¶ Election Recap and Legislative Analysis
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right . Well , I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right . There's only an up or down .
This is the no Doubt About it . Podcast .
No doubt about it .
Now your hosts Christy and Mark Runcetti , Misty and .
Mark Runcetti . It's funny when you start the show and you forgot to check your camera angles .
And then I'm looking at the cameras to make sure we're all in the shot . Are we looking ? Okay ?
Yeah , so this is the election recap episode with Jay McCleskey , famed political I don't know political guy , I mean Guru guru guru , congratulations . Yeah , let's do it . So we'll talk about what's going on with all these races . We just finished up with the primary last night .
We'll talk about that , and then we'll talk about what the races look like in the state here . It's going to be a very interesting election season .
Yeah , and some national news We'll cover .
Yes , going to be a very interesting election season . Yeah , and some national news We'll cover .
Yes , yeah , we're a bunch of national news too . But before that , um , jay , apparently I don't know if you know this or not , but we've got a new sponsor , I guess , of the show , and it's um um farmers onlycom , because look at Mark's shirt today . Apparently his profile must be up , mark .
You don't have to be lonely .
You doing farmers onlycom yeah .
I got my , I got my profile up there . I'm not a farmer and I'm not single , but it's up there . So , I think it's fantastic .
I know I do appreciate your , john Deere .
It's very Americana .
I just was like oh okay . We're going with a whole new look for Mark .
That's right .
Okay , have you ever been on a tractor , mark ?
Oh yeah , I was .
Yeah , I've been on the big John Dukakis on a tank .
Yeah , put the helmet on and then I don't know I've actually sat in with down in southeastern New Mexico some ranchers out there . I went on some of their big equipment big equipment and yeah , it's amazing these things , I mean the big ones that they have , incredible .
Okay , all right , we don't really have a sponsor . We're not really sponsored by farmers . No , we're not . No , we're not , no , we're not . Okay , let's dive in .
Let's do it . So let's talk about what happened last night a little bit and some of the results , and then and what these races look like . I want to start with the presidential race . I don't know if you glean anything from what you see on that turnout . Obviously Biden and Trump you know not many people uh , turned out . Really the numbers .
Did the numbers surprise you though ? The total number of turnout ? It was not a huge turnout , no not at all .
It was incredibly low and there was really nothing at the top of the ticket to drive turnout . And that's what drives turnout at the end of the day is the top of the ticket races whether there's a gubernatorial primary , senatorial primary , something like that .
Yeah yeah , we didn't at all . But behind the scenes here I want to ask you a little bit about what's going on with the legislature , because we had a bunch of races . There were some really nasty races across the state here in the Southeast . You had Stephen McCutcheon and Larry Scott .
Larry Scott ended up winning that one and you had some races up here in the Heights that got pretty testy as well , but those are Republican races . You looked into the Democratic races and there's some interesting things that happened there .
Yeah , I don't think there was . The primaries were that surprising ? You bring up the McCutcheon race . I mean Larry Scott had an advantage in Lee County . That was a highly contested race on both sides , but it kind of came out the way you'd expect . You had conservative candidates beating moderate candidates Not surprising on the Democratic .
Now that doesn't what happens with the Republicans . That doesn't really impact though the policy wise just because of our numbers . It's not like the Democrats need a bunch of Republicans and have seen a lot of Republicans peel off on the Democratic side . I think it's a big deal because these progressives beat moderates in some of these districts .
You have , from the when the paid family leave act failed to pass by two votes , 34 , 36 in the house .
Four of those Democrats are gone and they're going to be replaced by progressive Democrats who will vote not just for paid family leave , gun control , taxes , energy issues , things like that , and that impact I think is going to that will have a far greater impact , I think , on public policy .
Yeah , so this could take an already left legislature and just push them further to the edge .
Exactly . I remind , in 2012 , when governor Martinez was in office , we actually played in the democratic primaries . We went to eight primaries and won seven out of the eight . We won all five of the Senate because we were very concerned about the progressives going after moderate candidates and moderate senators .
And right after that we were able to pass the big tax cut , et cetera , et cetera . Right now we have Republicans who can put a rock on the no button , but the Democrats .
Now we needed those Democrats to stop stuff and I think that's going to have an impact an impact and and it does look like from all we're seeing right now that that further leftward lurch is going to have an impact in so many different areas here .
But I do think in and do you look at the grand scheme of things and think they could be a victim of their own success at a certain point ?
well , I absolutely think that can happen . I think that's where you see , a pendulum is to start swinging back when they start overreaching , which is inherent , I mean .
That is , they could go further left than what mlg wants them to go absolutely , and and that's probably why , secretly , they'd like it to be a little closer , because they want to stop some of that stuff , because they will push through really far left um legislation . Yeah , yeah , well , I feel like we were already pretty far left .
I mean well , yeah , is it just me that we are ?
so I guess I'm kind of confused that if you know , people left legislation , yeah , yeah . Well , I feel like we were already pretty far left .
I mean well , yeah , Is it just me that thinks that we are ?
So I guess I'm kind of confused that if you know people , are people even paying enough attention to this ? Do we have enough turnout of people that really are concerned about this ?
I don't know that people realize until it starts out like paid family leave the impact that'll have on businesses in the state It'll crush them , it'll crush them Huge , huge .
And the other thing is I think that's true that you think , oh my gosh , well , you know we're already so far left . But that's , I think there's there's room , there's room to run there .
And , and when you look at some of the legislation let's go back to the gun legislation that we had in the last session they tried to do an assault weapons ban , which is just in , and so that's a huge issue that that never made it to the floor of the House .
That's going to change this is going to be an issue Right , and I think not only because those , those more moderate legislators are gone . But if you're a Democrat and you're sitting there thinking about voting against your caucus on something and you look at what happened on Tuesday , you're going to say I don't know about that .
I don't know yeah .
Because the issue that they always put foremost is themselves and their own political viability .
Yeah , okay , so true , all right so .
Okay , this is kind of a foolish question , but I just for clarity's sake , no-transcript with the governor to veto or anything like that , and they basically drew these districts to cement themselves in power , in power .
So there's only 25 percent , not even , not even's very few . So only 25% , maybe Not even that .
Not even that Very , very few competitive seats . Look at Congress it's similar .
Wow .
Yeah , it's a rough deal so it almost got mostly decided yesterday . Well , yeah , and there are a lot of these races . If you look through the SOS website , you know there are plenty of these seats .
That's over now , so they're done , and you're think rebecca dow has a great chance of winning her seat , which would be great for us on a lot of other issues , but on my paid family leave , that was a democrat who voted with us on it yep , so it doesn't give us that plus one that we need elsewhere .
You know , it'll obviously help on other issues and that's why it's important that she win that . But you look at these . There's so few races where we you know where we have a legitimate chance to win okay all right , let's get to a couple other surprise things that happened .
Um , number one , the CD one race . Uh , Melanie Sandsbury is the incumbent . The Democrat didn't have a an opponent , Louis Sanchez , who ran against me in the Senate and the governor's race . Briefly , he he was expected to win this , I think , and ended up losing .
He ended up losing to Steve Jones , who I I have , I'm embarrassed to say I don't know steve jones , and so this race is it ? Is it toast ? I mean , it stands for just gonna walk I don't know .
I mean , I think it's gonna be really tough now . I mean , sanchez was obviously gonna be the stronger candidate and I think what surprises me is remember he lost the primary two years ago and it kind of surprised him . I think , right this time I , like you , can't , especially because of the way that district's not a bunch of Albuquerque .
He narrowly won Bernalillo County , but a lot of it's not Albuquerque . You have to invest that money to win the primary and he didn't . And Steve Jones , I don't know how much he spent . It couldn't have been much . He's out of Rio . Doso Louis could have made that , you know , put it on the map .
But you just can't take anything for granted in a primary , unless you're people think they're more known than they are , or that people understand , and it's really you know .
Yeah .
Do you think , jay , that it's ? I mean , obviously you're a big researcher , you believe in a lot of research , but a lot of candidates can't afford the research to really tell you know , to really figure out what is happening . What are people thinking about them , or saying about them , or how popular are they , or how well known are they ?
You know , do you think it's just that a lot of these folks just can't spend that research and find out .
I mean , they just have to have enough money to be able to do that research , that's a lot of money . It's just remember you said that , saying like you can't win the Super Bowl until you beat Philly , which was our way of telling ourselves we have to win the primary .
And crush in the primary .
Don't look past the primary .
Because you look past it , you'll get beat really easily in a primary like this . Plus , when you look back , in a federal race like this , you always need support from DC , and when you go and you stomp your opponent in the primary , whoever your opponents are , that's helpful .
And I think there's an issue here too of if you're going to run for one of these congressional seats , spend the time to raise the money and be competitive . I mean , really raise the money to be competitive .
This is not a vanity project where you think you get to walk in and just magically be coronated during the primary and then maybe you'll see how it goes in the general , you have an obligation , I think , to the state , to stand up and run a good campaign and raise the right amount of money to be competitive , and that has not happened in this race .
So that's a bummer . I mean a total bummer . Okay , so Stansberry obviously she's going to be in pretty good position . She's never really faced a whole lot of pushback , unfortunately , and I don't know if she will in this one either . We'll see what happens here , but the big race is CD2 . I mean , that's that's Gabe Vasquez and Yvette Harrell .
That is going to be the race in the state .
No doubt Right .
I mean and so what do you think happens there ?
I think Yvette beats him . I think he is going to have huge problems because again , democrats can elect really weak candidates because of the nature of the state and he's one of them . Clearly wasn't a whole lot of vetting where people are paying attention and and in his race he just kind of ran on that it's a midterm , et cetera , et cetera .
Like he was able to get through on a bunch of stuff with not midterm , but it was the he was going to be able to , without making it about himself . You know he's going to make it about Trump to , without making it about himself . You know he's going to make it about Trump .
He's going to make it about abortion , what he was , what he's running on , and he gets elected on that and they they didn't really know a lot about him and I think this time they're going to learn about him and I think Harold's going to make sure they know about him . And now some of this stuff starting to come out .
Yeah , yvette is , is somebody who obviously has run in his seat and this is kind of the seesaw thing that a vet sometimes faces she , she , you know she won the seat and lost it and won it and lost it , so it's gone back and forth for her .
But let's talk about vetting because I want to get to this story , and it is an interesting story because I think initially nobody really did know much about Gabe Vasquez . Well , now , now there's a story that has come out about him and and I want to get through it the Washington Free Beacon put the story out and a couple of things with this particular story .
It talks about how he made a phone call . Now , this is what they contend that they found that he made a phone call to an employer who fired him and he used a racial slur when he made the phone call . And there's documentation the Free Be free beacon says to back this up .
And not only that , but he's been visited multiple times by the police for for domestic issues , what you know . So those were brought up to
¶ Candidate's Controversies and Campaign Strategies
. How damaging is that to him ? And if you're a vet , what ? What advice are you giving a vet , harold , to how to use those things to her advantage ?
Well , I think what's happening she's letting this , letting him try to defend himself is working real well for her , I think . And when your opponent's drowning , like don't throw in the life preserver , and especially with his trying to defend this N word stuff is he looks silly and it goes right against .
Some of the most damaging hits are when it goes directly against a brand and his brand is I'm mr woke , I'm mr .
You know everything .
All of a sudden , the n word is right against that right now it goes right against that and it just kind of shows who's a phony yeah , he's a total phony and you know , and he has that mean streak to him yeah , well , and so not only that , and let me just quote a little bit of this from the story from the free beacon says Vasquez is no stranger to
run-ins with the police at the time . This is back in 2007 . And one of the domestic disputes outlined in the 2007 police report , vasquez asked his girlfriend before hosting a party not to drink too much , because she just turned 21 and gets kind of wild when she drinks .
Later , the report indicates Vasquez noticed that she kept drinking and after having a few too many , she began getting a little wild and dancing around in front of friends . Vasquez confronted her and an argument ensued . They go back and forth and they call the cops .
And then , in 2005 , a couple years before that , there was another visit from the police , and they arrived at Vasquez's apartment to respond to a noise complaint and observed him rolling a blunt and then going through various other issues after that . Now , of course , marijuana at that point was not legal .
So this is interesting , though , because you make an interesting point and I think this is what's frustrating for so many people that are Republicans and that is , you look at an opponent on the other side and you say if we did any of this . That is , you look at an opponent on the other side and you say , if we did any of this , you'd be crushed .
And now we're dealing with this now , and Gabe Vasquez , you know , obviously , is going to have to answer for a lot of these things If you're a vet . Are you running all on this ? Are you hammering him on this ?
Or are you going more toward what Biden has done with the economy ? I think you use it to chip away at who he's saying , who he is , to kind of take his credibility away . I don't know that the college stuff , the drinking and kind of that like I don't . I don't know how much traction that'll get Right .
I think some of the other stuff will , though , and making him defend it he's . He has not done a good job defending this , because because , again , we've talked about this they're never pushed on it . I'm not used to it .
Well , and he , if you follow , I follow his tweets and um and he's really far , he's very far left and he is very like pro Biden , pro whatever Biden says about the border . Uh , he's like backing up 100% . I think that , yvette , I mean especially in in that um area .
Do you think that she should be focusing still really on the border and the fact that he's so laissez fairefaire about the whole border issue ?
I think the issue set is good for her . The issue set's going to be the economy , going to be the border and crime in some of these areas , and that's going to help her quite a bit , because she's going to be having to defend something that's very unpopular .
Do you think ? I'm sorry , I just and he's trying to take a token vote .
You know , trying to act like he's independent , but he's just again . That goes back to . That's why that stuff matters , because you can make him a fake with what he's done . Yeah , and you also Just like she had with him on the whole anti-police thing . Like this is somebody who will say anything , right .
You know to get elected and that's , I guess . Do you see this big shift where people were used to being more focused on policy issues and that was really what you could combat on against candidates , and now it's shifted to more personality issues ?
Or do you think we're still ? Really focused on policy I think these federal races become proxy fights on issues .
And I think that's where , because you're Biden and she's Trump .
And it's like Trump , so Trump has to do well in that district . There's not going to be a big swing . Like executive , I think executive races are much different .
Will he do good in that Right ? Will Trump do well in that district ? Do you think ?
I think Trump's going to do well . It's an even district .
They've gerrymandered it to the point where it's a coin flip district .
Right , I think Trump will do well there . I think Biden , because 2020 was such a weird year when you look at it because of the COVID thing and mainly politically , because , remember the seniors , we were losing seniors because of COVID . That's not going to happen this time , so I think stuff will line up better .
One of the craziest statistics you look at , like , biden was plus one in June of 2020 on who can better handle immigration and border security . He was plus one . He is minus 24 now . Yeah , you know like , and so that's going to have a massive impact on that district and massive impact on that race .
Yeah , and it's and remember , though , back in 2020 , yvette won that race by seven points . Now , that was the old district . Yeah , it was the old district . So so that that's an issue . All right , let's get to the Senate race . Um , we haven't talked a great deal about this race . I want to . I want to touch on it . Heinrich versus Nella Domenici .
Uh , they , they both obviously didn't have opponents in the primary which is so nice , unbelievable .
I was like it must be nice to not have a oh yes , anybody in a primary , yeah , no .
Nella should be very thankful for that . It's . It is very nice . And then Martin Heinrich obviously has the the fundraising advantage right now . So this is going to be , I think , a very interesting race
¶ Senate Race Fundraising and Strategy
. And and one thing I want to get to on this is Nella Domenici is going to have a decision to make , and she's going to have a decision to make in the next month , and part of this really surrounds raising money . She is not raising enough money from outside her campaign .
So I want to get to what this means , because a lot of people think , when you run , that running for office is about standing up in front of these big rooms of people cheering for you .
That's what it's all about . That is not what it's all about . You might get like 10 days of that out of the whole two years you're running .
It's fun , those parts are great , but most days consist of , as a candidate , looking at a list , a donor list , and calling through 30 people and begging them for money , and then the next day doing the same thing and doing the same thing , over and over again you learn to love and hate your finance director because I'd be so angry .
Jessica Perez , who is the best in the business , put down a list in front of me every single day of 30 people and say go do it , do it . And I would just sit there and grind . Why ?
Because allegedly , some days , some days I was like I need .
Jessica to show up in our life now and be like Jess . These are the list of any things with Mark to do . Could you just call him and remind him ? Well , it's fair .
It's fair so . So you would grind through these donor lists time after time . You get enough support and you raise enough money . We didn't have the flexibility to fund the campaign ourselves , so we knew if I was going to be successful , we had to get through this list , whatever , whatever it was .
And so we were successful , raising money and creating a pretty good campaign structure with a lot of help from you guys . No , it means she's in a little different spot here . She's not raising enough money right , that that's a fact . But she has an Avenue here which she can write herself a check and she can make this competitive .
And so I think in a month or so she's going to have to make that decision . She's going to have to look her husband in the eye and these two are going to have to make the decision of do we want to write ourselves a four to $5 million check and go toe to toe with Heinrich and give ourselves a chance to win ?
And that's a tough decision to make , but but one I think she can make and I think she'll have a shot if she decides she wants to do that and she should do it soon .
I mean because that money begets money and if you have to , you know there's a first campaign you're making with donors is that you can , you're a viable candidate , you can win . You're making it with . You know , washington and everybody else in the she puts that in and we're going to do this .
I've seen candidates hold that back and then they put it in and it's too late . Too late , I think . If you're going to do it , go yeah and put it on the map .
I think I'm sorry . I think there's a misconception that , when it comes to this fundraising stuff , especially in federal races like the Senate race , that Washington , there's all this Washington money that's going to be trickling down and flowing into your campaign .
There's this big myth around that New Mexico , you're still a little pissed about that I'm very pissed about that , but explain , explain .
I mean , obviously the , the Republican governor's association , did a better job in the governor's race for us , right , right , but the Senate race were crickets in New Mexico . Well , I mean here's the deal .
I've been on the other side and you're . You basically have a pot of money and X number of races and you're trying to figure out how do I invest this pot of money in these races to get the most seats ? And so they're looking at and New Mexico is just seen as a democratic state , and so you have this race .
I think is it's , you know , rated as solid dumb right now . You got to change that and , and they'll give you a look like they did , they'll coordinate it direct stuff they'll help you raise money you know , to try to get you going , but you really got to put that there where they say this is a better investment than somewhere else .
Yeah , the best argument we always have is we're a cheap date because our media market stuff is cheaper and but you have to again . They're just look , it's a numbers game . Everyone thinks it's personality has nothing to do with personal . They're looking at numbers like how many seats can we win with this pot of money that we have ?
And sometimes they make a mistake . And we got a call the day after the election in the Senate race from Tom Cotton who said we made a mistake , we didn't put enough money into your race because we thought it was going to be a blowout and it wasn't .
And so they realized we made a mistake there . They didn't give you enough . They didn't believe in you enough at the time before then .
Well , no , I mean , they don't believe in the , you know yeah , they didn't believe in the state , yeah , and the state as a whole .
It's really the state .
But the is that like they'll go and take $12 million and put it into Kansas where they win by 20 points , and then you're like what are you doing ?
So there is they make mistakes .
There's no question about that . There's no question . But they're making it because they could add bad data there . They could , and you've got multiple groups too , like you have the Senate committee , but you have you know Connell's group , other groups . Yeah , do you think we've gotten better side of on the whatever I ?
Think both sides like I don't think there's a huge difference on how they're making decisions either . Yeah , you know , like I think , for example , the governor's race , the rga was in here heavy , the dga was in here , gigantically twice and because they saw what happened in 22 once and she's a former chair yeah , but they were not messing around either .
They were not taking a chair . I never seen someone drop as much money as they dropped the last two weeks . Yeah .
For her , for her , yeah , for MLG .
So , yeah , I think both sides , and they'll make mistakes here and there , obviously , but you've got to put yourself on the map with them . You have to be able to make , and it's not just glad-handing stuff that does it , it's data . Here's how much money we have in the bank . Here's where we move the polls , since we've gone on TV , yeah .
Yeah , let's talk Heinrich for a second . If you're running against Heinrich , to me the thought process is you make this all about Martin Heinrich and you bury him . You bury him on the terrible votes he's taken and what he's done with inflation , with his vote for the Inflation Reduction Act , which skyrocketed inflation . He's had done nothing on the border .
He has the reputation of someone who is only has a passing interest in new mexico and even had his son write a editorial , an editorial in the journal a few days ago , fighting back on this a little bit , so they they realize that this thing can hurt him . What , what do you ? What are your thoughts ?
no , I think the race has to be about it's an , it's a challenger . I think the race has to be about it's a challenger race , so the race has to be about him .
She has to do enough to make herself an acceptable alternative that he can't disqualify , because the first thing as an incumbent he's going to try to do is just disqualify her in the eyes of the voters Right , and once you do that , then the hits on him lessen a little bit . So she has to protect herself .
But it's not an open seat Right , so it's a different . You're right , it's a different . You have to make the case against him . You have to prosecute the case against him .
Yeah , I mean , the thing is too is again . I follow him on Twitter as well , right , which it's probably not even him , but his , his posse .
That tweet for him is so far left and very , very opposite of anything that actually works in the state of New Mexico , which is frightening when you actually read what he puts out versus what how it will impact New Mexicans here .
Luckiest man in politics . Yeah , he really is , because I think if you draw the line like to me .
If I was Nella , I would be drawing the line very clearly on his policy . Here's how his policy is directly impacting you , whether it's your pocketbook , whether it's your lifestyle , whether it's what you drive , whether it's what I mean . Any of those things , they're so easy to put right back into his lap .
Yeah , but you have to do it now .
Well , of course I'm surprised without a primary candidate . Shouldn't she have been doing this before now ?
It's incredibly expensive . But yes , I would argue that she she had to go walk up to him and punch him in the face right out of the chute .
Yeah , that's right .
And she still . Maybe she still has time to do it , but the problem is he's got a lot more money than she does . So the more you condense the race , I think it hurts you . You need the longer race .
You need to chip away at who he is and change the narrative on him , and you can't slice this thing down to August , september and October or he will bury you in money , right ?
And do you think he's ? I mean , I don't know if we have any research on him at all , but do you think he's still really well-liked here ?
I don't think he's well-liked . I don't think he's like the senators . They're not as well-known , right they're not nearly as well-known . That's why a lot of these , especially like the Senate race becomes again it's tied to the top of the ticket too .
Yeah , the more Biden erodes . That's why I think Nella will have an opening . The Biden will continue to erode and if they don't get rid of him , then it's it's . You're running against Joe Biden , man alive , no primary opponent , and you're running against Joe Biden . Get in there and go for it , cause he's go . Ok , a couple other things .
Let's talk Biden for a second .
¶ Biden's Functioning and Economic Struggles
Another story came out the Wall Street Journal yesterday , talking about a variety of sources . They said they went to 45 different sources , some of them Democrat , some of them Republicans , saying behind closed doors , biden is not functioning well . What do you think ?
Do you see this as sort of one of those narratives that just going to continue to build over the next six weeks or so , that that will lead us to a point of either replacing him or not , or do you think what do you think this is ? Or is this a nothing story ?
I think it's , I think it . I think that narrative is huge , and they're screaming bloody murder over this story today about , well , what was really happening behind closed doors ? Their problem is what's happening on television that people see , and this line about well , Trump and him could have graduated high school together . Well , you know what ?
Tom Brady and I could have graduated high school together too . Like it's a little different , you know it is . These guys are like like Biden people see it and that's why it's not because , oh , the wall street journal said this .
This was kind of no , it's what I see on TV and what they may see in the debates and what they may see if he actually has to do a real interview .
No , and he did do a real interview Speaking of that with Time Magazine . That was a disaster . If you read the script of what that they went out and they just put it in Time Magazine and you read it it makes no sense . He answers a question and diverts into areas that you sit there and go . What was the question ?
Didn't he talk about ? The Russian military has been annihilated in that article .
Well , yeah , he did , and whether that's true or not , I don't know Right , but but he literally was asked what's your foreign policy going forward ? And he was like , well , and then he gets into Africa , he gets into South America , he gets into Europe , like you're talking about all of you . Like what are you talking about ?
Yeah , and so that being on his comm staff has to be terrifying . I can't imagine that .
Why would they even set him down for an interview ? Because they have . You can't keep doing this .
They've tried not to , but they're probably figure out what's the best time of day to do this , what are the best subjects , who's the best reporter , how do we best manage it ?
But man , that is , that's rough time . He's absolutely . He's unbriefable , right . So so you get him into something . You can't brief him on what needs to be briefed because because you're going off on rabbit trails and it's , it's a huge deal . So he still has all the support from from his left leaning supporters in the best of this .
My favorite in this is Joe Scarborough , who never misses an opportunity to absolutely brush aside reality and give Biden the tough guy narrative that makes zero sense and is not backed up by any data or what we see in our very own eyes . Listen to this .
I could go on and on with things that Kevin McCarthy and others have said about negotiating with Joe Biden .
I could also talk about what the French delegation said when they were negotiating with him and what they told me and friends that I have in that French delegation who were part of those negotiations who said that Macron came out like wow , ok , it's a lot tougher than we expected , and actually I think Macron sort of got his back up because Biden was pressing so
hard . I can tell you the same thing about Middle Eastern leaders that I talked to . Nobody's saying he's not cogent . Some people are suggesting that he , you know , a bit too tough in negotiations .
Look at them trying to keep a straight face .
They're trying to wait around a little bit too much In negotiations . The United States goes around a little bit too much . But what I find so shocking about this article is they go to Kevin McCarthy as their main source and other House Republicans , the same House Republicans . Mike Johnson who just there lied through his teeth repeatedly .
Mike Johnson who got to power based on the big lie and they're using his fantastic . He just is . It's so phony and ridiculous and when you're trying to make a case to the American people on multiple fronts , don't believe your eyes . Believe what I'm telling you . You're dead .
Yeah , because the answer is well , then put him out there .
Yeah , then let's do these interviews .
Let's do it , let's do it , let's do it . Why ?
don't we just let him sit down for an hour ? Yeah ?
I do think and I know this isn't something we're going to talk about right now , but I do think that people are going to start waking up to what I mean I'm gonna start calling them like phony media what they're just pushing Right and then what the reality check is things like this whole Washington post thing , which we'll get into another day but the revolving
door . Now that they're they're switching guards at Washington post because it's gone so woke that they have . They're losing numbers , they're losing readership .
People are like you're not telling the actual news anymore and while it's always been a liberal kind of biased paper to start with , it's just interesting to see how the shifting doors where these , you know , I love it . I love when you see outlets starting to die because they won't tell you the actual truth anymore because they're so worried about bias .
Joe Scarborough he talks all the time about how he goes and has dinner with old Joe . He cares more about his relationship with somebody in power than he does about telling a real story and the reality check .
Well , and MSNBC is . You know , look their thing is their thing right ? I mean , they're the band leader for the far left and that's the way it is . And so let's talk about a couple other things and not being in touch with reality . In in in the real , the real difficulty that you're going to have If you're Joe Biden .
The Hill had an article that they came out and you hear this this really go two ways right . And they even mentioned it in the Hill article here . It says 60% of middle class of the middle class says they are struggling financially . That's the ball game right there . I mean , that is absolutely devastating .
And just a couple of little quotes on this Over 60% of Americans in the middle class say they are struggling financially and are not expecting things to turn around for the rest of their lives . In a new poll , that is some dark stuff . The poll commission by the National True Cost Living .
And then one other quote on this despite the economy showing signs of strength this is their thing , right ? They always say oh , no , no , no , the economy is actually really strong . You just don't get it Right . And with the increasing number of jobs , gross domestic product growth and a steady stock market .
Consumers are struggling to plan and save , according to the poll . Here's the thing , and they just lay this out for you when you can't get to the end of the month and you are looking at your finances and it's devastating , you go to the grocery store , you go fill up your car with gas , you look at your insurance costs and you are out of money .
If someone screams to you GDP , you're like go to hell . I mean honestly , and this is the problem they're having .
That's exactly it and that's what people are feeling and that's why inflation and what he's done on cost is going to be central to this campaign and he can't run away from it . And the thing is so , much of the time the economy will go through natural ebbs and flows and you know you can say someone's blamed more . These are directly related to his decisions .
I mean , that's the thing about that .
He absolutely deserves it . Everything he did you can point to higher gas prices , higher energy prices , higher price inflation skyrocketing . With what they did and the spending they did , you can point to what he's done that led to all this .
I just feel like that voters do not get that . This is the same argument we had back in the campaign .
Hold on .
This is the same argument we had back in the campaign Because we talked ad nauseum about inflation , about the cost of gas , about the cost of groceries . We thought people were actually feeling it so , but the question always was is will they correlate that with leadership ? And people ?
Voters , I think , want to stay back and be like , well , this is just the way the world is right now , not for president .
Yeah , I agree , and you're talking about people on the far left that will give him a pass for anything . Yes , but no , there is that portion in the middle They'll say it's not his fault , it's not his fault . That's not . There's nothing to indicate that in any polling they are blaming him Not .
Not only are they blaming him , they don't think he's up to the job to fix it , and so that's a problem , and they'll still vote for him .
There's people that will still vote for him . Of course there are people that will still vote for him . I just think that's crazy .
But you're looking at some of these states . It's not a big number that needs to flip in these states . Yeah , it's very tight .
And , by the way , never look at the New York Times to here and say this the economy looks strong on paper , but many Americans remain unconvinced .
Yeah , Okay , I mean that's the elitist , that's the elitist right .
I mean , the elitists are all like they just don't understand , they don't get it .
They only knew how good they had it If they were really smart enough , like us to understand this . Yeah .
Yeah , no , no doubt . Okay . A couple other quick issues here . One is the border . We know this is going to be , so much of this race is fought on this front as well . You mentioned Biden losing 25 points on his handling of the border . Article of the New York Post talked about a case where a Venezuelan migrant was accused of shooting two NYPD cops .
It's every single day there is somebody committing a crime that came into the country illegally and it's completely and totally out of control .
Yeah
¶ Biden's Immigration Policies and Political Responses
, I mean . And Biden with his taking his executive actions yesterday , he basically confessed to it , yeah , that he could have done this at any point . He sat there and bragged about how he was going to change everything that Trump did . He was going to undo all the stuff which he did which led to what happened .
And now for him saying I need a bill , congress needs that , congress needs that . Oh wait , I could do it . They made me do anything .
You could have done this in 20 whenever and even when he did , when he finally decided to make the move . If you take the numbers and you look at all the numbers , still going to allow in nearly too many people here , it's a joke and people are now seeing the results of in the consequences .
it's not something that you're having to say , well , this could happen or this will happen . They're actually seeing it . You just look at what's happening to police officers in New York City alone . Yeah , I mean , it's pretty remarkable .
Talk about seeing it , your boy Bill Malugin .
I might have a little thing for Bill Malugin . I want to say right now I bet 60% of all women who actually watched Bill and illusion would also agree with me on that one . But 60, .
I think you're probably a little low .
All right , let's show you the video the illusion , but we'll .
by the way , here's just a quick tweet from him 1 30 AM this morning . We witnessed an enormous mass illegal crossing and hundreds of people from around the world into California and San Diego County .
We encountered men from Nepal , india , china , china , vietnam and many others know Mexicans crossing , but here's the video that he shows , and it's just this is unbelievable and keep in mind .
Like Biden's suffering from this , I still convinced that the public is not largely aware of everything that's happening there , because the media has filtered it down .
Oh , for years they've been filtering it down .
You can , if you . In fact that article you put up before about the two officers getting shot in New York City . Someone should Google that and look at . There's a lot of articles . You have to read down eight paragraphs to find out it's an illegal immigrant from Venezuela , if they mention it at all . Right , so when ?
When Republican advertising starts , when Yvette Harrell starts advertising here , when Trump is advertising , and they finally start seeing some of this it's , I think the number is going to get even worse .
Okay . Well , we have a new segment now . I've created this new segment . It's either going to be called the stupidest tweet of the week or the biggest gaslighting tweet of the week , and this one comes from our own mayor . So I'm just going to jump in . The metal mayor .
The metal mayor .
Okay , yeah , metal mayor Tim Keller . This is part of our community and we're grateful council joined us to keep our immigrant friendly policy intact and make our city stronger and safer for everyone . When communities trust law enforcement , crime reporting goes up and criminals are held accountable .
And this is in direct response to city council approving , I guess , to keep us a sanctuary city .
Or rejecting the repeal .
Yeah , so we had two city counselors Brooke Bassan , I think Renee Grout put this up right and basically all they asked for was hey look , let's work with the feds so that when someone who is in this country illegally and has committed a crime , let the feds and the city work together to get them out of here .
RJ Barry . This goes back . Marty Chavez had this in there . Barry got rid of it by implementing the Obama Justice Department Safe Neighborhoods Plan . All that did is it allowed ICE officers to be in the booking center , the prisoner transport center .
So when someone gets arrested by APD , they book them and there's an ICE agent there and he can go run this person to see if they're here legally or not . He is not running around town . You don't have APD pulling people over for this . If someone gets arrested , they're not even the ones checking .
It allows the feds to do that and if they're here illegally , it can put a detainer on them so they're not released again . You've had countless cases of that and so it only deals with criminals or and they watered it down further to where it was very serious crimes . You know it should . Honestly , I think most people . This is an 80 to 85% issue .
So why so ? What happened at council ? Like what ?
Luis Sanchez voted against it . Yeah , I mean , and he's the swing vote , and so , again , this is the Luis Sanchez that's on the city council .
Not the Luis Sanchez that just ran for .
Which , incidentally that how much did that impact ? Like election day voting , when you have a Luis Sanchez cast a deciding vote to keep sanctuary city alive and then Louis Sanchez running for Congress gets beat .
That's an interesting point . Yeah , no , it's a very fair point . I wonder if Louis Sanchez is thinking that .
Yeah , which Louis Sanchez ?
The one that's waking up today . That isn't a , isn't a candidate Right .
Right , Well , no , it's is because you have a vote here . I don't understand why he made this vote . I have no idea it doesn't make any sense .
I think he if there are words he went or people talking about him wanting to run for mayor , this . This is a terrible vote . Like you're Keller now ? Oh yeah , you are . You're Tim Keller .
And you see all the all the issues that we have with crime , and he is at times stood To keep this safer and the answer from the city council is we're not going to do that .
No , and what that law did ? Keller doesn't want to put that in there , and it basically banned ice or any federal law enforcement officials from being in any of the booking center . Like that's what that did . Why would ? That's what that would , they say , immigrant friendly ?
And it has nothing to do with witnesses , it has nothing to do with , you know , immigrants that are here illegally . As far as apd is concerned , all it has to do with is letting ice into the , into the booking unit when people are arrested for crimes yeah , unreal , okay .
Yeah , all right . Yeah , I know . And that that keller tweet , that was some gaslighting , that was some pretty sweet . I'm gonna be out there .
Looking now for the dumbest . It's not hard to find the dumbest tweets of the week . Okay , because , uh , that one was a big pick for me , okay .
Okay , another one
¶ Criticism of Fauci and Leadership Arrogance
quickly . Covid is back in the news , so Dr Fauci goes up in front of Congress .
Wire Fauci .
And gets shredded as he should In front of Congress . And then Deborah Birx comes out and says she admitted there was an effort to squash the COVID lab leak theory . She comes out and says that look , it happened and she was one of the people that were in the middle of this . It happened and she was one of the people that were in the middle of this .
And so when Fauci went in front of the House , he definitely he took some shots . So I do want to play a quick clip here from Ronnie Jackson , who's a congressman from Texas , and his doctor , and he sort of laid out why he believes Fauci was the tip of the spear when it came to being dishonest about the lab leak theory .
Put quite simply , you failed miserably . In my opinion , based on all we have learned during the pandemic and all that we have since learned through this committee's work , I believe your failures stem from both an effort of self-preservation , manifested by a series of lies and cover-up , and by a total failure of leadership .
It was obvious to everyone that you and your organization , nih , had a lot to lose if the American people were to discover that COVID-19 was most likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan , china , and that you , via EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak , actually funded this research , and that this lab was actively and recklessly conducting gain-of-function research as such , you
did everything in your power to deflect and cover up this possibility . You even recruited others to laid out in what happened .
And I think what's so frustrating about this is the arrogance the arrogance of Fauci , the arrogance of the political elite during that time , during 2020 , saying don't you dare question us and if you do , you are a conspiracy theorist .
Right , yeah , I mean remember the ad that they did against Mark in the when he ran in 2020 , and they have a doctor , whoever she was saying that you don't believe in the science because you said , you tweeted , that this came from a lab and you believe that we should . We were not on top of this .
Didn't this also come out recently that this whole , this whole six foot distance thing Fauci just made ?
up .
Yeah , it wasn't based on science and then the whole , the whole thing that Republican or the Democrats came out with . If you question any of that , then you're not following the science , right ?
no , you're anti-science , it's the arrogance of it , and let's you want to hear from dr mcinerney yeah , let's hear from let's hear , let's . So this is one of the ads that uh , ben ray luhan ran against me . Uh he , he got this woman , dr barbara mcinerney , to say that I don't believe in science right , and so this is this so .
So this is what happens when you go have a doctor who's willing to get political without the actual data and just start to pop off . Here it is .
I'm a doctor here in New Mexico . If you don't believe in facts and science , we've got a problem . That's why Mark Ronchetti is so troubling . He spread false information about the coronavirus look at that quote .
Evidence is mounting . Did it escape from a lab ?
yep , yeah , that's what I said yep yep , and guess what evidence is mounting that it came from a lab . That's all you said . And then she's out there . He doesn't believe in science , it's unreal . It's unbelievable , and I wonder if what this doctor would say now oh , she does and does .
That's where you wish reporters would oh , follow-up , yeah , maybe do a follow-up . What do you think ? I think that was fair ?
Yeah , do you think it was fair what you said ? And , believe me , she won't care at all , it doesn't affect her .
But that's the revisionism too . It's like the teachers unions go . We didn't want to close schools .
No , and I think that the part of this that is so bad is that when you look back at not only what happened with the lab leak , but also what happened with deciding if you wanted to get the shot right , right , and all of this was we're going to wreck your life if you don't get the shot , we're going to get you fired , we're going to make this really hard
on you , and then you see how dangerous government can be , because then it's just pounding the way and it's there's nothing wrong . I think if we looked back right now on a leader at the time who said you know what ? We don't know ? We don't know .
So we're going to , we're going to lay these things out and you've got to help make this choice on your own on what you're going to do . Show some humility .
But instead of showing humility , we have leaders that decided you're going to do , show some humility , but instead of showing humility , we have leaders that decided you're going to do it our way and if you don't do it our way , you don't believe in science . Fauci was at the front of that .
Right , and our governor was too . Our governor sat on television every night and pointed her finger at everybody and told everybody to stay inside , even though she didn't do that . And no traveling and no parties , and no , none of this , none , none , none , none , none in the finger and everything .
And I keep thinking like how did people I know that we couldn't , you know , and not to keep bringing up campaign stuff but we back in the day I thought , oh Jay , this is a slam dunk . People couldn't stand being locked up as long as we were . We got to go after her on this issue .
Lo and behold , research discovers and we find out that no , a large percentage of the state believes that she protected them during COVID . They believed her gaslighting , just like they bought into Fauci's bull crap . Sorry , I was going to say something else , but I'll tone it back down .
I get a little fiery about that .
But I mean , you know people have asked since then why didn't you hit her more on COVID ? We didn't hit her on COVID simply because research showed that people were buying into her crap and they were believing her little finger-pointing lectures on television were keeping everybody safe .
Right , I mean we hit her some on the hypocrisy of it , but that's , the people who agreed with us were already with us . True , and that's just .
I mean , you said something that I thought was pretty funny and ended up being true when you're considering running for governor , and you mentioned that you were watching people run around outside wearing masks and you were concerned whether those people could ever be convinced of anything Right , and apparently you're right .
Yeah .
But I mean they did believe that and what was disturbing about me what happened in New Mexico is people did not realize what was happening in other states . Like she shut down New Mexico so much more in other states . We were the last state for kids to open up kids sports . My son graduated high school a week ago .
He was playing basketball the first two years wearing a mask . You had kids wrestling with masks . It's absurd and it was absurd at the time . Closing schools that long is absurd at the time . It's absurd and it was absurd at the time . Closing schools that long is absurd at the time . And now you see the consequences with this . With that that will be .
The lasting impact of Governor Lujan Grisham is keeping schools closed and what that's going to do and cementing us in the cellar on education . How long it's going to take to dig us out because of those decisions and but there's no accountability . So it's frustrating
¶ Government, Vaccines, and Excess Deaths
.
Yeah , I still don't see reporters coming out and asking , and I guess even if they did , she wouldn't respond .
Yeah , and I want to do one . We'll do one quick thing . And one other thing here , ava , which is the COVID vaccines have helped fuel a rise in excess deaths now . So there's a study that's come out on this too , and again , this gets to the same thing we're talking about , which is the arrogance of government in enforcing something down on people .
If you wanted to get the vaccine , that's totally up to you and absolutely you should do it if you want to do it , and in fact we did , I mean at the time . Now , do I wish we hadn't ? Yeah , I do wish we hadn't , but that's where the heavy hand of government has to be , has to have some sense of humility , and it didn't , right ?
So now here's here's the poll quote from this story , and it's COVID vaccines could be partly to blame for the rise in excess deaths since the pandemic . Scientists have suggested . Researchers from the Netherlands analyzed data from 47 Western countries and discovered that there's been more than 3 million excess deaths since 2020 .
With the trend continuing as the rollout of the vaccines and containment measures continue . With the trend continuing as the rollout of the vaccines and containment measures continued . They said the unprecedented figures raised serious concerns and called on governments to fully investigate the underlying causes , including possible vaccine harm .
Well , I mean , they're not going to do it because it was a money-making machine . They were so arrogant back in the day to not call back . I mean they went so like they doubled down on the vaccine .
They're not going to come back now and say , hey , we made some mistakes and people died because of it and we probably should have shoved it down everybody's throat and made it mandatory to travel or make it mandatory to do anything .
I don't think we're going to see any government here leaders that were in charge then come back and say , yeah , we shouldn't have done that and I will just say off . I mean , you know I've got some of my own sources .
I won't name any names in here , but I've been to several doctors because I've had some issues and I'm not going to tell you that they're directly correlated to the vaccine , but I think my theory is they could be right .
And one of the doctors that I went and saw I brought that up and I said am I crazy , like , am I crazy to think that I've been tracking this and it didn't start until about six months after this vaccination ? He said you're not alone , it's absolutely happening . It's absolutely happening in the way you think it's happening . I can't talk about it publicly .
A lot of us know about it and a lot of us can't talk about it and I think that's a sad state that we're in , that our own doctors now are seeing that he and he's this particular doctor said I never should have given it .
I , I I feel terrible that I gave the recommendation for people to have it and I feel worse about the fact that I gave it to my kids . So it's just one of those things that , like I know , we did the best we could , we think , with the information at hand . The problem is the information at hand they knew wasn't accurate .
They didn't know exactly what would happen and they pretended like they did . That's the problem . I think you need to let medical research do the research . Anytime politics has gotten into that , it's created issues , whether it's tobacco and saying it's not addicting . Opioids I mean heroin in a pill isn't addicting . They got the FDA .
Anytime that politics intervenes like that , you see problems .
And usually all about big pharma . Well , yeah , it's big pharma .
It's rarely correct , but never in doubt , Right ? I mean they just don't .
You need to let research do the research and let the dust settle Like let people argue . And the way you do that is you have debates , Let people debate .
That's right and they were afraid to do this . That's right and they were afraid to do this .
We're going to shove it down your throat and that's the way it's going to be . Well , they took your tweets off . If you try to talk about it , anybody that tried to talk about anything , even doctors that were out there trying to share information saying like , hey , we should be looking at this they got shut down . They got removed from YouTube .
They got taken off of Twitter . I don't know .
I want to do one other thing fly , Ava , go into my texts . I just sent you a clip from RFK Jr which I think was really interesting . Now , obviously , Christy huge fan , we're less so .
But I want to end with this I think he's wise when it comes to the vaccination things and I think he brings up information that people are scared to talk about .
That's what I like about the guy .
I know he's still very , very left .
I understand that Well not only that , I think on vaccinations . To some degree , I think he's wrong . Okay , but I want you to listen to what he says about government . This is a very interesting thing , and then we'll wrap it . Listen to this .
Three thoughts . One is that any power that government takes from the people , any power that government takes from the people , it will never return voluntarily . Number two rule every power that government takes , it will ultimately abuse to the maximum extent possible .
And number three nobody ever complied their way out of totalitarianism , the only thing we can do is resist .
I think it makes a really valid point .
It's a really valid point , which is , when government gets their claws into something , they're going to keep going , and all of us have wanted to have the thought process of look , they're doing what's best for us , they're doing what they think is best for us , but humans are falling , and when we turn over that much power to government , they take it and they
never give it back .
Well and he is hinting on it's very similar to things that Reagan said , like that . What he just said right there , what RFK Jr just said there , is very similar to Reagan .
What he said there , right , what he said there .
And that clip gentlemen , for clarity purposes is very similar to Reagan talking about overreaching of government . That's right , and you know it's the same theme and so it's like okay .
I agree , no , I agree , and it's not that you know . Put him on the debate stage .
gentlemen , Put him on the debate stage . That's all I'm saying . No , no , no , no .
Because that cuts time on Biden . No , the reason why is that third person gives Biden the chance to recalibrate and look at his time , no doubt One on one is a different two hours versus three .
OK , let me just ask you this before we , before we leave Jay , I want Jay's opinion on this . If RFK Jr had stayed on the Democratic ticket and we're seeing Biden cave as bad as he's caving do you think the Democratic Party would have potentially ?
looked at him as the nominee . No , no , that means . You think the .
Democratic Party would have potentially looked at him as the nominee .
No , Downey's going to have a VP under Kamala . No , they would not have picked him because I mean , just on this vaccination issue , honestly yeah .
Yeah , no , okay , okay , thanks for joining us .
Thanks , Jay .
Okay . So we'll continue to check in with Jay throughout the election process .
¶ No Doubt About It Podcast Update
Thanks for taking the time to talk to Monday . We'll see you Monday . You've been listening to the no Doubt About it podcast . We hope you've enjoyed the show . We know we had a blast . Make sure to like , rate and review . We'll be back soon , but in the meantime you can find us on Instagram and Facebook at no Doubt About it podcast . No doubt about it .
The no Doubt About it podcast is a Choose Adventure Media production . See you next time on no Doubt About it .