Best and Worst of 2025 Media, Rise of Antisemitism, and the Issues That Will Decide 2026 Midterms

Summary

Podcast Summary: Next Up with Mark Halperin

Episode: Best and Worst of 2025 Media, Rise of Antisemitism, and the Issues That Will Decide 2026 Midterms
Date: December 16, 2025

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Overview

Mark Halperin returns with a packed episode focused on three main themes:

1. A deep dive into the best and worst of 2025 media, reflecting on major trends, wins, failures, and scandals in journalism and content.
2. An in-depth conversation with Rabbi David Wolpe on the unsettling rise of antisemitism in the US and globally—its nature, origins, and possible responses.
3. A detailed analysis with pollster David Winston of the economic and political issues likely to define the 2026 midterms, especially the central role of economic perceptions among independent voters.

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Segment 1: Year-in-Review – Best and Worst of 2025 Media

[03:26 – 35:07]

Key Discussion Points

Why Analyze the Media?

• Media’s influence on politics is profound; public trust and outrage over perceived media bias have shaped political alliances and discourse.
• “So many people support Donald Trump, support MAGA because of years, some cases, decades of outrage about the conduct of the media.” (Mark Halperin, 03:41)

Most Surprising Development:

• Liberal or “woke” influence in dominant newsrooms has diminished.
• Newsrooms like The Washington Post and The New York Times are moving incrementally toward more balanced coverage.

Biggest Story of the Year:

• The late-year battle for Warner Brothers, with implications for news, entertainment, and business dominance.

Most Promising Development:

• Bari Weiss joining CBS. Her boss, David Ellison, promotes building a newsroom “appealing to people regardless of their ideology.” (07:31)

Biggest Winner:

• YouTube: Now pivotal for all video creators, “a monster” influencing video, music, comedy, and more.

Biggest Loser:

• Legacy media brands and organizations refusing to adapt to changes in technology, distribution, and audience preferences.

Best New Business Model:

• MK Media praised as an agile, lean, quality-focused content network that disrupts expensive, legacy infrastructure.

Most Overlooked Story:

• Incremental steps by big media toward fairness, with The New York Times finally reporting on controversial topics like Biden’s immigration record and Nancy Pelosi’s stock trading stance, albeit too late.

Most Inevitable Trend:

• TikTok’s evolution into a major news source for younger audiences.

Most Dangerous Trend:

• Sophisticated AI-driven misinformation, identified as a dire threat for 2026.

Best Political Journalism:

• The Wall Street Journal is recognized for superior government/politics coverage.

Most Welcome Trend:

• Both long-form and short-form video thriving, with successful creators mastering both.

Most Misunderstood Audience:

• Families—media companies often misunderstand what parents and children really want.

Most Underrated Skill:

• Fusing AI with human creativity; “Start with humanity, turn to AI for some help. End with humanity.” (Mark Halperin, 22:44)

Most Important New Reality:

• Every business is now a content creator, regardless of industry.

Most Underreported Power Center:

• Live sports rights negotiations are now central to media company fortunes.

Most Unexpected Revival:

• Email newsletters (e.g., Substack) have become “must-read, must-forward” destinations.

Most Predictable Flameout:

• Matthew Dowd’s firing by MSNBC after controversial statements—“tempted fate by saying the things he said.” (32:21)

Biggest Scandal:

• “The continued lack of accountability on the Biden acuity story.” Media ignored obvious cognitive decline to avoid aiding Trump, and even now, “the press continues to not come clean about what actually happened.” (33:42)

Biggest Losses:

• The deaths of Charlie Kirk and journalist Jules Witcover, prominent figures representing both new and classic media paradigms.

Notable Quotes

• “There are baby steps being taken by the dominant media to not just seem less biased, but be less biased.” (Mark Halperin, 18:56)
• “The most powerful people in media are going to be people, again, who know how to combine the human spirit, the human creativity, the human mind, with the power of AI.” (Mark Halperin, 23:38)

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Segment 2: The Rise of Antisemitism – Interview with Rabbi David Wolpe

[35:39 – 57:55]

Key Discussion Points

The Problem Emerges:

• Halperin acknowledges he underestimated antisemitism’s resurgence until recent research, polling, and personal encounters proved otherwise.
• “It’s not just disagreement with Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s not just disagreement about policy in Israel. There’s something deeper going on and it is extremely troubling.” (Mark Halperin, 35:50)

Nature and Uniqueness of Antisemitism:

• Wolpe: Antisemitism functions as a conspiracy theory, manifesting in both left and right ideologies and jihadi movements.
• “Hatred of Jews is almost always, or maybe always, a conspiracy theory… There’s a weird dichotomy… we are both subhuman and superhuman.” (Rabbi David Wolpe, 38:47)

Responsibility and Solutions:

• It isn’t solvable by Jews alone—“Because antisemitism is not about Jews. It's about the anti-Semite.” (Wolpe, 41:13)
• Effective response requires forging alliances: “Maybe that is one thing we have not done well enough, is to say to the world, we need your help.” (42:34)

Use of ‘Antisemite’ Label:

• Both agree: the term is overused, which dilutes its meaning and impact.
• “We are way, way too easy with that accusation, which is kind of the nuclear bomb. And you shouldn't, in part because it diminishes the real antisemitism.” (Wolpe, 45:47)

Gray Areas and Political Leaders:

• Discussion of where critique of Israel crosses into antisemitism (e.g., “from the river to the sea” chant).
• Call for stronger condemnation from mainstream political and media figures, not just passive discouragement.

Media’s Role:

• Halperin criticizes media for failing to properly address radical Islam’s role in antisemitic violence.

Advice for Parents:

• Wolpe underscores the need for humanization and genuine interpersonal contact to counter prejudice:
  “To paint any group with a broad brush of evil says much more about the character of your child than it does about the character of the group… you have to teach your child to listen to the dreams of others…” (Wolpe, 55:54 and 56:54)

Notable Quotes

• “You can’t cure the hatred in someone else’s heart.” (Wolpe, 41:13)
• “When we make Jews into the responsible party for antisemitism, we’re falling into the antisemitic trap.” (Wolpe, 41:13)
• “Jews need to be a better wake up call to civilization, that this is not only about us.” (Wolpe, 44:42)
• “Every human being has said things they regret... You have to believe in the redeemability of human beings. And I do.” (Wolpe, 50:40)

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Segment 3: The 2026 Midterms – Interview with Pollster David Winston

[59:58 – 88:59]

Key Discussion Points

Centrality of Independent Voters:

• “Independents decide elections. 90% of Republicans vote for Republicans, 90% of Democrats for Democrats—so it’s the independents who decide things.” (Winston, 62:31)

The Economy Trumps All:

• The top issue is economic stewardship—especially for independents.
• Under Biden, prices rose 21%, wages only 16.7%, resulting in a 5% loss in disposable income.
• Trump’s presidency so far has seen slight improvement (wages up 2.6%, prices up 2.2%), but not enough for voters to feel substantial relief.

Current GOP Challenges:

• Among independents, President’s handling of inflation gets just 23% approval, 68% disapproval.
• “If the President’s approval rating on the economy with independents is what it is now, the goal is to change it and make it better… That would be a wipeout if that’s how independents felt.” (Halperin, 66:35)

Historical Context:

• In 2018, Democrats won independents by 12 and took 235 House seats. Maintaining or increasing that margin is key.

Voter Perceptions vs. Economic Reality:

• There's a gap between positive economic data and voters’ lived experiences; voters judge based on how their situations feel in 2026, not just statistics or rhetoric.

Messaging and Discipline Needed:

• Candidates must present coherent, factual narratives about economic progress and plans—avoid hyperbole and focus on tangible results.
• “Part of the challenge here is having an effective economic narrative… and I would tell you at this point, that hasn't been there.” (Winston, 80:24)

Timing for Positive Voter Sentiment:

• Improvement in voter attitudes toward the economy could come as late as fall 2026, as long as people tangibly feel better about cost of living.

Healthcare’s Role:

• Healthcare is intertwined with cost-of-living concerns; generic promises to reduce expenses are only marginally effective unless voters see real improvement.

Media and Messaging:

• Voters, especially independents, are increasingly detached from traditional media and are “tired of hyperbole”; they want “substance” and “facts that allow people to rethink their beliefs.” (Winston, 82:23)

Notable Quotes

• “People aren’t excited, again, because… when you look among independents, [Democrats] have 68% unfavorables. So it’s not like the independents are like waiting for the Democrats to come back.” (Winston, 78:26)
• “Independents are not hearing anything that’s worth taking the time to listen to. That’s part of the challenge to both parties.” (Winston, 83:51)
• “This conversation is the only one that matters.” (Halperin, paraphrasing, 81:00)

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Memorable Moments & Quotes with Timestamps

• “The woke liberals in these newsrooms are not wielding the same power as before. That surprises me at how quiet they've been.” (Mark Halperin, 06:01)
• “Long form is there… but the trend that’s so exciting to me and so heartening to me is short forms doing really well too…” (18:56)
• “Hatred is almost always, or maybe always, a conspiracy theory—and Jews are both subhuman and superhuman in the way haters see them.” (Wolpe, 38:47)
• “You can hate what Israel did in Gaza. That doesn’t make you an anti-Semite… we shouldn’t call it that because, as you said, it’s unserious.” (Wolpe, 45:47)
• “Independents decide elections… it’s not just simply the job approval or the acceptance of how a President is handling an issue. It’s really where independents are.” (Winston, 62:31)
• “If the President’s approval rating on the economy with independents is what it is now… that would be a wipeout if that’s how independents felt.” (Halperin, 66:35)
• “Every time you’re looking at the coverage and it’s confusing, just rerun the episode and [Winston will] have it there.” (Halperin, 88:39)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Media Year-In-Review Monologue: [03:26 – 35:07]
• Antisemitism (Rabbi David Wolpe): [35:39 – 57:55]
• 2026 Midterms (David Winston): [59:58 – 88:59]

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a dense, candid, and insightful exploration of three high-stakes areas for America in 2025–26. Halperin guides listeners through changes in media, the seriousness of antisemitic resurgence, and the core economic issues likely to define the next election cycle, all with seasoned expert voices. Both the language and tone remain conversational yet authoritative, with an emphasis on clarity, skepticism, and practical advice.

For listeners:

• If you follow politics, journalism, or cultural trends, you’ll find a detailed scoreboard for the year — plus a look ahead at what really matters for 2026.
• If you’re concerned about antisemitism, the segment with Rabbi Wolpe is nuanced and practical.
• If you want to understand how the economy will shape politics, and why independents hold all the cards, David Winston’s segment is a must-listen.

Transcript

[Mark Halpern]

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[David Winston]

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[Mark Halpern]

And learn [e-mail] this message is sponsored by Pfizer.

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Mark Halpern]

Hey, Everybody. Welcome to NextUp. I'm Mark Halpern. Thank you for being here. I'm the editor in chief of the live interactive video platform 2way and your chief nexter as we talk about everything that's in the news today. Grateful to you for being here. Hope you're continuing to spread the word about the program. Two Davids today, two very smart Davids. First, Rabbi David Wolpe, a good friend of mine and a very smart man. We're going to talk about the anti Semitism that exists in a shocking degree around the country and around the world. And David's got some thoughts about why it's happening and what we can do about it. He's a very smart man and a very good rabbi and a very good thinker about all this. He's got a piece in the Free Press. We'll talk about that. And then the second David, David Winston, president of the Winston Group, one of the top Republican pollsters, really one of the top pollsters in the country who understands how the country feels because he does a lot of surveys. And we're going to talk about what I continue to tell you is the issue in the midterms. You can pay attention to all sorts of other ideas, other concepts, other issues. But the key thing is the economy always is and particularly now, as people have so much trepidation about where the economy is and where it's headed. We're going to talk about all of that with David Winston and with a key focus on the independents and how down they currently are on the Republican Party and Donald Trump on the economy and how that might turn around and would need to turn around if Democrats are going to be kept in the minority. So the two Davids coming up before that. In just a moment, my reported monologue on the best and worst and other awards for the media in 2025. We're going to take a look back at the year and say where we've been and then project a little bit forward into 2026 on who one of our shared collected favorite topics, what's up with media? All that coming up right here on NextUp. It's all NextUp, so don't go away. If you're using an ordinary smartphone, you surely have noticed those creepy ads that pop up on the phone and seem to know exactly where you've been, what you've bought, even maybe who you've been talking about. Yeah, you've probably asked yourself, is my phone monitoring me? The truth is your smartphone, regular smartphone is constantly collecting and leaking data without your knowledge or your consent. Every day it builds up a detailed profile of your whole life, where you are, your habits, your interests, even the people you communicate with. And all that information, it gets funneled into an invisible marketplace where it's constantly tracked, analyzed and sold to the highest bidders. It's really annoying. But that's not all it is. It's also invasive and it's happening non stop as you're on your phone. But there's an alternative now, the upphone by Unplugged is totally different. This phone, it's designed to protect your privacy from the ground up. No hidden trackers, no data mining. Just a secure, streamlined smartphone experience that puts you back in control. Whatever you're doing on the phone, you could be texting, browsing, using apps. The UPPhone ensures your personal information, it stays personal, it stays yours. It's the phone for anybody who is done being watched. If you're ready to take back your digital privacy, this is the way to do it. Visit unplug.com mark. You'll get $25 off a phone case with a purchase of the phone. Learn more and order your UPPhone today. Again, go to unplugged.com mark because your life, your data, should be yours, not theirs. All right, welcome back. Next up, we're going to jump right into my reported monologue on the media. It's the end of the year. I'd like to do a little look back of highlights and lowlights year in review for 2025 and looking forward to 2026. You know, why talk about the media? Well, first of all, people are interested in it, I'm interested in it. It's my business, I know it well. But also it affects our politics so much. And I continue to tell you in my reporting, so many people support Donald Trump, support MAGA because of years, some cases, decades of outrage about the conduct of the media. And you've heard me a lot of times be critical of my business of being biased. We've got other problems besides liberal bias in the media, but that's a very big one. And so what I did was I talked to people in the media. I talked to a lot of people in politics in both parties and then I talked to a lot of you, a lot of nexters, a lot of people on the two way platform about your thoughts about media and about again, what was good, what was bad, what trends are positive, which ones are troubling or worse. And so Here are the NextUp 20205 year in review of the media highs and lows for your consideration and as always would love to hear what you think about it. Lots of reporting and, and a fair amount of consensus. I don't know that there'll be tons of disagreement, but there'll be some. All right, first, number one, the most surprising development in the media 2025 and this one I think is good news. You've seen not full on changes in newsrooms, but you have seen places like the Washington Post, even the New York Times and other places in some of the networks coverage is getting more fair. Don't overreact to what I'm saying. I'm not saying it's, it's like, it's like all better. But there is, there are signs that things are changing. And what's the most surprising development to me is the dog that's not barking. The woke liberals in these newsrooms are not wielding the same power as before. That surprises me at how quiet they've been for years. During the Biden years and reaction to Donald Trump in 2016, these dominant newsrooms, dominant media newsrooms were filled with stories about slack channels with liberal employees threatening management, trying to make sure that they didn't cover Donald Trump fairly, trying to make sure that the liberal positions dominated and reaction to George Floyd and a bunch of other stuff that really put liberals even more in control of these newsrooms than they'd been for decades. So the surprising development again is I don't know where these woke liberals have gone in the newsrooms. There's some of them have been fired. Some of them are still there, but they're not as powerful, as vocal as they were. And you see the same thing parallel on college campuses. Where are the protesters as all these college campuses make some changes. Interesting. All right, biggest story of the year in media. It's the one that broke pretty late in the year, the fight for Warner Brothers. We've talked about that here. There's a massive story for news, for entertainment, and for the question of who's going to dominate some of the big businesses. But also on the editorial side, this is a story that, even though late in the year is the biggest media story this year, and I predict will be the biggest media story next year. Most promising development, Bari Weiss's hiring by CBS and the rhetoric from her boss. This is an interesting example of David Ellison saying all the right things. Not just hiring Barry, but saying he wants news organizations that are appealing to people regardless of their ideology. Barry Weiss has said while she continues to run the free press and she steps up at cbs, she's not trying to turn the clock back to what for many people was a fan fantasy world, an imaginary world where what you have is a bunch of people in a newsroom who are not biased, who are simply independent thinkers who don't favor one side or the other. Barry, I think is right when she says that's not the right realistic way to do it. It's also not what consumers want. It's not the way to build a company. So Barry's vision is, you got some liberals in there, you've got some conservatives in there, and then you have some independent people who are really just calling balls and strikes. And so the hiring of Barry, again, I've said before, I hope she succeeds. But the symbolism of a place saying, we're a legacy organization, we're big, we've got scale and scope and economies of scale, but that we're going to produce a place that's fair and win, not just do the right thing, because that's the kind of journalism that there should be, but we're going to make money off of it. We're going to be economically fair, vibrant. David Ellison, as I said, saying all the right things and. And speaking with his personnel decisions when he brought in Barry Weiss and more people to come. All right, biggest winner in media this year, YouTube. YouTube is where everyone has to play now, if you're doing video, Megan Kelly, my program here, but also on two way and everybody else. YouTube is just a monster. And when people talk about how powerful Netflix is, when People talk about how powerful HBO is in the context of a potential merger. These are extraordinary times of change. But one thing that's not changing is people love YouTube. They love it for all sorts of video, comedy, music, live video, long form, short form. YouTube is the big winner. And they're increasingly learning how to do some things that are really important. How to monetize it, how to work with partners. It's a. It's just a monster in our business, and I think it will continue to grow. Biggest loser in media this year, the people who are not adapting to change. There's still some legacy organizations, still some individual brands who don't understand that change is the order of the day. You've got to be up on technology, consumer behavior, and you've got to understand the algorithms. You know, a lot of people don't like the algorithms, understandably, so control so much of what we see and hear and listen to. But the biggest loser continues to be those organizations that don't understand it's time to change. That's in local news. People are constantly decrying that the death of local news, local papers, local stations. Well, change, folks. Adapt to what's happening. There's no reason why you can't have a successful business in local news, whether it's on broadcast or text. But you got to understand the current climate, you got to understand the technology and the consumer behavior. Okay? Speaking of adapting to change, the best new business model out there, I say objectively, MK Media. What Megan and her colleagues have built here, and I'm honored to be a part of it, is a new model. It's a model that does not rely on giant infrastructure, no satellite trucks, and control, you know, massive control rooms and hundreds of thousands of employees. It relies on quality content that's driven by people who are great communicators, like Megan is and my colleagues here are, and people who understand how to reach people when they want to get the news, how they want to get it, and conversations that are relevant. It's really harkens back to the old days of what models were successful in the old system, but now being done not through institutional brands and again, massive spending. If you saw the budget for the shows here versus the budget for legacy shows, you'd be stunned, I think, how different they are. You can produce high quality programming with great producers and great people on camera if you've got the right people with the right formula for programs and the right understanding of how to produce and distribute and promote effectively. All right, the most overlooked story of the entire Year is one I referenced before, but I'll made it its own category because it's such a big deal. There are baby steps being taken by the dominant media to not just seem less biased, but to be less biased. They're baby steps, but I think they deserve to be called out in a positive way and attention should be paid to them to figure out what's going on. New York Times, probably the most prominent in this case, but you see it at the Washington Post, too. You see it in the Wall Street Journal news section. Those are the three dominant papers in the country. The New York Times in the last couple weeks have written two stories that they should have written years ago, but writing them belatedly is still better than nothing. One was about Joe Biden's record on immigration. Again, they should have written it for the good of the country. And frankly, it would have been good for the Democrats during the campaign. They chose not to. And it's a little laughable to do it now after he's already lost the election and left office. But that was good. And then this week they wrote a story about Nancy Pelosi and the fact that she has long opposed the efforts by people in both parties in Congress to apply restrictions to the ability of members of Congress to trade stocks. Now, belatedly, as she's leaving Congress, she's supporting that legislation, but she opposed it for years, even as her family got extraordinarily wealthy while she was in power, including in the stock market. This is a story that should have been written when she was speaker of the House. It was written by people on the right, but the New York Times with its big perch, should have written it. They didn't, but they've done it. Now. These baby step efforts are so vital, if we're going to restore trust in our dominant news organizations, we need not just to talk the talk, but to walk the walk, to actually do the journalism that they should be doing to hold all powerful interests accountable, not just people on the left or people on the right, rather. And so it's an underreported story and a story I applaud. All right. The most inevitable storyline of 2025 in the media. TikTok has now fully morphed into a news network, even though there's been a lot of skeptics about that. They've said, well, TikTok's never going to be about news. It's going to be about people dancing in their kitchen. It's going to be about animal videos. It's going to be about little Blurbies, things that are better for fun. It is now a dominant place for younger people for news and it's only going to continue to grow. This was inevitable. People who, younger people are going to be interested in news, they're interested in other stuff, but they're interested in news and they're on TikTok. And so it was inevitable this was going to happen and it will continue to grow. And again, I laugh. The people who said we'll never be a news platform, it is. And that means people who want to be reaching, young people need to know how to do their news on TikTok. One of my New Year's resolutions is I got to get better on TikTok because that's where it is. All right. The most dangerous development in media in 2025, AI driven misinformation. It's just getting better and better. I thought this would happen in the last election. It didn't. It was not adapted as widely. But it is getting really good at graphics, at video, at generating text, whether it's on social media, online, on YouTube. The ability of folks who want to mislead, do. Do more than mislead, create disinformation and misinformation. It's a super dangerous development. And as we've seen, as we saw, I said with social media, it's very difficult for government to regulate it. There's First Amendment issues and there's bandwidth issues, but there's also just difference of opinion about how and how much to regulate this. It's a very dangerous development. I see it more and more in my consumer, as a consumer of news, but also in doing reporting with folks and people in government and people in politics. They're. They're already overwhelmed, they're already on limited budgets, limited staffing, difficulty in dealing with human generated disinformation and misinformation, which we've seen forever, but particularly in the digital age. But this is a dangerous development. Biggest of the year of how governments, campaigns, regulators and citizens are going to deal with AI driven misinformation. All right, this is a more positive one. The best government politics coverage by any newspaper in America. The level of improvement at one paper really stands out. People think of the New York Times and Washington Post sometimes as having the best political coverage. The Wall Street Journal consistently is performing outperforming its rivals under the leadership of their editor there, Emma Tucker. They've done an extraordinary job. It costs a lot to subscribe to the Journal. I know not everybody can do that or wants to do that, but I find Consistently that they've improved and they've done it the old fashioned way. Hired great reporters, empowered them, thought creatively about the best stories to cover, broken news, really developed sources. You can see it in the coverage every day. They are now the best in the country. And that's a worthy distinction at a time when there is so much interest in that kind of stuff. All right, most welcomed media trend in 2025. This one I think a lot about because here on NextUp and then also on two ways. I'm doing long form. I'm doing videos that are an hour or longer. And people said, well, that that's not going to be popular, whether it's a video or on a podcast forum. And things are going well there for me and for others. Long form is there people watching these shows, listening to these shows. My shows are about an hour. As I said, you got Rogan and others doing two, three hours at a time. But the trend that's so exciting to me and so heartening to me is short forms doing really well too. And to do well in long form or short form, you got two metrics. You want to do high quality work and you want to make money, right? You got to, you got to. And you hope there's a nexus there. You hope that if you do high quality work, whether they're videos that are hours long or videos that are seconds long, you'd hope that you could do stuff you're proud of and make money off of it. And the trend is not either or, it's both. And some people, the best people are figuring out how to, how to do both, how to thrive and make money and, and proud of the work, whether they're same person's doing a three hour interview or a 30 second or 13 second video. That is a great trend because video is the dominant form of communication. And you want to have ecosystems and, and, and talent that can do both and make money off of both. All right, most misunderstood media audience of 20, 25 families. You know, I've got a family, we're, we're consumers of media, both individually as individuals, but as a group. And I talk to a ton of families, a ton of parents of kids, young kids, older kids. And I think this is an area that no one's really mastered. Even the companies like Disney and others who say they really understand the market, I don't think, I don't think they do. I talk to families a lot about this because I'm interested as a, as a dad, but also because I'm in the Media business. What content is out there that's really designed and executed in a way that families can love it together or parents can feel good about their kids watching it? This question of producing quality content, not through the algorithm, but through thoughtful and creative processes that can produce stuff that families can love again, together or with the kids alone. Huge opportunity, huge business opportunity. And I find in talking to people who do content for kids, some of them are great, but a lot of them, I don't think they understand the audience and this is misunderstood. In 2025, I hope 2026, people are a little bit more thoughtful and produce better stuff. All right, there's another one about AI most underrated skill in media today. And this is true for entertainment, true for news. How to fuse AI with human creativity. I find so much misunderstanding about AI and people in the media business. A lot of people are afraid it's going to wipe out jobs. A lot of people are afraid it's going to produce slop content that isn't great. But the important skill now, and it's going to be for a long time, probably forever, is fusing the power of AI Whether it's to do research or produce part of the content with human creativity. You all see stuff that's produced by A.I. that's just crap. And you know, all somebody did was type in some, you know, in artful prompt and then cut and paste and made it their content. People aren't going to react well to that. What's needed, what's most powerful now in media? That's why it's the most underrated skill this year and going forward is learn how to use AI to, to save time and to. And to make things better. You know, if I'm writing a song parody, okay, I draft it myself, but AI can help. AI can help. Find me some good rhymes. AI can help. And then on the back end, I gotta polish it up, I gotta make it human again. So start with humanity, turn to AI for some help. End with humanity. That's the underrated skill. If you just start with a poor humanity and then just go to AI, it's never going to be good. It's just not. It could be good enough, but it's never going to be good. And I'm telling you, I see so many people in journalism now and in an entertainment media, they don't understand this. They don't understand the power of AI they don't need to be afraid of it. They don't need to think it's going to ruin everything or put everybody out of work. Because the most powerful people in media are going to people, again, who know how to combine the human spirit, the human creativity, the human mind, with the power of AI. All right. The most important new reality of 2025 in media is one that people are catching on to. Not everybody gets it. Everybody now is a content creator. If you own an accounting firm, if you own a company that makes tractors, if you own a modeling agency, if you own a minor league baseball team, whatever you do, nonprofit, you have to be a content creator. And if you're not, you should be. You need to be, and you need to create. Create quality content. I see a ton of crap content that comes from places who understand they need to create content, but they're not doing it well. And this is a great thing for media because it means that hopefully content will continue to be king. There'll be great new media produced by unexpected places. And when I see something great, not just an ad, but something on YouTube or something on Instagram or something on television or an email, whatever it is, and it comes from a place whose core mission is not content creation, but is something else. Making widgets. It's fantastic. And it opens up. When people say jobs in media, traditional media are disappearing, there's some truth to that, of course, but there's so much opportunity now to go to a place and say, I love your mission. I love what you do. You're trying to help people feed people who are hungry in Africa. Well, you need great content. Need great content. Okay, next, Most underreported power center in media. Most underreported power center. It's about sports right now. A lot of these platforms, they're remaining strength. The traditional broadcast networks, espn. It's sports rights. It's rights to live events. Now, that can be the mega stuff. The Olympics, the NFL, the NBA, baseball, that's a big deal. But there's all sorts of sports rights out there, and entire networks now are rising and falling. Are they going to have a profitable year? Are they going to be able to stay in business based on the folks who are negotiating these sports rights? Because it's competitive now, You've got new players in the game more than ever. Amazon, Netflix, people. People get the fact that live sports is singular. And so these lawyers and big executives who negotiate these deals, they are as powerful as anybody in media today. All right, the most unexpected revival of 2025. This is something that's been building, but 2025 was the year where it became just massive, which is email, newsletters. I write some of them. And I can tell you, you build authentic community. You communicate with folks in a regular way. And they've become more than newspapers, more than websites. They've become, for so many, the only must read destinations, particularly in the morning, the morning newsletter. I've been writing morning newsletters for a lot of my career. There's something about them that people really connect to. They forward them around. They'll pay a lot of money for them. In some cases, it has become something old, the concept of the newsletter. It has become one of the dominant parts of media, Substack in particular. It's a brand now that's synonymous with quality and with community. And the folks at Substack have done a good job of creating that. They have some rivals out there, but I think they're the most successful in terms of this fact, this phenomena of where do you get your news, where do you feel part of, who do you feel connected to? Email newsletters now are dominating in a way, and I think that'll continue into next year. All right, the most predictable media flame out of 2025. Matthew Dowd, longtime strategist, started as a Democrat, then worked for George W. Bush, then came back to be a liberal Democrat and worked at msnbc. And for years, like many people on the cable network, he has said outrageous things. And I always wondered, when would he go too far? When would he say something that would be so out there that MSNBC couldn't keep him there? And sure enough, in the wake of the tragic death of Charlie Kirk, Matthew dad said some stuff and gone. And many people were not the least bit surprised. The most predictable flame out of someone who had tempted fate by saying the things he said. And in that case, the flame ad occurred. All right, couple more here. And these are my big awards because they're so important to me professionally and personally. And the biggest media scandal of 2025, drumroll, please. Is the continued lack of accountability on the Biden acuity story. Biden acuity story has been around since at least 2019 where the media, in not wanting to help Donald Trump, covered up for Joe Biden, covered up for him in the 2020 presidential race, let him sit in his basement, pretended that he wasn't suffering mental acuity when we could all see it with our own eyes. And then 2024, same thing. The country could see what was happening. The media, because they were intimidated by the Biden folks and because they didn't want to help Donald Trump, pretended it wasn't happening. And then we get to the debate with Biden and Trump and Biden performs perfectly inconsistent with his worst days. The press says, oh, my goodness, how did this happen? How could he have done this? Well, how could he have done this? We saw it on display for at least five years. Some of us saw it for longer. Okay. Then the book comes out, Alex Thompson, Jake Tapper, and they say, oh, my goodness, we did all this behind the scenes reporting. And I beg the press to say to Democrats, don't ask, what did you see in private? How did you know? How did you know privately? I begged them to stop asking that question. The question to ask is not, how did Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson uncover this? The question is not to ask, how did the Democrats not see this? The question to ask is, you all saw it, why didn't you say something? And the same question to ask the media, you all saw it, why didn't you say something? So even after the debate, even after the book, even after Joe Biden's continued decline, that we see sadly in public, even after some people have now come forward and said what they did see in private, matching what we all saw in public, even after all that, the press continues to not come clean about what actually happened. How did they come to a situation where they allowed their own eyes and ears to be ignored and to pretend there was no acuity crisis? How did it happen? It's still not being explained. There's still no accountability. There's no Washington Post, New York Times, NBC, abc, cbs. There's no public report of accountability to say, here's how we missed it, here's how we pretended not to see it. That is the biggest media scandal now, many years running, but still in 2025, no accountability and hope the public will just forget that it happened. All right, finally, I want to end on a bittersweet note about the two biggest losses in the media that I felt and I think the country felt in 2025. One very untraditional media person, one very traditional Charlie Kirk, guest on this program and a great talent at so many things, was great at media and he was a new kind of media figure. Did a program that I was honored to be on, looked like a program by a journalist, a daily video podcast and distribution across YouTube and on podcast platforms. Great show, entertaining show. But Charlie was, you know, I've talked about this, a student of Rush Limbaugh and as a broadcaster. And Charlie wanted to put on a great show and he was forging a new path. He was producing quality content. Guy was so busy doing so much in terms of politics and organizing and fundraising and running a big organization, helping young people and working on policy. But he made his show every day. He did a high quality program. And again, it's a new paradigm of what it means to be this hybrid of a figure. And you see Charlie's media as part of that hybrid, but you also see it as its own thing. Charlie was a great, great broadcaster and a great, great entertainer and a great, great educator. And he did it all through a media program. Big loss for the country to lose someone like that in so many ways, but I miss him on his show. And then lastly, Jules Whitcover, really one of the great political reporters of the last hundred years, had a syndicated period, worked for the Baltimore Sun. He worked with Jack German, who passed several years ago as a team. German and Whitcover, they wrote books together, they wrote a column together. Jules was a fantastic reporter, really nice guy and cared about America and cared about doing what I've tried to model my career on, which is to cover politics, not for the sport, although he did that too, to cover politics and government as an expression of where is the American people? Where are we? What do we care about? Who do we want our president to be as a manifestation of where we are as a country? Jules was a great old time reporter, knew how to work sources, knew how to tell a story. But he did it all in service of trying to make this country better, to hold powerful interests accountable to the public interest and to tell the stories of our time. I was honored to get to spend some time with him. He was just a classic guy who covered every, every presidential campaign for decades and, and was so generous to me in sharing the tools of the trade, his craft as a great political journalist. Loved his work and we lost him this year and he is missed. He is missed as a example of what political journalism can be, what, what it should be. And he's along with Charlie, our big loss in Media for 2025. All right, that's my best, worst and everything else awards for 2025 in media. Hope you liked it. Let me know what you think. I'd love you to tell me if you endorse any of my choices or take issue of with any of them, you can always send me an email, let me know what you thought. Next up, [e-mail]. again nextup, [e-mail]. make sure you're subscribing to the program on YouTube so you can watch the full episodes and get the extra clips that are on there. Go to YouTube.com/next@nextup halpern and of course, listen to the show. If you're moving around and don't want to watch on YouTube, you can subscribe to the podcast anywhere you get your podcast. Make sure you have your downloads checked. And again in this holiday season. Share share the YouTube link share the podcast links Let everybody know about the high value and rare privilege to be part of being a nexter. That way they'll get what you get, which is all my new reports as soon as they go live right here on NextUp. Okay, quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about antisemitism and what can be done about it. It with Rabbi David Wolpe. That's next up. All right, everybody, My life has gotten a lot better now that I'm eating masa chips on a regular basis. If you've ever taken a look at the nutritional label on a typical bag of chips, you're going to see that what's in there is a big old chemical cocktail. Seed oils, msg, artificial dyes, and some vague references to natural flavors that don't taste particularly natural. A bunch of ingredients basically that could be in a science lab. Masa is redefining snacking with real food. Their chips are the best. They've only got three ingredients, organic corn, sea salt, 100% grass fed beef tallow. They're clean, simple and tasty. The Masa chips leave you feeling satisfied and energized without the crash, bloat or sluggishness that regular chips tend to bring inside of you. There's no binging, no lingering hunger, just a snack that feels good and tastes delicious. I love the original and the blue corn, but they're all fantastic. And if you love masa chips, you'll also love the Vandy Crisp. That's their sister company that makes a three ingredient potato chip that's the best I've ever had as well. I love the original, but there's lots of great flavors to choose from. And if you're ready to give Masa or Vandy a try, you can right now with an extraordinarily 25% off your first order, go to either masa chips or vandykrisps.com use my promo code Mark. Or you can simply click the link in the video description or scan the QR code to claim this delicious and fantastic offer for the best chips you've ever had. And if you don't want to order online but you want to pick some up now, Masa and Vandy are now available nationwide. At your local Sprout supermarket, you can stop by and pick up a couple bags of each before somebody else grabs them.

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[Mark Halpern]

Next up, antisemitism. I've been a little bit in denial about this until maybe a year and a half ago when the research, polling and focus group amongst young people in the United States and people in my own life made it clear there's something going on. It's not just disagreement with Benjamin Netanyahu. It's not just disagreement about policy in Israel or what's happened in Gaza. There's something deeper going on and it is extremely troubling. And the events of this week in Australia bring home more than ever the reality that something has to be done. It needs to be discussed and there need to be actual solutions. So next up, joining me now, my friend Rabbi David Wolpe, one of the smartest people I know about these issues and someone who has worked in his own congregations and as part of an anti Semitism task force at Harvard and elsewhere to try to help solve it, and has a great piece in the Free Press which I'm going to talk to David about in a moment. David, welcome in. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah to you.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

Thank you for Hanukkah to you, too. I'm glad to be here. I watch all the time. It's fun to be on.

[Mark Halpern]

Awesome. So you're such a good natured person, which one of the many things I love about you. But I know from your public statements and from the piece you have in the Free Press, this is an intense thing for you, an intense time for the country and for the world. And I'll just start with one sentence in your piece. We are a people too wise to be hysterical, but too experienced to be naive. What are you worried people are being naive about?

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

I'm based in part on my own experience because I like you. I remember telling my father, who was a rabbi, antisemitism was an important part of your rabbinate, but it's not going to be of mine. I was naive. I did not realize that the explosion of antisemitism, which is sort of nonpartisan, you see it on the right, you see it on the left, and obviously you see it in jihadi movements. I was naive. The extent to which it had purchase in the public, the extent to which there would be people who would sort of be joiners of the movement even if it didn't accord with the way they were raised or what they believed before. And mostly I think I was naive at the extent to which governments would turn a blind eye to what was going on in their own countries, as I think Australia clearly has.

[Mark Halpern]

Yeah, this raises so many tough issues for Jews and non Jews because we live in a world, particularly in the United States, but really around the world, where discrimination and open hatred is denounced and frowned upon. And we think about young people in particular as being part of like a Benetton generation where they don't hate. And yet for some reason there's a resurgence in hatred towards Jews. There just is, it's obvious. And again, I see it amongst people I know what's the best explanation of where it's coming from.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

It's a different kind of hate from other hates in the following way. I mean, in one sense hate is hate, but in another sense, Jewish hatred of Jews is almost always, or maybe always a conspiracy theory. And also Jews can be hated. They're sort of the shape shifting hatred of Jews. You can hate them for being communists or capitalists, for being weak and stateless, or for being strong and having a state for controlling things for everything from banking to Hollywood to the government. There's a weird dichotomy in the way haters think about Jews. We are both subhuman and superhuman. That's how the Nazis talked about the Jews. They were vermin that controlled the world. And when you think about how many different psychological mechanisms are required and it's like if you have hostility somewhere, the Jews are always a good target. And the last point, I mean I'll make many more points, but the last thing I'll say at the moment is they also are really effective at building coalitions, by which I mean Jews are significant enough to hate, not significant enough that you're going to be overwhelmed if you hate them because we're a very, very small population. And so you can build as the Nazis did, but also as you see happening today, you can build a really strong political coalition based just on hating Jews. And that's a very dangerous but almost common phenomenon in the west over the past couple centuries.

[Mark Halpern]

Okay, this is a big and hard question, but I'm going to do my best to frame it simply. Everything you said just now really resonates with me. Makes a lot of sense. Jews went through World War II. Jews have gone through a lot of periods of being targeted in, in the 80 years or so since World War II. Jews are pretty smart. Jews are aware of anti Semitism. How could it be that a group of people determined to assimilate to not be the subject of hate, who are pretty smart as a group, how could it be the Jews have not solved this?

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

Well, the simplest answer is because anti Semitism is not about Jews. It's about the anti Semite. You can't cure the hatred in someone else's heart. You can't do it. So when we make Jews into the responsible party for antisemitism, we're sort of falling into the anti Semitic trap. Even though unwittingly we're saying it's really the Jews fault that people hate that.

[Mark Halpern]

Hold on, I'm interrupting.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

And the Jews should be able to cure it.

[Mark Halpern]

Well, again, obviously, I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm not blaming the Jews. I'm not blaming the Jews. I know, but I'm just saying you're right that it's on the haters. And you're right that curing someone else's hatred is tough. But for instance, prejudice against black Americans. Right. For years. Right. Stuff happened in the United States. There's still prejudice, but it's far less than it was. And part of that was a concerted effort on the part of black and white Americans and others to change it. So I'm not blaming the Jews. I'm just saying this is now an existential problem. Literally an existential problem. Jews are being killed for being Jews around the world. They're facing violence and hostility not on the Jews to solve it, but in the interest of Jews to solve it.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

Yes, it's in the interest of Jews to help others to solve it. I would put it that way. And certainly we've made many, many efforts. It is incredibly important that Jews seek out allies. And maybe that is one thing we have not done well enough is to say to the world, we need your help. Because there are a lot of people of goodwill in this world and they would be mobilized to help if we asked them. I think the principal criticism I would make of the way Jews respond to antisemitism is we don't actually turn to the many, many, many non Jews in The world who are, I mean, many. The Jews are like 0.01% of the world population and say, help us combat this because we need you. We can't do this ourselves. And so I think that they, in some ways, you know, on the path to Yad Vashem, which is the Holocaust memorial in Israel, there are trees planted for righteous Gentiles. And the message, the implicit message is the only answer to that is this. That is the only answer to hatred are people who, who will stand up against that hatred. Part of the reason that racial hatred was diminished in America was because white Americans came to understand that we can't do this to our fellow citizens. And the Jewish people need the people of the world of goodwill to do the same. And also to understand one other thing. Recently there were pro Palestinian bombing plots uncovered. There were. They weren't only, they weren't going to bomb Jewish sites, they were going to bomb businesses, they were going to bomb military sites. The enemies of Jews eventually become the enemies of civilization. We've seen that again and again in history. And so what I would say is the Jews need to be a better wake up call to civilization, that this is not only about us. You need to help us in part because you're helping yourself.

[Mark Halpern]

I couldn't agree more. And after October 7th, and whenever I'm asked by the heads of major Jewish organizations in this country and elsewhere, what can we do different, I say, your board should be no more than half Jews.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

I think that's great.

[Mark Halpern]

You just have to recognize that we have so many allies. They just need to be recruited. Now, to that point, a couple of questions. And I say, help me, Rabbi, in the best sense of help me, Rabbi. I don't believe that we should be promiscuous in using the word anti Semite. And I have many colleagues and friends who equate. Who, for instance, call the mayor elect of New York City an anti Semite. Okay. I just think that word has this particular meaning. Someone who is, who is hostile to Netanyahu or thinks what Israel did in Gaza despite October 7th was an outrage. If they don't obviously hate Jews, we shouldn't call them anti Semites. We shouldn't equate questions about Israel policy with antisemitism. How do you feel about that debate?

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

I completely agree with you. I like, I would stand up and applaud, except then I'd be off camera. I mean, you're absolutely. We are way, way too easy with that accusation, which is kind of the nuclear bomb. And you shouldn't in part because it diminishes the real antisemitism that exists out there by calling everybody an anti Semite and also because it's unfair to people. You can hate what Israel did in Gaza. That doesn't make you an anti Semite. I mean, I may completely disagree with your read of it, but if you, I mean, this is a deeper question. I think if you believe Israel shouldn't exist, that has roots in anti Semitism, but if you think that Israel should have a different government, should behave a different way, should make a different deal with the Palestinians, should have different borders on and on and on, that's not anti Semitism, and we shouldn't call it that because, as you said, it's unserious.

[Mark Halpern]

Right. All right, so let me give you the case that keeps coming up.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

Yeah.

[Mark Halpern]

Zoran Mandami, anti Semite or not?

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

I, my, my read on that is that the jury is out. I don't think, I think the, the evidence that makes me uncomfortable to say no, clearly not, is if you can't condemn the language from the river to the sea, which is basically a call for the genocide of the Jewish people, then I think that that is a very, that's at least, at least opens questions to how you feel about Jews.

[Mark Halpern]

Right. Okay, so that's my next question. Right. So there's, there's the river to the sea. There's globalized Infita Intifada.

[David Winston]

Yeah.

[Mark Halpern]

Okay, so here's the Vice President of the United States, right, who just today on social media was saying, you got to differentiate between questioning Israeli policy and anti Semitism. There, there, there's, there's, as you write in your piece, when political leaders fail to condemn rather than just discourage chance of different things, that, that's not good enough. Right, Right. So does that make you an anti Semite? No. Vice president I don't think is anti Semitic. You say maybe Mamdani's anti Semitic because he will only discourage. And only belatedly would discourage.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

And belatedly would discourage.

[Mark Halpern]

Right, right. Only belatedly would discourage. But you've got people in media on the right and on the left who are again, enablers of anti Semitism, who, who won't condemn in the harshest terms, in the clearest terms. Is it the responsibility of people like the Vice President, United States to not associate with people who say things like that?

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

It is at least his responsibility to call them out and, and to let that, and, and not to platform them uncritically. So, I mean, look, if you substituted any other Group, any other group. If you said China should be free of the Chinese from the south to the north, or France should be free of the French from the Pyrenees on down, on and on and on, everybody would say, you are clearly a hater of these people. It is only the Jewish people that somehow stand in this exemption. And we shouldn't.

[Mark Halpern]

Well, it's not a perfect metaphor, but 20 years ago you publicly supported people who oppose same sex marriage. I know you did because everybody did. Right? Barack Obama didn't support same sex marriage. And yet that's a, that's now considered to be a fundamental human right.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

So I would say, by the way, when I finally announced to my congregation that I was going to do same sex marriage, it was such a huge explosion that it was on the front page of the New York and LA Times. So I'm still proud that I came out early enough to say that. But yes, you are right. People can absolutely grow. And I wouldn't say that an anti Semite can never grow out of their anti Semitism. They can.

[Mark Halpern]

Oh no, but I'm not.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

But it's our job to encourage them to do that.

[Mark Halpern]

I understand, but I'm not talking about anti Semites. I'm saying the standard of. They have to not merely discourage, but condemnation. The President of the United States the other day, who has, who has, who has a Jewish daughter and Jewish grandkids. He was asked about Tucker Carlson's interview with Nick Fuentes and he said, you know, it's good to hear different points of view.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

And if you ask me, he should have condemned it. Absolutely.

[Mark Halpern]

Well, he condemned it. Should have, should have. But the fact that he didn't, should that be disqualifying? Should anyone cares about anti Semitism say if, if his failure to condemn there means he's not a supporter of Israel, he's not a supporter of the Jewish.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

Well, I think you have to take every person as a total package. Not a single statement. I agree. Which is one of the reasons why I said about Mamdani that that is evidence for. It's not dispositive. I wouldn't say because he said that he must be an anti Semite. So yeah, I, it's a complicated question and I, I don't. We can, I don't think the same sex marriage metaphor is a perfect one. But you can't, you, I mean, there's no question that every human being has said things they regret. And I used to say about the students at Harvard, look, they're 20 years old, they're 21 years old. Neither you nor I would want to be held to everything we said at 20 or 21. And you have to, especially if you're in my business. You have to believe in the redeemability of human beings. And I do. When I. Even if people that I think are anti Semitic, that doesn't mean that I believe they can't change. So if you take someone as a whole and you give them the possibility of change, I don't think that it is therefore illegitimate to sometimes say this is anti Semitic. I know people who have platformed anti Semites whom I don't think of as anti Semites, but I think they're irresponsible and I think they're doing great damage to public discourse and to Jewish people and to the wider civilization.

[Mark Halpern]

Right. Neither of us wants to condemn Muslims around the world. We just. We don't want to do that. But at the same time, the media whitewashes the role that radical Islam has played in terrorist attacks around the world, including many against. Against. Against Jews. Had. Had the attackers in Australia had in their car MAGA hats rather than is, rather than ISIS flags. Believe me, you know, it would be reported. How do we have a conversation in the press, in the national international town square about how to deal with radical Islamic Jihad against Jews and others without venturing into discrimination and hostility towards Muslims?

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

I mean, I think that this is a crucial question. And so in Australia, for example, you say, look, the guy who stopped one of the heroically at the risk of his own life, who stopped one of the shooters was Muslim and the shooters were Muslim. So what the world needs more than anything else right now in terms of its health and safety is for Muslims who hate religious violence to stand up against Muslims who promote religious violence because outside groups cannot do it effectively enough. We need a major Muslim movement worldwide to refuse any kind of recognition, help, anything to Muslims who favor violence. Because right now, that is a giant civilizational threat. I mean, think about.

[Mark Halpern]

There are.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

There are what, over a billion Muslims in the world. So if 5% of Muslims support violence, that's a huge number, right? That's tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people, depending on how you slice it. Only Muslims can oppose that. And the Western world, and the civilized world, Eastern world, too, has a tremendous interest in there being a giant Islamic peace movement.

[Mark Halpern]

Two of the top eight Democrats on my list of most likely presidential nominees, the governors of Illinois and Pennsylvania, are Jewish Americans. Would it be good for the cause of beating back anti Semitism if one of them became the Democratic nominee or became president, or bad.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

So I'm prejudiced because Josh Shapiro went to my high school. So I would love to see somebody from my high school become. I mean, we're talking about a high school, right? 30 people in my graduating class. So it's a tiny little school. But I think that I have faith in America in that someone's religious background, almost anything about them won't matter if they're the right person. And I think if a Jewish president.

[Mark Halpern]

Separate question. Rabbi. Not whether he can win as a Jew, would it be good? Would it be good for the Jews, as they say, if we had a Jewish nominee or a Jewish president? I think, obviously it could be.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

It could be. I think it depends how he does and who he. And whoever the person is, he or she. I think it depends how they do and who they are. It could be. It could be either way. I hope for a world in which that person would be judged not as a Jew, but just as a president. But I don't think we're there yet.

[Mark Halpern]

All right, I'm going to close with a mini sermon to parents, including some Jewish parents whose kids say 15 to 25 are hostile to Jews, hostile to Israel. And the schools can try to help and, you know, community, whatever, but really it's on the parents. What would you say, parent to parents who have kids who are anti Semitic, anti Jew, anti Israel? What should they.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

The single most important thing for anybody to understand is that in every group there are human beings of every type. And it doesn't matter what the group is, whether it's Jewish or black or Asian or Latino, it doesn't matter. And to paint any group with a broad brush of evil says much more about the character of your child than it does about the character of the group. And so I think the best way, to the extent that it is possible to solve this, is for people to actually have human encounters with other people and to see who they are. Since we're in the Hanukkah season and we read this story of Joseph and Hanukkah, and you said something about being a rabbi. I'll end with a sermon. It's only two seconds, which is Joseph in the Bible tells his brothers his dreams and they hate him for it, and they throw him in a pit, and then he ends up in Egypt, where he interprets Pharaoh's dreams. And as a result, he becomes the viceroy of Pharaoh. And the rabbis ask, what's the difference? He falls by dreams and he rises by dreams. And the answer is he falls when he can only hear his own dreams and he rises when he learns to hear the dreams of others. And I would say you have to teach your child to listen to the dreams of others and to understand that they also have dreams and that they also want to do things with their lives and with the world. And if you start to learn to listen to the dreams of others, you will discover that ultimately I think most human beings have the same dream.

[Mark Halpern]

Rabbi if people want to learn more about your thoughts and read and see your work, where can they go besides the free press?

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

Rabbi Wolpe on X, Rabbi Wolpe on Facebook or just Google me, I'm around.

[David Winston]

So thank you.

[Mark Halpern]

All right. Rabbi David Wolpe, who is really one of the wisest people I know and on this topic speaks with both clarity and force. Rabbi, thank you. Very grateful.

[Rabbi David Wolpe]

Thank you so much, Mark. Great to see you.

[Mark Halpern]

Have a great new year and a great holiday season. All right. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to switch gears. We're going to talk about the midterms, the economy and what Republicans might be able to do to improve what is currently a very perilous situation for them politically. Another David pollster, David Winston will be here. That's up next. If you're a homeowner in America, you need to listen to this message. The FBI is now warning about a type of real estate fraud. It's on the rise. It's called title theft and your equity is the target. Here's how this works. Criminals forge your signature on just one document. They use a fake notary stamp on it and then they file it with the county. And just like that, on record, they own your home. Using your ownership, they can take out loans against your equity or even sell your property to someone else. And you don't know about any of this until foreclosure notices or collection notices show up in the mail. That's why I've partnered with Home Title Lock, so you can protect your equity. And find out today if you're already a victim, use my promo code [e-mail] and you'll get a free title history report and a free trial of their million dollar triple lock protection. That includes 247 monitoring of your title records, urgent alerts to any changes. And if fraud does occur, their US based restoration team will spend up to $1 million to fix it. Don't be a victim. Protect your equity today. Go to hometitlelock.com use the promo code Mark or You can use the link below.

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[Mark Halpern]

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[David Winston]

Thanks. Happy holidays. You as well.

[Mark Halpern]

One of the reasons I know you're a great pollster is because you've worked with Newt Gingrich and Newt does not suffer fools gladly and cares a lot about polling. What are the challenges for being a pollster for Speaker Gingrich?

[David Winston]

Well, well, it's fun when you bring in the good news, but when you have to, when you have to come in and tell him some of the more difficult news, when I first sort of started working for him when I was his director of planning, when he was spe speaker, one of my lovely tests, and this was just after he had gone through a lot of the controversy in getting reelected speaker back in 1977, or I'm sorry, in terms of 1997. I ended up having the responsibility of coming in and telling him what his favon fave was and job approval was on a regular basis. And some of those meetings were not as much fun as I would have.

[Mark Halpern]

Liked them to be, not as beloved universally as he would have hoped. David has worked for the House Republicans and understands House races as well as any other pollster, but also the mood of the country. David, I've been meaning to invite you on for a while, but the thing that spurred me to aggressively ask you is the piece you wrote for Roll Call, where you write regularly about what is the central issue for the midterms. And while there's lots of discussions about lots of topics for the midterms, the central issue anybody in either party would say was how are voters feeling about the President's stewardship of the economy and more broadly, Republican stewardship of the economy. And you write brilliantly about the history and then the variables in this case. So everybody should go read the piece now. You're going to get the audio video version. How does the President's standing on the economy compared to presidents a year before a midterm election?

[David Winston]

Well, interestingly enough. Well, let me go back to one piece as a setup for this. The economy usually is the driving issue. I mean, and people like to try to find other dynamics that exist. And the reason the economy tends to be the primary issue is that tends to be the primary issue for independents. And this is a, this is something you're going to hear me repeat frequently here. And that is independents decide elections. 90% of Republicans vote for Republic for the Republican candidate. 90% of the Dems vote for the Democratic candidate. So it's the independents who decide things. And so when you're looking at the situation, it's not just simply the job approval or the acceptance of how a President is handling an issue. It's really where independents are. And so I just want to set that up as we go in. The challenge that the President has is, look, he was correct. In fact, he got handed a very difficult situation by President Biden. Under President Biden, prices went up during his tenure, based on the CPI, 21.4%. Wages in that construct only went up 16.7%, which means the average person lost about 5% of their disposable income. And that was obviously a key component in terms of how people decided they were going to vote in November of 2024. Having said that, the challenge clearly here, and this is where I go into this concept of prices versus wages as being the sort of initial key determinant is that for Republicans to do well, this isn't just simply sort of stopping inflation because inflation never really drops below 0%. It's making sure wages outpace inflation at a large enough scale that people can actually feel like they can manage cost of living. There has been some marginal improvement since Trump came into office. Basically, prices have gone up 2.2% while wages gone up 2.6. So there's an, there's an improvement there, but it's not enough for people to Feel like there's been a change significant enough for them to say, okay, this has been a success. So when the President gets on tv, as he did recently, and said, you know, how do you grade yourself in the economy? And he goes, well, I give myself an A plus plus plus plus people aren't there because 57. In a survey I did recently, 57% of the country said, in fact, that inflation was getting worse. And so when you extrapolate that out, if they think inflation is getting worse, and that's because wages aren't outpacing prices enough, his job approval in terms of both handling inflation overall and amongst independents is pretty difficult. And so when you actually take a look at those numbers, 30, you've got 23% approve of how he's handling inflation and 68% disapprove among independents.

[Mark Halpern]

So go, sorry, finish up.

[David Winston]

No, no, overall, it was, it was 33 to 59, but within independence, it's 23 to 68. Just let me just give you how big a number that 68% of, of independents is that disapprove of how he's handling inflation. That 68% represents overall 22% of the elect. So obviously for both parties, that's key group.

[Mark Halpern]

All right, four things I want to unpack from you. Great answer. Thank you for letting me go through all that. Okay, you laid down the predicate perfectly. And I just want to put in sharp early four things. First of all, people, this is one of my great frustrations with people in your business. Sometimes, certainly in my business, there's no such thing as a base election or a persuasion election. Every election's both. You got to turn out your base and you got to persuade the independents. So, so you, you, you laid it out clearly, the independents, you can't just say, well, he's just going to win with the MAGA base. There's some districts where that it is sort of true, but it's never true in the competitive districts, number one. Number two, you talk about the President's number with independence, the elections for in 11 months. No, there's no way. Am I correct? There's no way Republicans could keep the House if the President's approval rating on the economy with independence is what it is now, the goal is to change it and make it better. Right. That would be a wipeout if that's how independents felt about the economy now.

[David Winston]

And to give you context, and I don't have his economic job approval, but I have the overall job approval for Biden amongst independents in terms of the Exit polls, and it was 34 to 66. So you're looking at that 66 number versus amongst independents as opposed to where Trump is in terms of this issue being at 68. The only good news that Trump has in terms of that number is if you take a look at the favon favor of both parties amongst independents, both of them are at 68%. So it's not like they're happy with any particular group. But to your point, that number is critical. And let's go back to the election that just occurred, and I'm going to focus in on the one in Virginia because to me, that was one of the more interesting results. Spanberger ended up winning independence by 19 points. Now understand that's what Biden did in 2020. He won independence by 19%. Young could have managed to turn that around. He won him eight in terms of 2021. So she was able to rebuild that Biden coalition. Okay, that's a, that's a big deal because nationally he won independence by 13. Okay, now let's go back to the historical number. In 2018, Democrats won independence by 12 and they won 235 seats. So I'm looking at it from that perspective in terms of we have to start doing better here amongst independents because that's clearly, if they end up at plus 13, they've got more than enough support to get well into the two 30s.

[Mark Halpern]

Right. So again, we're not saying the Republican majority is doomed. We're just saying that as a snapshot, the snapshot of where we are today. So then there's two variables. Again, you write about these, but I want to, I want to put as fine a point on as we can. One is how do people feel about the economy? And the other is what's actually going on in the economy. Right. And currently there's. I think the President's right. But I'm putting this out to you as a premise. The President's right. Things are better than they were compared to what he inherited, than voters seem to think. Because while inflation has not disappeared, inflation is down, wages are up. So people, if they, if they were experiencing it the way the data suggests they should be, they would say what the President says. And the Vice President says, we're not where we want to be yet, but we've improved things. Lower inflation, higher wages. People should be feeling it more than they are if they, if their feelings reflected the reality. Is that correct?

[David Winston]

Yeah, One slight twist. It's not that inflation is lower. It's. It's just not as increasing as fast as wages are at the moment. Okay. It's, it's still going up because it does. It very rarely drops below zero.

[Mark Halpern]

Well, there's still inflation, but the rate of inflation is not the same as it was at the peak of the Biden period, right?

[David Winston]

Oh, yeah, no peak of Biden. It was up to 9.1% in June20. I mean, that was off the charts, which is why you saw that just that huge increase in price increases in terms of what people were dealing with, the challenge for Trump is, is when he came in, what he got handed was a year over year inflation rate of 3.0, and the September number was 3.0, but wages were improving. Now we're going to get another round of numbers on Thursday in terms of the inflation. We'll get a sense of that. But to your point, here's the thing that the president needs to realize. Yes, as much as there's an awareness from the electorate that things are improving, but they are improving at the scale that they would like because they're not looking at when Trump started, they're looking at when this all started back at the beginning of Biden's term. So everything is in relationship to are you fixing the Biden problem?

[Mark Halpern]

Right.

[David Winston]

The fact that you're mildly improving, it is certainly a step in the right direction. But they, but Republicans got hired in November 2024 to fix it, not just sort of mildly alleviate some dynamics there. And that's a real challenge. Having said that, I happen to believe that some of the, some of the pieces of the big beautiful bill are going to do things that will in fact allow that improvement to occur. And certainly some of the things he's done around regulation. But part of the dynamic here is sort of, you don't say the economy is an a economy. You say, look, here are the steps we've done. Here's how it's beginning to move in the right direction and here's what we're anticipating. Actually, Besson does a very good job in terms of managing that particular discourse. So it's not so much that things can't get there to your initial point. I think there's a good possibility we can get there. But the challenge here is helping people understand what progress is being made and how that progress is going.

[Mark Halpern]

Right. So again, there's two separate things. There's what's the President saying about the economy and then what's actually happening in the economy. Right. They're related, but they're separate. On the first point, every House Republican, every Strategist. Like you, every pollster like you would say exactly what you said. They should say it. Like Scott Bessett. Here's we've, we've had some improvement. Here's what's in the pipeline from the big beautiful bill, from reregulation, from energy prices. Lot of work still to do, but we know where we're headed and we've got a theory of the case of fixing the economy. Every, everyone would like that. But everyone also knows the President's not disciplined. He's going to talk about Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein. He's going to talk about A plus plus plus. He's going to say affordability is a hoax. So that is baked in. And yet people in my business and some people in your business will continue to watch the President on the stump. He's going to North Carolina on Friday and say, well, maybe this time Charlie Brown will not only kick the football, but It'll be a 70 yard field goal. Not going to happen. Right. So, so how do you, how do you approach that? Again, we'll get to the real economy, which you reference, in a second. But how do you approach the fact that he's not going to be disempl. Is it again, if you're a House Republican in a tough district, do you hope Scott Besant talks more or the vice President talks more, or do you continue to say to the White House through leadership, please get the President on the prompter?

[David Winston]

Well, again, this was the challenge that Trump had in 2018, and here's a stunning number for you. When he got elected in 2016, 36% of the country thought the economy was excellent or good. In terms of the exit poll in 28, that number went from 36 to 68. 68% of the country thought the economy was excellent or good. He had had this.

[Mark Halpern]

What year was that?

[David Winston]

2018.

[Mark Halpern]

Wow.

[David Winston]

Yeah, it was the best number for people thinking the economy was excellent or good. When you go back in terms of that being asked in terms of exit polls, quick aside, I do the CBS decision desk, so I've got enough exit poll data to just drive you nuts. Okay. But the point of that being is, okay, so here you have this remarkable job. He was basically hired at that point in 2016 to get the economy moving again. He did it. The problem to your point was he decided that the weekend before the election, the big issue wasn't the great jobs report that even Jared Bernstein said was like as good a report as you could get. He decided the big issue was the caravan. And he was wrong. And what happened was he allowed then health care to become the big issue that people decided on. Somehow the White House team has got to figure out how not to let that occur again. And we're in some dynamics where obviously health care is playing this bigger role. But one of the things that's interesting about the issue of health care is it's not just simply about insurance and health care coverage for people. What occurred in terms of this most recent dynamic was that it became a cost of living issue. And so it sort of feeds into the overall inflation dynamic. Having said that, the electorate still was unhappy about the Democratic performance in terms of the shutdown because, yes, they consider it an issue that needs to be addressed, but it wasn't worth shutting the government down over it.

[Mark Halpern]

And like in the Clinton years, when the economy was also good, did people say the economy was good or excellent? Was it as high as 68%?

[David Winston]

Actually, that question wasn't being asked at that point. Point in the same way. So what I'm giving you is more recent is the sort of more recent data where that was being asked, because to your point, during that time frame, people thought the economy was going well. I mean, you know, again.

[Mark Halpern]

And it was.

[David Winston]

Yeah, no, no, it was. I mean, you're. It had over 4% growth, unemployment was low, you know, and. Well, and. And I worked for the speaker the last time we balanced the budget back in 98. So that. That's sort of a different. So the challenge is, even when he had the economy going his direction, he lost 41 seats in that election.

[Mark Halpern]

Right, Right. Okay. Again, we're talking to David Winston of the Winston Group, great Republican pollster who has written this article in Roll Call about the central issue in the midterms, which is how are people going to feel about the President's stewardship of the economy and by extension, the Republican Party. How long does it take people to credit a president's rhetoric and the record on the economy for the midterm? So people say it's gotta be by the second quarter or it's gotta be by Labor Day. When. When does this need to. Or could it be later than that? When would you say comfortable if he's gonna turn it around and needs to turn around?

[David Winston]

I'm not sure that that's clear in this environment. I mean, I will tell you what happened for Reagan back in the 84 election is that he ended up, prior to the, having four consecutive quarters of 8% growth or higher, which stretch from the fourth quarter, which stretched over four quarters, leading into that election. I would suggest that in this particular case, there's a mindset, and that is people walk into a grocery store sometime over the summer, or it could be even August or September, and suddenly sort of feel like, you know, I'm better able to afford things now. And so what you're really looking for is a recognition or a sense that suddenly I'm able to manage cost of living better than I was able to do before. And so therefore I now have a different idea about things. And that may occur all at once. I doubt it. But I think that'll be sort of, you know, some people will begin to feel and sense that and begin to. But that to me is the key thought or the key belief that has to occur, that, yes, I suddenly now feel like I'm able to handle cost of living for myself and my family.

[Mark Halpern]

Better, but do they have to feel that way by Labor Day or could it happen later than that?

[David Winston]

It could have. As long as that happens before the election, that'll be a positive for Republicans.

[Mark Halpern]

Right. So we've seen three presidents on the ropes win reelection consecutively. Clinton, Bush, Obama, all of whom were looked at as underdogs for reelection, all of whom won because they made it about their opponent. They said, you know, don't compare, as Joe Biden would say, don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative. They've effectively disqualified Bob Dole and then John Kerry and then Mitt Romney can, in a midterm context, as you said, the Democrats are not seen as particularly favored on the handling of the economy either. Can the Republican message, the White House message, House candidate message, be, hey, you may not be totally happy with the Republican stewardship of the economy, but these guys are the Biden Democrats. They don't know how to do anything. Is that something that you believe could work in a midterm?

[David Winston]

I think you're real close in terms of that construct. To your point, people aren't excited, again, because again, Democrats, when you look amongst independents, have 68% unfavorables. Right. So it's not like the independents are like waiting for the Democrats to come back. Not by any means. In fact, they still have very negative attitudes about what that economy is. And Joe Biden, they still have a very negative attitude in terms of how he handled economic policies. And that's why this isn't necessarily. Everything has to be turned around. There just has to be a sense that things are now pointed in the right direction. Right. And if there's a sense that, yes, and People can feel that in fact, things are improving. And this is where I go back to the big beautiful bill is not something that was instantly going to turn things around. It's something that's going to allow the economy to evolve. And the question is, does that happen quickly enough? And I think there's a real opportunity that will, I will tell you that both in 20 for the 2018 election and so far in terms of this election, one of the things that Republicans have not done particularly well is explain to people what was in that bill and why it's of value to them. And a simple example of that, and I've done work around this, 90% of the country uses the standard deduction. One of the big elements that occurred in terms of the big beautiful bill was that for married couples, the standard deduction, had nothing happened, the standard deduction would have gone from 30,000 down to $16.6K. So that's a huge, so suddenly $13,400 would have now been turned into taxable income and in fact could have bumped people up in terms of, into higher brackets. When you actually talk to voters about what's in the bill, they have no idea that that could have was going to happen. And when you mention that, their reaction is, how come nobody ever told me that one?

[Mark Halpern]

Right.

[David Winston]

That's a real important thing. Right. And so that's part of, to your point, part of the challenge here is having an effective economic narrative that in fact supports where the president and Republicans have been going. And I would tell you at this point, that hasn't been there. Now, some of that has been because given all the stuff that's been going on with the shutdown, you know, every day seems like there's another story coming out of left field that everybody's trying to manage. But ultimately there needs to be some discipline in terms of delivering that. And you're right, one of the challenges for the folks in the White House is making sure that the president can in fact, sustain some level of discipline around that.

[Mark Halpern]

Right. Again, this is the whole election. If people ask me and ask you all the time, who's going to control the House, this conversation is only one that matters. There's other issues that will be in the ether, but this is the one that matters. And there's a complicated question about voters in the media environment in which we are now where people aren't watching, most normal people are not watching cable news all day, and these independents are more detached than, than the strong partisans are from msnbc, from Fox. How do you determine how voters are going to reach this conclusion about is the President saying the right things about the economy? I, is it tick tock? Is it, is it reading a newspaper? How do they, how do they, how do they get a feeling about whether the president is on. And I'll just say I predict at the State of the Union we will see the President, the first lady's box with real Americans who, Ben, who are going to benefit or have benefited from the big beautiful bill. And that's a, that's a one night only thing. But that's an occasion to try to break through, to say, look, this is helping families like you. But in general, in 2026, as we head to the midterms, what do we know about how voters, independent voters who will be so important, how do they decide on that question that people like us talk about obsessively? What are voters thinking about this?

[David Winston]

Well, again, that's where what Biden ended up doing by saying, oh, this is just a temporary situation in terms of inflation, really undercut in the sense of people are tired of hyperbole. And I can't emphasize that enough. I mean, when you, and you see the press releases, you get, you know, look, this is how horrible Republicans are, look, this is how horrible Democrats are. And independents look at that and they kind of go, you know, I'm just tired of it and I'm not going to pay attention. And so it's not that they don't want to pay attention, it's just that what's being given to them is not worth being paid attention to. And so I think part of the challenge here is actually there's got to be some substance being delivered and that's facts that allow people to rethink their, you know, some beliefs that they might have as opposed to just simply being told, no, you're wrong, this is what you should be believing. And that's what they get a lot from both parties. And that's unfortunate. Let me an interesting number that I like to bring up in terms of talking about the electorate, just to give you a sense. In 2024, 24% of the electorate were conservative Republicans. 16% were liberal Democrats. That means 60% were neither liberal Democrats or conservative Republicans. 60% of the electorate. And they're the ones who basically decided that. And so the challenge here is to understand that independents are not hearing anything that's worth taking the time to listen to. And I think that's part of the challenge to both parties is how do they in fact engage those individuals because they are going to decide the election. Let's go back. In fact, taking a look at, excuse me, what happened in 2024, Joe Biden won independence by 13. In 2020, Kamala Harris won him by three. But that was not the only big element that occurred. Independents moved, according to the exit poll, into the number two slot, pushing Democrats into being the third party.

[Mark Halpern]

Right.

[David Winston]

Okay. That was a huge shift as some Democrats decided to identify when they went to vote as independents.

[Mark Halpern]

Right. Massive. Okay. Lastly, on health care, you said people think about healthcare in all sorts of ways. Is my coverage good enough and what benefits do I have? But, but as you said, partly. They're thinking of it now in terms of what does it cost? And, and it's, it's expensive. And, and that's part of their thinking. Everything's expensive. The Republic. There's a, there's a proposition. I just want you to address it. Democrats say there's not going to be a health care fix for the Affordable Care act subsidies. Health care is going to still be expensive. And so one of our talking points in the election is vote for them. Don't vote for the Republicans in the House and Senate. Vote for the Democrats because we're going to make health care more affordable. And there's some moderate Republicans who are worried about that argument in competitive districts who say we don't want to go into the election not having addressed this and just a vote on a failed bill will not be enough. I have some people in your profession telling me this is all overrated. It's just going to be about costs in general. It doesn't matter whether Republicans pass a health care bill. Tony Fabrizio, your colleague, the president's pollster, seems to reportedly have switched positions on this and says as long as we're talking about prescription drug prices and other things with health care, we're okay. Where are you on this question? How, how dangerous is it for Republicans to go into the midterms not having addressed the price of health care?

[David Winston]

Well, let me start off with this unfortunate piece. We've been talking about putting together a health care plan since we were in competition with the ACA back in 2009 and still have not, I think, effectively delivered in terms of where, what does the center right healthcare system look like? I will tell you that McCarthy and Ryan had put together some task forces to begin to look through a lot of these things. So there are a lot of ideas out there in terms, in terms of, but it's never actually coalesced into a specific dynamic. Having said that, one of the things that occurred is that this whole issue was became a cost of living issue as well. The challenge here is that the broader nature of all the cost of living components, how does it come together? So for example, if in fact food prices began to really move in the right direction, if because of energy costs coming down, that suddenly there were a lot of goods that were suddenly a lot less expensive, that is something that is going to be a very powerful motivator in terms of individuals saying, okay, I can handle my cost of living better. The fundamentals that Berlin and this is I did econometric modeling for a while and one of the challenges that existed when the ACA, which, which was Obamacare was put together was basically an underlying assumption that supply was inelastic. So when you put 40 million people into try to put 40 million people into a system like that and supply stays the same, prices are going to go up. And when you actually take a look at what the ACA was all about, it was there was an expectation that that was going to happen and did they have enough things things to cover that increased cost. And so you had taxing Cadillac plans, taxing medical devices, taxing the actual health insurance. Well, some of that didn't go through. So we had this shortage and that's where you had the increase that occurred in terms of premiums and higher deductibles. And so when people say the ACA isn't fixable, it's because if supply continues to be inelastic, we are not going to be able to meet our health care needs. So how in fact do we begin to think through that problem? Having said that, that's a longer term problem that hopefully gets addressed in terms of the short term. There are just a lot of costs that people are dealing with and if you can help them out with a big chunk of those, that's a positive first step. Having said that, the only solution Democrats have is to have taxpayers pay for other people's health care. And that's a short term solution that is not sustainable in the long run.

[Mark Halpern]

And at least some independent voters are skeptical of. David, thank you. David Winston, ladies and gentlemen, just explained the whole midterms to you. So every time, every time you're looking at the coverage and it's confusing, just rerun the episode and he'll have it there. David, grateful to you again, President of the Winston Group, one of the best pollsters in America, happens to be a Republican, but just talks facts. David, thank you and happy holidays. Merry Christmas to you.

[David Winston]

Thank you and happy Happy holidays, Merry Christmas and the whole nine yards. And thanks for having me on. I appreciate, appreciate it.

[Mark Halpern]

Thank you, David. All right, that's it for today's program. We're going to be back on Thursday, our last episode of the year. Brand new episode. We look forward to seeing you. Then subscribe to NextUp on YouTube. Also, wherever you get your podcast, we want you to be a nexter in good standing across whatever platforms you like so you always know what's coming next. Up.

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Before the trophy and bragging rights are rightfully yours. Before your sleeper turns in a season of no one saw coming, before stats and projections turn into points on the board and your lineup falls perfectly into place, you flip the lid on a can of on nicotine pouches. And as you make your first pick, you know this is the season where fantasy's going to surpass reality. It's on products for tobacco consumers 21 years of age or older. Warning. This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.