Top 8 Lessons the Right Can Learn from Iowa's MASSIVE Upset | 6/3/26

Summary

Steve Deace Show | "Top 8 Lessons the Right Can Learn from Iowa's MASSIVE Upset" | June 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the seismic political upset in Iowa’s Republican gubernatorial primary, where little-known businessman and farmer Zach Lane narrowly defeated Trump-endorsed Congressman Randy Feenstra and other contenders. Steve Deace and co-hosts dissect what this means for principled conservatism, outlining eight key lessons for the Right, while reflecting on changing voter dynamics, the impact of Trump’s endorsement, and the evolving fusion between populist and Christian conservative blocs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Summary of the Iowa Upset

• Zach Lane, fusing Evangelical, Maha ("Make America Healthy Again") populism, and support from groups like TPUSA, narrowly won Iowa's Republican gubernatorial primary by less than 1%.

  • Lane’s coalition built on appeals to rural Iowans, skepticism of corporate agriculture ("Big Ag") and pharma, and a direct, issues-based approach.

• Randy Feenstra, despite gaining Trump's last-minute endorsement, failed to convert enough support, conceding shortly after the tight results.

• Lane’s Victory Speech Highlights [01:01]:

  • "Our young people are leaving faster than 46 other states because they don't see enough opportunity here ... Wall street hedge funds and foreign interests are buying and selling our land, driving up costs so our kids are priced out of the market."
  • "Iowa has the fastest growing cancer rate in the world ... Iowans are going to funerals for people dying at 60 whose parents live to be 80. We have to use every resource ... to fight this cancer epidemic and end it."

2. The “Eight Lessons for the Right” [08:18–33:29]

1. Christian Conservatives: From Profile-Driven to Issue-Driven

• The traditional focus on “profile” (i.e., being “one of us,” wholesome image) has ceded to a more aggressive, issue-based approach.
• Deace: "What you heard from Zach Lane...that is the heart of the conservative base in Iowa, expressed verbatim." [11:26]
• Younger generations of conservatives, with diverse life experiences, are demanding tangible policy substance over reassuring biographies.

2. Maha + Christian Conservatives: The New Driving Coalition

• The future of GOP politics lies in fusing populist "Make America Healthy Again" sentiment with Christian conservative values.
• Deace: "Maha and Christian conservatives are the driving coalition of the future ... the Christian mamas and nanas are postco having conversations I've never heard Christians mamas and nanas have." [14:28]

3. Issues Trump Everything

• Lane’s success stemmed from relentless focus on hard-right issues, pushing to "the furthest right you could go without probably... being on the terrorist watch list." [16:38]
• Deace: "The number one thing our people want to vote on is issues. And Zach messaged the issues better than anybody."
• "If I put that video out about Zach Lane, but he hasn't been running all the issue ads...does it work?" [16:36]

4. Trump's Endorsement: Still Powerful, but Not Absolute

• While Trump's endorsement injected at least 10+ points for Feenstra and nearly flipped the race, it could not overcome Lane’s coalition and momentum.
• Deace: "This was actually one of the most impressive shows of force that Trump's ever had with an endorsement." [18:36]

5. The Generational Divide Is Real

• Feenstra won the oldest voters; Lane dominated younger cohorts. There is a visible generational fault line in voting patterns.

6. TPUSA (Turning Point USA) Still Packs a Punch

• Despite rumors of the organization's decline, their endorsement and boots-on-the-ground mobilization helped tip the scales for Lane.

7. Money & Name Recognition: Beating the Establishment Is Expensive

• Only self-funders or those with pre-existing high name ID can overcome the built-in advantages of establishment picks plus Trump's endorsement.
• Deace: "If you don't come in with your own money or already have high name ID, you probably cannot beat the establishment in a statewide election." [22:51]

8. Reward the Base, Not the Cynics

• Feenstra’s cynical, "basement campaign" approach—assuming Trump’s endorsement would suffice—was flatly rejected.
• Deace: "You're not going to be rewarded by the voters for ignoring them ... the most cynical campaign I have ever seen in my life anywhere in America." [33:31]

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3. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Changing Christian Conservative Voter Behavior
  "The differences between these two campaigns ... is the style of campaign that Zach ran compared to Adam’s … Zach proved the model that I used to be operating under is no longer the model." — Steve Deace [09:30]

• On the Maha/Christian Conservative Fusion
  "If you lied to me when we needed you the most, how do I know you haven’t been lying to me?" — Steve Deace paraphrasing conversations among base voters [15:16]

• On the Power and Limits of Trump’s Endorsement
  "That endorsement was worth at least 10 points for Randy Feenstra. At least 10 points." — Steve Deace [19:12]

• On Mobilizing Every Vote
  "1650 votes. That is the slimmest of slim margins... Whether you’re a voter, whether you’re somebody like Steve, whether you’re an organization like Turning Point usa. You cannot just take anything for granted or take any nights off." — Aaron McIntyre [42:24]

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4. Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:01 – Summary of Iowa and key national races
• 01:01 – Zach Lane’s victory speech excerpt
• 03:47 – Steve Deace teases the lessons and welcomes co-hosts
• 08:18 – Deace begins breakdown: “Eight Lessons” segment
• 11:26 & 14:28 – Discussion of Christian conservative voting evolution
• 16:38 – “Issues still trump everything”
• 18:36–21:00 – On Trump’s endorsement and its impact
• 22:51 – The practical necessity of money/name ID in modern primaries
• 33:31 – Critique of Feenstra’s cynical campaign & final lesson
• 36:07 – Co-hosts reflect, analyze turnout, and discuss influence of late moves
• 41:06–49:00 – Reflections on close margins, strategic moves, and voter engagement
• 80:43–95:57 – Interview with Daniel Horowitz, assessing Lane, movement strategies, future of populist-Christian alliance

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5. Notable Analysis & Post-Election Reflection

• Critical Role of Late Strategy:

  • Deace admits that without the late strategic video he made urging conservative voters to rally behind Lane, the outcome could have been a costly recount or even a Feenstra victory.
  • “My entire phone has been that for all people all over the country for the last 12 hours … He had to put himself in a position … and I helped with the frosting.” [16:38, 67:37]

• TPUSA’s Boldness:

  • Their rare step of endorsing opposite Trump and still committing significant resources was highlighted as pivotal.

• Lane’s Resonance:

  • “When it comes to that gender bending nonsense, here I stand. So I proudly cast my vote.” — Todd Erzin [39:34]

• Generational Wake-Up & Turnout:

  • “Feenstra won the oldest of voters and Zach Lane won every other group … There is a real generational divide on the right.” — Steve Deace [20:05]

• National Repercussions:

  • If Feenstra had won via establishment tactics, Deace warns, “All of you around the country would have had the same issue moving forward, these guys get to Washington ... they would act like you don’t even ... have agency at all.” [34:43]

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6. Interview: Daniel Horowitz on the Iowa Election & Populist-Conservative Fusion [80:43–95:57]

• Lane as a Model:
  • Horowitz lauds Lane as “a DeSantis-level conservative,” praising his grasp on agricultural special interests, the corruption of "Big Ag," and health crises tied to corporate influence:
  • "He knows what time it is, knows the philosophy behind it, knows how to deal with what do you do when you believe in Austrian economics ... but then we have corporate monopolies screwing our quality of life and our freedoms and safety and health..."
• Replicability Concerns:
  • Warns that Lane’s unique mix of message and self-funding won't be easy to reproduce elsewhere unless donors and organizations invest in like-minded candidates who can weather late-breaking establishment endorsements.
• Strategic Takeaway:
  • Horowitz urges Republican and conservative organizations to "try to sever the biblical cord a little bit with Trump"—not to attack, but to be proactive and creative beyond Trump's chosen priorities.

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7. Final Takeaways and Calls to Action

• Do Not Take Victory For Granted:
  • Celebrate upsets, but realize enduring structural and generational change is a long fight.
  • "We just won the regional final. We're in the final four. ... that's not a national championship. And the next two games will be the hardest." — Steve Deace [65:00]
• Every Effort Matters, Margins Are Razor Thin:
  • Neither organizations nor individuals can afford complacency; strategic risks and mobilization of every possible voter decide outcomes.
• The New Conservative Synthesis:
  • The 2026 Iowa primary serves as a national template: energize the base with direct, unapologetic issue-based appeals; recognize the growing power of populist-health and Christian conservative fusion; and understand that money, name ID, and tactical flexibility—plus ability to weather Trump’s endorsement—are indispensable.

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Transcript

[A]

It's the Steve Day show. And here's what happened while we were away, brought to you by a massive upset in the Hawkeye State in what is the biggest upset of this primary cycle so far. Businessman and farmer Zach Lane defeated four other candidates in the Iowa Republican gubernatorial primary, including Congressman Randy Feenstra, who garnered the late endorsement of President Trump. Lane won the race by less than a percentage point and fewer than 1700 votes out of nearly 215,000 total votes cast. What was Lane's winning coalition? Well, he seemed to fuse together Evangelicals, Make America healthy Again. TPUSA and the late encouragement from Steve himself to Iowa Republican voters to cast their ballots strategically to stop Randy Feenstra, a very weak candidate, from winning the nomination. Feenstra, in a class move, called Lane late last night to concede despite the race's very tight results. Here is the message, in part during Lane's victory speech that resonated with a critical enough mass of Iowa Republicans to overcome the strong field of candidates.

[B]

States we've lost 10,000 family farms since 2000. Our young people are leaving faster than 46 other states because they don't see enough opportunity here. Wall street hedge funds and foreign interests are buying and selling our land, driving up costs so our kids are priced out of the market. They treat Iowa land like it's a commodity instead of our inheritance. They treat us like numbers, not neighbors. Iowa has the fastest growing cancer rate in the world. We all know something is terribly wrong, but too many politicians from Washington, D.C. to Des Moines have had their heads stuck in the sand while Big Ag and Big Pharma printed money. This will not go on when I'm governor. Iowans are going to funerals for people dying at 60 whose parents live to be 80. We are losing the wisdom of a generation. We have to use every resource we have to solve this. We have to find out what Big Ag and Big Pharma knew about the safety of their products and when they knew it. And we need to direct our great state universities to use every resource at their disposal to fight this cancer epidemic and end it.

[A]

Back in February, one of the best pollsters of the 2024 cycle, Brent Buchanan at Signal, published research indicating Republican's potential secret weapon for the 2026 midterms. The fusing of MAHA messaging with conservative candidates is a massive advantage. Buchanan wrote back in February, quote, republicans trailed Democrats by three points on the generic congressional ballot. Put a Maha supporting Republican against a Maha opposing Democrat and that number flips to R plus 7, a 10 point swing. Hiding in plain sight. And most Republican candidates are too cautious to grab it. It seems like Zach Lane in Iowa was able to grab that bull by the horns and it got him the Republican nomination for governor of the state of Iowa. Truly a remarkable night. Elsewhere, in other news and notes from yesterday's primaries, In New Jersey's 12th congressional district, a Democrat named Adam Homoway won his party's nomination. Homoway was a known associate of the Blind Sheik, one of the convicted co conspirators of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade center that killed six people and injured thousands. Amawi is expected to easily win in the General in California. That state's gubernatorial race shows Republican Steve Hilton leading the entire jungle primary field with over 50% of the votes counted. No candidates has been called to move on to the general. And in the LA mayoral race, incumbent Karen Bass is moving on to the General in November with upstart Spencer Pratt trailing by four and a half points in that jungle primary. Poll. Results from California primary races expected sometime around Valentine's Day. And that's what happened while we were away.

[B]

You laugh to hide the pain because it's kind of true. You guys might note my voice is a little shot, but I've got a lot to say about what transpired in my home state last night because there are lessons to be learned for our side, for the right moving forward. We're going to get to those here next on the Steve Day show. And greetings. Happy Wednesday. Welcome to the Steve Day Show. I can't believe it's only Wednesday. Felt like I aged about three, three months in about four hours last night. I'm Steve Dase alongside Todd erzin and Aaron McIntyre. Good to see you gentlemen.

[C]

Good to see you.

[B]

And we are brought to you by our friends over at Preborn. You know, I met Mr. Steiner, who is the, he's the poobah there at Preborn when we were in D.C. and he was on the same Heritage Tour trip that I was on and we got to talking about the state of things, the pro life movement, et cetera. And he bragged on you guys quite a bit. And he said per capita, only one other show creates more large donors for Preborn than this one does. So, I mean, we've given, we give about once a year on our end. But so it's not us like, it's not us like game in the system. Like, let me go buy bulk, buy my own book to pump up the sales. It's not like that at all. All right, so you guys have done that work. So thank you guys so much. Let's keep it going because for as little as maybe you're not a person that can stroke 1,000 or 5,000 or $10,000. But you know what? For a little as 28 bucks, you could fund an ultrasound that doubles a baby's chance at life, maybe also doubles mama's chance at eternal life by turning this woman from a murderer into a mom. All right, you guys have just been incredible. Let's keep it going because this is it's life. It's the most worthwhile cause there is. All right. Preborn.com Steve is where you can go to make your tax deductible donation to preborn.com Steve. All right. Later on in the show, Daniel Horowitz is going to join us. I think for once, we're going to catch Daniel in a legitimately good mood, not like a gallows humor good mood, but like legit good mood because he's been a Zach Lane guy the entire time. All right. He thought that this was one of the options we had. He kept he thinks Zach Lane could be a DeSantis level governor. That's from, that's from Daniel. All right. So he'll be very happy when we talk to him later. We will play buy seller hold next hour as well. We'll get through as many of those as we can. What remains, we'll do in the overtime for BlazeTV subscribers. Make sure you don't miss it. Become A subscriber today, blazetv.com days. Get all of the awesome exclusives we do for our subscribers every day here on this network. Cost you just 8 bucks a month, 26 cents a day. Get the big [e-mail] dace using the code DACE. But this hour, I'm going to set it aside for the three of us here to focus on and workshop what transpired in Iowa. Because we had a seismic event politically happen. All the, all the national networks covered it. I was invited up into Zach Lane's private suite with his staff and his family, much of his staff, by the way, the vice president's political staff. So they got a chance to kind of get an idea of what life is like in an Iowa caucus. They kind of got a test run. You got to think that might give them an advantage coming up here. It was kind of funny. I've done this many times with other names. Been hearing them, hearing them for the first time, try to pronounce. Is it, is it mad? Is it Madrid? There's a Madrid. No, It's Madrid, but it's spelled. I know, but it's Madrid. What is an appenoose? I don't know. All right. It's always funny because we have 99 counties.

[A]

Urban delay or urban?

[B]

Exactly, exactly. We have 99 counties, and we frankly need 59. But this is the pride of rural America, is you want to have your own school, your own teams for your own neighborhood, you know, and so there's a lot of these towns. And it's always funny when the national campaigns come in here for the first time and they're sitting around in their wardrooms following the results. They literally asked me, hey, you know what? Your name's going to carry way more weight than ours. There's, like, two rural counties we're waiting for. Can you call them? Just tell them who you are and see when they're going to get the results. And it was just very Iowa. Everybody was polite. Oh, yeah, Steve. Oh, sorry. You know, we had a machine breakdown in this precinct or, oh, we've got one gal in the back counting, and we'll get to him soon. It's not California. All right. When they say they've got one gal in the back, there's literally. We can tell you it's Iowa. There's one gal in the back counting the votes. All right.

[C]

By hand.

[B]

Okay. So it was. It was interesting watching this transpire from the inside out last night and following the results. And I. I think that there are eight lessons that we have to learn on the right about what last night means, because I don't believe it's an outlier at all. All right, and these are. I think that what you're seeing here is the. The beginning of a paradigm shift on multiple levels. So I'm going to go through these eight things. Then Todd and Aaron, I'm going to kind of turn it over to you guys, get your reactions, and we'll take the discussion from there. Okay. Number one, I think you are watching. Christian conservatives are changing from being profile driven to issue driven. Now, when I helped bring Adam Steen into this race and endorsed Adam, I had never met Zach Lane before. In fact, I'd never even heard Zach Lane's name before until I finally made the decision that I didn't think the Lord was calling me to run. And a friend of mine that I was considering having helped me if I was gonna run was waiting to see what I was gonna do and then said, okay, well, I've got a buddy of mine, another buddy of mine in Iowa that wants to run, and I think I'm gonna go with him, but he's not ready to announce yet, so we don't want the name out there yet. So I said, okay. So, I mean, I had no idea who. In fact, we thought for weeks his name was Lon, because it's L A, H, N. We were pronouncing it like that when it came up between ourselves and the show. We had not met him at all. I'd not heard his name at all, had not had a chance to vet him at all. So why did I choose Adam? Because there's a. Well, there's a profile of what Iowa has traditionally responded to, all right? High integrity, high character. Adam is all those things. Strong believer. Adam is all those things, all right? And what Adam had was something else rare, which is real governing experience. He's essentially been the chief operating officer of the state of Iowa for the last five years. And so typically, that's where a Pat Robertson finishes third in Iowa, a Chuck Grassley. If you've seen Chuck Grassley's campaign commercials when he was younger, Chuck ran issue based ads. But, Aaron, your entire life has just been watching Chuck Grassley run ads every six years, driving a tractor across to Iowa. That's. I mean, it's very profile. Are you one of us? Do you match with one of us? Do you come from us? You understand us, right? Because we're flyover country, and a lot of times the rest of the country just kind of wants to look down and sneer at us. So understanding us, being from us, one of us is a big thing, and that's who we are in many respects. Who Adam Steen is is who people in Iowa are. That's why Pat Robertson nearly pulled an upset here. It's why my. It's why Mike Huckabee did pull an upset here. It's why Rick Santorum did pull an upset here. Okay, but I think what you're so. So. But the, the differences between these two campaigns, beyond resources, and we'll get to that in a minute, because that's an important factor, too, is the style of campaign that Zach ran compared to Adams. And, and so what Zach proved is the model that I used to be operating under is no longer the model in any other era. Before now, Adam Steen would probably be in the position that Zach is in right now because he fit the profile. But it's very clear now, you know, we kind of thought, you know, everybody kind of overlooked a lot of evangelicals, kind of overlooked Trump's past because they like where he was at on the issues. Are they just doing that uniquely to him because he's a star and. And they like him and he delivers for them, or is this a paradigm shift? I think we can now see it's a paradigm shift that issues now matter more than the profile does. Because what you heard from Zach Lane in that ad. I'm sorry, in that speech that Aaron. Which should be an ad now that I mentioned it. Freudian slip, his victory speech last night. Aaron, that clip that you played, that is the heart of the conservative base in Iowa, expressed verbatim. That's who the conservative base in Iowa is. And so Zach spoke to the issues. Adam represented the profile. In the previous era, the profile guy would have won. It's very clear now. We're not in that era now. In Adam's defense, the previous job he had did not permit him to be involved in partisan politics the entire time. He couldn't post on social, none of that. So he was very divorced from the process. And so at times, it sounded like Adam's issue messaging was kind of the stuff we were saying five or 10 years ago. You know why it sounded like that? Because that's the last time that Adam was really able to be politically actively involved. Where Zach's issue messaging sounds more like exactly where we are right now. Am I making sense so far?

[C]

You're making sense, but the amazing part of all this is basically what you're saying. He ended up being the most like Trump, even though Trump against him. I mean, it's what a, what a process we just went through.

[B]

And so Zach Lane captured the imagination of people late. Yes. By spending money. And I will get to that. But he wasn't just up there making fart noises, clown noses. He was like, no H1B visas. Iowa's for Iowans. We're not, you know, we're not hiring a bunch of illegal aliens here anymore to work, you know, the ground. We're going to, we're going to look and find out, you know, what his ads were, what you just heard. We're going to be 100% pro life starting at conception. Those were his ads. They were very hard. Right. Ads, but in an Iowa way. You know, he's sitting in front of, you know, a nice cozy room, he's hugging his kids and stuff. But, I mean, it was literally the Steve Day show messaging. Just put in an Iowa folksy kind of a thing. And I think that's ultimately why Zach was able to overcome, frankly, my support of Adam, the family leader. Support of Adam. Okay. Because Adam never really could. Adam fit the profile, but couldn't hammer down the issue message that really galvanized people and Zach did. And so I think you're seeing Christian conservatives now are changing more from a, a profile driven base that to an issue driven base. And it wasn't just the Trump factor or they're going to overlook things about him because they like him. No, I think that's where we are now. I think particularly as we get younger, I think that's where we are. A lot more divorce, a lot more broken homes, a lot more people that come that are coming to faith late in life. And so they have baggage with it. Right. I kind of don't necessarily resonate with the hey, I grew up in a Christian home. We've had Pleasant Valley Sundays our entire life. That's just, that's not the Christian experience for a lot of people that are Gen Xers and younger. Does that make sense too?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Coming to faith late, overcoming moral failing or nearly succumbing to it again is much more of the. Not the Pleasant Valley Sunday life, but is much more of the life that that Gen Xers and younger have. Are accustomed to in the faith community. Number two, I think, and we've been talking about this for a while, but it's, this is cemented now. I think Maha and Christian conservatives are the co. Are the driving coalition of the future. There'll be other coalitions on the right, but this is going to be the driving one. And you see this especially in our. With our mamas and our nanas. The Christian mamas and nanas are postco having conversations. I've never heard Christians mamas and nanas have. They all sound like Todd Urza now. Or at least they're on the path to becoming that. Right?

[C]

That's a good place to be.

[B]

If you lied to me. A lot of Christian mamas and nanas are saying, if you lied to me when we needed you the most, how do I know you haven' been lying to me? It's what Daniel said to me when we, we did a last interview for Rise of the Fourth Reich and we hung up on the last interview person and we just did our breakdown of how we're gonna approach the trapter. And as I just said goodbye to him, he looks, he says to me on the phone, he goes, hey, I gotta say one more thing. I said, sure. He goes, you know, this probably isn't the first time they've been running this, right? This isn't the first time they've done stuff like this to us. And it just made the hair in the back of my neck stand up because I had not wanted to really consider that, because, frankly, it's. There's a high cost to considering that. I wasn't sure I was willing to pay. All right, so I think this is the driving coalition of the future. Number three issues still trump everything. And that's what I was alluding to. We're more issue driven than profile driven. Zach Lane one, ultimately. Listen, I'm not an idiot. I'm not gonna stand up here and play, you know, false self deprecation. The margin of Zach's victory can almost completely be attributed to the video that we put out, which is why Zach said that to me last night. Much of his team said that to me last night. My entire phone has been that for all people all over the country for the last 12 hours. But. But here's the thing. If I put that video out about Zach Lane, but he hasn't been running all the issue ads that he did the last few weeks, does it work?

[C]

No.

[D]

No.

[B]

So he had to put himself in a position to. To have that last spackle of frosting on the cake, put it over the top to get sold at the bakery. Right. He had to bake the entire cake, him and his team. I'm not. This is not false self dep. This is true. They baked the entire cake. I came. I helped them with the. With the frosting that then made them think we got it. That's. That's. That's. That was the missing ingredient. That's what we're looking for. Okay, but they baked the whole cake. And the whole cake they baked was. They took an unknown guy who introduced himself not by saying, here's how tall I am, here's how kind I am, here's how nice I am. None of that stuff. It was hard, hard, hard. Right. Issues. Which is why Daniel loves him, because that's all Daniel responds to. He's an ideologue. That's. That's what Daniel's looking for. Just tell me it's about policy, not about anything else other than policy to guys like Daniel. And that was Zach's messaging. And so I think we're still seeing, though, that the number one thing our people want to vote on his issues. And Zach messaged the issues better than anybody on the right did. And here's how he did it. He got to the furthest right you could go without probably, you know, being on the terrorist watch list. That's what he did. All right, why do you guys see Trump always, you guys, a lot of people say, why is Trump attack your friend Chip Roy more than the Rhinos? Because Chip is to Trump's right. And Trump understands the power structure in our party is the most, is the most prominent right wing figure is running the party. That's why he can't ever let somebody get to his right because then he loses some of it. Then, then you, then, then his base becomes threatened. And what Zach did is he ran the messaging that got him to the right of everybody else. Number four, there's going to be a lot of talk about this being a quote, loss for President Trump. I think he lost the Texas Ag Commission race. No one talks about that. But he had won like the other hundred some odd primaries in which he'd endorsed. Let me tell you something, and I think I've demonstrated over the years if I think that, you know, I think Trump is wrong. I think I've, we've criticized Trump a few times on this show. Right?

[C]

Right.

[B]

Okay, folks, this was actually one of the most impressive shows of force that Trump's ever had with an endorsement. He took a candidate that his own base did not like who, who saw his negatives, you know, go up by 20 points in the last three months and was, and was closer to finishing third than first on Thursday afternoon. He took that candidate in less than four days with no major media in our state, we have one top winner to television market and it was too late to like blitzkrieg the air. They tried, there were some ads, but this was not. If, if they wanted to spend $2 million on ads, there wasn't the inventory to spend it on this lake in less than four days. That endorsement was worth at least 10 points for Randy Feinstra. At least 10 points. So I would argue that was an incredible and incredibly impressive feat because the President also got people who had been saying, why were there so many undecideds in our race? Because they, they didn't like the favorite. If they liked the favorite, they wouldn't be undecided. Right. He got people to vote for a guy they didn't like because they like him more. And he, here's the other thing. You understand all of no one's, no one is suffering more for the political gambits that Trump is taking on tariffs in Iran than people like in rural Iowa are. Because as much as the price of gas sucks, what cost even more than gas right now? Diesel. Who's paying that?

[C]

Farmers.

[B]

Farmers or rural people? Who's getting the tariffs on their exports? Same People, and yet they still almost gave Trump a win over a candidate. Randy Feenstra has just let it be known many times to people in Iowa. He's dog cussed Trump numerous times. That's one of the reasons why Trump's base doesn't like him. But when Trump put the call out on Friday, that base still almost said, all right, not necessarily what we want, but if that's what the King wants, okay, maybe he knows something we don't know. That endorsement was worth at least 10 points he gave in four days. In a state where there's no market to just saturate with messaging to make it stick, that was an impressive show of force by the president. Number five, the generational divide is real, and it's here. What we saw is Feenstra won the oldest of voters and Zach Lane won every other group. If you were 65 or older, you probably voted for Ray and A Feenstra, or let me be fair to that group. If you're 65 or older, you narrowly voted for Randy Feinstra. And if you were under 65, you narrowly voted for Zach Lang. That's what happened. So that generational divide is very real. You saw it in the Massey race, you saw it in this race. Now, those races are not the same, but the generational, the candidates aren't the same, the issues that were driving those primaries, not the same, but the demographic is the same. There is a real generational divide on the right that you're seeing taking place. Number six, the reports of the demise of TPUSA continue to be greatly exaggerated. So TPUSA came in with an endorsement of Zach Lane on Friday, about 10 minutes after the President endorsed. I believe it's the first time ever TPUSA has endorsed opposite President Trump ever, ever. My guess is that that endorsement was in the works and they had no idea that. I'm just guessing that they had that because the timing, it was so quick. TPUSA wasn't sitting around just waiting for Trump to, you know, and you know what? We're to counter signal that that's not guys, you know that, right? So they're heavily supportive of the President. So chances are they had no idea the President was going to endorse. They waited to the last possible minute to endorse act, which was Friday afternoon, basically. And that endorsement's already in the works. It's a massive organization, has to go through channels, things are set up, graphics are done. Right? Okay. That's why those endorsements were right on top of one another is I'm sure TPUSA had no idea the president was going to do that. In fact, I'd be willing to bet money on that. But then you have a decision as an organization, what do you do then?

[D]

Right?

[B]

You're opposite the King. Do you take your endorsement back? Well, that looks weak. You don't want to do that. So maybe you don't then, like really, you know, go in with it. Right? You keep it, but you don't like, put anything behind it. No. They had door knockers in our state all weekend long. They, they went all in. They, they. This was not just a. All right, you know, King has spoken. You know, we don't look dumb, so we'll just kind of, you know, forget the whole thing. No, I mean, they made an endorsement and they treated like they would any other endorsement. I heard from people all over the state of Iowa that got their doors knocked by tpusa young people. So again, I know there's a cache of you guys, folks in our business that some of you, frankly, are making stinking filthy rich and letting them take nice vacations to Russia, apparently that are just dying to take the most powerful prominent organization we have on the right and just pronounce its, you know, destruction. But you're all wrong at every turn. You keep absolutely get getting proven wrong. So this is, this was a helmet sticker for TPUSA as well. Number seven. All right, if you don't come in with your own money or already have high name id, you probably cannot beat the establishment in a statewide election. It's just too expensive. Even in a state like Iowa, it's too expensive. And that, that's, that's the big, that's the other thing with Adam is, and it's hard to raise money as a first time candidate, number one, especially when you've not been politically involved for years and you have to start over from scratch. But number two, we're in this environment because Trump's primary endorsement is so prevalent that a lot of donors and a lot of major organizations that don't or support the Club for Growths of the world. Okay? And I'm picking on you guys because I've known, you know, Tom Schultz at Club for Growth for many years, so I know he can take it. Okay. I'm just using you guys as an example. A lot of these groups rightfully don't want to be on the wrong side of the president. And so in the past, if they, if they found a candidate they liked, they'd go in for this candidate because then that's their candidate. And if he wins, that's their guy. They got him elected. Right. He's going to have their back if he gets into office. Right. Well, the problem is, though, now we have a king. And if the king is not on your end and you went all in and endorsed, you just lit your money on fire because it was a waste of your time. Right Again, what did I just say about Randy Feenster? He was dead as. He was as dead as Star wars on Thursday night. Randy, it was Thursday night. It was. What's deader? Star wars or Randy Feenstra as a political entity. And he damn near won this thing because Trump put out an endorsement. The absolute last possible second one could be done. Now, imagine if Trump endorses against you three months ago, five days or five weeks ago, six months ago, you're done, you're toast. Right. You can't go against that. So a lot of these organizations and major donors now, really, and I don't blame, you know, we wouldn't. Do you like lighting your money on fire? I'm, I'm not a fan of it. You. No, no. So we're not, we're not blaming them. I'm just, this isn't a judgment or it's not a dirge or a lament. I'm just telling you what it is. A lot of people that are smart and have money are like, why would I want to just throw my money down the drain on the risk that the king comes and endorses against me? And then we did this all for nothing. And so if you're a candidate like an Adam Stein and you're trying to do this even if you walk in, I can tell you there were several groups and organizations that were very impressed with Adam and thought he absolutely nailed it and then would not cut checks. And it's because of what I'm just saying right now. But do you have. First question, can you get the Trump endorsement? That's just where we are right now. Right. And, and so the only way to overcome that is you have to have existing name id. Like, if somebody like me ran, I have very high name ID in our state. Or you're Zach Lane and you have your own resources so you can build your own name ID and you're willing to spend the money to do it. Short of those resources and short of existing name id, it's just really, really hard anywhere in America to beat an establishment candidate, a statewide primary. So if you want to get rid of more of the hacktastic crowd, look for More Zack Lanes or more Steve Dases. Look for people who have already name high, name ID or in the case of Zack Lane, have high, are high, are high earners that can invest some of their own money to build that name id. Because no matter how much you go in and kill the interview, and I can tell you, I know for a fact Adam Steen killed a, killed a lot of these interviews. You guys heard him on this show. How impressive was he on this show? But the first question after your presentation every single time is, can you get the Trump endorsement? And if your immediate answer isn't yes and like, don't call us kid, we'll call you. That's where we are. It is what it is. Number eight or number seven. Yeah, number eight. Okay, now here, that, here's why I took the gamble I did with Zach Lane at the end. I talked about this gamble yesterday. But, but when I say that Zach Lane is a way stronger general election candidate than Randy Fanstra, here's what I mean. We have systemic advantages in Iowa. We have nearly, we have over 200,000 more registered voters than Democrats do, for example. So in any situation, you have to make sure you control what you can control in any contested situation at the up here meta level, we can't control what the economy's doing. Are we still blockading the Strait of Hormuz? What's the price of gas? And that's what will get the normies and independents later in the fall. Those are all things that are going to be determined by the president and his team and, and their success or lack thereof. What we have to do down here at a state level is put ourselves in position to be in position. And if we nominate a guy that dissed our base the entire time, has disappointed our base as a congressman tremendously, then you run the risk of on one end, he is the worst. He's the worst of both worlds. He's depressing your turnout while at the same time the Democrats are still going to call him the worst most Nazi, most homophobic, transphobic racist that's ever. Racist and transphobic. Right. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who we nominate. We can nominate your mom, we can nominate, you know, Sister Christian, they're the worst Nazi fascist that ever ran. Except our people know the difference. And if our people like yeah, that he ain't about that life, then you're constantly have. Listen, I'm just giving you why John McCain was never president. You guys all live through this. So Randy Feenstra represents that Mitt McCain model. I'm not like you. I'm not of you. I won't eat the chicken sandwich on Chick Fil a day. I'm ashamed. I'm not like these other Republicans. I'm not like these other Christians. Yet when he's becomes the face of us, he's just going to get all the. He's going to get branded by them to the normies as if he is anyway. Now with Zach, we have a chance to. To. To control what we can control, Mobilize, unite our base, inspire our base with messaging they want to vote for, not branding. They want to vote against. And so now there's way higher odds. It will still be a very tough race, but the odds are way higher today that we are going to win in November than they were 24 hours ago because we nominated somebody that inspires and unifies our base so that now we can go on offense with normie voters. One more factor in a moment. Stay tuned. The Steve Day Show. All right, back here on the Steve Day show, powered by our friends over at Smart Credit. Now, here's something most people aren't told about their credit score. You know, it's not just whether you pay your credit cards, it's also when you pay them. I know, I know. It sounds, well, scamtastic. Hey, I paid off all my credit at once. Why'd my score not go up as much as I thought? Yeah, you know why? It sounds scamtastic. All right, that's why you want to use Smart Credits. Data experts, they understand how the credit bureaus operate. It's so funny. The stuff that Tucker is saying I find heinous is the stuff people want to compliment. And then the stuff that he says that I compliment, people find heinous. Like when I hear him say we should just tell the credit card companies are such a scam. They're basically drug dealers. Stop paying your credit card bills. I'm like, seconded. Oh, I can't believe you said that. Meanwhile, he's out there like Redcon and Hitler. But that's okay. Have you noticed that at this point, Smart Credit's like, can we get back to this script? All right, so it's not just what you pay, but when you pay. Yes. It's quite a system we have to navigate. All right, so instead of guessing, get a personalized strategy that shows you what to do and when to do it and how to maximize your credit score. All right, so before you apply for anything, a car, apartment, refinance, it makes sense to go to Smart Credit, because the better your score, the better offers and rates you're going to get. So go to smartcredit.com Steve. You can try it for just a buck. All right. Just a buck to try it for the first time. You may be surprised to see how many points Smart Credit estimates they can add to your score. That Smart Credit.com/Steve results make vary cancel anytime. SmartCredit.com/Steve. All right, one more thing that Aaron won't have a graphic for because I remembered this one after I sent you guys the list. But there's one more thing that I think the right nationally needs to learn about this massive upset. How big was this upset? Zach Lane woke up yesterday morning. He was at 16% on the betting markets. 16%. For those of you like me that went to public school, that means there was 84% odds he was not going to win, right? 84% odds that there's a tornado in your area. You're probably telling the girls, right? Hey, just on standby, we have to go to the basement with 84% odds, right? Yeah, 84% odds the plane you're about to get on will crash. Do you get on that plane? No, probably not. Right? You're looking for 84% odds or not in one way or the other in life pretty much consistently. Right? Well, Zach beat 84% odds yesterday. I think that's why there's some lessons from this we have to learn. And here's the final one. All right? You're not going to be rewarded by the voters for ignoring them. Randy Feenstra ran the most cynical campaign I have ever seen in my life anywhere in America. His entire campaign strategy was, I owe you nothing. I will show you nothing. I will tell you nothing because you're just a bunch of dim witted dolts. And all I have to do is genuflect enough to the president or hire enough of his staff to run my campaign, get his endorsement at any point in time, even if it's the last possible minute, and I'll still win the primary and screw you and the horse you rode in on. Did I just summarize, essentially his messaging?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

This is what he did. He got in the race in May. He's been doing this then for an entire year. This has made himself not accessible to voters in any meaningful way. Well, Steve, Trump didn't show up for debates against Desantis. But how many town halls did Trump do? Were we not aware Trump was running for president? Can you think of any, like, hard questions? Trump didn't get no. He did everything other than share a stage with Ron DeSantis. But he was in Iowa constantly. Donald Trump was walking down Main street of the state fair in August of 24 in 175 degree heat. He was not inaccessible to voters, he was just inaccessible to his campaign rivals. All right, but he did not make himself inaccessible to the voters at all. This guy did. He ran a Biden basement campaign. And if you look at his record and you've been around him as a candidate, you're not surprised that he used this as a strategy. You're just surprised that he thought it would work. It almost did. But even if it had, quote, unquote worked and he won the primary, that would have been the ultimate Pyrrhic victory because he was going to lose badly. Enough of our base had just been permanently turned off. And do you trust that aunt Randy Feenster will have the kind of messaging in a general election that would bring those people back?

[C]

Not at all.

[B]

Not at all. I mean, if you're not, if you're not going to honor your base when you need them in a primary, why in the world would you honor them later on when you think you can take them for granted? Correct. This is the oldest adage of them all. If you give him the cow, the milk for free, he's not going to buy the cow. And so I, I think a very important precedent was not set last night. You, can you imagine if Fer had gotten away with this in Iowa, all of you around the country would have had the same issue. Moving forward, these guys get to Washington, they're protected by special interest. And now when they come home, they're, you think they're not accountable to you now they would act like you don't even live. You have no agency at all. Absolutely the most cynical campaign I've ever seen. And I'm. And, and if, and if, and, and it is a great thing for the country that that was not honored last night because moving forward, this is what they all would have tried so that Bill Cassidy doesn't have to risk losing another primary again. Or those kinds of types just say nothing, do nothing, show up, have I've got enough name ID banked and maybe if I slurp the president or his staff enough, I'll get their endorsement and continue screwing their base. Be very thankful. That did not work and that precedent was not set. Now with that, that's what I've got. I've emptied the clip. Todd and Aaron, you guys, thoughts on what I had to say, or maybe some of your own thoughts as you watched last night transpire and now the aftermath.

[C]

I have two thoughts. I. Because of your analysis about the. The Trump bump that actually happened. I thought Trump. Excuse me. I thought Feenstra was going to win and I thought he was going to win right around with the percentage he got. And you, Steve, you saw me off air talking with Bob this week. And then Bob and I were talking later on that day because he asked me what I thought and I said, I'll tell you tonight. And I said the same thing right around the percentage he actually got. And it has a lot to do with how much I've learned over the years of. You just. I'm a data. You say I'm a data guy. I look at the data. It is what it is. And the, the level of turnout that consistently was saying the turnout is going to be terrible. That didn't happen.

[B]

We actually did outdraw the Democrats last night. We're one of the few states that had more folks vote in the Republican primary than Democrats in the entire country this cycle.

[C]

So I was counting on all of things that you've taught the entire audience and, and I've, I've paid attention to about the, the size of the pie argument. I thought it didn't. It wouldn't take Trump bumping him up that much if Zaklon could not if, if it was. If the excitement was Zach and low and low turnout was already.

[B]

We're gonna have to get used to Lane.

[C]

I'm sorry. Yes. Was already baked into the cake.

[B]

Mm.

[C]

So I don't know if just those numbers were wrong. I don't know if we'll ever find out the numbers were wrong even before the Trump endorsement, but. Or if the Trump endorsement cut both ways. It helped him, but it also woke everybody up.

[B]

I think the answer is probably the latter for sure.

[C]

So that's the first thing about my analysis. I did think Feenstra was going to win right about with the number that he got. Secondly, you need to know that Steve never told Aaron or I what we had to say or do after his video. I respect what Steve did enough that I was not about. Like with everything else, he pretty much lets our going our way as long as we understand the fundamentals of our show in this job. So I, I did not do anything to counter it, say what I was going to do, and I just let it ride into the last. I told it myself in my spirit. Ultimately, the goal all along was to beat Randy Feenstra. But in the past, there is one on social media. Tactically, I disagreed with Zach Lane about one of the debates and him not being there. But other than that was a tactical difference of opinion. Ultimately, I ended up voting for Zach Claim. And I decided it yesterday morning when he responded to a tweet from Iowa Democrats who were hopping on articles that have been out there about Zach. And his response was, I don't really care what you have to say when you can't tell me the difference between a boy and a girl. That's a man who understands what time it is.

[B]

By the way, he mentioned that prevalently in his victory speech last night.

[C]

And I was just gonna say, and I watched that entire speech. I don't know if he wrote it, I don't know who wrote it for him, but it understood the assignment on multiple levels. It addressed some of the complaints against him, concerns that people that the left will use against him. Some people on the right had questions about that. But when it comes to that, once again, it's not just a girls sports issue, it's a reality issue. It's a fundamentals issue. If you can't get that right, I can't trust you about anything. And the guy who said that understands they're gonna call me Steve's point. I'm gonna get called all the names no matter what. So you're damn right I'm going to make sure that everybody understands when it comes to that gender bending nonsense, here I stand. So I proudly cast my vote because we're going to go down dark alleys both in this election and culturally, broadly. For a while now, we just had Jennifer say, talking about it, this fight ain't done. And if you can't get that right, I don't trust your guts on anything. So thank you, Zach, for that statement, inspiring me on that. That entire speech, it clearly inspired a lot of people. Let's go finish this thing. And now we fight.

[A]

I came to the same conclusion that Todd came to about Lane the eve of the primary. And it just came to boiled down to this. I just thought that he was going to need every single vote possible. I just, for whatever reason. Yes. I want to tell you, and that brings me to this as well, that the margin of victory in terms of raw votes was 1650 something, right? 1650. The town that I grew up in, in Iowa here, Lamona, Iowa. That margin of victory for Lane, significantly less than the small town that I grew up in, 2200 people. So, yes, I think the lesson here, whether or not you want to give Steve credit or TP USA credit or some combination of both. It was not only that strategic decision at the end. Let's just say you influenced 300 people, Steve, on Saturday night. Let's say that door knocking over the weekend from Turning point only influenced 300 people over the weekend as well. Yeah, it happened on Saturday night. What's going on still on Saturday nights in Iowa this time of the year? Graduation parties. What's going on on Sunday morning? Every part of the year, this part of the country?

[B]

Church.

[A]

Church. Everybody's talking about that at church. It's a combination of strategic decisions. Ballsy decisions, too. Strategic decisions. And an electorate. Enough of an electorate that is engaged enough to understand, you know what? We might lose everything. We might lose everything if we don't get the right guy in here. 1650 votes. That is the slimmest of slim margins in electoral politics. I mean, I guess you could get slimmer. I mean, but you wouldn't want that. And it was incredible to watch that coming in because I texted you when it looked like maybe Lane was going to end up winning by two to four points. I said, hey, this might be two to four points, but even if your thing on Saturday night was only worth a point and a half, we are sweating bullets here at the end. And it was still very close once. Potawatomi, that's bordering county to Omaha, I mean, Feenstra just killed it there. But this is just an illustration. You just cannot take anything off. Anything off. Any primaries, off.

[B]

Any.

[A]

Any wielding of influence off. You just cannot take that off. Whether you're a voter, whether you're somebody like Steve, whether you're an organization like Turning Point usa. You cannot just take anything for granted or take any nights off.

[B]

That's a homily right there, Aaron. So let me confess something. My immediate reaction after the President's endorsement, some of you called me out too. I got your notes. Notice I didn't say anything from hours, acting like it didn't happen. My initial reaction was, you know what, man? I have. I've exhausted a lot of my own political capital in this race, a lot of my time. It is what it is. I guess we just ride it out now. And if we see if people want to go with the King, and if they do, then we got to figure out how we're going to win from there. And if they don't, then hopefully the King will back us if we go our own way. But the process is. I was kind of a spent force on Friday. I was just going to just let it ride. I've done everything I could justify it as the amount of energy I've spent on this already and I just have to move on. And then I got up on Saturday and I realized that is a betrayal of everything I've said to you guys on this show for how long, not to mention myself. The way I'm wired is I don't spend a lot of time fretting over the things I can't control. I really don't. I spend my time navel gazing about the things that I can. And if I knew there was one, one more thing I could have done, and I did not do it. As we're into year two of Rob sand and remember those moderate ads he ran and now Avery agency head is a purple haired, nose ringed, you know, cat lady lesbian. Okay, I would have, I just, I would not have gotten over it. I'd have blamed myself. Some of my own friends would have blamed me. Some of you would have blamed me. Hey, did you really do everything you could? Why'd you let the, why do you say anything and let the conservatives keep splitting the vote, for example? And I just knew I could not make a decision based on what a handful of people who I care about and whose opinions I do respect, including Adams and his wife's, whether they would be disappointed or what have you. That as much as that would suck in the moment, the years of what the potential consequences could be. And I had no idea that this was going to be this close. None. There's just no way I could live with myself because I'd be upset that I did not really truly, I knew I did not really truly did everything I could. And so when one of Zach Lane's consultants named Jordan Gerke, this was his idea, and he brought me the idea on Saturday and I said, all right, let's do it. I asked my wife if she was okay with it. She says, listen, you promised you were gonna do everything you could to make sure Randy Feenstra did not hand the state to Rob Sand. Have you done everything you could? I said, everything but this. It's the last thing I have left. It's the last bull I have in the chamber. And I got to tell you, when I woke up the next morning after the video ran and I'm getting heat the minute it's coming out. But I'm. Let me tell you something. When I woke up the next morning, man, and did my pre church walk, that is the lightest I have felt in many a moon. Because I Just knew, okay, now I've done everything I can do. I'll live with the consequences. Now the Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And so why am I sharing this with you? Have you done everything you can truly to reconcile with that adult child of yours? Have you? Some of you. Unfortunately, the answer is yes. And there. And that's sad. And so that's where you're just like, you know, Mother Monica, praying for Augustine for 17 years, okay? But for some of you, the answer is not yes. You've done a lot. And it's hurt that it hasn't been responded to, but maybe there's one or two more things you could do that you haven't done that you could do. Did you do everything about what was going on in your kids, schools that you could do? Did you do everything you could to. To heal your marriage that you could do? Did you do that? And if you did, bad stuff happens. Poop happens. We live in a fallen world. We're all sinners. We're all constantly at war with the world, the flesh and the devil. So you're gonna take Ls, there's plenty of Ls to take in this world, but take them because of the state of the world, not because you did everything you could to change at least, at least a little part of the state of things. And that's my encouragement to all of you when we come back. We turn it over to you guys now with Buy, Sell, or Hold. Stay tuned. All right, back here with hour two. You may hear that swishing sound. I had to take talk radio steroids here during the top of the other top of the hour, otherwise known as a cough drop. All right, so I'm Steve Dase, he's Todders, and he's Aaron McIntyre. Let us know what you think about what we think via the stevedase.com inbox by emailing us steve dace.com that's D E A C E like us on Facebook, Me, we and Gab. You can follow me at steveday show on X Instagram and Tick Tock and then don't Forget, please, our YouTube channel. I'm sure that's why our numbers there never move. No matter how many books I sell, how many bestseller lists we get on, it's amazing. The YouTube numbers just never move. Somehow we are unable to reach the audience of the largest video platform on the planet, despite having a video platform. It's really crazy when you stop and think about it, isn't it?

[C]

It is.

[B]

We're just uniquely unable.

[C]

Did the courts also think it's crazy? Do you have any updates on that?

[B]

You know what? I finally had a breath this morning and realized I need to get. There's a few things I need to get some updates on. I had to, had to, had to fix my home. First. The house is about to fall apart. But now that I think the host has got at least a fighting chance, I've got. I've got a few straggling issues, and that's one of them. So stay on me about that to follow up, okay?

[C]

Okay.

[B]

So you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at day show. You can subscribe to the podcast as well. Many of you have. Tens of thousands of you guys have left us a five star review. Thank you for that. On your podcast platform of preference. All of those greatly help us with the algorithmic gods we all must these days serve. So thank you very much and thank you to Chef IQ as well. And when Chef IQ came on board about. What was it, Aaron? About two years ago?

[A]

Yeah, something like that.

[B]

And you were just getting into the meat smoking and all that kind of stuff. That's like one of your main hobbies right now?

[A]

I'd been into it for a while. Yeah. Still very ensconced in it.

[B]

So I'm like, you know what, man? Just like we gave you the water thing because your family's all, you know, athletes and running and stuff all the time. You would. You would run that thing ragged, right?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

This guy knew was gonna put this thing to the test. Let's see what it can really do. So after about two years of usage with the Chef iq, Aaron, what say you?

[A]

Well, I want to bring some show and tell today, because over the weekend I was asked recently to if I'd be willing to smoke some pulled pork for about 35 to 45 people. So that's kind of a big responsibility. And so I was asked to do this. So I got the pork butts all prepared. The problem is recently I have an excellent smoker, but recently, like the thermal temperature sensor, which is the temperature that basically gives the grill feedback about what the set temperature should be, has been on the fritz. So I don't know when I'm setting the temperature on the grill, what the actual temperature inside the grill is a bit of a problem. I learned this weekend, though, that the Chef iq, I've never had to use this feature or pay attention to this feature because I've never had this problem before. Chef IQ not only takes the internal temperature of the meat. It also provides feedback on what the thermal temperature is, which was invaluable, especially when you're smoking very large pieces of meat. For 35, 45 people who are expecting something, it's a big responsibility. I wouldn't, I don't think I would have been able to do this. So I shove the probes right into the butts there. And man, from what I heard, it worked out really, really well. And I'm just telling you, these things clean up really well. Typical meat thermometers, they have those long cords. They never clean up well. You can just, you can just clean these off, throw them in the dishwasher. They're clean, good as new. I just cannot say enough about Chef iq. It's like heated seats in the car. Once you experience it the first time, you're never going to go back.

[B]

Well, there you go. All right, so for Father's Day, they've got a big sale right now. 40% off. Should have used Code Aaron for that. All right, but it's Code Steve. All right, Code Steve to get 40% off for dad@Chef IQ.com 40% off for Father's Day at Chef IQ.com Promo code Steve, 40% off. Promo code [e-mail] Also want to say thank you guys for what has been a very successful launch for why Independence Day America is great Because God is good. The reviews from you guys as well are pouring in on the Amazon page. If you've not yet purchased your copy, we would greatly appreciate it. This is really the story of America that we skipped a generation telling the conclusion of my trilogy of children's books on America's Christian heritage. We're going to go through all of the history show why America's 250th birthday really was an event 3000 years in the making. So get your copy today. Why Independence Day? America is great? Because God is good. Make sure you get yours before they're gone and before the 4th of July. Why independence Day? America is great Because God is good. And thank you guys so much for the incredible launch of the book. All right, are we ready for some buy seller hold?

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

All right, the rest of the time now here. This segment is for you. We'll get through as many of these as we can. What remains, we will deal with in the overtime today. No topic is off limits. Aaron just determines whether you're. Whether you are within his limits or not. And then your. Our limits are going to get tested. Todd, when we decide, are we going to buy this or are we going to sell this? All right, if you use your hold, which is a. Which is permitted, but it is, It's. It's not advocated. It's essentially you outing yourself. You emasculating yourself like an NFL franchise during Pride month. Very. That's a good analogy indeed. Yes. So if you use your hold, you've got to think, you've got to find out what Lindsey Graham has been doing to self medicate ever since that supposed call between Trump and Bibi Netanyahu that went. That went viral over the weekend. What has Lindsey Graham been doing to self medicate? You got to find out for yourself. You're going to have to dig deep to get those answers, Todd.

[A]

Now, I. I never thought that I'd say this. You got to give it to Lindsey Graham, though. Did you see that attack ad that he put out against his primary opponent?

[B]

I did not, no. Did he come out swinging?

[A]

Oh, my goodness. That is devastating. So I guess his primary opponent has talked about how he teaches the Constitution. He knows the Constitution in and out. And he was on video camera being asked basic questions like, hey, if the vice president and the president are both killed, who takes over? Which amendment granted women the right to vote? Which amendment ended slavery? And he had, like. No, he had no idea.

[B]

Oh, boy. Yikes. Okay, well, first of all, props to that opponent that he scared Lindsay enough to get a pack at against him. Exactly, first of all. But yeah, all right, fire away, Aaron.

[A]

Let's go to SoCal Conservative who said with just the right amount of nostalgia, action comedy, and not taking itself too seriously, he man will be the one movie to convert Todd to the superhero genre.

[C]

You gotta be kidding me.

[B]

I love that we led with this. Phenomenal. Or as Jim Rome you say phenomenal.

[C]

Adult men should not go see he man full stop.

[B]

I'm a buy. I could see it. I could. I could see it. Now Todd won't go to the theater to see it, but I mean, I could. I could see Todd ers and, you

[C]

know, never see it.

[B]

Just kind of flipping channels and comes upon it. I got to see what this is all about. To grow up sometime, and then it wins them over. I could see it. No, I can see it. I might say this is one of the most insightful posts, Aaron, we've ever had here in the history of buy seller hold.

[C]

Who wrote this?

[A]

I already moved on.

[C]

If you aren't a homosexual now, I just pray you aren't one after you come out of this movie. Can I just say, that movie is so Obviously. Trucker Glock, Lindsey Graham. Come on.

[B]

Can I. Can I just say that. Listen, we have a serious uphill battle in these midterms, and we're all frustrated that Epic Fury is on day 96 with no end in sight. But there is some healing has taken place in America since 2024 because it is rightfully once again acceptable in mainstream circles that we roll in to cut somebody down. And by accusing them of being a homosexual or gay at some level, the fact that things can be gay again are indicative. We have made some progress in the culture, Doc. Some. Some progress has been made here.

[C]

And the odds that you will be gay again after seeing this movie, high.

[A]

Next we go to Tiger, who says there should be a new segment on the show up until November election in the spirit of fake news or not, called Talarico or Tucker.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[A]

In which Aaron picks various heretical statements made by one or the other. And Steve and Todd try to guess who said what. I'll start you off. God is not Christian. That sounds like Talarico to me, but I don't know.

[B]

I can't. That's gay. That's gay.

[C]

That's gayer than he, man.

[B]

I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't, man. Oh, man, that's painful. Oh, my gosh.

[C]

Bye.

[B]

Can't do it. I gotta sell. I got to. You know, here's. I understand. I need to take Tucker down. I know. I do. I know Darth Vader has to be defeated, but there's still good in him. I can sense it. I can feel it. Somewhere in there. Somewhere in there was the Anakin Skywalker we once knew. Somewhere in there. So he's got to be taken down, but not destroyed. There's. They're still good in there. I can sense it.

[C]

Maybe you should invite him to the he man movie and see if that helps.

[B]

He once told me he doesn't go to movies because he's got like this, like, flashing lights and all that kind of stuff. You know? What's that called? I can't remember. But yeah, what he told me once.

[A]

Jonathan says this submission might get him blocked.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[A]

He says it's time for American men to go big or go home in many parts of our lives in the current culture. So in that vein, I present Steve's Gerbil Emporium, Coming soon to a state fair near you. Thanks to Grok, I still don't know what any of this is about. So I have. I have no idea why this is even Offensive.

[B]

First of all, I look great in that photo, so thank you in that, AI. Thank you for that. I do. Todd's got just the biggest crap eating grin on his face I've ever seen. On his face. That's incredible. Proudly serving. Come on. Lindsey Graham stamp of approval. Oh, my. I'm gonna buy. I'm in. I'll buy for this.

[C]

Yeah, that's a hard sell.

[B]

I mean, not only are you not gonna get banned, I would encourage this to be, you know, something you update on a frequent basis. I'll buy.

[A]

Next we go to Trevor, who says this will make Steve pause and do the calculation on if it's worth being tear gassed. We have here is pumpkin spice tear gas. Steve, buy, sell, or hold.

[B]

Oh, buy.

[A]

You do the tear gas.

[B]

I would buy it as long as it's pumpkin spice. And you know what, guys? It's. It's officially June. I mean, it's gonna be pumpkin spice season before you know it. About 1 August is when that starts hitting the shelves.

[C]

I mean, you would be tear gassed for pumpkin spice. You. If the thermostat is 2 degrees too high, you declare a fatwa.

[B]

That's true.

[C]

So no, you would not be tear gas even for pumpkin spice.

[B]

Now what Todd can tell you, being in this studio with me alone, since Aaron's in the other room now and traveling with me a few times, is I will move the thermostat like 1 degree or 2 degrees back and forth all day long. Yeah.

[C]

No one's getting tear gassed for a damn thing.

[B]

It's like a specific temperature. And of course it shifts as the day gets colder or hotter. There's just a specific temperature. That's right. So I'll just, I'll shift it one or two degrees, like all day long. Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. There's this. There's this game that happens. Guys, is it really hot in here? And it didn't matter what we say. It's just like, I'm just gonna throw you. And he goes to it, does what

[D]

he's gonna do anyways.

[B]

That's very true. That's all very true. I can't. I. I have to own it. I mean, there's no lie. No lies are detected there. That's all true.

[A]

It is another fun one before we move on to more serious topics. Doe John Ryan says top moment from the future blockbuster Steve Day show origin story. Steve, played by Kevin James, exits the local peanut butter and marshmallow cookie shop to find Todd, played by Chris Hemsworth, waiting patiently a brief Pause until Todd exclaims, I like the way you run your rig.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

Certainly a sentence that exists.

[C]

I don't know. I don't know how I got the Chris Hemsworth treatment. You honor me, but that. That seems like a bridge too far. But, yeah, we should. I mean, like our. The classic ESPN commercials, you know, where they act like all the athletes, they work together in the office.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Like, we could. We could do some epic, like, behind the scenes, just commercials of what. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. You made me. It is true. I will ask. In the winter, is it too cold? Is it too hot in here? In the summer, is it too cold?

[C]

And there's not. It's.

[B]

And I'm just constantly switching it one or two degrees, like, all day long. I do it. I do it at home, too.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And Aaron and I don't answer you because we know the game. It's just how we. It's the dance.

[B]

It's.

[C]

Whatever. It is.

[B]

True. I don't even wait for an answer. I just ask it and then do it.

[C]

I mean, we could be saying, hey, man, I am. I got a cold here. I'm kind of dragging a little bit. And you would just like. I know I'd accept. You'd nod, turn around, and do what you're going to do anyways.

[B]

That's just.

[C]

And I'd appreciate it.

[A]

You could walk into the studio, hey, is it too warm in here? Todd could say, hey, Lindsay Graham is on the show today. Oh, okay.

[B]

Yes, exactly. Nothing deters me from moving the thermostat all day long between 1 and 2 degrees up and down. Yes, that's 100% true. Yeah.

[A]

TCTurtle says the LA mayoral race is important not because it may signal national headwinds for the midterms, but because LA is supposed to represent the pinnacle of American civilization, and for years it has been a dump. Changing that could raise national morale and patriotism.

[B]

I will buy. Because if Spencer Pratt were to win this, that would be the effect of it for. For sure. We would learn that there is a. There is a sell point. We were beginning to think. Well, and I still think. I mean, listen, Spencer Pratt has been incredible. I'm gonna still need to see it, though, because I. I still think there's a sell point or there's no sell point there. There's. That the partisanship is. Rot is so deep, but the fact it's gotten this far is a testimony that there is at least some level of yuck factor that Spencer has cleverly and brilliantly tapped into So I want this to be right, so I'll buy.

[C]

I agree with all of that in the meta, but I'm just going to sell and that it for him to have this success. It's. If Karen Bass believed all the things that she believes but was not an idiot, I mean, she's just not competent, we wouldn't be having this conversation. She just doesn't even know how to make the trains.

[B]

So in other words, if the, if the fire recovery had not been botched, but all the other same laments, the druggies, the homeless, we're not having this conversation.

[C]

And it's the same. And it's why here in Iowa right now, I'm just like everybody be very happy we get the opportunity we have with Zach Lane for the next couple of months. But again, it takes nothing away from Zach's victory to say that Randy, as you said, Steve was one of the worst candidates in Iowa political history. You know, so you don't overestimate the impact of a thing. You have to acknowledge how much more work you have to do. And it's just not. Suddenly things keep hope alive. Here we go. The jubilee year is here. It's not. It's going to take so much hard work if Zach wins and if Spencer wins to continue to keep the devil at bay.

[B]

We just. Listen, we just won the regional final. We're in the final four. Yeah, celebrate. We're in the final four, but that's not a national championship. And the next two games will be the hardest because now we're playing all the other good teams, too.

[C]

Don't oversell the victories because then you just get soft and you. You're not awake and you don't realize that you have. Now the work, in many respects really begins.

[B]

Yep. Agreed.

[A]

Next we go to Jason Heyman, who says because of the results in Iowa, Trump will not allow Iowa to be first in the nation caucus anymore.

[B]

There was some fear about this, but I'm going to sell based on some things and conversations I know about privately that I cannot relay to you. I am very confident, though. Let me say this. I think it's okay if I say this. I am very confident the president is gonna do whatever he can to help Zach Lane win in November. And I think it's possible the president also learned some things about Zach Lane that maybe he didn't know 24 or 48 hours ago. And I'll just maybe leave it at that. Is that okay?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Sean Anderson is next, who says the 2028 GOP presidential candidate will need to embrace Maha to win 10,000%.

[B]

Of course, this is the driving coalition moving forward will be Christian conservatives. In Maha, they're going to overlap more than they ever have before because the nanas and the mamas are overlapping and they're going to take the papas and Pop Pops with them. So yeah, this is going to matter more than it ever has before and especially if it's Governor Lane. These are his signature issues. So they're going to be on the front burner in our state constantly. Just like when we led, if you guys remember, in the 2012 cycle, that was coming off what we did with the judges, right? And now these presidential candidates are getting questions about judicial supremacy and judicial authority that had never been asked in a caucus cycle before because of what had just happened in our state. Same stuff is going to happen if Zach gets elected with the Maha stuff. And even if he doesn't, he won the nomination for the party, which indicates there's a critical mass of voters responding to that message. The one thing I saw watching Zach's victory party from afar last night was how young that room was. I would have been on the old, I'm 52. I'd have been on the older edge of who was in that room for sure. All right, a lot of it looked like Aaron's peer group even a little younger. So yeah, not going anywhere.

[A]

Next. Hopefully this doesn't come across as self serving, but Danic Bain says Steve Dace is. Steve's tactical move to oppose Freezer at the very least saved Iowa from a contentious recount. Lane won by 1652 votes. Recount within about 325 votes.

[B]

So again, I'm not going to sit here and do the false self deprecation when I screw up. I'll tell you the reality is Zach thanked me personally on numerous occasions. His staff thanked me personally on numerous occasions. They all acknowledged to me and to each other there's no way this happens without that video we put out. But here's what so clearly it made a huge difference. Now two things though, you need to know. The video is not my idea. In fact, it wasn't even on my to do list for the weekend. As I mentioned earlier, one of Zach's consultants named Jordan Gerke, who I've known for years because everybody kind of knows everybody if you're been in politics for a while. He came to me with the idea on Saturday, so it wasn't even my idea. Secondly, Zach's campaign had to put himself in a position for something like that to work. Understand that a complete unknown had to come from nowhere against a presidential endorsement at the very end as well. Against the endorsement of the family Leader. That is the most powerful. Let me just. Let me give you an example. The family Leader's prominence in our state. So we have a Powerball winner in our state legislature who hates the Family Leader. He's a complete rhino Republican. What was he one of only two or three to vote with the trainees and against us in the last legisl. Last couple legislative sessions. Wasn't it, Todd?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. And. And so this guy is a. He's a multimillionaire, can self fund in a self legislation in a legislative race. The family leader took a fine young man named Austin Stubbs I had lunch with. But he's a. He's just starting out in life. You know, he's up against a Powerball winner and all he had was the family Leader. They beat this guy by 40 points in that state legislative primary last night. 40 points. 40 points. So Zach Lane had to overcome not having the support of that organization, not having the. To start with, not having the support of the. Of the Trump organization. To end with his team had to run an incredible campaign and do a terrific job of messaging to be in the position for me to help them with something like that. If they had not done that and I'd have cut the same video. It doesn't move any critical mass of votes at all. It moved a critical mass of votes because my phone blew up over the next 24 hours of people telling me, I really like Zach. He's my second choice anyway. And based on what you told me, I'm fine with my second choice so that we. It's better than losing the state. He had to put himself in position to do that. This time last year, none of us knew what a Zach Lane was. None of us knew. So yes, it did make the difference, but things had to happen for that difference to be made possible.

[C]

And the crazy thing is the biggest thing that had to happen, unless you haven't said anything on or out the air, but this happened because Trump got involved at the last.

[B]

That's another point.

[C]

None of it is.

[B]

I've never done it. If Trump got. If the Trump endorsement had not gotten involved because I didn't have to Zach. That's another great point. Yeah. Zach's campaign put him in such a strong position that he was. It looked he was gonna win without the Trump endorsement. I had to do this because the Trump endorsement reshuffled the deck at the last minute. So that's another point to Zach and his campaign team. That's a great point, Todd. Thank you. Yes.

[A]

I don't know if this is, I have a question. I don't know if this is part of the strategy or it's just a natural, kind of a natural byproduct of the strong message that Lane tapped into and the fact he was able to reinforce that with self funding while driving up his name ID and things of that nature. But because of that strong message, he was, from my perception, he was never really in the place where it was necessary to try to siphon off votes by force from Adam Steen. So there was no real between the supporters of both. From my vantage point, there was no real ill will between both of them. That cell that you made on Saturday night would have been a lot harder to do if they would have tried to. If their supporters were douchebags, if the campaign themselves were douchebags towards Adam, whether it was part of the strategy or natural byproduct of the fact that they had a strong message. There was no ill will between the two camps of voters.

[B]

I should say that's another great point. This was a well run campaign. I mean, if I'm Vice President Vance and this was a trial run to see how my team does here in an Iowa caucus moving forward or a presidential election, I'd come away fairly feeling pretty good about the team I have in place. This was a very well run campaign.

[A]

Next, Paul Lowe says, sorry, we have a feature on our zoom machine that whatever the last person or the last image of the.

[B]

So the pumpkin spice, the tear gas is going to be after the whole.

[A]

No, that was Jennifer say whatever the last image of her hanging up is. That's. And I accidentally pressed the wrong button. We have it set to freeze instead of black. Paul Lowe says Feenstra's slim loss coupled with the Texas runoff results is confirmation that Congress and Senate fatigue is stronger than Trump endorsement in the Republican primaries. Paxton benefited from both. Roy suffered from both. Feenstra proved which was stronger.

[B]

This is a great analysis. I've said many times already, listen, Chip Roy has beaten Trump in a primary. He beat abortion Barbie to win his district the first time. And it was a new district. It had just been redrawn. So it wasn't necessarily some place that was his own political stronghold where he was well known. Chip Roy, this cycle was up against something he's never faced before being Congressman. Chip Roy was just too big of an albatross to come across and yeah. There's no doubt about it. I mean Randy Feenstra would have allowed Rob sand to nationalize this race and just. And just essentially say Randy Feenstra is a construct of everything about Congress that you hate and doesn't. That you think hates you. Zach has a messaging issue that is completely detached from the national reality and allows him to run. Pardon me. Now it won't be. He won't be able to completely decouple from it because we're a partisan process and he's a Republican. But. But he has. He's offering voters a reason to vote for him regardless of what you think is going on in Washington D.C. that Randy Feenstra simply was never going to offer. So this is great analysis by.

[C]

I'm just going to use this opportunity to say I was. I was concerned. As you know, I said. Iowa seems to be prepared to say hold my beer, Texas. We're going to be the suckiest red state in the. No. Texas. You still got it.

[B]

Well, that's another point for Erzin. We get to troll Texas some more after last night too.

[C]

And I will.

[B]

That's really what we did all this for just so we didn't have to apologize to the state of Texas. It was really just about all.

[C]

Scoreboard.

[B]

Yeah, you guys. Yeah, we do. Good point, Todd.

[A]

Sturdy Oak says Todd will be drawn into full fledged sports prodom throughout the World cup this summer.

[B]

I'll defer. You would know you.

[A]

I'm gonna buy. I'm a total buy.

[C]

So.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

But again you don't. I. You're it. You're not a sports bro because you watch a game at. At all. And I.

[B]

You're a sports bro because all you do is watch the games.

[C]

Yes. And. And I know you. None of a lot of you idolaters can't handle that distinction. So you go right ahead and watch a soccer game. I am certain I will watch a soccer game.

[B]

I am certain that watching soccer is idolatrous. But.

[C]

But. And to be fair, that's not even a. That's not a troll of.

[B]

That's a long held position. That is a long held position.

[C]

The one of my clever. One of his most clever statements from the very beginning. It is the leisure arm of the one World government. I think he's consistent on this. I have no. I have no problem.

[B]

I'm a consistent hater. Respected.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Respect my bias.

[C]

But just now we're living in the time when the NFL is happy to come off the top rope and be as gay as you want to be. As we speak.

[B]

So just like it is true, I am ashamed. I can't. I have no defense for my sport. I don't have a defense. It is true. I'm ashamed. Which means I might have to watch a World cup match. I might have to penalize myself with a World cup match this summer.

[C]

That's. You know what we should see. Like this, the off air stuff we could do. We should go film Steve at. Steve here. No, they have them here in Des Moines at a. The watch party for when Team USA plays just at the soccer game. That would be something.

[A]

How are they coming on that? The downtown soccer stadium, by the way, Todd, It's.

[C]

It's happening.

[B]

But that's unfortunate.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Next we go to Aaron Realy, who says one of the biggest bad choices this country ever made was stopping making appliances in cars. Durable and effective as they used to be.

[B]

Well, totally agree.

[A]

If you want a car that will last like a long time, it's almost exclusively Japanese. Now.

[B]

That's. You know, we have a town not too far from here called Newton, Iowa, which used to be the home to Maytag. And you know, it's just, it's tragic what's happened to that entire Jasper county area since they left here. It's been almost 20 years. We still haven't recovered. May never recover.

[C]

I was talking to the Verizon guy yesterday, Aaron, and I was telling him about your whole planned obsolescence.

[A]

Oh, it's real thing.

[C]

Yeah, we were talking about that. It was the most amazing experience. The local guys at our Verizon were incredibly helpful, but they were online with the loyalty department, which was in Bangladesh or something like that.

[B]

Oh my gosh.

[C]

And they knew they weren't talking to just a customer. They were talking to their own Verizon people. They were purposely pretending that they couldn't hear them. They said, hello, Hello? We cannot hear you on the phone. And the local Verizon guy says, I know you're lying to me. I'm going to file a complaint with you tomorrow. Hello? I can't hear you. Hello? It was so. There's planned obsolescence going on on numerous levels.

[A]

All right, quickly before the break. Hamfists, which is an Anon account from New Zealand who has very been very upset with me and the rest of the show for giving the Iran conflict the time of day because oil prices are up in New Zealand. Buy, sell or hold. Unbiased political analysis of any sort requires no free trips or free gifts from Washington or anywhere else.

[B]

I don't disagree. That's why I paid for the entire thing out of pocket. I paid for the airfare, I paid for the hotel. I mean, they let me, they gave us a meal, but I paid for the whole thing out of pocket. I don't disagree. That's why I paid for it.

[C]

There you go. There's your answer.

[B]

All right. More in a moment. The steve day show. So yesterday was kind of a long day. Got up, Woke up at 5am youngest daughter's car stalled on the way to work in the middle of the road. I was already looking at a really long day. Got a lot longer, a lot of time on my feet. Still had to finish my 75 hard, get all my steps in for the day. Woke up this morning and on top of losing my voice, my back was sore. And I'm like, you know what, man? Before I even brushed my teeth, I grabbed that Rolling Power mini massager from Chirp. Like, would you tell me the other day this is what 52 feels like? Is that what you told me the other day?

[C]

I think I said, this is what, 53.

[B]

I'm not 53.

[C]

That's me.

[B]

Yeah, that's you. I'm getting there. I'll be there. Just wait. Yes. It's even worse. Yes. All right, so when I tell you I use these things too, it's true, you know, I. As best I can. I can't always do it, you know, but as best as I can, I try everything I can to make sure I don't recommend something to you guys that I haven't tried myself or that I don't use myself. That's just one of the preventative health devices and treatments that's available for you from our friends over at Chirp. All right. They've got an entire product line you want to check out. And preventative health is key to get active and then as we go get older, to stay active because your body does not rebound as fast as it used to when you were younger. Right. So that's why you want to check out the Chirp Contour, which combines spinal decompression with soothing massage, relaxing heat to ease pressure, loosen those stiff muscles. I just mentioned the Rolling power mini massager, the rpm. They've got several other treatments and devices there that you can check out and get a discount. 10% off your first [e-mail] Steve C H I R P C H I R P Like a. Like a birdie Chirp. Go Chirp.com Steve that's go Chirp.com Steve let's welcome in the prophet of woe and lamentation, Daniel Horowitz. And I'm thinking we might get a legit smile out of him today. Not just gallows humor, but I, maybe even a touch of unbridled optimism. Because I know, Daniel, that one of the races that you were looking at the closest was my home state governor's race. I saw you even say recently that you thought this was one of the chances to elect a, quote, Desantis level governor, end quote. Which from the, listen from the, from the desk of Daniel Horowitz is about the highest praise that can politically be given. All right, so your thoughts on these results last night and why you're so high on him as a candidate in particular.

[D]

Steve, we got to savor these Wednesdays. There aren't going to be too many like it, not before, not after. But we got it today. You know, obviously it's, it's not every day this happens. You, you beat out a Trump endorsement, you know, narrow majority, narrow plural plurality, but it was, it was good. And I think the issue here is, it's, it's not so much even about Trump's endorsement or, you know, who he endorsed and what Feenstra was and who he represented, but it was what Zach ran on. I tell everyone, you don't even need to look at what he ran on. You could watch his 45 minute interview with me that, you know, I go very, very in depth.

[B]

But he, we talked about that last night, by the way. Zach and I discussed that last night. He's like, man, that guy asked some really in depth questions. He knows his stuff. All right, so yeah, he, we, we talked.

[D]

He was able to handle it. And, but that's where, when I say a Desantis level conservative, he knows what time it is, knows the philosophy behind it, knows how to deal with what do you do when you believe in Austrian economics as we do, but then we have antithetical to it for two generations and then we have corporate monopolies screwing our quality of life and our freedoms and our safety and health. What do you do with that?

[B]

And he explained to the audience why there's that tension because now we're going to need some force to re level the playing field that's been disabused, which kind of goes against your natural instincts in Austrian economics. And so we can't turn that into like a religion and act like it doesn't. It's impervious to the natural world. And so when, when these various theorems that we all believe in, that all helped Our formed our political worldviews when they get disabused in a for a generation and now they, now they no longer can sufficiently answer all of the questions we need answered. We need to do some things so we can get back to those things. But, but so what do we do? That's where that tension comes in that you're describing, right?

[D]

Yep. So in his 12 minute victory speech, he starts it off. The first thing is usually I'm going to lower taxes, low regulations, security. He talks about we're losing Iowa's farms, talks about the land use, talks about Big Ag, which you know has been sacrilege in that area, talked about them hiring illegals, then goes on to cancer and the poisoning of our food supply. You know, that is not, again, that is not the boilerplate you hear from typical candidates, especially ones that are that viable, that have personal wealth to put in. And that was his message. And if you understand what I've been pushing the last, particularly the last year is the land use, the data centers, transhumanism, privacy, quality of life issues and obviously medical freedom and health. To me I said that is not just the future of the right, but that is the future to divide the Democrat Party and start a new movement. And then after he articulated that, he takes a hatchet right to rob sand and says this guy's in bed with every one of those special interests. That is a speech that Randy Fincher couldn't have given. And that's a speech that frankly, most of the Republicans.

[B]

No, they're competing for the same special interest.

[D]

Yes. That's why, let's be honest, Ashley Hinson, side by side, can't give that speech either. But she's lucky that she'll benefit from him being at the top of the ticket.

[B]

Oh, we, if we were running Feenstra and Hinson against Turek. Turek and sand are going to be the best duo the Democrats have nationwide. They're running legitimate, mainstream 1980s, 90s Democrat talking points, not the crazy stuff. All right, if, if we'd have lost that Senate seat if that was, if, if that was the dynamic at the top of the ticket, she has an opportunity now, way more of an opportunity to hold that seat for our side with a message ironically that she probably doesn't really want to run on, which is kind of ironic, but you know, politics does make for strange bedfellows.

[D]

So, so that's, that's number one that Zach's messaging like you don't have to be just monkey see, monkey do with Trump and the Trump Establishment and the MAGA establishment, the GOP establishment. Nor do you have to be a griper retard. That is the model, that is the model we saw in Florida. They're you know, doing food testing there. Some other exciting things they're doing there. Abolishing property taxes, which he talks about too. You could actually do that. But then there is the second half. That's a little bit of a damper on the ability to replicate this. And that is a message. He had the message. But if you don't have the money, it's like having a bullet without a gun. No one hears about it. So even in a state like Iowa, you don't need tens of millions. But I believe he put in 2 million and then that enabled him to run a competent campaign. Maybe raised another million million million and a half. Maybe not quite as much as Feenstra and didn't have as much name ID going into it, but that was enough, enough by 3/4 of a point. Now you go to South Dakota, which was my other big hope, John Hansen, who had a similar campaign. Not only that, he had a history of doing that as speaker in the House. And he came up short. He came up short because he had $250,000 and it's, it's, it's follow the money. And in that case the guy who had the money as a self funder is big in with the data centers and the special interests and even though he runs on MAGA like all them do, but you know, you're not going to get that from him. So that's South Dakota and that's what, what we're probably going to see elsewhere. The final thing I'll say about it is I do believe there's a difference when Trump comes in initially and this is his person to clear the field versus coming in a, you know, a few hours before the, the voting. And I think that's what you saw with Ashley Hinson. You know, we could debate what Carlin would have gotten or not gotten, but clearly that was from the get go. That made a big difference. It'll be interesting to watch in South Carolina where it's somewhere in between. Trump endorsed this Rhino at the same time he endorsed Feanstra. But they get another week to, to vote there. So I'll be watching South Carolina as the next race. But the point is this is what the movement ought to be. This is the message it ought to be. But it's not going to happen on its own unless the relevant organizations a put in money behind people like that and B, try to sever the biblical cord a little bit with Trump, meaning you don't have to attack, attack him, but just look a little bit outside of what he's talking about on a given day to perhaps excite the voters on something that not only excites the base, but clearly gives you a leg up against Democrats.

[B]

I mean, I think you can just do that by essentially running passionately on the issues that his, that his base thinks define him. Whether he is always consistently following those in practice or not is where we can all debate into what level that is and how much of it's pragmatism and how much of it is just, you know, empty messaging, blah, blah, blah. But nevertheless, it is what our base loves the most about him is that messaging so essentially running on, you know, just 100 proof, unfiltered, unvarnished, no chaser level. I mean, Zach was running on no more data centers. We're not doing any, no more H1B visas.

[D]

All right?

[B]

We're not having all these illegals at all the meat processing plants. I mean, this is, this is, these are, these are the reasons people have voted for Trump for the last 10 years.

[D]

He essentially just saw that in Iowa. Yeah, as you well know.

[B]

Yes, he just essentially ran on the, on the purest, most unvarnished form of, of Trump's perceived agenda. And people responded to it once he reached a critical mass of, of name ID and mindshare.

[D]

That's the formula right there. Because it was, it was jarring how side by side. So if you look at Ashley, I think got 74% of the vote. If you do the math, that means that two thirds of the anti Feinstra vote also voted for Ashley. So again, I mean, in my view, there's, there's no difference between Feenstra and Ashley Hinson. But again, money and name ID, they see the Trump endorsement from day one. Carlin has no money. She outspent him 11 to one. You know, it follows the laws of political gravity and, and voters see what they want to see. If you have a really quality message and you have the money to deliver it, they'll, they'll respond, they'll see, wow, there's something I really like. There's excitement there. The question is, how do we, how do we replicate that?

[B]

I think there's two other paradigm shifts that I talked about earlier. I want to get your take on Daniel. Within my native tribe of Christian conservatives, we're still the, in terms of sheer numbers, the dominant voting bloc in the party. I think you're watching a new coalition form which what's the post Trump world going to look like when his Persona is not overpowering, when we don't have the most famous person in the world before he became president, then ascending to the presidency on top of that. And I think you're watching and I think Zach's kind of the tip of the spear of this, the fusion of Maha with Christian conservatives. And I really see this, I saw Alex Clark post about this on X from TPUSA this afternoon or this morning. The amount of nanas and, and meemaws and ma and, and you know, and mamas in, in that I know within Christian conservatives, conservative world who are completely looking at all these issues differently. Post covet is extraordinary. I, I do think this is a driving coalition moving forward now. It's going to put it at odds just as immigration put, put that, that previous base at odds with much of the donor base of this party. This is going to do the same and I will be fascinated to see how that navigates itself moving forward.

[D]

The food, the meatpacking and you know this from your entire life, the, the big farming interests, I mean again, they're all behind this stuff. They're behind illegal immigration too. That's why you've had more of the Joni Ernst type of Republican represent.

[B]

It's why we can dominate the state legislature and everything within the state, but we can't get anybody good elected to federal office. This is why.

[D]

Yeah, you can't. And it's not just Iowa. It's that entire part of the country. It's the, the Great Plains, you know, the Dakotas, Idaho, Montana, you name it. It's, it's the same thing. And, and Zach was running on being a champion of rural America, not the special interests that hijack it. And I think that really is the emerging issue and to your point of the Christians with, with medical freedom part of where and I said this during COVID it's even in our book. This is a pro life issue. You could debate the economics and the regulatory capture of how we got to a point where the market check and balance on safety broke, but it did. And, and, and the more we find out with medical products, with stuff in the water and clearly stuff in the food that, you know, the Florida government's now testing and finding arsenic and aluminum and all sorts of things. This is a pro life issue. You know, it's not, it's whole life. It's not just when you're in the womb. It's certainly when you've lived a beautiful life. The way Zach is articulate, if you remember, I don't have the exact quote, but we have people dying and I, I could relate to this. Friends, family, everywhere at 60 years old, cut down in the prime of their life when their parents live till 80. That, that's, I think that's what he said. And losing an entire generation of wisdom

[B]

because they're dying at 60.

[D]

Yeah, that is, that is the essence of pro life. You can't just sit by now. We're not these unicorns. I'm going to cure all cancer. I'm going to cure that. No, no, but this above baseline insanity of everyone getting cancer, everyone I know, and it's all over the place. Obviously they have statistics on Iowa being the fastest growing, but it's everywhere. There clearly is something between environment, food products, chemicals. Exactly. The distribution of that we have to get a hold of. But if you're going to have a department of health in a state that is your core job not to tell people what to do, but to at least go and give informed consent and test and say, look, this is what we're seeing. Do with it what you want. I could tell you most Republicans won't want to do that because those interests are all Republican donors.

[B]

Final thing. I've got two minutes. Really quick. It seems like we are at the juncture of the Iran operation. I feared from the beginning that. I think that, I really do think the President thought there was going to be a deal to be made here, and I just never did. Precisely because they're the demoniacs that he calls them. I just, I just didn't. And so it seems like he's been trying to find this third way, and there's not a third way. We got to choose one of these two ways. All right? We got to take the Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz option and just decide we're going to blow these people to smithereens and then, you know, hope like hell the country doesn't descend into sectarian violence because we have no idea who takes over after. Or there's the Oron McIntyre way, which is, I'm tired, boss, time to come home. But then we're constantly looking over our shoulders and wondering, okay, when do they, you know, come back and say on second thought on that deal or launch a terrorist attack? I, I just don't see a clear way out here with, through the negotiating process. What are your thoughts? Quickly.

[D]

I agree with you. And this is why I've made the decision to oppose all engagements until there's some sort of paradigm shift because we just never do it right. Even though I do believe Iran is a threat. But the reality is I knew we would get all the liabilities of this war, but none of the benefits from it. And I think that's embodied from what, what you see Trump calling Israel off when they caught Iran by surprise last year, but then going in full force this year, but then pulling them off of going after Hezbollah. And then Israel gets accused of. Of dragging us into the war, and everyone in America who supports them get accused of being traitors. And the way to end this is at some point we just have to by default, pull the plug. Tell Israel we're not going to subsidize you, we're not going to get in your way and let them handle it.

[C]

That's.

[D]

That's what needs to happen.

[B]

Well, that'll be fascinating because the decouple crowd, I'm not sure that they. Decoupling means what they think it means. I mean, they seem to want us to put Israel on a leash at the same time, we have no relationship with them. I don't know exactly how that works. I guess I don't know.

[D]

But no, they like the Saudi Qatari view that we should continue subsidizing them and giving them fighter jets, but not Israel. But then tell Israel they can't defend themselves when.

[B]

Right, right.

[D]

That sort of thing.

[B]

Good to see you, my friend. Thank you.

[D]

Alrighty. Take care.

[B]

You bet. We're gonna stick around and finish buy seller hold for all of our subscribers out there. For the rest of you, see you tomorrow. Go hard. Romans 8, 28.

[C]

Sa.