What Trump Should Say Thursday Night

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Episode: What Trump Should Say Thursday Night
Date: July 15, 2026
Hosts/Panelists: Jon Podhoretz (Host), Abe Greenwald, Seth Mandel, Eliana Johnson

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Overview

This episode centers on speculation and advice regarding President Trump’s upcoming nationally televised address, examining what he could or should say given multiple high-stakes topics on the table: renewed war with Iran, electoral integrity controversies (again focusing on Georgia), and election strategy amid shifting public opinion. The discussion then pivots to a deep-dive into Michigan’s upcoming Democratic primary, highlighting the candidacy of Abdul El-Sayed and the dynamics that expose Democratic divisions between moderate and radical wings. Finally, the show unpacks New York’s moratorium on building data centers for artificial intelligence (AI), analyzing the economic, technological, and political motives and consequences.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Will, Could, or Should Trump Say in His Prime-Time Address?

[00:45 – 13:18]

• Two Theories on Trump’s Speech Topic

  • Some sources (with dubious credibility) claim Trump plans to relitigate the 2020 Georgia election—possibly declaring Senators Ossoff and Warnock illegitimate due to "foreign interference."
  • Alternatively, the panel speculates he may address the newly resumed war in Iran, possibly blending national security with the “Save America Act,” his push for election integrity reforms.

• Analysis on Speech Scope and Format

  • Eliana Johnson states Trump typically covers multiple, sometimes unrelated topics and could end up riffing on both Iran and Georgia:

    “If his campaign rallies give us any indication, he’s going to talk about whatever he wants to talk about. And it’s probably going to cover lots and lots and lots of things.” [02:39 – D]

  • Jon Podhoretz cautions that a formal Oval Office address requires focus, positing the networks will only stay live if the speech is more contained:

    “If he can’t do a weave because they’ll cut him off in the middle of the speech. So he will have to pick and choose… It will have to be more focused and contained than a rally speech.” [04:50 – A]

• Technical Flaws in Alleged Georgia Claims

  • Panel notes Georgia uses paper ballots and had multiple recounts—making machine fraud claims implausible.
  • Eliana Johnson:

    “Georgia uses paper ballots, so machines can’t… The machines can’t miscount. It’s on paper. And they did two recounts on paper.” [06:27 – D]

• Risks of Frequent Prime-Time Addresses

  • The group debates whether Trump's pivot to official addresses (vs. rallies) risks “fatigue” and dilutes their importance.
  • Abe Greenwald likens potential address fatigue to Trump’s COVID updates:

    “Remember the fatigue that set in over his Covid addresses… I would think that he would want to try to get ahold of the Iran narrative at this point.” [09:03 – B]

• Electoral Implications

  • Podhoretz discusses how “leaners” (independents) now tilt Democratic—Trump should focus on reassuring these voters, not his base.
  • Podhoretz:

    “He does not need to speak to his base. He does not need to attack the Democrats. He needs to talk to them just as a matter of political hygiene, to see if there is give in the electorate that will help Republicans and bring his numbers up.” [10:12 – A]

• Trump’s Relitigation of 2020

  • The panel warns this would be a signal of “surrender,” prioritizing grievances over present challenges:

  • Podhoretz:

    “If he is doing it… wanting to relitigate the 2020 election, that is essentially a kind of surrender.” [12:39 – A]

  • They draw a parallel to Obama’s dismissive response to midterm losses, suggesting Trump is following an executive precedent—though in a more toxic, backwards-facing way.

Memorable Moments / Quotes

• Seth Mandel:

  “The interference in the Georgia election that got Democrats elected was Donald Trump. So, one finger pointing out, three fingers pointing back.” [03:49 – C]

• Eliana Johnson:

  “I think the president just naturally performs better in front of a crowd… I think it’s just something for the White House to keep in mind, as the president seems to… want to use this format more.” [07:46 – D]

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2. What Should Trump Say?

[18:12 – 20:19]

• Fantasy “Best Case” Speech

  • Abe Greenwald wishes for a clear, focused commitment to victory in Iran:

    “Something about finishing the job in Iran without veering into ‘they're great people, some of them are good, some of them are bad’... Just a straightforward ‘we are going to topple the regime, period.’” [18:12 – B]

  • Seth Mandel:

    “I would love to hear something that tells me that he envisions this war ending with an American victory… not just the statement, but something that shows that he gets what’s going on.” [18:58 – C]

  • Eliana Johnson wants a clear explanation for the American public:

    “Making a clear case for what we’re doing and why, why it’s necessary and what the consequences of it might be for the American people…” [19:34 – D]

• Podhoretz (drawing on speechwriting experience) notes Trump has a strong narrative to lay out: bombed Iran, pursued diplomacy, Iran broke the ceasefire, and now America must act — but doubts Trump will actually deliver such clarity.

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3. Michigan Senate Democratic Primary: Abdul El-Sayed’s Phoniness & the Party Divide

[24:19 – 47:10]

• The “Platner-to-El-Sayed” Trend

  • The panel compares waves of radical/DSA candidates who present themselves as "men of the people" but are revealed as privileged elites (e.g., Graham Platner in Maine, El-Sayed in Michigan).
  • Eliana Johnson details El-Sayed’s luxury watch collection (“at least $20,000”), undermining his claims of solidarity with working-class voters:

    “He is being exposed as the same sort of hypocrite that Platner was. The guy owns a collection of luxury watches worth at least $20,000… putting himself in with people who are genuinely poor.” [27:25 – D]

• Hypocrisy on Healthcare

  • El-Sayed campaigns for Medicare for All, but his wife (a psychiatrist) doesn’t accept insurance, contradicting his supposed populist stance.

• More Serious Criticisms

  • The panel underscores that El-Sayed’s most concerning quality is not just phoniness or affluence, but radical views and perceived anti-Semitism:

    • Ties to Hamas-affiliated figures
    • Refusal to condemn murders of Jews in Michigan
    • Advocating policies “bought and paid for” to win over seniors

  • Podhoretz:

    “Our problem with El Sayed is not that he has luxury watches or that he’s a hypocrite. Our problem with him is that he is a terrorist loving family member of a Hamas affiliated fundraiser...” [30:19 – A]

• Primary Implications

  • The recent poll showing moderate Haley Stevens surging (+7) gives hope that Michigan Dems may reject radicalism, which the panel sees as healthy for U.S. politics and the Democratic Party’s 2028 prospects.

• Media’s Reaction and Responsibility

  • Johnson and Podhoretz predict mainstream media silence until El-Sayed looks likely to lose, at which point a token negative story will appear so the press can claim they've "covered" the issue [49:38 – 52:38].

Notable Exchange

• Seth Mandel:

  “If there’s a God in heaven, you know, and he said out loud what people were saying behind the scenes. A lot of people agreed with that. A lot of people thought, boy, it'd be great to run against Donald Trump, but didn't actually say it. So that’s the messina lesson. You don’t go around thanking God for your opponent until you have beaten your opponent.” [45:51 – C]

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4. NY Data Center Moratorium: Innovation, Populism, and Luddism

[53:53 – 68:00]

• Governor Hochul’s “Luddite” Ban

  • NY’s moratorium on new data centers is justified by “concerns” over energy consumption, noise, displacement of open space, but panelists see this as foolish, self-sabotaging policy.
  • Seth Mandel:

    “The biggest problem is that the moratoriums become permanent. That’s… the trap that seems to be being laid...” [56:23 – C]

• Populist Framing vs. Economic Reality

  • The left couches opposition in “people vs. establishment” rhetoric—forgetting that data centers bring jobs and tax revenue.
  • Broadly, a worry that well-intentioned regulations (like moratoriums) become de facto bans, sending future-tech industries—and their economic benefits—to other states or countries.

• Foreign Interference

  • Eliana Johnson points out that anti-AI sentiment is actively pushed by Chinese, Russian, and Iranian influence campaigns to kneecap U.S. tech competitiveness:

    “There is a massive Chinese, Iranian, Russian influence campaign to stoke and spread those fears among people to give China a leg up in this technology race...” [59:41 – D]

• Historical Parallel: NY’s Ban on Fracking

  • Podhoretz recounts how, in 2007, New York's ban led Pennsylvania to reap all shale gas profits:

    “Pennsylvania drank New York’s milkshake…” [62:50 – A]

• Panel Consensus

  • If New York bans AI data centers, another state (or China) will take the business—and NY will continue its economic decline.

Selected Quotes

• Eliana Johnson, on Governor Hochul’s reasoning:

  “They emit vibrations and noise... there would be no subway in New York City, let me tell you that.” [59:41 – D]

• Abe Greenwald:

  “There’s just like big things that eat up energy or just sort of, you know, capitalist behemoths, you know, anywhere near you is a bad thing.” [58:48 – B]

• Jon Podhoretz:

  “If you stop it in its tracks, then you participate in no effort to create this interplay… you just leave the field and say, you can’t do this here. And fine, so it'll be done in Idaho and then Idaho will be really rich and New York State will end up… continuing to collapse in this slow century long economic collapse…” [68:00 – A]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Speculation on Trump’s Speech: [00:45 – 13:18]
• Fantasy “Best Case” Speech for Trump: [18:12 – 20:19]
• Michigan Senate Primary (Platner, El-Sayed): [24:19 – 47:10]
• Media Coverage Patterns: [49:38 – 52:38]
• NY AI Data Center Moratorium: [53:53 – 68:00]

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Memorable Quotes

• Jon Podhoretz, on Trump’s priorities:

  “I just don’t know why he’s doing a nationally televised address… if he is doing it for the reasons of wanting to relitigate the 2020 election, that is essentially a kind of surrender.” [12:39 – A]

• Eliana Johnson, on campaign authenticity:

  “The through line between Platner and El-Sayed is the phoniness, the absolute phoniness and the attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of voters and pretend that they are men of the people when they are rich cranks.” [29:23 – D]

• Abe Greenwald, on the stakes of radical politics:

  “The sad reality might be that his being a sort of indulgent materialist may be more salient among certain voters than the fact that he sides with America’s enemies.” [36:23 – B]

• Seth Mandel, on media gamesmanship:

  “...the Times is somewhat likely to do a story about the Free Beacon doing a story on his father in law. …sort of the Republicans pounce type of story.” [52:38 – C]

• Jon Podhoretz, on economic myopia:

  “Blue states are like contributing to their own economic obsolescence in a really radical way based on foolish political ideas generated by people who do not have the economic interests of the people of the state foremost in their minds.” [62:50 – A]

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Conclusion

In an episode rich with political analysis and sharp commentary, the panel maps out the stakes of Trump’s upcoming address, using it as a springboard to dissect broader issues of leadership style, electoral strategy, and the persistent impacts of political tribalism. The scrutiny of Democratic primary battles in Michigan serves as a case study of the clash between party pragmatism and radical activism, while the discussion of New York’s technology moratorium exposes the contradictions of progressive politics when faced with the realities of innovation and global competition. As always, the panelists frame their arguments with caustic wit and a focus on what they see as the real, long-term stakes for the nation and its institutions.

Transcript

[A]

Oh, for the best, expect the worst Some drinks and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect the worst Hope for the best. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, July 15, 2026. I am Jon Podhoritz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[B]

Hi, John.

[A]

Senior Editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[C]

Hi, John.

[A]

And Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.

[D]

Hi, John.

[A]

Okay, couple things. Tomorrow night at 9pm I believe the President will be delivering a nationally televised address. And there seems to be two lines of thought about this address. People in Georgia told somebody in Washington who is a reporter that I've never heard of, that the address is going to be about how the Georgia election was stolen, foreign interference into our election process in 2020, which, by the way, we already knew about 2016 and 2020, and the Russians and others fiddling around in our elections, and that he is going to somehow declare the senatorial, the senators, Georgia Senators Ossoff and Warnick, illegitimate. But the truth is, we only have one source, as far as I can tell, for this account of what the speech is gonna be tomorrow night. And then the other question is, what else might the speech be about? It would be obvious that Trump, if he's gonna deliver a national address, would do so to talk about the war and, and. And the change in policy and strategy that he is. He has inaugurated this week in the war, which has various aspects that are discontinuous from where we were over the ceasefire period, and that he would therefore want to give Americans an update on what is going on. So this is. I'm taking out of nowhere here, okay? So I'm gonna give you guys a choice. It's gonna be about Iraq, excuse Iran, or it's gonna be about Georgia. Okay?

[C]

Each.

[A]

You get to pick one or the other. Yes, Eliana. Okay.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Yes. Okay.

[D]

Let's stipulate that we don't know what the President's gonna talk about in any given speech, but if his campaign rallies give us any indication, he's going to talk about whatever he wants to talk about. And it's probably going to cover lots and lots and lots of things. I think he will address both the war in Iran, which has resumed the MoU, is a thing of the past, and our attempts to prevent them from exerting control over the strait. And I also think he's going to make the case for this Save America act that focuses on election integrity, that he very Much wants Congress to pass, but for which there are not enough Republican votes to pass the Congress. And there's a chance he does veer off. The White House advisers deny to talk about how the election was stolen from him. The two Georgia senators, John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, are illegitimate. And that may not be on the script, but he may very well do it. So I think the speech is likely to encompass quite a lot of different things.

[C]

Yeah, I agree, because I think that he's, I think he might start, he might focus on Georgia, but he's been saying that there was some sort of case of some sort of proof of foreign election interference. And I'm wondering if he's going to tie Iran into Georgia. And that's why it would be about both, because he has, he has made noises about this before and this morning he's saying that some sort of big foreign interference in American elections. So I don't know, it's funny because it might not be about Georgia at all. That might have just been assumed. It's possible. But he, because the truth is that the interference in the Georgia election that got Democrats elected was Donald Trump. And so, you know, one finger pointing out, three fingers pointing back. But I think that, yeah, I think it might be something if it's election interference, and I think it might tie both together. Yeah.

[A]

But first of all, so this is supposed to be some kind of Oval Office or formal presidential address. He wants the networks to cover it. So he is going to have to tell them that it's 20 minutes long or something like that if he can't do a weave because they'll cut him off in the middle of the speech. So it will have to be some kind of a. He will have to pick and choose. I mean, he can have two topics or three topics, but it will have to be more focused and contained than a rally speech. There is this one other possibility, which is that given the extraction of Maduro and the replacement of Maduro by Delsey Rodriguez in Venezuela and the theory, the governing theory of the I think the smartmatic argument, I can't remember if it's the Dominion argument or the smartmatic argument is that a lot of the trouble supposedly was coming from Venezuela, that they have new information from Venezuela about what Venezuela might have been doing. Now, as Stephen Richer, who is the secretary of state of no, he was the Mariposa county elections commissioner and the guy who rock ribbed Republican, who said that the results in Arizona were legitimate and that this whole thing about how they weren't Legitimate was a lie and all of that.

[D]

Yeah, Stephen's a friend and he was the title there. It's essentially that.

[A]

But he was the recorder, the recorder in Mariposa county. And of course, our friend, you know, Chris Thierwalt, ended up being a sacrificial lamb at Fox for having noted that Trump had that Trump had lost Arizona largely because the Mariposa county results were not going the way he needed them to go. So this is a person. Chris is a dear friend of mine and Eliana did a podcast with him for two years. And, you know, I trust Stephen Richer, and I don't like this whole argument, but as Stephen Richer points out, Georgia uses paper ballots, so machines can't. It's not a machine. The machines can't miscount. It's on paper. And they did two recounts on paper. So this whole argument that Georgia was stolen when, by the way, Trump lost by, remember the notorious number? Right. 11,000, 388, whatever it was he said on the phone call saying, I just wanted you to find those votes for me. Ossoff and Warnock won by way more than that. Both in the.

[D]

They won because of Trump. They won't.

[C]

Exactly.

[D]

I mean, it's crazy. Separately, this is a different but related point. We're reading in these news accounts that the president wants to use these Oval Office primetime addresses more. And I think that's a risky strategy for a couple of reasons. One, when the president addresses the country in a primetime televised address, one, he relies on the new the news media to push off other programming and take it live. And I think the country expects to hear something important. And if they don't, they're going to start to tune those things out, not to listen, and the networks won't take it. And the second reason is I think the president just naturally performs better in front of a crowd, and he's better suited to traveling, being on the stump, doing rallies. And then because of that, the networks are actually more likely to take those things. And I think it's just something for the White House to keep in mind, as the president seems to. We'll see. Want to use this format more.

[B]

I mean, by the way, I agree with your assessment entirely. Remember how sort of remember the fatigue that set in over his Covid addresses, you know, although there were crowds there for that. But in any event, I would think that he would want to try to get ahold of the Iran narrative at this point. That would be what a more orthodox, predictable president would be using this address for. I mean, huge zigs and zags in the policy. Even though he's been talking about it, he's talking to Fox News and he's been, you know, he's been talking about it, you know, extemporaneously. I kind of think he wants to sort of lay, like reinforce the idea that he does have a plan here and that and that he's following it.

[A]

I'd hope that was the case. But, you know, you're saying you would think, and we're saying he should and if he wants the, you know, if he wants these addresses to count, he will say something important that will be, that will have some effect on American public opinion. And there are real reasons for Trump to work to change American public opinion if he were able to. Pew Research poll shows that leaners, that is to say this came out yesterday, that leaners, that is not people who are not officially part of either party but say they lean toward the Democrats or they lean toward the Republicans are now leaning, According to Pew, 12 points in the Democratic direction, which is a 16 point shift from 2024, when leaners were 4 points in aggregate leaning toward the Republicans. So these are theoretically people who have not made up their mind, they're not party aligned and all of that, and good economic news, good war news, different feelings about the country, all of that could potentially have a real effect. Those are people that he should be speaking to. He does not need to speak to his base. He does not speak, he does not need to attack the Democrats. He needs to talk to them just as a matter of political hygiene, to see if there is give in the electorate that that will help Republicans and bring his numbers up and all of that. But he really doesn't have a demonstrated talent for doing what I just described. I mean, can we think of a time when he was able to say, I want to come to you with a message of reassurance and optimism about where things are going, both in the war and in the economy and all of that so that you can have the confidence necessary to say I'm not so terrible or that the Republican who is running in your district is somebody that you should vote for. I can't think of a time when he did it and you know, he's only got two and a half more years in office. So I just don't know why he's doing a nationally televised address. And if he is doing it for the reasons of wanting to relitigate the 2020 election, that is essentially a kind of surrender, right? That's like, eh, you know what, what's gonna happen in November doesn't matter to me. What's gonna happen over the next few years doesn't matter to me. I want to go back in time and win the presidency in 2020, and that's more important to me than doing what I just said or as an excuse also.

[C]

Right. I mean, you can't trust these elections. So what happens in November is China's fault.

[A]

Well, that would be right. Well, if you're an anti Trump paranoid, you would look at this and say he's laying the groundwork for saying that the results in 2026 are illegitimate and that somehow the election in 2026 was also stolen, and God only knows what that would mean. Or if he's laying the predicate for saying the election in 2028 is stolen, although he can't run again in 2028. Now, to be fair to him, in 2014, when Barack Obama was slaughtered, when the Democrats were slaughtered in the 2014 midterms, Republicans winning nine Senate seats, Obama came out the next day in 2010, Obama came out after the 63 seats won by Republicans and said that was a shellacking. The American people handed me my hat after 2014. He did not say that. He said, if you look at the numbers, only a third of Americans voted. And I don't consider that a mandate for anybody else. And now I'm going to behave really unconstitutionally for the next two years of my presidency and deem all these things. And I have a pen and a phone and I'm gonna, you know, I'm going to make DACA happen. I'm going to make all of that stuff happen, because I don't accept the results of this election. So if Trump is laying the groundwork for that, once again, he will be in good company because he will be following a pattern set by Obama, just like his executive order mania was basically inaugurated by Obama. And even though he hates Obama and Obama and Obama, like Obama is like his godhead, Obama's the person whose presidency he is most structurally, he is most emulating, or the presidency of Obama's last two years. They say that every day your business is late to AI, you fall two days behind. But how do you keep up? The competition is only moving faster. Fortunately, there's Net Netsuite next you probably know NetSuite, the AI powered business management suite that securely connects all of your data unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM into a single source of truth trusted by over 43,000 customers. Next week. Next is the next huge leap in how business gets done because AI is built into everything you do. Whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions, it's time for NetSuite next, where your business meets AI. Look, if I were fortunate enough to have a business that was the size that we're talking about here, I would be using NetSuite next. So for the first time ever, you can try NextSuite next for free. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to NetSuite AI commentary built for every industry, ready for every boardroom. Netsuite AI Commentary now that it's summer, I took a bag, I took all my sweaters. I put my sweaters into a vacuum bag to put them away so that I could replace them with my summer clothing from Quince, which has been stored away for these warm months. And of course, just as the days are a little more relaxed, so is the clothing that I'm wearing. And that's Quince summer clothing. Well made essentials that naturally become those everyday staples that you want to live in all summer long. Quince's 100% European linen pants and shirts are breathable, easy to throw on and the summer upgrade your rotation needs and they start at just 34 bucks. Tees soft enough to live all day. Lightweight cotton sweaters, exactly what you want when the summer nights cool down. Everything at Quint is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work with ethical factories and cut out the middleman. So you're paying for exceptional quality, not brand markup. And I'm just telling you, people say to me, are you wearing quints? And I say yes, because I am now so associated with quints. So make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quints.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 360 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com commentary for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com commentary. What would we like him to say? How about that? Hey, what would you want him to say?

[B]

I mean, it's fantasy land, but something about finishing the job in Iran without veering into their great people. Some of them are good, some of them are bad. They want to make a deal, they have to make a deal. I don't want any of those prognostications and going down those tributaries. Just a straightforward we are going to topple the regime, period.

[A]

Seth, what would you do?

[B]

Hang in there. Bear the economic burden. Bear the energy Burden. It's going to be great on the other side.

[C]

Yeah, I broadly agree with that as the fantasy, but I would like some kind of specific that if we're, if we're dealing in like what we really want him to say, I would love to hear something that tells me that he is, that he envisions this war ending with an American victory. So not just, not just the statement that he envisions the war ending in an American victory, but like something that shows that he gets what's, you know, what's, what's going on.

[A]

Eliana, do you have any.

[D]

Yeah, I think making a clear case for what we're doing and why, why it's necessary and what the consequences of it might be for the American people, which the President has done intermittently, particularly at the outset of this. But he didn't do it in the run up. But once things started, you know, he did it and he used a primetime address to do it at one point. But I think people need to hear things several times to actually absorb them. And it would be useful to reinforce why we struck a ceasefire, why we did this MoU, and why we are where we are now. You know, why we've gone back and forth on these things.

[A]

Look, you know, he has a very, I mean, speaking as a former presidential speechwriter, which I was, what happened over the last three months is a very good predicate to a powerful speech. In other words, he can say we bombed the hell out of them. And then we took a pause because we would prefer to end what is going on here diplomatically. And we took a pause in order to make sure that international shipping remained open and because we wanted to see what we could get at the table as a result of what we had done militarily. And they, from day one broke this. They promised and they signed and they broke every promise that they made. And in this behavior, we now see why. And then sort of following Abe's point, they can never be trusted. They can never be trusted not to build a nuclear weapon, and they can never be trusted not to use a nuclear weapon. We gave them a chance. We were there with the chance. And what they wanted to do was humiliate the United States, claim victory against the United States. And we cannot allow that to happen and we cannot allow them to stand. It is a very easily structured. Let's just talk about what happened since February 28th. Here we are, it'll be July 16th. This is what's happened. And Iran has proved what it is. It is hell bent on causing Hell, and it is. It is unmovable, even given the kind of pounding that we gave it and the political problems that were caused by the decapitation strikes and all of that. And so I'm here today to say we're gonna finish the job because we have no choice. They cannot be reasoned with, so it rights itself. I don't think he's going to do it, and I'm very sad to think that he's not going to do it, in part because it's the only really important thing that's going on now. The Save America act is not important. Daylight Savings Time is not important. The country's national honor and its power and its future as a projector of power or a defender of the. Of the international order or whatever is on the line here. And all the other stuff is Narishkayte. It's all just whatever goes on that is of interest to the. He could also talk about how there's a disgusting cyclospora breakout and he's going to do something about that. I mean, he could talk about anything. None of that matters at the presidential level. This is the only thing that really counts. And, you know, so it will be a very deeply missed opportunity if he doesn't use the opportunity to do what we're all suggesting. So having talked about him, it's now time to talk about our least favorite senatorial candidate and the candidate whose potential victory in the Democratic Party on August 4th will herald a really dark new time in American politics. And he may be stoppable. And that is, of course, Abdul Al Said of Michigan. And of course, the Washington Free Beacon, the source of all things good and true on the subject of Abu Al Said, has more fun stuff about Abu El Sayed. And then we have some other stuff that's happened this morning.

[D]

I also think we should talk about. Well, I won't be on tomorrow, but talk about it with Matt if you want this data center moratorium that Kathy Hochul is.

[A]

Oh, we will. I was going to get to that later. We can talk about that later.

[D]

Okay. So, Abdul John, you asked the other day, and I said I didn't think so, whether Graham Platner's loss in not loss, his unmasking, his whatever you want to call it in May, his humiliated

[C]

retreat, you might say, his struggle,

[D]

his unmasking, the embarrassment of the consultants around him who did not thoroughly vet him before they foisted him on the voters of Maine and the main Democratic Party would have ripple effects out to Michigan. And I'm still not sure. But I'm now leaning in that direction. And we've talked about Haley Stevens poor political skills, but I now actually think she's got some momentum and she's surging. There's a poll from Fox. Is it from Fox News? I'm not sure who has the poll.

[A]

It's quite new. It's Detroit News.

[D]

Excuse me. Yes, out this morning has her up seven points, 48 to 41 over El Sayed. And I think in the same way that Platner was unmasked as a phony man of the people, working class guy who in fact had a grandfather who was a world famous architect, designed windows on the world, an attorney father, Dartmouth educated father, and who himself attended Hotchkiss and was a ne' er do well, who was booted out and then graduated from a different private school and had nothing to do with the working class. He was just a little, a little bleep, a rich little bleep of the type that we all know and a screw up, you know, mentally unwell screw up. I think we're seeing, starting to see now that Abdul El Sayed is a similar phony presenting himself as a man of the working class. The story in the Free Beacon this morning is about Abdul El Sayed luxury watch collection. And we had a story a couple days ago about how his psychiatrist wife doesn't accept any insurance in her practice, which is typical for, you know, any psychiatrist worth their salt. Not that she is a good psychiatrist, but you know, many psychiatrists don't accept insurance, force you, if you do have insurance to submit claims on your own. But he's out there campaigning for the abolition of private insurance for Medicare for all. And he is being exposed as the same sort of hypocrite that Platner was. The guy owns a collection of luxury watches worth at least $20,000. Okay, I do not own watches worth anywhere near that much money. And he's gone out there talking about what a fan of watches he was. He got a shout out from a watch podcast about his $4,000 watch. You know, how amazing it was. And the guy likes nice things. His tax returns are out this morning and they omit a lot. Okay, he put out two pages, but they do show that he and his wife in 2025 brought in $675,000 last year. Well, he is putting out tweets saying we can't afford, we referring to the people of Michigan can't afford groceries and gas. And putting himself in, you know, lumping himself in with people who are Genuinely poor. And he has talked about how angry and upset it made him to see ads for Rolex watches on the side of the freeway in Michigan and the psychological damage it does to people to see advertisements for things they cannot afford. And lamenting how it hurts people in Michigan to see ads for Rolex watches. Well, he is sporting watches that cost just as much as those $4,000, $5,000, $2,000, 1950. You know, the guy's got dozens of dozens of luxury watches. So I do think the through line between Platner and EL Sayed is the phoniness, the absolute phoniness and the attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of voters and pretend that they are men of the people when they are rich cranks.

[A]

Okay, So I just want to make my point that I'm not a phony. And because I just want to show you if you are on YouTube, if you're watching us on YouTube, we would

[D]

do a lot better if we could be more phony.

[A]

No, on YouTube. I'm just saying this is my watch. It is a Timex in the glow. Okay, $40. Buy it off Amazon. Why do I have a time extended glow? I'm blind as a bat. It's three o' clock in the morning and I wake up and I need to see what time it is. And I can press this little button, you'll see it goes green like that. Way more expensive watches don't have this feature as far as I can tell. Nor do I need a way more expensive watch. So I can say that you can get along perfectly well with a Timex Indiglo. $40. And it's handsome, by the way. It's a perfectly handsome old fashioned watch.

[B]

I gotta up you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

By which I mean down you. $35 on Amazon. Something called Omega MGA. No.

[A]

Oh, oh, it's Omega because it looks like an old Omega. But my grandfather had that watch. But I think he got that as like a retirement present or something. But that's the Mega. Excellent. But as I say, I have a specific reason to have the Indiglo, which is my extreme nearsightedness and my inability to see the clock across the room without my glasses on. But I can shove this thing right up to my eyeballs and press the button and see what time it is. So I don't need a senator with really expensive watches and nor does Michigan. The interesting question is that our problem with El Sayed is not that he has luxury watches or that he's a hypocrite. Our problem with him is that he is a terrorist loving family member of a Hamas affiliated fundraiser who hates Israel, doesn't condemn the murder of Jews in his own state, and has evil and barbaric views. I'm perfectly happy that other aspects of his problematic character are reflected in, you know, in other behaviors that then cast some light on how, you know, he's having these views may also play some role in making you really not the best guy. I would love to believe that to be the case. Obviously I know many people that I agree with who are like not good people. And so I'm unwilling to assume that people that I don't agree with are bad people. But you know, when you like love Hamas and you won't condemn the murder of Jews, that gets to your character and it might mean that you're going to be a complete hypocrite who, you know, acts like you're a suffering working man when you're actually a wealthy guy who might for all we know be living off the proceeds of his non Medicare taking wife. Which is interesting by the way, because one of the policies that he suddenly adopted in the debate with Haley Stevens last week was that he believes that nobody should pay a Medicare premium. Right. That no old person should pay Medicare premium. This is a fascinating bit of data because I just turned 65 and discovered, and you know, we have health insurance here, but you kind of have to take Medicare. And so I didn't know that you had to pay a Medicare premium, but everybody does have to pay a Medicare premium. And it feels a little unfair. But I'm not a socialist, so I don't believe, you know, so I think, I think Medicare is a, is a bad system. And I don't believe in universal entitlements because I think they're gonna bankrupt the country. But he is now favoring one population over another. Why? Cuz he needs votes from older people. And so he's doing a classic vote for me and I'll buy you off with this policy that I can never enact anyway cuz I'm only one senator out of 100. But it was the first time, I think that moment in the debate that you saw his, what you saw like his desperate, a little bit of desperation like that he needed, he was gonna need something to juice him beyond his radical chic that seemed to have excited base Democratic voters and led to his surge in the first six months of this year. I'm James Patterson. I write way too many books. Welcome to Hungry Dogs. The title comes from my maternal grandmother, Isabel Zelvis. Morris Nan used to always say, hungry dogs run faster, James. And I've been running fast ever since. Here's what will be coming your way soon. And this is a really terrific list. I think you'll hear from some incredible people like Stacey Abrams.

[B]

Yay.

[A]

BJ Novak.

[B]

Yay.

[A]

Kathy Bates, Dolly Parton, Josh Gad. And Pope Leo. Okay, maybe not Pope Leo, but who knows? Maybe he'll show up. Hungry dogs run faster. Thank you, Grandma, for turning me into a hopeless, obsessive, compulsive. Listen to Hungry Dogs with James Patterson. That'd be me on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you, thank you, thank you. From the State House to the courthouse, in the emergency room and in the classroom, Americans are losing trust in their leaders. In a 2025 U.S. news and World Report survey, 85% of Americans said government leaders care more about their own power than the people they serve. 73% are disappointed in health care leaders, 72% in business, and 68% in education. But there are still leaders worth believing in. I'm Eric Gertler, CEO and executive chairman of U.S. news World Report. This is the Best Leaders podcast sponsored by the Noble Reach Foundation.

[C]

On this show, we'll go deeper into

[A]

the stories, challenges and lessons of extreme extraordinary leaders across public service, business, healthcare and education. You can find the best Leaders podcast

[C]

from U.S. news World Report on YouTube,

[A]

Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

John, I, I, I share your your deeper concern about his more problematic and toxic issue, which is his, as you say, enthusiasm for terrorists and all of that. I think the sad reality might be that his being a sort of indulgent materialist that may be more salient among certain voters than the fact that he sides with America's enemies.

[A]

Well, look, obviously if he were like a saint, but he had these terrible views on terrorism, that would present a problem running against him, if he were like a wonderful person who did nothing but minister to the poor and go around and wash the feet of the whatever, accept that he had these terrible opinions about Hamas, but even that, given his welter of other behaviors, could be defended against. So fortunately, he's not that right. I don't know what he has to recommend him as a human being. He was also like a classic public health official in the COVID era, with bad ideas and imposing totalitarian restrictions and doing all that stuff that public health officials were doing during the COVID era. So already there he's unattractive to me. But I do think that this poll that has Haley Stevens up seven is very striking because this is again, one of the first times in this surge of the DSA and radical candidates where there is a real race inside the Democratic Party. The only other one we had was Lander versus Goldman. No, there was a race between Darieliza Chevalier and Adriano Espaillat that she won by.

[C]

Lander also left the dsa.

[A]

What?

[C]

Lander left the dsa. So by the time that race happened, it wasn't a dsa. Technically a dsa.

[A]

Right. But I'm saying what we have here is in an electorate in a state with 11 million people statewide race, one radical candidate and one non radical candidate inside the Democratic coalition, that it would be very salubrious for the country, in my view, if the radical was handed his hat in the primary. Because the results of his success are going to be very dangerous. Even if he loses in November to Mike Rogers, even if he won and lost in November, which is. This is the way to go in the Democratic Party, this will be an answer In a purple state, in a swing state, you can't be this crazy and disgusting and win even among Democrats. And so maybe going into 2027, when Democrats are gonna have to start thinking about who's gonna represent them nationally in 2028, there will be a reality check, which is what they need. Platner isn't a reality check because he. He was ousted not on the basis of his views, but because of his repulsive personal behavior. Although I think having a Nazi tattoo is somehow reflective of an anti, you know, Jew hating, anti Semite. And that was. That is an important element of the Platner matter. It's not just the bit of a red flag. Yeah. I'm just saying, like, this will be a good thing for the country if Hailey Stevens wins because it will ensure. It won't ensure, but it will mean that the Democratic Party's gonna have to look long and hard at what it's going to embrace if it wants to coalesce behind somebody who can win in 2028 and who will not be repulsive to independents and others whom they would need to win in 2028.

[C]

And the interesting thing is that this is happening in Michigan where, after. Where Alyssa Slotkin, once upon a time, was she quite famously criticized.

[A]

She's the Senator.

[C]

She's the Senator now.

[A]

Right.

[C]

She was in the House. And when she was in the House, she criticized AOC and the. And the defund. The police bandwagon and reportedly at, you know, some, you know, behind the scenes, she was saying things like, your district, AOC is not America. Like, you can get away with this stuff. It kills us in Michigan. It absolutely kills us in Michigan. Slotkin now has, has surrendered to the idea that that moment has. The moment has passed to differentiate Democrats in Michigan from Democrats in the Bronx and elsewhere. So the question is, is it just. Does she have political instincts that tell her that the party, you know, that she's now on their bandwagon rather than the reverse? Or, you know, is she. Is it just that she's given up fighting it? And that's the real question here. Is, is the, is the cause lost? Right? Or, or are they. Do they just not have somebody who is fighting it? Because the. On the national scene, We've talked about this too. On the national scene, nobody wants Chuck Schumer involved in their Democratic primary, right? Nobody wants him there. Hakeem Jeffries is, is not exactly standing athwart history in the Democratic Party shouting, stop. So it might just be the case that, that it's not all the cause is not actually lost. In that case, it'll come down to the voters of Michigan, but there isn't anybody that Slotkin as the Senator, Chuck Schumer as the Senate floor leader, there isn't anybody in the party who is taking the reins and saying, no, the cause is not lost. And that will have. That has a huge effect, not just on the momentum, but also on the shock value. Because if, if Stevens wins, it won't be because the establishment struck back. It won't be Revenge of the Empire, whatever the Empire Strikes Back, it won't be because the establishment, although Abdul said and all his fans will say so, and they will point to this for years to come as being squashed by the establishment and blah, blah, blah, but it simply won't be true if she wins. It won't be because the establishment did enough to help her win. And so that is going to be the more interesting thing is if, in the few if that happens, does the establishment say, oh, look at the power we didn't realize we have, maybe we should exercise that power more? So it may have the reverse effect. It's not the establishment now doing anything, and that's a real problem. If they get lucky and win anyway, the establishment that is, then we can see how they react to that.

[D]

Here's what I wonder. I mean, There was like 10 minutes after the 2024 election when Kamala wouldn't disavow her transgender surgeries for prisoners and illegal immigrants views and tried to straddle both lanes on Israel and the war in Gaza, and so on and so forth. But it was clear she was too far to the left and didn't have the political skills to take on Trump. When Democrats said, we went way too far to the left here, culturally, Spanberger was saying that, Slotkin was saying that. Several other. Seth Moulton was saying that. So that may be their takeaway in the Michigan primary if slotkin wins for 10 minutes. But will it go on for longer than 10 minutes? I don't see that happening in the Democratic leadership. And I agree with you. I mean, there's a debate among Republicans about whether they should be boosting El Sayed because he'd be easier to run against in the general. I don't think so. It is simply too risky in such

[A]

a

[D]

bad year for Republicans to have this guy come that close to a Senate seat. I think all people of good conscience should be hoping that Haley Stevens wins this primary. I understand the other view. He obviously would be the weaker candidate in the general election, but I am not rooting for him to win this primary.

[C]

Yeah, I always bring up for people. Jim Messina said during the 2016, I think it was 2015 at the time. I pray to God every night that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. That's what Jim Messina, who was one of the architects of Obama's successful presidential campaigns, this is, this is the, this is the mess in a rule, as I call it. This is, you know, point blank, you know, he kept saying, if there's a God in heaven, you know, and he said out loud what people were saying behind the scenes. A lot of people agreed with that. A lot of people thought, boy, it'd be great to run against Donald Trump, but didn't actually say it. So that, yeah, that's, that's, that's the mess in the lesson. You don't go around thanking God for your opponent until you have beaten your opponent.

[A]

I think there's another important element here. Yesterday, El Sayed tweeted out, hey, look at all this money that is being raised by this super PAC against me. It's AIPAC money. Now, remember, AIPAC is not a super pac. AIPAC is not a lobby. I mean, AIPAC is not a lobby, whatever money is being raised independently to go at El Sayed, you know, in Michigan. And he's saying, AIPAC is targeting me. And you know what?

[B]

Good.

[A]

You know what? Jews need to fight back. It will be very helpful to the idea that it is dangerous to run campaigns, anti Semitic campaigns. If this Foremost anti Semitic campaign that is being run maybe almost in the history of the United States is turned backward. And that the Jewish lobby, even though it's not a Jewish lobby, can claim some role in the result. Because one of the ways that power works is that you deter. And the deterrence here would be El Sayed climbed up the ladder, used the dsa, ran as a Hamas lover effectively, and then this small but passionate group of people marshaled what resources they had to turn him back and turn him away. And don't think that that won't happen to you. Generic Democrat or Dsa Democrat, if you're thinking of running in 2028. Such people already got Cori Bush knocked out of the primary in Missouri in 2024. Jamaal Bowman knocked out of the primary in 2024 in New York. If El Said can get taken down and Jews can claim some role in having done this, as there is this self consciously Muslim Islamist faction that is trying to play a major role in American politics, I think the Jewish role in taking that down is very important and it not be secret and quiet and hidden and behind the scenes and all of that.

[D]

Meanwhile, his father in law is pouring $200,000 that we know of. There's another financial disclosure yet to come into a super PAC supporting him. Is anyone in the news media who he will respond to gonna go to him and ask him, hey, are you gonna ask your father in law to stand down because you want money out of politics? Has anyone in the mainstream written a negative story about this guy? Anybody?

[A]

No. But you know what? If there are two more polls like this, that's when the effort to correct the record or to muddy the history here will start. You know, this, like, this is a classic element of this. When somebody looks like they're a winner and their views align with your views in the mainstream media, you don't touch, right? You do the Lindsey Fifield thing, you do a story, but you bury it 30 paragraphs down in order to make sure that you get some credit for having covered something. But you're actually cleaning, you're sort of cleaning up for Platner's mess. And then that story had to be accentuated by the emergence, the open emergence of the second victim, named victim of Platner's sexual assaults. But if El Sayed starts looking like he may lose, I think you will see some mainstream media coverage of some of this. So that when we want to go and start screaming at them and saying, you covered for this guy and aren't you ashamed of Yourself, he lost or whatever. They'll say, no, we didn't see. Here's our story. On August 1, we published a story that said El Sayed's father in law has ties to terrorist organizations. One story. Not like a drumbeat, not like where you set five reporters on it and have them reporting every day. But one story here, one story in ap, a story in Politico, a story in the New York Times. But Stevens is gonna have to look more formidable for them to decide that they need to cover their tracks. If El Sayed starts looking like a loser does that, that would be my.

[D]

If the mainstream media publishes a story about his father in law between now and August 4th, I will eat my.

[A]

You don't have to eat your hat. I'm not gonna. One of the great short films ever made, it's called Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe. It's by a guy named Les Blank. And Les Blank said he was going to make a documentary about Werner Herzog making the movie Fitzcarraldo. And Werner Herzog said to Les Blank, if you ever finish that documentary, I will eat my shoe. And Les Blank did. And then he sat and he filmed Werner Herzog eating his shoe. And it's an eight minute. You could watch it on YouTube. It's hilarious. He did in fact cook and eat his shoe. And I don't want to do that to you, Eliana. So I don't want you saying you'll eat your shoe or eat your hat or something like that, because, you know, it's okay. We take.

[C]

But also the type of story they would. The reason that you might lose a bet like that is because the Times is somewhat likely to do a story about the Free Beacon doing a story on his father in law. That when things get, you know, something goes viral, the Times will often do a story on. Right. You know, sort of the Republicans pounce type of story. We do see that from time to time. So I definitely don't want you having to eat your hat or your shoe or anything else. Because the Times did a story. Because you did a story. Because that would be the ultimate irony. But that is, but that is the pattern in, in the more general sense is that you, you may well see, you know, right wing media portrays Abdul El Sayed father in law as terrorist or whatever. And then talk to people about that. And that might be the way you get the discussion of it. And that is very similar to what we've just been talking about with the Graham Platner stories in the New York Times to cover it in a way that presents you with the conclusion you should draw at the top and not read what the information is that people are actually discussing about the person.

[A]

Okay, so let's move on to the data center issue that Eliana brought up, because it's worth spending five minutes on. Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, running for reelection this year, desperately trying, although she really. Nobody thinks that her rival, though he's actually a really good guy, Bruce Blakeman, is gonna prevail here. But nonetheless, she is doing whatever she can to make good with all Democratic constituencies. And she announced yesterday or the day before yesterday that there would be a moratorium in New York State on the construction of all data centers for at least a year. The data centers that are being built all over the country in order to generate the electricity that AI servers need because they eat up an enormous amount of energy. And so they need their own. They need new sources of energy generation in order not to put too much pressure on the American energy grid and also to keep prices down. Now, the weird part is that she says, in part, we're doing this in order to keep prices down, which is absurd, because if you have less energy and more of it is, there's competition for the energy needed for AI, prices are going to go up. But this is a very interesting Luddite moment, even though I speak as somebody who was terrified of AI and would wish that it had never happened somehow, obviously, this is the wave of the future, and New York State is making a move that other states are probably gonna follow, which is to refuse to allow the placement of AI businesses in their state because they won't be able to produce the energy they need to do the work. So the states that say, okay, are gonna have a gold rush. And states like New York that are in desperate need of saving themselves from their own economic backwater, they were big, really, really, really successful in the late 19th century. They've been in decline ever since. Are going to shut the door to this future industry?

[C]

Well, I mean, I think, you know, one problem is that the biggest problem is that the moratoriums become permanent. That's. That's the trap that seems to be being laid for that. Because I'm open to the idea that a state having trouble managing its electric grid, its power grid, maybe needs to figure out how to do that, and therefore, maybe there's a limit on it, maybe. Whatever. I'm open to the idea that we can discuss that, you know, an industry that ends, that is. That is looking to use, you know, a third of a state's power grid. When all is said and done, you know that there's maybe a discussion to be had there. But what, what I'm more nervous about is that it's, this is just, you know, this is a, this is like when someone gets suspended from a network to get the heat off them and then they never return to the network or something like that. That this, this is a moratorium that turns into a soft ban. And, and I think the other part of this is that you watch the way that this is being spoken about the terminology that it's being couched in. The data centers have become the, a clear establishment versus the people issue. It has been completely eaten up by the populist wave. And so now you have what you have with other litmus test issues where it's like, well, if you're on the side of big business and bad people, you want data centers. If you're on the side of the people, you don't want data centers. And that oversimplification because again, if you build a data center, you will be creating jobs for some of those people. Like, it's not, it is complicated and it's definitely not the really, truly populist working class move to ban jobs, but it is falling into that litmus test area where you can just throw out a term and say data center. It codes establishment. And if that happens in conjunction with a moratorium, that's going to be devastating to the industry in ways that I think people, even people who are nervous about the effect of data centers don't foresee.

[B]

There's a weird, I mean, there's an interesting convergence of phenomena here. In one sense, it's kind of like the. We saw these attitudes about big box stores and SUVs, right? There's just like big things that eat up energy or just sort of, you know, capitalist behemoths, you know, anywhere near you is a bad thing. There's also this sort of health panic. I don't know how, you know, there's like, it reminds me of like cell phone towers. You don't want those near you. And so it's like it's another one. It's a good, it's kind of an omni cause situation here. So it's very easy to hate if you are of a certain inclination.

[D]

Hochul's reasoning when she announced this was. Is so fatuous, it's worth examining for a moment. And we should also talk about the influence campaign. You know, it's true that Americans on their own have anxieties about AI, the four of us among them, but separate. And apart from that, there is a massive Chinese, Iranian, Russian influence campaign to stoke and spread those fears among people to give China a leg up in this technology race that is under examined. However, the New York Times did have an A1 story on this that people should be aware of. And Hochul's decision is helpful to the Chinese, who they don't have to deal with a democracy and public sentiment. They are just building, building, building. So she said, you know, we need to have this moratorium because data centers, they occupy a lot of land, they displace agricultural space and open spaces, and if you live near one, they emit vibrations and noise. And it brought me back to, I lived on 92nd street and 2nd Avenue when they were building out the 2nd Avenue subway line in New York. If you want to talk about vibrations and noise, okay, there would be no subway in New York City, let me tell you that. And our Ira Stoll in the Free Beacon makes this point in a piece about the data centers. And would cities even exist, you know, would suburbs exist if we were concerned about taking up open spaces and land? It is absurd. And on the data centers, these things are going to get built. They are going to get built. The question is whether they are going to be built in America with oversight from the US Government or whether they are going to be built in different countries, particularly in China with Chinese control over them. And we have very few Democrats, Democratic governors, Democratic lawmakers framing it in this way. Instead, we have socialist politicians in cahoots with Chinese aligned billionaires like Neville Roy Singham, who has relocated to Shanghai and is working hand in glove with the ccp, having events with CCP aligned scholars in this country. Bernie Sanders did an event with two China scholars stoking American fears about the expansion of AI. And it is a genuine scandal, a genuine scandal.

[A]

I just want to remind people this is as a New York specific issue in regards to 21st century Luddism. In 2007, when the fracking industry suddenly matured and suddenly they were discovering that you could, you could harvest shale oil out of, you know, you could harvest natural gas out of shale. And Pennsylvania went all in and there was a gigantic multi state field called the Marcellus Shale. And this was like hitting, you know, it was like hitting oil in Texas in the early 20th century New York State because of environmental pressure. And the idea was, oh, if we start harvesting it, the oil is going to get into the aquifer and it's going to poison our Drinking water, all of which was technologically an absurdity. It was nowhere near the aquifer. It wasn't going to work that way. It was like a kind of weirdly illiterate threat. New York State put a moratorium on, or a ban on fracking. So because of the way the Marcellus Shale is built, you see, Pennsylvania was able to, in the words of Daniel Plainview in the movie There Will Be Blood, in the notorious line spoken by Daniel Day Lewis in his Oscar winning performance, Pennsylvania drank New York's milkshake, his straw, went across state lines into New York and, and Pennsylvania sucked all of the natural gas out of the Marcellus Shale on the New York side and profited enormously from it. So a, the oil came out, it was harvested, it was taken. But New York did not get the benefit of any of it because it had unilaterally decided to ban fracking out of a misguided and psychotic idea that fracking, which is the cleanest form of oil by the way, right. It's natural gas, burns much more cleanly than petroleum. That this was, you know, they were helping the environment. And here we are and it's 20 years later almost, and New York State is about to do this again. It is turning its back on an energy producing industry or an industry that needs energy generation so it will produce energy generators in order to sustain itself. And it would do it in New York, so there would be AI business in New York. But if New York's not gonna let it happen, it won't just go to China. I mean, it'll go to a rational state that wants to be the next Silicon Valley boomtown because it'll produce, it'll have the data centers necessary to support AI facilities. And once again, blue states are like contributing to their own economic obsolescence in a really radical way based on foolish political ideas generated by people who do not have the economic interests of the people of the state foremost in their minds.

[D]

It's by the DSA and the China aligned political parties that are attaching themselves to the dsa.

[C]

Well and it's like the Amazon, you know, wanting to build in New York and AOC running them out of town. There's, there's a lot of things like this where that business is going to go somewhere. It's just looking for a home. It will find a home. And you know, what you do in the campaign against that particular business, getting to build that particular building there is you whip up all sorts of nonsense against the, the company and the product and all that stuff itself. And you end up really sort of, you know, poisoning the well against that whole industry because you have to come up with a better excuse to ban them than, I don't like Amazon, I don't like big stores. I like the little guy or whatever that doesn't work for, you know, for killing jobs. So you have to say, like, well, they hire mercenaries to murder people in the Philippines or something. You have to come up with some kind of crazy story. And that's going to happen with data centers. And it's easy, easier to believe it because I also, you know, I see like those AI commercials and I'm like, I don't know how this is moving kind of fast. I sometimes I feel like a bit of a Luddite myself. But what I'm saying is the American people are absolutely open to the argument against the product that these, that the industry is trying to, you know, that's. That comes with these data centers now. And that is going to make it a lot easier to try to scare people with nonsense.

[A]

Okay, well, finally, since Eliana quoted that Hochul, you know, explanation that involved, like, there's a buzzing noise. Like if you live near a data center, there's a buzzing noise. This is actually when an industry starts up and it needs to slap things up fast in order to keep itself going. And it needs to do this stuff faster than it has. It's not yet mature, but it has to ramp up production, essentially, right? So it does whatever it can do as quickly as possible. Issues like the buzzing or the noise or something like that. That is what a proper interplay between our capitalist system and our regulatory representative democracy helps solve over time. So maybe the answer is that you bury the data centers, right? Or that, you know, that they have to be sunk in the ground or something like that instead of being built like, essentially like storage warehouses that have servers in them. And so therefore they make a lot of noise. The noise problem can be solved, those things. That's how the environment improves as industries mature. And the things that are unpleasant about them are dealt with. Because it's also in their interest to make it as pleasant as possible to work, to make the atmosphere pleasant as possible to work in and around and all that. If you stop it in its tracks, then you participate in no effort to create this interplay and where you can actually have a say as a represent, you know, our representatives can have a say in how this goes to make life as positive as possible for everybody. And instead they just leave the field and say, you can't do this here. And fine, so it'll be done in Idaho and then Idaho will be really rich and New York State will end up, as I say, continuing to kind of collapse in this slow century long economic collapse that it has been undergoing. Only saved by, you know, only saved by sort of Wall street transaction fees keeping, keeping New York alive. It's just one state in which this is happening. But it's a very representative and interesting issue to watch. Okay, so we'll leave it there. We'll be back tomorrow. For Abe, Seth and Eliana, I'm John Podwortz. Keep the candle burning.