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- [00:00]
A
AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation@rubrik.com that's R U B R-I K.com hey everybody.
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B
Tim Bowen from the Bulwark Here we are back with Congressman Pat Ryan, New York 18 veteran. He is the bro whisperer inside the House caucus doing the best that he can for the Democrats. That may not be needed. Based on the results yesterday with young men, it seems like a little bit better than in 2024. I want to talk to him about the inshidification of sports television watching and how terrible it is to try to find the channels now and what Congress can do about it. But first, man, I just, we're taping this on Wednesday afternoon. I wanted to see if you had any big picture thoughts on, on yesterday's results and how that might impact your view of the party or how things.
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C
Look for the battle for the House next year.
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D
Yeah, thanks for having me. And my vow today, by the way, is that I will curse less. My wife yelled at me last time I was cursing on your show. So I got myself a tough.
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B
All right, sorry, Mrs. Ryan. Okay. We're just trying to hang. All right, we're just trying to hang.
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D
But on a more serious, very serious note, I mean I really think it was like resounding message yesterday. So I think everybody needed that. Not just even politically, like just morally, a sense that when bad, wrong things are happening both substantively and morally, like the American people will still come out and send a message. I think that was just a super important moment. And it's an all of the above strategy I think has to be the takeaway of authentic, punchy, change oriented, non status quo, younger, fresher, we get your pain. We are going to fight really hard for you. Whether that's like being able to watch a sports show and your sports team or major national healthcare cuts, rising costs, all of those things. But it's just the punchiness of it. And I think, you know, in my own state we saw a version of that in New York that is very compelling and energizing. My two of my closest friends and now two governors elect in Virginia and New Jersey, we saw that and we need to be doing all of it. I think to me is the macro takeaway.
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B
It wouldn't be the Bulwark if I wasn't just like a little bit of a rain cloud about things. So everybody's riding so high and everything. I have, like, I have a little bit of PTSD too. After the. I guess would have been the 22 midterm when people were expecting a red wave. You know, Democrats did better than expected in part.
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C
Democrats are better than expected that time.
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B
Because Republicans put up the most insane.
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C
Slate of candidates in American history.
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D
For somebody overreached with the Dobbs decision too.
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C
Yeah, yeah, right.
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B
And the Dobbs decision. And I think that a lot of Democrats kind of took the same deep breath that we see today, which is like, phew, okay, like, things aren't as bad as we think. We don't need to assess the things.
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C
That people are not.
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B
The things that.
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C
We'Re doing that aren't resonating with voters. We can kind of just move forward with status quo.
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B
And we kind of.
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C
And that's basically what happened. And we saw how that turned out in 24.
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B
So I think that we can learn from yesterday.
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C
All the things you're saying are right, like being positive and optimistic, focusing on costs, all that matters. But it also was like races in.
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B
Two states, Commodore 1 and in New York City. Right. So it wasn't like the skeleton key.
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C
Was unlocked to winning back the Senate or anything last night.
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D
No, no. And just two quick points on that one. I totally agree. We cannot revert to like a totally failed, old, tired, status quo playbook. And I think in different ways the sort of three nationally focused on candidates did not do that. So that's like the positive takeaway.
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C
But.
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D
But I totally agree. And you know, when we talked almost a year ago after the 24 elections and I sort of went, I put out some aggressive thoughts at that time and said like, the last thing we can do is revert to these old models of sort of left, right, moderate progress. Like, it's just who fights for the people, who fights against the elites calling out heroes and villains. So I think that has to continue to be the case. I will say, though, while all the national focus was rightly on these important races, like in my district, for example, we ran up massive, massive wins in local elections. Like we flipped a county legislature in Dutchess county that hasn't been flipped in my lifetime, won countywide races there by 10 points, which is unheard of. So it is, there's a. It is. I think a national message being sent now can condemns, you know, not fuck that up is obviously the key. So I think we can but, but yeah, we can't go back to the old playbook for sure.
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B
Last thing on this is I think.
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C
That the moving to my more optimistic.
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B
Vision, the more positive thing that came.
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C
Out last night, I think is the House outlook. The gerrymandering redistricting attempt by the White House to kind of rig the midterm.
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B
Elections is still ongoing, but is looking.
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C
Far less successful than it was three weeks ago. Based on the California ballot initiative, the.
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B
Big one in Virginia, that might lead to redistricting. Some, some of these things happening in these other states.
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C
We don't need to get into the weeds.
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B
But it definitely seems like the playing.
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C
Field is looking a little bit more level than it, than, than I felt it could have. How are you feeling about that? Obviously being in the House like this is going to be the front line for the next year.
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B
Yeah.
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D
And I'm actually doing a bunch of recruiting and you know, work on a few different, with a few different hats on. So I've been super looking know, super in depth battlefield recruiting candidates. Yeah. And so I've been obsessed with the map and how hard the map was even before the redistricting. So my version of your, your rain cloud is like, yes. And it's still going to be really hard. Like at best we, we neutralize their aggressive gerrymanders. But even getting back to where we were pre the, the Texas overreach, it's still just a much smaller battlefield, which just means we have, we just have to execute perfectly and aggressively. And I think we can do that.
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B
I do think what you're trying to recruit. I mean I look at this and it's like, well, and they're obviously frontline.
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C
Races everybody talks about.
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B
But you know, you look at last night and it's like, I don't know, a district Trump won by 10. Right. Kind of candidate, you know, Right. Kind of message.
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C
You know, maybe the Democrats could pick.
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B
Up there, maybe some Republicans who are.
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C
Older who are in those districts decide.
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B
It'S not worth the House to deal with the midterm. How's that looking? Is there a specific example of something.
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C
You'Re looking at in that sort of space?
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D
Yeah, I think there's like the typical races everybody focuses on and get all the money and attention. But I'm actually particularly focused on us going to that next ring out and making both, creating fights there where people will make mistakes and then at worst, cause Republicans have to spend more money and resources and energy there, which opens up other opportunities in other places. There's a, there's pretty Much every Republican, House Republican is refusing to do town halls. Like I think that's a play in a, in a particular places where Republicans, some cases, they've done like multiple terms and never held the town hall. So we're looking at that variable and then answering it with really good candidates that are locally rooted. I'm particularly focused on getting more, not just military veterans, but patriotic candidates, service candidates, teachers, nurses, firefighters, cops, veterans. That's like, you know, and we saw that with both Mike and Abigail. I think the ability to tie an affordability and specific message on housing costs, food costs, health care costs to a national service. I am putting the country and community first in a credible way. Like that's a really powerful combination.
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B
All right, let's, let's make a date in like six months to talk about that.
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C
Because I always get people asking me.
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B
Like what candidates to focus on. And those races you're focusing on are the ones that I'm always like, if you're going to donate 20 bucks, if you're hard earned money or 100 bucks, whatever it is, to a candidate, go to those ones.
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C
Like the stretch. House races are going to be the most important ones because the other ones are going to have a bunch of money from the big national parties. So anyway, we'll maybe do a little briefing on some of your favorites once they're done.
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D
Yeah, I'll make a list and check it twice and find out.
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B
Sounds good, man. Okay, now the thing we're supposed to talk about, I wanted to talk to you about, which is I have YouTube TV.
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C
We're here on YouTube right now.
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B
And I was unable to watch football this past weekend, which is, you know, maybe not. Doesn't seem like the biggest deal in the world, but when the world has gone to shit, you know, can I have a couple hours and watch football without having to deal with two corporate behemoths, you know, being in a pissing match over, you know, two bucks a user. As long as Google and Disney are short on cash so they're in a pissing match. The result of that is we don't have ABC and ESPN on top of that because sports is where all these guys are making their money now. You know, every single random streamer, you know, Peacock, Paramount, you know, Shine, Heart Wig company. Like everybody's got a different streamer that.
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C
Has a game on and you can't.
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B
Watch a game because it's airing on some other streamer. You gotta have subscriptions, like 9 things to watch every game of your favorite team. It's stupid. You have a bill out to deal with that. Let's talk about that.
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C
And kind of the broader question why you care about this.
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D
Yeah, it's called the Stop Sports Blackouts Act. Very direct, very straightforward. And by the way, I totally agree. There's a lot going on in the world. There's a lot going on in people's lives. One of the only places of sort of sanctity and nonpartisanship, frankly, left is sports. So I actually think there's a bunch of reasons it's really important to try to preserve that space materially and even sort of sociologically. And yeah, I'm a YouTube TV subscriber, I'm a huge sports fan, New York sports fan. And this is this latest example by the way of literally multi trillion dollar companies battling each other while the rest of us get straight up screwed and ripped off. That's one story of multiple of these kind of instances that have happened where because what's called a carriage dispute, weird term. But because Google and Disney, abc, esp. Are all are battling, people are paying probably across country millions, if not billions of dollars right now and just not getting the thing. And there's no, there's no resolution for subscribers like us in that instance. And there's also no disincentive to continue to do these, have these disputes. So the bill really both punishes. Well, just punishment, I shouldn't even say punishes, just levels of playing field if we don't get the content we paid for and gets that money back to us. But also, hopefully it deters these kind of battles playing out going on into the future. There are similar. There's a moment in 2023 where you had an MSG which covers the Knicks and Rangers in New York battling one of our other telecoms optimum. And there was a similar blackout moment. We also have another battle where opening day for the New York Yankees is only going to be available on Netflix this next year. So and it's just as like a.
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B
Denver man where I'm from, I live in New Orleans now. But like you couldn't for three years you couldn't get the Nuggets or Avalanche games and they're both winning championships if you had the main carrier because there's a pissing match between one of the Walt Nepo babies and Comcast just like seriously, like, I mean there's like, there's.
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D
The material element of this which is just bullshit and like a ripoff and totally wrong and un American. But there's also, I think this is an important window into the broader kind of lens of what's happening and has been happening in our economy, in America, in a bunch of sectors and industries from healthcare to media to energy and a lot of other things where like essentially we have just straight up vertical integration and monopolies in almost all these parts of people's lives. The service keeps getting shittier, the costs keep going up, there's these corporations battling it out and fans in this case, or just Americans have no, like no voice and no leverage, which is just about as un American, I think, as you can actually get to have no competition. So I think politically right now in this moment, this is also an important opportunity and obligation to speak to a lot of people that may be less politically engaged, younger people, sports folks who are less political and say, if you're experiencing this, not only are we working to help you, but also this is happening in other parts of your life and you might not fully realize it. And we're working on those parts too. I think it's an important kind of unifying issue for Democrats as well. And so far we haven't been able to get any Republicans on this bill, although I would welcome them to join it.
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B
Yeah, it, you know, because I was.
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C
Talking to Heidi Heitkamp last week and she was mentioning this in, you know, a space that I know nothing about, which is like the beef process. I don't even use the right word because I don't fucking know, like the beef processing, you know about this. And that's part of the reason why beef cost is up. It's like not actually the cattle farming for the impulse. Yeah, yeah.
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D
Like I talked to my diner, you know, we got a lot of, you know, mostly Greek owned diners in New York and talking to them, they're all generally pretty conservative, often Republican folks, and they are fricking pissed about the fact that there are only two companies in America that they can buy their beef from and their prices have gone up like 10x. And then that gets passed on to everybody that's trying to just afford like a dinner out with the family at the diner in your neighborhood. And, and so I do think this is a place where, and we talked about this a while ago, like some might call this an economically populist issue, but it's just actually a broadly unjust thing that's hurting everybody where we can build a coalition politically and say, yeah, whatever you think on other issues, we're all together getting hurt, harmed, and if we don't all together fight back, this is just actually going to get Worse.
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B
So the. So the gist of the Sports Blackout act is just, these guys got to.
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C
Pay us back if they're not going to air the games, basically.
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D
Exactly. If you are a subscriber and you're paying like both of us are right now on YouTube, and it's not cheap, it keeps going up every few months, and you don't have that service for that time period, you have to pay back those customers. And the other thing that's happening here, by the way, is, and I'd rather.
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C
Watch the game, but I'll take your money if you want Google.
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D
Well, and the goal, to be clear, is like, yeah, if just to have some disincentive to do this so that it doesn't keep happening. Nobody wants to, like, have to deal with all the rigmarole, but there's no consequences right now. And all these. And this is important, too. This is super wonky, but it's important. All these companies, these, you know, both TV and cable companies, but increasingly, these Internet companies, the Googles of the world, are riding on an antitrust exemption from the 60s. And so they're not. I mean, they're technically following the rules. But Congress needs to go back. What I'm trying to say is Congress needs to go back and say, whatever was decided in the 60s, it's not working. This is not helping people. Let's remove this antitrust exemption and recognize this is a monopolistic kind of situation and we need to revisit, especially given this proliferation of all these streaming services. When it started, I think we all were like, oh, this is going to be better. It'll be cheaper, it'll be easier. It's a fucking mess, right? Like, it's just. Even if you have the money to pay for it, which most people don't, but, like, just navigating all the subscription.
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B
Stupid NBA, like the NBA league pass went to Amazon this year. So it's like if I want to flip back and forth, if I'm there, you know, like, I watched 82 Nuggets games a year. My poor husband, you know, and so like, it was one of those things where at least if it's like, you know, it's halftime or the Nuggets are blowing them out, you know, you can flip back and forth. He flips over to whatever he wants to watch, you know, whatever. Bravo. Not to do stereotypes. I like Bravo too. Um, and. But like, you can't. But now you gotta go, you know, anyway, you just gotta go into a different system now to do it. And like, the Whole thing is just, the whole thing's crazy. It's like crazy like that you have to have all this stuff and you know, you're in a hotel room, you can't watch anything now. You know you can't and. Right. Yeah.
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D
You gotta like log into 12 different things to watch the thing you already pay for. Yeah, it's crazy. Like I've run small businesses. I'm, I'm a, you know, we gotta have companies that are working and providing what we need, but it's like left to their own devices with no guardrails. This is what happens. Like this is they'll just keep. Multitrillion dollar companies will keep doing these kinds of things. And it's the job of public people with the public good at heart to say, hey, let's, let's zoom back out here and put some guardrails back in place.
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C
Yeah, kind of the one cheer for capitalism thing.
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B
Okay. The last thing you said, sports is none a non political space now. Not here in Louisiana where our governor fired the LSU athletic director because he's a Democrat. We can, everybody can pretend like, well.
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C
He really did it, but he did it because he's a Democrat. Good guy. Scott Woodward, who brought like I think.
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B
11 national championships to LSU in about.
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C
Five years through all the different sports. I'm going from memory, maybe it's a.
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B
Little less than that, but it's huge success. Gets fired by the little midget MAGA.
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C
Governor because, because he's a Democrat, sees an opportunity.
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B
I'm about to do a hunger strike outside like a Zo run style hunger.
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C
Strike over this if they don't get a fucking good football coach in there.
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B
And so I was wondering if your.
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C
Bill can do anything to help me with Jeff Landry.
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D
That feels like a deeper need for a psychologist and lots of other things with him.
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C
But.
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D
And I have to say LSU just destroyed army so badly last year that I don't have a lot of sympathy in my heart for, for lsu, but, but I hear you. No, and I do think on a broader level, like you can still go to whether it's college game, certainly high school games and, and pro games and no one's like they're looking at your jersey, not your voter affiliation generally. I, I know that there's some exceptions here which we got to push back on. But like we gotta preserve and expand these spaces where your kids sports, pro sports, like civic groups, faith groups, like that's the only, one of the only ways out of where we are. Obviously. I know you talk about this a lot, but there's, like, bigger consequence to this. Some people are like, why are you focusing on this when there's all these big things happening? We can do multiple things and have to do multiple things. We can work on the relatively smaller things that still make people's lives better and tackle the big stuff, too.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Donald Trump's ruining the country and simultaneously.
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C
Building himself a ballroom, putting a new, like, a Cheesecake Factory logo on the outside of the Oval Office, and he's.
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B
Able to do multiple things. Also doing a deportation regime and crushing the economy. So we can do multiple things, too.
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D
Foreign authoritarians. Yeah.
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B
Pat Ryan, man, I always appreciate your insight on all this.
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C
Where should people go if they want to support your work, what you're up to?
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D
Oh, politically. Patryonforcongress.com or just call our office. And we need more people involved in the bill.
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C
Specifically.
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D
Specifically the Stop Sports Blackout Act. And so regardless of your partisan id, we've been actually saying to people, hey, call your representative, whatever the party, ask them to get on this bill. So if you're willing to do that, that'd be a help.
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B
Appreciate it, man. We'll be talking to you soon. Everybody else, subscribe to the feed right here. We'll see you in a minute.