Transcript of His Election Nightmare Gets Even Worse After This

All right, your Election Day brain trust is assembled. We are ready. We are all about to vomit. Nervous AF. The longer the day goes on, the more my nerves are spiking. But I have Josh Welch, I have Angie Pumps Sullivan, and I have Charlie Goldenson here, and we are just going to do what we do best: bash MAGA and then see. How big is this going to be? Are we talking Blue Nami? Are we like it's Jover, MAGA? We did it, Joe. Are we that level? Or is it just a little light win?

Opinion of President Trump.

Donald Trump is a fascist.

That can get out of office.

I don't think you passed the test.

Oh, that's fine.

Shouldn't.

I'd love to see it. Love to see it. Love to see it. Okay. All right. Here are the Fox News Power Rankings. Pop this up. Just to show that we're going to go by their rules, okay? So they are showing you guys: Michigan, Maine, South Carolina, Iowa, Kansas, and Texas and Alaska as toss-ups. All right, Charlie, let's talk about Susan Collins and Troy Jackson in Maine. And let me just say that the most recent polling shows Jackson up by 6.

Yeah. I mean, there's something to remember here for everybody, of course, is this is the Gram Plattner state, which I know we're not supposed to say his name anymore, but let's think about what happened here, right? Gram Plattner built a movement behind him, a grassroots movement, when he was forced to drop out, as he should have, as we were all happy he did. Troy came in. And there has been a lot of discussion out there whether the Troy campaign has successfully or not kind of like integrated the Gram Plattner organizing infrastructure. So what's amazing about the polling so far is that even if they have not done a great job of integrating that Gram Plattner infrastructure, they are still up in the polls, right?

It feels good. Susan Collins always doesn't poll as well as she always ends up winning. And Susan Collins is a vote that people in Maine don't really get harmed as much by her vote for all of these radical Republican policies because they have a blue state government that protects the women and girls in that state. But she votes for people like Brett Kavanaugh and with Donald Trump an obscene amount of times. And that leaves women in red states dead, harmed, and injured because of Susan Collins.

Well, I mean, Oklahoma is not a great place for women to live. We now have the Susan Collins vote for Brett Kavanaugh overturning Roe. Now we have the Dobbs decision. And it is the 50th state in the United States to live for women. In addition, poverty is higher in a red state. You have no access to healthcare. We have maternity deserts, meaning that even if you are a rah, rah MAGA cheerleader, there is nowhere for you to have a baby in certain counties in Oklahoma because an OB-GYN does not want to face criminal charges for advising their patient.

Right. And the point is, for the listener, is that these votes where she is able to cosplay a moderate in Maine because that blue state government pretty much protects its citizens from MAGA policies federally. And then she's able to be a key player in a Christian nationalist game plan that they have been machinating on for decades, as we all know. So she's able to assist in these red states by cosplaying as a moderate in Maine.

Well, Darlene had me at hello when she said she didn't know anything about foreign policy. Do you remember that?

Yeah.

Like right when she got in the race, somebody asked her a question about foreign policy, and she said, I'm sorry, I don't know anything about that. Or I can't remember exactly what she said. But you know, in South Carolina, I think one of the important things is to look at the black turnout, the black voter turnout in that state, because that's going to be key in this race. And we also know with Darlene Graham that when Trump waived these sanctions recently against Russia, she was asked how she felt about that because that piece of legislation was named after Lindsay Graham.

Totally.

And so all of this stuff has come out about her. She is one of the worst candidates. I don't want to say the worst candidates for the Republicans because there's a couple more that get below her, if you can believe it. But she's not a very good candidate at all. If she did not have that last name, this would not even be a race. So I think she's going to win. I think it's going to be a close race. I think we're going to have to look at voter turnout.

The last polling, Charlie has it two points.

Yeah.

So within the margin of error. This is really, here's the Trafalgar poll that was taken on Halloween has Lady Darlene, two points, sister of late Lady Graham.

Lady Darlene. Yeah. I mean, something back on the Republican spending on trans issue stuff, something for folks to know too is Elon Musk is a major backer of that. A lot of that is his money. Another part of it is, I know we'll talk about Texas later, but big oil executives are also deeply tied to the funding of these anti-trans ads all over the country. And to Jen's point, it's all they have. They can't run on policy. They can't run on wins, as we've seen JD Vance say, as we've seen Republicans all across the country and pundits and surrogates say everywhere.

And let's just talk about for a second how pathetic it is that Elon Musk, who has a beautiful trans daughter named Vivian, instead of having a relationship with her and enjoying life and his wealth and things that he could do, he gets on television all the time and says that she's dead. And that is a real window into the brokenness of this political movement, that they are incapable of loving their children unconditionally.

Sure. There's an infinite amount of things we could talk about Michigan, but what you said is very important, which is one of the things to think about why Michigan is so important is because in two years, the presidential is going to run right through Michigan. And what I mean by that is if we can show that not just a progressive, not just a Democrat, but a person of color, somebody who advocates for the liberation of Palestinians, who says that we want peace, who says that we need universal healthcare, if that person can win in a state like Michigan, it's going to cause a wake in all of these other states, both in the South, but also in the Midwest, in the rest, well, everywhere all over the country to say that, oh, we can actually run some of these candidates because these are genuine populace.

And it will help us as the Democratic Party that wants to get rid of corporate politics, that wants to get rid of all of the APAC purchased, big lobby purchased politicians. We will start to have a template, a Zoran template, an Abdul Al-Sayed template to push back against these corporate Dems and these strategists that say, no, no, no, we've got to run to the center. This is what we have to do.

The same corporate Dems and consultants who led us, who gave us Hailey Stevens.

Exactly.

Remember that. And so I also want to make this connection for folks too, going to Hailey Stevens on this, is the Hailey Stevens-esque candidate, when we talk about neoliberalism leading us to Donald Trump, that is what Hailey Stevens is. That is what Hailey Stevens represents. That is what the consulting class behind Hailey Stevens is. So for a lot of folks like us on this call, it is not a surprise to me what she did because she is completely aligned with the Democratic or democratic movement that led us to Trump in the first place.

Yep. All right. Josh and Pops.

Let me add one thing to that. I think that race right there is also going to be a referendum on corporate Democrats and their refusal to back Abdul Al-Sayed. And the second thing is she spent, or the pro-Israel super PAC spent approximately $55 million in that race against Abdul Al-Sayed. And we had Trump and others spewing this Islamophobia, this hate. And so if we can put an exclamation point on this win tonight, I think we can take down both of those facets.

Let's call it the Merrick Garland wing of the Democratic Party. We need to have a referendum on the Merrick Garland wing of the Democratic Party. They lead us. It's a centrism, is a death march to losing elections. And we have to stop with these candidates that placate to their donors before they placate to their people. And that's sick to death of not being able to criticize a country that's committing a genocide. You get to criticize Israel.

If we can win that race, then we can shut down these democratic leaders next time they say things like Schumer and others have said where they won't embrace these candidates. Because to me, that's a disqualifier. When you're trying to get majority of the Senate and he's in a race like he's in a tight race fighting for his life, and you've got someone like Chuck Schumer or Cory Booker that does not automatically embrace and endorse you, that is a disqualifier. Get out of the Democratic Party leadership. Out. You're done. And if we remember, Schumer was the one who hand-picked Hailey Stevens in the first place.

All right, Pops. Let's go to Texas now. I was born in Texas. I have a strong affection for the state. It borders the state that I grew up in and lived in up until last year, Oklahoma. And Oklahoma and Texas share like a similar culture and rivalry in football games, et cetera. Texas has been trending purple for quite some time. And this final New York Times poll, which just makes me sick to see this because it seems like the pollsters say when you hit 50, it means something totally different than when you hit like 44, that that shows that this is a very legitimate poll.

It's standing out for me.

Let's take it out on Charlie. Normally I'd hit Josh. Charlie's going down. But anyway, Pops, this is the electorate. And I mean no disrespect to all of my beautiful blue dots in Texas. The rural area is constantly fucking you guys over. And this portion of the Texas electorate has brought us Ted Cruz again and again and again and again. And I have been this blue dot in a red state for so long. And you get this hope if you live in a city where you're like, oh my God, we're going to win.

Okay. Obviously, like everyone else, I'm very cautiously optimistic, but I'm kind of nervous to say because I don't want it to like jinx anything. I know that's so stupid, but here's the thing. I would not trust Texas at all because, like you said, Ted Cruz continues to win elections. But Ken Paxton is a profoundly bad candidate. I mean, maybe the worst candidate that we have in this whole election cycle. And I mean, when you think about all the other people, I think Ken Paxton's the worst.

Whatever that means to these people.

Forgot it.

Means fuck around, find out. Even Donald Trump says he's ugly.

Even Donald Trump says he's ugly.

His biggest top surrogate is like, I mean, I've been checking out Hested because, you know, I like to study anatomy. I don't think I can do that with Ken. Ken doesn't have any greater than anatomy.

And when you think about it, honestly, the incumbent senator that is running for the John Corbyn or Cornyn, he would have given a much tougher fight to Talarika.

Oh.

Much tougher.

Totally.

But Trump hand-picked Paxton against the advice of the Texas Republicans.

Because they like criminals. And don't think for a second that Elon didn't have something to do with that. Elon had a lot to do with the picking of Ken Paxton. A lot. Because Elon has started purchasing, you know, judges and attorney general, which is what Paxton is, to set up all of his companies to where he can properly fleece taxpayers and subvert regulations. And so this is a major, major thing. If this happens, then Charlie, I think this allows, combined with Kansas, which the Kansas polling is, it shows Hamilton up five points, okay?

Yeah. I mean, I think it's, let's think about the psychology of politics with this, right? Which is people feel more enthusiastic about engaging when they feel like there's hope and when they see hope. So again, similar to Michigan, if we can get victories in either of these states or both of these states, that has massive implications, again, for 2028. That means that we are going to unleash way more volunteers, way more donors, not just from in-state, but other donors out of state will see that it's worthy to spend their dollars there.

Okay, Josh. Of course we have Ohio, where we have John Hested, who Donald Trump has just been drooling over for, I feel like, forever now. It's only been a couple of weeks, but we've heard a lot about his ass. And he's running against Sherrod Brown. It looks like this is going to go blue. But a couple of states over, we have Iowa, another heartland state. And Iowa is showing Turek or Turek up one point over Henson within the margin of error.

To our north in Kansas, we haven't talked very much about Adam Hamilton, but, and I don't know that you all know this, but he founded the country's largest United Methodist Church. He's a pastor. So it's kind of hard to say. He's one of those fucking crazy, you know.

Libtard.

Blah, blah, blah.

The Libtard.

He's down there, you know, he's down there preaching the gospel to the good folks of Kansas out in rural America. And I've seen interviews with him and he dances past bread.

He's impressive.

Yeah, he's impressive. And he's a candidate I love a lot. So if there's room for growth like that in Kansas, that's practically Oklahoma, really. I mean, we're a little bit worse, maybe, as far as red. But I mean, it's right by us. So that's inspirational. If he can win that race, that's exciting. You know, I think this race in Iowa, you know, from what I've seen when they interview all these farmers in Iowa, they're fucking pissed.

Yeah.

Like all of them are mad with these tariffs and everything else and the cost of business. And they're all losing money. And they all, they've interviewed three or four of them where they say, you know, we bought into Trump. We tried, you know, but he just ain't doing it. I think they all just feel like that. Just real earthy, matter of fact. It's just, you know, so if that's true, if that holds, then I think Turek is going to have a good chance.

Charlie.

Yeah. I mean, I would also say, I would encourage folks when we start to watch the, when the Iowa results start to come in, we talk a lot in politics and campaigning about the benefit of having like a top-down ticket, right? You want a big name on that ticket. And there's a big governor's race happening in Iowa too. Rob Sand is a young gentleman running for governor there. And I think, you know, it is rare. It happens. We've seen it with Trump, of course. But typically, voters, if they're voting Democrat on one line of one candidate, they're going to vote Democratic on the other. Not all the time, but that's stereotypical.

Okay. Final race to talk about, Alaska. As everybody knows, there's the controversy of the shopping for another Dan Sullivan. And I'll just say my piece on this. I believe that Democrats need to fight with everything they have against Republicans. For me personally, even though the Republicans do this kind of stuff, this funny ballot stuff, I just think we can't ever gift wrap something and pass it on to them. I'm a fighter in the sense that I want to fight fair and I'm going to kick your ass on ideas.

He's going to call election interference anyway, no matter what. I mean, I just, tomorrow I expect to wake up to just all these election conspiracy claims. I mean, every time I open my phone, I get a new article about it. But in terms of this particular race, here's the thing. And I know that this is not how I'm supposed to be. I understand that I should be better, but I'm like, Donald Trump fucking lies, steals, corrupt, fraud. So there's two Dan Sullivans. Alaska's a stacking ballot.

Me neither. I mean, and it's, you know, I think that Democrats can win without Alaska. What it looks like, Josh.

Well, in MS now, I think today I interviewed a couple of people that have voted in Alaska. And these candidates do have an R and a D by their names. And all of them said, no, it's not confusing at all. You look down and you see there's an R, there's a D.

One of them says incumbent.

Incumbent. Yeah.

Exactly. So it's not, and none of it's illegal. And let's not forget that the federal courts in Alaska have spoken on this and the Alaska Supreme Court has spoken on this. The courts aren't involved in this. It's DOJ threatening to bring another action. And we expect that. But, you know, unless the voters, the Republican voters in Alaska are that stupid.

And I think it's.

You can't tell between.

On the big deal scale, it's a one out of ten. We have a president that is credibly accused of a lot of horrific felonies and sexual assaults in the Epstein files. Okay, let's just leave that there. We have another one where he's funneling all this money into MAGA Inc. and then using taxpayer money to pay these people back by giving them contracts. He is, he stood up yesterday and goes, here's the one with algae. We have algae here. You know, we have to watch him take taxpayer-funded naps.

Final thoughts, I'll say, you just said something about mama. I want to say two things. One, it's my mom's birthday. Happy birthday, mom. Second is my mom reminded me, and I think this is a good point for everybody here. I know everybody watching the show is probably voting, but women's rights and women's reproductive rights have kind of fallen off the table in terms of the conversations and the messaging that Democrats have been having over these last few months for the sprint. And I just want to remind folks that that is unfortunate because women's rights and women's reproductive rights are absolutely on the ballot today.

That's exactly right. And white women do fucking better. They are coming for you as well. Your complexion will only protect you until the very end. And then they're going to move the goalpost and then it will be the Christian nationalist handmaid tale nightmare fast. Anyway, we were nervous as shit. I'm still nervous as shit, but this was a good therapy session. Thank everybody for joining us. Go join me on the Don Lemon channel at 6 p.m. Eastern. We're going to be at some bar in Manhattan that plan on getting Don all liquored up.

Go vote, go vote.

Go vote, go vote.