Donald Trump (3:05)

Don't, don't, don't, don't.

Host (3:09)

Or this from the woman who was almost president.

Jeh Johnson (3:11)

What's the message to Iran?

Harry (3:13)

Don't.

Host (3:16)

Last week, NASA held the historic launch of the Artemis 2 spacecraft. This was an incredible moment for America and something that I think we all felt a lot of joy and excitement watching. It's the kind of launch that we haven't been able to see in a very, very long time. However, some in the media had more of a tempered reaction to it.

Frank McKenzie (3:34)

It's important and relevant to take a moment and say, wow, we should be collectively, not as Americans, not as North Americans or as. But just as humans, proud of the achievement here.

Host (3:46)

Now, I do think this is a big achievement for humans, but it's also an incredibly American achievement. We are doing things no other country can do. And it's because of the unique way, the unique system that our founders built that we are continuing to thrive off of today, that no other country is able to replicate. So for today, I wanted to look at the state of the global space race, because in the 60s, when we first landed on the moon, it was in part animated and motivated by competition with other countries. And now some of those countries that we are in competition with are actual adversaries. So the top five players in the global space race are, number one, the United States, by quite a wide margin. And one reason for that is the collaboration between public and private resources, the fact that we have NASA, which is government funded and also, critically, importantly, funded by the big beautiful bill. The future of the Artemis program is secure because of what Republicans did without any votes from Democrats. Now China's second in the pack there. They built their own space station and they're planning crewed moon landings by 2030. Number three is Europe. The European Space Agency is strong in science missions and satellites, but suffers from a less unified political direction compared to us and China. Number four, we have Russia. Now, Russia's a legacy power, but they've been declining in influence. They still launch astronauts via Soyuz, and they have played a key role in the International Space Station, but they're losing ground due to funding issues, in isolation now number five is I think the big surprise in this and the sort of rising star which is India. The India Space Research Organization landed near the moon's south pole, which was a huge, huge milestone. They're working on human space flight. Their key strength is low cost, high efficiency missions. So that's a look at the global space race. But again, just to highlight the fact that this Artemis mission is a unique American accomplishment because our tax dollars, our innovation and our dreamers are the ones that are continuing to push the envelope a little bit further in space exploration as we continue to barrel towards the midterms. One thing that we watch closely here on 10 Minute Drill is polling and how each party is doing, how each race is doing. Now CNN had very valuable nugget about the current Democrat party favorability.

Harry (5:56)

Net favorability party ahead at this point midterm of years with the GOP president in 2018. Dems were up by 12 in 2006 on net favorability. Which party you like more? Dems were ahead by 18. Republicans are actually ahead on net favorability at this point by five points. So Democrats are just simply put running behind their previous benchmarks.

Host (6:15)

Now that part there about 2006 and 2018 is really important because we base our, our historical understanding of how midterms should go. This concept that a president usually loses seats in their first midterm year. On wave elections like this, 2006 and 2018 were both years that Democrats massively overperformed, particularly in the House of Representatives. The fact that they are so far behind those benchmarks in those blue wave years, the fact that Republicans right now have a higher approval rating among the public than Democrats do shows this is a very, very different cycle. But Harry went on to explain one reason that the Democrat approval is so low. The cost coming from inside the House,

Harry (6:53)

you might say, okay, well at least Dems like Democrats. Uh, not the case. Look at this. The majority of Democrats are independent su lean Democrats.

Frank McKenzie (7:01)

Look at this.

Harry (7:02)

55% say no. Congressional Democrats do not have the right priorities.

Host (7:08)

Now that note about Democrats having the wrong priorities is exactly what dogged them in the 2024 election. The fact that most people believed Democrats were too focused on crazy outlandish issues like trans and kids and DEI instead of fixing the 2024 affordability issues and dealing with the southern border. So that has kind of stuck with them through this. And one of Republicans main hopes in these midterms will be continuing to highlight that Democrats are weird and way out there while Republicans are focused on normal kitchen table issues. Harry also noted in that block that he believes the environment suggests Republicans will keep the Senate. And I believe that as well, based on the map and the fact that the seats that the Republicans are fighting to defend right now are ones I think they will defend. And in a future episode, we'll go through the map and we'll explain some of those races and what's going on there. But one thing that NBC highlighted was another piece of the Democrat identity crisis, which is largely a response to this kind of polling that shows that people don't think Democrats are focused on the right things. From NBC. Tax cuts are the hot new idea for Democrats. Now, I had a good laugh when I saw this because if you follow Democrats for the last 10 or 20 years, their agenda has been tax and spend. And so I thought there had to be more to this story. I was right. Tax cuts are becoming the hottest new idea in Democratic politics from coast to coast as candidates across the party spectrum seek to capitalize on cost of living struggles and win back working class voters. Now win back working class voters is a hilarious premise when you remember that the reason they lost working class voters is when they were in power, they used every bit of political capital they had for things like tax credits for electric vehicles for families making over $500,000 a year, or things like bailing out student debt, underwater basket weaving degrees for wealthy people while working class families had to pay higher taxes to pay for that. So they've got their work cut out for them. And one way they're going to try and win those people back is through this sort of fake tax cut agenda. Now this article goes through several Democrats, people like Katie Boiled Mashed Potatoes Porter in California, Corey Spartacus Booker and Chris Margs with Ms. 13 Van Holland in Maryland, who aren't really talking about tax cuts. What they're talking about here is a system where they would essentially reduce taxes for the lowest income but raise them on the highest income. And so it is essentially playing winners and losers in a way that's not pro growth. And if you're looking at a state like California that already has a massive hole in their budget because so many billionaires left at the threat of the billionaires tax that they're going to be voting on November. Katie Porter's math simply doesn't math. But what they know is their brand is bad because tax and spend, raising taxes on everybody to pay for government that largely loses money to fraud, waste and abuse, and to pay the government to continue doing government things isn't very compelling to people. Now Back to the issue of fraud, waste and abuse, Politico had a headline that really piqued my curiosity, how the GOP's fraud crackdown could impact the midterms. While many Republicans approve of tackling fraud, the Trump administration's recent efforts may not be enough to overcome concerns about higher costs. Now, one point that I've consistently made is that Republicans need to make clear to people that there is a human cost of fraud. For example, when we examined the Minnesota Somali fraud scandal, there were so many of these fake providers who were taking money from taxpayers to be healthcare workers who are not actually checking up on patients who had applied for their services. There are patients who died because they had accidentally gotten in business with a fraudulent provider. There's many cases like this. And Chris Ruffo and City Journal have a new piece called Gavin Newsom's Empire of Fraud. Now, this piece details a number of important factors. For one, what HHS and other government entities have identified as far as major fraudulent activity in California, but also in so many cases, the human cost of that fraud, how Democrat fraud is actually hurting people. This isn't just money disappearing into the ether. This is actually taking away from government services ability to serve people well. California is a cash machine. The state collects some of the country's highest income, business and fuel taxes and now spends more than $300 billion per year. And yet everywhere you look, California seems to be falling apart. The roads are crumbling, mismanaged wildfires have turned neighborhoods into ash. Drug addiction and homelessness have metastasized, turning parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco into no go zones. And the cost of living crisis is pricing middle class taxpayers out of basic necessities like groceries and gas, even as the state spends billions on welfare programs that never seem to lift anyone out of poverty. Now, we've talked about the fact that Gavin Newsom was given $24 billion to fight homelessness and homelessness went up and there was no tracking done to see how any of that money was spent. But we know a lot of the nonprofit organizations around Gavin Newsom made a whole lot of money off that. Now consider that's just one example. What City Journal in this investigation has found is it's a much larger scale. For example, in the healthcare space, multiple senior HHS officials estimate that under Gavin Newsom, California's state Medicaid program has lost 25% of its budget to fraud. That would mean it's currently losing $50 billion a year to scammers, fraudsters and organized crime rings. And that's not to mention the issue of high speed rail. We've talked a lot about high speed rail here, like a broken record. You might have heard enough from us about it, but the fact that on Sunday night 60 Minutes did a deep dive on the broken promises of Gavin Newsom's high speed rail to nowhere really says something.

60 Minutes Correspondent (12:37)

Locals here jokingly refer to it as their own Stonehenge. Ideally, these bridges and viaducts will one day be used to support California high speed rail. But for now, these are curiosities in a field, monuments to promises that haven't been met and plans that haven't been executed.

Host (12:55)

Now, 60 Minutes examined a number of things here. One thing they got into, something we talked about before that originally this high speed rail was planned from Los Angeles to San Francisco to help commuters. That has been trimmed down massively to areas far north of LA and far south of San Francisco, making it completely unusable to commuters. But the other piece of this that they got into was the continuing increased cost.

60 Minutes Correspondent (13:18)

How much do you estimate it's going to cost to connect high speed rail San Francisco to LA today?

Jeh Johnson (13:23)

We estimate with the right optimization, just over $125 billion. I think $126 billion is the current estimate for that.

Host (13:31)

That's more than Amtrak has ever received in its history to serve the entire United States. And it's more than the GDPs of Ethiopia, Ghana, Croatia, Serbia, Ivory Coast, Angola, Costa Rica and a number of other countries. Meanwhile, if you're wondering what high speed rail is up to day to day, besides building, you know, bridges to nowhere, here's what the high speed rail Twitter account posted over the weekend. California high speed rail is creating good paying jobs for hard working members of the trades. 16,000 jobs created, 1,600 daily workers dispatched. These jobs mean steady mortgage paying careers for thousands of California families. Now in a lot of ways, this tweet kind of says it all. It's easier to understand this boondoggle when you remember that high speed rail is not actually about high speed rail or creating a high speed railroad system to connect LA and San Francisco. It is a jobs program for Democrat voters who within labor union. California high speed rail was always intended to create union jobs to keep union workers voting Democrat. And they want more federal funding to continue to create those jobs, to continue to get people voting Democrat. It's the same way that all the Medicaid fraud is actually to employ large groups of fraudsters who are Democrat donors instead of simply providing healthcare for you can't make it up segment today we have something that I thought was particularly funny. There is an effort afoot from Democrats to try and memory hole or erase our previous president. First, this tweet from the Democrats Better times at the White House and they are showing a picture of the Easter bunny looking at the Washington Monument standing next to Barack Obama. Now it's notable that they skipped all the way back to Barack Obama who hasn't been president for 10 years. And you would think they might want to remember somebody who came in between there, perhaps Joseph R. Biden. But the Democrats Twitter account isn't the only people to do this. Gavin Newsom's press account also tweeted this RT if you miss having a president with a functioning brain with a picture of Barack Obama, I would again point out to you they skipped right over Joe Biden. I don't know if that means they don't think he had a functioning brain or if we're just seeing a larger effort by Democrats to pretend Joe Biden never existed because he continues to be a political albatross to them. I don't know if that's actually going to work. To memory hold the most recent president, but we all see what you're doing there. That is all the time we have for today. Thank you so much for joining us on 10 Minute Drill. Please like subscribe, leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, have a great day.