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Ryan Grusky
Welcome back to A Numbers Game with Ryan Grusky. Thank you all for being here. Again, I forgot to mention this on Monday's show, but I want to thank all the veterans. It was Veterans Day on Tuesday. It's a problem of mine where I just don't look like three days ahead and to see there's a big holiday. So I missed saying it, you know, the day before. But happy Veterans Day to all the veterans out there. Thank you for your service, for you know, joining our armed forces and keeping our nation free. I appreciate everything you have done and do so anyway, hope you guys had a great day. I want to briefly talk about some economic news before doing a full Ask Me Anything segment. So Goldman Sachs is estimated that the economy lost on 50000 jobs in October. Now that's not the official government data because because of the government shutdown there was a delay getting out the official data. So we don't know the official data yet. But this is just an estimate. I'm going to do an episode next week dedicated to the economy and I am going to have another whole episode on a the government which would be really, really good. I think I've lined up a very impressive guest for that show. So that'll be next week. And I got to get more on immigration because there's so much immigration news. But I looked at my emails and I was backed up on Ask me Anything and I was like some of these questions are so dated. I have to just do a whole episode and kind of empty the inbox because I really appreciate you guys. I appreciate you joining the Ask Me Anything segment. By the way, before the end of the year, I'm going to bring on one of my old campaign buddies to discuss anything about running for office or you know, campaigns or like the meat and potatoes of campaigns. Not just like the overall ide of politics or a big meta issue but just like what it's like to work on a campaign, how to run for office, all those real meat and potato questions. I think you guys really enjoy that episode. I did it like early, early in the year when I first episode. So I'm going to do it again. I hope you guys will be part of it and do a whole Ask me Anything just about campaigns and working on in politics and what that whole thing is like, so email me ryan@NumbersGame podcast.com ryan numbers plural game podcast.com put in the headline campaign episode. I'll be sure to answer all those questions. And then once again, ask me anything. Because we do, we love this part of the, of the show. It really makes the whole entire podcast, you know, about. Anything about. About, you know, I feel like a dialogue. I'm not just talking to a computer. So, okay, here goes. Ask me anything for the day. So first question comes from E. Cardalis. He says, my family took, took a trip to Washington, D.C. about 10 years ago. All of my travel research and tourist books made a point to not having a floor plan of the White House and stated that the location, the Oval Office has not been released to the public. I actually did not know that with the mo. With the recent ballroom outrage, I've seen a number of images that show the exact location, shape and size of the Oval Office. Until this week, I didn't know that it was in the White House. Rather, it. It is in the West Wing. It wasn't in the White House. It's in the West Wing. When did the location, the Oval Office become something people didn't try to protect? I actually had never heard of that before because I feel like there's models of the White House that you could buy and the West Wing is there and the Oval Office is there. I didn't, I didn't know that that was not supposed to be public. I feel like it was. There was a movie called Civil War that was released a couple of years ago. It was, There was a war, obviously. Civil War, new Civil War. And they were invading the White House and they went through, like, door to door, floor to floor, to get to the west, to the, get to the Oval. And I was watching my buddy John McEntee, and John was Trump's body man and then the head of PPO during the first term of the administration. And one thing John said to me was like, wow, they really got this very accurate. Like, this is extremely accurate, the layout of the White House. So I feel like it was. I feel like it was there. Like, I feel like people could have gotten a hold of it. I don't know, maybe this is the one tour guy or maybe this is the one book that says that the Oval Office is not located, but I feel like it probably was. And about the outrage in general, look, Dan Turntine said this on this podcast. Democrats fundamentally believe that we are in a fever dream that Trump will just go away if there's enough controversy, if there's enough protests if there's enough no Kings rally that, you know, it's Russia or Epstein or the ballroom or anything like liberals fundamentally are just one more controversy away from waking up the eyes of millions of people that this whole thing was misguided and that will return to normalcy as they see it. And if only they were focused on policies that make him popular, they would be much further along to being effective against him. Okay, next question. Hey, Ryan, although I have a boy's name, I am actually a girl. What a way to start off a question. I am from the south and my parents give me my grandmother's maiden name. Pause. So I have a candidate running for office in the south and he has his grandmother's maiden name. And apparently I did not know this, but this is I learned this this year that that is common tradition in the South. And I have to say I really like it. I really like the idea of honoring your maternal side's family by giving the first name of the child to their last name. So the candidate's name is Morgan Murphy and Morgan was his grandmother's last name. Yeah, his grandmother's last name. So that is, I think it's very, very cool. It's a very cool Southern tradition. I just learned about the question continues, why do you think Democrats are holding out on the shutdown? Is it because the past Republicans have given into their temper tantrum? Can you please give us the numbers you're so talented doing on past shutdowns and how they play out whether conservatives have given in placid of the Democrats? Secondly, I know you want to buck and Clay to discuss the Jewish vote. How has it changed or not changed since October 7th? And how does it stand now? Now and why? Could you do a longer segment on that, please? Rock Brock, love that you wrote this question. Very, very smart stuff. So I am going to discuss first the shutdown. Obviously, it's over now. But I think a big part of it that no one was really talking about was one I think it was to juice the election in New Jersey and Virginia. I think there was a pure political thing, right, to get people angry. But a lot of it really has to do with Chuck Schumer's career. Rewind the tape. What was being Talked about on September 30, 2025? That one of the big stories was a poll that had come out from Pew Research and it found that Schumer was the most unpopular national politician in the country, more than John Thune, more than Donald Trump, more than J.D. vance, more than Hakeem Jeffries. Schumer had a negative 29% approval rating. But what made it worse for Schumer was that he was also underwater nationally with Democrats. He was at negative 4 nationally among his own party. And that poll came out several, I guess maybe like 10 weeks or 11 weeks after another poll showed that AOC was beating Schumer in New York City if they went to a statewide primary. But in the New York city, which is 42% of the state's population is in those five boroughs. In a head to head competition, Schumer was losing to AOC by 21 points in New York City. Means that he'd have to make up a ton of odes out on Long island and in the suburbs of New York, upstate in Westchester, Rockland, and then further in western New York. That's not a great place for Schumer to be. He was very worried, I think, by the fact that Democrats didn't believe he was up for the fight against Trump. That was often the number one thing cited, that Schumer's not a fighter. So Schumer needed the narrative to change that he was gonna fight. And I think that's why you see more mainstream Democrats. I guess the term, if we were in the uk, would be backbenchers, Schumer, backbenchers, people who side with the leadership most of the time. That's why they voted to continue the shutdown, which they wouldn't have done had, had Schumer told them to, you know, get rid of the shutdown, like, let's keep the everything funded. They basically kind of go with a lot of what Schumer's cues are. That's why it's believed that Schumer gave them the okay. Enough of them who are either retiring or they're not up for a very long time to sit there and devote to end the shutdown with getting very little concessions from the Republican Party. It's very rare except for for Trump's term. It was very rare before that for the Republican President to have a government shutdown, especially the Republican majority. I don't think Bush ever had them. So that's, I mean, that's really where I think a big part of it was. It was really Schumer trying to make a stand, Schumer trying to sit there and, and say, you know, look, I'm this strong fighter. And I think things just got so bad between the air flights being canceled and snap benefits and, you know, all the rest of it that they ultimately caved, which is more or Less what the Democrats did. They basically caved. My guess is that Schumer gave him the blessing, hoping he wouldn't get his prince on it. And of course, it led to a huge backlash. Congressman Ro Khanna and several other people are saying Schumer needs to step aside as leader. I think this is a last ditch effort to save Schumer's career. And I didn't think it's gonna work. I don't. As far as the Jewish vote goes, I'm. I'm gonna try to dedicate an episode to this later on in the year because it's something that everyone talks about. Here's the deal. Since October 7th, there's only been two major elections or I guess three major elections, right? New York City, Virginia and New Jersey's governorship, which saw a big left wing shift along across the board. New York City didn't really have a Republican running. We had a Republican running on the, on the ticket, but he was, he was name was on the ballot, but he. It was basically a moderate republic Democrat versus a left wing Democrat race. That's how the media branded it. So the Jewish vote was very clearly aligned with Cuomo there. So it's not really a good test. Case in New Jersey, the orthodox Jewish vote was very strong for Chitterelli, extremely strong for Chitarelli. It's one of the very few places that swung rightward from 2024. And as far as Virginia goes, there's not really a heavy Jewish presence that sit there and, you know, get polling, accurate polling done. Here's the problem with the Jewish vote. As far as these studies that come one, there is, there's a nonprofit, I will think of the name of it probably after this episode's over, that is a left wing nonprofit. And they immediately released the first exit polls right after the election saying how the Jewish vot. And the Jewish vote always seems to break even more left wing than the previous election. They kind of manipulate the data and they give in. The media eats it up because it's a good narrative the media really wants. When you look at the Jewish vote, you're really breaking it into three different groups of people. You're breaking into non religious Jews who are, you know, secular. Who would be somebody like a Fran Drescher, a Jerry Seinfeld, a Woody Allen, somebody who they are a friend, Leibowitz. They are. Bill Maher, I guess, is half Jewish. They are Jewish in the sense of their birth, of their circumstance, but it doesn't really influence their politics all that much. They're they don't, don't have a special attachment to Israel. They are just, they're just Jewish. So when, and they for the longest time were the all huge segment of the Jewish population in America, probably close to the majority. So when everyone would say, oh, the Jewish vote's not moving well, they vote for like non religious, college educated whites. Well, that is one of the most left wing groups in America. Then there's also the, then there's the conservative Jews. This is like Conservative or Orthodox. Those are two separate things if you know Judaism. But I'm gonna lump them in together politically. They tend to vote, you know, much more Republican than the secular Jews do. But that would be something like a Ben Shapiro, right? They are, when they are Republicans, I have found they are the most consistent Republicans. They are of the Jewish population. They are very consistently, I'm a Republican, I vote Republican very, very, very like down the line constantly. And then the last group is the like ultra Orthodox, the Hasidim. They are the ones who wear, you know, the outfits and the hats and they wear the fur. Their wives have wigs a lot. They live in cloister communities where they don't do a lot of the outside of the Jewish community. You'll see them in Barrow park or a curious Joel, New York or Lakewood, New Jersey. They tend to vote for how the rabbis want. And I know it's like a very controversial thing to sit there and say, but they do block vote based upon rabbi endorsements. That's why the rabbis endorsements are so important because they have huge voter turnout. They turn out at, you know, maximum level in every election for dog catcher or for president, doesn't matter. And they have a huge interest in having certain things granted from the state. I will tell you I went to an acidic. This is the craziest thing in the world. I went to a Hasidic, a meeting with acidic Jews, Hasidic rabbis in Brooklyn and they were asking about education issues because I run the 1776 Project Pack and I guess the place and it looked like a doctor's office. It looked so strange. I, I, it looked like a doctor's office or like a, like a call center. Like I couldn't make out where I was. And finally because it was like a waiting room, but then there was rows of Jewish women, you know, having someone in front of them, sitting next to them, doing phone calls to somebody rather than having computers. So I finally got to meet with a rabbis and I asked the person who brought me, who is not a rabbi but is Jewish said to them, where am I? Like, what is this place? I've never seen something like this before in my life. And they said, oh, this is where we sign everyone up for Medicaid and Social Security benefits. And the Republican voice in my head, why don't you sit there and scream like crazy? And it was really funny because when the SNAP benefits were, were ending and they were having a bunch of people, you know, who were definitely able bodied, in my opinion, going on the news to say, you know, look at my hungry kids and they have like the nice nails and they have new iPhones and they probably shouldn't be on welfare benefits and we should probably have better ways of monitoring welfare benefits. And they have six kids by who knows. That same friend who brought me to the call center was like, this is ridiculous. These people should be working. And I said, that's exactly what I thought about all people at that Medicaid call center that you brought me to. Anyway, those that, that voting block votes extremely one way or the other. So like that's when you'll see like these elections where it's Trump, you know, 97 to 2 and then down ballot, it'll be a Democrat like 95 to like 3. Like it will be one way or the other. And they have no loyalty to party. It's really an issues based thing. They tend to vote Republican federally and Democrat locally, in my opinion. Okay, so I'm going to do a whole episode on this. But I just get, you know, with everything about. I feel tremendously bad for my Jewish friends and for my friends who are Zionists, who feel like they are under a constant attack and duress. And it's led to a place where having an honest conversation, good and bad, it's very difficult without feeling like you're kind of piling on to a very unfair moment. I would like to go into the Jewish vote one day though, and maybe break it down. I'll have one of my friends who's Jewish to sit there and works in Jewish politics sit there and really discuss and break it down. But maybe I'll do a whole episode because it is fascinating. It's very interesting. Okay, speaking of Jews, next question comes from Joel. Now, I don't know if Joel is Jewish, but the questions about Jews, Okay, Joel says, suppose Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu visits New York City and now Mayor Mandani has him arrested on war crimes. What federal laws or doctrines would apply? Could Mandani himself be arrested under the Logan act for interfering with foreign foreign affairs? Or would it just not happen. Thanks for engaging with your audience so thoughtfully. You've definitely got a loyal listen here. Oh, thank you, Joel. That's really kind of you. So it's a great question. Netanyahu has a warrant for his arrest under the International Crime Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and soon to be mayor. Mandani has said over and over he plans on arresting him if he comes to New York City. Legal experts say that, that he doesn't really have the authority. I looked up, look this up, because I'm not a lawyer and I don't, I don't pretend to play one. So this comes from India today and the Time and Times magazine. It says the United States is not a signatory on the International Criminal Court, which means the ICC has no jurisdiction within the U. S. Territory. As Times reported after interviewing Mandani, several federal laws would be obstruct, would obstruct any local attempt to execute an international arrest warrant. The U. S. Constitution gives the federal government authority over foreign affairs, a power repeatedly upheld by the American courts. In practice, this means that even if New York City authorities were to attempt to detain Netanyahu, federal agencies would override that move. Mandani himself acknowledged these limits during his Zito interview. He said, quote, I'm going to operate within the bounds of the law. I'm not Donald Trump seeking to create my own legal system. Of course he's got to hit Trump, but this. But the time of celebrating Benjamin Yahoo in the city from those in the leading political positions has come to an end. So he can't do it. I mean, that's basically the long law and short of it, he can't do it. And I think that he knows he can't do it. It's just him being a. You know what? Okay. Tristan Shelby writes about the elections. Turnout was definitely the main issue, but I think the shutdown and lack of focus on cost of living and inflation by Trump and the White House played it a role too. Seems like Trump and J.D. vance are aware that these about these issues. Hopefully they'll immediately focus on it. I would look into pushing tariff relief checks before Christmas to make more of the public on board with tariffs and help give extra income during the holiday season. I would like to raise a minimum wage. It's a winning issue and I would take away, take away from the dams, but doubt the establishment GOP will be on board. Looking forward to Thursday's podcast. Okay, so here is the thing, and I don't mean to sound like a libertarian because you know I can't stand libertarians. Here is the thing about the minimum wage. Worker scarcity creates higher minimum wages. Right. If you have less foreign workers being pumped into the country, the minimum wage will rise naturally, especially for people with low skills. Right. There's no minimum wage conversation happening among doctors or nurses or you know, educated class. It's really the uneducated population. Not uninformed, uneducated. I think there's a difference. But people without a college degree who are working blue collar jobs or they're working service jobs, that protecting those workers is of the most importance. And other ones really feeling the tremendous exhaustion of the last five years of inflation and constant spending. I mean I think that the two thousand dollar check idea is, would be popular but our deficit is so large, our debt is so large that anything that we could do to bring that down will help reduce inflation over time. It is more essential to bring down the deficit and the debt that than to worry about these $2,000 checks that will help the working class more over the long term. I know if you're, listen, I know if you're hungry, you don't think about the long term. I know if you have credit card payments and you're looking at Christmas and I know you're not thinking of the long term, I get it. I completely understand. I've been broke at times. I know what that feels like. I know how tough it can be and I know what a $2,000 check would mean for a lot of people. So I'm not discouraging that. I'm just trying to think of a bigger policy issue saying how do we help Americans? And the best way is to reduce the deficit. It will bring down inflation. So I'm not really for that although I understand him doing this in my opinion on the admin in the last few months is they Trump has spent a lot of time looking at overseas and international issues which is very common for second term presidents. Right. You have Clinton who did it in Israel, Bush, I mean I guess his whole entire second term was dealt with with foreign policy issues but the Iraq war mainly and then you had Obama with trying to do the Iran deal like for second terms are oftentimes for legacy making historical foreign policy accomplishments and President Trump to his credit has a number of them. But like I said in the post election podcast because you saw this swing both among white working class voters and Latino voters who are of a similar economic level, similar economic indicators. I think economics played a more significant role than people and Republicans are like are willing to admit Inflation is down from Biden years, but prices aren't down, which, you know, if you're struggling three years ago because inflation was very high, unless you got a significant raise, you're probably still struggling. Unemployment for young people is very high right now. If you, if you're in your 50s and you got a kid just graduated college, I'm sure you're sitting there with a lot of anxiety of how they can get a job. Credit card debt is at its Highest amount ever, Q3 of 2025 was over a trillion dollars. People are really struggling and I think there's anger because Trump was known to be so successful in his first term on the economy, they were hoping he could just change it all immediately. Polls find that Trump is so severely underwater when it comes to inflation. It's negative 26 points. And when you ask voters, this is in the polls. If you ask voters, who do you blame on affordability and unaffordability? Really, Americans say Trump over Biden 54 to 21. He is the president. So that's who people blame. And it is a, it should be a concern for Republicans because they are in power and people blame the people in power. It's just how it works. Even if it's not fair, even if some of this problems predate Trump's first term, even if a lot of it happened right after Covid and because of COVID heavy lies the crown. It's just how the voters, you know, see things. So we'll be back with more. Ask me anything after this.
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Ryan Grusky
All right, back to Ask me anything. This question comes from Bill. He says, I know you're not election lawyer. I'm not even a college graduate, but I saw this on Twitter and thought it was interesting way to challenge it. I didn't get a lot of attention. It's about the Virginia redistricting push. The rules require the amendment to pass through the legislature before an election and again after. But the election was ongoing. Hundreds of thousands of vote were cast because of mail invalids under the VA law. Is this before an election? It seems wrong before. I'm not an election lawyer. I did look this up a little bit and technically it is before an election because it's an election day, I'm sure. Listen, that's an interesting debate and who knows how a judge would rule? So I, I don't know. I mean, I. It seems, it seems like election day is the marker. Not when early ballads are being mailed, I guess it's an interesting way of considering it. I couldn't find anything online, any resource online that showed that this had been argued before. And mail and ballots obviously have been greatly expanded since COVID So we'll see if this does go through. Democrats will likely pick up three more seats in Virginia from the Republicans through redistricting efforts. You know, Republicans, when the redistricting stuff started, this is definitely the ballsiest move by any of the legislators now that I'm thinking about it. But when redistricting started, Republicans were having this big advantage. But losing what we're going to lose in Virginia and what we lost in California and seeing how the districts are being changed, it's going to be very. I mean, Republicans may only come come out with one or two more season they went in with, depending on Florida, Indiana and Kansas do. Unless SCOTUS strikes down section two of the Voting Rights act in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee. Unless they start immediately going to the redistricting, it's going to be a very, very, you know, big question of did they gain very much at all. I mean, maybe they gain like one or two seats, but it's not enough to deflect from a blue wave. Like, it won't be enough to stop a blue wave from crashing. I mean, they'll save a few seats, but not that many. A big question really remains for what DeSantis does in Florida, because he could redistrict Democrats out of four seats in Florida pretty easily as long as the Hispanic vote doesn't retract significantly. And obviously the Hispanic vote in Florida is different like than the Hispanic vote everywhere else in the country. So we'll see what happens in Florida, see what happens in Kansas. But between Virginia and California, it's not very favorable For Republicans, unless the VRA is, is struck down. I would say overall, if it's not struck down, you're looking at maybe two or three, one or two seats. Extra game for Republicans. If it is struck down, you might see a lot more. And if it's limited, it's like Louisiana, Alabama, where the court cases were maybe like four seats. So, yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that was the gamble that Republicans took. They're going to come up with a little bit of an advantage, but not enough to stop a blue wave if it crashes through a country next November. Okay, next question. And you guys know I am terrible at pronouncing names, so I apologize ahead of time. Perjual Arcaria. I know I butchered that. And whoever you are, I am so sorry. Forgive me. I'm from Queens, New York. I don't breathe through my nose. I don't say ours correctly. I'm working on a lot of, you know, handicapp apps right now. So I'm sorry. The email says, huge fan of your work. I am currently here in Florida, not a US Citizen, just a permanent resident. I felt terrible about the Election Day result, and I was following you before to kind of you before. So kind of was expected. What I realized is that we were losing by 11 in Wisconsin during the Supreme Court race. Was there any races that were precursors to the two governors races? That's a great question. And once again, I am sorry about saying your name incorrectly. That's a great question. Though I don't think there was any singular race, but there was definitely a question over voter intensity. If you look at all the precursor special elections that were happening both on the state legislative level and the congressional level, you could see Democrat intensity was really very, very high. Higher than it had been almost ever in recent times. You have the Arizona seventh congressional race where Democrats did 13 points better than they did last year. Florida's first, where they did 17 points better. Florida, 6, where they did 19 points better. And Florida, sorry, Virginia, 11, where they did 16 points better. So there were all those special elections where Democrats were doing between 13 to 19 points better than they had done in 2024. That's not because those districts, those were all safe districts, by the way. No, Republicans and Democrats didn't flip any of those districts. It was just that the voter intensity by their own party was so heavy. I mean, it is this issue of complacency among voters. When your party's in the White House, you think, you know, the president's got it. I'm going to sleep in. I just, you know, campaign and voted for this guy who won. So why am I going to get out there? And that really started to show the signs that there was something kind of brewing. There's also a ton of local state legislative races where Democrats way outperform numbers. I'm not going to go through all them because there was dozens. But it definitely showed that the trend was in Democrats, Democrats favor. I don't know if there's any signs, specifically the Latino and working white vote, working white collar, blue collar vote. I'm nothing that I can see from those things. But definitely the signs of voter intensity was clear on display. I think people are just kind of ignoring it because the old adage is, oh, you know, these special elections, they don't decide anything. There's just a special election, which is true. Until it's not. Until it is predictive. Okay, this last question for this episode comes from Joseph. He says, hey, Ryan, I'm a big fan of your work. As a Trump voter, I feel like he has been disappointing on a lot of key policy issues. Do you think he's getting bad advice from Susie Wiles, Brooke Rollins and Howard Lutnick side of the admin? Okay, this is an interesting question. So I am not a personal fan of several members of the administration. I think other people do a very, very good job. Susie Wiles, I give a lot of credit to, is a tough job to be any chief of staff, to be Trump's chief of staff. And it's extremely difficult. Right. It's not easy, not an easy gig. And she's a woman of a particular age who doesn't allow for many leaks or any leaks really to go through this White House. And I think she's done a very good job at managing the situation to the best of her abilities. Howard Lutnick, I, I don't have a lot of positive things to say about him and Brooke Rollins the same. That being said, I think that's just more than the people that we know. There are a lot of people who come in and out of Trump's orbit, who influence them, who sit there and say this thing or that thing. You, you know, they constantly being peddled about the deportations and the tariffs. And there's a lot of things that are very much people pushing Trump on this issue or that issue. So I don't think it's just the people that we know. And more times than not, in my experience working in politics, both from the journalism side and the political side, a lot of times it's not the people that. You know. I Remember back in 2017, I sent this tweet out and I wr. I think I wrote a story about it, but I was getting calls from inside the White House, my sources inside the West Wing, who were saying, these are the people who are really against Trump. And they've all been shown themselves as prominent, never Trumpers. They were even, even the guy who wrote that book, Anonymous, wrote that op ed for the New York Times. He was on my list as somebody who was against Trump in the White House. No one knew. I mean, he wasn't a very famous person, I think, listen, it's been a rough couple weeks with headlines from the Trump administration. I know that. And Trump did not make it easier on his orders from the Laura Ingram interview. I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna pretend and say, oh, no, everything is going fine. Look away, look away, look away. It's not my role, it's not my job. I'm here to have an honest conversation with my listeners. I think it's, I think it's important to sit there and say one, no politician is perfect, and you're never going to get a hundred percent of what you want. So, as somebody who was a Day one Trump supporter, let's look at what, what we're getting, right? Deportations are happening. 500,000, 2 million self deportations. Great, Fantastic. And he's not backing down, which there's all the effort in the world to back down right now, and he's not backing down on foreign policy. He's been pretty good. You know, we haven't gotten more into, into more interventionist wars. And there was every incentive to do it. So I want that to be very clear. On the economy, it's struggling, and I'm, And I don't know if there's an easy way to get out of it. It. We may have tougher times ahead of us before we are in the clear. And part of that is a change in the American economy, in part because of AI and how that's changing the economy, in part because of worries over how tariffs have been issued. It's been all over the place. I will admit that even though I'm supportive in general of tariffs, I think that they have been all over the place. The messaging has been a disaster. Everyone's got a different answer for everything. I think Scott Bessette is doing a really good job, though, with the treasury, much better than Whatnik's doing. And I think that, I think that the economy is the main issue. I know it's easy and I did this a lot during term one. Right. Blaming everyone around Trump for Trump's shortcomings. And sometimes they are, you know, there are people who in his ear who are giving him bad advice 110%. But at the end of the day, Trump is Trump, right? He's not. He is a great politician because he is not nails to strict ideology. Unfortunately, that includes his own ideology that he creates and that he campaigns on. So I think it's not been a perfect administration. I think that there's been a lot of hiccups and misplacements and kind of got lost after the first four months of just one win after the other, one after the other win. I want to get back to that earlier place, but I think a lot more commitment is going to needed on the economy right now because it's really, really struggling. I think that's where voters really, their minds are. So anyway, thank you for that question. I really appreciate it. Monday I'll be back with a full episode, I think on the economy, but it might be on AI. It'll be one of the other though. We're gonna have a great episode and please send me more questions on ask me anything. Ryanumbersgame podcast.com I always appreciate it. Thank you guys for listening. Please like and subscribe on YouTube on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. I appreciate you all. Thank you. Have a great weekend.
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This is an iHeart podcast.
Date: November 13, 2025
Host: Ryan Grusky (guest-hosting segment)
This episode centers on answering listener questions (an "Ask Me Anything" format), while diving into the numbers and trends shaping U.S. politics: from the economy and government shutdown to shifts in the Jewish vote. Grusky explores behind-the-scenes political maneuvering, the realities of economic pain after the pandemic, election law nuances, and the complex makeup of Jewish voting blocs. The host’s tone is candid, analytical, and sometimes irreverent—aiming to demystify the statistics and stories driving current headlines.
[05:10]
Listener asks why Oval Office location is supposedly protected.
Grusky debunks the idea of strict secrecy, citing media depictions and real-life models:
Notable Moment: Reference to the movie "Civil War" and insight from John McEntee (Trump’s former body man):
[07:18]
The shutdown aimed to fire up the electorate, especially before key elections (NJ, VA).
A lot of it was about Chuck Schumer’s personal approval troubles—especially with his own party (citing Pew Research: Schumer at -29% nationally, and -4% even among Democrats: "[08:45]").
Schumer needed to appear as a tough fighter against Trump.
“Mainstream” Democrats (those aligned with leadership, or “backbenchers”) took cues from Schumer; he gave tacit permission to continue the shutdown for optics.
Quote:
"Schumer needed the narrative to change that he was gonna fight. And I think that's why you see more mainstream Democrats...voted to continue the shutdown, which they wouldn't have done had, had Schumer told them to, you know, get rid of the shutdown..." – [09:32]
Result: Democrats caved after public pressure, especially with flight cancellations and benefit disruptions. Ro Khanna and others now call for Schumer to step aside. Grusky predicts it’s "a last ditch effort to save Schumer’s career"—and likely won’t succeed.
[12:00]
Standard exit polls, often run by left-leaning nonprofits, suggest Jews lean further Democratic each time, but data is "manipulated" to fit media narratives.
The Jewish vote divides into three groups:
Expresses sympathy for Jewish Americans who feel under attack and frustration at how difficult honest, nuanced public discourse has become.
[19:22]
[21:30]
Worker scarcity (limited immigration/inflow) naturally drives wages up.
Minimum wage debates are about low-skilled/lower-educated jobs.
While direct relief checks are popular, deficit reduction is more important for long-term inflation control:
He empathizes with people struggling now, especially those dealing with high credit card debt and stagnant wages.
Trump is seen as failing to communicate or address economic anxieties sufficiently; most voters blame him for high prices and weak job growth, even if inflation rates are technically down.
"Inflation is down from Biden years, but prices aren't down, which, you know, if you're struggling three years ago because inflation was very high, unless you got a significant raise, you're probably still struggling." – [23:45]
[28:00]
[30:55]
[33:30]
"Schumer's not a fighter. So Schumer needed the narrative to change that he was gonna fight." – Grusky [09:40]
"When you look at the Jewish vote, you're really breaking it into three different groups of people…" – Grusky [13:46]
"Worker scarcity creates higher minimum wages. Right. If you have less foreign workers being pumped into the country, the minimum wage will rise naturally." – Grusky [21:42]
"Inflation is down from Biden years, but prices aren't down, which, you know, if you're struggling three years ago because inflation was very high, unless you got a significant raise, you're probably still struggling." – Grusky [23:45]
"No politician is perfect, and you're never going to get a hundred percent of what you want." – Grusky [35:08]
"Heavy lies the crown. It's just how the voters, you know, see things." – Grusky [24:12] (Discussing why incumbents shoulder economic blame)
Grusky is data-driven, direct, and sometimes irreverent, repeatedly emphasizing transparency, tough realities behind political numbers, and a willingness to address audience concerns without partisan spin.
Listeners received deep dives into the recent government shutdown and its motivations, the evolving economic pains and who voters are blaming, plus an insider's breakdown of Jewish voting patterns (promising a future dedicated episode). The show encouraged ongoing listener participation for future AMA episodes.