Transcript
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New revelation about some of the factors surrounding the D.C. wastewater crisis. Virginia is preparing to move ahead with the most radical gerrymander we've ever seen. And the warmth of collectivism from Zoan Mamdami is leading to new problems in New York. All of that and so much more today on 10 Minute Drill. Everybody get up.
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Get up.
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The story of America is the story of an adventure. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. We are a nation under God, and
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I believe God intended for us to be free.
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First, we go back to D.C. and the Potomac wastewater crisis. First, there's been a little bit of mixed messaging. For example, despite the Department of Energy and Environment telling people to avoid the Potomac at all costs, the director says he would still eat fish caught in it. The Department of Energy and Environment later had to clarify that you should not actually be eating fish out of the sewage water, saying D.C. officials are walking back a statement from the head of the department saying he would feel comfortable eating fish out of the Potomac River. Right now, they tell me the existing guidance stands, avoid any contact with the river water. That seems like a no brainer and probably a good rule even when we don't have a sewage spill. But other revelations about the District of Columbia and this particular water department have come to light in just the last couple days. First, watch this video.
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You know, when I arrived at DC Water, this was an organization that looked very similar to our industry. It was predominantly, you know, white male. The people at the top, the executives, the chiefs in that C suite, they should look like the employees that they serve and that they work with.
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That is David Gaddis, DC's water manager, outlining the fact that he believed that the department had too many white men and it needed to, to reflect the racial makeup of people in the District of Columbia. Now, one thing that we've talked about here, the problem with DEI and racial quotas is it devalues outcomes and performance and focuses more on artificial things like racial quotas. The Daily caller reported DC Water oversaw $520 million in DEI contracts. There's also been a lot of attention on the chair of the board of DC Water for not actually having any experience in working water management or as an engineer. Dr. Unique N. Morse Hughes. Now, again, she's not an engineer or city planner. Her experience is as an educator, and her most recent experience is primarily managing NGOs and nonprofits, usually the types of groups that get government contracts because they have political relationships with people in charge who give it to them. So again, the person who is in charge of this board is someone with zero experience in water whatsoever. Another dynamic that we've really been focused on is the role of climate activists in this have you heard anything from the climate movement about one of the worst environmental and ecological disasters in recent history in the United States? Probably not. Bethany Mandel had a great piece in Fox about that green rhetoric. Polluted Water the Left's DC Sewage failure is a Disgrace as the nation approaches a milestone anniversary meant to celebrate progress and stewardship, the contrast is difficult to ignore. Real environmentalism means fixing broken pipes and maintaining infrastructure, not just rewriting regulations. It means accountability for local failures as well as federal debates. And it means recognizing that sometimes the most immediate environmental threats are not abstract carbon models, but raw sewage flowing through the capital of the United States. Bethany talks about the climate movement's reaction to President Trump's decision to get rid of the endangerment finding last week, which puts Congress back in the driver's seat for creating climate regulations instead of unaccountable bureaucrats at epa. Contrast that outrage to the total silence over this terrible environmental disaster. What that tells me is the climate movement has not been focused on the environment or environmental success for a very long time. They've been focused solely on power and who maintains it. And because D.C. and Maryland, Virginia are led by Democrats, the climate movement can't really attack them without exposing the failures of their own side. Which is why they will only focus on these fights over power with things like regulatory controls and completely ignore again one of the biggest environmental disasters we've seen in recent years. President Trump and his team laid out their strategy for the midterms in a closed door meeting reported by Mark Halperin. I'm gonna read some of his takeaways and give you a little bit of commentary. Last night on Capitol Hill, the senior Trump political command briefed its core team on the midterms. The program went for almost two hours, starting at 5:30. The meeting was hosted by Susie Wiles, who spoke briefly. The pollster and strategist Tony Fabrizio presented with about 25 slides on the data of what voters care most about the demographics, the issues, what messages resonate and what do not. The economy will be the issue in the election, he said. Messages that break through banning stock trading for Congress, transparency on health insurance data, including on prices and claims reimbursement, lowering prescription drug costs, the Trump tax cuts, housing affordability is a huge issue for voters, especially young people. Now again, affordability is something that we've talked about quite a bit here, and the fact that President Trump is racing to find anything he can, from small kernels to the much bigger things like housing, that help people afford the costs in their everyday life. Mark goes on taking credit for closing the border does not resonate much. Men, moderates, true independents, and Hispanic voters are true, persuadable voters. Trying to argue about wages being up will not help. Voters have to feel it, he said. Now, this is something that I've talked about quite a bit. We have talked about a number of wins in the economy, for example, the stock market being up, great jobs numbers improving, inflation numbers, even wage numbers being up. But if people don't feel those things, which is what a lot of polling still shows us right now, it really doesn't matter. And there are things that have a tail to them. A lot of those economic indicators are felt a few months later. But another key piece is, for example, the IRS is reporting that returns in people's federal tax returns right now are up 11%. That's the kind of thing that people will see and feel right away. Moving on, they expect Democrats will run in large part on the Stop Trump message. No huge surprise there. We've seen Democrats telegraphing that from the beginning of the Trump administration. The question will be, will that be enough for voters? Are they angry enough at Donald Trump to vote based on that, even after sweeping him into office because they were so frustrated with Joe Biden? That remains to be seen. But Democrats have not laid out any type of policy agenda beyond opposing President Trump, and so we'll see how that works out for them. But I juxtapose that with some new polling. This from Morning Consult. Who do voters trust more to handle national security? Republicans have a 10 point advantage. Immigration. Republicans have an 8 point advantage. National debt, 5 point advantage. Trade, 5 point advantage. Taxes, 5 point advantage. Foreign policy. 4 point advantage. Economy, 1 point advantage. Energy. Tie. Energy being a tie is a flashing red light for Republicans when you consider the fact that Democrats destroyed energy and made everything in our lives more expensive. Republicans need to have a bigger advantage on that. The hope is with President Trump's deregulatory actions and efforts to drive down costs of energy, people will see that number tick up quite a bit. This week, the Virginia legislature is moving to advance their new drawn congressional map. That is one of the worst gerrymanders we've ever seen. We're gonna get into the map and the absurdity of some of those districts. But first, first, here is the ballot question that in April, Virginia voters will get to choose on. Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia's standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census. Now, that is deeply, deeply Orwellian and dishonest. They're talking about restoring fairness. A state that had a Republican governor only about a month ago, that President Trump won. About 47% of under these new maps will go down to about 9% representation. They're going to cancel out four Republican congressional districts with some of the most bizarrely drawn districts I've ever seen. But they have written into the ballot question that people will face that this is about restoring fairness. So again, we're gonna talk quite a bit about this between now and April, but just to set the table, that is how they are framing this to voters on their ballots. But to look at some of those district lines. So as you look at this side by side, you'll see on the left there that there are big red districts. Virginia has a lot of rural population and it is a largely red state outside of the big cities around Northern Virginia and Richmond. But on the right there, you'll see that they've basically found a way to draw these weirdly shaped districts that we're going to get a little bit deeper into so that each of them touch a small piece of that area around Washington D.C. on the top right up there. Now, we held a small contest with the 10 minute drill audience to try and see if people had ideas for what some of these more absurd districts looked like because they are very weird shapes. Again, because the Democrat goal here was to water down Republican votes throughout the state into these strangely shaped districts so they could have a piece of the very small part of Virginia that actually is very, very bright blue Democratic. So we go first to the seventh District. Looking at this seventh District, look at what a strange shape it is. Some of the submissions that we received on that were a lobster, for example, from the good Dr. Richard Harambe on Twitter. Rawr. I'm pinchy the gerrymander lobster. That is a congressional district. Moving on. This is the third District. You'll see that it is basically three different lumps that aren't even physically attached. One smart user pointed out that it looks a lot like the hand of God and in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. But again, as you look at this entire map, these are all bizarre shapes because the goal here for Democrats was to dilute Republican voices to give themselves maximum power and again, get rid of four Republican congressional districts. The Washington Post editorial board called this out brass knuckled hypocrisy. In Virginia, voters will get a chance to reject anti Democratic gamesmanship in an April referendum. So again, this is one of the worst power plays that we have seen in recent memory. Virginia is a purple state by makeup, but they want to cancel out the voices of the probably 75 to 80% of land mass that's actually majority populated by Republicans. We will see where this goes, but you're going to see a lot of ads and attention about this between now and April. Going back to Minneapolis because I feel like we haven't talked about them in a few days. Things are still pretty crazy up there. Here's one exchange between ICE agents and one of the kooky wine moms from Minnesota. ICE Watch.
