August 3, 2026 • 42 mins
In this episode of It's a Numbers Game, Ryan analyzes Vivek Ramaswamy's appearance before Young Americans for Liberty, explaining why his message failed to connect with younger conservative and libertarian voters. Ryan also examines the latest polling in Ohio and discusses how campaign strategy, messaging, and voter concerns could shape one of the country's biggest gubernatorial races.
Ryan also dives into newly released fertility data, arguing that President Trump's immigration enforcement is already showing measurable demographic effects. He explores declining births among foreign-born populations, stable birth rates among American-born women, and what those trends could mean for the future of the country.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Grodoski. Thank
you guys for being here. Happy Monday, everybody, Happy August.
We are in the tail end of the summer. I
got to open up by telling you guys a quick
story that's going to lead to something bigger. A couple
of years ago, I was a general consultant for a
first time candidate running for a swing seat in Long Island.
He ended up dropping out the congressional race and running
(00:22):
for a state legislative race and won it, and it
was the first time a Republican held it in twenty years.
I'm very proud of his overall trajectory. But while he
was running for Congress, I was trying to give him
as much advice, and I said, you know what, it
would help if you spoke to somebody and got a
little guidance from someone in Congress. So I set up
a coffee with him and representat Nicole mally Takis from
(00:44):
Staten Island. She is She's kind of like a little
she doesn't get a ton of media attention, but she
is like a silent killer. She's very very aggressive with campaigning,
very efficient. She works really hard. The Democrats want to
destroy her so bad trying to redistrict her seat. But
she's got a hard work ethic that I really respect. Well,
(01:05):
she was well he was running for Congress, and they
are having the coffee and during the meeting congres from
Malaytakas said something that I think was very wise for
all candidates, but especially for my candidate, and she said,
if you're not spending your days trying to raise money,
earn positive media attention, or speak to voters, you're wasting
your time like nothing else really matters. And it was
(01:25):
very wise because there's a lot of candidates who think
that they can win via trying to get clicks on
Twitter and Instagram, and that could be part of it,
but it's not the full thing, Like it's never the
full thing, and they just they try to be influencers
more than actual candidates are running real campaigns, and they're
not serious people. And my candidate wanted to be a
serious person and he was. It's why he won in
the end a seat somewhere. So I take that to heart.
(01:49):
And as a consultant, it's always your job to protect
your client. It's always your job to put your candidate
first and try to set them up for failure as
little as possible. I don't know what happened at the
end of last week, but the vek Ramaswami's campaign agreed
to attend WYL. What is WHYL. It is the Young
(02:10):
Americans for Liberty. It was an offshoot of the two
thousand and eight Roum Paul campaign, a campaign that I
volunteered on, my first campaign I volunteered on really and
like and it's not like a joke organization. It has
like ram Paul attends it, and Glenn Jacobs, the mayor
of Knox County, Tennessee, and the Congressman Eric Parle was
and like, it's a serious organization. They have serious people.
(02:31):
It's not obviously his biggest turning point ning like that,
but it's it's not it's not nothing right anyway. The
vek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for Ohio, shows up at
this event in Ohio. It was the event was held
in Ohio, although it was a national audience. It was
people from all over the country and he was booed
from the second he walked in the room. When he
(02:53):
was his name was announced before he even got on stage.
He was booed from the entire crowd. Now, for those
(03:22):
of you just listening and not watching, that's him walking
to the stage. That's him just walking to the stage.
He didn't say anything. His name appears on the screen.
If that was me, by the way, I would have
just went home. I would have been like, all right,
screw you guys, I'm not standing here if that's how
(03:42):
I'm going to be greeted. The crowd was very hostile,
incredibly rude, by the way, Like I will never boo somebody.
I mean, if they say something I really disagree that,
I might boom, but I'm never gonna boo them, even
if I dislike them for just walking on the stage.
You don't have to clap, but you, which honestly says
a lot to no one collaps. But I'm not going
(04:03):
to collap. But you don't have to. I don't know.
It's very rude. I thought it was overwhelming rude. Anyway.
The VEC starts speaking and addressing this crowd of young
libertarian minded people, some of whom are conservatives, some of
whom are libertarians, and he starts talking about the threats
of socialism. And this isn't a speech you would give
to a much older audience. Almost everyone in that crowd
(04:25):
is under thirty. They are worried about you know, AI
taking their jobs. They're worried about data centers. They're worried
about energy costs, job security, they're worried about, you know,
the economy and the war in Iran. It was a
very tone death speech for a young libertarian theme crowd, like,
I understand why you would say it, but that's not
(04:47):
whereas people's minds are to be fair to Avec, which
I try to be, even though he's not my favorite
candidate to be tried to be. He did get applause
for saying that free enterprise was the best system known
to man, which you would normally get into pulus for
among libertarians. And also to his credit, he told them
a piece of the truth, which is very rare in
(05:08):
politics nowadays. He said that people's problems in life are
there are their own choices. It's not because of conspiracies
by the Jews, white people, black people, et cetera. So
good for Vek, like that is true, and that is
a has audience who maybe didn't want to hear that,
but that is the truth, and he said it. I
would add a coveyat to that, like luck also plays
a lot in your role in life, like being lucky
(05:30):
is very helpful, but obviously it's not everything. Having a
good work ethic and doing things and showing up is
really really important. But kudos to Vivek for doing that
and saying that part of the truth. After that, though,
he comes up with this slogan, which is do you
want to whine or do you want to win? And
(05:51):
this is where he really just starts losing everybody.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
But the question for us right now, the fork in
the road is do you want to win or do
you want one?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
For me? A letter is winding up. We want to
ask do you want to win this? A million quarters?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
So you want to make I got secondhand embarrassment because
like people want to hear tangible answers, they want to
hear what they can do, what he can do to
make people's lives better.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
It's not always, it's just it's the wrong tone. I
can see what he was trying to do, but it's
the wrong tone. And then he just starts reciting the
Declaration of Independence and lines about American exceptionalism and things
that date back to Reagan, and they are just they're
not of the moment, Like people in the room don't
care about that, Like they care, but they don't care.
(06:47):
It's not hitting the same way. Read the room and
the VEC has this weird tick where people are heckling
him and saying that they want to talk about something
like discrimination or is immigration, and he goes, we can,
we can talk about it, and then he doesn't talk
about it. It's so it's a strange tick that he has.
I noticed listening to this speech. And also like, here's
(07:13):
my thing, this is he had been heckled a point
by like for five consecutive minutes. Almost as a as
a consultant, as someone working for the principle of the candidate. Beforehand,
you go to the organizers and say, hey, if one
or two people are being extremely rude and disruptive, and
I think that from what I could hear in the voices,
(07:34):
it was probably a handful people that were just disrupting
throughout the entire speech, not during one moment or the other,
but being rude consecutively. You remove those people and it
makes other people be less rude and I at least
hear the speech, like, at least get through the entire speech,
whether you agree with it or not, but you remove
the one or two people who are ruining for everybody
(07:54):
and making other people more likely to also be disruptive,
Like have a little respect, so you know what I mean,
Like I'll bit of respect. I don't know what the
advanced team was doing. That's what I would have organized
and done from the get go. Then he says this
insane line, like insane line about how America was just
an idea but now it's not. Today we are more
(08:16):
than an idea.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
But on July fourth, seventeen seventy six, that is all.
We were a vision of what this place can be,
ideals enshrined in a declaration of independence. And to us,
the question today, on that two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,
is do we believe those ideals still exist?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Or are we going to go the way of every
other Old World European nation, fighting ourselves to our tribal factions,
whining and selling ourselves soft stories, victim hooktales at every
step of the way.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
That's the question. Okay, this is like retarded historical revisionism
for people who spend way too much time listening to
Mark Levin in seventeen seventy six. We weren't in some
kind of like libertarian ideal place. We were in a
place that was just, you know, whimsical, like, oh, we're
just an idea.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
There was a very very common people, culture and language.
Our founders who signed the Declaration Dependence and the Constitution
were almost all Protestant. They were of mostly all English descent.
The country was almost all English, Dutch, German and black slaves.
Did you know? Did you know this is how not
(09:26):
libertarian we were at the time, and how much we
emphasized a certain unifying people and unifying principles. States like Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Delaware on the law, the law on the book said
that you had to be a practicing Christian. You had
to be a Christian to hold statewide in public office
(09:48):
like local office, like not for president, but for state office,
you had to be a Christian. That was only overturned
by the Supreme Court in nineteen sixty one. And the
Constitution itself talks about posterity and talks about like the
errors to clearly a British people. And even though our
found and and by our founders warned about changing the
(10:14):
makeup of the people. Benjamin Franklin warned about mass immigration
from Germany that it would germify America instead of US
anglifying them and assimilate. Like this is just delusional nonsense,
Like you, you do not have to be of America's
founding stock to understand America's founding stock, to understand the
(10:36):
unifying principles, like there is a certain enviness envying, I
guess to people who want to place themselves there even
though their heritage doesn't extend that far. We are a
very generous country. You do not have to be of
America's founding stock. However, don't whitewash it. Don't water it
(10:59):
down to be something that like, oh it could have
It's just an idea. It could have happened anywhere. No,
it only happened in America, a nation of mostly white
Protestant Christians at a given time who came from you know,
post Enlightenment in Europe. It didn't just happen in Somalia.
Like sorry, Like I have to just go off on
a tangent because this is one of the things that
(11:23):
conservatives do that makes my skin crawl. Don't water down
history and make it to be something and by the
liberals do it too. Don't water down history to make
it something that it wasn't. It wasn't that anyway. He also,
by the way, one other thing the Veck constantly talks
about like backwards thinking, and then references Europe now that
Europe doesn't have a lot of backwards thinking. Never mentions
(11:45):
the third World, never mentions India or Latin America or Africa.
It's always Europe. And that's a little a little strange.
It's a little strange that he always does that. Anyway,
he goes in this diatribe about how about like the
lives of the founding fathers and what they did? How
many letters Thomas Jefferson wrote in his life and what
John Adams did. I'm a venture in front of they did?
(12:06):
And I like it is not relevant to the You're
talking to twenty two year olds who are worried about
the economy and AI taking their jobs and their lively
like this is not relevant to the moment of like
read the room, the vac read the room. You are
not talking by yourself on a cable news channel. This
(12:29):
is not newsmax, Like what are you talking about? And
then he goes on to tell young people, many of
whom are probably looking for their first post college job
or their dream job or their career that they went
to school for. And he's like, you're lucky because you
live in the richest time in history. Yes, that's true,
but have a little sympathy for the fact that they
have anxiety about the economy and their futures. This is
(12:53):
a very uh. This is a time in society where
people are very uncertain and unsure, and it is your role,
well as a public figure, to rest or, to put
their anxieties at rest and say what you could do
for them and how you can write the ship, whether
it be unregulating the economy, bringing industry back. You can
do it in a conservative way. You don't have to
(13:13):
be like, oh, I'll give you everything for free. But
you have to be a leader in this time, not
tell them your whiners. And you know you're so you're
so lucky, you're so lucky. You're out of touch. When
you say other people who have anxiety, it's like telling
somebody with like stage one cancer, you're lucky you don't
have stage four. No, you can have a little sympathy.
(13:33):
You can have a little sympathy for them in that
moment and try to understand where they are coming from.
And then it all falls apart. Like as if this
hasn't been unbearably embarrassing, he says something that I could
not believe came out of his mouth.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
The truth of the matter is, you know, no matter
what happens in whichever direction goes, people my generation.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Have already made it. We're gonna be fine. It's gonna
be your generations.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
You're a political creet and you need a good enough.
By the way, the vek Ramaswami is forty one years old.
He is not a baby boomer. He's about to be
forty one. He is not a baby boomer. He's not
a silent generation. He is a millennial, the same generation
that got Mandan elected, that voted for Harris, most other
(14:33):
left wing politicians, with very few exceptions like Ron De
Santa's to say that his generation has made it like that,
we're all fine. I'm in that generation and I'm fighting
like I mean, I'm okay, but I'm fighting like I
know a lot of people who are not thriving and
wouldn't be okay if the country turners of socialism, like
(14:56):
they wouldn't be okay, like that, we didn't. We're not
all sitting on billion dollar business right now. We've made
a men's stride since the two thousand and eight recession.
But I don't understand why you would say that to
somebody there. I mean, and once again, it shows not
only your inability to understand the crowd you're speaking from it,
(15:19):
but your own generation. I mean, we're doing better than
we used to do millennials, but I know a lot
of millennials who are just getting by, just barely getting by,
and they have a lot of decades of work ahead
of them before they're okay. Saying that like your generation
at has made it at forty years old, is really
something wild to say. This was just an embarrassing, embarrassing
(15:43):
situation for everyone involved. And now, like to be fair,
once again, he did get some applause when he walked
up the stage. He did get actually a lot of
plus and I worked off the stage along with a
lot of booze. It really just goes to show, though,
how out of touch and that acuous the ideas being
offered by some politicians are too young people. And then
(16:04):
they question why we can't win young people like you
have to speak them where they were. But vec was
supposed to speak for thirty minutes. I think he spoke
for fourteen and once again the Young Americans for Liberty.
You know, it was an event for people all over
the country. It wasn't just Ohio specific, although a lot
of people from Ohio were there. I don't know why.
(16:25):
I don't know why he went to the event, and
I certainly don't know why there wasn't more control from
the team because what it looks like to the outsider
who doesn't know all those details by the event who
was there, is that he looked like he was booed
by Ohio Young Republicans, which is not not the truth.
There were Ohio Young Republicans there, but it wasn't an
Ohio Young Republican event. So it was worse because the
(16:49):
narrative was bad and the act and has already seized
on this, she's talking about it. The latest poll from
the New York Times has this race tied forty seven
to forty seven, and it's the same poll that has
Republican John Houston beating the Democrat Chared Brown and the group,
by the way, that is the most likely to vote
for the Republican John Euston for Senate and the Democrat
(17:11):
am the Act and for governor voters between the ages
of thirty to forty four. That's the split voter. And
that's the one you just told you're doing. Okay, you've
made it. Not great, not great, not great, not great,
not great. And by the way, and also it's embarrassing
by the behavior or some of the people there. You
(17:33):
just you don't do that. You don't do that. I'm sorry,
maybe I'm I can't. I'm from New York. I'm used
to rough people in rough crowds. But you don't do that.
And bevek take a note. Talk about tangible struggles that
people are going through. Young people are going through. Realize
that they're not all part of billion dollar medical businesses,
(17:53):
and they don't all have private planes, and a lot
of people, even in your generation, are struggling to make
it and you should talk to them about how to
make it better and be a leader, not someone who
wants to be famous. Okay, next time, I have some
data to go over about America's fertility rate and some
interesting cavea that like no one's gotten to but it's
(18:14):
so interesting. And then I want to her with some
election news about the South Carolina primary, But what's going
on in Texas that's coming up next. So the South Carolina
primary is heating up. Election days August eleventh. The race
comes down between Congressman Russell Frye, Congressman Ralph Norman, former
Governor Mark Samford, businessman Mark from Lynch, Lindsay Graham's sister
Darlene Graham, who's sitting in the seat now and she
(18:37):
has the Trump endorsement. A few other candidates who are
not really making the news. Glenda Gail Parker, Mark McBride,
Sam Shepard, and Duke Buckner are all the candidates on
the ballot. Now. This is a good opportunity, by the way,
for these congressmen who are running, because they don't have
to give up their seat to run for higher office
as they usually would, so they get to try and
get a statewide audience, statewide name recognition without giving up
(18:59):
their See, there's very little loss and a lot of
potential game. There's few polls on this race right now.
Emerson University had a poll there probably the most accurate
and accredited polling firm to look at right now. They
had a poll that Ralph Norman leads the group of
twenty two percent, followed by Darlene Graham nineteen percent. Russell
Fry is at twelve percent, Mark Sandford's at eleven, and
(19:21):
Mark Lynch is at seven, which is crazy because Mark
Lynch just got like thirty something percent in the primary
against Graham. Twenty five percent is undecided. In South Carolina
is a runoff state, so the top two will go
to another contest a few weeks later. I expect Darlene
Graham to make the runoff. She is Lindsay Graham's sister.
I think she's got Lindsay Graham's war chest. I believe so,
(19:42):
and she's got the backing of President Trump. I think
that will be enough to get her into the runoff.
I've spoken to people in South Carolina and people who
are familiar with the Graham operation. They say that she's
definitely not like leading a leading it. People don't think
she's running away with it. And because it's a special primary,
it's a big question of who's going to turn out.
My guess is turnout will be very, very low because
(20:05):
people already vote in the primary, so to get another
primary going is going to be a little difficult becuse
it'll be the only thing on the ballot too. There
was a general election poll by PPP. It's kind of
a liberal hack polling firm, but they just put out
a poll, so I want to tell you what is
in it. They found that Democrat Annie Andrews is in
the margin of error with every leading candidate. She has
about forty two percent, while most Republicans up between thirty
(20:27):
eight to forty percent. Here's my take on that. Do
I think the Democrats going to get forty two percent
of the vote, Yes, I do. Do I think the
Democrat's going to get the eight points and more to
win the general election? No, I do not. I think
that you're just talking to basically everybody who's going to
be a Democrat. The big question in the race is
any of these can any of these Republicans really have
(20:50):
enough money and enough energy in the primary to break
that extra ten to fifteen percent of undecided voters, or
maybe week supporters of one can or the other to
bring break out ahead of either Graham or Norman. That's
the big question. I expect to see a lot of
Republicans speaking in general platitudes, giving just generic conservative principles.
(21:10):
Maybe Mark Sanford will be different because he's a wild card.
He's been pretty critical of President Trump, so maybe he'll
see something different and interesting. But it's going me very
boiler point to see who can get energy behind them
the other Senate news. And I need to pat myself
on the back for a second because I told you
guys this at least a week ago. I've said this
to you that allegedly the Republican Senate Committee told President
(21:37):
Trump's team about Ken Paxton. He's your problem. Now you
fund him. We got a fund Maine and Michigan, all
the rest of the states. I told you guys this,
and I was ahead of the curve because Puck News
over the weekend broke the story that Trump's super pack,
Maga Inc. Which has half a billion dollars almost and
its coffers, is going to spend for Ken Paxton, and
(22:01):
the Republican Senate Committee has not committed any funds yet.
I said that this was going to happen because they
were completely invested in other racism and they wanted Trump
to take the take the rains and listen, there are
worse people to take the rains that MAGA Inc. Has
loads of money more than Talla Rico does. And that's
it's exciting. But it's very exciting because I keep you
(22:22):
guys ahead of the curve, and I'm really proud of that.
I really work hard to get the information from the
ground and repeat it to you guys and decipher what's
real and what's not real. Okay, to pivot away from campaigns.
On one final note, I want to talk about some
data that also broke on late Friday, which is about
new CDC numbers about fertility, because I think it tells
I've always said fertility tells a bigger picture of the
(22:45):
country and the world when you break down global fertility rates.
So they broke down. They came out with the preliminary
numbers for June, so we have the preliminary numbers for
half of twenty twenty six. The narrative from the mainstream
media is always like, oh, fertility is down. Fertility is
down because the economy is bad, you can't afford anything, YadA, YadA, YadA.
(23:06):
That It's the whole generic conversation you will hear over
and over and over again. I'm not saying the economy
doesn't protect affect fertility rates I'm not saying the economy
is superb right now, but I'm saying that something's going on.
So this data assembled by my buddy Smirkly on Twitter.
He's got a great account. He talks about this a
lot and breaks down all the numbers from January to
(23:27):
June twenty twenty sixth, the fertility rate and the number
of babies being born in America from American women American
born women is down by only zero point two percent.
That's basically flat. That's not a significant decline. And the
reason that it's declining at all is because Black American
(23:47):
women aren't having babies in I mean they are, but
they're not having them in numbers they used to have.
And I did a whole episode, by the way, on
black fertilliary ray and why it's declining at such substantially
high rates. You can go look at that. I'm not
going to go into why it's but it's happening. Black
fertility among Black American women is down five point five
percent this year compared to last but every other racial
(24:10):
and ethnic category in America, birth rates are up among
American born women. So white American born women it's about
point one percent it's like basically flat as a percentage rate,
but increased as a total. Latinos are up one point
two percent, Asians are up point five percent, multi racial
are up one point six percent, American Indians are up
(24:32):
one point seven percent, and Pacific Islanders are up seven percent.
But it is true, the narrative that birth rates are
falling is true, but it's not among American born women,
with the exception of black American women. It's all foreigners
because Trump is cracking down immigration. That's reflected in the
birth data. So I gave you guys the numbers for
(24:54):
American born women. This is the number for foreign born women.
Foreign Born white women, which in clues Middle easteners is
down four percent, foreign born Hispanics down eight point five percent,
foreign born black women down seven percent, foreign born Asians
down one point three percent, foreign born multi racial down
twenty two percent, and foreign born Pacific Islanders down four
(25:15):
point six percent. It's very telling that this entire crackdown
people are like, oh, is a mass deportations happening? Is
it happening? Clearly something is happening. It's not like people
are like, you know what, no sex for me anymore.
That's not happening like, that's not what's going on. The
(25:35):
women aren't there to have the kids in the numbers
they were in, and new ones aren't coming through illegal
immigration because Trump cracked down on the border and legal
immigration is down slightly, but the number of illegal aliens
that are self deporting is increasing. And if you look
at country by country, it is almost entirely reflective of
countries that have large illegal foreign born populations. So from
(25:59):
January two June, for half of the year twenty twenty six,
among the top forty populations of foreigners people from other countries,
Mexican American women down ten percent, Indian American women down
one percent, born women rather Mexican born women down ten percent,
Indian born women down one percent, Guatemalan born women down eleven,
(26:20):
Honduran down twelve, El Salvadorian down seven, Chinese down eight,
Venezuelans down five, Haitians down thirteen, Vietnase down seven, Nicaraguin's
down twelve. I mean, you can go one after Ethiopians
down eight, Nigerians down two, Peruvians down one. You can
go one by one and you could see the decline
(26:44):
impong populations with large illegal groups in this country. The
very few groups of foreign born women that saw increases
in berths in so far this year. Pakistanis are five
point five percent, South Korean's up point four, bangladesh Is
up to Yemenese up sixteen percent, British up point seven percent,
(27:06):
Kenyans up three, and Burmansee up three. Like, it's very
very few, and they're from populations that don't have a
lot of babies. Like there's been one thousand, four hundred
and thirty three babies of Burmanse descent born in the
entire country in twenty twenty six. That's not a lot.
I mean we have we have millions of babies born
every years, so not a lot. South Koreans three thousand,
(27:27):
three hundred. Of the biggest countries UH Mexico, India, Guatemala, Honduras,
alsalvad Or, Cuba, China, ven As, weel A, Haiti, Philippines,
Dominican Republic, Columbia, Brazil, all down, all down across the board.
Some are down more than others, like Mexicans are down
more than Indians, as Indians are largely legal immigrants and
Mexicans have a larger illegal population. They're not all illegal obviously,
(27:49):
but they have a larger illegal population. So what does
that say though about the economy and our culture that
American born women are are having more babies than they
did last year because we're not used to that narrative?
Is the economy better for some and working so well
(28:09):
for certain middle class people if they feel comfortable to
have kids. Is it that hyper religious women in like
Amish or Hasidic Jewish or you know, Latin Mass Catholic
communities SPX communities or something like that, or or fundamentalist
Mormons are having so many kids. That probably isn't the
case either, although it's probably part of it, but probably
not the whole thing. Like, what is it where American
(28:32):
more women feel comfortable enough to have kids in a
time when they feel very uncertain about the economy. There
is an underlying story. I don't know what it is.
I'm going to think about this because something is happening
in our culture and I can't put my finger on
it right now, But I will think long and hard
about this because there's a story there. Okay, next up,
(28:54):
Ask Me Anything. Stay tuned now it's time for they
Ask Me Anything segment. If you want to part of
the Ask Me anything segment ely Ryan at Numbers Gamepodcast
dot com. That's Ryan at numbers Plural Numbers gamepodcast dot com.
That's my favorite part of the show. Is your favorite
part of the show, so it's good to it. First
question comes from Travis, longtime listener and big fan of
It's a Numbers Game. Thank you, Travis writing in with
(29:15):
a question. The GOP governor primary in Minnesota between Speaker
Lisa Damouth and Mike Lindell has gotten very heated. Lindell
received Trump's endorsement and seeing boys for an easy win,
but then he dropped a controversial immigration plan this week.
Many say it seemed like amnesty. I'll talk about it
in a second. Lindell himself says he has very little
power to implement this as governor. I don't understand why
(29:35):
he damaged his own campaign with no clear political gain.
Do you have any insights? Okay, So the plan that
Mike Lindell put forward is basically it would be an
amnesty for illegal immigration with an increase in legal immigration.
At the same time, it made no sense. It was incomprehensible.
(29:55):
I don't understand why you would even put it fullward. Now,
Lindell is somebody who does shoot from the hip a lot,
so it's not super surprising he shot from the hip again.
But it really calls into question if he has any
conservative principles, because conservative wouldn't say that. Is it that
(30:16):
he's a conservative or is it just that he loves
Trump and believes the election was stolen. I talked to someone,
a consultant from Minnesota. He said, there's a lot of
moving parts Lindell can seriously win. There's a large consentus
that it's dumouth or bust. So every level is possible
being pulled to ensure she wins. Over Lindell and that
they've got they're doing multiple mantling campaigns to get her
(30:37):
over the finish line. There's Lindell doesn't even have Facebook
ads I think right now, and he was only up
eight points in the most recent poll with twenty percent undecided,
even with the President's endorsement, even with one hundred percent
name id and apparently all the Republicans are in line
to get her across the finish line. Does I mean
she go win? I don't know. I think Dell shot
(31:00):
himself in the foot though, for sure. And right now,
if you are a Republican in Minnesota who is not Damouth,
you should be dropping out to endorse the move because
here's the thing. The governor's race is not over, but
it's over, Like I mean, Amy Klobuchart is incredibly popular
in that state. She is most likely going to win.
(31:22):
Here is the difference Mike Lindell being on a ballad
for a statewide office versus Lisa Damouth is a question
of how many seats can you win or lose in
the state legislature. If Lindell wins, you're talking about a
landslide loss. And you're talking about a landslide loss to
the degree that you take the legislature down with you
(31:43):
and Democrats redistrict the state to a seven to one map,
and you don't want that. Like's the That's what's really
on the line. It's not just the Minnesota governor's race.
It's Congress as well. It's the House representatives. Losing three
more Republican seats would be terrible, especially as New York
tries to Jerry Mander, especially when Pennsylvania is on the line. Like,
(32:04):
I don't know, I don't think that, I don't think
that he I don't know. I call into question all
of his conservative principles because the statement was so insane
and you, as a conservative, would not support anything like that.
And maybe he's not a conservative, maybe he's somebody who
just loves Trump. Okay, next question comes from Trevor Travis
(32:24):
and Trevor it's like, you know this are my audience,
all right, Trevor, you used it as certain Fox News
hosts recently put out a tweet asking what is the
point of even voting Republican? I think you're talking about
Tommy Larren, I'm not sure claim that mass deportations aren't happening,
and so that Mark Wayne Mullen is giving us a
democracy Democrat policy at DHS. I've even heard a few
podcasters make similar claims, but this is the first time
I've ever heard someone on the conservative cable news say it.
(32:47):
I'm sorry, can these people not read? Deportations are at
record levels and are said to increase further as ICE
rms up its operations. Also, these people not forgotten when
actual Democrat policy and immigration looks like under Biden? What
more do these people want? Do they want the military
to go door to door asking papers please? If Trump
did that, you would get have Antifa getting shootouts with
the military, mass cast and hysteria. Public opinion would swing
(33:10):
wild against them. Don't get me wrong, I want all
the illegals gone yesterday too, but we have to do
it smart, and unfortunately that takes time. Part of me
wonders if these talk show hosts are trying to blackpil
everyone into not voting so the Democrats will win and
their ratings will go up. I am so sick of
these people, and the parties are the same. They think
this sounds edgy, m base. It actually makes them sound retarded. Okay,
(33:34):
there is no question there for me to answer, So
when writing a question would be good, I would say this,
I yes, I think you're right in the sense that
there is obviously deportations happening. And once again, it's very
difficult to get the number of self deportations accurate because
(33:54):
it's not always easily reported, and we're working on a
lot of census data. But there is clearly something happening.
And as I talked about in the birth data, something
is going on. It's if you choose to look at
any of the positive stories, is ice as aggressive as
I may like? Probably not? You know, I like probably
more deportations. But doing what Christy nom did in Minnesota
(34:18):
has caused massive backlash. So you have to be smart
about things. You can't just be cavalier. I think that's
thorough correct use of that word. You can't be so
brazen in your operations that you turn public support against you,
which did happen under Nomes. So I agree it takes time.
The legal system also makes it very, very difficult. But
(34:39):
hundreds of thousands of people have been deported I think
there will be hundreds of thousands more. Will it be
the full twenty million, probably not, but we're going to
get numbers increase. And self deportations is how you do it.
You basically, our data shows that you likely get one
self deportation for every one to two illegal as you
do port It's like, you know, that kind of aggressive
(35:02):
campaign tells others you have to, you know, to leave
the country, and that's that's what's important. Next question comes
from Joe. He says, I really enjoy your podcast. I
really enjoy you, Joe, specifically the way you ground your
commentary verifiable facts and words I can say, like verifiable
and reputable sources. Regarding the Azy four Democratic primary, the
DSA alian canonate Kai Newkirk lost into a more traditional
(35:26):
Democrat by about thirty points. Do you think this suggests
that the DSA cannets generally post little threat in blue
leaning suburb districts or was this more about the cannon himself.
He's a cuckoo for cocoa post as you say. I
always say that. I think my mom says that too.
I don't know. I definitely picked up from a family
member though, cuckoo for Coco pops as you say, and
also a fake gen Zer gen xer named Noah LARPing
(35:48):
as a millennial named Kai. Or do you think it's
just the combination of both factors. I looked up this race.
So he lost to Greg Stadden. Staddin out fundraised him
ten to one. He was a DSA member. I think
it really goes to Statin, who's been in trench in
the district for a number of terms at this point.
(36:09):
Also to help Statin is that other very progressive candidates
who've been endorsed by the DSA endorsed Statin. It was
in the situation with Mandani where you had no progressives
endorsing the more cent was such a super term centrist Democrat,
(36:29):
the other Democrat, the non DSA Democrat, so like AOC
was silent, but she wasn't endorsing. Other Democrats who were
very progressive were all endorsing one Canate. So it really
galvanized a swing against one Canet sat and had a
ton of money, a high name id Kai. I mean,
what you can vote a guy named Kai. I'm just
(36:51):
I'm just kidding. Anyone who's named kayasness this podcast, I
appreciate you. But he didn't land, he didn't have the money,
he didn't have the name Ida. He's not for the
states from West Virginia, and it sounds like I looked
at his biography, kind of moved to a lot of places,
probably didn't have deep connections to the district, couldn't raise
the money, as I said, and Stadden had other progressives
vouching for him. All of that made him, I think,
(37:13):
a viable candidate against Kai, whatever his name is. So
I think it was really more of the race than
it was the overall ken DSA members. When because DSM
members are even winning in red states, like they're winning
in Montana, Montana second district, other districts that are very
hard for Democrats to win. They're winning their top second
last question comes from Bobby. Thank you for your hard
work on your podcast. I appreciate you for noticing, Bobby.
(37:35):
Since Lindsay Grant's passing, it feels to me that there
he is being immortalized by the right. I continue to
hear that Graham supported this or Graham supported that as
a way cementing that particular point of view as unquestionably
the way things should go. Frankly, my opinion is that
he was talked. He talked a lot, but never accomplished anything.
What is your takes on this? He did accomplish things
like I can't say he didn't accomplish anything. That's not
(37:58):
going to be accurate. I can't think of any major
bills like John McCain accomplished, like a major veterans bill
with Bernie Sanders. I can't think of bills that he accomplished. However,
I think a lot of it is you don't talk
ill of the dead. I think it's just a respect thing.
I don't think this time next year anybody is going
(38:20):
to say, well, we should do this because Lindsay Graham
would have done this. It's not like Charlie Kirk that
has like a legacy that has lasted, you know, a
year since his passing, where since his assassination, where people say, well,
Charlie Kirk did this and this is like the path
to go down on this thing or that thing. I
don't think we're gonna see that with Lindsay Graham. I
think people are being respectful for the dead. And I
(38:42):
think Trump really cared and had an actual friendship with
Lindsay Graham, and so Trump is personally moved by him
to talk about but we just have a funeral, you know.
It's just I think a sign of respect. I don't
think that it's anything deep. I don't think we're gonna
it's not It's not Russell Kirk or like William F. Buckley,
where it will be a legacy Ronald and will be
a legacy that lasts for decades. I think that he
(39:03):
is just, you know, that's just what you do when
somebody dies. Okay, this is the last question. It comes
from Nick. When you have a moment, I'd be so
curious on your thoughts of Dame McCormick and John Fetterman
setting up a joint fundraising committee together. So it's called
the JFC A joint fundraising committee is when campaigns can
raise money in unison. So you write a check, a
thousand dollar check to the joint fundraising committee. The candidates
(39:25):
split a fifty fifty or you know, whatever number of
candidates are doing it. This seems odd to me, but
they form a bipartisan sort of working relationship. In Pennsylvania.
I'm from the Philly Burbs, and sometimes it's hard to explain,
but there's still a lot of people there that like
the moderate candidate imagery. I've heard the offices work well
together personally and professionally, I would hope. So, I mean,
that's how all offices should be, especially when it comes
(39:47):
to constituent services and solving like local problems getting passports,
for people getting social Security checks. They all should work together.
I mean, especially especially the district offices, the ones in
the community, because that's that is the life and blood
of a lot of people. You know, a lot of
people need their local congressman to solve an issue. And
an old lady doesn't get her social Security check, like
(40:09):
that's a that's like that's make or break for some people.
Or when a kid's applying to West Point or they
want to set up a tour for the White House
like offices should work together. I have actually been thinking
about this on my trip to Harrisburg. One of the
things I did was I spoke to a Democrat that
I know who's not a consultant, but he is a
very active participant in the Democratic Party and I and
(40:32):
he hates John Fetterman, as most Democrats do in Pennsylvania.
And what he said to me, which I don't know
if I believe, I have no proof of this, so
I'm going to say it to you, but take it
with a grain of salt. But there seems to be
something going on, but I can't put my finger on it.
(40:52):
He said to me. With Fetterman's poll numbers being horrifically bad,
if the Democrats got fit fifty fifty in the US Senate,
he would not be shocked if Fetterman left the party
to become an independent for more attention. I mean, he
put that little part and he goes poor attention. Something
(41:12):
is going on with Betterman, though there is. I had
never believe Vetterman would leave the Democratic Party. Ever, his
poll numbers are gruesome, which is insane because he votes
the Democrats more than votes with the Republicans more they
votes with Donald Trump speaks a different game, which just
shows how everything is about vibes and and the way
people act. But I don't know. I would not for
the first time ever, I would not be surprised if
(41:36):
Federman left the Democratic Party. I don't know if that's
going to happen. I can't put the prediction out there.
I don't have inside information, but it wouldn't shock me
because that JFC a joint FUNDRAI is gonna be with
a Republican and a Democrat. I've never heard of happening before.
And I know that everyone besides Chuck Schumer wants Fetterman
to go, and I know that Republicans would love to
take him. So not sure I will find out. I will.
(42:00):
I will continue to hunt and find out what I
can when I can, but I don't know yet. Something
is there is something foul in Denmark. I think I
quoted Shakespeare correctly. Anyway, that is the episode. Thank you
guys so much for listening. If you like this podcast,
please give me a five star review on Apple or
on Spotify. It really helps grow the podcast. Like and
subscribe on any platform, including the iHeartRadio app and like
(42:23):
me on follow me on YouTube. Everything helps us a
show grow. I do it every week for you guys,
or three times a week for you guys. I will
talk to you guys on Wednesday. Have a great day.
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Grodoski. Thank
you guys for being here. Happy Monday, everybody, Happy August.
We are in the tail end of the summer. I
got to open up by telling you guys a quick
story that's going to lead to something bigger. A couple
of years ago, I was a general consultant for a
first time candidate running for a swing seat in Long Island.
He ended up dropping out the congressional race and running
(00:22):
for a state legislative race and won it, and it
was the first time a Republican held it in twenty years.
I'm very proud of his overall trajectory. But while he
was running for Congress, I was trying to give him
as much advice, and I said, you know what, it
would help if you spoke to somebody and got a
little guidance from someone in Congress. So I set up
a coffee with him and representat Nicole mally Takis from
(00:44):
Staten Island. She is She's kind of like a little
she doesn't get a ton of media attention, but she
is like a silent killer. She's very very aggressive with campaigning,
very efficient. She works really hard. The Democrats want to
destroy her so bad trying to redistrict her seat. But
she's got a hard work ethic that I really respect. Well,
(01:05):
she was well he was running for Congress, and they
are having the coffee and during the meeting congres from
Malaytakas said something that I think was very wise for
all candidates, but especially for my candidate, and she said,
if you're not spending your days trying to raise money,
earn positive media attention, or speak to voters, you're wasting
your time like nothing else really matters. And it was
(01:25):
very wise because there's a lot of candidates who think
that they can win via trying to get clicks on
Twitter and Instagram, and that could be part of it,
but it's not the full thing, Like it's never the
full thing, and they just they try to be influencers
more than actual candidates are running real campaigns, and they're
not serious people. And my candidate wanted to be a
serious person and he was. It's why he won in
the end a seat somewhere. So I take that to heart.
(01:49):
And as a consultant, it's always your job to protect
your client. It's always your job to put your candidate
first and try to set them up for failure as
little as possible. I don't know what happened at the
end of last week, but the vek Ramaswami's campaign agreed
to attend WYL. What is WHYL. It is the Young
(02:10):
Americans for Liberty. It was an offshoot of the two
thousand and eight Roum Paul campaign, a campaign that I
volunteered on, my first campaign I volunteered on really and
like and it's not like a joke organization. It has
like ram Paul attends it, and Glenn Jacobs, the mayor
of Knox County, Tennessee, and the Congressman Eric Parle was
and like, it's a serious organization. They have serious people.
(02:31):
It's not obviously his biggest turning point ning like that,
but it's it's not it's not nothing right anyway. The
vek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for Ohio, shows up at
this event in Ohio. It was the event was held
in Ohio, although it was a national audience. It was
people from all over the country and he was booed
from the second he walked in the room. When he
(02:53):
was his name was announced before he even got on stage.
He was booed from the entire crowd. Now, for those
(03:22):
of you just listening and not watching, that's him walking
to the stage. That's him just walking to the stage.
He didn't say anything. His name appears on the screen.
If that was me, by the way, I would have
just went home. I would have been like, all right,
screw you guys, I'm not standing here if that's how
(03:42):
I'm going to be greeted. The crowd was very hostile,
incredibly rude, by the way, Like I will never boo somebody.
I mean, if they say something I really disagree that,
I might boom, but I'm never gonna boo them, even
if I dislike them for just walking on the stage.
You don't have to clap, but you, which honestly says
a lot to no one collaps. But I'm not going
(04:03):
to collap. But you don't have to. I don't know.
It's very rude. I thought it was overwhelming rude. Anyway.
The VEC starts speaking and addressing this crowd of young
libertarian minded people, some of whom are conservatives, some of
whom are libertarians, and he starts talking about the threats
of socialism. And this isn't a speech you would give
to a much older audience. Almost everyone in that crowd
(04:25):
is under thirty. They are worried about you know, AI
taking their jobs. They're worried about data centers. They're worried
about energy costs, job security, they're worried about, you know,
the economy and the war in Iran. It was a
very tone death speech for a young libertarian theme crowd, like,
I understand why you would say it, but that's not
(04:47):
whereas people's minds are to be fair to Avec, which
I try to be, even though he's not my favorite
candidate to be tried to be. He did get applause
for saying that free enterprise was the best system known
to man, which you would normally get into pulus for
among libertarians. And also to his credit, he told them
a piece of the truth, which is very rare in
(05:08):
politics nowadays. He said that people's problems in life are
there are their own choices. It's not because of conspiracies
by the Jews, white people, black people, et cetera. So
good for Vek, like that is true, and that is
a has audience who maybe didn't want to hear that,
but that is the truth, and he said it. I
would add a coveyat to that, like luck also plays
a lot in your role in life, like being lucky
(05:30):
is very helpful, but obviously it's not everything. Having a
good work ethic and doing things and showing up is
really really important. But kudos to Vivek for doing that
and saying that part of the truth. After that, though,
he comes up with this slogan, which is do you
want to whine or do you want to win? And
(05:51):
this is where he really just starts losing everybody.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
But the question for us right now, the fork in
the road is do you want to win or do
you want one?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
For me? A letter is winding up. We want to
ask do you want to win this? A million quarters?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
So you want to make I got secondhand embarrassment because
like people want to hear tangible answers, they want to
hear what they can do, what he can do to
make people's lives better.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
It's not always, it's just it's the wrong tone. I
can see what he was trying to do, but it's
the wrong tone. And then he just starts reciting the
Declaration of Independence and lines about American exceptionalism and things
that date back to Reagan, and they are just they're
not of the moment, Like people in the room don't
care about that, Like they care, but they don't care.
(06:47):
It's not hitting the same way. Read the room and
the VEC has this weird tick where people are heckling
him and saying that they want to talk about something
like discrimination or is immigration, and he goes, we can,
we can talk about it, and then he doesn't talk
about it. It's so it's a strange tick that he has.
I noticed listening to this speech. And also like, here's
(07:13):
my thing, this is he had been heckled a point
by like for five consecutive minutes. Almost as a as
a consultant, as someone working for the principle of the candidate. Beforehand,
you go to the organizers and say, hey, if one
or two people are being extremely rude and disruptive, and
I think that from what I could hear in the voices,
(07:34):
it was probably a handful people that were just disrupting
throughout the entire speech, not during one moment or the other,
but being rude consecutively. You remove those people and it
makes other people be less rude and I at least
hear the speech, like, at least get through the entire speech,
whether you agree with it or not, but you remove
the one or two people who are ruining for everybody
(07:54):
and making other people more likely to also be disruptive,
Like have a little respect, so you know what I mean,
Like I'll bit of respect. I don't know what the
advanced team was doing. That's what I would have organized
and done from the get go. Then he says this
insane line, like insane line about how America was just
an idea but now it's not. Today we are more
(08:16):
than an idea.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
But on July fourth, seventeen seventy six, that is all.
We were a vision of what this place can be,
ideals enshrined in a declaration of independence. And to us,
the question today, on that two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,
is do we believe those ideals still exist?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Or are we going to go the way of every
other Old World European nation, fighting ourselves to our tribal factions,
whining and selling ourselves soft stories, victim hooktales at every
step of the way.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
That's the question. Okay, this is like retarded historical revisionism
for people who spend way too much time listening to
Mark Levin in seventeen seventy six. We weren't in some
kind of like libertarian ideal place. We were in a
place that was just, you know, whimsical, like, oh, we're
just an idea.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
There was a very very common people, culture and language.
Our founders who signed the Declaration Dependence and the Constitution
were almost all Protestant. They were of mostly all English descent.
The country was almost all English, Dutch, German and black slaves.
Did you know? Did you know this is how not
(09:26):
libertarian we were at the time, and how much we
emphasized a certain unifying people and unifying principles. States like Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Delaware on the law, the law on the book said
that you had to be a practicing Christian. You had
to be a Christian to hold statewide in public office
(09:48):
like local office, like not for president, but for state office,
you had to be a Christian. That was only overturned
by the Supreme Court in nineteen sixty one. And the
Constitution itself talks about posterity and talks about like the
errors to clearly a British people. And even though our
found and and by our founders warned about changing the
(10:14):
makeup of the people. Benjamin Franklin warned about mass immigration
from Germany that it would germify America instead of US
anglifying them and assimilate. Like this is just delusional nonsense,
Like you, you do not have to be of America's
founding stock to understand America's founding stock, to understand the
(10:36):
unifying principles, like there is a certain enviness envying, I
guess to people who want to place themselves there even
though their heritage doesn't extend that far. We are a
very generous country. You do not have to be of
America's founding stock. However, don't whitewash it. Don't water it
(10:59):
down to be something that like, oh it could have
It's just an idea. It could have happened anywhere. No,
it only happened in America, a nation of mostly white
Protestant Christians at a given time who came from you know,
post Enlightenment in Europe. It didn't just happen in Somalia.
Like sorry, Like I have to just go off on
a tangent because this is one of the things that
(11:23):
conservatives do that makes my skin crawl. Don't water down
history and make it to be something and by the
liberals do it too. Don't water down history to make
it something that it wasn't. It wasn't that anyway. He also,
by the way, one other thing the Veck constantly talks
about like backwards thinking, and then references Europe now that
Europe doesn't have a lot of backwards thinking. Never mentions
(11:45):
the third World, never mentions India or Latin America or Africa.
It's always Europe. And that's a little a little strange.
It's a little strange that he always does that. Anyway,
he goes in this diatribe about how about like the
lives of the founding fathers and what they did? How
many letters Thomas Jefferson wrote in his life and what
John Adams did. I'm a venture in front of they did?
(12:06):
And I like it is not relevant to the You're
talking to twenty two year olds who are worried about
the economy and AI taking their jobs and their lively
like this is not relevant to the moment of like
read the room, the vac read the room. You are
not talking by yourself on a cable news channel. This
(12:29):
is not newsmax, Like what are you talking about? And
then he goes on to tell young people, many of
whom are probably looking for their first post college job
or their dream job or their career that they went
to school for. And he's like, you're lucky because you
live in the richest time in history. Yes, that's true,
but have a little sympathy for the fact that they
have anxiety about the economy and their futures. This is
(12:53):
a very uh. This is a time in society where
people are very uncertain and unsure, and it is your role,
well as a public figure, to rest or, to put
their anxieties at rest and say what you could do
for them and how you can write the ship, whether
it be unregulating the economy, bringing industry back. You can
do it in a conservative way. You don't have to
(13:13):
be like, oh, I'll give you everything for free. But
you have to be a leader in this time, not
tell them your whiners. And you know you're so you're
so lucky, you're so lucky. You're out of touch. When
you say other people who have anxiety, it's like telling
somebody with like stage one cancer, you're lucky you don't
have stage four. No, you can have a little sympathy.
(13:33):
You can have a little sympathy for them in that
moment and try to understand where they are coming from.
And then it all falls apart. Like as if this
hasn't been unbearably embarrassing, he says something that I could
not believe came out of his mouth.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
The truth of the matter is, you know, no matter
what happens in whichever direction goes, people my generation.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Have already made it. We're gonna be fine. It's gonna
be your generations.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
You're a political creet and you need a good enough.
By the way, the vek Ramaswami is forty one years old.
He is not a baby boomer. He's about to be
forty one. He is not a baby boomer. He's not
a silent generation. He is a millennial, the same generation
that got Mandan elected, that voted for Harris, most other
(14:33):
left wing politicians, with very few exceptions like Ron De
Santa's to say that his generation has made it like that,
we're all fine. I'm in that generation and I'm fighting
like I mean, I'm okay, but I'm fighting like I
know a lot of people who are not thriving and
wouldn't be okay if the country turners of socialism, like
(14:56):
they wouldn't be okay, like that, we didn't. We're not
all sitting on billion dollar business right now. We've made
a men's stride since the two thousand and eight recession.
But I don't understand why you would say that to
somebody there. I mean, and once again, it shows not
only your inability to understand the crowd you're speaking from it,
(15:19):
but your own generation. I mean, we're doing better than
we used to do millennials, but I know a lot
of millennials who are just getting by, just barely getting by,
and they have a lot of decades of work ahead
of them before they're okay. Saying that like your generation
at has made it at forty years old, is really
something wild to say. This was just an embarrassing, embarrassing
(15:43):
situation for everyone involved. And now, like to be fair,
once again, he did get some applause when he walked
up the stage. He did get actually a lot of
plus and I worked off the stage along with a
lot of booze. It really just goes to show, though,
how out of touch and that acuous the ideas being
offered by some politicians are too young people. And then
(16:04):
they question why we can't win young people like you
have to speak them where they were. But vec was
supposed to speak for thirty minutes. I think he spoke
for fourteen and once again the Young Americans for Liberty.
You know, it was an event for people all over
the country. It wasn't just Ohio specific, although a lot
of people from Ohio were there. I don't know why.
(16:25):
I don't know why he went to the event, and
I certainly don't know why there wasn't more control from
the team because what it looks like to the outsider
who doesn't know all those details by the event who
was there, is that he looked like he was booed
by Ohio Young Republicans, which is not not the truth.
There were Ohio Young Republicans there, but it wasn't an
Ohio Young Republican event. So it was worse because the
(16:49):
narrative was bad and the act and has already seized
on this, she's talking about it. The latest poll from
the New York Times has this race tied forty seven
to forty seven, and it's the same poll that has
Republican John Houston beating the Democrat Chared Brown and the group,
by the way, that is the most likely to vote
for the Republican John Euston for Senate and the Democrat
(17:11):
am the Act and for governor voters between the ages
of thirty to forty four. That's the split voter. And
that's the one you just told you're doing. Okay, you've
made it. Not great, not great, not great, not great,
not great. And by the way, and also it's embarrassing
by the behavior or some of the people there. You
(17:33):
just you don't do that. You don't do that. I'm sorry,
maybe I'm I can't. I'm from New York. I'm used
to rough people in rough crowds. But you don't do that.
And bevek take a note. Talk about tangible struggles that
people are going through. Young people are going through. Realize
that they're not all part of billion dollar medical businesses,
(17:53):
and they don't all have private planes, and a lot
of people, even in your generation, are struggling to make
it and you should talk to them about how to
make it better and be a leader, not someone who
wants to be famous. Okay, next time, I have some
data to go over about America's fertility rate and some
interesting cavea that like no one's gotten to but it's
(18:14):
so interesting. And then I want to her with some
election news about the South Carolina primary, But what's going
on in Texas that's coming up next. So the South Carolina
primary is heating up. Election days August eleventh. The race
comes down between Congressman Russell Frye, Congressman Ralph Norman, former
Governor Mark Samford, businessman Mark from Lynch, Lindsay Graham's sister
Darlene Graham, who's sitting in the seat now and she
(18:37):
has the Trump endorsement. A few other candidates who are
not really making the news. Glenda Gail Parker, Mark McBride,
Sam Shepard, and Duke Buckner are all the candidates on
the ballot. Now. This is a good opportunity, by the way,
for these congressmen who are running, because they don't have
to give up their seat to run for higher office
as they usually would, so they get to try and
get a statewide audience, statewide name recognition without giving up
(18:59):
their See, there's very little loss and a lot of
potential game. There's few polls on this race right now.
Emerson University had a poll there probably the most accurate
and accredited polling firm to look at right now. They
had a poll that Ralph Norman leads the group of
twenty two percent, followed by Darlene Graham nineteen percent. Russell
Fry is at twelve percent, Mark Sandford's at eleven, and
(19:21):
Mark Lynch is at seven, which is crazy because Mark
Lynch just got like thirty something percent in the primary
against Graham. Twenty five percent is undecided. In South Carolina
is a runoff state, so the top two will go
to another contest a few weeks later. I expect Darlene
Graham to make the runoff. She is Lindsay Graham's sister.
I think she's got Lindsay Graham's war chest. I believe so,
(19:42):
and she's got the backing of President Trump. I think
that will be enough to get her into the runoff.
I've spoken to people in South Carolina and people who
are familiar with the Graham operation. They say that she's
definitely not like leading a leading it. People don't think
she's running away with it. And because it's a special primary,
it's a big question of who's going to turn out.
My guess is turnout will be very, very low because
(20:05):
people already vote in the primary, so to get another
primary going is going to be a little difficult becuse
it'll be the only thing on the ballot too. There
was a general election poll by PPP. It's kind of
a liberal hack polling firm, but they just put out
a poll, so I want to tell you what is
in it. They found that Democrat Annie Andrews is in
the margin of error with every leading candidate. She has
about forty two percent, while most Republicans up between thirty
(20:27):
eight to forty percent. Here's my take on that. Do
I think the Democrats going to get forty two percent
of the vote, Yes, I do. Do I think the
Democrat's going to get the eight points and more to
win the general election? No, I do not. I think
that you're just talking to basically everybody who's going to
be a Democrat. The big question in the race is
any of these can any of these Republicans really have
(20:50):
enough money and enough energy in the primary to break
that extra ten to fifteen percent of undecided voters, or
maybe week supporters of one can or the other to
bring break out ahead of either Graham or Norman. That's
the big question. I expect to see a lot of
Republicans speaking in general platitudes, giving just generic conservative principles.
(21:10):
Maybe Mark Sanford will be different because he's a wild card.
He's been pretty critical of President Trump, so maybe he'll
see something different and interesting. But it's going me very
boiler point to see who can get energy behind them
the other Senate news. And I need to pat myself
on the back for a second because I told you
guys this at least a week ago. I've said this
to you that allegedly the Republican Senate Committee told President
(21:37):
Trump's team about Ken Paxton. He's your problem. Now you
fund him. We got a fund Maine and Michigan, all
the rest of the states. I told you guys this,
and I was ahead of the curve because Puck News
over the weekend broke the story that Trump's super pack,
Maga Inc. Which has half a billion dollars almost and
its coffers, is going to spend for Ken Paxton, and
(22:01):
the Republican Senate Committee has not committed any funds yet.
I said that this was going to happen because they
were completely invested in other racism and they wanted Trump
to take the take the rains and listen, there are
worse people to take the rains that MAGA Inc. Has
loads of money more than Talla Rico does. And that's
it's exciting. But it's very exciting because I keep you
(22:22):
guys ahead of the curve, and I'm really proud of that.
I really work hard to get the information from the
ground and repeat it to you guys and decipher what's
real and what's not real. Okay, to pivot away from campaigns.
On one final note, I want to talk about some
data that also broke on late Friday, which is about
new CDC numbers about fertility, because I think it tells
I've always said fertility tells a bigger picture of the
(22:45):
country and the world when you break down global fertility rates.
So they broke down. They came out with the preliminary
numbers for June, so we have the preliminary numbers for
half of twenty twenty six. The narrative from the mainstream
media is always like, oh, fertility is down. Fertility is
down because the economy is bad, you can't afford anything, YadA, YadA, YadA.
(23:06):
That It's the whole generic conversation you will hear over
and over and over again. I'm not saying the economy
doesn't protect affect fertility rates I'm not saying the economy
is superb right now, but I'm saying that something's going on.
So this data assembled by my buddy Smirkly on Twitter.
He's got a great account. He talks about this a
lot and breaks down all the numbers from January to
(23:27):
June twenty twenty sixth, the fertility rate and the number
of babies being born in America from American women American
born women is down by only zero point two percent.
That's basically flat. That's not a significant decline. And the
reason that it's declining at all is because Black American
(23:47):
women aren't having babies in I mean they are, but
they're not having them in numbers they used to have.
And I did a whole episode, by the way, on
black fertilliary ray and why it's declining at such substantially
high rates. You can go look at that. I'm not
going to go into why it's but it's happening. Black
fertility among Black American women is down five point five
percent this year compared to last but every other racial
(24:10):
and ethnic category in America, birth rates are up among
American born women. So white American born women it's about
point one percent it's like basically flat as a percentage rate,
but increased as a total. Latinos are up one point
two percent, Asians are up point five percent, multi racial
are up one point six percent, American Indians are up
(24:32):
one point seven percent, and Pacific Islanders are up seven percent.
But it is true, the narrative that birth rates are
falling is true, but it's not among American born women,
with the exception of black American women. It's all foreigners
because Trump is cracking down immigration. That's reflected in the
birth data. So I gave you guys the numbers for
(24:54):
American born women. This is the number for foreign born women.
Foreign Born white women, which in clues Middle easteners is
down four percent, foreign born Hispanics down eight point five percent,
foreign born black women down seven percent, foreign born Asians
down one point three percent, foreign born multi racial down
twenty two percent, and foreign born Pacific Islanders down four
(25:15):
point six percent. It's very telling that this entire crackdown
people are like, oh, is a mass deportations happening? Is
it happening? Clearly something is happening. It's not like people
are like, you know what, no sex for me anymore.
That's not happening like, that's not what's going on. The
(25:35):
women aren't there to have the kids in the numbers
they were in, and new ones aren't coming through illegal
immigration because Trump cracked down on the border and legal
immigration is down slightly, but the number of illegal aliens
that are self deporting is increasing. And if you look
at country by country, it is almost entirely reflective of
countries that have large illegal foreign born populations. So from
(25:59):
January two June, for half of the year twenty twenty six,
among the top forty populations of foreigners people from other countries,
Mexican American women down ten percent, Indian American women down
one percent, born women rather Mexican born women down ten percent,
Indian born women down one percent, Guatemalan born women down eleven,
(26:20):
Honduran down twelve, El Salvadorian down seven, Chinese down eight,
Venezuelans down five, Haitians down thirteen, Vietnase down seven, Nicaraguin's
down twelve. I mean, you can go one after Ethiopians
down eight, Nigerians down two, Peruvians down one. You can
go one by one and you could see the decline
(26:44):
impong populations with large illegal groups in this country. The
very few groups of foreign born women that saw increases
in berths in so far this year. Pakistanis are five
point five percent, South Korean's up point four, bangladesh Is
up to Yemenese up sixteen percent, British up point seven percent,
(27:06):
Kenyans up three, and Burmansee up three. Like, it's very
very few, and they're from populations that don't have a
lot of babies. Like there's been one thousand, four hundred
and thirty three babies of Burmanse descent born in the
entire country in twenty twenty six. That's not a lot.
I mean we have we have millions of babies born
every years, so not a lot. South Koreans three thousand,
(27:27):
three hundred. Of the biggest countries UH Mexico, India, Guatemala, Honduras,
alsalvad Or, Cuba, China, ven As, weel A, Haiti, Philippines,
Dominican Republic, Columbia, Brazil, all down, all down across the board.
Some are down more than others, like Mexicans are down
more than Indians, as Indians are largely legal immigrants and
Mexicans have a larger illegal population. They're not all illegal obviously,
(27:49):
but they have a larger illegal population. So what does
that say though about the economy and our culture that
American born women are are having more babies than they
did last year because we're not used to that narrative?
Is the economy better for some and working so well
(28:09):
for certain middle class people if they feel comfortable to
have kids. Is it that hyper religious women in like
Amish or Hasidic Jewish or you know, Latin Mass Catholic
communities SPX communities or something like that, or or fundamentalist
Mormons are having so many kids. That probably isn't the
case either, although it's probably part of it, but probably
not the whole thing. Like, what is it where American
(28:32):
more women feel comfortable enough to have kids in a
time when they feel very uncertain about the economy. There
is an underlying story. I don't know what it is.
I'm going to think about this because something is happening
in our culture and I can't put my finger on
it right now, But I will think long and hard
about this because there's a story there. Okay, next up,
(28:54):
Ask Me Anything. Stay tuned now it's time for they
Ask Me Anything segment. If you want to part of
the Ask Me anything segment ely Ryan at Numbers Gamepodcast
dot com. That's Ryan at numbers Plural Numbers gamepodcast dot com.
That's my favorite part of the show. Is your favorite
part of the show, so it's good to it. First
question comes from Travis, longtime listener and big fan of
It's a Numbers Game. Thank you, Travis writing in with
(29:15):
a question. The GOP governor primary in Minnesota between Speaker
Lisa Damouth and Mike Lindell has gotten very heated. Lindell
received Trump's endorsement and seeing boys for an easy win,
but then he dropped a controversial immigration plan this week.
Many say it seemed like amnesty. I'll talk about it
in a second. Lindell himself says he has very little
power to implement this as governor. I don't understand why
(29:35):
he damaged his own campaign with no clear political gain.
Do you have any insights? Okay, So the plan that
Mike Lindell put forward is basically it would be an
amnesty for illegal immigration with an increase in legal immigration.
At the same time, it made no sense. It was incomprehensible.
(29:55):
I don't understand why you would even put it fullward. Now,
Lindell is somebody who does shoot from the hip a lot,
so it's not super surprising he shot from the hip again.
But it really calls into question if he has any
conservative principles, because conservative wouldn't say that. Is it that
(30:16):
he's a conservative or is it just that he loves
Trump and believes the election was stolen. I talked to someone,
a consultant from Minnesota. He said, there's a lot of
moving parts Lindell can seriously win. There's a large consentus
that it's dumouth or bust. So every level is possible
being pulled to ensure she wins. Over Lindell and that
they've got they're doing multiple mantling campaigns to get her
(30:37):
over the finish line. There's Lindell doesn't even have Facebook
ads I think right now, and he was only up
eight points in the most recent poll with twenty percent undecided,
even with the President's endorsement, even with one hundred percent
name id and apparently all the Republicans are in line
to get her across the finish line. Does I mean
she go win? I don't know. I think Dell shot
(31:00):
himself in the foot though, for sure. And right now,
if you are a Republican in Minnesota who is not Damouth,
you should be dropping out to endorse the move because
here's the thing. The governor's race is not over, but
it's over, Like I mean, Amy Klobuchart is incredibly popular
in that state. She is most likely going to win.
(31:22):
Here is the difference Mike Lindell being on a ballad
for a statewide office versus Lisa Damouth is a question
of how many seats can you win or lose in
the state legislature. If Lindell wins, you're talking about a
landslide loss. And you're talking about a landslide loss to
the degree that you take the legislature down with you
(31:43):
and Democrats redistrict the state to a seven to one map,
and you don't want that. Like's the That's what's really
on the line. It's not just the Minnesota governor's race.
It's Congress as well. It's the House representatives. Losing three
more Republican seats would be terrible, especially as New York
tries to Jerry Mander, especially when Pennsylvania is on the line. Like,
(32:04):
I don't know, I don't think that, I don't think
that he I don't know. I call into question all
of his conservative principles because the statement was so insane
and you, as a conservative, would not support anything like that.
And maybe he's not a conservative, maybe he's somebody who
just loves Trump. Okay, next question comes from Trevor Travis
(32:24):
and Trevor it's like, you know this are my audience,
all right, Trevor, you used it as certain Fox News
hosts recently put out a tweet asking what is the
point of even voting Republican? I think you're talking about
Tommy Larren, I'm not sure claim that mass deportations aren't happening,
and so that Mark Wayne Mullen is giving us a
democracy Democrat policy at DHS. I've even heard a few
podcasters make similar claims, but this is the first time
I've ever heard someone on the conservative cable news say it.
(32:47):
I'm sorry, can these people not read? Deportations are at
record levels and are said to increase further as ICE
rms up its operations. Also, these people not forgotten when
actual Democrat policy and immigration looks like under Biden? What
more do these people want? Do they want the military
to go door to door asking papers please? If Trump
did that, you would get have Antifa getting shootouts with
the military, mass cast and hysteria. Public opinion would swing
(33:10):
wild against them. Don't get me wrong, I want all
the illegals gone yesterday too, but we have to do
it smart, and unfortunately that takes time. Part of me
wonders if these talk show hosts are trying to blackpil
everyone into not voting so the Democrats will win and
their ratings will go up. I am so sick of
these people, and the parties are the same. They think
this sounds edgy, m base. It actually makes them sound retarded. Okay,
(33:34):
there is no question there for me to answer, So
when writing a question would be good, I would say this,
I yes, I think you're right in the sense that
there is obviously deportations happening. And once again, it's very
difficult to get the number of self deportations accurate because
(33:54):
it's not always easily reported, and we're working on a
lot of census data. But there is clearly something happening.
And as I talked about in the birth data, something
is going on. It's if you choose to look at
any of the positive stories, is ice as aggressive as
I may like? Probably not? You know, I like probably
more deportations. But doing what Christy nom did in Minnesota
(34:18):
has caused massive backlash. So you have to be smart
about things. You can't just be cavalier. I think that's
thorough correct use of that word. You can't be so
brazen in your operations that you turn public support against you,
which did happen under Nomes. So I agree it takes time.
The legal system also makes it very, very difficult. But
(34:39):
hundreds of thousands of people have been deported I think
there will be hundreds of thousands more. Will it be
the full twenty million, probably not, but we're going to
get numbers increase. And self deportations is how you do it.
You basically, our data shows that you likely get one
self deportation for every one to two illegal as you
do port It's like, you know, that kind of aggressive
(35:02):
campaign tells others you have to, you know, to leave
the country, and that's that's what's important. Next question comes
from Joe. He says, I really enjoy your podcast. I
really enjoy you, Joe, specifically the way you ground your
commentary verifiable facts and words I can say, like verifiable
and reputable sources. Regarding the Azy four Democratic primary, the
DSA alian canonate Kai Newkirk lost into a more traditional
(35:26):
Democrat by about thirty points. Do you think this suggests
that the DSA cannets generally post little threat in blue
leaning suburb districts or was this more about the cannon himself.
He's a cuckoo for cocoa post as you say. I
always say that. I think my mom says that too.
I don't know. I definitely picked up from a family
member though, cuckoo for Coco pops as you say, and
also a fake gen Zer gen xer named Noah LARPing
(35:48):
as a millennial named Kai. Or do you think it's
just the combination of both factors. I looked up this race.
So he lost to Greg Stadden. Staddin out fundraised him
ten to one. He was a DSA member. I think
it really goes to Statin, who's been in trench in
the district for a number of terms at this point.
(36:09):
Also to help Statin is that other very progressive candidates
who've been endorsed by the DSA endorsed Statin. It was
in the situation with Mandani where you had no progressives
endorsing the more cent was such a super term centrist Democrat,
(36:29):
the other Democrat, the non DSA Democrat, so like AOC
was silent, but she wasn't endorsing. Other Democrats who were
very progressive were all endorsing one Canate. So it really
galvanized a swing against one Canet sat and had a
ton of money, a high name id Kai. I mean,
what you can vote a guy named Kai. I'm just
(36:51):
I'm just kidding. Anyone who's named kayasness this podcast, I
appreciate you. But he didn't land, he didn't have the money,
he didn't have the name Ida. He's not for the
states from West Virginia, and it sounds like I looked
at his biography, kind of moved to a lot of places,
probably didn't have deep connections to the district, couldn't raise
the money, as I said, and Stadden had other progressives
vouching for him. All of that made him, I think,
(37:13):
a viable candidate against Kai, whatever his name is. So
I think it was really more of the race than
it was the overall ken DSA members. When because DSM
members are even winning in red states, like they're winning
in Montana, Montana second district, other districts that are very
hard for Democrats to win. They're winning their top second
last question comes from Bobby. Thank you for your hard
work on your podcast. I appreciate you for noticing, Bobby.
(37:35):
Since Lindsay Grant's passing, it feels to me that there
he is being immortalized by the right. I continue to
hear that Graham supported this or Graham supported that as
a way cementing that particular point of view as unquestionably
the way things should go. Frankly, my opinion is that
he was talked. He talked a lot, but never accomplished anything.
What is your takes on this? He did accomplish things
like I can't say he didn't accomplish anything. That's not
(37:58):
going to be accurate. I can't think of any major
bills like John McCain accomplished, like a major veterans bill
with Bernie Sanders. I can't think of bills that he accomplished. However,
I think a lot of it is you don't talk
ill of the dead. I think it's just a respect thing.
I don't think this time next year anybody is going
(38:20):
to say, well, we should do this because Lindsay Graham
would have done this. It's not like Charlie Kirk that
has like a legacy that has lasted, you know, a
year since his passing, where since his assassination, where people say, well,
Charlie Kirk did this and this is like the path
to go down on this thing or that thing. I
don't think we're gonna see that with Lindsay Graham. I
think people are being respectful for the dead. And I
(38:42):
think Trump really cared and had an actual friendship with
Lindsay Graham, and so Trump is personally moved by him
to talk about but we just have a funeral, you know.
It's just I think a sign of respect. I don't
think that it's anything deep. I don't think we're gonna
it's not It's not Russell Kirk or like William F. Buckley,
where it will be a legacy Ronald and will be
a legacy that lasts for decades. I think that he
(39:03):
is just, you know, that's just what you do when
somebody dies. Okay, this is the last question. It comes
from Nick. When you have a moment, I'd be so
curious on your thoughts of Dame McCormick and John Fetterman
setting up a joint fundraising committee together. So it's called
the JFC A joint fundraising committee is when campaigns can
raise money in unison. So you write a check, a
thousand dollar check to the joint fundraising committee. The candidates
(39:25):
split a fifty fifty or you know, whatever number of
candidates are doing it. This seems odd to me, but
they form a bipartisan sort of working relationship. In Pennsylvania.
I'm from the Philly Burbs, and sometimes it's hard to explain,
but there's still a lot of people there that like
the moderate candidate imagery. I've heard the offices work well
together personally and professionally, I would hope. So, I mean,
that's how all offices should be, especially when it comes
(39:47):
to constituent services and solving like local problems getting passports,
for people getting social Security checks. They all should work together.
I mean, especially especially the district offices, the ones in
the community, because that's that is the life and blood
of a lot of people. You know, a lot of
people need their local congressman to solve an issue. And
an old lady doesn't get her social Security check, like
(40:09):
that's a that's like that's make or break for some people.
Or when a kid's applying to West Point or they
want to set up a tour for the White House
like offices should work together. I have actually been thinking
about this on my trip to Harrisburg. One of the
things I did was I spoke to a Democrat that
I know who's not a consultant, but he is a
very active participant in the Democratic Party and I and
(40:32):
he hates John Fetterman, as most Democrats do in Pennsylvania.
And what he said to me, which I don't know
if I believe, I have no proof of this, so
I'm going to say it to you, but take it
with a grain of salt. But there seems to be
something going on, but I can't put my finger on it.
(40:52):
He said to me. With Fetterman's poll numbers being horrifically bad,
if the Democrats got fit fifty fifty in the US Senate,
he would not be shocked if Fetterman left the party
to become an independent for more attention. I mean, he
put that little part and he goes poor attention. Something
(41:12):
is going on with Betterman, though there is. I had
never believe Vetterman would leave the Democratic Party. Ever, his
poll numbers are gruesome, which is insane because he votes
the Democrats more than votes with the Republicans more they
votes with Donald Trump speaks a different game, which just
shows how everything is about vibes and and the way
people act. But I don't know. I would not for
the first time ever, I would not be surprised if
(41:36):
Federman left the Democratic Party. I don't know if that's
going to happen. I can't put the prediction out there.
I don't have inside information, but it wouldn't shock me
because that JFC a joint FUNDRAI is gonna be with
a Republican and a Democrat. I've never heard of happening before.
And I know that everyone besides Chuck Schumer wants Fetterman
to go, and I know that Republicans would love to
take him. So not sure I will find out. I will.
(42:00):
I will continue to hunt and find out what I
can when I can, but I don't know yet. Something
is there is something foul in Denmark. I think I
quoted Shakespeare correctly. Anyway, that is the episode. Thank you
guys so much for listening. If you like this podcast,
please give me a five star review on Apple or
on Spotify. It really helps grow the podcast. Like and
subscribe on any platform, including the iHeartRadio app and like
(42:23):
me on follow me on YouTube. Everything helps us a
show grow. I do it every week for you guys,
or three times a week for you guys. I will
talk to you guys on Wednesday. Have a great day.
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Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com