Ep. 441 - The Tony Kinnett Cast's LIVE 2025 Election Coverage - with Scott Jennings, Victor Davis Hanson, and Kurt Schlichter

Summary

The Tony Kinnett Cast – Ep. 441: LIVE 2025 Election Coverage

Host: Tony Kinnett
Guests: Scott Jennings, Victor Davis Hanson, Kurt Schlichter, Ken Cuccinelli, Jarrett Stepman, Bradley Devlin, Virginia Allen, George Caldwell, Producer Nick
Date: November 5, 2025

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Overview

This special, live episode of The Tony Kinnett Cast presents comprehensive, real-time coverage and analysis of the pivotal 2025 "off-year" elections, featuring major gubernatorial and down-ballot races in Virginia, New Jersey, and the highly-watched New York City mayoral election. Joining Tony are expert guests from across the political spectrum who break down the results, dig into cultural and political trends, reflect on campaign strategies, and assess implications for 2026’s midterms and the national shutdown. The episode’s tone is direct, sarcastic, engaging, and filled with characteristic Tony Kinnett humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Election Highlights

1. Why Off-Year Elections Matter

• Tony kicks off by stressing the stakes—even in an "off-year." The ongoing government shutdown and heated issues (transgender policy, crime, parental rights in schools) are energizing both parties and providing national ripple effects.
• The outcome, especially in blue-leaning states, is read as a preview for 2026’s midterms.

"[T]his is really one of the first off year elections that I can remember seeing as much pomp and circumstance…You really got out the big leagues." (09:52)

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2. Virginia: The Bellwether Race

Key Races:

• Governor: Abigail Spanberger (D) vs. Winsome Earl Sears (R)
• Attorney General: J. Jones (D) vs. Jason Miyares (R)

Shut Down Fallout:

• Both Tony and guest Ken Cuccinelli (former AG of Virginia) express surprise that the long government shutdown has had a muted effect in VA, despite the large population of federal workers.
• Cuccinelli explains the demographic split: NOVA (Northern Virginia) as a Democratic stronghold due to federal employees, "ROVA" (Rest of Virginia) being more Republican.
• The Democratic base remains mobilized by issues like transgender policy in schools, while Republicans struggle with turnout in an off-cycle year.

Results & Analysis:

• AP calls governorship for Abigail Spanberger.
• Jay Jones ultimately leads in the AG race.
• Key issues: public safety/crime, parental rights, education, and energy policy ("green" initiatives vs. affordability).
• Winsome Sears criticized (by Tony and panel) for running too much on "anti-Spanberger" rather than offering a forward-looking vision.

"Sears campaign...has really been focused far too much on what it is that they're fighting against in Abigail Spanberger...hasn't really communicated the here's where we're going, here's what Virginia can be." (11:56)

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3. New Jersey: The Missed GOP Opportunity

Key Races:

• Governor: Mikey Sherrill (D) vs. Jack Cittarelli (R)

Issues & Turnout:

• Republicans saw New Jersey as their best shot, but turnout and enthusiasm lagged.
• Cittarelli emphasized back-to-basics education and opposition to gender ideology in schools—a message panelists found effective but ultimately insufficient.
• Sherrill leaned into "parents' rights," but her opposition to opt-outs for LGBTQ+ content was seen as tone-deaf by the panel.

"That's a prepared candidate right there. That is what people will come out to vote for." (45:04, on Cittarelli’s debate answer)

• Bomb threats at polling sites and concerns about the effect on turnout are noted.
• Decision Desk and AP eventually project a clear Sherrill victory.

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4. New York City: The “Socialist Surge”

Key Races

• Mayor: Zoran Mamdani (Democratic Socialist, DSA), Andrew Cuomo (I, former Governor), Curtis Sliwa (R)

Trends & Reactions:

• Panelists highlight the lack of enthusiasm for Cuomo and Sliwa; Mamdani’s base is young, “excited,” and focused on big promises: affordability, city-owned groceries, radical housing policy.
• Jarrett Stepman notes the “A Team” for Democrats is now the new, energetic vision-casters like Mamdani, while the old guard is left floundering.
• Tony and guests express concern over NYC’s accelerating socialist politics and predict more outmigration of residents/companies.

"The only people who were excited except for the mom, Donnie supporters. They were the only people who were excited in this race." (152:24)

• AP and Decision Desk both call the race for Mamdani quickly after polls close.

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5. California: Prop 50 & The Future of House Redistricting

• Victor Davis Hanson explains how Prop 50 will all but ensure Democratic entrenchment via aggressive redistricting.
• He discusses the political and demographic shifts in CA, frustration with the lack of a compelling, future-oriented message from the state’s GOP, and the tightening grip of urban progressivism.

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6. Media Coverage, Government Shutdown, & National Picture

• Scott Jennings predicts that regardless of results ("Democrats supposed to win tonight"), media will spin things as "bad for Trump."
• Panel agrees: Democratic strategy, especially in the ongoing shutdown, is controlled by its radical base—centrist Democrats are "terrified of AOC and Bernie Sanders."
• Jennings and Devlin both lament that the shutdown, blamed on GOP in the past, is entirely Democratic-driven now. They foresee quick moves toward reopening post-election.

"If you have to give something subsidies, it's not working…what the media and Democrats want is for Republicans to bail out Democrats on Obamacare." (66:19)

• The shutdown is believed to lose value as a Democratic “wedge issue” after the election.

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7. Candidate Quality, Party Strategies, & The 'Vision Gap'

• Both panelists and Tony bemoan the Republican Party's lack of a clear, positive vision—complaining that "not the Democrat" isn’t enough, especially for working-class and diverse voters.
• Dems have shifted from merely the “B team” of “corporate, middle-aged white lady” candidates to the “A team” of visionary, activist-types (Mamdani, AOC).
• Republicans identified as struggling to build turnout machinery, especially in off-years and in dense, blue-leaning areas.

"It's not going to be enough to be anti-woke. It's not going to be enough to say we're going to cut your taxes…you need to say this is the positive vision, the moral vision." (135:09)

• Kurt Schlichter offers hard-boiled wisdom: “Democrats win deep-blue states in off-years; this was always going to be a rough night for Republicans.”

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Memorable Quotes (w/ Timestamps)

• Tony Kinnett:
  • "We’re not playing a game here. We never were." (01:29)
  • "I think that’s what we’re gonna see boiling down here in this election." (13:12)
  • "If you ever dated a crazy girl, you know that’s when you have to be on your guard. That may not be relevant to this, but that’s just good advice for life." (172:42)
• Ken Cuccinelli:
  • "The most striking thing to me is…the muted impact of the government shutdown on this governor’s race." (14:29)
  • "The Dems…are still more scared of their crazy radical, violent left wing base than they are interested in winning the middle." (17:08)
• Scott Jennings:
  • "The entire thing will be spun as somehow bad for Trump. Even if Republicans were to magically win, it would be, ‘somehow, they did it in spite of Trump’." (57:56)
  • "Election day…is a cultural thing. …When these things happen, they give people the idea that hey, it’s not good to vote on election day or it’s not safe. It hurts my heart." (60:14)
• Victor Davis Hanson:
  • "California…we’re going to go from nine out of 52 congressional seats probably down to four or five. …The real story is more than just that it’s being gerrymandered." (90:56)
• Bradley Devlin:
  • "The GOP is now more a working class party with lower propensity voters." (129:08)
  • "Democrats almost lost them because of that extremism…let’s see how that actually shakes out when there’s real Democratic primaries…in purple districts…" (144:03)
• Kurt Schlichter:
  • "I’m a big believer in Occam’s Razor—Democrats win in heavily Democrat areas and the Democrats are really motivated because, historically, it’s an off year and also they’re homicidal freaks." (116:04)
  • "What kind of man would vote for any of that? Well, I guess there’s a lot of guys who want to be tied up in diapers." (122:02)
• Virginia Allen (on-ground, VA):
  • "People here didn’t seem that surprised. ...The crowd behind me seems overall pretty positive…they carried on chatting. …That really lets you know, okay, Virginia has swung back to being quite blue." (68:18–72:13)
• Jarrett Stepman:
  • "New York itself dropped dead. That’s kind of what it feels like for many in New York City, especially longtime residents who can’t believe how far things have fallen…" (148:09)
• George Caldwell (on-ground, NYC):
  • "We asked about safety and crime issues. Generally, Mamdani supporters were pretty dismissive of that. ...But when we asked people what the word socialism means to them, they would generally say it's equality, caring about people. And so they didn't see it as a dirty word." (181:09)

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | Notes | |------------|-------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–02:45| Introductions & Stakes | Tone set—“not a game,” shutdown, off-year import | | 14:29–18:38| Ken Cuccinelli on VA shutdown, Dem base | Analysis: voters, base, demographic split in “NOVA & ROVA”| | 27:32–32:37| NY Analysis (Stepman, Jennings) | “Spoiler” vote, three-way mayoral, “pain & division” | | 34:45–37:20| VA gubernatorial debate moment | Spanberger v. Sears: transgender locker room policy | | 41:14–45:04| NJ debate moments, Cittarelli’s vision | Parents’ rights, LGBTQ curriculum, “back to basics” | | 47:55–53:14| NYC bomb threats, Mamdani’s response| “Intimidation,” “Trump’s fault,” policing & media spins | | 66:19–67:36| Media, shutdown, Obamacare subsidies| “Media will demand GOP bail out Dems on Obamacare” | | 87:12–98:26| Victor Davis Hanson on CA & Prop 50 | Demographics, gerrymandering, lost Republican messaging | |116:04–118:01| Kurt Schlichter—bad night for GOP | “Occam’s Razor,” off-year results, “bad night” | |129:08–135:02| Devlin on Republican turnout, vision gap| Building turnout, “need to cast a vision” | |148:09–150:42| NYC reaction: “New York dropped dead”| Stepman, AP calls Mamdani win, Dems’ “A Team” | |181:09–188:28| Caldwell—On the ground in NYC | Mamdani’s supporters, “affordability,” “socialism” | |189:36–191:00| Closing analysis | Dem victories, looking ahead to Prop 50, 2026 |

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Final Takeaways

• Democrat dominance in key blue states was expected; the Republican hopes for upsets (especially in NJ) fell short, confirming challenging fundamentals, especially without a popular national candidate atop the ticket.
• GOP's major problem remains vision and turnout—they must offer more than “not the Democrat,” especially in dense, younger, urban communities.
• Democrats have two archetypes—“vision casters” (Mamdani/AOC) vs. “corporate Karen” types (Spanberger, Sherrill). Both have strengths but the future is with those who energize the base with big, sometimes radical promises.
• Shutdown politics, redistricting, and social spending battles are set to define DC in the coming weeks, now that electoral “cover” for moderate Dems has expired.
• The episode’s blend of fast updates, sharp-edged commentary, and on-the-ground perspectives offers both a snapshot of 2025 as well as big questions for 2026 and beyond.

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This summary provides a complete, engaging breakdown for anyone who missed the live coverage or wants to revisit the decisive moments, strategies, and personalities that shaped the 2025 off-year elections.

Transcript

[Tony Kennett]

Tony Kennett. Tony Kennett.

[Bradley Devlin]

Tony Kennett.

[Tony Kennett]

Tony Kennett.

[Jarrett Stepman]

Tony Kennett.

[Ken Cuccinelli]

Tony Kennett.

[Tony Kennett]

Tony Kennett, host of the Tony Kennett cast. Let's get down to business. You're listening to the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WIBC on CYTV here on the Daily Signal. Good evening and welcome to the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal nationally, SY wibc. We have quite a bit to dig into on this, our major election coverage for an off year election. Why do major election coverage for an off year election? Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, with the polls now closing in Virginia 6 minutes and 43 seconds ago by the Navy master clock or the LED clock above the studio door, election results in Virginia for the governor's race, for the lieutenant governor's race and for a attorney general should be rolling in. We'll be going in just a couple of moments over to the former attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, who ran for governor the last time we had a major shutdown on kind of the other side of things, not during the Trump administration. He's gonna talk about that because the government shutdown is playing a major role going into this election and coming out of this election. Right now, for the first time that I can remember, we have a situation in which the President of the United States has pretty openly called for the filibuster to be nuked and for the nuclear option to be put into place, essentially a 51 vote majority to ram through the continuing resolution. Speaker Mike Johnson of the House of Representatives today said that the end of the shutdown appears nigh. We've gotten out all of the crystal balls. We've gotten the meteorologists from the washed up cable networks. We're here to make the prediction. Here's the speaker of the House. Evidence speaks for itself. So we're going above the heads of the so called leadership and we are appealing to the consciences of a handful of people in the Senate who want to do the right thing and just stop the pain, stop the pain for the American people. And we pray that today is that day. Maybe tying for the longest showdown in history is something that they can claim as some sort of success. But it's sickening. It's sickening to see a political game being played. We're not playing a game here. We never were. Back on September 19th to remind you all again, we passed a clean nonpartisan CR that's 24 pages in length, had not a single Republican priority on it.

[George Caldwell]

Why?

[Tony Kennett]

Because we did it in good faith. Because we didn't want this eventuality to occur. We knew it would be too painful for the people. And that's why we've always done the right thing. As everyone has said over and over, now they won't. And we all know why. Now here's where we get to the kind of the nitty gritty with the shutdown actually hinging on this off year election. There's a couple of reasons for that. As Ken Cuccinelli talks about, we're to get into this, of course, a little bit later, see if Scott Jennings has anything to say on this. These elections around Virginia have a major impact on Washington, D.C. because of all of the people in the general area. And what happens in Virginia elections severely impacts what occurs in Washington, D.C. and because of this, right now you're seeing kind of a bizarre situation where there are a couple of Democrats that are in limbo. And these Democrats have, as have been previously reported by the Hill from places like New Hampshire and Michigan and Georgia, Democrat senators in states that are not comfortably solidly blue are getting a little bit nervous that the voters in their states are a little tired of this. And so tonight, if we see a lot of Republican victories that were unexpected, say for example, in the New Jersey, the New Jersey gubernatorial, then what you are going to see on the other side of this electorate are probably some flaking away and some decisions to bring the government back from the shutdown. Senator John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, or Senator Betterman as we've coined him, is a Democrat who has taken the lead on being the more moderate voice of of the party. Here you go. Well, why won't Schumer do it? You voted to open the government.

[Bradley Devlin]

Well, I mean, I really kind of led the charge back in March about, you know, keeping our government open. I thought I might be the only Democrat and there was enough people back in March and I said I'm going to be right there in September when this comes back and if I'm the only Democrat, I'll still be there because it's wrong to shut our government down.

[Scott Jennings]

Does Schumer hate you?

[Bradley Devlin]

No, of course he doesn't. He doesn't hate me. We might disagree with it right now. And where I'm here tonight to have a conversation because I'm going to have a conversation with the other side and that's where I'm at. And I'm going to show up and talk to anyone that invites me to be here because we really need each other and I want to have and one other thing, I refuse to do as a Democrat. I'm not going to call you a fascist or a Nazi. I'm not going to compare anyone to like Hitler or anything that's wrong. And if you resort to that thing, you've lost the plot. It's like, because if you call him a fascist, then you have to think, well, maybe the people that vote for him, and I know people that love.

[Tony Kennett]

For him is a fascist.

[Bradley Devlin]

That's just not true. And I know people that voted for the other side and they're not trying to destroy our Constitution.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah. That is in fact, the moderate leadership position to take. Now, we did actually hear from Chuckles Schumer the great today. Uh, very excited. He was asked about whether or not he voted for the moderate in New York City or whether he voted for the radical jihadi, pro socialist, communist guy running in the mainstay of the Democrats. Here's how Chuck Schumer responded to this. A little testy.

[Virginia Allen]

Today is election day in New York City.

[Tony Kennett]

Did you vote for money or Como? Look, I voted and I look forward to working with the next mayor to help New York City. Oh, he voted. Oh, great. All right, excellent. So. So the fence riding is a little bit rough. I don't know if you've ever seen a picket fence, Nick, but picket fences are pointy. And I'm sorry, riding the picket fence. Ouch. Certainly more preferable alternatives in the toilet paper market. But moving aside, no pun intended, we need to get into why this Virginia election is, is crucial. Because what you're going to see over the next couple of days is the shutdown essentially ride on a little bit longer or come to a complete collapse or perhaps a nuclear option. Because all boiling down to the individuals in Virginia who either came out and drove today because they were mad, stayed home because they were mad, or of course decided that now is the essential, the time to put someone in who's going to kind of play kind of a hardball. What, what's your take on this?

[Producer Nick]

Yeah, it's a difficult decision making process to actually make a final call about it. Yeah, I guess that's kind of where we're at, like waiting to see how some of the early polls begin to pan out until we get some of the live updates where it'll actually tell us what's going on.

[Tony Kennett]

And this is the issue because Winston Sears has been trailing Abigail Spanberger for a long time. Large chunk of the election. Of course, being the lieutenant governor for the pretty well liked Glenn Youngkin has put the Virginia crew in a pretty rough spot because winsome hasn't really brought forward what I would argue to be really an exciting, exciting kind of passionate vision.

[Producer Nick]

That's where my confusion is quite a bit is Election Day. Usually the in person polling shows a huge margin of grow for the Republican, but that's kind of lagging a bit, it seems. But however, in turn there's been a bit of issues with some of the polling centers across the different states.

[George Caldwell]

Yeah.

[Tony Kennett]

And we're gonna get into that a little bit later this evening. There have been of course some bomb threat situations today. There have of course been a couple of issues really boiling down to some voter roll concerns, whether it be independent voters in Pennsylvania that were removed from some voter rolls. Couple of concerns in Eastern Virginia about this as well. There's a lot of that that we're going to touch on as we get into the show right now as the votes are starting to get in. Just so that you are aware of our kind of process this evening, we are going to rely on calling elections essentially by the Associated Press calling. But if there is a particular margin that is brought forward by a decision desk or a Fox News or perhaps an affiliate out there who brings forward a call, we might tell you about it. But at least as far as we're concerned, that kind of reporting, the Daily Signal is gonna rely on the, the AP bringing forward their final call. Some of these things, like the Virginia elections really should start to come in pretty quick, especially considering that some of the earlier precincts that are really gonna be driving things forward are a lot closer to the Norfolk kind of eastern seaboard up through to nova. So that said, we're gonna send the radio crew over to commercial. When we bring you guys back, we're gonna be with Ken Cuccinelli, the former Attorney General of Virginia, who's gonna prep us on a few things before we start getting a larger chunk of these numbers. We're gonna continue on the live stream because we don't have commercials over here. It's the Tony Kennedcast. So this is really one of the first off year elections that I can remember seeing as much pomp and circumstance. And the reason I say that I haven't, I haven't seen this much pomp and circumstance. I mean you really got out the big leagues. You had Barack Obama swinging on through lecturing everybody on how important it is to get out there in Virginia and vote for Abigail Spanberger and for Attorney General J. Jones. On the Democrat side, of course, here's the former President Barack telling us all how it is.

[Bradley Devlin]

I believe in An America where we don't fear each other but look out for each other.

[Tony Kennett]

And if we want that story to continue, if we believe in that better story, we need leaders who believe in it, too. We need leaders who will tell the truth and who will take responsibility and tackle hard problems and bring people together.

[Ken Cuccinelli]

Instead of tearing them apart.

[Tony Kennett]

Wild from Obama, given that earlier he in the rallies we heard from Jay Jones, the attorney general candidate for the Democratic Party, who of course had insinuated that he would like to see his political opponent dead, that he would like to see the guy's wife and kids dead, you know, police officers dead during the Black Lives Matter situation, of course. And that brings us to the opposite side of things. Who this time last year, Obama was encouraging black men. You got to vote for the black lady because, you know, she looks like you. She probably went to the same college that you did. Well, now it's not the blonde white lady in the Democrat slot. It's the Republican candidate that is the black lady in this case. Winsome World Series. Here was her final pitch to voters right before election day.

[Jarrett Stepman]

The difference between I believe.

[Tony Kennett]

Sorry, let's get that clip up here. There we go. Winsome rules here. If you want to keep more of your taxes in your pocket, Virginians vote for me because Abigail Spanberger has already said she's going to raise your taxes. I mean, believe her. She's telling you what she's going to do.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Said she's going to get rid of.

[Tony Kennett]

Oil and gas in Virginia. And in fact, the clean people have already given her hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure you only have solar and wind. Well, it's because of the solar and wind that we have higher energy prices. And you haven't seen nothing yet. Wait till next year when your bill is extremely high. Every single Democrat has voted for the green new deal that we have in Virginia. We need to get rid of it. Abigail Spamberger is going to make it worse. And then when you talk about being soft on crime, that's her because she.

[Bradley Devlin]

Voted for no cash bail.

[Tony Kennett]

You could just get out of jail without having to just put up any bail at all. And I'm talking about for highness crimes. This is my issue, my one issue. Winsome Earl Sears is extremely, extremely competent. She knows the issues. She's exceptionally data driven. She knows exactly what it is that voters are upset about. But Sears campaign, at least from our perspective, at least from where I'm sitting in this chair, has really been focused far too much on what it is that they're fighting against in Abigail Spanberg Spanberger, which, I mean, you know, if there, if anything, if any person, it would be hard to nail things to it would be the former CIA spook just throwing that out there. Uh, but Winsome hasn't really communicated the here's where we're going, here's what Virginia can be. I just don't know if right now that the I'm against Abigail Spanberger is going to be an effective campaign. What do you think?

[Producer Nick]

Yeah, it's a question of do you focus on your dismal future with one person or the hope of another. And people are driven in life mostly by hope. Life is very much a carrot stick situation and when you focus too much on the stick, you lose sight that there's even a carrot in front of you to move towards.

[Tony Kennett]

I mean it's a motivational speech for rabbits. But it's really apropos. I mean really when you have a situation which we're looking at right now in off year election, no one wants to go vote in off your elections. They suck. Going to vote sucks anyway. It's going to the dmv. People hate doing it.

[Producer Nick]

It's hard to communicate how meaningful they are as well.

[Jarrett Stepman]

Right.

[Tony Kennett]

So what you need to do. And by the way, all of the things that Winsome said in her in her final statement. Absolutely. Things that voters are tired of and are sick of, the cashless bail, the kinds of nonsense that have, have plagued people through social policy. Of course, of course we talk about Loudoun county here in Cancinelli here.

[Producer Nick]

Second.

[Tony Kennett]

But when you look at what you're coming off the heels of, she was just the lieutenant governor. So run on saying Youngkin started it. I'm gonna finish it. Just saying. I think that that's what we're gonna see boiling down here in this election. We gotta bring the radio crew back from the commercial and the Virginian former attorney generals on the line. Don't go anywhere. The Tony Kenneth cast. This is the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WIBC. We go over to Virginia's former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli joining evening on our excellent election coverage. A lot of action out there. Obviously not only the gubernatorial race but also the Attorney general's race. What are your thoughts?

[Ken Cuccinelli]

Well, first, if Jason Miares doesn't prevail in Virginia, I'm going to be afraid of my Virginia neighbors. But I did go renew my concealed carry permit just in case. But, but the, the most striking thing to me and it probably I'm just the one person in 8.2 million in Virginia that thinks this is the lack of impact, not zero, but the muted impact of the government shutdown on this governor's race. I ran in a government shutdown in 2013 and it was a 15 point crater and it was over in mid October. So we did come back, still lost by two, which is where we started. The end of September is down by two. So but for that government shutdown, we undoubtedly win the race. Nonetheless. Nonetheless, the worst predictions of Winsome's performance tonight have never gotten anywhere close to where we were. And the, and the sort of the moving of the needle by the shutdown has been very small. It's been very small, relatively speaking, which tells me that and Virginia's just one data point, but so many of our folks work with and in the federal government, and yet the Republicans are not being dumped on as a general matter for this shutdown in a state where that would be most likely to happen. The one where all the people who are furloughed, including government contractors who don't get their back pay live and work.

[Tony Kennett]

That's a really good point given that Virginia is a really different bird. And it's always a weird thing for the off year election as it is being the Virginia gubernatorial race and then down the ballot as well. But looking at the shutdown as a not an outlier factor, but as a core factor in these Virginia elections, the momentum still seems to be favoring a larger Republican push here than I was expecting. And I don't say that in any kind of a negative towards, you know, Winston's campaign or of course Jason's campaign or some of the other great campaigns that have been on the field in the Commonwealth. But there really is a strong momentum towards the not insane craziness that we saw through the Biden administration.

[Ken Cuccinelli]

Yeah, that continues. One of the questions we have in Virginia among Republicans is did that wave on our direction peak too early? And we'll find out as the votes get counted. But the fact of the matter is that the Democrats have not backed off of those positions. I mean, Jay Jones, the Attorney General candidate, has. You know, what he's sorry for is that people discovered his violent text that he sent to a Republican. By the way, these weren't some secret and where he was violently fantasizing about killing the Republican speaker of the House and his children. And Abigail Spanberger at the top of the ticket didn't disclaim that or back away from it at all. And she hasn't backed away from her 20% positions on transgender Issues where she's for boys in the girls locker room and she sponsored legislation at the federal level to that effect. So the Dems, I think are still more elected Dems are still more scared of their crazy radical, violent left wing base than they are interested in winning the middle. And that continues to play out.

[Tony Kennett]

So this brings up another interesting question that Virginia is not this monolithic suburban landscape. From one end of the state to the other there's pockets and those pockets change in voting momentum. And also in you have different factions of base and more radical elements that get excited based on election. What areas in Virginia have you seen maybe gain some momentum? Are there any danger spots for either party? Maybe break down the geography of the state for us a little bit if you can.

[Ken Cuccinelli]

So for those of you not in Virginia, we refer to Virginia as nova, Northern Virginia and Rova, Rest of Virginia, NOVA and Rova. Northern Virginia has grown massively because both parties grew the federal government massively over the last two, three decades. And, and that those people live, who've come to work in that growing federal government, they work and live in Northern Virginia, whether they be contractors or employees or other just folks who live there who service those people. That is support staff. Yes, that is the focus of life. I mean what goes on in Iraq is in the Metro center, Metro section in the Washington paper. You know, so that, that is not some far off distant news that is day to day. And those folks are home, they have more time on their hands and, and they are two to one Democrats. So where you'll see the shutdown impact is mostly in voter turnout by Democrats in Northern Virginia because it's going to be easier to accomplish because so many of their folks are home. And we have a 45 day election in Virginia, not a one day election with early voting. So that's been going on for a while. We have well over a million votes already cast, including my own prior to election day. And you know Republicans obviously do well on election day but the, the real fight has been district by district because the House of delegates is 5,149 and if the Republicans pick up just one seat, they stop the abortion, you know, all times abortion referendum that the Democrats want to advance and they stop the redistricting grab that the Democrats began here in late October at the request and behest of the Washington Democrats.

[Tony Kennett]

I mean it really seems as though there's a lot of kind of suburban, a lot of suburban needs on the line, a lot of suburban issues on the line. That's, that's the Word I wanted there. Well, how about the industrial side? Well, let me zero in on that.

[Ken Cuccinelli]

Tony, because you know, Glenn Youngkin, please, really ran on among economic issues. His big cultural issue was the trans issue and getting back to sanity in our schools. And the Northern Virginia school systems have virulently resisted getting back to normalcy. That issue, as you noted, is not dead. In fact, they continue to fight for it. Again, this is a 20% issue. Democrats don't support this issue, but the radical base does. And that's who has the wheel in the Democrat Party. And in fact, in the House of Delegates and the Virginia State Senate, those people have been elected. Now they're not just activists, they're elected officials now.

[Tony Kennett]

And also this isn't exactly just some kind of a theoretical cultural issue for Virginia either. When you look at the Loudoun county school system, which every time I used to cover that actively, now you're seeing that district still making waves because there's additional scandals. They targeted students with reprisal, of course, the horrible sexual assaults that occurred repeatedly due to their failure. That's again, it's, that was their policy.

[Ken Cuccinelli]

Now I won't assume anybody wanted sexual assaults to happen, but that wasn't because some guy slipped into the women's room. They let him in and they encouraged.

[Tony Kennett]

Him to go in.

[Ken Cuccinelli]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm glad that policy in place.

[Tony Kennett]

I should have, I should have clarified. That's a moral failure on, on their part. And of course the, the failure of the fools who believed that men could become women and vice versa and that throwing teenagers into the opposite sexes locker room is totally not going to have any. The common sense is unfortunately not so common. Before we let you go here, I just want to ask at the end of this particular election, there's always the bellwether question in an off year. And do you believe that going into 2026, if the Democrats are able to gain a stronger foothold in Virginia, this is going to be something that in Washington, because again, Washington being surrounded by Virginia and Maryland is going to kind of carry in a really kind of a negative or gloomy outlook for Republicans into 26.

[Ken Cuccinelli]

I actually think of the elections going on today. The New Jersey governor's race is probably your best bellwether race for the country. But I would say that, you know, in 2013, I lost the governor's race. We had a government shutdown. You had Republicans beating on Mike Lee and Ted Cruz who were trying to defund Obamacare. They're trying to defund Obamacare. Sounds pretty Smart now, doesn't it? But Mitch McConnell and John McCain were fighting them harder than the Democrats. And all the gloom and doom. Oh, we're gonna do terrible. You're tanking us for next year. The Republicans gained nine Senate seats in 2014 after that government shut down. And all of the woe is me from the establishment folks. Now, the House is very close. I have confidence Republicans will hold the Senate next year. And I'm not seeing anything in the electoral tea leaves right now that would suggest to me the Republicans will lose the Senate next year. You can never take anything for granted. The House will be the battle. And of course it's affected by all the redistricting fights. And now Virginia is part of that redistricting fight. And we'll see how it plays out in Virginia. We'll see how Prop 50 goes in California tonight. So there'll be, there'll be a lot of impacts on the midterm that are process impacts, more than just tea leaves impacts, which is what we've looked for in the past.

[Tony Kennett]

Well, one of the few times I'm able to say this, we can put aside the tea leaves for a moment. We've got to go check on some of those Virginia election results as they're coming in. Former Attorney General of the Commonwealth, Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, thanks very much for joining us as always, friend.

[Ken Cuccinelli]

Good to be with you, Tony.

[Tony Kennett]

All right, let's find out if I can do this really quickly before going to commercial for the radio. Folks, the decision desk, not Associated Press, is leaning towards calling the Virginia gubernatorial for Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat. We're going to dive into the numbers and why the Associated Press hasn't called it just yet on the live stream Radio crew, see you in a few minutes. It's the Tony Kenneth cast. All right, folks on the back end. So right now the Associated Press is reporting that 10% of the votes counted. Some of the precincts clocking in pretty heavy here. Right now it's 56% essentially to just over 43 and a half percent favoring Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat candidate. Now this is unfortunately where things are going to get a little bit hairy because right now there's a lot of middle of Virginia stuff that's gonna have to chime in. There's remember, we saw this with Glenn Youngkin and with Terry McAuliffe back during the last Virginia gubernatorial, there was a bit of a delay in the attorney general space. Right now the Associated Press is reporting something different right now. Jason Miares, the incumbent Attorney General, the Republican is beating out Democrat and really bad texter jay Jones. Currently, 108,000 votes counted for Jason Miaris. 97. 9 voted for J. Jones. That being in the thousands. So 52 and a half the 47 and a third. We're going to keep you updated. So right now, while the decision desk, which is not our standard for the evening in this off year election, has called things for Abigail Spanberger, the Associated Press. Not yet, Colin. Anything. Right now, the decision desk is also projecting. I knew I should have. I knew I should have learned how to pronounce his name. Ghazala Hashmi. Bless you to be the Virginia lieutenant governor again. We're going to wait for the Associated Press on those, but I like giving you guys a little bit of the update because as long as we're transparent here on the show, when I goof, theoretically, you'll be more forgiving. And if you believe that, I've got a great line of bridges to sell you. So. And producer Nick has a nerf gun aimed at me the second I need to make a correction. So let's dive into some of the rest of the country here just for a quick second. This means that we're gonna have to head over to our first guest of the evening over on the ground in New York. This would be our very own Jarrett Stepman. Jarrett, I think we see, I think we hear you. All right. How is it going out in the Big Apple?

[Scott Jennings]

It's going very well, I guess you could say, in the Big Apple. I have, I have one very big bridge to sell you here in the Big Apple. Things are going good with the, with the, with the, with the election day. I think it's very interesting how things have come down with three candidates in the race. I would say that many people sort of just simply expect Zohran Mandani, the socialist candidate, Democrat candidate, to just win here. Some say that things have been tightening. I, I frankly, especially looking at some of the polls, don't quite see it given the kind of enthusiasm I've seen in recent days, or lack of it.

[Tony Kennett]

That's for the man who spoke. Supposedly there's no. I'm, I'm surprised, but I'm also not surprised because I'm told New Yorkers are just jaded and they don't really believe in anyone or anything except a really great price hot dog. Uh, but in, in this instance, I haven't seen anyone enthusiastic for any candidate except for, like, rich little college girls for mom Donnie. Everyone else just is doing this resignedly. I was on Two TV segments today, like you, is what we do for the Daily Signal. All ding dong dang day, everyone is just saying, I hate doing this, but I'm casting my vote. I mean, come on, New York.

[Scott Jennings]

Yeah, you know, people coming out of the voting booth today, a lot of people look like they had, like, you know, a bad stomach, like they ate something rotten for lunch or something. But, and I can kind of understand it, I think that the problem that they have right now is you have, you have three candidates. You have the Mamdani vote and the not Mamdani vote. Voters are very, the ones in the anti Mamdani vote are very split on whether they should support Cuomo, who has built up a lot of antipathy among some New Yorkers. Not just for the. Go ahead, Tony.

[Tony Kennett]

Sorry, I gotta pause you there because the radio crew is coming back from commercial and Allison will throw a hatchet at my head. We'll come back right to you in just a second. Don't go anywhere, Tony. Kenneth Cast. Boy, do we have a long show tonight. This is the Tony kenned cast on 93 WIBC. Welcome back to the Tony Kenned Cast. We're on with Jarrett Stepman, the Daily Signal columnist out of New York City. So he pays a lot in taxes and tries not to get shiv on the subway. So you were telling us about kind of the three types of voters right now, and it's not the three fans of each candidate. It's not the three like the fans of Zoron and the fans of Cuomo and not a lot of old people in that camp. And then the fans of, you know, Curtis, Lewa and I guess Prince would have to be in that category. You know, the Raspberry beret. Little reference for you guys who are the actual three categories here, because with polls closing over there in 24 minutes, might as well do our homework now.

[Scott Jennings]

Yeah, I mean, Sliwa still has a lot of the traditional Republican voters, especially you talk to older voters who very much care about him, that sort of families that have been here for generations. A lot of them are the old, frankly, Giuliani voters that are still left in the city that are very disappointed with how things have gone, not just in this election, but a few elections. Those people, I think, have tried to maintain their allegiance to Sliwa. I think there's a feeling that Cuomo was simply dropped on them and that Cuomo really didn't do a lot during this campaign to win them over until the very final.

[Tony Kennett]

You lost the primary. Why not give us A chance. And I do, I do feel for that. My producer, Nick. We do, in fact, have spirited disagreements, often about the difference between when you employ principles and pragmatism and whether something is going to work in the reality of things versus what principles are okay to sacrifice. And of all of the people having to make this decision, would I say that I trust New Yorkers to make that particular decision? I'm. I, maybe I would say, yeah, because I'm a Midwesterner and we treat everyone on the east coast with scorn. But I'll say this. I don't think that we could have made that principle v. Pragmatism choice any better in this case. It's a rough one.

[Scott Jennings]

It's. It's a very rough one. I, I've seen people go through this throughout this election cycle. People very strongly saying, one day, well, you know, I think I've got to vote for Cuomo. I just, I have to do this to save the city. And then next, next sentence, practically, like, well, actually, I really hate that guy. I just. Leewa's been such a hero for the city. What he did with Guardian Angels, I'll never forget. He's the only one who's truly been there since the beginning. Oh, but he can't win. And I have to stop socialism. And I understand that. I mean, that's a, that is a real dilemma. And a lot of people, they don't, they don't know where to break on that because they would feel tremendously guilty if this came down to one vote or two votes or 10 votes, and they were the ones who allowed this guy to get in. Now, the reality is it may just be that Zoran Ramdani had all the momentum from the beginning, that this was sort of his race to lose and that there was no way to derail him. But that's the choice. That's the dilemma that's put on the voters here. And it was one that was breaking down just even to the last day there were people making their decisions. I wonder if there are a lot of people literally sitting in that voter's booth saying, what do I do? What do I do? How do I stop this? And that's, that's a tough thing in election. Usually you'd like to be a little clearer.

[Tony Kennett]

I'm wondering if, again, because both of us spend so much of our day doing the TV hits in and out, we've seen some of the same at the voting booth or outside of the voting booth polls where they say, you know, I really hated this but my daughter and I, we had to stop Mamdani and the pained constipation that usually you only see on the face of New Jersey's Cory Booker. It's a really rough one, Jarrett. We'll have you back real soon here. We've got a lot to get into and unfortunately we're not done with Virginia just yet. We'll catch you in a bit. Take care, sir.

[Scott Jennings]

Sounds great, Toad. Thank you.

[Tony Kennett]

All right, let's talk really quickly as the results continue to roll in, why it appears that in the Virginia situation, Jay Jones is. Well, I, I now things are flipped. See, this is why I shouldn't just start running my mouth at the beginning of a sentence and actually click on the tab first. According to the voting projections, right now J. Jones has leapt ahead of Jason Miaris, the incumbent, uh, Jay Jones, the Democrat, at 300,000 votes with 17% of the votes counted. Don't go anywhere, folks. Like Cuccinelli said, It's like a 45 day election. We're going to be counting until we call Maricopa for Biden. In the meantime, the Miyares campaign has run a pretty strong what they expect law enforcement in Virginia to be. Miyares runs on his prior record. He said this is what we did and we're going to do more of it. And by the way, I don't mean my coverage of Virginia to sound so anti win some Sears. It certainly isn't. Sears had one of the best lines in this particular campaign cycle. This was against Abigail Spanberger in the debate. And she asked Abigail Spanberger, mother to mother, what would you do if your daughter came home crying about another or about a boy in the locker room? Abigail had nothing. Check this out. One of the best moments of the season, this demonstration. Once again, the question was, should transgender girls who are biological males be allowed to use girls bathrooms and play on girls sports teams in K through 12? You have 15 seconds to clarify.

[Virginia Allen]

In cases across Virginia, I think it's.

[Tony Kennett]

Incumbent upon parents and educators and administrators in each local community to make decisions locally.

[Jarrett Stepman]

Would you respond?

[Tony Kennett]

Send the youngin administration policy requiring boys and girls to use bathrooms aligning with their biological sex.

[Jarrett Stepman]

You have 30 seconds.

[Virginia Allen]

My priority would be to ensure that local communities, importantly parents and teachers educators are able to work together to meet.

[Tony Kennett]

The unique needs of each school and each community. So. So up until this point, Abigail Spanberger has been given some specific questions and she hits you with the corporate speak. You know this corporate speak. If you work in a white collar job, you've heard This a million times the lady that's all college degrees and no substance that Walt is in or the guy that waltz is in and wants to impress everyone with how many big words he knows. And so they start answering every question, 18 paragraphs worth of answer to say what one sentence could have done quite aptly. And what Sears fires back is something that she does better than any candidate, maybe other than Jack up in New Jersey, which we'll get to in a bit here. The personal mother to mother question. Abigail can't communicate with that because she's like the corporate villain from a hallmark movie. But Ms. Fanberger, the question was should the young. Would you rescind the youngkin administration policy requiring boys and girls to use bathrooms.

[Jarrett Stepman]

Aligning with their biological sex?

[Tony Kennett]

You have 15 seconds to clarify that question.

[Virginia Allen]

Yes, and my answer is that in.

[Tony Kennett]

Each local community decisions should be made.

[Virginia Allen]

Between parents and educators and teachers in each community.

[Tony Kennett]

It shouldn't be dictated by. So after all of the, the futzing and the gutsing and the asking like the very honest questions like you're in this situation, she still wouldn't answer. Producer Nick, you have something.

[Producer Nick]

In debates it is very evident, especially in this one, that Democrats very much take advantage of being undefinable terms.

[Tony Kennett]

They will bloviate very ethereal like generalized Barack Obama.

[Producer Nick]

Yeah. General platitudes. While in turn the Republican. By defining their positions to a T they gain quite an advantage. And that seems to have been forgotten here a bit. Sears became so invested in the attack of trying to pin down Spanberger she forgot to.

[Tony Kennett]

I agree. There's a question in the comments I do want to answer. It's by Cliff. Victoria says why not build a third locker room for anyone who doesn't belong in the usual two. So I'm going to give you the practical answer and I'm going to give you the former biology, anatomy and physiology teacher answer. I'll give you that one first. There are boys and girls and if you are intersex, which is a minute minuscule very, very rarely seen number. I mean it's, it's parts per. It's almost parts per. If not parts per hundred thousand, it's parts per million in most actual generalistic studies. In that instance, the individual who is intersex ends up presenting male or female. You don't actually have the Saturday Night Live movie Pat where like is androgynous. The whole movie, you don't know whether it's a boy or a girl. That's not a thing. This was a social phenomenon that has cropped up outside of the fetish circles it used to apply to in the 90s into the aughts. Now. The practical reason is there are already family restrooms people can go change in if they want to, because that's a thing. And I'm sorry, you don't have a right to having a bathroom built just for you because you have some kind of a special idea of what gender is.

[Producer Nick]

That doesn't even solve the issue in its. In its conception when you would put transgender boys and transgender girls in the bathroom together. In this third labeling, you still run into the issue of biological men with biological women.

[Tony Kennett]

And as we found in Loudoun county, it often ends in sexual assault. At the very least, deeply uncomfortable women exposed to men, which, by the way, is a form of sexual assault and harassment. Ugh. Radio crew, we have to send you to the commercial before I get kneecapped by an FCC fine for not playing by the rules. We're gonna continue on the livestream because we've got some New York shenanigans to dig through. Fifteen minutes before those poll close. It's the Tony Kenneth cast. Oh, it's gonna be a late night, A good night, unless you are on the beautiful clean. I mean, so clean you could eat off of them. So clean you could eat rice with your hands off of them. Streets of New York City, those. First of all, first of all, regarding New Jersey, right now, you have Mickey, Sheryl, the Democrat, you have, of course, the great Jack Ciarelli. You've got some excellent candidates on the line in the Republican side. I was blown away by how little I heard about Jack before we get to this particular election. I haven't. I haven't heard a whole lot about. Now, look, I'm in Indiana, you know, maybe you wouldn't expect, outside of some of the, you know, bigger races and, you know, Ohio and Texas and California and Virginia that, you know, New Jersey's not exactly at the top of my priorities. But if I have to stare at Cory Booker's constipated face on the floor of the Senate, New Jersey happens to matter quite a bit. And after all, that is where we got Chris Christie. So, you know. Right, Chris Christie.

[Producer Nick]

Seeing him on the beaches of New Jersey.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, the beached whale himself. Sorry.

[Producer Nick]

Seeing him take up the beach of New Jersey.

[Tony Kennett]

So I do want to point out a few things here. We're going to go in kind of an opposite order here, because once we hit the New Jersey results, I want to make sure we're on track. The core issue, how Things are handled. Regarding the LGBTQ in schools thing that we talked about in Virginia, Jack Cittarelli and Mickey Sherrill handled this completely differently. Completely differently. Here's how Mickey Sherrill responded to this particular. The exact same question that was pitched before Abigail Spanberger and Winsome Earl Sears. Check it out. Should parents have the right to opt their kids out of LGBTQ related content in the same way that right now they can be removed from sex ed and health curriculum classes? Look, I believe that parents have the right to oversee their children's education. I would push an LGBTQ education into our schools. Parents have a right to opt out.

[Jarrett Stepman]

Of a lot of things, but this.

[Tony Kennett]

Is not an area where they should be opting out because. Oh, wait a minute, did you just say, yeah, I'm really for the rights of parents. But that's a bad. That cost Terry CAULIFF, that Terry McAuliffe the election in Virginia. And here's Mickey Sheryl, who's already dealing with rough scandal stuff from not being able to or not being allowed to walk with the rest of her class at Annapolis at the United States Naval Academy due to a large cheating scandal that happened on campus. Now she's walking more. She can't even answer questions right down the line. This is an area of understanding the background of people throughout our nation. And right now we see, for example.

[Jarrett Stepman]

At the Naval Academy.

[Tony Kennett]

So there you go. This is exactly what it is. You have the liberal, white, college, super college educated, corporate style woman saying, well, sure, I understand parents, but they're stupid. They don't know. Like, I know that it's about understanding. And by understanding, of course, I mean it's my understanding. It's what I want. And I just, I just don't see that playing out as well as she thinks. Again, we'll find out here in 12 minutes at least. Started as those votes start pouring in. Producer Nick, do you have something here?

[Producer Nick]

Yeah. The issue for her in the lack of understanding of the question is the fact that for her, it's not a political issue. LGBTQ is not a political issue. She sees it as a societal issue where half of society has a lack of understanding of the lgbtq.

[Tony Kennett]

Absolutely correct. We got to pick up the radio crew one more time. Don't go anywhere. It's the Tony Kennett cast. Long night ahead. The Tony Kennett cast on 93 WIBC. Welcome back to the Tony Kenned cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated, first on 93 WIBC. Glad you're joining us. Whether you're on YouTube, Rumble X on the live stream site. And by the way, that's where I recommend that you join us, because then we see all of the lovely messages you send us, like calling my choice of bumper music into segments gay. And all I can say about that is Mickey Sherrill in New Jersey really wants to protect your right to listen to my bumper music, I guess. So go cast your vote in New Jersey. If Chicago Democrats haven't already, cast your vote somewhere else. So that aside, right now we're 10 minutes away on the dot from polls closing in New Jersey. In New York City, the three way dumpster fire between Zoran Mamdani, Chris. Excuse me. Andrew Cuomo, 6 and 1, half a dozen in the other, and the good old Curtis Sliwa of the Raspberry Beret. We'll be getting into some of the New York stuff in a minute, but with Mickey Sheryl making it a big part of her platform that nobody asked for, to not allow parents to opt out of LGBTQ2IA whatever stuff for their kids. Here was Jack Cittarelli's response, and may I say, not a lot of beating around the bush here. Gender ideology in school whatsoever, let alone to our elementary age children. Governor Murphy ushered in these ridiculous standards years ago, and we fought as parents and were not heard. So we continue to fight the government overreach. Our rights come from God, not from the government. So you told me that a lot of people in New Jersey are aware of this issue. They're not talking about it as vocally. Well, they're afraid to talk about it because the second you touch this issue, you get called names. You get, you know, separated from your community. I think speak out. You need to speak out more about these issues that are affecting our children. Gender ideology is very dangerous. Leading children down a dangerous road. All right, so your thoughts on that? What do you say to somebody like that all along? We're getting back to the basics in our public schools. Reading, writing, math, civics, science.

[Bradley Devlin]

Okay.

[Tony Kennett]

And we're getting rid of other sensitive subject matter that I believe belongs at home, at the kitchen table between parents and kids. All right. And that includes. I mean, let's. We could talk about New Jersey diversity, but we don't need an LGBTQ curriculum. My opponent said not only will she keep it, she won't allow parents to opt out of that lesson. Yeah, that's. That's a prepared candidate right there. That is a prepared candidate. That is exactly what people will come out to vote for. Why? Because he didn't just say, I'm against this. He didn't do that. He said, we're gonna get back to reading, writing. He could have done reading, writing, arithmetic. He didn't give kind of the folksy answer. Not that there would have been anything wrong with that. He listed a full range of subjects, including civics, which a lot of Americans right now, on the social side of things, are deeply concerned about students not understanding civics. I mean, given. Given the situation in the election over in New York City next door, I can't say that I blame them. Jack Ciarelli is a kind of guy that I'm. Again, I'm embarrassed as a broadcaster. Again, complete transparency with my audience. I have not played a lot of those clips during his campaign. I deeply apologize. I'm sorry. Because I make it a very big deal to talk about candidate quality and the idea of actually casting a vision for voters. And this is a guy who did it the entire campaign. And I. I mean, I'm just gonna make this case very clear because we're getting ready to come up on the 2026 bellwether issue. We're gonna go to Scott Jennings on that in just a couple of minutes here. Uh, but right now, over on the New York side of things. Yeesh. I don't know if there's a more professional broadcaster way to say yeesh. Producer Nick, have you seen the. Of course, we talked a little bit about the bomb threats in New Jersey, Right? So just as a refresher, there were seven precincts in which there were bomb threats that were called in today on several precincts. Of course, that is something that they've seen quite a bit. And I believe right now, I want to. I want to flip over to this, that the New York Post. We don't have it in the B roll. The New York Post is reporting that there was a minor that has now been arrested in New Jersey in connection to the bomb threats at the polling sites, quote, according to the New York Post, one of dozens made across the state on election Day. So that. Out of the way. How did Zoran Mamdani address this? Because, you know, you gotta ask about the bomb threats. It is, unfortunately, something that has become. People want to play some really gross pranks around election season. And Mamdani, you know, classic fashion, said, well, this is an opportunity to blame President Trump. Incredibly concerning.

[Kurt Schlichter]

And I think that it is an illustration of the attacks we're seeing on our democracy. Sometimes they're blatant and explicit in the manner of these bomb threats. And we have to understand. Understand this as part of the general approach the Trump administration has taken to trying to intimidate voters.

[Tony Kennett]

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Again, the minor that was arrested, I don't think Trump was like, all right, listen, Jimmy, here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna call up the New Jersey precinct and say, I got a very big bomb.

[Kurt Schlichter]

The bet.

[Tony Kennett]

No, you don't. Again, Fetterman made this case rather clearly. He made this case correctly. I can disagree with you. I vehemently disagree. I think Fetterman's policies that he push, I think they're bad for the country. I think they should be voted against. But Fetterman's not a Nazi. Fetterman doesn't want me dead. And Fetterman's made the case that if there's something like this that happens, you don't just go out and say, Republicans are Nazis, and. And also those who are electing Republicans are Nazis. That's Zoron's entire shtick here. Also, I've just now noticed the campaign sticker on his vest. Either that's an I voted sticker, or he's now sponsored by Pepsi with baseless.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Allegations of voter fraud as a means of trying to repress the voice of Americans across this country.

[Tony Kennett]

Again, incredible stuff. By the way, that is an I voted sticker. It couldn't be the Zoran Mamdani campaign, because that's red, white, and blue on the campaign thing, and we all know how Zoron feels about the United States. Oh, you know, don't take it from me. Again, there is numerous, numerous controversies. There are numerous controversies throughout this entire election process in New York City that have surrounded the comments, openly flouted, praised, excited from the Zoron crew. So one of those things, and we'll get to Curtis Lewis showing up in a cat tie with a kitten book on election day in a moment. But Zoron, for example, calling for the defunding of the police. And I, like many others today in the political sphere, had Democrat strategists left and right saying, well, he didn't actually call to defund the police. He just said, you know, like, we need additional health workers and things. Uh, no, no, sunshine, Joe. I'm afraid that's not, in fact, the case. Numerous instances in which he called for police to be reduced, not to mention encouraging the cashless bail system in which you get arrested and then you're back out on the street. You don't. That doesn't cost anybody anything, because, after all, we've never seen any individuals get out of bail and then, you know, or get out on bail and then just go commit more crimes. Radio crew, we have to send you off to the. The beautiful sweet sayonara on broadcast time for wibc. I believe there are two stations that are staying with us initially. We're going to pick up a few more later live. So to the WIBC crew that we're out of. Head over to YouTube.com daily signal or rumble.com the daily signal. Catch the rest of our livestream there. We're gonna be doing this until I'm tired. It's the Tony Kennett cast now over onto the live stream because, yeah, we're not quitting.

[Producer Nick]

Producer Nick, do you think there's any chance that when Mom Donnie was crying out for cashless bail that he actually meant that, like, Apple Pay should be able to be used?

[Bradley Devlin]

Ooh.

[Tony Kennett]

I'm just wondering if, like, the. He's gonna have the check.

[Producer Nick]

People should not have to go to an ATM to get out of here.

[Tony Kennett]

Tap any button. Just any button at all. I'm not looking. You know, do you want to give the jail.

[Producer Nick]

If the bailiff is like, can I get that 15%?

[Tony Kennett]

Oh, my goodness. And by the way, he did. In fact, he was kind of backed into a corner on this on msnbc, of all places, earlier today. I think it was on Morning Joe, where they tried to do kind of the fluff and buff last minute for the New Yorkers. We have that clip ready to go, I believe.

[Bradley Devlin]

And so defunding the police. You obviously don't believe that anymore.

[Tony Kennett]

What kind of a question is that? But what kind of. Oh, well, you know, defund you, obviously. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Don't playing footsie with you under the table. Believe that anymore. Licking the left ear lobe, like, what? Just ask the question, Chief. He's. Everyone knows MSNBC is a network on the left. Just ask. He's gonna give you the answer you want.

[Producer Nick]

He has a little note card that says, please don't say defund the police again.

[Tony Kennett]

What is Mom Donna gonna get out there and, like, she's like, actually, I want no police. I just want, like, a Muslim guy named Jahid to just. With a big, huge scimitar, like from Indiana Jones, to walk down the street swinging it back and forth.

[Producer Nick]

That's the quiet part. Can't say that till he's mayor.

[Tony Kennett]

That'd be kind. I mean, I'm gonna say, like, just swinging the scimitar, like, doing, like, a little dance routine. I. I mean, I don't. I don't endorse it as a police routine.

[Producer Nick]

The live stage play of Aladdin.

[Tony Kennett]

My plan for New York City is that the genie is going to build grocery stores all over New York. Voiced by Robin Williams. Oh.

[Producer Nick]

If he mom Donnie could figure out how to get him back, I'd vote for him.

[Tony Kennett]

All right, here's the answer to the loaded question.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Yes, I've said that very clearly.

[Bradley Devlin]

Said that time and again.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Right.

[Bradley Devlin]

Anything to clarify. I mean, I'm not saying you said or did it, but clarify or say.

[Tony Kennett]

Maybe I've learned how to Al Sharpton over here. Like, hold on. I'm all for. I'm all for launching a race riot or two or six. Also, I don't know why someone tied my hair into a ponytail in the back room. Can you help me?

[Bradley Devlin]

Be more careful, by the way. We do this to Rev every times on the show, and then Rev will.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Do it to me.

[Tony Kennett]

And we're both apologizing for things we've had years.

[Kurt Schlichter]

No, I think I've said that the.

[Tony Kennett]

Tweets that I wrote in 2020 around.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Defunding the police, that's not the position that I hold. And I'm running for mayor to deliver public safety in partnership with the police department. And there's also language that I've used in those same tweets, which I've apologized for to police officers directly.

[Tony Kennett]

All right. Also, yeah, I mean, the fluff and buff. As a small side note, I have now been pestered by our political editor, who wants to use the Nerf gun to shoot me. For a correction, it's Mikey. Mikey Sherrill, not Mickey. Sheryl, not. Hey, Mickey, you're so fine. Mikey, like Mikey likes it from Life cereal.

[Producer Nick]

Yeah, I'm not gonna do that.

[Tony Kennett]

I'm not. I'm not learning all. It took me three days to learn how to pronounce Jack Cittarelli correctly. I'm not.

[Producer Nick]

And that changes every three.

[Tony Kennett]

That changes every three days. I'm sorry. I did the Kiev. I did the Keef. No, no, I'm sorry. You know what, Mikey? Mickey, no. You know, you win the election, you better be careful.

[Producer Nick]

She'll do a TikTok on a very loud Metro train about how horrible you are.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, next to Chris Coons about how horrible I am. Well, Chris Coons, being from Connecticut, you know, I would take that. Or Chris Murphy. You know how much I would take that as a. As a compliment, I believe. Right now we're getting information out of Virginia. And the Associated Press has now called the race for Abigail Spanberger So they have called the race for Democrat Abigail Spanberger for governor right now with 34% of the votes counted, 54.5% to 45.3%. I believe Virginia Allen is on the ground in Leesburg. That would be Virginia, our senior news producer, not the commonwealth. And we'll be getting in touch with us in just a couple of seconds. Want to make sure that we bring you the up to date news on the rest of the races as well. Jason Miaris versus J. Jones, the incumbent versus the texting phenomenon still too close to call. And by that I mean right now. A 34% of the votes counted, 589,000 to 580,000. Hoo boy, that's going to be a long race. So we're going to bring in Virginia in a couple of minutes here right now, two minutes after the hour. Polls have now closed in New Jersey, in New York City. We'll be getting to those things here in just a couple of minutes. Also Pennsylvania, excuse me, I'm sorry, I have to issue a correction. My bad. New York City closes at 9pm Eastern. Don't shoot it. I made the correction before you noticed. New York City will be closing at 9 Eastern. It is Pennsylvania Commonwealth. It is closed at 8. New Jersey also closing at 8. I apologize. I read our little note card incorrectly in Pennsylvania. They're voting whether or not to retain Supreme Court justices this evening. So we'll be getting into that a little bit later. All right, as we get ready, I believe Virginia has just joined us. We'll get her set up in a couple of seconds. Producer NICK I believe not only do we currently have the Virginia situation, man, Abigail Spanberger, Associated Press calling for that. Also looking at some of the information starting to come in from New Jersey. All right, almost ready to get moving. We're ahead.

[George Caldwell]

Over.

[Tony Kennett]

Real quick before we go, some of our information from Virginia. We're going to head over to, I believe Scott Jennings is also waiting for us. Don't go anywhere. We've got a long night of excellent coverage. It's the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal. You're listening to the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WYPC. Now over to one the only Scott Jennings, the man who understands that Kentucky is not yet a lost cause. Scott, how's it going?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Good to see you, my friend. Thanks for having me today.

[Tony Kennett]

So obviously you and I know that no matter what happens at the end of tonight's election night, that this is going to be cast on the media as some kind of A refere referendum or bellwether or, you know, fairy godmother, card reader, supreme. What are you getting out of what we can expect in the media coverage following tonight?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Oh, the entire thing will be spun as somehow bad for Trump. Even if Republicans were to magically win, it would somehow be. They would say it was in spite of Trump. You know, I mean, it wouldn't matter. It would be, this is bad for Trump. Whatever happens is bad for Trump. That's where we start and it's almost always where we finish. Look, here's the deal. Virginia is a blue state. New Jersey is a blue state. New York City is a socialist enclave. California is a blue state. I mean, all these elections we're watching tonight, Democrats are supposed to win and, you know, we'll see what happens. I guess I'll be looking for little nuggets in the data, you know, who turned out, who didn't, what messages seem to resonate. You know, the, the race that I am candidly watching the closest is the Attorney General race in Virginia. I want to find out if these Democrats are really gonna stand with a guy who very recently was wishing murder on Republicans and their children. I mean, bottom line, there is a chance for everybody in the state of Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia, to rise up and say, you know, we're not, we're not gonna allow someone who wants to murder the opposition to be our state's top law enforcement. And I wanna see if they wanna do it. I'm worried they're not gonna do it, to be honest with you. I'm worried these Democrats are gonna look the other way on political violence, which is what they almost always do.

[Tony Kennett]

And that brings us over to New Jersey. My producer was telling me about the number of bomb threats that were called in this morning to seven precincts in New Jersey. And I mean, this pops up a little bit every election. Somebody gets a little excited and wants to play goofball. But given the string of political violence that has occurred over the last two years, specifically, I'm really gonna be curious to look at some of the turnout in the precincts in which those bomb threats were called in. Cause they were immediately reported and broadcast state.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, look, I hate it when these things happen because you don't want people to get the feeling that it's not safe to vote. I mean, I, I love election day and I, and I'm. I love election day. I love election day. I don't love election weeks. I don't love election months like they have in Virginia. They had far too much early voting there, let's be honest. But election day, to me is still a sacred moment when most of us still go to the polls as a community, as a state, as a nation, whatever the case may be. And you know, it's a, it's a cultural thing. Election day is a cultural thing. So when these things happen, they give people the idea that, hey, it's not good to vote on election day or it's not safe.

[Bradley Devlin]

It's.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It hurts my heart. And so I hope people don't get that idea. There's always going to be some Looney Tunes out there who do things who are, you know, call. I hope they were hoaxes. I don't know what the facts are of it at the moment, but, you know, to me, election day is a sacred thing. We ought to treat it that way. And I don't like it when people interfere with that.

[Tony Kennett]

Right. Well, let's flip over to kind of the other style of Looney Tunes, maybe more of the cartoonish variety. And of course, I'm talking about those involved with the government shutdown. My producer has a running bet that as soon as this election is over, we're gonna see some serious flaking away from kind of the Chuck Schumer hardline position and the government's gonna open up pretty soon. You spend far too much time with the individuals in the deepest of the knowledge. And so I got, I got, I got to ask, what is your finger on the pulse here? Do we actually see suddenly the government doors burst open like it's, you know, church at 12:01pm?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

There's a lot of rumblings of that in Washington that Democrats are going to relent after election day. And the theory is, is that they've been keeping the government closed to appease this radical base so that they will be all riled up and turn out here on election day. You know, I don't know. I hope that's true because, you know, I've been in a lot of airports lately and I see these poor TSA agents, you know, the air traffic controllers. I think about the military, I think about the federal law enforcement. These people are having to show up for work and do their jobs without pay all because Chuck Schumer is afraid of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. I mean, bottom line, Democrats walk themselves into now a 35 day shutdown out of fear of their radical left flank. And now they have no idea how to get out of it. Hopefully election day relieves the pressure on them and we can get back to work here. But now we're so far down in the calendar, it's really gonna. Now we have a whole other set of issues, which is, you know, what's the next set of appropriations here? What will the next set of government funding look like here? And there's a whole nother set of policy discussions to have about this. This didn't have to happen. SNAP benefits did not have to be turned off. The government did not have to be closed. We didn't have to stop paying people. This was all a Democratic internal political shenanigans. That's all it really is. I hear people complaining about ACA subsidies has nothing to do with keeping the government open. I hear people complaining about Donald Trump. He has repeatedly called on them to vote for the clean CR fully. A Democratic shutdown. It was when it started and it is today.

[Tony Kennett]

Do you even get kind of that? My wife says I'm starting to gray at the temples a little bit quicker than usual. Which is always something that you love to hear from, you know, the better half. I get the vibe in the same way from even some of your colleagues, our colleagues across the spectrum, anchors often asking, you know, you bring on an official and you say, tell us about the shutdown, and they get out the index card and they start reading from it. I mean, I'm even getting the feeling that, you know, some of the colleagues who are even more on the left side of the aisle are getting exhausted listening to Democrats, Senators, Representatives, whomever they may be, stare at the camera, desperately hoping that, for example, Jake's not going to ask him if they think that Chuck Schumer is responsible for the shutdown, knowing what kind of answer he's going to get.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I ran into a Democratic congressman the other day, friendly guy, and he looked at me and he said, what are you hearing on the shutdown?

[Tony Kennett]

Like, what are you.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

What am I hearing on the shutdown?

[Tony Kennett]

What am I hearing? What are you hearing?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You know, like, what are your party leaders telling you? Are you crazy? Like, get in there. I couldn't believe it. And so, I mean, what I'm hearing is this. The Democrats won't open the government, and the Republicans keep giving them a chance to do it, and they won't.

[Tony Kennett]

That's what I hear. I hear it's so funny hopping off the football field and going up to the stands and going, so what do you think of the game out there?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I mean, but, you know, it's amazing to me that you have all these demo. Look, I actually believe there are plenty of Democrats in the House and in The Senate, who would love to open the government. This is, after all, their constituents. Government bureaucrats are basically Democratic constituents.

[Tony Kennett]

It's one of their bills off is sweating more every single day. I can see it. The poor man's losing water weight.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, and they've got the unions now yelling at them to open the government. Unions, The Teamsters, the air traffic CEO of Southwest Airlines. You know, all their major constituency groups are demanding that they open the government. And again, it just comes down to this one simple issue. Chuck Schumer lives in fear of the radical left flank led by AOC and Bernie Sanders. And here's the dirty secret. It's not gonna work. It doesn't matter what he does. It doesn't matter what any of these old guard people do. They're still gonna get primaried. They're still gonna be slandered, you know, in the press. They're still gonna be blamed for everything. It doesn't matter. You can't appease these radicals. And when Momdani wins in New York, if he does, they're gonna feel even more emboldened to be even more radical and to be even more aggressive in Washington and around the country. And so it doesn't, you know, Chuck Schumer will have shut this government down for nothing. I don't think they know how to get out of it. They're wanting to make this argument about the ACA subsidies. The aca, a Democratic law. The subsidies a Democratic law. The sunset provision in the subsidies, a Democratic provision. And they're out screaming about Republicans. You gotta help us fix our Democratic mess.

[Tony Kennett]

Why?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We warned you Obamacare was gonna ruin healthcare. You wouldn't listen. And now everybody kind of knows it.

[Tony Kennett]

So, last question here. And it's mainly because my producer in studio, Nick, is sending me questions. So of course I get to do more smiling at the camera and less interview preparation. Just as a question again, asking you to look into the crystal ball. After the government shutdown ends, how do those in the media, those who pretend to be nonpartisan and those who are just wildly, openly partisan, how do they try to move on after the government shutdown? This has been a huge chunk of the media coverage for so long in this weird political cycle, lifespan that we have now, where do we go from here in the media coverage?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Oh, it's pretty obvious what's gonna happen when the government gets opened and they start to talk about these Obamacare subsidies. The media is going to demand that Republicans simply extend the subsidies as they exist to continue to keep the charade that Obamacare is working. Well, let me just tell you, if you have to give something subsidies, it's not working, okay? But that's what they're gonna want. The media and the Democrats will join together to demand that Republicans fix a Democratic mess, giving people who make $600,000 a year subsidies for their health insurance. That is going to be the next demand. And then, you know, they'll probably play along with the Democratic demands on, you know, repealing some of the big beautiful bill, giving health insurance to illegal aliens, restoring, you know, funding for transgender operas in Peru or whatever. I mean, the media, of course, will be like, these just seems like a small price to pay. You know, why can't we all just get along? But the real issue will be the media will demand that Republicans bail out the Democrats on the Obamacare subsidies. That's what they want them to do. Maybe they negotiate it. Maybe you lower the income caps. I don't know exactly how it'll work out, but what I have learned is, is that there's no amount of money in health care and there's no amount of money for illegals that Democrats and media won't team up for to demand. And I suspect that's what's going to happen next.

[Tony Kennett]

Perfect, Scott. We've got to cut away to get some more of the electoral results that are streaming in. Thanks as always for joining us.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thanks for having me. Good to see you.

[Tony Kennett]

All right, we've got a couple new electoral results coming in from New Jersey right now. 17% of the votes counted have Mikey Cheryl up 62% to Jack Cittarelli's 36.7%. We'll be keeping you in touch on those. Now we go over to our own Virginia Allen. She is live at the Winsome Earl Sears party in Virginia. Virginia. Associated Press and us at the Daily Signal calling the race for Spanberger. What's the, what's, what's it like on the ground?

[Virginia Allen]

It was really fascinating. Moments after Fox News, they have a big screen you'll see behind me. Moments after Fox News put up on their scre that Spamberger had been declared the winner. There was a couple boos from the crowd, but quite frankly, Tony, people here didn't seem that surprised. And they carried on chatting with their evening. The crowd behind me seems overall pretty positive. They're pleased to be here. People have drinks in their hands. They're chatting it up. They're waiting for Winsome Earl Sears to come out on stage and address them. But I've been fascinated that the night has not really changed tone, which I think is telling that a lot of people, a lot of the GOP entered tonight very aware of polling data that show that Spamberger had a significant lead over winsome Earl Sears going into tonight. So folks here, quite frankly, don't seem that shocked.

[Tony Kennett]

There's two questions that a lot of people have right now regarding the Virginia elections. First and foremost, obviously there is the J. Jones, Jason Miares Attorney general race that is still too close to call. It's within, I think it's 735,000 to 709,000 right now. Jay Jones still in the lead, 42% of the votes counted according to the Associated Press estimates. The other question that I because that was on the other side of the state, right they Virginia Beach.

[Virginia Allen]

I'm in. Yeah, I'm in Leesburg. It's about a three and a half hour drive to Jason Yard party.

[Tony Kennett]

Right.

[Virginia Allen]

No chance to pop between them.

[Tony Kennett]

What's the conversation behind you, though, about the attorney general race? You have to assume that's where people are going.

[Virginia Allen]

And that has been the conversation for sure leading up to this race that I think so many people recognized here in the Commonwealth of Virginia that if voters were willing to still vote for someone who said that they wanted to kill their political opponents, that that was going to be pretty telling about honestly how much Democrats are willing to put up with from their party. And so I think in some ways that has become the bigger race here in Virginia because it's a real litmus test of, you know, what a party can quite frankly get away with or not.

[Tony Kennett]

So this brings us to the second question that I was going to ask. There were two things that were considered, well, we'll say two and a half, three things maybe that were considered to be maybe bellwether moments of tonight regarding the shutdown. So one of these is, of course, the Virginia gubernatorial election, but it's by how many points Spanberger ends up winning by because of course she was leading Windsomeral Sears for quite a bit here. Then of course there's the New Jersey gubernatorial race and then there's the statewide special commissioner election in Georgia. Setting the latter two aside for a second here, what do you hear about the expectation of how many points winsome Earl Sears is expected to finish behind the Democrat expected winner, according to the Associated Press and other outlets, Abigail Spanberger.

[Virginia Allen]

Yeah, well, I think going into tonight there was a lot of optimism that that would be a pretty small percentage point that winsome Earl Sears could show that she was able to close that gap. And you know, that it wouldn't be a landslide. And yet, Tony, it's just past 8 o' clock and you already have outlets confidently, major outlets confidently calling this race for Spamberger. That really lets you know, okay, Virginia has swung back to being quite blue. It's always, of course, for a long time, it's been very purple. Governor Glenn Youngkin, major upset four years ago. There was so much momentum behind Youngkin four years ago, specifically around that issue of schools, around protection of women and girls sports. And I think with this race this year for winsome Earl Sears, there just wasn't that same core issue motivation that really drove motor turnout like it did for Youngkin four years ago. You didn't sense that same passion.

[Tony Kennett]

You know, I think that one of the issues that Americans may not have on the forefront of their mind outside of the Beltway is how this is going to affect the Beltway zone itself. When you look at nova, when you look at the effect of the government shutdown under those living in a blue state, whether or not Democrats really get a boost of energy out of this, this is where the media is really gonna be headed. I mean, of course, Scott Jennings was just on air talking about that. If the media latches on to this as a rebuke against the right, which clearly that's where they're heading. Do you believe, based on some of the conversations that you've had this evening, that those, you know, at the Sears campaign event are more concerned about a it being a local rebuke, a congressional rebuke, or a rebuke of the Trump administration in full?

[Virginia Allen]

Yeah, twofold. As I have spoken to people, especially leading up to tonight, as I've spoken to people that live in the weeds of Virginia politics.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, you've been all over the commonwealth.

[Virginia Allen]

In NC on the campaign trail. You know, the sentiment has been one, Northern Virginia, it is essentially an extension of Washington, D.C. it is a high population and it really does play such a big role in who wins the state of Virginia, for better or worse. And so when you have those motivations of the government shutdown and, you know, so many people who live in Northern Fuji having been laid off by the federal government because of Doge cuts and those types of things, those are motivators that do drive people to the polls to vote for Democrats. And then secondly, so many folks and you know, of course it's quite frankly a common talking point among, among those on campaigns, but it is a critical factor to talk about spending and money and just that, you know, Abigail Spanberger's campaign budget was so much larger than that of Winsome Earl Sears. And even, you know, I was told, I was told by folks that really live in the weeds of Virginia campaigns. You know, even Glenn Youngkin, he had a lot of contacts that Winsomerle Sears just didn't for her campaign. And Governor Glenn Youngkin, he was kind of able to tap in to some of those, some of those wealthier groups within the state of Virginia in a way that Sears just, quite frankly, wasn't Virginia.

[Tony Kennett]

Allen, our senior news producer out there in Leesburg, Virginia, at the Sears event, thank you very much. I know you have a lot of work to get to because heaven knows there's going to be articles upon articles out of tonight. Thank you very much for your coverage. Really appreciate you.

[Virginia Allen]

Thank you, Tony.

[Tony Kennett]

All right, we're going to swing over to some other updates right now. The polls have closed In New Jersey 21 minutes ago, as well as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in their Supreme Court rescission packages. We're going to get into whether or not we're going to be, you know, pulling away some Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices and whether we're going to be looking at a new administration party in the state of New Jersey in a couple of minutes. We're about 40 minutes away from the polls closing in New York City, and then we can see whether it is the young Zoran Mamdani, whether it's Andrew Cuomo or whether it is Sliwa. Don't go anywhere. We've got a lot to cover tonight. We're eager to get to it. It's the Tony Kenneth Cast.

[Bradley Devlin]

The Tony.

[Tony Kennett]

Kennett cast on 93 WIBC. Yeah, you didn't really think we were going to be away that long for a full commercial break, did you? Welcome back to the Tony Kennett Cast. Polls are in full reporting swing from New Jersey all the way over to Pennsylvania right now. And I should mention also the mayor of Pittsburgh, by the way, for anyone who was excitedly thinking that this was going to be close, no Corey O' Connor right now, 32% of the votes counted. The Democrat candidate for Mayor of Pittsburgh, 22,700 votes right now, down to 1,931 votes for Tony Moreno as a fellow Tony. I have to report when a fellow Tony around the country wins or loses an election that hasn't been called yet. But I just wanted to let you know in case you were like, man, oh, Tony Kennett covers the mayor of Pittsburgh. Yee haw. Yeah. There you go. That's some of the updates Producer Daniel is bringing some information in. The Associated Press has not yet called the race in New Jersey. However, the decision desk headquarters has projected now that Mikey Sherrill will win the New Jersey governor election. This is the one election that Republicans thought, if they're of any of these blue states that we're currently looking at here, and Pennsylvania and Georgia, more of a purple situation, but also kind of a special situation in general. Not talking gubernatorial positions or major state office positions, you know, going out and saying, man, we gotta retract those Supreme Court justices. Nah, not exactly a real hoot for Mickey, excuse me, Mikey Sherrill to be the Democrat candidate that pulls it out in New Jersey. That appeared to be the most likely that Republicans would flip. Jack Cittarelli really hit his stride in the latter parts of the campaign, and it has not yet been called just yet. But we're going to bring you that coverage according to the Associated Press numbers right now. And I've been following this just on. On some of our screens over here. It's not looking too good. It's not looking too good for Jack Cittarelli, 26% of the votes counted. But New Jersey does have some of its more populous precincts driving some of that voter data through pretty early. So right now what we're seeing is Mikey Sheryl up 531,000 votes to Jack Cittarelli's 323,000 votes. So it looks so far up near Newark, we've got a lot of the precincts that are reporting in very, very blue. Over in Ocean, you've got Jack Cittarelli with a sizable lead so far, 41% of the votes counted down in the. I don't know how to describe a state that's so small in terms of actual compass directions. The central eastern, the awkward knee bump of New Jersey, you might say ocean, seems to be the only place that there has been considerable momentum so far for Jack Ciattorelli. The rest of the. For example, Trenton over in Camden and Gloucester so far do seem to be putting up pretty good numbers for Mikey Sheryl. And I mean, all I can say is that homeowners association recognized homeowners association style gang. You know, maybe Karen needs a Karen. That may be the story from this evening. We may be getting ready for the year of the Karen. Oh, dear Lord, help us all. The year of the Karen. The white blonde lady with a corporate mouth full of buzzwords. That may be where we're headed in 2026. That may be the strategy afoot. Someone call Elisa Slotkin of Michigan, right now she has to be downing Celsius. Well, she's probably downing something like Monster. Not, not a refined palate for Celsius, which doesn't sponsor the show. But, you know, they should.

[Producer Nick]

Producer Nick she'd touch anything without alcohol in it.

[Tony Kennett]

You're not supposed to do that while I'm drinking. Now, before you start drinking, we have another 34 minutes until the New York City polls close. We're going to take a bit of a diversion here into the New York polls, let some of the New Jersey stuff settle for a couple of minutes because we talked about Zoran Mamdani. This is getting a lot of national attention. I understand a lot of people maybe don't think that the Zoran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Lewa, three way, Hakeem Jeffries style standoff, you know, maybe that's, that's not of interest to the rest of the country. It is, it is the future of the Democrat Party right now. There's no bench for the Democrat Party. There's no bench. Who's going to run in 28? Who's going to be the next Senate leader after Chuck Schumer? Who, I mean, really, I, I would love to hear Elisa Slotkin came out as kind of the sort of freshest new face after Trump gave his State of the Union style address. But after that, I've asked, I mean, I've asked a few of our Daily Signal colleagues this, I'll have to ask Bradley Devlin on this later when he joins us. Now, I do want to point out that right now in the New York City mayoral race, Mamdani has essentially just, just right out there in the open, been walking back every single claim that he has made other than the Islamophobia, whatever style claims here at the very tail end of the election. So, first of all, of course, there have been a lot of allegations and aggravation over Zoran Mamdani tweeting out things like seize the means of production and other famous communist Marxian quotes. What is it like to whom are everyone according to their needs?

[Producer Nick]

According to socialism isn't theft capitalism is.

[Tony Kennett]

Right. That kind of stuff. Well, Mamdani was again soft handed on this this morning over on msnbc. Just, just ask the question, guys. They won't.

[Bradley Devlin]

How, how, how do you respond to that?

[Tony Kennett]

When somebody comes up to you say.

[Bradley Devlin]

I can't vote for you because you're a communist.

[Tony Kennett]

I said, there are reasons you might not want to vote for me, but let's be honest about my politics.

[Kurt Schlichter]

I'm a Democratic socialist, no matter how many times President Trump calls me otherwise.

[Bradley Devlin]

Yeah, explain the difference. What is the difference between a democrat, a democratic socialist and a communist, by.

[Tony Kennett]

The way, for those of you out there who do in fact know that there's no difference at all, realistically between a very heavy scale socialist and a communist. I mean, this should be just like a alarm bell kind of moment for Mamdani. And if you think he's going to define the difference between a socialist and a communist here, you must have started drinking before the New York City polls closed. I'm a democratic socialist who's also a Democrat, Right.

[Kurt Schlichter]

And when I say I'm a democratic socialist, I explain it in the words of Dr. King from decades ago who said that call it democracy or call it democratic socialism, there must be a better distribution of wealth for all of.

[Tony Kennett]

God's children in this country.

[Bradley Devlin]

Right.

[Kurt Schlichter]

And what I actually find is that when you're speaking to New Yorkers, they ask you less how you describe your politics and more whether there's room for.

[Tony Kennett]

Them in that politics where New Yorkers are asking, there you go. So the answer there isn't. There's a difference between communism and democratic socialism. Because by the way, if you go to these rallies, when I was at the DNC in 2024 and I accidentally found myself leading all of the pro Palestine democratic socialist marches, I got to talk to a couple of the awkwardly leather clad communists and after they were done, you know, sweating in the beautiful Chicago sun, there was nothing at all differentiating themselves between communists and socialist. And you say, why do I, Why do I say that? Well, because socialists who are trying to distance themselves from communists normally don't sing the Soviet anthem while wearing the hammer and sickle pin. I mean, just, you know, if you're trying to get out there and differentiate yourself, this is also spilled over into the media. I would say again, in a really transparently awkward way, this over on cnn, the debate over the dog whistle. If you call someone communist, it's a dog whistle. Apparently here was this debate when you.

[Bradley Devlin]

Put in communist and yes, communist policies. That's what Zora Mamdani is talking about.

[Tony Kennett]

He's not a communist socialist.

[Bradley Devlin]

He says he's democratic. I can't tell what the difference is. Well, he can explain what the difference is.

[Virginia Allen]

He can describe a difference.

[Tony Kennett]

Is for you, the socialism is not the same basis of communism in this country. You know that quite well.

[Bradley Devlin]

The man wants to create government run grocery stores. He wants free transportation, both of which are impossible to do because how is.

[Tony Kennett]

He know that's a trigger word to.

[Virginia Allen]

Undermine all of his policies.

[Tony Kennett]

He's not a. He says he doesn't.

[Bradley Devlin]

I don't need to. I don't need to undermine his policies. His policies undermine himself. Well, because they've never worked. Here's all I want him to do, tell me where they've ever worked. They've never worked. He knows that. I knows that. But what he's trying to do is promise everybody something that they can't have. And the truth is there is no free lunch, just like there's no free bus. Because you know what happens when you have a free bus? There's nobody there to fix it or to drive it. He knows that. I know that. You know that. America does know it. And it's unfortunate that the city of New York, my former home city, is probably going to have to go through this.

[Tony Kennett]

Here's the issue, though. I agree with everything he said and he said it masterfully. As long, however, as long as the right is taking the time just to say, not this guy, not the Democrat, not the Communist, not the socialist, that's not enough to drive an election. It's just not. It is no longer enough for the right to say, okay, we're in power, but also just, just not the left. There needs to be an answer for where it is that we're going there. There needs to be an answer for where it is that we are actually effectively going forward. And right now, I'm not seeing from any of the campaigns here, I mean, Jack Ciarelli, you know, credit where credit is due. He did that more so than many of the other candidates at various levels in this race. But it just doesn't seem to have been enough. And now the Associated Press is prepared to call no, excuse me, I'm getting far from the decision desk. Not the Associated Press yet. Leaning towards calling the Virginia Attorney General race for J. Jones. The Associated Press has not yet called the race. It is 1 million votes for Jay Jones, with 58% of the votes counted to the 966,000 for Jason Miares. Now, if we are actually starting to see a pretty widespread victory night for Democrats, Kurt Schlichter is actually messaging me at the moment from townhall.com, we're going to have him on later. He has far more colorful words, more colorful words to describe this. I want to actually pitch it over to Victor Davis Hansen because his understanding of how we're actually going to see this not only carried through for New York, not only, of course, for New Jersey and Virginia, but also across the country over into California and Gavin Newsom's efforts. That's going to be a far better angle at how we're going to be able to really move into 2026 with this. So don't go anywhere. We've got a lot. We're going to be back with Victor Davis Hansen in just a second. It's the Tony Kinnid cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated, first on 93WIBC. This is the Tony Kennett cast on 93WIBC. We now head over to our own Victor Davis Hansen, the man, the myth, the legend, the guy with a great taste in hats and an even better taste in electoral coverage. A lot of stuff going on tonight. What are you thinking?

[Bradley Devlin]

Well, I think people are, you know, they're looking at this as a bellwether. But the fact is that most of these elections that are important are taking place in blue states, blue jurisdictions. New York City, New Jersey, Virginia's, it's sort of a purple state but, you know, elected young. But mostly it's become because of federal employees in the north, a blue. So I'm not confident, but that it's a bellwether. But I think the Republicans will do as well as they ever have and under these circumstances.

[Tony Kennett]

Have you seen a lot of drama about the Pennsylvania Supreme Court election? There's a lot of retention vote stuff that's under scrutiny. It's gotten a way smaller amount of coverage, if I might use, you know, the term, considering that we were all hyped up about the Wisconsin Supreme Court elections and yet this has gotten next to no coverage in this particular off year.

[Bradley Devlin]

It has. I think that's true of Pennsylvania in general. It's in a period of transition and I don't think people appreciate that. And that's reflected not just in one Republican senator, but you can see Fetterman understands that you're not going to be re elected or you're not going to be popular taking the traditional not the traditional, but the new Democratic position. And you can see the whole state is starting to do what I reminds me a lot of Iowa. You know, 10 years ago and especially 20 years ago, Iowa was just a hard blue state. And now as we saw on election night, I think the last Des Moines funny poll said that Trump was going to lose by three points and he won by 12. So it's, it's in a period of transition. So anything can happen in Pennsylvania.

[Tony Kennett]

This brings a lot of question to the, the Rust Belt, some parts of the Sun Belt, if you want to include Cortez. Masto has always been more associated with the southern Nevada and kind of her campaign campaigning. I mean that's where her headquarters is, is in the southern part of the state. The kind of encouragement to almost mansion eyes as Joe Manchin in West Virginia to hold the moderate line. She's allowed Fetterman to kind of take the lead on being the more moderate voice in the party. Angus King, of course, has the trump card where he says, well, I'm technically an independent. Do you see any other Democrats moving in that direction? I saw some questions about maybe Ossoff Shaheen sees an opportunity from New Ha Hampshire to be, you know, the happy, go lucky moderate whenever it suits your needs. Yeah. Does anyone go as far as Fetterman?

[Bradley Devlin]

No, because most of them are in blue states, but the ones that are in purple states that are transitioning are red states. And you, as in the case of Georgia, and they look at their own past elections as aberrations and they're worried about the direction of the trajectory of the Democratic Party. Yeah. And there's about two or three, two or two of two or three of them. But I'm in California. So right now, you know, we have this Prop 50 up tonight and it's, it's just been millions of dollars have been. Yes on 50. Let's gerrymander a gerrymandered system already. So we're going to go from nine out of 52 congressional seats probably down to four or five. And the real story is not just that it's being Jander management gerrymandered, but after tonight it's designed to go after incumbent Republican stalwarts like Darrell Issa and others that are going to have to be put in the same district with others and either run against each other or one's going to have to bow out. So we're going to get down to four or five out of 52. And already we were gerrymandered. When the state traditionally votes about 40% Republican, we were down to 17% representation. If you look at these 750,000 roughly person districts, we're going to go down to 4, I mean to 8 or 9%. And that was another thing that people didn't talk about when they were gerrymandering in California that most the Republicans gerrymander, but they were behind in the gerrymander race, that the House as it's currently composed does not reflect the national trends or national votes for Republicans. And but here in California, that's one of the depressing things about today that 50 is in the head of in the polls by anywhere from eight to 12 points and they, and they've outspent the no. 5 to 1.

[Tony Kennett]

So this is one of the things that I wanted to ask you. Anywho, because we've had on other guests we had on, you know, Ken Cuccinelli earlier in the evening, we of course focused on Virginia, now moving to the West. You're getting ahead of me because you know exactly where I'm going. Prop California it was a weird series of campaign rallies right there at the end. Gavin Newsom out there, Nancy Pelosi rambled about. I'm still not quite sure. I've read the transcript eight times. I've been confused eight times. I mean, but the question that I have, do you think that Proposition 50, when it likely passes, that it will touch maybe a few of the undecided redistricting efforts in the middle of the country to move all the way through? Of course, I'm in Indiana. There are still some state senators undecided. Will that kind of a national game confirmed maybe be the tipping point for a few other states?

[Bradley Devlin]

I don't know. But I think there's, it's kind of an embarrassment here because Arnold Schwarzenegger, who really wasn't a conservative, set up this what he called bipartisan redistricting commission based on the census. And then it was stocked by left wing people in California, what few there were that were rhino. So it was already a supposedly disinterested group, had already germaned it way in favor of the left.

[Tony Kennett]

And then that's why partisan groups always tend to do that.

[Bradley Devlin]

They do. And for the left, that apparently was not enough. So now it's very embarrassing when you see these officials. They're very angry that they were put into this situation where when they always say democracy is dying in darkness or Donald Trump questions or threatens in election intensity integrity and now they're rigging what was already a rigged system. And I think that explains for why Nancy Pelosi, she couldn't even use the word person. She called him a creature, worst creature and thing, the worst thing. And then Gavin Newsom's wife, the former actress who was, you know, she was, she was on the podium with him and she just said things that you never hear a first lady of a state say blasting Donald Trump. And he's no model. She doesn't want her children to think it was just and that's happening a lot. And I think it represents their embarrassment. It's the shutdown partly. It's a shutdown. But it's the embarrassment that they had to be put in a position where they're so patently and obviously hypocritical and paradoxical. They always mentioned Texas. We didn't want to do this. Texas made us do it.

[Tony Kennett]

Yep. Yep. And that's one of the things that I've seen in campaigning in Texas and campaigning in California are really two different animals. Theoretically, campaigning in Virginia and campaigning in New Jersey should also be two very, very different animals. But what we're seeing and we've seen this out of the span burger type, we've seen this out of Mickey Cheryl, we've seen this out of a lot of the kind of aging liberal Karen class of the Democrat Party that they have fully adopted the screeching, as you said about Donald Trump and the as Nancy Pelosi called the first partner of California's case, you have a weird adoption by the older generation of the party of the younger tactics, some for appeasement. And going into the midterms, because Texas and because Virginia, New Jersey are so different in campaigning than California, I do wonder if they think they're going to keep some of these House districts they narrowly escaped with last time by using these same screeching tactics. Is there any common sense campaign left for the Democrat Party anywhere?

[Bradley Devlin]

Well, I think they're going to after this election. I think they're going because I think they're going to win in Virginia. I don't know about New Jersey, but they're surely going to win here and they're going to announce that now the people have spoken and they are right and that that is a referendum for them to end the shutdown. I think they'll try to do that because the shutdown is starting to trend really badly for them. And they'll interpret this as a good night and say this is momentum. And see, we made our point and now we've won and the people are with us. So we're going to and that's the way of it'll be a way of them getting out. The other thing, though, people don't recognize about this state, we have 41 million people and 40% consistently vote even with 300,000 leaving per year red or Republican or conservative. So we are probably the second or third largest red state in the country, 16, 17 million people.

[Tony Kennett]

I'm reminded of this whenever I criticize California and say, well, we have more, we have more red voters than you have people in your entire state, that kind of a thing. And I have to admit that's Very, very true. And NorCal is a wonderful place.

[Bradley Devlin]

Yes. And you look at geographically, and it's about 85% of the state. It's all of everything north of Sacramento, everything east of the coast ranges, and then the Inland Empire, all you're basically talking about a separate state from somewhere around Berkeley to la Jolla, about 50 miles inland from the coast. And that little strip has about, about, oh, 25, 26 million people in it. And it's the LA corridor, the San Diego corridor, the Bay Area core. And it's got all the money because of Silicon Valley. And it's got the universities, it's got the banking industries, the legal industries. But it, it's not farming, it's not timber, it's not mining, it's not oil. It's not. It's actually not most of the Hispanic population who are trending a little bit more conservative than the left would like, even in California. It's something that the conservative movement needs to really address because they've given up on California because they said, you know, the Reagan days, the Dukmajian days, the Pete Wilson days, even the Schwartz day are over with those 32 years. But because. And they're losing 300,000 mostly conserves a year. But it's something that I think there's a change of repulsion against what the left has done in California. And I think they could, could especially with a Hispanic community that's getting more conservative. I wouldn't write the state off yet, but there's no Republican Party, there's no organized conservative movement that is effective here.

[Tony Kennett]

I think we saw the same thing in Michigan that bummed me out. I went for an interview with the Mackinaw Institute a couple of years ago. Great folks.

[Bradley Devlin]

Yeah.

[Tony Kennett]

And they said, what's one thing that you would do differently in policy in Michigan, which again suffers this A lot of the same thing as California, you know, a lot of conservative voters. But the state was lost and has been lost ever since. And the answer that I gave them is what I said on the show last night. You guys haven't painted a vision. Many Republicans in California, many Republicans in Michigan haven't painted a vision of what the state could be. It's just looking back in kind of a European status quo conservatism as opposed to the Abrahamic Go to a land that I will show you pioneering conservatism that America should be painting from like a conservative angle.

[Bradley Devlin]

Yeah, I think that's the problem here. The main. Everybody knows that you can't buy a house so there's no plan this we're going to deregulate or we're going to open land up for development, but we're going to have affordable housing. Everybody knows that you can't afford 45 cents a kilowatt. So we're going to have a nuclear plant open or we're going to keep natural gas plants. Everybody knows the, that you have the highest taxes. Income 13.3 is the highest rate. But people at 660 thousand start to pay it. We have the hot. I think we're 49th in infrastructure. Highways. We've got one of the 99 freeways by mile the most dangerous place in the United States. The schools are in the bottom, the bottom 10% of test scores in the nation. I could go on falling from what.

[Tony Kennett]

Used to be the highest of the highest.

[Bradley Devlin]

Yes. And we have one third of welfare recipients. 50% of Californians are born under Medicaid Medical, our version of Medicaid. And 40% of the state is on Medi Cal. So and then we have no middle class, so to speak. It's a medieval society of very. We have the most billionaires, the most affluent counties, towns like Newport or Atherton or the Bay Area, Mill Valley. These are the most tony areas in the United States. And then where I live in southwest Fresno county, we have poverty rates that are lower, worse than Appalachia. So it's just a schizophrenic state.

[Virginia Allen]

And.

[Bradley Devlin]

There'S no concerned and comprehensive Republican Contract with America. Here's how we're going to lower gas. I just filled up yesterday. It was $5.46. So yes. And the power bill. One of all the California residents cannot pay their PGE bills. 25% are overdue. Some of them are overdue for real reasons. Some of them just don't want to pay. And that's one of the reasons why you have the highest electricity rates in the country. So it's a mess. And we have a governor who doesn't address anything fire, any fire prediction. He's just running for president. And it's, it's ripe for some innovative concerted effort by conservatives to come in and appeal to especially that I don't like to talk about people in groups, but 45% of the state identify as Hispanic. And most of them, not all, but most of them are second and third generation. And they are the people in the new middle class that is paying the bill for a lot of things that they used to think were good and now they don't. And that's the homeless situation, the medical situation, the truck driving situation. I mean 40% of our truck drivers are foreign born and we know now that they don't many of them don't know English and were given licenses. And that's everybody talks about that issue. Everybody talks about gas. But you don't hear that on the national stage. And Republicans nationwide, Republican candidates for president, vice president just don't come here here. If they do come here, they come here for a night to raise a lot of money from pockets of vestigial Republicans on the coast. But they were just we have no representation in a nationwide sense.

[Tony Kennett]

When I was in Wisconsin and in the, in the southern part of the state, there's a large it's one of the Hispanic immigration centers for the country. And that's where I actually learned to speak Spanish fluently. And in doing so, so I learned how much deeply held conservative Christian community was just embedded in every facet of the Hispanic communities of the United States, especially in that middle class, you know, several generations in that you've talked about. So there is a lot of opportunity in California for this. And again, I don't think it's worth writing off yet either. In fact, right now, as I've, as I've said on the show, California is no longer my least favorite state right now that that title's held by Connecticut ticket.

[Scott Jennings]

So.

[Bradley Devlin]

Well, my it might be New York after tonight too. Oh, Mr. Momdani.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah. Seeing the polls come in there. Which reminds us we do actually have to scoot over and check a few of those new poll updates. So Victor Davis Hansen, a joy to have you as always. Thanks for hopping on.

[Bradley Devlin]

Thank you for having me.

[Tony Kennett]

It's a rough night, I'm afraid over on the polling side of things here on the Tony Kinnid cast, we go over to some of the updates states Mikey Sherrill, the Democrat candidate in New Jersey that is currently not called by the Associated Press but it is not looking very good. The precincts that are chiming in so far, Mikey up 58.6% to Jax, 41% about a almost a 200,000 vote lead over in Virginia while again the decision desk has called both of these races so far. The New Jersey gubernatorial of course already calling the Virginia gubernatorial as well, which the Associated Press has called. The Associated Press has not yet called the Virginia attorney general race. That is a 51% to a 48.6% situation. It's still rather close though. The decision desk has called it for Democrat J. Jones of the the texting call for murder scandal if you'd like to call it that. That's 1.19 million to 1.139 million. So not yet over unless my crew lets me know otherwise. So I my other than my team who is is confused apparently as to why I despise Kinetic Connecticut. The short answer to that is Chris Murphy and an entire state full of people who are Chris Murphy. I'm talking the men and the women. And what is Connecticut gonna do? Like sue me in Indiana? Yeah, I don't think so. They're the size of one of our counties. A bunch of nerds. No. To some of the more serious issues at hand. There is other news in the country that needs to be addressed. We do have a couple of updates on the situation down in Kentucky outside of Louisville. There was a cargo plane that crashed this evening. I have asked producer Nick to be kind of keeping an eye on this amid all of the electoral news. Can you give us any update? There were some major fires that I was being messaged about to update. Give us. Give us what you know.

[Producer Nick]

Yes. So during the countdown introduction to the show, I mentioned there was a converted freighter. It was converted in 2006. Crashed. It was in takeoff from Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville, Kentucky. The flight was en route to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu. The flight was UPS Airlines Flight 2976 and based on flight radar it had reached a maximum altitude of 175ft before abruptly coming down on what appears to be the Kentucky Petroleum Recycling.

[Tony Kennett]

And the cargo plane appeared to land on the Kentucky Petroleum Recycling facility.

[Producer Nick]

Yes. And a grade A auto parts business. This is essential information because right now it looks like based on reporting from the ground that three people were killed and 11 are injured.

[Tony Kennett]

Oh my goodness.

[Producer Nick]

And two employees of the auto parts was not accounted for. So there are still soon to be more reports about whether there are more loss.

[Tony Kennett]

Thank you very much for that report. Appreciate you keeping us updated on this. I meant to play this clip earlier on in the show, but some of the polling data started coming in sooner than I had expected. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy addressed a possible concern with the number of air traffic controllers and according now, this being the longest shutdown in U.S. history, a concern about U.S. airspace. And I want to make this clear before I play this clip. I am not alleging or asserting that the crash in Louisville is anyway connected to the air traffic control situation. And I'm only putting that disclaimer here because while this is in the same category of transportation, we don't make the habit of correlating these kind of incidents, especially suggesting causation before they occur. Here's the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy. The controller's got 90% of one payment, 80 to 90% of one payment. They miss the second paycheck. On Thursday, they get an email pay stub that'll show what their next payment is going to be. So this Thursday, they'll get an email that shows that their pay stub is a big fat zero. Many of the controllers said a lot of us can navigate missing one paycheck. Not everybody, but a lot of us can. None of us can manage missing two paychecks. So if, if you bring us to a week from today, Democrats, you will see mass chaos, you will see mass flight delays, you'll see mass cancellations and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace because we just cannot manage it because we don't have the air traffic control. So this is going to become a central issue for the American people. Now we're going to bring on our political editor, Bradley Devlin. We might bring on Tyler o' Neill who does a lot of our investigative work, a lot of brilliant analysis. Of course, he headed up our investigations on the Southern Poverty Law center, not to mention very, very good author. We might bring him on in a bit as well. Jarrett Stepman is still in New York City where we are just, just four minutes away from the polls closing. We might have Kurt Schlichter joining us in a couple of minutes. And speaking of Kurt Schlichter, before we get to the New York stuff, before we get down to again, apparently the Curtis Lewa team showing up to the polls today in a kitten tie and just, I'm sorry, I just, I have to, I have to pull up this, this particular photo if we have it ready to go here, here in a kitten tie with a kitten book for a book for feline lovers. When I say that Republicans don't take off your election seriously, this is what I'm talking about. This is what I'm talking about.

[Producer Nick]

The hang in there poster style energy right there.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah. Although he really does look like the old grumpy cat meme, doesn't he? Does, does have that going. Before we get to that, I do want to move over to some of the California situation because, because California is going to vote on Prop 50 tonight. I'm going to make the go ahead and make the prediction. Now, not that this is a really murky crystal ball to lurk through. California is going to in fact pass proposition 50. Now, you heard me pitch to Victor Davis Hansen. Does California essentially passing Proposition 50 here? Does California moving into that particular redistricting means maybe Virginia also doing so? Now that again, the Associated Press is quite called the race. Many other outlets as well, for Democrat governor elect to be Abigail Spanberger, will you see that measure prompt other states around the country who may be more on the fence, like, for example, some state senators in Indiana, to go ahead and do the redistricting process like Texas is as well? That that's going to be a particularly. I'm getting a message that the Curtis Lewa. The Curtis Lewa kitten. AI picture. What was that? AI? Did he actually show up in a tie picture? Is that AI? Because you will have to shoot me with the Nerf correction dart. It would be horrible if the very first major correction I have to issue on the Tony Kenneth cast is that he did not actually show up in. I don't know. This is the New York Post, and they've got several photos ready to go. That doesn't look like AI to me. Curtis Lewa has the right number of fingers. That looks like. Those look like thumbs, not Costco hot dogs. I'm just saying there's.

[Producer Nick]

There's also video. Can I shoot you anyways, though?

[Tony Kennett]

Can you not? No, you can't shoot me yet. No. I'm sorry, buddy. All right, we're gonna move over in just a second over on some of.

[Bradley Devlin]

The.

[Tony Kennett]

Other electoral details this evening. I want to show you this clip that we've already covered a little bit on Gavin Newsom and the future of the Democrat Party because if they have some momentum that's really generating behind the rest of the party due to tonight, then I want to show you what the biggest hopeful on the bench is currently up to. We actually have to dig in and talk about the Gavin Newsom energy, which as rough as. As rough as that is to say that the Democrat Party is bringing forward. So from his humble youth, before we bring on Kirchlich, to here is the. The Gavin Newsom youth experience. But also, you know, it was also.

[Bradley Devlin]

About paying the bills, man.

[Tony Kennett]

It was just like hustling and. And so I was out there kind.

[Bradley Devlin]

Of raising myself, turning on the tv.

[Tony Kennett]

Started, you know, just getting obsessed, you know, sitting there with the, you know, the Wonder Bread and five stacks of.

[Bradley Devlin]

Like, the white stack.

[Tony Kennett]

Five stories, you know, man, come on, Macaroni and cheese. Are you talking about me?

[Bradley Devlin]

Yg, man.

[Tony Kennett]

Every day. Every day in the backyard, just bouncing the basketball, throwing the ball against the wall until the ball is just, like, fraying Man. And you're. That's it.

[Bradley Devlin]

Whole thing. So just.

[Tony Kennett]

And, and then, you know, then this.

[Bradley Devlin]

Student that was shitty student is in.

[Tony Kennett]

The back with his head down. All of a sudden started throwing the baseball a little faster than everyone else and started, you know, make a few.

[Bradley Devlin]

Free throws because I was sitting there.

[Tony Kennett]

Practicing 500 of them every damn night. And. And yes, yes. You see, he's. He's just like the kid from Hoosier that's actually airbud. I don't know if you can see. He looks a lot like a golden retriever. Yeah, that, that's actually, that's. That's who they cast in airbud. That's the same high school. I look up in the stands, my dad's back up there.

[George Caldwell]

Okay.

[Tony Kennett]

And it's like, man. And then he's bringing his friends and, and you're captain of the team and you're like, geez, you know, and it just saved me and it got me into college. I'm just saying. Go ahead, go ahead.

[Producer Nick]

Producer Nick, you can tell that he's completely fabricating every part of it because his cadence picks up and his enthusiasm with his own lie picks up. And then he begins going, you, you. And referencing in third person. The dude is a complete snake oil salesman. He's a complete. I'm not gonna continue down that line because I'm gonna say something I should shouldn't.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, probably. Probably a good idea there. All right, Kurt Schlichter is on his way in. We might have a little bit of a zoom issue over there. That said, we're going to bring you some updates now. The polls have officially closed in the city of New York. So we're going to be bringing you updates on that, that three way race as we are heading down the line. As a couple of updates already, the race for New Jersey's governor has not yet been called by the Associated Press, although it has been called by decision desk. We do actually have Kurt Schlichter ready to go. So we'll get him in in just a second. Last couple of updates here for you. The Virginia Attorney General race between J. Jones and Jason Miare, not yet called. It is looking like though some races are not called over in Pennsylvania, over in some of the special elections in Georgia. It is a rough, rough night for Republicans. And so now we go over to Kurt Schlichter from Townhall.com phenomenal author. And not just because I've made a cameo in one of his books before. Kurt, what are you doing to deal with quite the exciting election situation out in California.

[Kurt Schlichter]

This is the biggest abortion news since Roe v. Wade.

[Tony Kennett]

It's a really, really bad. I mean, it's botched. Sorry. While you talk, I'm gonna, you know, know, winds are changing. Winds are changing. I know out there that, you know, you want it, you want to talk California stuff. So to get in touch with your boy Gavin, I'm going to go ahead and make his famous five Decker PB and J. Why? You tell me why. This is the biggest. What was the word you use? The abortion of Republican campaign. Why is that? Why? Why did we put forward a pooper scooper of an election cycle here?

[Kurt Schlichter]

Well, you know, I'm a big believer in Occam's Razor and all these elections are in deep Democrat areas and the Democrats are really motivated because historically it's an off year and also they're homicidal freaks.

[Tony Kennett]

But is that what I was going to say? Is that the fact that it's an off year, why the Democrats are motivated in this instance?

[Kurt Schlichter]

Well, they're motivated because Trump's out there.

[Tony Kennett]

Ah, there you go.

[Kurt Schlichter]

So, I mean, so we have historical trends against us.

[Ken Cuccinelli]

Us.

[Kurt Schlichter]

We don't have any, you know, tailwind like having President Eggplant in the White House like we had in 2021.

[Tony Kennett]

You.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Know, I mean, Winston Sears could have been a better candidate, but I don't think Glenn Youngkin could done it this year. You need.

[Tony Kennett]

You don't think so, you don't think this is like a candidate quality issue kind of a thing? No, no.

[Kurt Schlichter]

I'm an Occam Razor guy. Guy. All right, what's the most likely explanation for Democrats winning in heavily Democrat states? They're Democrats. I'm now writing a town hall column which will probably run Thursday. And I mentioned I've been watching elections since 1972 because I'm old. AF.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah.

[Kurt Schlichter]

As the gripers say, shut up, Boomer.

[Tony Kennett]

That's true. But I mean, you know, given that you're not just the old man as an infantry colonel, but also the old man in politics. Politics. I need you to tell me how the Republicans are actually going to get out of this, what appears to be a self inflicted kind of a death spiral here. Oh, no, no, no. You don't think it's a death spiral. They're not going to do it in.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Democrat areas next time in an off year when historical trends are against them, when, you know, we have a very polarizing guy in the White House.

[Tony Kennett]

And here's the thing.

[Kurt Schlichter]

I predicted this. You predicted this?

[Tony Kennett]

No, the no, Kurt, we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be separate. We're not supposed to agree on this when you're supposed to tell me I'm wrong and dumb. Yes, I predicted this, but please continue.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Course. And you were right. Look, I'm not happy about it. This is a bad night. That's the theme of my call. Some nights are bad, sometimes they're mess, sometimes they're great. This is a bad night. And I would rather a midterm election where Democrats won in Democrat areas by varying amounts. Some, you know, in Virginia. It seems Spamberger did pretty good. I don't know where Cicciarelli is going to end up. Have they called Chicharelli yet?

[Tony Kennett]

No, they have not.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Unless you got a little hope. If. Take everything with a grain of salt. If.

[Tony Kennett]

Jack, clearly while you're talking, I'm watching the election results closely and not embracing the culinary, you know, middle income cuisine of, of Gavin. Of Gavin Newsom, you know, but yeah, Gavin.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Gavin is the James spader in the 1980s Movies of political candidates.

[Tony Kennett]

That's true, that's true.

[Kurt Schlichter]

And we grew up both on the San Francisco peninsula, except in quite different worlds.

[Tony Kennett]

Oh, so then, am I making this 5 decker PB and J correctly?

[Producer Nick]

I was about to ask if I.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Don'T know because I wasn't as working class as him. Him.

[Tony Kennett]

Do you recognize the Goober?

[Producer Nick]

At least?

[Kurt Schlichter]

I chose the Goober to relate a sheet of shag rug on the seat of his. The ripped seat of his dodge dart of 1971. But, you know, I never got so real. I had to do five decker PB and J's. Well, we only had one deck. Holy.

[Producer Nick]

Do you have an opinion on how it should be constructed? Is it five separate PB&J sandwiches plastered together with more peanut butter and jelly?

[Tony Kennett]

Sorry, I don't know if the NDI connection is, is. Is quite, is quite good enough here for you to hear, producer Nick, but he asked, is in fact the proper construction. Is it five slices of bread? And like I figure Gavin's, you know, going to go with Goober because, you.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Know, sure, it's white bread.

[Tony Kennett]

Oh, it's wonder bread. Oh, it's one. We, we. We did the accuracy. We went right for the Gavin Newsom, you know, the standard, just like they.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Make at the French Laundry.

[Tony Kennett]

If they have the energy here, then I really want to be on par. You know, I want to see what's the strategy coming out of this here. Because if Republicans are actually going to gain some momentum at a 20, 26. And I think that like you said, you know, there's, there's blue states and that's what we're looking at here. Do you think that this actually takes us in or out of the shutdown or is this going to give you.

[Kurt Schlichter]

The shutdown will be done in a week, I think.

[Tony Kennett]

Oh, you think so you. Slotkin is going to stand a little stronger on her principles from Michigan.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Oh God, what is it with these Democrat women who make me hate the.

[Producer Nick]

Concept of sexy bite?

[Tony Kennett]

You know, I mean, you look at Abigail with a mouthful of PB&J. I'm the right guy right now to ask about sex appeal. I mean, ask anyone around.

[Kurt Schlichter]

I wrote about town hall. It was like the political first wives and I've never been married before now. I mean, I don't, you know, they elect these bitchy harridans to harangue and nag them for the next four years.

[Tony Kennett]

Okay, that's what I wanted to get to. I'm glad that you said that without any kind of prompt while I was chewing through the fine selection of goobers which. Oh man, that, that hurt me a little bit. The wonder bread is delicious though. I stand by wonder bread.

[Producer Nick]

You don't like Goober?

[Kurt Schlichter]

I toast. It's even better.

[Tony Kennett]

I hear that's true. Okay, so here, here's usually as Jeeves.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Do it for him.

[Tony Kennett]

That is. That's very true. This is the question I want to ask. It's again right on the same line. The Democrats are going to get a lesson out of this. And what they are going to get is that, Karen, is the move. You know this, right? You can look at Spanberger, you can look at Mickey, you can look at the. I mean Jay Jones might as well be a middle aged white woman. I mean you've got a lot of candidates in this election who are no fury. Exactly. So do you think that the Democrats are going to lean into just kind of the, as they're called, the awful, the affluent white, white liberal.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Well, that is. Well, the thing is it's those women. Look, they, they ran in venues where those women predominate and where they control the male identifying Neuters who are their husbands. I mean, what kind of man would vote for any of that? Well, I mean, I guess, I guess there's a lot of guys who want to like be tied up in diapers.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, I, I'm. Again, I'm not really.

[Kurt Schlichter]

And I'll tell you, look, the thing I least want to see in the, in this world is, is the browser history of A man who votes for Abigail Spamberger.

[Tony Kennett]

So I want to bring in some of the updates. Right now it looks like Mikey Sherrill is pulling away just a bit again. It's not yet been called. 52% of the votes by the Associated Press counted 170. About 170,000 vote lead on Jack Cittarelli. I was kind of surprised that Chitterelli didn't pull more of a power pack punch here. There's another question I wanted to ask you because he gave off kind of a man's man vibe here. It didn't appeal to New Joys.

[Kurt Schlichter]

We haven't. We haven't seen it. But look, the Democrats are motivated. They're angry. Remember 2010? We were angry and we showed up.

[Tony Kennett]

Like New Yorkers might be angry again. We can't.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Again.

[Tony Kennett]

The Associated Press hasn't called this one, but decision desk is already calling the New York city mayoral election 10 minutes and 7 seconds after polls have closed for Zoran Mamdani. That took about three and a half seconds.

[Kurt Schlichter]

They waited that long?

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah. I'm going to try to. The last thing I wanted to kind of ask you here before we let you write the simmering, burning cauldron of the column that sure to come out of this. What in the world was Curtis Sliwa and Andrew Cuoma thinking? What in the world? I mean, everyone told them, you're going to split the vote. You're going to split it right down the middle. And they looked at the rest of the country and said, I don't know. I don't care. I know you're too old to get this reference. I mean, you're practically a fossil. There's an episode of the early spongebob seasons in which they're terrified of a butterfly in a bubble. The classics. Yes. And at the end of Burning down the Entire Town, Patrick and spongebob look at each other and say, we saved the city. That is Curtis Sliwa and Andrew Cuomo. At this exact moment in time, New.

[Kurt Schlichter]

York has like, what, 10 million people? And the best they could do was those three. Look, I got nothing against Curtis Lewis, but he's a novelty act.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, that's true.

[Kurt Schlichter]

He's a good guy.

[Tony Kennett]

He's a very good guy. What he did with the Guardian Angels. Excellent. Love it.

[Kurt Schlichter]

But yeah, so because you're great in one thing doesn't mean you're great in another. Like William Shatner probably shouldn't have covered Rocket Man.

[Tony Kennett]

True, Very true. That I'm. Dude, this. This peanut butter. That was awful.

[George Caldwell]

Dude.

[Tony Kennett]

That one bite sitting like a rock in my stomach. I don't know how Gavin Newsom did it when he was growing up on the streets of.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Well, he. I know how he did it. He didn't.

[Producer Nick]

He followed it up by hours of slamming a basketball against a wall.

[Tony Kennett]

Ah, yes. Many, many hours of great athletics. So there you go. We have the bench, we have the reaction. We've got some good stuff. Kirchlichter. Appreciate it. Always stellar takes on this stuff. Best of luck to you with Proposition 50. I know you are on the edge of your seat.

[Kurt Schlichter]

I wonder how that's going to turn out.

[Bradley Devlin]

Yeah.

[Tony Kennett]

Kurt Schlichter, Townhall.com thanks again for joining us, man. Really appreciate it.

[Bradley Devlin]

Thanks.

[Tony Kennett]

All right, let's cut over to some of the other poll update news for the evening. It is 9:12 Eastern. If you are watching or listening to this later, you're very confused by the timestamp that I just gave. That's okay. Right now, the New York election has not yet been called. Excuse me. The New York City election has not yet been called by the Associated Press. Right now, with 38% of the votes counted, the Mamdani ticket has 436,500 votes. You have Andrew Cuomo with 341,000 votes. And then you have Curtis Sliwa with 68,000 votes. Producer Nick Break out the calculator for me, would you? Break out the calculator for me? I want you to do a little bit of on screen math here. This is just the kind of nonsense I was talking about. About. I want you to take 341,041. So 341,041.

[Producer Nick]

Yep.

[Tony Kennett]

Plus 68552. Tell me what that adds up to.

[Producer Nick]

409,552.

[Tony Kennett]

409,000. Right now Zoran Mandani is leading with 436,000. It is just under where Zoran Mandani be would be. I would like to keep. I might be wrong. And the vote split may not have mattered. It may not have mattered by the end of the night. That's okay. But I want to see the math here right as we go through this big pile of nonsense because it's extremely frustrating to watch this entire gambit that was made that one of them was going to pull forward at the last second like a, like a cheap Vegas racehorse. What?

[Producer Nick]

I do have good news. What? Well, bad news. You had said that it took ten minutes for DDHQ to call it for Mom. Donnie. It took three.

[Tony Kennett]

It took three. All right, fine, fine. Do It. Do it quickly. Wow. You shot me in the knee. That's a very. You're gonna have to work on that. We're gonna cut over to a far more serious man. We're gonna cut over to Bradley Devlin. He. I'm sorry. I caught him in the middle of eating. That's my fault. Fault. That's my fault. Kate is gonna kill me twice.

[Jarrett Stepman]

No warning. No warning, Tony.

[Tony Kennett]

No warning at all.

[Jarrett Stepman]

You went to Kurt's feed. And then you went to my feed.

[Tony Kennett]

Hey.

[Jarrett Stepman]

And you were doing this whole this is a serious guy thing, and it wasn't a serious guy, I'll have you know.

[Tony Kennett]

And Nick.

[Jarrett Stepman]

And Nick, baby, you gotta give me inflection, energy, passion. All right? I know it's not going your way. I know it's not going your way.

[Tony Kennett]

Way.

[Jarrett Stepman]

But give me more, all right? We need more. And, Tony, if things keep getting worse, we're just opening the clip of Nerf darts at you. We're just doing it. We're just doing it.

[Tony Kennett]

All I can tell you is that some of us are out here doing our darndest. We're doing our best. And all I can say at the end of the day is that you have to be the guy, as the political editor to walk out in front of the crowd. My boss. Look, at the end of the evening, Kate is always furious whenever I eat on air. She can't stand it. So every election night, I eat on air just to make her happy. But you have to go out and explain the political nature of this as your job. You have to make an entire group of people unhappy. So let's hear it, Mr. Coroner. I want to hear the why. Why was this such an abysmal failure?

[Jarrett Stepman]

Because the GOP is now more a working class party with lower propensity voters. They are more focused on elections like the midterms, way less focused on the midterms than they are. The presidential election ground game is incredibly difficult for Republicans, even with relative over performance than expected in early voting periods. So if you think about this, Tony.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah.

[Jarrett Stepman]

The way to turn out somebody in Virginia, if you're a Democrat, is to go around Northern Virginia, which is way more densely populated than the rest of the state.

[Tony Kennett]

Right.

[Jarrett Stepman]

The amount of resources that it takes, door knockers, ballot folks, to make sure that you have a properly functioning turnout operation in a state like Virginia, when the population centers for Democrats are way denser than they are for Republicans, that's a major, major challenge. And you need somebody like President Trump to give you a strong endorsement or to actively be on the ballot for that difference to be made.

[Tony Kennett]

A very, very good analysis. I'm not even gonna mess with you. I'm not, I'm not even, I'm not even gonna, you know, I don't even have a joke to follow up with that one. I don't even think you got that.

[Jarrett Stepman]

Out of the way. Cold end. Cold open for me.

[Tony Kennett]

Well, yeah, of course. So let's actually tackle how to build a ground game because Republicans can't seem to figure this out. I thought that seeing kind of the Scott Pressler approach in New Jersey that worked in Pennsylvania in 24 might pull off something better. Again, the Associated Press I don't believe has yet. They have yet to call that race 55% of the vote in a million to 774,000 in favor of Mikey Sherrill. Just off the top of your head here, here, is there a way to build an off year ground game or are we just going to see kind of clobberings of the off year ad nauseam for the foreseeable future?

[Jarrett Stepman]

Well, I think that is the big question for Republicans here. The difficult part is that the fundamentals for Republicans looked bad the entire time. There's this myth making that any of these races were purple whatsoever. No. Democrats by their own extremism and incompetence competence actually made this slightly more competitive. And in doing so. Right. Because of Jay Jones, because of Spamberger's record on parental rights and transgender surgeries for minors and men and women's sports. Right. Because of those records, they had to spend approximately, we won't know until everything comes out in the wash, approximately 15 to 20 million more dollars on those races than they did in the previous cycle. And let's remember Governor Glenn Youngkin won just by a hair the last time around. And he did so because of major scandals regarding McAuliffe and his handling of the transgender issue back in 2021. And so as we look at this right now, what we see is Democrats having to spend more money and more resources to make sure that they hold down the Ford and Republicans, Republicans kind of being caught in this position where they're not exactly sure how to replicate the success of the Trump era in these off year elections. Right. So what does that look like post.

[Tony Kennett]

Trump era, but while Trump is still in office kind of a situation, you think?

[Jarrett Stepman]

I think so because the president wasn't active in any of these campaigns.

[Tony Kennett]

Really. Didn't endorse Jack Cittarelli, didn't endorse Sears, I don't think. Did he endorse Cittarelli at of the.

[Producer Nick]

The end.

[Tony Kennett]

End. No, I think he was coming.

[Jarrett Stepman]

He made some truths about him. I can't quite remember off the top of my head. The point being, though, one of the most iconic Trump rallies was in New Jersey when he had that Trump rally at the water park or the theme park fair and there was 100,000 people, people estimated at that rally. There wasn't a get out the vote effort like that. And I think what the President has realized, what folks should realize, is that the President should be on the trail in the 2026 midterms. He should be pretending as if he is running for his third term once we hit 2026, because that's going to be the difference maker. It's where is Trump going to come in on all these different primaries, on all these different races for Republicans in 2026? And he needs to do that because he wants to make the last two years that he has in office, office effective, particularly in the House of Representatives. Because if Republicans lose the House, there's just going to be impeachment, impeachment and impeachment effort forever and ever. And it's going to waste resources and it's going to waste time from the administration dealing with all those needless headaches.

[Tony Kennett]

So producer Nick very kindly looked up some of the information for me and the Trump team endorsed Jack Cittarelli back on May 12th. 12th. So there is an endorsement out there. Obviously that was just an endorsement through Truth Social. I didn't see any, you know, big kind of Air Force One, you know, questions thrown that way. The New Jersey election seemed kind of more like a sleeper until the last couple of weeks, the off your ground game, to actually build that forward. A point that I have made, and I have contended consistently, is that it requires Republicans to paint a picture of what things should look like rather than just doing as Sears did, get up in front of people and say, Abigail is bad. You know, maybe that's enough during a major presidential election. Maybe it's enough when everyone's gonna go out and vote anyway for the presidential to get out there and say, this other person is way worse than I am. But in an off year election, since it's actually getting people out to go to the dmv, as my analogy goes, do you think that I'm kind of on the money about the needing to paint a picture or is there a secondary strategy that you think probably works better?

[Jarrett Stepman]

That's such a great leading question, Tony. I do think.

[Tony Kennett]

I'm sorry, no, No, I actually do want your take just before I finish saying it. Yeah.

[Jarrett Stepman]

This is the number one issue for any candidate right now. It's how to cast a vision for the future. The only candidates that are gaining momentum have been effective in casting that vision. Let's Remember before Agenda 47, before any of of the efforts that Trump made to create that vision, he came out with those five points early on in his 2024 campaign. And he basically said, we're going to beautify cities, we're going to make America safe again. We're going to close down the border, and we're going to revitalize the American family, and we're going to make sure that our military is prepared to meet the threats of tomorrow. Those are simple things that are going to cast a vision.

[Tony Kennett]

Right. This was part of his Golden Age.

[Jarrett Stepman]

Pitch, and that became the motif throughout the election cycle. That was further fleshed out by the Republican Party platform. It was further fleshed out by Agenda 47. And then, of course, you have the contrast from Joe Biden. And this is what Mamdani has done so well, too. I mean, these are the players that have momentum right now on the national political stage. It's not Chuck Schumann, right? It's not Hakeem Jeffries, it's Zoran Mamdani. Because Zoran Mamdani, for all of his woes and for all of his terrible policies, has been focusing on a vision for New York City that is affordable, that is clean. Don't mention the part about law and order to Mizoram Dami, of course. But at least he's saying, hey, I want to make sure that our parks are beautiful, that we have good trash cleanup. Right? Like, Eric Adams spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to figure out how to clean up New York City. And his commission came up with the idea of trash cans. What a joke, right? Any moron could have told you, maybe putting trash in the trash cans would help keep the rats back. Right? And so that's the type of vision that Zorron has been able to cast, and that's been incredibly attractive to voters 18 to 39. I mean, that demographic, at least in early voting, was turning out just a point and a half less than Voters over 60 in New York City. And Trump did that effectively in 2024 when he cast a vision for the Golden Age and what that would look like. And he made massive inroads with young voters. And so in the future, it's not going to be enough to be anti woke. It's not going to Be enough to say we're going to cut your taxes.

[Tony Kennett]

Right.

[Jarrett Stepman]

And leave the rest of it up to God. No, you actually need to say this is the positive vision, the moral vision of the policies that we're pursuing in this campaign. And this is going to be a movement, a journey. Bernie Sanders has done this to effect in the past. Right. And that's going to be the future here. I think that's what Democrats are learning from this election. Spanberger and Sherrill had advantages that were more structural than anything else. But truly it's about not the results of the election, but how the campaigns functioned and how those campaigns ended up winning the day. And I think it's Mamdani that is the lesson in all of this. It is the vision for tomorrow.

[Tony Kennett]

I think that's a good way to phrase it. I put it more in because the former teacher analogy space, you have the A team and the B team and Zoran Mandani is the new A team for the Democrats, not just like the crack shot, established kind of incumbent candidate that used to be the A team for the Democrats. The A team is now the vision caster. Even if the homework to get there is really awful. Even if what it is that they are advocating for and some of the facets of that are really ugly and how they always turn out historically, those particular things are still the vision to be casted. The B team is kind of the corporate, middle aged white lady that the Democrats bring forward, who are just loud and annoying, but they have a lot of structure and they don't really answer questions. They can use big HR words whenever they feel the need to. The Republican A team. Right now, again, I'm not seeing what you said. That particular vision that should be casted. You mentioned the four things Trump brought in his 2024 campaign. The example that I've used on the show is that in that address he gave from Mar A Lago, that long hour and a half, two hour where he was up at the podium at Mar A Lago, one of the things that struck me was this. We're gonna go to Mars. We're going to Mars. And this is, you know, this is something that I haven't really seen since. It was very John F. Kennedy esque. And I'm sorry to cut myself short here. The Associated Press has now called the New Jersey gubernatorial election for Mikey Sherrill. 61% of the votes counted. AP estimates 57% of the vote for Mikey Sherrill, 42 and a half for Jack Cittarelli. Brad?

[Jarrett Stepman]

Yeah, that's the hard one for Republicans to get over here, especially with Mamdani coming into power in New York City. That could have been a way for some of these conflicts to remain more localized. But now it looks like the national government, the federal government, is going to be a little bit more heavy handed, a little bit more interventionist. And you've seen that in the past few weeks during the government shutdown, as OMB Director Russ Vogt has paused different funding, most of that funding impacts directly New York area, New York State, New York City and New Jersey, northern New Jersey. And those funds, the reason that those were frozen was not because the president hates infrastructure projects in blue municipalities and in blue states.

[Tony Kennett]

Right.

[Jarrett Stepman]

Those were paused because these blue municipalities in blue states take that money, give them to corrupt contractors or give them to corrupt NGOs to meet Deins or to meet other ESGNs that are in violation of the directives that the president has established for the federal government.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Simple.

[Jarrett Stepman]

Simple as. And that becomes a sorer point, a more tender point for President Trump in the next three years of this administration by dealing with a lot of folks in the Northeast that are going to be trying to take federal dollars and engaging in all sorts of waste, fraud and abuse. And so, as Woodrow Wilson said, the president is tasked with being as big a man as he can be. President Trump has often taken that tack, although the philosophy that undergirds his leadership is much different than Woodrow Wilson. I'm not calling the president progressive by any stretch of the imagination, but you can see that there are characters on both sides, sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican. Right. Fdr, Woodrow Wilson wanted the president to be more directly involved, not only in the actions of the federal government and the executive branch, but also across the country. And you've seen conservative presidents take a similar tack. Nixon was constantly concerned about his ability to actually wrangle the administrative state and exact the people's will. Trump very similar in that respect. And of course, you get older, Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt doing similar things. And so this is always a source of contention between not only the federalist system, but also the different branches of government as they operate, right? Legislature, judiciary. There's always going to be those types of fights happening in the background. And so that's what we're setting up for. We're setting up for a whole bunch of Supreme Court cases. So I do not envy my colleagues. Yep. I do not envy my colleagues Tyler o' Neill or Fred Lucas for one minute, that is for sure.

[Tony Kennett]

So last question I'll ask here Because I want to swing over to Jared Stepman and get some updates from New York City. A nice super chat came in. Very nice. Marcus Holliday, $10. And he asks his wife says, great show tonight, guys. Even though tonight was rough. I'm not panicking, but should I be? Should we be panicking, Anakin? Tell us, Bradley.

[Jarrett Stepman]

No, no, I don't think we should be panicking.

[Scott Jennings]

Why?

[Jarrett Stepman]

Because, Tony, I've noticed you've said this a few times on the show, is that this might be the strategy moving forward is the Karen, the Karen approach to Democratic politics, right? The Katie Porter's of the world, the Abigail Spanbergers of the world.

[Tony Kennett]

If you start that list, it's gonna go on for a while, my dude.

[Jarrett Stepman]

Yeah, maybe so. Maybe so. Let's remember what the American people did in November of 2024 when the cards were on the table across the board.

[Tony Kennett]

Not just in Virginia and New Jersey, right?

[Jarrett Stepman]

And the Democratic Party decided that they wanted to play that game. They got beat. They got beat, and they got beat handily. Because that's not how the American people want this thing to shake out. They don't want this to be a function of identity politics and party backroom deals.

[George Caldwell]

Right?

[Jarrett Stepman]

This is why Abigail Spanberger didn't actually really face a real primary. Just like Kamala Harris. She was just put on a pedestal and she was put there in that warm, cozy chair and now she'll be heading to the governor's mansion. So I'm not concerned because these were blue states and blue races, right? Democrats almost lost them because of that extremism. Well, let's see how that actually shakes out when there's real Democratic primaries where you have to party, cater to the radical Democratic base. And you're running in purple districts in Texas, you're running in purple districts in Ohio, you're running in purple districts in California or all over the union. That's not going to play nearly as well as people think. And so that's why I'm not panicking, because I've seen the Democratic Party end their quote, unquote, soul searching and double down on radicalism. Does that mean that the stakes are higher in the upcoming elections? Absolutely it does. I think it's a fallacy to say I would prefer to have AOC be the nominee in 2028 than I would someone like Joe Manchin.

[Tony Kennett]

Right.

[Jarrett Stepman]

Even though Joe Manchin is no longer in Washington D.C. i think that's a fallacy. But I do think at the same time it makes the electoral prospects better for Republicans. Because the American people have rejected democrats taking the 20% side on all these different 80, 20 issues. And so, so if Republicans lose those purple elections to radical Democrat candidates, that's going to be very bad news for the republic. But I still think that the path is clear for Republicans to run on a common sense right. That's the watchword, common sense vision for America's future, as opposed to Democrats doubling down on this type of radicalism. I think it's going to to scare money into the coffers of Republican candidates and I think it's going to scare people to the polls come 2026.

[Tony Kennett]

All right, Bradley Devlin, our political editor for the Daily Signal, thank you very much for some of the insights. And again, I'm sorry for cutting to you right off the coat.

[Jarrett Stepman]

I'm getting back to my snack now. Is that okay? Can I go back to my snack?

[Tony Kennett]

Absolutely. We've got some new updates to share with the people as it is. We'll catch you soon. It's Bradley Devlin here on the Tony Kenneth cast. Now let's get to some of the voting information on the polls coming in out of New York City. Again, there are a couple of things that we do need to address regarding some of the numbers before we head over to Jarrett. So right now we're looking at the Associated Press numbers. They have not yet called the race for Zoran Mamdani, 782,000 votes in for Zoran Mandani, 69% of the votes counted. Nice. And Andrew Cuomo at 646,000. Curtis Sliwa at 120,000. Four hundred and seventy six. I don't think that's quite enough in the offset. Nope. Andrew Cuomo plus Curtis Sliwa does not, in fact, pass Zoran Mamdani. I think it's about a 3 or 4,000 vote margin without any particular math at the moment. And with that particular math in mind, I want to bring over Jarrett Stepman back again for a little bit of the analysis now that we're a bit down this Zoran Mandani rabbit hole. Jarrett, thank you very much for not hopping in while a snack is halfway through the opening shot.

[Scott Jennings]

Well, that's okay. But in honor of Curtis Lewa appears to have come in third place in this. My two cats are roaming my feet at the bottom of my desk, so you can't see that on camera, but they're there, trust me.

[Tony Kennett]

Let's dive right into some of the reaction in New York City. I think we actually have our own team down on the ground Outside of the Mamdani headquarters, I'm being told they're passing out rice by the bucket and no bowls or spoons. But what's the initial reaction? You as a New Yorker getting ready to live through the Zoron era here in the Big Apple?

[Scott Jennings]

Yeah, I can't wait for the headlines in the New York Post or whatever it is tomorrow. New York itself dropped dead. That's kind of what it feels like for many in New York City, especially many longtime residents who can't believe how far things have fallen in the Big Apple. I know. I realize that much of the country sees New York as a very liberal place, maybe a left wing place, but this is quite dramatic that somebody like Azora Mamdani could actually triumph and prevail. I mean, this wasn't too, too long ago that there were actually Republican mayors in the city. That seems like a far off thing right now. It does seem very much like the city itself is shifting to the left, that many, even of those longtime residents in New York who supported those who weren't leftists have left the city are gone. And that there's a huge transformation taking place here. I think it's very much worrying for those who are still in the city who now face the potential for dysfunctional government in the coming years. A breakdown of some of the, I think, marginal gains that have happened under Mayor Eric Adams on law and order and policing. There has been some positive steps forward as far as policing some of the parks and the subway. I think some of that is going to just straight up go away. I think Mamdani, the idea that he's only focused on, on housing and affordability, that's just not true. I mean, he's as woke as they get down the line. He kind of suppressed that during his race and during the general election. But most of his promises were to his far left flank. He's going to be beholden to the activist left wing base that brought him to power. They're going to expect a whole lot from his mayorship. So that's a very big deal in a place like New York City. As I said, I think it, it could. It's something that's bigger than the city itself and of course the Democrat Party now, which they're going to see Mamdani as one of the leaders of the future. He's part of that AOC wing that now feels like it is in control, that it is the future.

[Tony Kennett]

I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut you off here. The Associated Press has officially called The New York City mayoral race for Zoran Mandani after he passed what appears to be the 50% of the vote threshold. So that would put us at 860,000. 75% of the vote counted. 860,000 for Mamdani at the moment over Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Lewa. Sorry, that's an Associated Press bopping. We kind of have to cut to there.

[Scott Jennings]

Yeah, and that's a big deal because it shows that. I mean, those were saying that Sliwa was. Oh, he's the spoiler in this right. Race, quite frankly, it wouldn't have mattered if he wasn't there. It looks like at a one on one with Cuomo and Zoram and Donnie Mamdani was going to win this, which I think many, many believed. And so, you know, it wasn't, you know, obviously the candidate that was put up as the primary challenge to Zoram Hamdani wasn't exactly, as I said earlier, wasn't exactly giving people good feelings around the city. He had very little momentum from the start.

[Tony Kennett]

When you go on election day and you have to, to, you have to apologize, as he did on Fox News, you had Cuomo's last desperate, limping plea to beg people, hey, I know I killed old people. I know I groped a few butts, but come on, when that's your election day bid, just, dude, pack it up. I'm sorry. And in two bags. Because American Airlines has a policy. My goodness. Yeah.

[Scott Jennings]

And you know when your whole pitch is that, you know, you're the competent manager and people are thinking, well, well, what happened the last time you were put in charge? That's what people are thinking when they thought of Cuomo. And so he really didn't have much of a pitch to the people of New York. They remembered how he ended his governorship. So even his primary pitch, which is vote for me, I'm competent. People are thinking, well, are you even that? I mean, are you even particularly competent at what you're supposed to be doing? So somebody with that low energy, I mean, it's the low energy Jeb situation going into this. It's hard to win any race in this country. Most people don't just want to vote for a negative. They want to vote for something. They want to be excited about something. Nobody was excited except for the mom, Donnie supporters. They were the only people who were excited in this race.

[Tony Kennett]

So I got a message over from one of the people in the chat by the name of Heytack, says the stock markets in Texas and Florida are going to boom. I know there's been a lot of investment in the Dallas stock market, mainly because one of our friends in Texas won't shut up about it. What do you think about this? You do some of that kind of analysis on the culture and economic side?

[Scott Jennings]

I think that New York City is in some ways definancializing. I think that a lot of the capital and the human capital is going to be leaving the city. I don't think there's any question about that. I think those trends were already in place. People don't have to be in New York City to be around finance to be investment. There are other places that are very happy and it won't just be Texas and Florida. Any place that presents itself as a reasonable alternative I think now has a very good shot to pick up some of the slack from, from New York City, from the State of New York. And so again, it's bad news for the Big Apple. I think it's bad news all around. But hey, now there's an opportunity for others to, you know, pick up the pieces and pick up the people. I mean, look, a lot of this has happened in California too. A lot of California used to be more purple. A lot of those people, old Californians, they left California, they went elsewhere, they went to Texas and elsewhere and they vote against those policies. It isn't just that they bring their left wing policies elsewhere. Sometimes they bring a warning about how things fail too. And I think you might see that in New York saying you don't want your state, your city to be like how things are here. This used to be great, it's no longer so great. You don't want that where you live. And so that is certainly going to be a message. We're going to get an example of what socialist governance is in New York City, once great city. So I find it to be a tragedy. But, but that's just the reality. That's what the voters here chose and that's how it's gonna be.

[Tony Kennett]

I wanna ask you one more question here before we cut away to some of the other updates. Of course we have some more ballots in, even in Minneapolis actually after 41 minutes has finally gotten in 4 whole percent of their votes counted for mayor. You know, gotta do a lot of translating there. I'm sure one of the things that I also wanted to look at here was the New York ray for New York City, for the Mayor of Buffalo. You had Sean Ryan, Democrat candidate, up against James Gardner. There wasn't a lot of expectation that Gardner was going to be able again, not in New York City, but obviously on the other side of the state in Buffalo, kind of closer to Pennsylvania, although I have to be careful. Rob Bluey is more of the expert on Western New York and if I, if I get too off, he's going to roast me tomorrow in that interview. I'm really just setting myself up for failure with every single one of my colleagues this evening. Evening. But just off the top of your head on the other side of the state, did you expect the Buffalo mayoral race to go any differently than it seems to be going so far for the Democrat candidate?

[Scott Jennings]

No, I sort of expected that too. I mean, that's sort of the trend in Buffalo as well. I thought it was going to sort of be a wave in this very much off year election. I think it's just what it's going to do is it is going to be a choice now for the state of New York, not just New York City, because again, New York City is going to affect the whole state. If they need a bailout, where's that going to come?

[Bradley Devlin]

First?

[Scott Jennings]

They're going to be going to Albany. They're going to be going to the other people in the state saying, well, you need to now bail out New York City that has all these projects that Mondami has started. So that's going to be a huge battle going forward for the state of New York. And we do have a big governor race next year. We have a very close lease as far as right now goes a race with Elise Stefanik challenging Kathy Hogle, who was very kind of wishy washy on her support of Mondani. Now she seems to be fully aboard. I expect many Democrats to jump aboard. But now we're actually going to see the proof in the governance and see what that's actually like. And so I think that places like western New York or really just upstate New York are going to have to deal with what happens in New York City. So maybe that's how things went tonight night. It could be a lot different next year when, when the midterms actually hit.

[Tony Kennett]

All right, Jared Stepman, really appreciate you. We thank you very much for the analysis and keep it safe up there in NYC for us.

[Scott Jennings]

Thank you very much.

[Tony Kennett]

All right, let's get a little bit of polling update news. All right, we've got a few more things. It looks like it was a rough night over in some of the Pennsylvania courts as well. The Commonwealth Court decision desk projecting Stella Tsai winning over in Pennsylvania, the Democrat as well as Brandon Newman in State Superior Court. The reason we're bringing up some Pennsylvania and Georgia election stuff is those are the purple kind of what may have been argued as more bellwethery because that is a higher turnout kind of state. Pennsylvania people come out. That's where a lot of the fighting happens. Happens same with Georgia. It just doesn't seem to be a good night for Republicans in any way, shape or form. And this comes, including all the way over to the race for Minneapolis mayor. So the Minneapolis mayoral race, Those polls closing 44 minutes ago, that's a ranked choice situation. So if none of the candidates, and there are four, at least if none of the candidates are able to get a majority of the ballots cast in this particular, the first choice majority here, then there will in fact be another election and another election. And, you know, Minneapolis is just kind of a big disaster. The reason that this election matters is all is you had Jacob Frey, the more feminine Democrat versus Omar Fateh, the Ilhan Omar, Somalia kind of Democrat. And as a reminder, in case you're like, who in the heck is this Omar guy? I'm not talking the Ilhan kind. This is the guy waving the Somalian flag and mayoral candidate for Minneapolis saying how much he loves Somalia, that he's doing this for Somalia, the country. And well, I mean, here you go. So he's waving the flag of Somalia, which I cannot confirm was made in Microsoft paint, but it kind of looks like it. Somalia, Somalia. Hiran State, Maui Sle. Yes. And very Samama Lama. You slay too Queen. Very exciting stuff happening. It doesn't look like right now he is beating Jacob Frey. Jacob Frey, just 5% of the votes counted. Don't we give you a couple of statistics on the vote here from the Associated Press count. Jacob Frey so far has 2,602 votes. Exciting. That's an exciting number of votes right there. And then omar Fateh at 2,322 votes. Producer Daniel saying that isn't even the flag of Somalia. Well, then what flag is he waiting? What is the light blue and lime green flag? We're just waving made up flags here now in Minneapolis. Is it just like you make up a flag and you just start waving it and then start, you know, reciting things in Arabic? This is an exciting time here in the United States. This is, this is some, this is some good stuff.

[Producer Nick]

Oh, man.

[Tony Kennett]

Do not shoot the nerf gun at me for misidentifying the flag of Somalia. I'm calling foul on that one particularly.

[Producer Nick]

It's not like I Set you up for it.

[Tony Kennett]

No, the flag of Somalia is just a light blue with a white star. So it's. The flag of Somalia is in the flag that he's waving. You can see that up in the, up in the upper right. Yes, it is. It's a, it's a unity flag. That's a unity flag. A unity flag. It's cut down the, you've got the blue with the white star and then you've got the green of whatever else it is. It looks like Palm Springs Resort down there with the palm trees.

[Producer Nick]

Ah, yes, the strong relationship, the strong.

[Tony Kennett]

Relationship between Somalia and the country resort. I'm just saying I'm, you know, Minneapolis has clearly got its priorities in order. All right. It, it is, it is very important before we get over to the rest of our, the New York coverage, because I do want to actually get you guys some footage from our very own team on the ground outside of the Mandani Victory Party party in New York City, bringing up some of the updated voter numbers in Virginia right now, 83% of the vote counted. Of course, the Associated Press has called the race for Democrat Abigail Spanberger. But one of the questions in this is how many points was she going to beat out winsome Earl Sears? If she's actually a, if this was a closer election, that changes a bit of the political calculus. Right now it appears to be 56% to rounding generously, 44%. That's a, that's a, that's a nice healthy eight point defeat there. That's, that's, that's a rough one. That, that's a rough defeat. That was not perhaps, perhaps expected to be that kind of on the nose. And the attorney general side, the Associated Press still has not called that race, though the decision desk has Jay Jones, the Democrat of the particular texting scandal, 1.48 million votes for him and for Jason Miares, the incumbent Attorney General, 1.375. So 52% to 48% right down the nose there. I'm rounding a little bit there. That hasn't been called just yet. 84% of those ballots in, in Virginia. As a reminder again, though, we said so while we were on with Jarrett Stetman and Zoran Mandani has been declared with the majority of the ballots, 83% of the votes counted. Zoran Mandani at 948,000 votes, 50.5%. Cuomo following with 776,000 and then Curtis Sliwa at 137,000. And of course, because it's New York 5,736 total write in. So I really do want to know when there's a sizable number of write ins. I always want to know who gets the most votes of the fictional characters. Do you think that it's a Mickey Mouse or a Garfield the cat kind of town Producer Nick New York.

[Producer Nick]

I think, I think honestly, if I was going to make a legitimate prediction, it would be me.

[Bradley Devlin]

You.

[Tony Kennett]

You as the writing canon.

[Producer Nick]

Like people writing in me.

[Tony Kennett]

Oh, me. Oh, you've been running a shadow campaign I don't know about. Producer Nick. I am writing in myself. I myself should be mayor instead of.

[Producer Nick]

I am the captain now. I. I am the mayor now.

[Tony Kennett]

Well, I. I'm not. I don't know if you can count all of the me's as the same. I don't know because when you write in your own name, would you just really just write me?

[Producer Nick]

Maybe some person named me.

[Tony Kennett]

I was gonna say, is there some guy like Jason Me like me, he finds out that he actually Jason me Naguin. Yeah, that's how he gets. He gets elected to be mayor of New York City. City. I think that. I think that if you actually have a situation like this, then you should actually go into a draft, like a fantasy football style draft. And in that way we end up choosing the next mayor of New York City. You know, a little. Little snake draft action.

[Producer Nick]

Not a raffle.

[Tony Kennett]

No, not a raffle. No, no, we're. We're not.

[George Caldwell]

We're not.

[Tony Kennett]

No Catholic bingo for me today. Oh, now a bake sale for New York City mayor. I kind of like the idea a pizza bake off a p. All right, you lot. All right, I get it. Yeah. New Yorkers in their. Their p. All right, a couple more electoral updates for you here as again, we strut things on down in Cincinnati right now, 41% of the vote counted. Aftab Preval. Preval is winning against Corey Bowman. So. Well, you know, again, I took me three days to pronounce Jack Chittarelli correctly and I've been griped at by at least 15 Italians of different regions of Italy since then. So Aftab no party declared in this one against Corey Bowman, no party declared. Looks like Aftab is pulling it out. Not Aflac. That's Aftab again. Don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly at this point. We're in the analysis portion of the Tony Kenneth cast Last little bit here before we head over to George Caldwell on the ground in New York City. I wanted to point out right before we mentioned Andrew Cuomo's, like, last desperate bit, right? He went on Fox News. I don't think we actually got the chance to play any of those clips for the lovely people out there. But Cuomo essentially coming out at the very, very last minute and saying, I know I killed old people, but come on, this was wild to watch, dude.

[Bradley Devlin]

Worst, nobody knew what we were dealing with. I had the best health experts from around the globe giving us advice. We followed the best advice. We followed the federal guidance, and people died in a horrific way. There were no visitors allowed into nursing homes. And I apologize for any family that lost a loved one during that time. It was on my watch, and I understand how terrible it was.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, we really were first and worst. I remember calling my family down in South Carolina saying, mom and dad, do.

[Virginia Allen]

Not go to that party.

[Tony Kennett]

You don't understand what's happening here.

[Kurt Schlichter]

Y' all need to stay away from.

[Tony Kennett]

Your friends right now and stay at home. People are losing their loved ones.

[Virginia Allen]

My doorman, many of them lost.

[Tony Kennett]

Look at just Cuomo getting raked over the coals here. Like, yeah, we know you. You participated in this problem. And he's. And essentially his entire argument is, I mean, come on, who could have done any better? I mean, you know the state's governors that didn't do the Cuomo policy. Perhaps it would.

[Producer Nick]

It would be a good argument if we did not have reliable comparisons where we did not have thousands upon thousands.

[Tony Kennett]

Of elderly family members known for having lots of old people in the wintertime. And. And those old people are in these retirement communities with.

[Producer Nick]

Close together.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, In. In Palm Springs. Yeah, Palm Springs. Somalia. Outside of Florida. That's right. Governor DeSantis, who does not have an alliance with Somalia. So moving over one other thing, you did see Cuomo here talking about the. Maybe going back on no cash Bell. He would. He would reconsider it. This kind of moderate. I don't know, it depends on what the base tells me later via long distance. Ventriloquism is one of the things that will doom politicians like Cuomo and like Schumer to a very early get the heck out of leadership. The thing is just about your approach when it comes to no cash bail.

[Jarrett Stepman]

When it comes to keeping prisons open.

[Tony Kennett]

To put prisoners like Rikers island, when it comes to sanctuary cities, are you open to maybe taking a different take, maybe like, towards what Eric Adams was doing towards the end of his term as opposed to the severe take that we're seeing with other mayors like the mayor of Chicago?

[Bradley Devlin]

Yeah, well, look, cashless bail they like to talk about. That was a law that I passed six years ago. It's been changed four times since then. So it's a totally different law now than it was then. In terms of Rikers Island, I think we should rebuild it. I think it should stay open where it is, rather than building county jails all across the board. And look, public safety is job one. I want to hire 5,000 more police. 1500 people in the subway, 1,500 police officers in the subway system. That's the first priority for me. And that fits with Republicans. I want to lower taxes because we're losing companies, we're losing people. That fits with the Republicans. I want to pass a property tax cap on homeowners, which I did in the rest of the state when I was.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Look, look at.

[Tony Kennett]

Look at his first reaction. Economics. Republicans love money. The way that this bothers me so much. John Fetterman understands what Republicans like far, far better with far more competence than Andrew Cuomo does. And that's a problem, because when you look at the voting records of Andrew Cuomo versus John Fetterman, John Fetterman is far more close to Bernie Sanders when it comes to economic policy than Andrew Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo is more moderate than Fetterman in his voting policy, yet Fetterman understands Republicans more. Fetterman is willing to say, yeah, you know what? People flooding into your country committing violent crimes. You want those people to be removed from the country who came in illegally. Yeah. That doesn't make you a Nazi. And yet, when Cuomo is asked about what Republicans appreciate, the first thing is, ah, those Republicans, they really want the money.

[Bradley Devlin]

The money, Governor, that fits with the Republicans. You know, Fiorello laguardia said, lpa, loopa.

[Tony Kennett]

Loopa looper once said about being banger.

[Bradley Devlin]

There'S no Democratic or Republican way to pick up the garbage. Right. It's a functional.

[Tony Kennett]

I mean, there are, in fact, Republican and Democrat.

[Producer Nick]

One leaves it on the corner and one takes it to the dump.

[Tony Kennett]

I'm just. One stroll down the streets of San Francisco should tell you the differences in how parties pick up garbage. But alas, operational job.

[Bradley Devlin]

And they know I know how to make government work. You know, if you live in New York, I built a new LaGuardia Airport, new Kennedy Airport, new Moynihan train hall, new Koski Oscar Bridge.

[Tony Kennett]

He built them himself. He was out there like Bob the Builder every day, just out there. He can do it out there working, hardly working.

[Bradley Devlin]

I get things done. And you need a mayor who actually gets things done.

[Tony Kennett]

But Governor, if I send you a detainer to your officers and they say.

[Ken Cuccinelli]

You have a criminal alien within your.

[Tony Kennett]

Your custody, are your cops gonna honor.

[Bradley Devlin]

That detainer and turn them over to ice?

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, you're in the headlights. Did you see it? Just, he's like, are you gonna. Would you turn over an illegal alien who has a criminal detainer to ice them over to Ice 1?

[Bradley Devlin]

Yeah. Well, I don't know what you mean.

[Tony Kennett]

By detainer, but look, I don't know what you mean. We seem to be breaking up. It's that Chuck Schumer. I can't hear you. I'm going through a tunnel. And Jake Tapper's like, dude, I can see see you're standing in the Capitol.

[Producer Nick]

I think the government shutdown impacted our quality of Mike.

[Tony Kennett]

Oh, man.

[Bradley Devlin]

I was a criminal.

[Tony Kennett]

It's a criminal tainer that you guys have a menu. I love it. So this kind of. We understand Republicans on the economy, like, that's the handshake moment. I have this conversation with Democrat strategists on when we're doing our TV hits. Often they think the handshake moment with Americans is on the economy. No, that's not the handshake moment. The handshake thing is the culture. We are Americans. I don't want you stabbed. You shouldn't want me stabbed. I want your kids safe. You should want my kids safe. And then debating how protectionist or free market our economy is, that's where the two parties should differ. You say, Tony, what's your evidence for this? The last 80 years of political debate in this country before Barack Obama and Al Gore inventing the Internet Internet and making everything about his movie, about hurricane pictures. So if you really want to look at the situation right now with the Democrat disconnect, you have a Republican Party right now that is essentially arguing over what the common culture should be. And you have free market Republicans that are currently arguing in front of the rest of the country with more protectionist, kind of Bill Clintonian tariff Republicans. So the actual political debate has shifted over to the right. That doesn't give Republicans an excuse to kind of get lax and off your elections. We'll just kind of hang out and we're having a debate. You guys are crazy. And because you're crazy, you're not a threat. If you've ever dated a crazy girl, you know, that's when you have to be on your guard. That may not be relevant to this, but that's just good advice for life. Producer NICK for the same reason, it's.

[Producer Nick]

Why Cuomo never had hope of winning over votes from umdada. You had Mandani, you had J. Jones, you had Spanberger, you have these Omar Fettah, these very culturally extremist leftist people that are leaving behind the more centrist older Democrats that are just trying to keep up. I mean, that's why we spoke earlier in the broadcast about AOC leading along everybody else and what she wants, because she knew she had the base control with the majority of the Democrats now that they are so far to the left in extremes.

[Tony Kennett]

So there's, there's one really other, other great point here is we're, we're kind of waiting for our New York crew to tune in. And there was, there's a little bit of aggravation, you would say. They said, ah, well, the reason that Republicans lost tonight was because of the economy. Because of the economy. And by the way, there is an element to that when you look at the, the left wing that has argued for protectionist economic measures for a long, long, long time, and the Trump administration came in and employed a few protectionist economic measures. This is not the argument that you think it is. It's not the argument that you think it is. And by the way, as the Trump administration moving through to the next year ends up stabilized, I was told tariffs were going to bring massive sweeping inflation. They didn't. I was told that tariffs were going to just completely destroy absolutely everything and all of the companies were going to close. They didn't. And now we're seeing a renormalization of trade deals and China finally entering the international market with an exchange of kind of the soybeans for the rare earth minerals is how Trump seems to be framing. At least that's according to Jameson Greer, the trade ambassador. So right now you do actually have a large window to 2026. Now, here's, here's the fun catch here. If you're making the case that it was the economy that drove people to elect Abigail Spanberger as opposed to winsome Earl Sears, Homie, I'm, I'm afraid that I would have had a much easier time believing this was about the shutdown than, than actually suggesting that, you know, you have all of these people in the rest of Virginia, not north or not Nova, sorry, all of the acronyms for places that I don't usually delineate. I'm just not seeing the data that suggests it. And I would be willing to hear it. I would absolutely be willing to hear the argument. So at the end of the day, the concern that at least that the left says, well, we're going to run on culture and the right says, we're going to run on culture. No, the right has to run on both. They have to run on culture. They have to run on the economy. Right now. Now you have the left that is running on culture still. So essentially, whoever figures out how to run on both who walk, you know, chew gum at the same time, well, that would be more effective. Right now you essentially have two ladies of the HOA taking gubernatorial positions in blue states. It's not exactly the economic challenge that I was promised.

[Producer Nick]

Winning on economics is an easy win. The culture win is difficult for conservatives.

[Tony Kennett]

That's absolutely true. That is absolutely true. All right, at this moment, I'm getting ready to get into just a couple of the 10 o' clock poll situations. There aren't any that are closing at 10pm the next poll to close is California at 11. That's Proposition 50. But right now the Associated Press has called in Pennsylvania, all three of the Democrat Supreme State or Supreme Court justices in the state Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Justices Donahue, Wecht and Doherty, those are going to be retained. So essentially Pennsylvanian voters, they are keeping those Democrats at the level of the Supreme Court. Very, very good night for the Democrats. It is. And looking forward to Proposition 50, which is, I would say, almost certainly going to pass. There's nothing that I have seen, you know, that suggests otherwise. I think that when you're looking forward to the next couple of days now, we need to see what this does to roll into the shutdown. Victor Davis, Hansen, we talked about that a little bit. Of course, Scott Jennings, kind of on the media narrative side of this as well. I'm just not sure that I. That I'm seeing if the Michigan senators, Peters and Slotkin, I don't see them really coming to the table after this. I think they'll count on Republicans. Cage, do you think that Mike Johnson will actually encourage the Senate? I know Thune doesn't want to invoke the nuclear option. How close do you actually see them kind of flirting with that? We've gotten a couple of comments about that this evening.

[Producer Nick]

The combination of the disruptions of snap, the coalitions of the union leaders, the leaders of the airline industry, the pressure is building for Democrats to come up with a narrative to give to the public of the reasoning to continue the shutdown to reach their goals, and they don't have that. And so whether it is Mike Johnson, which it does seem like that may be it, because he's going to be More expedient, the left, the left would cave. But the question is, is Mike Johnson going to make his move faster?

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's really the question here. All right, we're waiting for some of the, the Daily Signal crew on the ground in New York City to chime in. I know the connection issue out down in New York City is a little bit rough. Trying to get that hooked in a lot of people on their phones right now in New York City. Big shocker there. So we'll chime into them when we can. Right now, just as a. At 10:05, an update on the races. The Associated Press has called the Virginia gubernatorial election for Democrat Abigail spanberg. Right now, 87% of the votes in looks like 56.6 to 43.2% for winsome Earl Sears. The lieutenant governor has also been called for the Democrat Hashmi for the Attorney General's race. Not yet called by the Associated Press. Has been called by the decision desk. But the Associated Press has not yet called the Attorney general race for Virginia between Democrat Jay Jones and Republican incumbent Jason Miares. So in the next couple of minutes here, we'll get to really more of the on the ground scene in New York City with George Caldwell in a second. Want to finish off with a final update on the New Jersey gubernatorial race. That's the last thing I wanted to hit before we bring over to George. The Associated Press has called the race for Mikey Cheryl 56.4% to Jack Cittarelli's 43%. And now I'm seeing that the Associated Press has called the Virginia Attorney General's race right after I said they hadn't called yet. Isn't that convenient? Thank you, producer Daniel J. Jones. They have called the race for J. Jones 86% of the vote in, 52%. We're going to go over now to George Caldwell over on the streets of New York City. George, can you hear us all right? Right.

[George Caldwell]

I can hear you loud and clear. Great to talk to you, Tony.

[Tony Kennett]

Great to have you on. So you guys are out in New York City outside the Madani headquarters. Tell us what kind of the atmosphere is out there in New York this evening.

[George Caldwell]

So it's sort of a much quieter neighborhood than say, some neighborhoods in Manhattan. But I don't know, most of the celebration seems to be inside. People are going about their business. But we were walking around Manhattan all day today and yesterday, and there seemed to be a lot of support for Mamdani, especially among college students, among some older People as well.

[Tony Kennett]

So for some of the people that you've talked to in Manhattan, how many of those did you get the idea from that they were voting for Mamdani based on kind of policy, or was it just kind of the cool thing to do? What was the, what was the general vibe that you got from those that were excited to go cast their vote for Zoron?

[George Caldwell]

So we would ask people about what their priority was, and they said over and over again that it was affordability. And then when we asked about these particular policies such as rent freezes and city owned grocery stores, people would say, well, maybe he won't succeed, but at least he's trying to do something. We would ask people about the safety and crime issues. And generally the Mamdani supporters were pretty dismissive, dismissive of that. They would say, this is a safe city. I don't see the problem with that. But when we ask people what the word socialism means to them, they would generally say it's about equality, caring about people. And so they didn't see it as a dirty word.

[Tony Kennett]

Was there anybody that, when you actually asked about how Mandani was going to accomplish those particular policies with the scope of authority that he has as the mayor, how he's going to, for example, accomplish freezing housing costs, even of the subsidized housing that the city has some control over, that's controlled by an independent board, and he wouldn't have any authority to tell this board to freeze the price of government regulated housing.

[George Caldwell]

There seemed to be very little concern about that. In particular, we did hear a couple of people saying, he'll run into trouble, most likely. But one Mamdani supporter did tell us that he was hopeful that Mamdani would be able to work with the governor and people in Albany to pursue his policies here in New York City. But it seemed that people generally, his supporters, were on board with the message and they're just hoping he pursues it.

[Tony Kennett]

So some of the people that you talked to that weren't in favor of Mandani, those that wanted another option, what did you hear on the ground? I mean, were there a lot of people that had essentially chosen Sliwa that were. That maybe chose Cuomo instead of maybe wanting to choose Sliwa? What about the people that didn't go for Mandani? What was kind of their motivation? So we, we didn't.

[George Caldwell]

It was sort of difficult to figure out who exactly people were voting for, which way they were swaying. But it was generally, I found, people who were opposed to the idea of Socialism in general and generally wary of it. We found that the vast majority of the people who were willing to talk to us were Mamdani supporters. And I've covered the Trump campaign, I've covered Republican campaigns. It's not that same way with Republican campaigns. You know, it's often hard to get a Trump supporter on record. But the most vocal people were Mamdani supporters, we found.

[Tony Kennett]

Did you, in the context of the Mamdani supporters who were talking about affordability, there a lot of question around the rest of the country is that secondary issue, what did you find that often accompanied the affordability, or was that just the only word that was on the mouths of individuals? It was pretty much the only word gotcha.

[George Caldwell]

So when we asked about the safety and crime issue, it was generally dismissive about that. And of course, when people were talking about socialist policies, it was in very sort of, you know, generally language about caring about people, lifting other people up. But a lot of one thing that people really gravitated towards talking about when you asked about safety was Mamdani's mental health policies. Okay, so it was really affordability, 100%. We did meet one woman, an older woman, who told us that, that it was about standing up to fascism, the fascist in the White House, and that Donald Trump is the real criminal. So it's probably in part a reaction to Gotcha in the White House.

[Tony Kennett]

One of the questions that I, that I wanted to throw at you here before we let you go. I know you were at the Curtis Sliwa campaign event, the post election event earlier today. So obviously a question that's been on the minds of a lot of people, even us earlier when we were looking at, you know, some of the numbers as they were coming in, what did you hear? Did you, did you see a lot of people that were, you know, really kind of in the idea that Curtis Sliwa has cost Mamdani the election. I mean, we looked at the numbers. Now it doesn't appear that they're adding up to a total greater than Mamdani. It's why the election, and I believe has been called as early as it has. But what have you heard on the ground in New York? Do you hear a lot of people kind of mumbling about Curtis Lewa at all?

[George Caldwell]

So when I went to the Curtis Lewa event, it was, I would say, you know, not a full scale rally, maybe 100 people if I had to put a number on it. But while I was there for a short while, I was able to speak to two staffers for this LIWA campaign. And when I asked them how they respond to Cuomo's saying that SLI was a spoiler and has put Mom, Donnie and Gracie Mansion, both of them said Cuomo should have won his primary. They basically said, you know, if you lose the Democratic primary, that's on you. You should drop out. So, I mean, that seems to be sort of a little bit of an understanding that, you know, maybe Sliwa affected the math, but they really were putting the blame on Cuomo for running as an independent.

[Tony Kennett]

I mean, I think that's a pretty fair criticism when you look at, you know, the losing the primary and then, you know, choosing, you know, he had Eric Adams and, you know, Cuomo for a large portion of the election. That stayed in and caused quite a fair amount of chaos. And then, of course, when you got into the debate, all of a sudden you. You started seeing accusations fly this way and that way, and it almost became a question as to who Trump likes and who Trump doesn't like. Did you hear any mention of. Of Trump in the conversation regarding Mandani?

[George Caldwell]

Honestly, I think a lot of it was extremely local, and I spoke to Ryan James Grudowsky about this, and it's surprising how much of it is purely a city issue. There was just one person who mentioned Donald Trump to me when I was interviewing people today. So it is very ideological. It's about fundamental disagreements of socialism versus capitalism. That's how Cuomo and Mamdani have framed it. But Trump, I haven't heard much mention of him.

[Tony Kennett]

Well, that's really interesting considering some of the claims that were made on television the last couple of days. All we heard was Mamdani talking about Trump backing Cuomo and then Cuomo saying, trump doesn't like me, and I'm the only one who Trump won't cut funding on off from New York for. Last question on that end. Does anyone mention that since Mamdani has won, that Trump is going to cut off funding from New York City or anything like that?

[George Caldwell]

I personally haven't heard that. Although, again, there was one person who framed this as a complete war with Donald Trump, sort of a complete rebellion against him. But that didn't seem to be a big concern for a lot of people. It's a. It's been a very interesting race because Mamdani is running as a mayor, but a lot of his campaign has been wrapped in sort of, you know, utopian language.

[Scott Jennings]

Society.

[Tony Kennett]

Right, right.

[George Caldwell]

Transforming language.

[Tony Kennett]

Yeah, I think so. George, really appreciate you giving us some of the updates from the ground in New York City. Appreciate it. Know you've got a lot of content that's going to be uploaded over the next couple years of of hours and days. Thanks very much.

[George Caldwell]

Thank you, Tony.

[Tony Kennett]

All right. We are going to close out our election coverage since the races have now been called. I was really interested in going to see as long as the attorney general race in Virginia held on, as long as that one wasn't quite called. I thought, you know, sticking around and going through some of that. But right now with the attorney general race in Virginia being called by The Associated Press, 1.6 million to Jason Meares, 1.4 million 52.5 to 47, 89% of those votes counted in that being the Democrat victory, a big night for Democrats. And because of that, as I've said before, I would have given Prop 50 a likely, a highly likely for the California Democrats at the beginning because again, this is a nay Newsom painting a picture for his party to go to to a way to fight a common enemy, a thing to do. It already had momentum in turn.

[Producer Nick]

The impact realistically is quite minimal in the grand scheme of things. Right. And so it was also pretty hard to get people out against it as well.

[Tony Kennett]

I think so. And also it didn't help the those in California who said vote no on Proposition 50 because the answer was kind of a defense of the status quo. And the argument from Republicans on redistricting has not been the status quo bull. I mean, effectively the argument for Republicans has been doing a lot of redistricting away from racially segregated districts, for example, in Texas or in Indiana, for instance. So right now I think that there's a I really don't see again, I could be wrong. And you can definitely shoot me with the Nerf dart if that's if that's the upset of the evening come tomorrow morning. Man, I don't have any hats as nice as Victor Davis Hansen to eat, but I would say in this case.

[Producer Nick]

You do have have many five layer peanut butter and jelly goober sandwiches.

[Tony Kennett]

I do have many of the five layer. So again, getting with the new bench, the new wave, as it were. Thank you very much for joining us for our live election coverage of the off year 2025 election this evening. We'll be back tomorrow at 7pm Eastern with the roundup of the day's news and nonsense. I'm Tony Kennett and this has been the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated, first on 93 WIBC.