarring to me was all about hawkish stores. China, and the entire Middle East was missing. It's as if Middle Eastern conflict never happened when it was the most probably the most defining thing of my late teens early twenties. I don't know. I don't know how if he just wants that issue to not be the main focus or whatever, or if he's fairly changed on it, but it was very obvious that it was completely missing, ruining foreign policy conversations.
And he's great on China, great on immigration.
He's taken on a real you know, he's he's been the one kind of defending all these deportations in.
A very antiportations. What I would like to know from Marco Rubio, and I would, and I like Marco Rupers, is not Christ overall, But I just wanted I would love to ask him how many immigrants do you think should come to the United States every year? I think that every politician should be have to answer that question if they're going to run for federal office, is how many? Give me a physical number, because right now we have a number. Don't say, well, let the marketing side, No,
you have to decide by a number. That's the number that comes in. Pick a number. Just pick the number. And to me, legal immigration in twenty twenty five should be safe, legal, and rare. That is my opinion. It is the same abortion opinion that the Democrats are in the nineties. So you can use the line if you want a next interview, you have. But I believe that,
and I don't know if he believes that. I will say, as far as succession goes, there's only ever been one vice president in both the Democrat and Republican party who pursued the nomination for presidency and did not receive the nomination, and that was Mike Pence in twenty twenty four. Was the first time that's ever happened, and that was because of Donald Trump. And had Donald not run, Pence would
have done significantly better. Had twenty twenty note happened, he would have definitely probably don't see better, but that is that's the case where I don't see there would be, you know, unless a calamity happened. The odds if JD wants to run the job, it's odds of him not being the nominee are fairly small. Now he will sink or swim on his own accord, by his own ticket,
by his own nomination. And I'm sure he'll do some things like Trump and some things not like Trump, or you know, indifference to him, but a little different, and he'll have his own evolution and other issues will come
up over time that will matter. I think that I think that Trump's coalition is very unique, and I think that the groups that he really should be doubling down on, Aside from young people that have run to the party and some Latinos, especially multi generational Latinos and white working classes he brought in, I really think it is the people who are the crunchy liberals Like I've got an aunt who was you know, registered Democrat, voted for both parties,
but more Democrat than Republican, but she voted for Trump primarily because she was supported RFK. And I know I have a friend who is not voted for a Republican since John McCain, and she voted for She voted. She she hates Trump, but I think she did vote for him because of RFK, because she's so concerned over food and she's got two young boys. I think that that
is a demographic. I mean, the media can not g it and make fun of it, but I know so many if you go on Instagram, I mean there are the member of people giving light health food advice out and health advice out is I mean there's an entire underground economy of people doing this because people are there and people look at Europe and they say, okay, they
all smoke, but they're all living longer than us. So is it that you can smoke cigarettes and not eat junk food and then there's Donald Trump but you could eat jump food but not smoke cigarettes. What is going on where there is this lifestyle balance? And how do we fix it? And why do why when I go to Europe does the food just or not just Europe but Canada is real bunch of places, But why does the food genuinely taste better? Why is it more filling. Why do I not have like hunger crunches? What is
going on? When I after my trip to Europe and I came back, I was like, I'm hungry all the time and I'm definitely eating more than I ate there Why is this happening? So there's there's that big question. I think that that is the group. But as far as like the social conservatives and foreign policy, I think JD is more in line with Trump than than other people than people think, you know, although he's obviously a fairly devout Catholic who converted to the religion, you know.
So I mean, I don't know. That's why I think. I don't think that there's there was probably anyone who would take that mandle if JD wanted to pick it up.
See what you laid out about R. K.
Junior is exactly what bothers me about him, because I feel like he takes advantage of poor people. Like if you took people out of the equation, Americans are much healthier than every other country. It's a very specific population that has all the diabetes and all of the heart problems and all of the obesity, and it's because they're poor and so they don't have time to cook and work out the way that rich people do in order to stay healthy. And I think that RFK Junior gives
hope to people like you. Imagine being like a working class mom working two jobs and having a severely autistic child and other children that you're trying to take care of, like while having absolutely no money and absolutely no time and no support system, and like it's unbearable to consider.
And instead of being like, Okay, what are we doing as a society, Like that's such that you know, this person who could have very easily supported a family if she was working as a manicurist in the seventies, you know, now is like struggling so much. He came out and said, oh, well, it's big pharma. It's like the color of the dye
in the food, you know what I mean. It's like you look at poor people in America who are like really really sick, and it's all like it's all kind of in certain populations if you take them out, like we're very healthy.
Yeah, I like a lot of obese is very confined to black people, anti hispacs into poor whites. That's one hundred percent true. But at the same time he's rich.
He doesn't know anybody like that.
He always knows that rich, honestly. I mean, but I think the bigger part is though. But I want to say two things kind of One. For thinnest state today, which is Colorado, is fatter than our fattest state in nineteen ninety. And that's not all big farmer. That's not all food, that's not all everything. That's a lot of choices a lot of people made over time. That is true. And I don't know why we have like red dye number two was banned from makeup in the nineteen nineties early nineteen.
I support everything that he's doing under the auspices of like the Trump restraints. Like, yeah, that's great. I mean, I support that. I don't want red dye in my food. I don't understand, like I support all the healthy stuff. It's just like if you would fix the economy, people would be much healthier.
We're saying, don't give poor people the dreams of the're all going to be super healthy tomorrow by you know, making a few you know, I agree with that one hundred and.
Hysteriracy stuff around vaccines I think is horrible, Like and the fact that he made two million dollars off of getting people to sign up for stuff that said vaccines cause autism, and like, I feel like I agree with you.
I person to agree with you on that. A lot of it is personal choices that people are making. No I do I perpletely agree with you. I read a book about him, and there were I heard two books of I'm actually and there was like some choices that he made in his life were very questionable that I did not. I was like, oh, the same, I should be president. I his divorce, his first divorce is really really ugly. I and ugly on his part. But I think that it's just there is a health problem in our country
where people are just chronically ill. And yeah, a lot of it is because you're eating garbage and it's convenient for you.
And we don't have preventative medicine. I think that's another thing, is like doctors don't get paid for preventative services they do in Europe, and so people go to see the doctor twice a year and they have a relationship and things are caught earlier, and like that would that would make a huge difference. Just force medicare to pay for preventative visits like that would make a huge difference. But that's not the kind of thing that like anybody sort
of talking about it. I think healthcare is like it basically like it's a really big deal. It's the only thing the Democrats like have like a claim to him, not saying they're like doing well on your you know. But like so I think that that's and I think Trump understood that because he's brilliant understanding what the electorate wants, and he sort of slotted RFK Junior into that position, which I think was very smart, like helped him a
lot in terms of winning. But like, I just wish there was another I love that he picked a liberal for that, I just wish it would have been a different one.
Yeah, I think that there, I think, but what we're talking about two different types of voters. Like my friend who like hated Trump a voted for him because of RFK. She's not a lower income person. She's a higher income person. And she's like a suburban mom who would be She's just I mean, she would put her kids in a bubble if she could. She's just that kind of person. I think the working class person, and I know a lot of them who are frankly overweight or don't live
the healthiest lifestyle. I don't think they voted for Trump for that reason because I'm not sure they think that it's what's going on there is wrong, and I think to improve their life you kind of have to do things like why is soda on food stamps? Why do we put corn syrup still? And are things that should have sugar in them or you know, other things like that, or how much sugar we take into our diets is
literally astronomical. Literally, I think that the people who voted for him were the wealthier ones.
I'm the poorld right, the Maha moms. Yeah, Megan McCain talks about them very compellingly. Pro tip it's passover right now,
which means that coke is making the passover coke. So juice can't eat corn on past Some juice, Saparta juice can Ashkanazi Jews don't eat corn on passover, which means that they make a coke just for us because we drink so much freaking coke, and they make it with sugar with cane sugar the way they make it in other countries, as opposed to making it with corn syrup and you can walk into any kosher supermarket and get it. Has a yellow cap on the coke and it posher
for Passover and it's dulicious. So everybody in Brooklyn who's not Jewish understands that this is the time that you go into the kosher store and you load up on JUW coke because it tastes so much butter and just a pro tip, a free tip for.
I didn't even drink soda, but I'm going to give it to my friends who do and be like, this is what a real sugar tastes like because I did not. I never knew that this isn't enlightening, this is this is gonna change. This is a game changer right now, ju coke is the way to go. All right, Bozie, I've had you for longer. Thank you so much for being on this podcast. Where can people read your stuff? Because they should? Everyone should be subscribing to whatever you do.
Where should they? Where can they go?
So sweet? I don't really have something to plug right now. You could buy my book.
Second question, what can I read the articles? Or follow you on Twitter?
You can follow me on Twitter at Bunger Sargon or on Instagram at batio Us. I write for the Free Press, so I guess you could read my articles there.
Yeah, share them and tell them that the Free Press is the best hire that they've ever had. So thank you so so much.
I really appreciate you. Thank you so much.
You have me passover and enjoy your jeuw Coke. Hey, we'll be right back after this. This brings us to the Ask Me Anything segment, where I take questions from listeners about anything. If you want to write and be part of the Ask Me Anything segment, you can email Ryan at Numbers Game Podcast dot com. That's Ryan at Numbers Plural Numbers gamepodcast dot com. This email today comes from Jacob, who says, will eleast Stefanik do better as a governor canon than Lee Zelden if she runs in
twenty twenty six? This is a great question. I'm from New York my entire life. I know New York state politics really really well. So I'm really I know this. This isn't a sports question. I can actually do this one. Okay, So let's look at twenty twenty two per second. In the twenty twenty two election New York governor the Hocal won by six point four percent of the vote. She won by about three hundred and eighty thousand votes New
York State. If you look at the state overall, which is kind of like a triangle with like a little islands, a couple islands that bounced off the end of it at the bottom end of it, New York State is really controlled by the lower nine counties. Fifty six percent of all the votes that cast in New York State come from just nine counties. That's Rockland, Westchester, the Bronx, Manhattan,
State Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk. The rest of the state, the Hudson Valley, Upstate, Central and Western New York only account for forty four percent, and that forty four percent is shrinking as population loss is happening. Now there are only two counties in upstate New York that Stefanik would have more of an impact in because they went for Cochl last time, and her district is very
close to them or represents part of them. But really the reason why Zeldon did so well is because he was able to draw up huge numbers out of Long Island, where he represented in Congress and was a well known name in Long Island and parts of New York City
have had this transformation. You stawt in the last election in twenty twenty four when President Trump won Long Island and when Staten Island and ended very very well throughout the rust of New York City as Hispanic and Asian voters really have left the Democratic Party in the city and droves. But the fight is in those lower nine counties.
That's where this election will be one or lost. Hochel's entire margin of victory as far as raw vote count goes, comes from just Brooklyn and Man had it those two counties is what affected the entire state of New York. She couldn't have won without those two counties, without getting the vote margin she did of those counties. Now, Zeldon got an impressive forty point seven percent of the vote
in those lower nine counties. That is impressive given how blue New York City is in general, but he really needed to get like forty six percent in order to win the election. Ever, is challenging Hochel, whether it be Stephanic or allegedly Mike Lawler or allegedly the county chairman of Nassau County is considered a running the Republican county
Chairman of Nasal County, Bruce Blakeman is his name. They're all looking at running, but whoever is going to actually win is going to make inroads further in roads than Long Island and run up the score in Staten Island and make up ground in southern Brooklyn, which has a lot of Republican areas that could still go even further Republican. Queen's is just absolutely has tons of voters up for grabs.
The Bronx Believer is now more Republican than Manhattan. The Bronx is more Republican than Manhattan, and Queens is more Republican than Westchester. You could not have said that sentence twenty years ago. It is genuinely shocking how much the state has changed, because how much Hispanic and Asian voters and some working class white voters sho we're still kind of on the fence, have changed. But if you want
a Republican governor, which is possible. It's difficult, but it's possible, you're going to run up the numbers and Queens you're going to get over forty percent in Queens. You're going to run up into the mid fifties in Nasa County,
close to sixty in Suffolk County. Continue to get over sixty percent in Staten Island, and then you really need to cross the thirty thirty three percent threshold over in Brooklyn and the Bronx, probably mid thirties in Brooklyn and thirty percent in the Bronx, and that should do it.
Rockland is a Republican county thanks to the Orthodox Jewish vote with both I think all three candidates actually are very close to Blakeman is Jewish Defonic because you know, the face of the fight against anti Semitism now in the Congress, and Michael Lohler has deep connections with those, with those voters that he represents in Congress. So those are really the groups that you have to sit there and carve and build out the structure, and then you
usually do well in upstate New York. Upstate New York's changing because a lot of Manhattan Nights, Brooklyn Knights, they have left the state, they've left the city rather and they moved to the Hudson Valley. During COVID, that's turned the area more blue than it used to be. And a lot of refugee resettlement happened in that area in Upstate New York and Central New York. So Upstate and Central New York are not what they used to be.
They're not as reliably republican as they once were. The fight is really in the city, and the city will change the state. So the city in the outer boroughs, the city of Nassau, Suffic, Westchester, Rockland, those areas. So that's how you do it. You can get a Republican governor New York. It is difficult, but the battle is one and lost in the most popularly densely populated parts of the southern part of the state. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the podcast.
I hope that you enjoyed it. Please like it, sub scrub on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you all next week.