Loading summary
Transcript15 lines
- [00:00]
A
Trump's favorite Islamophobe is officially not returning to Congress next year. Hey, guys, it's Brendan Hartnett with the Bulwark. Here with Bulwark Takes, I'm joined by Lauren Egan, author of the Opposition Newsletter and our resident Tennessee correspondent. We're here to talk about what happened in a primary in Tennessee last night. But before we do, make sure you smash that, like, button and subscribe to the Bulwark for more content like this. Before we get to the results, Lauren set the stage for us. Who is Andy Ogles?
- [00:24]
B
I think Andy Ogles is probably the worst member of Congress. And I recognize that's an incredibly low bar, but I genuinely, genuinely think he is just objectively like, a piece of shit. He's essentially a white nationalist. People might have heard of him because earlier this year, he was tweeting off a bunch of really Islamophobic and racist things. I wrote a piece about it at the time, earlier this spring. For me, I think the most disturbing story about him. Have you heard about this GoFundMe situation with him? Okay.
- [00:52]
A
Yeah. It's so insane.
- [00:54]
B
Yeah. I think this is worth, like, digging into for a second before we, like, get into the results. So, basically, I think it was, like, 10 or 12 years ago, I think 2014, Angie Ogles lost a child, stillborn child, and he started this GoFundMe account, which he said it was going to be, to create this garden for other families that have lost kids who have had stillborn kids. Basically, this beautiful garden where you can go and remember your child, whatever. Like, great community, nice idea. That's fine. Creates this GoFundMe, raises $25,000. The garden doesn't exist. There's never been a garden created, and Andy Ogles has refused to say what happened to that money. So basically, from, like, in my opinion, he just kind of prayed off people's vulnerabilities, and we don't know what happened to this money. And then he just went on and got elected to Congress. And, yeah, essentially he's a horrible person. So not that. Not that many tears shed for him after last night.
- [01:50]
A
Yeah, I mean, he just seems like a scumbag all around and, like, a uniquely bad one. In fact, he's, like, even been condemned by some Republicans at times. In June this year, he fired off a tweet that said homosexuality has no place in America. Happy Nuclear Family Month, which I believe is a reference to Tennessee making June not Pride Month, but Nuclear Family Month. Sounds like things are going great down there.
- [02:14]
B
Yeah, Great parade for it. No It's. It's the dumbest thing ever. Like, it's just no one. Whatever. It's stupid. But that's. That's entirely his whole personality.
- [02:24]
A
Damn. I mean, he even got shit from Republicans, like, who were telling him that, like, saying, this is super fucked up. I think eventually he decided to blame an unnamed staffer, if I recall correctly saying that they sent it and not him. But, I mean, one.
- [02:40]
B
It's always good when you're blaming staffers. Like, always a good day when you have to blame your staffer. Yeah, I Like, he doesn't do anything in Congress either. And, you know, we can. We'll get into the. How his district has shifted, but I live just outside of his old district. I've never seen him around the community. He's not present at all. I genuinely think he just sits there and essentially, like, drafts up really offensive tweets and just tweets for a living, basically.
- [03:06]
A
One other one. And you've done some reporting on this is back in March, he said, Muslims don't belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie. Which is just, like, so insane to me because that's like, counter to everything that America is supposed to be about. But you went. He's got actually Muslim, like, a real Muslim constituency in. I don't know if it's also his new district, but definitely in his old district. Right.
- [03:26]
B
And you went there in the old district. A little Curtis sand, which is this part of Nashville. Nashville has a huge Kurdish population. I think it's the biggest actually in North America. And so there's this neighborhood in Nashville, it's called Little Kurdistan. Great Kurdish restaurants, Kurdish markets, the whole thing. And that was. Fell into his old district. So he's. When he's tweeting these things off earlier this year, he's doing so as he has this huge Muslim constituency and just, like, does not give a shit. And so I went there when he. This was all going down earlier this year and talked to a lot of his Muslim constituents who were all just like, yeah, we know that this man is insane, but please don't quote me on the record because I'm really terrified that he's going to, like, come after me, which is just, like, a crazy thing to say about the person who is supposed to be representing you in Congress. Like, it was just, you know, for me personally, like, I live in. I live in Nashville. This is. This is my home. It was just, frankly, like, really, really deeply upsetting. And I just felt so horrible for these people who were like, yeah, I Know that my met. My member of Congress wants me to leave this country. I know it sucks and I'm scared for my safety here.
- [04:45]
A
Jesus. Just horrible. That brings us to Thursday when Tennessee had their primary and Andy Ogles lost by a spectacular seven points to some, some guy. I don't even remember his name. I'll let you say more about that. But he was Trump endorsed and yet he fell in a really conservative district. And it's seems pretty crazy to me.
- [05:05]
B
Yeah, it was definitely a surprise. I'll make a few points about this one. Andy Ogles is really fucking lazy. Like he did not campaign. He basically spent no money. I don't know if he ever held campaign events. I never saw anything like he didn't really try in this race. I think he thought Trump endorsed him and that that was going to be enough. And I will say, like, Trump's endorsement felt a little half hearted. It's not like Trump came to the state and campaign for him, but like, why would you. It's a primary, you know, like he should have cruised through this primary. And that's kind of what everyone was thinking going into it. I think that this was kind of like a natural experiment of whether the Trump endorsement is the only thing you need in Republican politics. If you are an asshole, you raise no money and you are seen as corrupt. And the answer last night clearly is no. And that I think is probably a pretty good sign for the country. Again, not like Trump came and campaigned for him. So I think there's some limitations to how we can kind of frame that up. But that's how I'm thinking about what went down last night.
- [06:10]
A
And the other example that I think would prove that a Trump endorsement is everything is that that if you have a Muslim sounding name as a candidate in Michigan's, I believe 8th District did. And despite having Trump's endorsement lost to a guy who like already had dropped out of the race but had a super white WASP sounding name and I like so yeah, no, I completely agree. Well, Trump took the truth social today and he wrote last night was a good. Another good night for endorsements. 8 and 1 and 1 was a person who I remained loyal to even though he had virtually no chance of winning and was running against a great Trump candidate and former Agricultural Commissioner of Tennessee named Charlie Hatchner. Trump wishes him good luck. But like it's, it is really remarkable now that we're seeing a few different times Trump's endorsement is failing to really, you know, get candidates across the finish line.
- [06:58]
B
Yeah. And like him claiming that he had no chance of winning is just obviously not true. The conventional wisdom even going into the Thursday primary was that Andy Ogles was going to win this race. Republicans thought that and Democrats thought that Everyone had kind of, you know, Tennessee's primaries, obviously one of these later primaries in August. So you have to start gaming out general election beforehand. And Democrats and Republicans were approaching the November race as if it were going to be Andy Ogles on the ballot. So this was a pretty big surprise to people that live here, to folks on the national stage as well. Like Trump is just wrong about how he had no chance of winning this.
- [07:39]
A
Interesting. Interesting. I didn't fully realize that. But yeah, it's a good point. I mean, it wasn't it was seven points, which is, you know, a real win. But it's, you know, in a primary you can make that up. I think.