Wired In: Trump's Midterm Scramble & Mamdani's Misfires

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Wired In – "Trump's Midterm Scramble & Mamdani's Misfires"

Podcast: Wired In
Host: Cabot Phillips (Daily Wire)
Date: July 30, 2026
Featured Guests:

• Ryan Graduski (Political Commentator, It's A Numbers Game podcast)
• Tim Rice (Daily Wire D.C. Bureau Chief)
• Lydia Moynihan (New York Post)
• Will Tebow (Retired Army Ranger, Center for Renewing America)
• Leona Salinas (Daily Wire Reporter)
• Rudy Reyes (Special Ops Veteran, TV Host, Force Blue Founder)

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Main Theme

This episode dives into the looming 2026 midterms, the Republican Party’s dilemmas surrounding President Trump’s faltering approval ratings amid the ongoing Iran war, the political risks posed by progressive policymakers like NYC Mayor Zorwan Mamdani, and analyses on topics ranging from AI to youth violence and pop culture.
Cabot Phillips and a full slate of guests discuss not only the political horse race but also the real-world consequences of current policy experiments and societal trends impacting American cities.

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Segment Breakdown & Key Insights

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1. Trump’s Midterm Troubles and GOP Strategy

Guest: Ryan Graduski
Timestamps: 03:01 – 13:15

Key Points:

• Trump’s Approval Plummeting:
  Trump’s disapproval rating is “creeping dangerously close to 60%” as the Iran conflict continues ([03:01]).

  “If he's at 33% in November, no, there is not [a path to GOP majorities]. I mean, it will be George W. Bush level disapprovals.” — Ryan Graduski [03:17]

• Republican Risks and Hopes:
  Despite Trump’s poor numbers, congressional Republicans poll better than Trump. The party is relying on base turnout and significant financial advantages to try to offset drag from negative sentiment.

• Root Causes vs. GOP Soul-Searching:
  Some in the GOP blame stances like abortion or lack of immigration reform for poor prospects, but Graduski argues it’s fundamentally “the Iran war, the economy... inflation, and it’s also the fact that it’s mid election” driving losses ([04:34]).

• Are GOP Candidates Distancing from Trump?
  Most are still seeking Trump’s support to energize the base, especially with a major enthusiasm gap.

• Polling on Socialism & the Left:
  A Washington Post poll reveals, “a majority of Americans, including one in five Democrats, will not vote in a general election for somebody supported by the DSA. That is huge. A DSA candidate cannot win nationwide.” — Ryan Graduski [12:52]

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2. Swing State Dynamics & Voters of Color

Timestamps: 06:01 – 10:42

Highlights:

• Michigan:
  Graduski names far-left Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed as beatable but reminds all “even in a bad year, bad candidates can win” ([06:23]).

• Texas:
  Newcomer James Talarico trails Ken Paxton, but lack of heavy ad buys suggests Dems don’t see Texas as truly winnable ([07:11]).

• Latino Voters:
  GOP’s recent gains among Latinos may diminish, but “the trajectory is more important than any single election” ([08:15]).

• Black Voters & Socialism:
  Black Democrats, especially in the South, are deeply wary of white socialists.

  “They do not like, you know, uppity white socialists who like to tell them how they make their lives better as they sit in private jets like Bernie Sanders...Black voters, especially in the Deep South, have absolutely no tolerance for these, these like Grand Platinum or Mandani types. It's not going to happen.” — Ryan Graduski [09:34]

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3. Vance, the Right’s Internal Angles, and the DSA

Timestamps: 10:20 – 13:15

• J.D. Vance’s Popularity:
  Recent polling has him more popular than many established GOP figures. “He’s much more normal than like a Tim Waltz type of Democrat...everything they've wanted out of a basic white guy who can speak to people is actually found in JD...” — Ryan Graduski [10:42]

• Polling Data Standout:
  Again, majority resistance to DSA — noting this puts a ceiling on the progressive left.

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4. D.C. Update: War in Iran and AG Nomination Drama

Guest: Tim Rice
Timestamps: 13:34 – 23:52

Iran War Update:

• Flareups between U.S. and Iranian-backed forces continue; Iranian propaganda falsely claims shoot-downs of American jets.
• Trump using escalating rhetoric: “He has threatened to rain holy hell down on the Iranians” ([14:13]).
• Political volatility tied to Trump’s war footing.

Trump’s Attorney General Standoff:

• The President threatens to withdraw AG nominee Todd Blanche until two dissenting GOP senators are out.
• “It's a somewhat desperate and one might even say petty move by the President...he’s challenged, or at least shocked his way into kind of controlling the narrative. But it's very high risk.” — Tim Rice [18:19]

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5. Midterm Spending and Democratic-Progressive Frictions

Timestamps: 19:27 – 23:24

Elon Musk’s $100 Million GOP Donation:

• “Not standard by Elon standards, but standard by Republican donor standards...this is only going to further bolster Republican efforts.” — Tim Rice [19:58]

AOC’s Persistent Low Approval:

• Contrary to progressive hype, AOC still at just 26% national approval—barely higher than when she first arrived ([22:14]).
• “A low approval rating didn't stop Hillary Clinton from running for president 15 times. I don't think it's gonna stop AOC either.” — Tim Rice [22:14]

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6. NYC: Mamdani’s “Far Left Agenda” & Policy Fallout

Guest: Lydia Moynihan (New York Post)
Timestamps: 24:19 – 34:28

Government-Run Groceries & Soaring Taxes:

• Mayor Mamdani’s plan for “$70 million [to] build government run grocery stores in all five boroughs.”
• Moynihan: “Big picture here, what we're seeing happen is obviously economically a disaster... Affordability was a Trojan horse to get the DSA into power here. And now that they're in power, they're concerned about consolidating government power.” [24:42]

Pied-à-terre Tax:

• “It's about the politics of envy...He stood in front of...Ken Griffin's home, and essentially doxxed Ken Griffin and called Ken Griffin out as part of the problem in New York City.” — Lydia Moynihan [28:35]

Anti-Semitism & Netanyahu Comments:

• Mamdani threatened to arrest Netanyahu; quickly walked it back but only after public outcry.
• “He had this big press conference where he said if Netanyahu came to town, he would arrest him because the ICC says he's a war criminal. Well, obviously…the US doesn't care about the ICC.” — Lydia Moynihan [31:34]
• Moynihan details sharp upticks in anti-Semitic violence amid this rhetoric, including the mayor’s own wife liking anti-Israel propaganda posts.

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7. AI, Ethics & Genetics: Policy, Power, and Risks

Guest: Will Tebow
Timestamps: 36:22 – 44:44

Dangers of AI-Enabled Gene Editing:

• “They're trying to figure out how to make babies without a man and a woman and simply create them in a petri dish...we should simply make sure it doesn't do bad things.” — Will Tebow [36:43]
• Advocates for an international ban on AI-enabled gene editing.

Who Sets The Guardrails?

• “It's important for the good uses of artificial intelligence to be realized by Americans, first and especially...if we as conservatives...don't show that we're willing to be discerning...the public will lose confidence in existing institutions’ ability to harness technology for good...” [38:59]

China, Regulation, and Free Markets:

• America must maintain AI leadership or risk China setting global standards.
• Government should prevent dominance by a “private tyranny” of tech oligarchs, as happened with social media firms ([41:33]-[44:12]).

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8. Teen Takeovers: Crime, Chaos, and Urban Policy

Guest: Leona Salinas
Timestamps: 45:40 – 54:56

What Are Teen Takeovers?

• “A gentle euphemism for a large group of…black teenagers who go into very urban areas…turn those locations into absolute...zones of debauchery…loot, steal, rob each other, fight and shoot.” — Leona Salinas [45:58]

First-Hand Reporting:

• Salinas describes being caught in the middle of violence, filming footage of gunfire and chaos in D.C.
• “They were pushing and shoving each other...cops were getting out of their vehicles and asking them to stop, and they were just surpassing them and brushing by them as if they were nothing.” [48:13]

Organizational Enablers:

• These events are reportedly coordinated by DC’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), with explicit focus on black youth.
• “Every single individual attendee teenager actually that I spoke with, made it explicitly clear that DPR, the DC's Department of Parks and Recreation, coordinates the event fully and blatantly.” — Leona Salinas [53:16]

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9. Special Forces TV, Veteran Recovery, & Conservation

Guest: Rudy Reyes
Timestamps: 55:20 – 71:02

Inside the Show:

• “We build a program that is a mini selection and we utilize the same taskers and missions that we have to go through to become the operators that we are. Gas chamber, hand-to-hand combat, hostage rescue, underwater assault...” — Rudy Reyes [56:19]
• Notable moments: jungle environment, intense challenges, and a literal king guest-starring past seasons.

Pop Culture Lightness:

• Fun banter on which Daily Wire host would best survive “Special Forces” (Matt Walsh named for his stoicism and farm life).

Veteran Mental Health and Force Blue:

• Reyes’s non-profit reconnects special ops veterans to a mission and environmental purpose by restoring coral reefs.
• “We started Force Blue, rebuilding coral reefs and doing ocean conservation, saving turtles, rebuilding lives underwater and on the surface...when bringing the brothers back to life...” — Rudy Reyes [65:50]

Personal Notes & Motive:

• Reyes explains his journey from soldier to environmental protector, the healing nature of service, and launching youth programs with veterans and their children.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Trump’s Midterms Odds:
  “It becomes untenable to defy political gravity when it is that immense.” – Ryan Graduski [03:17]
• On Radical Left in the Democrats:
  “Black voters...have absolutely no tolerance for these, these like Grand Platinum or Mandani types.” – Ryan Graduski [09:34]
• On DSA Candidates:
  “Majority of Americans, including one in five Democrats, will not vote in a general election for somebody supported by the DSA.” – Ryan Graduski [12:52]
• On the AOC “Surge”:
  “Today it’s 26%. She's at basically the exact same spot where she was seven years ago.” – Cabot Phillips [22:14]
• Lydia Moynihan’s Friend:
  “One of my friends who is a huge Mamdani warrior, was posting all about him celebrating his victory just this week. She said that she needs to figure out how to move her LLC out of New York because she's realizing the taxes are really high.” [24:42]
• On NYC’s New Politics:
  “It's the politics of envy. It's as old as Cain and Abel. This desire to have what someone else has and a hatred and violence that often comes with it.” – Cabot Phillips [31:00]
• AI Governance:
  “I'd rather accept an accountable government... than that responsibility rests with some tech oligarchs born in San Francisco, bred in some really bizarre ideological pretenses...” – Will Tebow [39:27]
• Special Forces Mutiny:
  “Can you believe it? A mutiny. It's bedlam. I'm screaming, everybody shut the f up. Everybody in the effing barracks. It was Mike Piazza that got calmness and control of the recruits.” – Rudy Reyes [61:52]

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Segment Timestamps Guide

| Segment/Topic | Guests | Timestamp | |------------------------------------|--------------------------|-----------------| | Trump/GOP Midterms Analysis | Ryan Graduski | 03:01–13:15 | | DC/Iran AG Nominee/Elon Musk | Tim Rice | 13:34–23:52 | | NYC Mamdani’s Policies | Lydia Moynihan | 24:19–34:28 | | AI Ethics and Oversight | Will Tebow | 36:22–44:44 | | Teen Takeovers | Leona Salinas | 45:40–54:56 | | Special Forces TV/Vet Recovery | Rudy Reyes | 55:20–71:02 |

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Final Notes

This episode offers a robust mix of sharp political analysis, on-the-ground reporting, technological ethics debate, and inspiring real-world activism.

• Tone: Fast-paced, irreverent, energetic, blending earnest warnings with humor and cultural commentary.
• Utility: Essential for those seeking an insider’s perspective on the 2026 midterms, urban policy, progressive governance, conservative social issues, and unique human stories behind pop culture and activism.

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For a deeper dive, listen to the relevant segments listed above, and visit the guests’ publications and organizations for ongoing coverage.

Transcript

[Cabot Phillips]

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[Leona Salinas]

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[Cabot Phillips]

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[Lydia Moynihan]

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[Rudy Reyes]

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[Cabot Phillips]

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[Rudy Reyes]

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[Cabot Phillips]

fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday Life. Download the Pray.com app today. Well, good evening everybody and welcome to Wired In. I'm Cabot Phillips coming to you live from Daily Wire hq. President Trump's approval rating is falling as the war in Iran drags on. On today's show, we'll tell you what it means for midterms and how Democrats are trying to capitalize. Zorra Mamdani is implementing a historic new tax in the Big Apple and wealthy New Yorkers are beginning to flee. We'll cover what he's got planned next. Violent teen takeovers are spreading nationwide. One of our reporters actually got caught in the midd of one this weekend and ended up dodging gunfire. She'll be on to tell about that scary experience. And we'll be joined in studio by the host of one of the most popular and frankly, craziest shows on tv, Special Forces. World's Toughest Test. Maybe I'll be put through some of those Special Forces tests here on set and of course stick around until the end of our show for the live listener. Q and A. If you're a Daily Wire member, get your questions in the chat and also feel free to drop some suggestions in the chat on who you would like to see on the show or topics you would like covered. I always love hearing what you lovely people have to say. And if you're on Apple or Spotify, you can join the live [e-mail] subscribe all right, let's close the week out strong. Roll that graphic baby. Just a reminder that Wired in is now streaming live at 4pm Eastern Monday through Get daily coverage of the news happening right now, hear why it all matters, and talk with experts who are actually in the story. Become a member and join the live [e-mail] subscribe. Well, we barely got three months to go until midterms. We're approaching the home stretch, and control of Washington is on the line. Here to break down the latest numbers is a man that I consider to be one of the smartest political commentators in the country. It's definitely not Tim Rice. It is Ryan Graduski, host of the It's a Numbers Game podcast and author of the national populist newsletter. Ryan, great to have you back, man.

[Ryan Graduski]

Thanks for having me.

[Cabot Phillips]

So I want to jump around a bit, but let's start big picture. President Trump ending July with a disapproval rating creeping dangerously close to 60%. He's there in some polls, but is there any way for Republicans to hold either the House or Senate in November if those numbers hold?

[Ryan Graduski]

So there was three polls, CNN, Quinny Piac, and the Associated Press. That has about 33%. If he's at 33% in November. No, there is not. I mean, it will be George W. Bush level disapprovals. Now, the good thing for Republicans is that Republicans are still more popular in Congress than Democrats are and they're more popular than President Trump is. President's actually the least popular person in his own cabinet at this, at this current moment in some polls. That being said, it becomes untenable to defy political gravity when it is that immense. I mean, when you're Talking about negative 30 points overall, negative 50 points among independents in some of these polls, it's, it's virtually impossible.

[Cabot Phillips]

Do you think we're gonna start to see some of these candidates, especially on the Senate side, asking President Trump not to come to their districts to campaign for them if these numbers hold?

[Ryan Graduski]

I doubt Susan Collins has already called President Trump to campaign in Maine. Yeah, listen, I mean, what their calculation is gonna be is get the base out. And what Republicans have is a lot more money than Democrats and they have tons of money. And so they're going to be spending a lot to try to get Rep. Republicans out, hoping that that will make up the difference and make this a turnout election. Right now, Democrats have an immense enthusiasm gap. Is, is always the case when it's, when it's a midterm election. What I'm more concerned about right now is the Republicans who are he ing and hawing about their, you know, choice issue and saying, if you don't do this issue or that issue that we're going to win the midterms and they're going to try to make a lesson out of this, like you have to support amnesty for illegal immigrants, like Maria Salazar is saying. And they're saying this is the reason. In reality, it's the Iran war, it's the economy and it is inflation, and it's also the fact that it's mid election. Those are the four reasons really why Republicans are struggling.

[Cabot Phillips]

Let's take the optimist case here for the right. If Republicans do hold on to the Senate or House or both, do you think it will be because of the rise of socialism on the left? Could that be enough to counteract Trump's unpopularity, especially with independents?

[Ryan Graduski]

Well, we did see a bump for Republicans in the last month in polling, and that came for two reasons. One, Graham Platner was the main story of the entire country and that certainly distracted from Trump. But two, during the memorandum of understanding, when that was conversations were happening, there was no fighting and gas prices started to decrease a little bit, also causing food prices to decrease a little bit. And good job growth numbers. It got a little bit better. We would need to start seeing that. But listen, we, we have 96 days until the midterms, 51 days until early voting starts in our first state, which is Virginia. We don't have a lot of time for this to happen. Like they need to do this immediately. It's not. And that's why he was saying at Lindsey Graham's funeral, Lindsey wanted me to make a deal with ir. One, I think that's probably true. And two, they need to. There's no question about it.

[Cabot Phillips]

Now we talk about these socialist candidates. So let's get to Michigan. The Democratic primary is next week. Far left candidate Abdul Al Said is looking to beat Haley Stevens. Many in the GOP seemingly want El sayed to win, believing that he'd be far easier to beat and give Republicans and other races this kind of boogeyman to rally against. Do you agree with that sentiment?

[Ryan Graduski]

He is definitely the easier candidate to beat than Haley Stevens with her fake Michigan accent, you know, who acts like she's like a character from A League of Their Own. I think that for sure he is. He's probably the one that, you know, campaign with some guy who said that America deserved 9 11. However, I need to emphasize something. Even in a bad year, bad candidates can win. He's by far the worst candidate. But it will, it will. He will cause Democrats to invest a lot of money, more money in Michigan, which is a good thing overall nationwide. But he can still win if it's a bad enough year. But, yes, he's easier to beat.

[Cabot Phillips]

Let's get down to Texas. Then we've got Democrat James Talarico looking to upset Ken Paxton and finally fulfill the Democrat dream of turning Texas blue. Right now, the polling has Paxton trailing by a few points. Prediction markets give Republicans the slight edge, though. What do you think there?

[Ryan Graduski]

So the thing is that if you look at where Democrats and Republicans have put ad buys in for the future, Republicans have put no ad buys in Texas and Democrats only put $700,000 in ad buys in Texas. Here's the thing about Texas tax. Texas has 20 media markets, the most in the country. It is an incredibly expensive state to campaign in. A state without party registration. You don't register as Republican or Democrat and is a state that has a million people moving there per year where there's a constant new flow of voters. It's a difficult state for Democrats to win. Not impossible, but extremely difficult. And they've chosen to invest more in Maine, Iowa, Alaska, Ohio and North Carolina than even try to tamper with Texas.

[Cabot Phillips]

In Texas, we know that there was really remarkable movement towards President Trump with Latino voters a lot. In a lot of those southern counties along the border that were majority Latino, we saw enormous gains for the gop. Does it seem like those gains that President Trump and Republicans made with Latino voters are holding?

[Ryan Graduski]

No. But you have to understand, things are not a single trajectory. Even in, if you look at historical elections, even among white, white, blue collar, white voters, there were ebbs and flows. Carter won them, but Nixon won them, but then Reagan won them. But the trajectory is important. So we could see a 20 point, 15 point bounce back towards Democrats among Latino voters. At the same time, they are closer to where they are today than they were in 2016. So the trajectory is more important than any single election. That's really important to, you know, to contemplate. I also think that the, the question in Texas is how seriously angry are black voters of Talarico? If they are angry enough, then it doesn't really matter because Ken Paxton will win when the black vote. If the Black vote decreases 1% nationwide, a bunch of states are impossible for Democrats to really win. And they're going to try as hard as they can to get Talarico back in the good graces of black activists across Texas because they really do not like him.

[Tim Rice]

Right.

[Cabot Phillips]

One reason I love talking to you is because you dig into the polling and the numbers so closely on the topic of black voters who are just crucial, as you say, to any success for the Democratic Party. Do we have a sense in looking at polling how Democratic black voters feel about this embrace of socialism?

[Ryan Graduski]

They don't. I mean it's not that they love, they despise it, but they don't like it either. Especially black Democrats in the South. They are very shrewd voters. They do not like taking risks with candidates. They don't particularly white. They don't like, you know, uppity white socialists who like to tell them how they make their lives better as they sit in private jets like Bernie Sanders. And there is a reason why Democrats pick South Carolina as the first state in the election and Virginia as the fifth and then Super Tuesday throughout the Deep South. They're going to prevent a Democratic socialist from being the Democratic nominee for president. And that it is a complete calculation because they know that black voters, especially in the Deep south, have absolutely no tolerance for these, these like Grand Platinum or Mandani types. It's not going to happen.

[Cabot Phillips]

Ryan, there's been a lot of chatter about J.D. vance. There's a very vocal faction of the right who have been criticizing him lately on economics and comments about Israel. There was a fascinating poll this week I'm sure you saw from Quinnipiac found that among GOP voters, Vance is actually more popular right now than Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth and even Donald Trump. Does that surprise you?

[Ryan Graduski]

No, because I mean look on the biography. JD Is a very aspirational person, right? Comes from poverty, really torn up family, makes it self successful, beautiful family, young family. There's a lot to work with there. I think that the problem among the right right now is they are talking to themselves more than anybody else and they're only talking to people who agree with them. And why I like your show and why I few other shows is every episode's not this person said this and then this person said that. And it's not a reaction video after reaction video after reaction video. And a lot of people are having a conversation that is not existing in the real world. The truth of the matter is if you look at every person you talk to, every person who really works in politics, Marco Rubio is not running for president. He's not running for president. Like he's not like it's not real, like it's completely fake and you're not willing him by wishing upon like this division, this fighting. The general public looks at JD Vance and doesn't watch all those things. They don't know what the Word post liberalism means that means nothing to them. It is simply a biography of what they're. What he's doing. They see he's trying to bring it into the war in Iran. Overall, he's personally likable and funny. He did a great job with his book tour and he's. And Republicans, like, when he's really aggressive with liberals on television is very simple. Not everyone's living or for the fight. They're just not. And at the end of the day, like, Don Junior's not running. Why isn't he? All these polls as Don Jr versus Rubio versus Vance. Well, two of the people are not running, so good luck to you. I mean, that's the main problem. It doesn't shock me, though, that people like J.D. overall, he's much more normal than like a Tim Waltz type of Democrat who's supposed to be normal than a Graham Platner who's supposed to be normal. Everything they've wanted out of a basic white guy who has a tendency to be able to speak to people is actually found in JD and it's not found in most of these liberals that they're pulling out with 30 sexual convictions against them. So that's what. And that's why I'm not shocked that people like JD So much or much more than average.

[Cabot Phillips]

One final question. 30 seconds. I'll put you on the spot a bit. Is there one particular poll or data point that stuck out to you the most as most interesting or insightful?

[Ryan Graduski]

Washington Post poll. Majority of Americans, including one in five Democrats, will not vote in a general election for somebody supported by the dsa. That is huge. A DSA candidate cannot win nationwide.

[Cabot Phillips]

That is a very fascinating piece of data.

[Ryan Graduski]

Everyone hasn't lost their mind yet, Cabot.

[Cabot Phillips]

We still have.

[Tim Rice]

Not yet.

[Cabot Phillips]

Not yet. Ryan, always great to have you on, man. We love having you. You're welcome anytime here.

[Ryan Graduski]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[Cabot Phillips]

That was Ryan Graduski. Go listen to his podcast. It's a numbers game. Let's get over to DC now, where we've got Daily Wire DC Bureau Chief Tim Rice joining us, which means I am turning to the special camera. Tim Rice, how are we doing today?

[Tim Rice]

I'm doing great, Cabot. It is a lovely day here in our nation's capital, and I'm thrilled to be with you as always.

[Cabot Phillips]

I called you about five minutes before the show started, and you were in the car and you were racing to get home to your home studio. So I'm glad to see that you made it and also glad that you Were deep in preparation for this hit right now. So we'll let you off the hook all up here, Tim. The big news in D.C. over on the White House side is still Iran. President Trump, there had been a pause in the fighting. Then there was the surprise attack against the United States and Jordan. And now the fighting seems to be back on. What's going on?

[Tim Rice]

Yeah, exactly what you said. There was also some kind of confusing reports this morning. Iran claimed to have downed an American jet and killed a number of American soldiers. US Central Command denied this report. This is a pretty common Iranian propaganda tactic, but things are definitely ramping back up. Look, we've discussed on this show and our reporters are covering this at the Daily Wire at this point. This is just sort of how the pendulum swings. And we have a secession of hostilities, we have a resumption of hostilities. Sometimes it's usually downstream of the Iranians violating a deal or attacking an American target or an American ally. And sometimes it's that the president tweets something and the Iranians say, well, that nullifies the agreement. So things are definitely ramping up. The attacks in Jordan are absolutely something to monitor. And the president has said that he has threatened to rain holy hell down on the Iranians or all sorts of other colorful language. So I think it's very clear that he's pretty close to pulling the trigger on another round of bombings or attacks on Iranian targets. So we'll just have to wait and see.

[Cabot Phillips]

We're very grateful that those reports that the Iranians had put out there, that American service members had been hit again, they appear to have been false reports. Let's then jump across to Capitol Hill. Todd Blanch, President Trump's nominee for Attorney General, has been struggling to get through the confirmation process in the Senate. And now Trump says that he's withdrawing, at least temporarily, that nomination. What is going on here? What's the holdup?

[Tim Rice]

Yeah, it's super interesting. So, yeah, he's threatening to withdraw the nomination, but he's threatening to hold it until Thom Tillis and John Cornyn are out of the Senate. So the issue here is that a number of Republican senators, if you guys or viewers remember when this weaponization fund that the president had greenlit, it was basically going to pay out reparations, essentially to any victim of government weaponization. But that would have included people who participated in the January 6 Capitol riots. A lot of Republican senators had an issue with this. Todd Blanche, as acting attorney general and deputy attorney general, was involved in this. Months ago, the Trump administration and Blanche took The weaponization fund off the table. They said it's not. A court ruled against them. They said it's not gonna happen. But Tillis and Cornyn, both of whom are on their way out of the Senate, are in their sort of. People have been calling it their YOLO mode, really did not let this go. They've been grilling Blanche about it in private meetings and during his subcommittee hearings and have essentially said that they want the president to further guarantee that this fund will never come back. Right. They won't let this go. And so what the president said is, I will pull this nomination until these two guys are out of the Senate and replaced by people who will support it, because I want Todd Blanche to be the attorney general. And if that's not gonna happen now, we can just wait. And it's honestly a brilliant political tactic from the president because really, what this story is, this is a classic story of one or two senators who hold powerful positions in an influential committee holding up a president's nomination because they disagree with a policy that that nominee and the president want. Right? They're leveraging their power to prevent the president from getting the nominee he wants unless and until they are granted what they want. But by coming out and threatening to pull his own nomination and doing it in this way, Trump has really sort of grabbed the narrative right away and is making this seem like he's in control of the situation, which of course he kind of is, because he has the power to nominate people and pull people. But really what he's done is taken a stonewalling from members of his own party and flipped it on its head and basically said, again, by doing sort of like what parents do when their kids are throwing a tantrum and just saying, I'll wait.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah, that. Am I missing something here, Tim? If he says he's going to wait for them to be out of office, that will be after the midterms. And there is a real chance that Republicans don't control the Senate after the midterms, which would make this confirmation a lot harder. Is that not a legitimate concern?

[Tim Rice]

That is a very legitimate concern. That's why I said it was a brilliant. This is a brilliant rhetorical strategy. It's not necessary. It's a very, very risky political strategy, because you're absolutely right. Or it could be they could be replaced with Republicans who want to vote the same way, or other members of the committee could change their mind. Or as acting attorney general or deputy attorney general, in the successive months, Todd Blanche could do other things that could alienate other members of the committee, and then we're back to square one. To say nothing of the fact that of all the Cabinet posts that you don't want to leave vacant, the Attorney General is certainly up there. So. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Make no mistake, this is a somewhat desperate and one might even say petty move by the President. It is. Again, it's kind of fascinating the way he's challenged, or I think at least shocked his way into kind of controlling the narrative. But it's very high risk.

[Cabot Phillips]

I like how you say that. It's kind of like when you tell your toddler, I'll wait. I think it's an apt comparison to compare Congress to raising a toddler. I think that you're onto something there, Tim. Something we're both doing right now. Raising toddlers.

[Rudy Reyes]

All right.

[Tim Rice]

That's right.

[Cabot Phillips]

One of these days I'm gonna bring you on and we're only gonna talk about one topic. But today is not that day. So let's get to yet another topic. Elon Musk just came out. There was a report in the last hour or so that he is going to be opening up the war chest once more. He's gonna be spending at least $100 million on midterm races in at least eight states. What do we think? Because, I mean, pretty recently he was clashing with President Trump, I believe, accusing him of being involved with the ep, and now he's back on Team gop.

[Tim Rice]

Yeah, it's a fascinating move. And look, I think it's a good move for Republicans. I think Republicans are very happy. I'm a little shocked because of what you just said, that Elon didn't get involved earlier. Right. Given the way that he likes to spend money and his clash with the president, I would have expected, if he was going to spend money on the midterms to get involved in the Republican primaries, maybe throw some money behind the candidates who the President criticized or at least didn't endorse or. But this is a shockingly standard move. Not standard by Elon standards, but standard by Republican donor standards. Right. $100 million in the midterms. That's what big money donors do. So I'm sure that the Republican Party is thrilled. I'm sure that these candidates are thrilled. And this is, bear in mind, right, Republicans are already outspent, have so much more money on hand than Democrats. I think we talked earlier this week. The DNC is sitting on $2 million worth of debt and have actually started asking vendors to not send the bills for services until after the midterms completed, the RNC is sitting on something like $160 million. Trump has $400 million in his super PAC. So this is only going to further bolster Republicans efforts. I'm going to be really interested to see where he specifically spends the money. And I wonder if he'll kind of take the RNC's cue on this and spend it where it's really where they think it's most needed or if he'll just go full Elon and spend it on the races he's most interested in for his own Elon reasons.

[Cabot Phillips]

And I would imagine that he would be targeting some of these socialist candidates who say if they get the majority in D.C. that they're going to implement all sorts of wealth taxes and come after a man like him who if my Math is correct, $100 million donation would be about 0.1% of his net worth. So it is generous, but maybe not as generous as some other $100 million. Come on, Elon. Got to get those numbers up.

[Tim Rice]

Elon. Elon, if you're listening. Yeah.

[Cabot Phillips]

One more thing before we let you go. I saw a very interesting poll. So if you look back to 2019, AOC's approval rating nationwide was 27%. We've heard a lot of news about AOC growing in popularity and growing in visibility and Americans starting to embrace candidates like her. 2019, her approval rating was 27%. Today it's 26%. She's at basically the exact same spot where she was seven years ago. What do you make of that?

[Tim Rice]

That's actually really interesting. You're gonna have to send me that poll. I thought you were gonna say that her approval rating went up and I was going to say it's because all the other members of the have either gotten voted out of office or she's mostly distanced herself from them. Cuz that to me is the biggest change that I've noticed at AOC is as she sort of moves closer to her, whether they're presidential or senatorial ambitions or either just again trying to kind of be one of the guiding forces of the Democratic Party. She certainly hasn't moderated her positions, but she's not out there kicking up trouble with Ilhan Omar anymore. And Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib are out. So. So I mean that could be it. Maybe it's the progressives falling off. Maybe it's just a matter of as her continue, she continues to get a national spotlight that the more you're in the public eye, the more People don't like you. It could be a combination of those things. I feel like it almost. I would guess that it has to do with leftist voters souring on her because they think she's selling out. That would be my guess, but either way, that's fascinating. But you know what? A low approval rating didn't stop Hillary Clinton from running for president 15 times. I don't think it's gonna stop AOC either.

[Cabot Phillips]

And worth pointing out, those were both. Those were CNN polls. Those are findings straight from cnn. So something to keep an eye on there. Tim Rice, I feel like I kind of stumped you a bit with that last question. Usually you're coming in with hot takes. That one you said?

[Ryan Graduski]

Hmm.

[Tim Rice]

Yeah.

[Cabot Phillips]

I'm not really sure I feel good. I've done the job.

[Tim Rice]

That's a genuinely fascinating data point.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yes. I did it. Okay. Tim rice, Daily Wire D.C. bureau Chief. Have a fantastic weekend. We'll see you Monday.

[Tim Rice]

See you Monday, Cabot.

[Cabot Phillips]

I don't know if we're actually gonna see him Monday, but I'm just gonna say we'll see you Monday. And then he feels pressure to. Come on, let's get up to New York City, where our favorite mayor, socialist Zorwan Mamdani, is beginning to implement his far left agenda. Everything from government run grocery stores to exploding tax rates. And the results so far have been about what you would expect. Lydia Moynihan from the New York Post joins us now with more. Lydia, it's great to have you back.

[Lydia Moynihan]

It's great to be here to talk about more disaster unfortunately unfolding here in New York City.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah, you say it with a smile. It's a disaster. I'm glad that you're happy. At least you're a happy warrior. So Mayor Mandani, he's pushing a $70 million plan that will build government run grocery stores in all five boroughs. What would this actually look like in practice?

[Lydia Moynihan]

Now, I wanna get to that, but I have to start with a personal anecdote that just happened. One of my friends who is a huge Mamdani warrior, was posting all about him celebrating his victory just this week. She said that she needs to figure out how to move her LLC out of New York because she's realizing the taxes are really high. So I can say that cuz I know she's not watching this, but that's where we are. So maybe people are waking up. I don't think they're putting two and two together, but maybe they're waking up in some kind of small way. But look, big picture here, what we're seeing happen is obviously economically a disaster. And I think a lot of conservatives are trying to make the economic argument that, you know, government run grocery stores aren't actually going to make things cheaper. And the issue is that Mamdani doesn't care. They don't actually care about affordability. Affordability was a Trojan horse to get the DSA into power here. And now that they're in power, they're concerned about consolidating government power. So we saw this, of course, with real estate and rent prices. He froze the rent, which that, of course, the effect means that people aren't going to be investing in real estate, building new buildings. You're going to have landlords who don't want to pay to maintain the properties. There's going to be less inventory. But that's the perfect opportunity for the government to come in and buy properties, which is their goal. And of course we know, because we've seen this happen before in Russia, in Venezuela, in every other communist city and country. And that's you open a government run grocery store, you try and undercut the guy next door. And bear in mind, these are not AI billionaires, but people who run grocery stores. In New York, for the most part, a lot of bodega owners, these are very working class people. And I'm not talking about the working class definition Mamdani has of somebody making a million dollars. I'm talking about people who are truly trying to make ends meet. The bodega owner is not rolling in it. He's not in San Tropez on a rock, on a yacht right now. And so it's essentially going to make it impossible for the bodega owner to survive. He's gonna go out of business, and then you're gonna see government try and expand more and more. And you know, we reported just last week Charles Kushner, who's a longtime New Yorker, and a lot of people have strong feelings about him, but he's the latest to leave. And what's interesting is when you talk with people who leave, they're obviously very concerned about the economics, because if you have any sort of concept of math, of course you are. But they highlight the reason that they want to leave is because of the glee and the politics of envy and the sort of culture that Madani is creating here, as he did publishing a list of where people live this week who have nice homes. Incredibly creepy, and they highlight the anti Semitism. So it's not even just about the economics that's pushing People out. Although that's obviously a huge part of it. It's the fact that the mayor is doing it in such a smarmy way that he's truly pushing people out.

[Cabot Phillips]

You talk about the grocery stores. I mean, the plan at least. We know that a lot of these socialist governments aren't always able to implement what they promise, but the plan is that they're going to offer grocery prices up to a 30% discount, that the government's going to run these things. We know the impact just from a supply and demand aspect that's going to have on private businesses who say, hey, I can't artificially keep these prices low because I actually have to turn a profit to stay in business. But you touched on something else there, and this was the pied a terror tax. I'm sure a lot of people, they hear, you know, French terms. I'm assuming it's French, their eyes kind of gloss over. Can you explain to us this pied a terror tax and what this actually means?

[Lydia Moynihan]

So in New York City, as in any city, a lot of people will have a pied a terre, which is essentially a second home. A lot of people commute for the week, so maybe they're crashing their a couple nights and then they're going home to see their family in Connecticut or New Jersey. So it's a shorthand, really, for. For a second home. And many of the people who obviously are able to afford a second home, even if it's inexpensive, they are considered somebody with. With means. They are considered part of the problem by Mamdani. And so this first really sort of blew up in the scene, because when Mamdani talked about the pieto chair tax, he stood in front of, I'm sure you remember this, Ken Griffin's home, and essentially doxxed Ken Griffin and called Ken Griffin out as part of the problem in New York City. Bear in mind, that's a man who employs thousands of people here, who contributes to the city even though he doesn't live here. And so that was really what got it rolling. And Mamdani has moved forward with that. And again, I think it's kind of foolish. I think people are probably gonna be inclined to, if they have to pay a pied aur tax on top of additional taxes they already pay when they buy an expensive property in New York, this is just adding to it, but I think they're probably less inclined to maintain and hold onto that property. But again, it's the glee with which he does it. And I think that's what it's about. It's about the politics of envy. Because obviously, even if Ken Griffin sold his $250 million apartment, they're not gonna turn it into subsidized housing.

[Leona Salinas]

Right.

[Lydia Moynihan]

It's not like they're gonna be able to put 20 homeless people in there. And obviously, that's not the problem of why people are homeless in the first place. But it was really shocking to see that list. And I actually saw a great tweet that was like, imagine if the Trump administration had provided the address and the names of everyone who was in the country illegally. Right. Or any other demographic of people. It would have been seen as a huge violation of privacy. It would have been seen as targeting that group. But for some reason, because these are rich people, probably people who didn't vote for Madani, it's acceptable and okay to do that. And I just. I wanna remind people as well. I mean, it was just about a year ago that we saw a healthcare CEO shot in cold blood. So it kind of feels like something like that could happen again. And it wouldn't be shocking, I think, to anyone, because, again, we've seen how this plays out.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah. As you say, it's the politics of envy. It's as old as. As Cain and Abel. This desire to have what someone else has and a hatred and violence that often comes with it inherently. Before we go, you touched on some of the anti Semitism issues, and a lot of people are up in arms about some of Mandani's comments about Benjamin Netanyahu. We didn't get a chance to talk about this too much on the show last week. So if you could just recap the situation for us with Mamdani threatening to arrest Netanyahu if he ever came to New York City. Just walk us through that saga.

[Leona Salinas]

Yeah.

[Lydia Moynihan]

So Mohammedani, of course, ran on the idea that he was just gonna focus on city issues. And in an interview with Martha McCallum before the election, he refused basically, to condemn Hamas because he said, I'm not here to talk about foreign policy. I'm here to talk about affordability. Well, shockingly, since he's gotten to office, he has chosen to focus really just selectively on Israel and Palestine. And he had this big press conference where he said if Netanyahu came to town, he would arrest him because the ICC says he's a war criminal. Well, obviously the US Doesn't. We don't care about the icc. That's completely irrelevant. Like, they're not a governing body in the US but that's who he Cited. And of course, that is the authority that he cares about, some sort of international coalition. So that was the sound bite. And then he actually had to the next day walk it back and say, well, actually I, you know, I don't have the ability to arrest Netanyahu just in case anyone was under the delusion that he did. But this is, you know, again, I don't want him to be thinking about Israel or any of these issues at all. I want him to be governing, although maybe it's actually better that he focuses on Israel and he'll spend less time implementing communist policies. But this is what's insane is, you know, every year we have the General assembly of the United nations here in New York City, and there is a parade of true war criminals. There's people from Iran, you name it. There's tons of dictators, tons of evil people who dissent here and not a peep about them. There's no peep about any of the militaristic dictators from Africa who has bled on their head. There's no peep about anyone besides Netanyahu. And of course, you don't need to hear this, but this is the largest Jewish population outside Israel. And just days after he made that such an issue, there was, as I'm sure we will see, more of a man yelling Allahu Akbar who stabbed a Jew. So this is, unfortunately, I think we're seeing a rise in anti Semitic attacks. And when you have a mayor who fans those flames, it certainly does not help. I will note he made a statement that, that he wants to try and get rid of anti Semitism, but if he does, I think he should turn to his wife in Gracie Mansion, who has repeatedly liked photos of Jews getting killed on October 7th. I mean, it's very hard to take anything he says seriously about condemning anti Semitism when we see what his wife is doing. And what he said over the years as well.

[Cabot Phillips]

I don't mean to make this a joking matter, because it's not, but it's reminiscent of that famous you're laugh. It's reminiscent of that famous meme of the guy in the hot dog suit, Tim Robinson, saying, we're all trying to find the guy who did this, when it is him, he's the one who's fanning those flames. Lydia, always great to have you on. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

[Lydia Moynihan]

Such a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[Cabot Phillips]

That was Lydia Moynihan from the New York Post.

[Rudy Reyes]

All right.

[Cabot Phillips]

I'm so happy to tell you about our new sponsor Because I know that weight is something that a lot of people struggle with. One thing I've learned doing this show is that everybody wants the shortcut, but the people who actually get results usually have a plan. One of the guys here on our team has been trying to lose weight for a while. We work very long hours with not a lot of movement, so it can be tough to build healthy habits. He recently started taking Lean from Brick House Nutrition as part of a healthier diet and exercise routine. And he keeps talking to everybody about how good he feels. He didn't have any of the side effects you always hear people worrying about with weight loss injections, but what he did notice was feeling more energized. In fact, one day after work, instead of heading straight home to sit on the couch, he went out and walked a 5k just because he actually felt motivated to do it. He felt great. That is the part I like about his story. He's not expecting some magic from a supplement. He's using Lean as part of making real lifestyle changes. Lean was created for frustrated dieters with 10 or more pounds to lose. Its studied ingredients have been shown to help lower blood sugar, burn fat by converting it into energy and curb appetite and cravings. If that sounds like something that you've been looking for, visit takelean.com and enter promo code WIRED to get 20% off, plus free rush shipping. That's takelean.com, promo code WIRED. W I R E D. Well, guys, I don't have to tell you. You already know it. The age of AI is upon us, and the technology is shaping virtually every sector of our society and our economy. And while many folks are concerned about the potential impacts AI is gonna have on privacy and the jobs market, very few are focusing on some of the ethical concerns, specifically how the technology could be used to alter human biology and genetics. Joining us with more on that front is Will Tebow, retired Army Ranger and visiting fellow at the center for Renewing America. Will, great to have you.

[Will Tebow]

Yeah, thanks for having me.

[Cabot Phillips]

I've been reading through your work, and there was one particular piece that stood out, and it's gonna keep me up tonight. Honestly, you talk about AI in the context of. Of tinkering with genetics and human biology and what the ramifications of that process would be. So can you talk to us just about this emerging technology?

[Will Tebow]

Of course. And if you go to San Francisco, many would say that it's not all that emerging. It's here. I met with someone last week who said, if you talk to a lot of tech folks in San Francisco. They're trying to figure out how to make babies without a man and a woman and simply create them in a petri dish. And this underlies the point that yes, artificial intelligence is here. It's picking up speed in so many domains in a way that I think people perhaps a little unnecessarily feel is out of control. But there are ways in which we should simply make sure it doesn't do bad things. I think one of those bad things that the vast majority of people would agree is to artificially manipulate human genes to create partial, less than approximations of humans in order to bastardize the human race and obscure the integrity of humanity. Why not? And I've called for this in a somewhat tongue in cheek way, but I think I'd support it. An international ban on AI enabled gene editing and gene creation. Obviously there's a lot of exciting science at the frontier of health and longevity and we should enable that. But when it comes to literally trying to create something from nothing, I think we should simply not. And we should put a guardrail on how artificial intelligence could really get bizarre and dangerous. And that underscores the point that I make elsewhere, Kabat, is that it's important for the good uses of artificial intelligence to be realized by Americans first and Americans especially. And if we as conservatives, as Americans don't show that we're willing to be discerning where we enable artificial intelligence to take place versus where we stop it, I think then the public will lose confidence in existing institutions ability to harness technology for good and not for some dystopian future that so many hope is coming and also so many tell us is already here.

[Cabot Phillips]

What is the line for? I guess I'll put it this way. Who should be deciding what AI technology is beneficial and for the greater good? And we know that there's some of this gene editing is trying to be used to, to root out a lot of abnormalities and chronic illnesses and diseases and things of that nature, which I think we'd all say, hey, that's good, but who's deciding, in your view, what should be considered bad and what should be banned?

[Will Tebow]

I think the responsibility rests with public institutions, with governments, with leaders who are politically accountable to the American people. Lydia just mentioned the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO in Manhattan. I think that is just a glimpse, along with some arson attacks on data centers, that is a glimpse of what people will do when they feel like the democratic process of accountability and agency in governance is no longer sufficient. And I understand this is Perhaps uncomfortable for some conservatives especially to grapple with, but I'm not sure we have any other choice. I'd rather accept an accountable government that has at least some legal obligation to be transparent and then accountable to the American people. Define guardrails loosely in my opinion, to be clear, define guardrails for artificial intelligence. Then that responsibility rests with some tech oligarchs born in San Francisco, bred in some really bizarre ideological pretenses that are not in line with American values. And then we really lose a sense of who is setting the terms of our future. It's healthy if America has confidence that our future rests in accountable public institutions. I worry about a world where we let private tech oligarchs define the terms of what humanity looks like going forward.

[Cabot Phillips]

What would the impacts be, you think, if there were no regulations put in place? Cuz there are those who say, hey, China is not gonna have any sort of concerns about human rights or the ethical dilemma that comes with AI, so we have to keep going full steam ahead. In your view, what happens if we just as a federal government, if our institutions just say, hey, it's the Wild west, go for it, whatever you guys need to do, go for it. What happens?

[Will Tebow]

One, let's be clear. The best thing that we can do to ensure that China doesn't set the terms of the future of artificial intelligence is to continue to beat China in artificial intelligence development. If the frontier is defined by America when it comes to large language models and applications for artificial intelligence, then we can have confidence that American values and our worldview will be imbued into that future. But if government overregulates, if government seeks to pick winners and choosers and select who can explore the frontier of artificial intelligence, then I think we will encounter a world where China, unencumbered by those same notions, is the one who sets the terms of the debate. Now to your question. I don't think that means we let artificial intelligence run amok. I don't think that means we need to let everything that could happen with artificial intelligence happen again. I'm in favor of a reasonable restriction on gene creation, the creation of human life with artificial intelligence enablement. That's just one. I think when it comes to things like data centers, we should build data centers, but honestly, we should make sure that they are not so awful and ugly. And we should also make sure that whatever power trade off happens for the community is not a cost that families have to pay. We should make sure that data center providers and the artificial intelligence companies are the ones who essentially cover the cost of whatever that data center comes with. And again, there should also be restrictions on things like mass surveillance, data protection. I think perhaps the most important responsibility of the government is to avoid the mistake we made with social media companies. We went to a world where an essential service of modern America was governed by this tech oligarchy of three to four companies. If America takes the step of restricting frontier development to a point where there's no incentive for an open source developer outside of a company like OpenAI or Anthropic to develop frontier models, then we're going to be in a world where without public accountability, companies define a huge aspect of American life, a huge aspect of data privacy and information gathering. And that's something that I think government can do to preserve the free market, to preserve competition and freedom, as opposed to letting a private tyranny rear its ugly head once again.

[Cabot Phillips]

Well, it is a fascinating conversation that is going to have enormous political implications. This is becoming a very, very big issue for a lot of voters on both sides of the aisle, how we're going to regulate AI, how we're going to handle the construction of new data centers. So this is a conversation that is not going anywhere anytime soon. And we really appreciate your insight here. Thank you so much for joining us. Just fascinating stuff. And I would encourage everyone to go read Will's work. Really appreciate the conversation. Will.

[Will Tebow]

Yeah, thank you guys for having me.

[Cabot Phillips]

That was Will Tebow. Guys, if you're watching Wired in live on the Daily Wire plus app, thank you. If not, that's where you should be. That's where you get push alerts when we go live, breaking news as it happens, and the latest from our investigative reporting team. The Daily Wire plus app is free and available now on the App Store, Google Play, Apple tv, Roku, Samsung, lg. Well, by now most of you are familiar with teen takeovers, the violent trend impacting cities nationwide this summer. And really for the past year or so, virtually every weekend, social media is flooded with videos of large mobs descending on parks, restaurants, beaches. They're looting stores, fighting in the streets, lighting off fireworks, you name it. Our next guest found herself caught up in a teen takeover in Washington, D.C. this weekend and ended up in the middle of chaos and gunfire. It's Daily Wire's own Leona Salinas. Leona, thanks for joining.

[Leona Salinas]

Of course. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here.

[Cabot Phillips]

So, Leona, you've got a new piece on the Daily Wire detailing your experience here. It's terrifying how quickly this Thing devolved into chaos. So just to start, can you explain, for those who aren't aware, what actually is a teen takeover?

[Leona Salinas]

For sure. So a teen takeover, I would say, is a gentle euphemism for a large group of urban. But mostly, just to be blunt, black teenagers who go into very urban areas of large cities and public spaces, as well as transit stations and just downtown areas, and they turn those locations into absolute, just zones of debauchery. And as you aforementioned, all they do is they just loot, steal, rob each other, fight and shoot each other. And from speaking with attendees who attend these often, they say that these violent outbreaks are commonplace and they haven't attended a single one where it hasn't broken out. And just absolute violence.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah, you're not being hyperbolic there when you say that these things always devolve into violence and looting. You can just go on social media any weekend and you can see these things cropping up. It's terrifying. How did you end up in the middle of one of these things?

[Leona Salinas]

So I was actually just leaving a dinner in downtown D.C. with a couple of friends, and I just stumbled upon it. I was walking back towards my Metro station so I could head back to my apartment. It was decently late in the night. It was probably about 11:30pm and all of a sudden, as I'm walking by myself, mind you, I just saw hundreds, if not genuinely thousands of solely black teenagers. Very, very young. And when I say teenagers, I don't use that lightly. I mean, anywhere from 13 to 15 for the most part. And they were just running, all wearing masks, and some had keffiyas, and they were all carrying signs as well that just had wording that was basically illegible. They were screaming. I started approaching them and asking them what they were doing there. They yelled obscenities. And as all of that was happening, there were cop cars that were speeding down every single road, sirens blaring in basically every direction. And I thought, you know what? I know what this is. This is one of the notorious and infamous teen takeovers. I felt obligated to go and report on it after that.

[Cabot Phillips]

And what did you observe? How quickly before you started seeing violence?

[Leona Salinas]

Oh, well, it was already occurring as soon as I stepped out of the restaurant to go to the Metro station. I mean, they were pushing and shoving each other. They were again, cops were getting out of their vehicles and asking them to stop. And they were just surpassing them and brushing by them as if they were nothing. And I decided to trail towards the end of one of the lines. But as I could hear in the alleys neighboring beside me, they were. There were lines and lines and genuinely thousands of teenagers. And if you check other stories where these events have occurred, it's always thousands. It's never anything smaller than that. But when we were. Yes, when we were walking around, they were just blatantly disregarding any police presence, blatantly disregarding any other citizens around them. And there were fights constantly breaking out. There were people throwing things, littering. And just on every street corner, just fights breaking out that were very rapid.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah. And ultimately one of those fights erupted in gunfire. And you happened to be filming when this happened. We have a clip that we're gonna play here. Let's put that on the screen. Yeah. And I apologize for the language in there, but I think anyone will understand you were just feet away from gunfire. And I think anyone could understand why you were in shock there to see that. What happened after the gunfire? Were police able to apprehend this suspect? I mean, it's terrifying.

[Leona Salinas]

Yes. So immediately after the shot was fired, as you can see, I hesitated for a second just because I was in shock. I understood that gunfire and shootings are actually commonplace at these sort of events, at these teen Takeovers. But I hesitated, made sure I got the footage, and then immediately ran off just behind that building there, as you could see, when the video closed out. And I immediately called Mikayla, who was the individual that I had actually stuck with for the duration of the event. She was the only sensible seeming teen there who was at the takeover, who I ended up interviewing. And so I initially called her. I asked where she was and if she was okay as well, because evidently there had been more gunfire on the other side of the city as well that I didn't know about until much later. So I was seeing if she was okay. She said she was. She said she was just on the other side of the building where I was. And so we decided to meet right back where the gunfire initially took place. And so as we went back, there were police just ridden in the area, of course, and setting up yellow tape. And so I immediately went and just started asking other attendees of the Teen Takeover there what happened, why they were masked, if they saw anything. Of course, none of them said they did, even though I explicitly recognize people's faces of the individuals who were there and also witnessed this shooting. It was just blatant denial of having anything to do with it. And they just kept saying, the cops are racist, the cops are trying to arrest us. And that's why we had to maintain this masked presence, even though, particularly at the scene, a lot of the police officers that were there were black. So that didn't, that sentiment didn't really stand.

[Rudy Reyes]

Yeah.

[Cabot Phillips]

And one of the things you note in your story is that there are curfews in place in many of these cities where this takes place and in dc, what sort of curfews are there that theoretically would make these gatherings illegal?

[Leona Salinas]

So in these urban neighborhoods, the local police department have instilled these curfews that vary depending on the neighborhood, but that teens cannot be out outside of their home past a certain time. And those are explicitly in place due to events like these teen takeovers. They don't, it's for their benefit. They don't want these, these young at risk children dying. It's as simple as that. And so you would think that that would be very easy to follow and that other government entities would want to follow that accordingly for the benefit of these children. But like you were just saying, very blatantly, it is in clear disregard of all of these curfews and they don't care if it puts them at risk. And they are constantly breaking the law in order to just go and commit these debaucherous acts.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah. And I can't help but wonder, in a city like dc, where we have these soft on crime laws in place, how many of these kids will be arrested, if they even are arrested, how many will be arrested and will be back out on the street tomorrow and how many of them will never actually face any accountability for reaping and reaping chaos, I should say, across the city. Now, in the story you note one of the wilder aspects of all of this is that according to some of the kids that were there, these events are actually organized by the city. Make sense of that for me. What do you mean?

[Leona Salinas]

So you say, according to some of the attendees that I talked to, it was actually, according to all of them, every single individual attendee teenager actually that I spoke with, made it explicitly clear that DPR, the DC's Department of Parks and Recreation, coordinates the event fully and blatantly. I asked multiple teenagers this and they confirmed it. I confirmed it on footage, in person, and over text message and phone call afterwards. And I asked them, dpr, what is that? When I was there, they said, oh, I don't really know, but they host these teen hype nights. And essentially just where a bunch of us and you know, the other black kids explicitly, you must be a black teenager in order to attend or you cannot participate. They said, if you meet all of those qualifications, we meet up and we do fun things for our community. I said, well, what fun things? And they said, well, specifically because they were all carrying signs, as I aforementioned. And so I asked them, what are these signs for? And they say, oh, well, at the end, these DPR coordinated events, we get together and we just do graffiti so that we can hone and articulate our graffiti skills.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah.

[Leona Salinas]

Which I really think is the most beneficial.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah. I'm sure it's a lot of fun for them, and I can understand why they would want to take part when they have the government there supporting them in that endeavor. Leona, we are so glad that you're safe and that you got out of there, and we really appreciate your reporting. And as you said, when the gunfire broke out, you said, hey, I gotta be a reporter here. I gotta cover what's going on, but we're very glad that you're safe. And thanks for writing about this on the site.

[Leona Salinas]

Absolutely.

[Cabot Phillips]

That was Leona Salinas from the Daily Wire. All right, I've been looking forward to this next segment all week. We're joined now by an individual who might be the manliest man we've ever had on this set. I'm not talking about Michael Knowles. It's a close second. He's a close second. It's Rudy Reyes, special operations veteran, actor, founder of Force Blue, and host of the hit show Special Forces, World's Toughest Test. Rudy, it's great to have you, man.

[Rudy Reyes]

Thank you, Kevin. Pleasure, brother.

[Cabot Phillips]

It is a pleasure to meet you, man.

[Rudy Reyes]

It's been a freaking rock solid experience since the moment I dropped the target. I've had so much support, and I love the crew out here. I love what the Daily Wire represents. I've been a fan of you all for years.

[Cabot Phillips]

We appreciate that. We really do. And the office was buzzing this week when we knew you were going to be coming in. Awesome, brother. I mean, that we were. And I have a million questions for you. But first, Special Forces, the show. How rad season five coming out.

[Rudy Reyes]

What?

[Cabot Phillips]

September 24th.

[Rudy Reyes]

24th, that's right.

[Cabot Phillips]

Season five. Okay, for everyone. I'm sure everyone has either seen the show, it's wildly popular, or they've at least seen the trailer. But what is the show? Explain it for folks.

[Rudy Reyes]

Special Forces, first of all, Billy and Foxy, Commandos from the UK sas, sbs. It was a program called SAS who Dares Wins. They brought the Yankees, and the Brits were a little cold to it at

[Cabot Phillips]

first, but now they love me.

[Rudy Reyes]

Crazy Fox said this is something special. It's authentic, it's real. And so now it's Special Forces, world's toughest test. So we build a program that is a mini selection and we utilize the same taskers and missions that we have to go through to become the operators that we are. Gas chamber, hand to hand combat, hostage rescue, underwater assault. And then ultimately the recruits are put on the run as we chase them down with dogs and helicopters, snatch them up, and then they go into interrogations. It's to mimic and show. Actually, it doesn't mimic. It replicates exactly what we do. But it's for the benefit of the recruits. It is a human transformation show on the surface, a military selection because they become the best version of themselves through the process.

[Cabot Phillips]

What are some of the crazier things you guys have coming this season? Some of the harder challenges that you guys put everyone through? I know Jorge Santos is on. Folks in the audience know George Santos. They'll want to tune in for that. But what's some of the crazier stuff you did this season?

[Rudy Reyes]

You know what, to be honest, Cabot, the hardest, the hardest freaking enemy on this season was the jungle itself. Punishing heat, 100 degrees, 100% humidity. Cobra and Viper scorpions. They have a bamboo out there that grows spikes. Many of the recruits are in danger of going down as heat casualties just out of the gate. But of course, the good old gas chamber, of course the good old hand to hand combat. I'm in the red man's suit, so I have to fight all these guys. But you know what? The most important taskers that really reveal character are the simple team tasks. Team leader A, team leader B, Alpha Bravo. Carrying heavy equipment. Carrying heavy equipment. Over features, over mountains and through jungle. You see what someone's made of. Their communication, their ability to not flash and lose temper. Because that all goes against accomplishing a mission. You find out who someone really is when you put them under pressure.

[Cabot Phillips]

I will say here at the Daily Wire, we had a chance to go to the range with some former team guys who were putting us through some shooting exercises. I'm not gonna name any names on who the worst shots were at the team, but I want your opinion. If it was a Daily Wire version of the show between Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, who do you think's coming out on top? Who's got what it's made what they need?

[Rudy Reyes]

Cabot, did you throw your freaking name in there?

[Cabot Phillips]

No, I won't throw my name in there.

[Rudy Reyes]

Okay.

[Cabot Phillips]

Because I would win, obviously. And I don't want to give you the obvious answer right out the gate. So Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, who's coming out on top in the Special Forces Challenge.

[Rudy Reyes]

Can we add Lauren in there?

[Cabot Phillips]

Yes, we can.

[Rudy Reyes]

Cause Lauren.

[Cabot Phillips]

Lauren Baer, Daily Wire reporter.

[Rudy Reyes]

Yeah. Okay. I'd probably have to say Matt Walsh.

[Cabot Phillips]

Why is it his stoicism that would keep him calm?

[Rudy Reyes]

His stoicism. And he lives now on a farm.

[Ryan Graduski]

True.

[Rudy Reyes]

And he seems very robust. Mentally, physically and spiritually robust. And not a show off, but robust. And Ben, Mr. Shapiro, I'd love you to freaking come on and I'd root you on, but he's gotta work on his pull ups and his runtime.

[Cabot Phillips]

Do you know how many pull ups Ben can do?

[Rudy Reyes]

No, but I can tell by Ben

[Cabot Phillips]

can do 20 pull ups.

[Rudy Reyes]

He can.

[Cabot Phillips]

He can. I'm telling you.

[Rudy Reyes]

Let me belay my last.

[Cabot Phillips]

Everybody blew my mind.

[Rudy Reyes]

Belay my last.

[Cabot Phillips]

He's got a trainer he works with almost every day. When he takes the jacket off, you'd be shocked.

[Rudy Reyes]

Oh, he's a stud.

[Cabot Phillips]

Ben's got some guns. I'm fine. Ben.

[Rudy Reyes]

I take it back. Ben, Ben, please, come on. I mean, you're famous. We take celebrities on the show.

[Cabot Phillips]

Are you worried that Ben would get in your head, though, during the show with his facts and logic and then he'd be able to penetrate.

[Rudy Reyes]

The last thing he'd be thinking about is facts and logic under the punishing heat or the freezing cold or the lack of oxygen at altitude, be the last thing he'll be thinking about.

[Cabot Phillips]

Have you had any moments on the show where you thought, hey, I know we're doing a show here, but this is getting a little real Always. Some people always. This might get a little injuries or close to it always.

[Rudy Reyes]

People are always getting hurt. Foxy broke his leg on first season, snapped tibia and fibia and we had to drive on without him. And he would just have to be crutched in to just do his briefs while he's on morphine. Recruits have gone down as heat casualties and bacterial infections, separated shoulders, you freaking name it. But where it got craziest of all is on the first season when there was a mutiny. Danny Amdola, who's dear brother of mine,

[Cabot Phillips]

and you guys kind of look alike.

[Rudy Reyes]

Yeah, we look like brothers, right? I love him. We are very close. Unbeknownst to the recruits, Foxy had just broken his leg. We are down 1ds and the king wants to come have lunch with us. So we have to keep the recruits in the freaking travel vehicles because you're not going to say no to the king of Georgia.

[Cabot Phillips]

Oh, you mean the literal king?

[Rudy Reyes]

Yeah.

[Cabot Phillips]

I thought king was a nickname. I'm talking about the real king.

[Rudy Reyes]

The real king, okay? Who gives us the Blackhawk helicopters, the crews, the boats, everything. So we entertain the king because he admires us very much. And he was put through jump school by Billy Billingham. The recruits get so fired up and angry because they're hungry. They're hungry and they've been sitting in a vehicle. I've been in an op for seven days and not been able to move. But they're upset. They've been there for a few hours. Things go south, people get fired up. I'm finally in the vehicle, but I hear somebody yelling behind me and it's Billy saying some harsh words to Amendola to shut the f up and just get in the vehicle. I hear some back talk. Nobody's gonna back talk. Billy Billingham with me. I just got in the vehicle. I was about ready to eat my chow. Threw the freaking chow out of the vehicle. Go over there, kick the door shut. I'm not gonna let anybody disrespect the course. We get back to the compound and there is Amendola with everybody's armbands. They're all going to throw it in, by the way. We are not gonna have a show. Can you believe it? A mutiny. It's bedlam. I'm screaming, everybody shut the f up. Everybody in the effing barracks. It was Mike Piazza that got calmness and control of the recruits. Billy took in Amendola. They worked it out not by being nice, but basically Billy said, give me the armband or get the f back in the barracks. This was first season. There might not have been a show. So, yeah, it gets hairy out there.

[Cabot Phillips]

I'm blown away that it was Mike Piazzo who was the peacemaker.

[Rudy Reyes]

Oh, he's a good man.

[Cabot Phillips]

That's surprising. When I think of his. His run ins with Roger Clemens back in the day, he seems like a guy with the temper. I don't think of him as a peacemaker. But you mentioned earlier about the fortitude that it takes physically and mentally to go through this. On the physical side, Lauren Baer, our reporter here at Daily Wire, who you've been doing some work with today, who also might have the best guns in the office when you're not in the office.

[Rudy Reyes]

Great delts as well.

[Cabot Phillips]

She walked by my desk and she was holding an object. And I said, what are you holding? And she said, well, how about you try it for yourself? And I have that object right here, apparently you came in with.

[Rudy Reyes]

That's right.

[Cabot Phillips]

I have it here. Can you tell our audience what this is?

[Rudy Reyes]

I'll tell you a little bit about it. I call it my strength stick. Now, I put in these lanyards myself because when my hands were sweaty and slippery, I've smashed myself in the face with this thing. So I put on these lanyards, and I take it with me everywhere I travel so that I can always train in the vehicles on route to one piece of production or the other. So I keep my blood flow and improve my position always. All right. And how I got this thing is while shooting in Morocco.

[Cabot Phillips]

I don't think people understand just while you're doing this, this thing is incredibly difficult to do. I did three or four reps in my forearms. Yeah, we're about to explode. It gets the veins popping, though. Yeah, nice.

[Rudy Reyes]

So I was given this after I asked, is there any gym equipment or anything? Because, you know, me and the boys live in the field. I was hoping maybe a kettlebell or a straight bar or something. Right. So the only gym equipment in the south of Morocco where the Berbers live was this thing. And this gentleman gave it to me, and I've been rocking and rolling with it ever since.

[Cabot Phillips]

I love it. Again, everyone should get one of these. If you want to look like Robbie, that's what you got to do right here.

[Ryan Graduski]

Thank you, bro.

[Cabot Phillips]

So one of the cool things that I was learning about, it's not just you've been. You've done acting, obviously, you're a special operations veteran. Incredible, commendable service.

[Rudy Reyes]

Thank you, Mo.

[Cabot Phillips]

But also your service is now extending to working with veterans and also working to protect the environment. Tell us about that Force Blue.

[Rudy Reyes]

Force Blue was the transformational moment for me when I was at my lowest. A brother, Jim Ritteroff, took me to the Cayman Islands for a dive trip because I'm a combat diver. But in combat diving, in war diving, amphibious operations, you've got weapons kit, you've got a mission. Things go south on the beach, you've got to chop your way through the enemy, and in staying on O2 oxygen, pushing back into the darkness. I'd never done scuba because we used rebreathers and seen all the beautiful animals. So I saw these beautiful animals, and I understood that these coral reefs are dying and being destroyed. There was a parallel to a family that I worked with in Fallujah in Iraq, who I loved and put my men's lives in their hands and vice versa because they wanted to stabilize Iraq. And all they asked for is that they would like a paved road for their kids to go to school and not get sick. They didn't ask for money, they didn't ask for power. They just wanted that ultimately my team had to leave eventually and be replaced by somebody else. And they were killed. It damaged me very much, this thing. And now I'm underwater and I'm seeing other families that are in need of protection because they're going to be wiped out. That was the impetus with Jim Ritteroff and Keith Sohm and myself to create something that we can fight for the good regardless of politic or nation. We can fight for the good for all of us. So we started Forest Blue, rebuilding coral reefs and doing ocean conservation, saving turtles, rebuilding lives underwater and rebuilding lives on the surface. This is our 10th year. ForestBlueTeam.org we're sponsored by the NFL. The NHL is now wanting to get involved. We are part of NOAA and we have a children's program called OCS Ocean Conservation School. What we notice is when bringing the brothers back to life, some were drinking themselves to death, some were strung out on substances or in mental institutions. When we turn the lights back on. Utilizing their special abilities to do things underwater that no one else can. The US government noticed because they loved it. Because we can do things to protect the country as well as Okinawa, Indonesia. We've been all over. The next component was the family. And so we brought the kids in and now we run a children's program. My daughter's already been through the program last year and she's coming back this year to mentor the new team.

[Cabot Phillips]

I'm sure we have a lot of people watching that would love to support you guys. How can they do that?

[Rudy Reyes]

Thank you, brother. Forceblueteam.org check us out. It will blow your mind. We also make IMAX level documentaries of every mission and we've been in all national aquariums with these missions of redemption and transformation. Forceblueteam.org, it's a mission of honor, of hope, and, and it's a legacy I'm really proud of.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah, legacy is the perfect word for it from what you're describing. On a lighter note, to end things, my wife this week actually was telling me, would you ever go scuba diving? I said, I don't think so. It freaks me out. I have this fear of underwater man made objects.

[Rudy Reyes]

Oh, I see.

[Cabot Phillips]

Terrifies me.

[Rudy Reyes]

Interesting.

[Cabot Phillips]

So she said, you really don't want to go scuba diving. To a shipwreck or something. I said, never in a million years. How can I get over that fear? What would I need to do?

[Rudy Reyes]

You know what? You would start with snorkeling and just getting comfortable being under the water. And the first time you see a pufferfish or a manta ray or shark or a turtle, the first time you see these beautiful animals, it will just spark something in you. It brings you back to being a child, is what it is. Awe and wonder. Then get training. Let me know. I can coach you. We're all dive masters. We'll put you through training. And I'm telling you, it will open up a whole new world, brother. You're gonna be loved by a whole new community. And, yeah, brother, I recommend you try.

[Cabot Phillips]

I've already gone over five minutes on my time, but I could talk to you for the next five hours. Also, we're so excited for season five to come out September 24th. Everyone, go watch Special Forces World's toughest test and go support the incredible work that you guys are doing.

[Rudy Reyes]

Thank you, brother.

[Cabot Phillips]

Force Blue. It's awesome. We really appreciate your time and appreciate your service to our country and also your service to our veterans that continues today and your service to our planet. It's such cool stuff.

[Rudy Reyes]

Thank you, brother.

[Cabot Phillips]

And I'm really glad that you've joined us today.

[Rudy Reyes]

Thank you, brother. It's been an honor to be here. When Lauren reached out, she said, you know, we can do some videos. I said, I'm not doing videos. I. I'm coming there because I've been a fan of you all for a long time, and I just knew that we would have better impact from the chemistry of person to person.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah.

[Rudy Reyes]

So thanks for having me, bro.

[Cabot Phillips]

Of course. We appreciate that, Robbie. Thank you very much. All right, and I'm going to be working on my. What is this thing called?

[Rudy Reyes]

I call it the strength stick. It could be just some kind of, you know, spring to.

[Cabot Phillips]

They're telling me in my ear that I got to do a couple. All right.

[Rudy Reyes]

Okay, let's try it right now. Now put the lanyards on so it doesn't slip out and hit your face.

[Cabot Phillips]

All right, let's do this thing. All right, here we go.

[Rudy Reyes]

Got it, brother. I believe in you.

[Cabot Phillips]

Now I'm just gonna start preemptively making my excuses here. Oh, no, you've got this. Oh, yeah. I don't think people understand. And I'm trying to keep my elbows in. Right. I don't want to flare too much.

[Rudy Reyes]

Squeeze your glutes Squeeze your.

[Cabot Phillips]

What do my glutes have to do with this?

[Tim Rice]

Yes.

[Cabot Phillips]

Okay.

[Rudy Reyes]

Pretty legit, isn't it?

[Cabot Phillips]

That is legit. Total body destruction, as Tony Horton would say. All right, I'm doing five.

[Rudy Reyes]

Great job.

[Cabot Phillips]

And I'm ending it there, brother Chris. And this is part of your plan because now these things are stuck and I'm completely incapacitated.

[Rudy Reyes]

All right, fantastic.

[Cabot Phillips]

I'm gonna get out of this thing.

[Rudy Reyes]

Much better.

[Tim Rice]

Here we go.

[Cabot Phillips]

Robbie, come on. We're brothers at this point, man. Love this guy. Thank you, Robbie. All right, Robbie's out. And I'm gonna join all of you in the live listener Q and A. I can hear the control. Control room laughing in my ear at my form.

[Rudy Reyes]

You did great.

[Cabot Phillips]

Thank you, Robbie. He said I did great. If you guys are on Apple or Spotify. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. We appreciate all of you. If you want to join our live listener Q and A, go sign [e-mail] subscribe I will see you guys on.

[Leona Salinas]

Foreign.

[Cabot Phillips]

Could change the direction of your entire Day. With pray.com you can begin each morning

[Rudy Reyes]

with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories, and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a

[Cabot Phillips]

fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday Life. Download the Pray.com app today.