November 13, 2025 • 32 mins
In this episode, Ryan takes a deep dive into America’s political and economic landscape. He begins with a heartfelt tribute to veterans before unpacking the latest economic developments and addressing listener questions in his “Ask Me Anything” segment. Ryan explores the shifting dynamics of the Jewish vote, the consequences of welfare policies, and the ripple effects of government shutdowns. He also examines election law changes, redistricting battles, and rising voter engagement ahead of 2026. It's a Numbers Game is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome back to a numbers game with Brian Grudeski. Thank
you all for being here again. I forgot to mention
this on Monday show, but I want to thank all
the veterans. It was Veterans Day on Tuesday. It's a
problem of mine where I just don't look at like
three days ahead and to see there's a big holiday.
So I missed saying it the day before. But Happy
Veterans Data. All the veterans out there, thank you for
your service for joining our armed forces and keeping our
(00:27):
nation free. I appreciate everything you have done and do
so anyway, I hope you guys had a great day.
I want to briefly talk about some economic news before
doing a full ask Me Anything segment. So Goldman sachs
Is estimated that the economy loss around fifty thousand jobs
in October. Now that's not the official government data. Because
(00:48):
of the government shutdown, there was a delay getting out
the official data, so we don't know the official data yet,
but this is just an estimate. I'm going to do
an episode next week dedicated to the economy, and I
am going to have another whole episode on it AI
regulation on the government, which would be really really good.
I think of lining up with a very impressive guest
for that show, so that'll be next week. And I
got to get more on immigration because there's so much
(01:09):
immigration news. But I looked at my emails and I
was backed up on asking me any things, and I
was like, some of these questions are so dated. I
have to just do a whole episode and kind of
empty the inbox because I really appreciate you guys. I
appreciate you joining me asked Me Anything segment. By the way,
before the end of the year, I'm going to bring
on one of my old campaign buddies to discuss anything
about running for office or you know, campaigns or like
(01:30):
the meat and potatoes a campaign is not just like
the overall idea of politics or a big meta issue,
but just like what it's like to work on a campaign,
how to run for office, all those real meat and
potato questions. I think you guys really enjoyed that episode
I did like early early in the year and when
my first episode. So I'm going to do it again.
I hope you guys will be part of it and
do a whole ask Me anything just about campaigns and
(01:52):
working in politics and what that whole thing is like.
So email me Ryan at Numbers Game podcast dot com.
Ryan at numbers Plural Game podcast dot com. Put in
the headline campaign episode. I'll be sure to answer all
those questions and then once again ask me anything because
we do. We love this part of the show. It
really makes the whole entire podcast. You know about anything
(02:12):
about you know, I feel like a dialogue. I'm not
just talking to a computer. So okay, here goes, ask
me anything for the day. So first question comes from
e cardialist. He says, my family took a trip to
Washingt d C. About ten years ago. All of my
travel research and tourist books made a point to not
having a floor plan of the White House and stated
that the location of the Oval Office has not been
(02:34):
released to the public. I actually did not know that.
With the most with the recent ballroom outrage, I've seen
a number of images that show the exact location, shape,
and size of the Oval Office. Until this week, I
didn't know that it was in the White House. Rather,
it is in the West Wing. It wasn't in the
White House. It's in the West Wing. When did the
location of the Oval Office become something people didn't try
(02:55):
to protect I actually had never heard of that before,
because I I feel like there's models of the White
House that you could buy, and the West Wing is there,
and the Oval Office is there. I didn't I didn't
know that that was not supposed to be public. I
feel like it was. There was a movie called Civil
War that was released a couple of years ago. It
(03:16):
was there was a war, obviously a civil war, a
new civil war, and they were invading the White House
and they went through like door to door Florida, Florida
to get to the west to the gets to the Oval.
And I was watching my buddy John mcintee, and John
was Trump's body man and then the head of PPO
during the first term of the administration. And one thing
John said to me, I was like, Wow, they really
(03:36):
got this very accurate, Like this is extremely accurate the
layout of the White House. So I feel like it was.
I feel like it was there, Like I feel like
people could have gotten a hold of it. I don't know,
maybe this was the one tour guy, or maybe this
is the one book that says that the old Office
is not located, but I feel like it probably was.
And about the outrage in general. Look, Dan Turntine said
(03:58):
this on this podcast. Democrats fundamentally believe that we are
in a fever dream that Trump will just go away
if there's enough controversy, if there's enough protests, if there's
enough no King's rally that you know it's Russia or
Epstein know the ballroom or anything like Liberals Finnament's believe
were just one more controversy away from wake up the
(04:21):
eyes of millions of people that this whole thing was
misguided and that will return to normalcy as they see it.
And if only they were focused on policies that make
them popular, they would be much further along to being
effective against him. Okay, next question, Hey, Ryan, Although I
have a boy's name, I am actually a girl. What
(04:41):
a way to start off a question. I am from
the South and my parents give me my grandmother's made
a name. Pause. So I have a Candida running for
office in the South and he has his grandmother's made
a name. And apparently I did not know this, but
this is I learned this this year that that is
a very common tradition in the South. I have to
say I really like it. I really like the idea
of honoring your maternal sides family by giving the first
(05:05):
name of the child to their last name. So the
Candon's name is Morgan Murphy, and Morgan was his grandmother's
last name. Yes, his grandmother's last name, So that is
I think it's very very cool. It's a very cool
Southern tradition I just learned about. The question continues, why
do you think Democrats are holding out on the shutdown?
It is because the past the Republicans have given into
their temper tantrum. Can you please give us the numbers
(05:27):
you're so talented at doing on past shutdowns and how
they play out, whether Conservatives have given in play cared
the Democrats. Secondly, I know you want to Buck and
Clay to discuss the Jewish vote. How has it changed
or not changed his October seventh, and how does it
stand now now? And why could you do a longer
segment on that? Please? Rock Rock love that you are
(05:47):
at this question very very smart stuff. So I am
going to discuss first the shutdown. Obviously it's over now,
but I think a big part of it that no
one was really talking about was one was to juice
the election in New Jersey and Virginia. I think there
was a pure political thing right to give you langry,
but a lot of it really has to do with
Chuck Schumer's career. Rewind the date. What was being talked
(06:10):
about on September thirtieth, twenty twenty five that one of
the big stories was a poll that had come out
from Pew Research, and it found that Schumer was the
most unpopular national politician in the country, more than John Thune,
more than Donald Trump, more than JD. Vans, more than
Hakim Jeffries. Schumer had a negative twenty nine percent approval rating.
(06:34):
But what made it worse for Schumer was that he
was also underwater nationally with Democrats. He was at negative
four nationally among his own party. And that poll came
out several I guess, maybe like ten weeks or eleven
weeks after. Another poll showed that AOC was beating Schumer
in New York City if they went to a statewide primary,
(06:55):
But in the New York City, which is forty two
percent of the state's populations in those five burrows in
a head to head competition, Schumer was losing to AOC
by twenty one points in New York City, means that
he'd have to make up a ton of votes out
on Long Island and in the suburbs of New York
up state in Westchester, Rockland, and then further in western
New York. That's not a great place for Schumer to be.
(07:17):
He was very worried, I think by the fact that
Democrats didn't believe he was up for the fight against Trump.
That was often another number one thing cited it Schumer's
not a fighter, so Schumer needed the narrative to change
that he was going to fight. And I think that's
why you see more mainstream Democrats. I guess the term
if we were in the UK would be backbenchers Schumer
(07:37):
back benchers, people who side with the leadership most of
the time. That's why they voted to continue the shutdown,
which they wouldn't have done had had Schumer told them to,
you know, get rid of the shutdown, like let's keep
the thing everything funded. They basically kind of go with
a lot of what Schumer's cues are. That's why it's
(07:57):
believed that Schumer gave them the okay, enough of them
who are either retiring or they're not up for a
very long time to sit there and devote to end
the shutdown with getting very little concessions from the Republican Party.
It's very rare except for Trump's term. It was very
rare before that for the Republican president to have a
government shutdown, especially with the Republican majority. I don't think
(08:19):
Bush ever had them. So that's I mean, that's really
where I think a big part of it was. It
was really Schumer trying to make a stand. Schumer trying
to sit there and say, you know, look, I'm this
strong fighter, and I think things just got so bad
between the air flights being canceled and snap benefits and
you know, all the rest of it that they ultimately caved,
which is more or less what the Democrats said. They
(08:40):
basically caved. My guess is that Schumer gave him the blessing,
hoping he wouldn't get his prints on it, and of
course it went to a huge backlash. Congress and Rocannor
and several other people are saying Schumer needs to step
aside his leader. I think this is the last ditch
effort to save Schumer's career, and I didn't think it's
going to work. I don't. As far as the Jewish
(09:00):
vot goes. I'm going to try to dedicate an episode
to this later on the year because it's something that
everyone talks about. Here's the deal. Since October seventh, there's
only been two major elections, so I guess three major
elections right in New York City, Virginia, and New Jersey's governorship,
which saw a big left wing shift along across the board.
New York City didn't really have a Republican running. We
(09:22):
had a Republican running on the ticket, but his name
was on the ballot, but he It was basically a
moderate republic Democrat versus a left wing Democrat race. That's
how the media branded it. So the Jewish vote was
very clearly aligned with Guomo there, so it's not really
a good test case. In New Jersey, the Orthodox Jewish
vote was very strong for Chitarelly, extremely strong for Chitarelly.
(09:43):
It's one of the very few places that swung right
word from twenty twenty four. And as far as Virginia goes,
there's not really a heavy Jewish presences that they're in.
You get polling, accurate polling, don here's the problem with
the Jewish vote as far as these studies that come
one there is. There's a nonprofit I will think of
the name of it, probably after this episode's over, that
(10:06):
is a left wing nonprofit. And they immediately released the
first eggs of Poles right after the elections saying how
the Jewish vote broke, but the Jewish vote always seems
to break even more left wing than the previous election.
They kind of manipulate the data and they given the
media eats it up because it's a good narrative the
media really wants. When you look at the Jewish vote,
you're really breaking it into three different groups of people.
(10:30):
You're breaking into non religious Jews. Who are you know, secular,
who would be somebody like a fran Drusher, a Jerry Seinfeld,
a Woody Allen, somebody who they are a fran Leeblitz.
They are Bill Maher, I guess is half Jewish. They
are Jewish in the sense of their birth or their circumstances,
but it doesn't really influence their politics all that much.
(10:50):
They don't have a special attachment to Israel. They are
just they're just Jewish. So when and they for the
longest time where the all huge teche of the Jewish
population in America, probably most of the majority. So when
everyone would say, oh, the Jewish votes not moving, well,
they vote like non religious, college educated whites. Well, that
(11:11):
is one of the most left wing groups in America.
Then there's also the Then there's the conservative Jews. This
is like conservative or Orthodox. Those are two separate things,
if you know Judaism, but I'm going to lump them
in together. Politically, they tend to vote, you know, much
more Republican than the secular Jews do. But that would
be something like a Ben Shapiro, right. They are when
(11:35):
they are Republicans. I have found they are the most
consistent Republicans. They are of the Jewish population. They are
very consistently. I'm a Republican. I vote Republican very very
very like down the line constantly. And then the last
group is the like ultra Orthodox, the Hasidum. They are
the ones who wear you know, the outfits and the
hats and that where the fur. Their wives have wigs
(11:57):
a lot. They live in cloister community where they don't
do a lot of the outside of the Jewish community.
You'll see them in Borough Park or a curious joal
in New York or Lakewood, New Jersey. They tend to
vote for how the rabbis want. And I know it's
like a very controversial thing to sit there and say,
but they do block vote based upon rabbi endorsements. That's
(12:17):
why the rabbi's endorsements are so important, because they have
huge voters to turnout. They turn out at maximum level
in every election for doll catcher or for president, doesn't matter,
and they have a huge interest in having certain things
granted from the state. I will tell you I went
to an Asidic This is the craziest thing in the world.
I went to a Hasidic a meeting with acidic Jews
(12:41):
Hassidic rabbis in Brooklyn, and they were asking about education
issues because I run the seventeen seventy six project pack.
And I guess to the place and it looked like
a doctor's office. It looked so strange. It looked like
a doctor's office or like a like a call center,
like I couldn't make out what where I was. And finally,
(13:01):
because it was like a waiting room. But then there
was rows of Jewish women, you know, having someone in
front of them, sitting next to them doing phone calls
to somebody or other, and having computers. So I finally
got to meet with the rabbis and I asked the
person who brought me, who is not a rabbi but
is Jewish, said to them, where am I? Like, what
is this place? I've never seen something of this before
(13:22):
in my life. And they said, oh, this is where
we signed everyone up for Medicaid and Social Security benefits.
And the Republican voice in my head wanted to sit
there and scream like crazy. And it was really funny
because when the snap benefits were ending and they were
having a bunch of people, you know, who were definitely
able bodied in my opinion, going on the news to say,
(13:45):
you know, look at my hungry kids and they have
like the nice nails, and they have new iPhones, and
they probably shouldn't be on welfare benefits and we should
probably have better ways of monitoring welfare benefits and they
have six kids by who knows. That same friend who
brought me to the call center was like, this is ridiculous.
People be working, and I said, that's exactly what I
thought about all those people at that Medicaid call center
(14:06):
that he brought me to. Anyway, those that voting block
votes extremely one way or the other. So like that's
when you'll see like these elections where it's Trump, you know,
ninety seven to two, and then down ballot it will
be a Democrat like ninety five to like three. Like
it will be one way or the other, and they
have no loyalty to party. It's really an issues based thing.
They tend to vote Republican federally and Democrat locally in
(14:30):
my opinion. Okay, so I've made to a whole episode
on this, but I just get, you know, with everything
about I feel tremendously bad for my Jewish friends and
for my friends who are Zionists who feel like they
are under a constant attack and duress. And it's led
to a place where having an honest conversation good and bad,
it's very difficult without feeling like you're kind of piling
(14:53):
on to a very unfair moment. I would like to
go into the Jewish vote one day, though, and maybe
break it down. I'll have one of my friends who's
Jewish to sit there and works in Jewish politics, sit
there and really discuss and break it down. But maybe
I'll do a lot of it because it is fascinating.
It's very interesting. Okay, speaking of Jews. Next question comes
from Joel. I don't know Joel is Jewish, but the
(15:13):
questions about Jews, okay? And Joel says, suppose Israeli Prime
Minister Netanya, who visits New York City and now Mayor Mandanni,
has him arrested on war crimes, what federal laws or
doctrines would apply. Could Mandanni himself be arrested under the
Logan Act for interfering with foreign affairs? Or would it
just not happened? Thanks for engaging with your audience so thoughtfully.
You've definitely got a loyal listen here. Oh thank you, Joel.
(15:35):
It's really kind of you. So it's a great question. Netnia,
who has a warrant for his arrest under the International
Crime Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and soon to
be Mayor Mandannie, has said over and over he plans
on arresting him if he comes to New York City.
Legal experts say that he doesn't really have the authority.
I look this up because I'm not a lawyer and
(15:55):
I don't pretend to play one. So this comes from
India Today and the Time Times magazine. It says the
United States is not a signatory on the International Criminal Court,
which means the ICC has no jurisdiction within the US territory.
As Times reported after interviewing Mandannie, several federal laws would
be would obstruct any local attempt to execute an international
(16:17):
arrest warrant. The US Constitution gives the federal government authority
over foreign affairs, a power repeatedly upheld by the American courts.
In practice, this means that even if the New York
City authorities were to attempt to detain Yahoo, federal agencies
would override that move. Mendanni himself acknowledged these limits during
his Zeno interview. He said, quote, I'm going to operate
(16:37):
within the bounds of the law on not Donald Trump
seeking to create my own legal system. Of course, he's
got to hit Trump, but this at the time of
celebrating Benjamin Yahoo in the city from those in the
leading political positions, has come to an end. So he
can't do it. I mean, that's basically the long law
and short of it. He can't do it. And I
think that he knows he can't do it. It's just
him being a union know what. Okay. Tristan Shelby writes
(17:03):
about the elections turnout was definitely the main issue, but
I think the shutdown and lack of focus on cost
of living and inflation by Trump and the White House
played it a role too. Seems like Trump and Jdvans
are aware that these about these issues. Hopefully they'll immediately
focus on it. I would look into pushing care for
leaf checks before Christmas to make more of the public
(17:24):
on board with tariffs and help give extra income during
the holiday season. I would like to raise a minimal wage.
It's a winning issue and I would take away take
away from the damas, but doubt this establishment GOP will
be on board. Looking forward to Thursday's podcast. Okay, so
here's the thing, and I don't mean to sound like
a libertarian, because you know I can't stand libertarians. Here
is the thing about the minimal wage. Worker scarcity creates
(17:48):
higher and minimum wages. Right, if you have less foreign
workers being pumped into the country, the minimal wage will
rise naturally, especially for people with low skills. Right. There's
no minimum wage conversation happening among doctors or nurses or
(18:09):
educated class. It's really the uneducated population, not uninformed uneducated.
I think there's a difference, but people without a college degree,
who are working blue collar jobs or are they're working
service jobs, that protecting those workers is of the most importance,
and other ones really feeling the tremendous exhaustion of the
last five years of inflation and constant spending. I mean,
(18:33):
I think that the two thousand dollars check idea is
would be popular, but our deficit is so large, our
debt is so large that anything that we could do
to bring that down will help reduce inflation over time.
It is more essential to bring down the deficit and
the debt than to worry about these two thousand dollar
checks that will help the working class more over the
(18:56):
long term. And I know if you're listening, I know
if you're hungry, you don't think about the long term.
I know if you have credit card payments and you're
looking at Christmas and I know you're not thinking of
the long term. I get it. I completely understand. I've
been broke at times. I know what that feels like,
I know how tough it can be, and I know
what a two thousand dollars track would mean for a
lot of people. So I'm not discouraging that. I'm just
trying to think of a bigger policy issue, saying how
(19:19):
do we help Americans and the best way is to
reduce the deficit. It will bring down inflations. I'm not
really for that, although I understand him doing this. In
my opinion on the ADMIN in the last few months
is they Trump ha spent a lot of time looking
at overseas and international issues, which is very common for
second term presidents. Right you have Clinton who did it
(19:41):
in Israel. Bush, I mean, I guess this whole entire
second term was dealt with with foreign policy issues, but
the Iraq War mainly, and then you had Obama with
trying to do the Iran deal. Like second terms are
oftentimes for legacy making historical foreign policy accomplishments, and President Trump,
to his credit, it has a number of them. But
(20:02):
like I said in the post election podcast, because you
saw this swing both among white working class voters and
Latino voters who are of a similar economic level, similar
economic indicators, I think economics played a more significant role
than people. And Republicans are are willing to admit. Inflation
(20:23):
is down from Biden years, but prices aren't down, which
you know if you're struggling three years ago. Because inflation
was very high. Unless you've got a significant raise, you're
probably still struggling. Unemployment for young people is very high
right now. If you're in your fifties and you got
a kid to graduate at college, I'm sure you're sitting
there with a lot of anxiety of how they can
(20:43):
get a job. Credit card debt is that its highest
amount ever. Q three of twenty twenty five was over
a trillion dollars. People are really struggling, and I think
there's anger because Trump was known to be so successful
in this first time on the economy, they were hoping
he could just change it all immediately. Polls find that
Trump is so severely underwater. When it comes to inflation,
(21:05):
it's negative twenty six points. And when you ask voters,
this is in the polls. If you ask voters who
do you blame on affordability and unaffordability, really Americans say
Trump over Biden fifty four to twenty one. He is
the president. So that's who people blame. And is it
should be a concern for Republicans because they are in power,
and people blame the people in power. It's just how
(21:26):
it works, even if it's not fair, even if some
of this problems predate Trump's first term, even if a
lot of it happened right after COVID and because of
COVID heavy lies the crown. It's just how the voters
see things. So we'll be back with more. Ask me
anything after this. All right, back to ask me anything.
(21:46):
This question comes from Bill. He says, I know you're
not an electional lawyer. I'm not even a college graduate,
but I saw this on Twitter and thought it was
interesting way to challenge it. I can get a lot
of attention. It's about the Virginia redistricting push. The rule
require of the amendment to pass through the legislator before
an election and again after. But the election was ongoing,
hundreds of thousands of vote were cast because of mail
(22:08):
in ballads under the VIA law. Is this before an election?
It seems wrong? Okay, I'm not an election lawyer. I
did look this up a little bit, and technically it
is before an election because it's an election day, I'm sure,
and that's an interesting debate, and who knows how a
judge would rule, So I don't know. I mean, it
seems like election day is the marker, not when early
(22:30):
ballots are being mailed I guess it's an interesting way
of considering it. I couldn't find anything online, any resource
online that showed that this had been argued before, and
mail in ballots obviously have been greatly expanded since COVID.
So we'll see. If this does go through, Democrats will
likely pick up three more seats in Virginia from the
Republicans through redistricting efforts. You know, Republicans when the registioning
(22:53):
is stuff started. This is definitely the falsiest move by
any of the legislators now that I'm thinking about it.
But when the registionings starts, Republicans, we're having this big advantage,
but losing what we're going to lose in Virginia and
what we lost in California, and seeing how the districts
are being changed, it's going to be very I mean,
Republicans may only come out with one or two more
(23:15):
season they went in with, depending what Florida, Indiana, and
Kansas do. Unless SCOTUS strikes down Section two of the
Voting Rights Act in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, unless
they start immediately going to the redistricting, it's going to
be a very very you know, big question of did
they gain very much at all. I mean maybe they
(23:35):
gained like one or two seats, but it's not enough
to deflect from a blue wave, like it won't be
enough to stop a blue wave from crashing. I mean,
they'll save a few seats, but not that many. A
big question really remains for what DeSantis does in Florida,
because he could redistrict Democrats out of four seats in
Florida pretty easily as long as the Hispanic vote doesn't
(23:56):
retract significantly. And obviously the Hispanic vote in Florida is
differently than the Hispanic vote everywhere else in the country.
So we'll see what happens in Florida, see what happens
in Kansas. But between Virginia and California, it's not very
faitable for Republicans unless the VRA is struck down. I
would say overall, if it's not struck down, you're looking
(24:18):
at maybe two or three one or two seats extra
game for Republicans. If it is struck down, you might
see a lot more. And if it's limited, it's like Louisiana,
Alabama or the court cases were maybe like four seats
so yeah, I mean that's that was the gamble that
Republicans took. They're going to come up with a little
bit of an advantage, but not enough to stop a blue
(24:38):
wave if it crashes through a country next November. Okay,
next question, And you guys know I am terrible pronouncing names,
so I apologize ahead of time. Per drawl our karia,
I know I butchered that, and whoever you are, I
am so sorry forgive me. I'm from Queens, New York.
I don't breathe through my nose. I don't say ours correct.
(25:00):
I'm working on a lot of you know, handicaps right now,
so I'm sorry. The email says huge fan of your work.
I am currently here in Florida, not a US citizen,
just a permanent resident. I felt terrible by the election
day result and I was following you before to kind
of you before, so kind of was expected. What I
realized is that we were losing by eleven in Wisconsin
(25:21):
during the Supreme Court race. Was there any races that
were precursors to the two governors races? That's a great question,
And once again, p Jwall, I am sorry I was
saying your name incorrectly. That's a great question, though I
don't think there was any singular race, but there was
definitely a question over voter intensity. If you look at
all the precursor special elections that were happening, both on
(25:45):
the state legislative level and the congressional level, you could
see Democrat intensity was really very, very high, higher than
it had been almost ever in recent times. You have
the Arizona seventh congressional race where Democrats did thirteen points
better than they did last year, Florida's first where they
did seventeen points better, Florida's six where they did nineteen
(26:06):
points better, and Florida Sorry, Virginia eleven, where they did
sixteen points better. So there were all those special elections
where Democrats were doing between thirteen to nineteen points better
than they had done in twenty twenty four. That's not
because those districts. Those were all safe districts, by the way,
the Republicans and Democrats didn't flipping of those districts. It
was just that the voter intensity by their own party
(26:29):
was so heavy. I mean, it is this issue of
complacency among voters. When your parties in the White House,
you think you know the president's got it, I'm going
to sleep in. I just, you know, campaigned and voted
for this guy who won, So why am I going
to get out there? And that really started to show
the signs that there was something kind of brewing. There's
also a ton of local state legislative races where Democrats
(26:50):
way outperform numbers. I'm not going to go through all
of them because there was dozens, but it definitely showed
that the trend was in democrats favor. I don't know
if there's any signs specifically the Latino and working white vote,
working like coll ass blue collar vote. I'm nothing that
I can see from those things, but definitely the signs
of voter intensity was clear on display. I think people
are just kind of ignoring it because the old adage is, oh,
(27:11):
you know, these special elections, they don't decide anything. That's
just a special election, which is true until it's not
until it is predictive. Okay, This last question for this
episode comes from Joseph. He says, Hey, Ryan, I'm a
big fan of your work as a Trump voter. I
feel like he has been disappointing on a lot of
key policy issues. Do you think he's getting bad advice
from Susie Wilds, Brooke Rowans, and Howard Lutnick side of
(27:34):
the adamant Okay, this is an interesting question. So I
am not a personal fan of several members of the administration.
I think other people do a very very good job.
Susie Wilds, I give a lot of credit to is
a tough job to be any chief of staff, to
be Trump'sjuba staff, It's extremely difficult, right, It's not easy,
no easy gig. And she's a woman of a particular
(27:55):
age who doesn't allow for many leaks or any leaks
really to go through this White House. And I think
she's done a very good job at managing the situation
to the best of her abilities. Howard Lonik I don't
have a lot of positive things to say about him,
and Brooke Rowlin's the same. That being said, I think
that it's just more than the people that we know.
(28:15):
There are a lot of people who come in and
out of Trump's orbit who influence them, who sit there
and say this thing or that thing. You know, they
constantly being peddled about the deportations and the tariffs, and
there's a lot of things that are very much people
pushing Trump on this issue or that issue. So I
don't think it's just the people that we know. And
(28:37):
more times than not, in my experience working in politics,
both from the journalism side and the political side, a
lot of times it's not the people that you know.
I remember back in twenty seventeen, I sent this tweet
out and I wrote, I think I wrote a story
about it, but I was getting calls from inside the
White House, my sources inside the West Wing who were saying,
these are the people who were really against Trump, and
(29:00):
they've all been shown themselves as prominent never trumpers. They
were even they've been the guy who wrote that book, Anonymous,
who wrote that op ed for the New York Times.
He was on my list as somebody who was against
Trump and the White House. No one knew. I mean,
he wasn't a very famous person. I think. Listen, it's
been a rough couple weeks with headlines from the Trump administration.
I know that. And Trump did not make it easier
(29:21):
on his supporters. From the Lori Ingram interview, I'm not
you know, I'm not gonna pretend and say, oh no,
everything is going fine. Look away, look away, look away,
it's not my role, it's on my job. I'm here
to have an honest conversation with my listeners. I think
it's I think it's important to sit there and say, one,
no politician is perfect, and you're never going to get
one hundred percent of what you want. So, as somebody
(29:43):
who was a Day one Trump supporter, let's look at
what we're getting. Right. Deportations are happening. Five hundred thousand
and two million self Deportation's great, fantastic, And he's not
backing down, which there's all the effort in the world
to back down right now. And he's not backing down.
On foreign policy, he's been pretty good. You know, we
haven't gotten more into more interventionist wars, and there was
(30:04):
every incentive to do it. So I want that to
be very clear. On the economy, it's struggling and I'm
and I don't know if there is an easy way
to get out of it. We may have tougher times
ahead of us before we are in the clear. And
part of that is a change in the American economy,
in part because of AI and how that's changing the economy,
(30:28):
in part because of worries over how tariffs have been issued.
It's been all over the place. I will admit that,
even though I'm supportive in general of tariffs, I think
that they have been all over the place. The messaging
has been a disaster. Everyone's got a different answer for everything.
I think Scott has said is doing a really good job,
though with a treasury much better than what's doing. And
I think that I think that the economy is the
(30:48):
main issue. I know it's easy and I did this
a lot during term one, right, blaming everyone around Trump
for Trump's shortcomings, and sometimes they are. You know, there
are people who in his ear who are giving him
better device it's one hundred and ten percent. But at
the end of the day, Trump is Trump, right, He's not.
He is a great politician because he is not nailed
(31:10):
to strict ideology. Unfortunately, that includes his own ideology that
he creates and that he campaigns on. So I think
it's not been a perfect administration. I think that there's
been a lot of hiccups and misplacements and kind of
got lost after the first four months of just one
(31:31):
win after the other, win after the other win. I
want to get back to that earlier's place. But I
think a lot more commitment. Is going to need it
on the economy right now because it's really really struggling.
I think that's where voters really their minds are. So anyway,
thank you for that question. I really appreciate it. Monday,
I'll be back with a full episode I think on
the economy, but it might be an AI, it'd be
(31:53):
one of the other though. We're going to a great episode.
And please, I mean more questions on asking me anything.
Ryan at numbers gamepodcast dot com. I always appreciate it.
Thank you guys for listening. Please like and subscribe on YouTube,
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.
I appreciate you all. Thank you. Have a great weekend.
Welcome back to a numbers game with Brian Grudeski. Thank
you all for being here again. I forgot to mention
this on Monday show, but I want to thank all
the veterans. It was Veterans Day on Tuesday. It's a
problem of mine where I just don't look at like
three days ahead and to see there's a big holiday.
So I missed saying it the day before. But Happy
Veterans Data. All the veterans out there, thank you for
your service for joining our armed forces and keeping our
(00:27):
nation free. I appreciate everything you have done and do
so anyway, I hope you guys had a great day.
I want to briefly talk about some economic news before
doing a full ask Me Anything segment. So Goldman sachs
Is estimated that the economy loss around fifty thousand jobs
in October. Now that's not the official government data. Because
(00:48):
of the government shutdown, there was a delay getting out
the official data, so we don't know the official data yet,
but this is just an estimate. I'm going to do
an episode next week dedicated to the economy, and I
am going to have another whole episode on it AI
regulation on the government, which would be really really good.
I think of lining up with a very impressive guest
for that show, so that'll be next week. And I
got to get more on immigration because there's so much
(01:09):
immigration news. But I looked at my emails and I
was backed up on asking me any things, and I
was like, some of these questions are so dated. I
have to just do a whole episode and kind of
empty the inbox because I really appreciate you guys. I
appreciate you joining me asked Me Anything segment. By the way,
before the end of the year, I'm going to bring
on one of my old campaign buddies to discuss anything
about running for office or you know, campaigns or like
(01:30):
the meat and potatoes a campaign is not just like
the overall idea of politics or a big meta issue,
but just like what it's like to work on a campaign,
how to run for office, all those real meat and
potato questions. I think you guys really enjoyed that episode
I did like early early in the year and when
my first episode. So I'm going to do it again.
I hope you guys will be part of it and
do a whole ask Me anything just about campaigns and
(01:52):
working in politics and what that whole thing is like.
So email me Ryan at Numbers Game podcast dot com.
Ryan at numbers Plural Game podcast dot com. Put in
the headline campaign episode. I'll be sure to answer all
those questions and then once again ask me anything because
we do. We love this part of the show. It
really makes the whole entire podcast. You know about anything
(02:12):
about you know, I feel like a dialogue. I'm not
just talking to a computer. So okay, here goes, ask
me anything for the day. So first question comes from
e cardialist. He says, my family took a trip to
Washingt d C. About ten years ago. All of my
travel research and tourist books made a point to not
having a floor plan of the White House and stated
that the location of the Oval Office has not been
(02:34):
released to the public. I actually did not know that.
With the most with the recent ballroom outrage, I've seen
a number of images that show the exact location, shape,
and size of the Oval Office. Until this week, I
didn't know that it was in the White House. Rather,
it is in the West Wing. It wasn't in the
White House. It's in the West Wing. When did the
location of the Oval Office become something people didn't try
(02:55):
to protect I actually had never heard of that before,
because I I feel like there's models of the White
House that you could buy, and the West Wing is there,
and the Oval Office is there. I didn't I didn't
know that that was not supposed to be public. I
feel like it was. There was a movie called Civil
War that was released a couple of years ago. It
(03:16):
was there was a war, obviously a civil war, a
new civil war, and they were invading the White House
and they went through like door to door Florida, Florida
to get to the west to the gets to the Oval.
And I was watching my buddy John mcintee, and John
was Trump's body man and then the head of PPO
during the first term of the administration. And one thing
John said to me, I was like, Wow, they really
(03:36):
got this very accurate, Like this is extremely accurate the
layout of the White House. So I feel like it was.
I feel like it was there, Like I feel like
people could have gotten a hold of it. I don't know,
maybe this was the one tour guy, or maybe this
is the one book that says that the old Office
is not located, but I feel like it probably was.
And about the outrage in general. Look, Dan Turntine said
(03:58):
this on this podcast. Democrats fundamentally believe that we are
in a fever dream that Trump will just go away
if there's enough controversy, if there's enough protests, if there's
enough no King's rally that you know it's Russia or
Epstein know the ballroom or anything like Liberals Finnament's believe
were just one more controversy away from wake up the
(04:21):
eyes of millions of people that this whole thing was
misguided and that will return to normalcy as they see it.
And if only they were focused on policies that make
them popular, they would be much further along to being
effective against him. Okay, next question, Hey, Ryan, Although I
have a boy's name, I am actually a girl. What
(04:41):
a way to start off a question. I am from
the South and my parents give me my grandmother's made
a name. Pause. So I have a Candida running for
office in the South and he has his grandmother's made
a name. And apparently I did not know this, but
this is I learned this this year that that is
a very common tradition in the South. I have to
say I really like it. I really like the idea
of honoring your maternal sides family by giving the first
(05:05):
name of the child to their last name. So the
Candon's name is Morgan Murphy, and Morgan was his grandmother's
last name. Yes, his grandmother's last name, So that is
I think it's very very cool. It's a very cool
Southern tradition I just learned about. The question continues, why
do you think Democrats are holding out on the shutdown?
It is because the past the Republicans have given into
their temper tantrum. Can you please give us the numbers
(05:27):
you're so talented at doing on past shutdowns and how
they play out, whether Conservatives have given in play cared
the Democrats. Secondly, I know you want to Buck and
Clay to discuss the Jewish vote. How has it changed
or not changed his October seventh, and how does it
stand now now? And why could you do a longer
segment on that? Please? Rock Rock love that you are
(05:47):
at this question very very smart stuff. So I am
going to discuss first the shutdown. Obviously it's over now,
but I think a big part of it that no
one was really talking about was one was to juice
the election in New Jersey and Virginia. I think there
was a pure political thing right to give you langry,
but a lot of it really has to do with
Chuck Schumer's career. Rewind the date. What was being talked
(06:10):
about on September thirtieth, twenty twenty five that one of
the big stories was a poll that had come out
from Pew Research, and it found that Schumer was the
most unpopular national politician in the country, more than John Thune,
more than Donald Trump, more than JD. Vans, more than
Hakim Jeffries. Schumer had a negative twenty nine percent approval rating.
(06:34):
But what made it worse for Schumer was that he
was also underwater nationally with Democrats. He was at negative
four nationally among his own party. And that poll came
out several I guess, maybe like ten weeks or eleven
weeks after. Another poll showed that AOC was beating Schumer
in New York City if they went to a statewide primary,
(06:55):
But in the New York City, which is forty two
percent of the state's populations in those five burrows in
a head to head competition, Schumer was losing to AOC
by twenty one points in New York City, means that
he'd have to make up a ton of votes out
on Long Island and in the suburbs of New York
up state in Westchester, Rockland, and then further in western
New York. That's not a great place for Schumer to be.
(07:17):
He was very worried, I think by the fact that
Democrats didn't believe he was up for the fight against Trump.
That was often another number one thing cited it Schumer's
not a fighter, so Schumer needed the narrative to change
that he was going to fight. And I think that's
why you see more mainstream Democrats. I guess the term
if we were in the UK would be backbenchers Schumer
(07:37):
back benchers, people who side with the leadership most of
the time. That's why they voted to continue the shutdown,
which they wouldn't have done had had Schumer told them to,
you know, get rid of the shutdown, like let's keep
the thing everything funded. They basically kind of go with
a lot of what Schumer's cues are. That's why it's
(07:57):
believed that Schumer gave them the okay, enough of them
who are either retiring or they're not up for a
very long time to sit there and devote to end
the shutdown with getting very little concessions from the Republican Party.
It's very rare except for Trump's term. It was very
rare before that for the Republican president to have a
government shutdown, especially with the Republican majority. I don't think
(08:19):
Bush ever had them. So that's I mean, that's really
where I think a big part of it was. It
was really Schumer trying to make a stand. Schumer trying
to sit there and say, you know, look, I'm this
strong fighter, and I think things just got so bad
between the air flights being canceled and snap benefits and
you know, all the rest of it that they ultimately caved,
which is more or less what the Democrats said. They
(08:40):
basically caved. My guess is that Schumer gave him the blessing,
hoping he wouldn't get his prints on it, and of
course it went to a huge backlash. Congress and Rocannor
and several other people are saying Schumer needs to step
aside his leader. I think this is the last ditch
effort to save Schumer's career, and I didn't think it's
going to work. I don't. As far as the Jewish
(09:00):
vot goes. I'm going to try to dedicate an episode
to this later on the year because it's something that
everyone talks about. Here's the deal. Since October seventh, there's
only been two major elections, so I guess three major
elections right in New York City, Virginia, and New Jersey's governorship,
which saw a big left wing shift along across the board.
New York City didn't really have a Republican running. We
(09:22):
had a Republican running on the ticket, but his name
was on the ballot, but he It was basically a
moderate republic Democrat versus a left wing Democrat race. That's
how the media branded it. So the Jewish vote was
very clearly aligned with Guomo there, so it's not really
a good test case. In New Jersey, the Orthodox Jewish
vote was very strong for Chitarelly, extremely strong for Chitarelly.
(09:43):
It's one of the very few places that swung right
word from twenty twenty four. And as far as Virginia goes,
there's not really a heavy Jewish presences that they're in.
You get polling, accurate polling, don here's the problem with
the Jewish vote as far as these studies that come
one there is. There's a nonprofit I will think of
the name of it, probably after this episode's over, that
(10:06):
is a left wing nonprofit. And they immediately released the
first eggs of Poles right after the elections saying how
the Jewish vote broke, but the Jewish vote always seems
to break even more left wing than the previous election.
They kind of manipulate the data and they given the
media eats it up because it's a good narrative the
media really wants. When you look at the Jewish vote,
you're really breaking it into three different groups of people.
(10:30):
You're breaking into non religious Jews. Who are you know, secular,
who would be somebody like a fran Drusher, a Jerry Seinfeld,
a Woody Allen, somebody who they are a fran Leeblitz.
They are Bill Maher, I guess is half Jewish. They
are Jewish in the sense of their birth or their circumstances,
but it doesn't really influence their politics all that much.
(10:50):
They don't have a special attachment to Israel. They are
just they're just Jewish. So when and they for the
longest time where the all huge teche of the Jewish
population in America, probably most of the majority. So when
everyone would say, oh, the Jewish votes not moving, well,
they vote like non religious, college educated whites. Well, that
(11:11):
is one of the most left wing groups in America.
Then there's also the Then there's the conservative Jews. This
is like conservative or Orthodox. Those are two separate things,
if you know Judaism, but I'm going to lump them
in together. Politically, they tend to vote, you know, much
more Republican than the secular Jews do. But that would
be something like a Ben Shapiro, right. They are when
(11:35):
they are Republicans. I have found they are the most
consistent Republicans. They are of the Jewish population. They are
very consistently. I'm a Republican. I vote Republican very very
very like down the line constantly. And then the last
group is the like ultra Orthodox, the Hasidum. They are
the ones who wear you know, the outfits and the
hats and that where the fur. Their wives have wigs
(11:57):
a lot. They live in cloister community where they don't
do a lot of the outside of the Jewish community.
You'll see them in Borough Park or a curious joal
in New York or Lakewood, New Jersey. They tend to
vote for how the rabbis want. And I know it's
like a very controversial thing to sit there and say,
but they do block vote based upon rabbi endorsements. That's
(12:17):
why the rabbi's endorsements are so important, because they have
huge voters to turnout. They turn out at maximum level
in every election for doll catcher or for president, doesn't matter,
and they have a huge interest in having certain things
granted from the state. I will tell you I went
to an Asidic This is the craziest thing in the world.
I went to a Hasidic a meeting with acidic Jews
(12:41):
Hassidic rabbis in Brooklyn, and they were asking about education
issues because I run the seventeen seventy six project pack.
And I guess to the place and it looked like
a doctor's office. It looked so strange. It looked like
a doctor's office or like a like a call center,
like I couldn't make out what where I was. And finally,
(13:01):
because it was like a waiting room. But then there
was rows of Jewish women, you know, having someone in
front of them, sitting next to them doing phone calls
to somebody or other, and having computers. So I finally
got to meet with the rabbis and I asked the
person who brought me, who is not a rabbi but
is Jewish, said to them, where am I? Like, what
is this place? I've never seen something of this before
(13:22):
in my life. And they said, oh, this is where
we signed everyone up for Medicaid and Social Security benefits.
And the Republican voice in my head wanted to sit
there and scream like crazy. And it was really funny
because when the snap benefits were ending and they were
having a bunch of people, you know, who were definitely
able bodied in my opinion, going on the news to say,
(13:45):
you know, look at my hungry kids and they have
like the nice nails, and they have new iPhones, and
they probably shouldn't be on welfare benefits and we should
probably have better ways of monitoring welfare benefits and they
have six kids by who knows. That same friend who
brought me to the call center was like, this is ridiculous.
People be working, and I said, that's exactly what I
thought about all those people at that Medicaid call center
(14:06):
that he brought me to. Anyway, those that voting block
votes extremely one way or the other. So like that's
when you'll see like these elections where it's Trump, you know,
ninety seven to two, and then down ballot it will
be a Democrat like ninety five to like three. Like
it will be one way or the other, and they
have no loyalty to party. It's really an issues based thing.
They tend to vote Republican federally and Democrat locally in
(14:30):
my opinion. Okay, so I've made to a whole episode
on this, but I just get, you know, with everything
about I feel tremendously bad for my Jewish friends and
for my friends who are Zionists who feel like they
are under a constant attack and duress. And it's led
to a place where having an honest conversation good and bad,
it's very difficult without feeling like you're kind of piling
(14:53):
on to a very unfair moment. I would like to
go into the Jewish vote one day, though, and maybe
break it down. I'll have one of my friends who's
Jewish to sit there and works in Jewish politics, sit
there and really discuss and break it down. But maybe
I'll do a lot of it because it is fascinating.
It's very interesting. Okay, speaking of Jews. Next question comes
from Joel. I don't know Joel is Jewish, but the
(15:13):
questions about Jews, okay? And Joel says, suppose Israeli Prime
Minister Netanya, who visits New York City and now Mayor Mandanni,
has him arrested on war crimes, what federal laws or
doctrines would apply. Could Mandanni himself be arrested under the
Logan Act for interfering with foreign affairs? Or would it
just not happened? Thanks for engaging with your audience so thoughtfully.
You've definitely got a loyal listen here. Oh thank you, Joel.
(15:35):
It's really kind of you. So it's a great question. Netnia,
who has a warrant for his arrest under the International
Crime Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and soon to
be Mayor Mandannie, has said over and over he plans
on arresting him if he comes to New York City.
Legal experts say that he doesn't really have the authority.
I look this up because I'm not a lawyer and
(15:55):
I don't pretend to play one. So this comes from
India Today and the Time Times magazine. It says the
United States is not a signatory on the International Criminal Court,
which means the ICC has no jurisdiction within the US territory.
As Times reported after interviewing Mandannie, several federal laws would
be would obstruct any local attempt to execute an international
(16:17):
arrest warrant. The US Constitution gives the federal government authority
over foreign affairs, a power repeatedly upheld by the American courts.
In practice, this means that even if the New York
City authorities were to attempt to detain Yahoo, federal agencies
would override that move. Mendanni himself acknowledged these limits during
his Zeno interview. He said, quote, I'm going to operate
(16:37):
within the bounds of the law on not Donald Trump
seeking to create my own legal system. Of course, he's
got to hit Trump, but this at the time of
celebrating Benjamin Yahoo in the city from those in the
leading political positions, has come to an end. So he
can't do it. I mean, that's basically the long law
and short of it. He can't do it. And I
think that he knows he can't do it. It's just
him being a union know what. Okay. Tristan Shelby writes
(17:03):
about the elections turnout was definitely the main issue, but
I think the shutdown and lack of focus on cost
of living and inflation by Trump and the White House
played it a role too. Seems like Trump and Jdvans
are aware that these about these issues. Hopefully they'll immediately
focus on it. I would look into pushing care for
leaf checks before Christmas to make more of the public
(17:24):
on board with tariffs and help give extra income during
the holiday season. I would like to raise a minimal wage.
It's a winning issue and I would take away take
away from the damas, but doubt this establishment GOP will
be on board. Looking forward to Thursday's podcast. Okay, so
here's the thing, and I don't mean to sound like
a libertarian, because you know I can't stand libertarians. Here
is the thing about the minimal wage. Worker scarcity creates
(17:48):
higher and minimum wages. Right, if you have less foreign
workers being pumped into the country, the minimal wage will
rise naturally, especially for people with low skills. Right. There's
no minimum wage conversation happening among doctors or nurses or
(18:09):
educated class. It's really the uneducated population, not uninformed uneducated.
I think there's a difference, but people without a college degree,
who are working blue collar jobs or are they're working
service jobs, that protecting those workers is of the most importance,
and other ones really feeling the tremendous exhaustion of the
last five years of inflation and constant spending. I mean,
(18:33):
I think that the two thousand dollars check idea is
would be popular, but our deficit is so large, our
debt is so large that anything that we could do
to bring that down will help reduce inflation over time.
It is more essential to bring down the deficit and
the debt than to worry about these two thousand dollar
checks that will help the working class more over the
(18:56):
long term. And I know if you're listening, I know
if you're hungry, you don't think about the long term.
I know if you have credit card payments and you're
looking at Christmas and I know you're not thinking of
the long term. I get it. I completely understand. I've
been broke at times. I know what that feels like,
I know how tough it can be, and I know
what a two thousand dollars track would mean for a
lot of people. So I'm not discouraging that. I'm just
trying to think of a bigger policy issue, saying how
(19:19):
do we help Americans and the best way is to
reduce the deficit. It will bring down inflations. I'm not
really for that, although I understand him doing this. In
my opinion on the ADMIN in the last few months
is they Trump ha spent a lot of time looking
at overseas and international issues, which is very common for
second term presidents. Right you have Clinton who did it
(19:41):
in Israel. Bush, I mean, I guess this whole entire
second term was dealt with with foreign policy issues, but
the Iraq War mainly, and then you had Obama with
trying to do the Iran deal. Like second terms are
oftentimes for legacy making historical foreign policy accomplishments, and President Trump,
to his credit, it has a number of them. But
(20:02):
like I said in the post election podcast, because you
saw this swing both among white working class voters and
Latino voters who are of a similar economic level, similar
economic indicators, I think economics played a more significant role
than people. And Republicans are are willing to admit. Inflation
(20:23):
is down from Biden years, but prices aren't down, which
you know if you're struggling three years ago. Because inflation
was very high. Unless you've got a significant raise, you're
probably still struggling. Unemployment for young people is very high
right now. If you're in your fifties and you got
a kid to graduate at college, I'm sure you're sitting
there with a lot of anxiety of how they can
(20:43):
get a job. Credit card debt is that its highest
amount ever. Q three of twenty twenty five was over
a trillion dollars. People are really struggling, and I think
there's anger because Trump was known to be so successful
in this first time on the economy, they were hoping
he could just change it all immediately. Polls find that
Trump is so severely underwater. When it comes to inflation,
(21:05):
it's negative twenty six points. And when you ask voters,
this is in the polls. If you ask voters who
do you blame on affordability and unaffordability, really Americans say
Trump over Biden fifty four to twenty one. He is
the president. So that's who people blame. And is it
should be a concern for Republicans because they are in power,
and people blame the people in power. It's just how
(21:26):
it works, even if it's not fair, even if some
of this problems predate Trump's first term, even if a
lot of it happened right after COVID and because of
COVID heavy lies the crown. It's just how the voters
see things. So we'll be back with more. Ask me
anything after this. All right, back to ask me anything.
(21:46):
This question comes from Bill. He says, I know you're
not an electional lawyer. I'm not even a college graduate,
but I saw this on Twitter and thought it was
interesting way to challenge it. I can get a lot
of attention. It's about the Virginia redistricting push. The rule
require of the amendment to pass through the legislator before
an election and again after. But the election was ongoing,
hundreds of thousands of vote were cast because of mail
(22:08):
in ballads under the VIA law. Is this before an election?
It seems wrong? Okay, I'm not an election lawyer. I
did look this up a little bit, and technically it
is before an election because it's an election day, I'm sure,
and that's an interesting debate, and who knows how a
judge would rule, So I don't know. I mean, it
seems like election day is the marker, not when early
(22:30):
ballots are being mailed I guess it's an interesting way
of considering it. I couldn't find anything online, any resource
online that showed that this had been argued before, and
mail in ballots obviously have been greatly expanded since COVID.
So we'll see. If this does go through, Democrats will
likely pick up three more seats in Virginia from the
Republicans through redistricting efforts. You know, Republicans when the registioning
(22:53):
is stuff started. This is definitely the falsiest move by
any of the legislators now that I'm thinking about it.
But when the registionings starts, Republicans, we're having this big advantage,
but losing what we're going to lose in Virginia and
what we lost in California, and seeing how the districts
are being changed, it's going to be very I mean,
Republicans may only come out with one or two more
(23:15):
season they went in with, depending what Florida, Indiana, and
Kansas do. Unless SCOTUS strikes down Section two of the
Voting Rights Act in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, unless
they start immediately going to the redistricting, it's going to
be a very very you know, big question of did
they gain very much at all. I mean maybe they
(23:35):
gained like one or two seats, but it's not enough
to deflect from a blue wave, like it won't be
enough to stop a blue wave from crashing. I mean,
they'll save a few seats, but not that many. A
big question really remains for what DeSantis does in Florida,
because he could redistrict Democrats out of four seats in
Florida pretty easily as long as the Hispanic vote doesn't
(23:56):
retract significantly. And obviously the Hispanic vote in Florida is
differently than the Hispanic vote everywhere else in the country.
So we'll see what happens in Florida, see what happens
in Kansas. But between Virginia and California, it's not very
faitable for Republicans unless the VRA is struck down. I
would say overall, if it's not struck down, you're looking
(24:18):
at maybe two or three one or two seats extra
game for Republicans. If it is struck down, you might
see a lot more. And if it's limited, it's like Louisiana,
Alabama or the court cases were maybe like four seats
so yeah, I mean that's that was the gamble that
Republicans took. They're going to come up with a little
bit of an advantage, but not enough to stop a blue
(24:38):
wave if it crashes through a country next November. Okay,
next question, And you guys know I am terrible pronouncing names,
so I apologize ahead of time. Per drawl our karia,
I know I butchered that, and whoever you are, I
am so sorry forgive me. I'm from Queens, New York.
I don't breathe through my nose. I don't say ours correct.
(25:00):
I'm working on a lot of you know, handicaps right now,
so I'm sorry. The email says huge fan of your work.
I am currently here in Florida, not a US citizen,
just a permanent resident. I felt terrible by the election
day result and I was following you before to kind
of you before, so kind of was expected. What I
realized is that we were losing by eleven in Wisconsin
(25:21):
during the Supreme Court race. Was there any races that
were precursors to the two governors races? That's a great question,
And once again, p Jwall, I am sorry I was
saying your name incorrectly. That's a great question, though I
don't think there was any singular race, but there was
definitely a question over voter intensity. If you look at
all the precursor special elections that were happening, both on
(25:45):
the state legislative level and the congressional level, you could
see Democrat intensity was really very, very high, higher than
it had been almost ever in recent times. You have
the Arizona seventh congressional race where Democrats did thirteen points
better than they did last year, Florida's first where they
did seventeen points better, Florida's six where they did nineteen
(26:06):
points better, and Florida Sorry, Virginia eleven, where they did
sixteen points better. So there were all those special elections
where Democrats were doing between thirteen to nineteen points better
than they had done in twenty twenty four. That's not
because those districts. Those were all safe districts, by the way,
the Republicans and Democrats didn't flipping of those districts. It
was just that the voter intensity by their own party
(26:29):
was so heavy. I mean, it is this issue of
complacency among voters. When your parties in the White House,
you think you know the president's got it, I'm going
to sleep in. I just, you know, campaigned and voted
for this guy who won, So why am I going
to get out there? And that really started to show
the signs that there was something kind of brewing. There's
also a ton of local state legislative races where Democrats
(26:50):
way outperform numbers. I'm not going to go through all
of them because there was dozens, but it definitely showed
that the trend was in democrats favor. I don't know
if there's any signs specifically the Latino and working white vote,
working like coll ass blue collar vote. I'm nothing that
I can see from those things, but definitely the signs
of voter intensity was clear on display. I think people
are just kind of ignoring it because the old adage is, oh,
(27:11):
you know, these special elections, they don't decide anything. That's
just a special election, which is true until it's not
until it is predictive. Okay, This last question for this
episode comes from Joseph. He says, Hey, Ryan, I'm a
big fan of your work as a Trump voter. I
feel like he has been disappointing on a lot of
key policy issues. Do you think he's getting bad advice
from Susie Wilds, Brooke Rowans, and Howard Lutnick side of
(27:34):
the adamant Okay, this is an interesting question. So I
am not a personal fan of several members of the administration.
I think other people do a very very good job.
Susie Wilds, I give a lot of credit to is
a tough job to be any chief of staff, to
be Trump'sjuba staff, It's extremely difficult, right, It's not easy,
no easy gig. And she's a woman of a particular
(27:55):
age who doesn't allow for many leaks or any leaks
really to go through this White House. And I think
she's done a very good job at managing the situation
to the best of her abilities. Howard Lonik I don't
have a lot of positive things to say about him,
and Brooke Rowlin's the same. That being said, I think
that it's just more than the people that we know.
(28:15):
There are a lot of people who come in and
out of Trump's orbit who influence them, who sit there
and say this thing or that thing. You know, they
constantly being peddled about the deportations and the tariffs, and
there's a lot of things that are very much people
pushing Trump on this issue or that issue. So I
don't think it's just the people that we know. And
(28:37):
more times than not, in my experience working in politics,
both from the journalism side and the political side, a
lot of times it's not the people that you know.
I remember back in twenty seventeen, I sent this tweet
out and I wrote, I think I wrote a story
about it, but I was getting calls from inside the
White House, my sources inside the West Wing who were saying,
these are the people who were really against Trump, and
(29:00):
they've all been shown themselves as prominent never trumpers. They
were even they've been the guy who wrote that book, Anonymous,
who wrote that op ed for the New York Times.
He was on my list as somebody who was against
Trump and the White House. No one knew. I mean,
he wasn't a very famous person. I think. Listen, it's
been a rough couple weeks with headlines from the Trump administration.
I know that. And Trump did not make it easier
(29:21):
on his supporters. From the Lori Ingram interview, I'm not
you know, I'm not gonna pretend and say, oh no,
everything is going fine. Look away, look away, look away,
it's not my role, it's on my job. I'm here
to have an honest conversation with my listeners. I think
it's I think it's important to sit there and say, one,
no politician is perfect, and you're never going to get
one hundred percent of what you want. So, as somebody
(29:43):
who was a Day one Trump supporter, let's look at
what we're getting. Right. Deportations are happening. Five hundred thousand
and two million self Deportation's great, fantastic, And he's not
backing down, which there's all the effort in the world
to back down right now. And he's not backing down.
On foreign policy, he's been pretty good. You know, we
haven't gotten more into more interventionist wars, and there was
(30:04):
every incentive to do it. So I want that to
be very clear. On the economy, it's struggling and I'm
and I don't know if there is an easy way
to get out of it. We may have tougher times
ahead of us before we are in the clear. And
part of that is a change in the American economy,
in part because of AI and how that's changing the economy,
(30:28):
in part because of worries over how tariffs have been issued.
It's been all over the place. I will admit that,
even though I'm supportive in general of tariffs, I think
that they have been all over the place. The messaging
has been a disaster. Everyone's got a different answer for everything.
I think Scott has said is doing a really good job,
though with a treasury much better than what's doing. And
I think that I think that the economy is the
(30:48):
main issue. I know it's easy and I did this
a lot during term one, right, blaming everyone around Trump
for Trump's shortcomings, and sometimes they are. You know, there
are people who in his ear who are giving him
better device it's one hundred and ten percent. But at
the end of the day, Trump is Trump, right, He's not.
He is a great politician because he is not nailed
(31:10):
to strict ideology. Unfortunately, that includes his own ideology that
he creates and that he campaigns on. So I think
it's not been a perfect administration. I think that there's
been a lot of hiccups and misplacements and kind of
got lost after the first four months of just one
(31:31):
win after the other, win after the other win. I
want to get back to that earlier's place. But I
think a lot more commitment. Is going to need it
on the economy right now because it's really really struggling.
I think that's where voters really their minds are. So anyway,
thank you for that question. I really appreciate it. Monday,
I'll be back with a full episode I think on
the economy, but it might be an AI, it'd be
(31:53):
one of the other though. We're going to a great episode.
And please, I mean more questions on asking me anything.
Ryan at numbers gamepodcast dot com. I always appreciate it.
Thank you guys for listening. Please like and subscribe on YouTube,
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.
I appreciate you all. Thank you. Have a great weekend.
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