July 31, 2025 • 27 mins
Join Jim and Greg for the Thursday 3 Martini Lunch, as they welcome the news that former Vice President Kamala Harris will not run for governor of California in 2026. They also discuss New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani attempting to downplay his past calls to defund the police, and whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth might be eyeing a future political campaign.
First, they're glad to see Kamala Harris choose not to enter next year's governor’s race, especially since she reportedly had little interest in actually doing the job. They also discuss whether she’s likely to pursue another presidential campaign in 2028 and what the California governor’s race looks like without Harris in the field.
Next, Jim and Greg focus on Mamdani’s effort to distance himself from his long-held “defund the police” stance following this week’s horrific mass shooting in Manhattan. They’re also frustrated by polling that shows Mamdani likely to win the New York City mayoral race, regardless of how the rest of the field shakes out. Jim also slams a Politico article that dismisses criticism of Mamdani’s Marxist ideology as “Mamdani Derangement Syndrome.”
Finally, they consider reports that Sec. Hegseth might be thinking about leaving his cabinet position to run for political office in Tennessee. Jim and Greg both find this far-fetched, considering the huge goals Hegseth is pursuing for our military and because there's not much he could run for in Tennessee anytime soon.
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First, they're glad to see Kamala Harris choose not to enter next year's governor’s race, especially since she reportedly had little interest in actually doing the job. They also discuss whether she’s likely to pursue another presidential campaign in 2028 and what the California governor’s race looks like without Harris in the field.
Next, Jim and Greg focus on Mamdani’s effort to distance himself from his long-held “defund the police” stance following this week’s horrific mass shooting in Manhattan. They’re also frustrated by polling that shows Mamdani likely to win the New York City mayoral race, regardless of how the rest of the field shakes out. Jim also slams a Politico article that dismisses criticism of Mamdani’s Marxist ideology as “Mamdani Derangement Syndrome.”
Finally, they consider reports that Sec. Hegseth might be thinking about leaving his cabinet position to run for political office in Tennessee. Jim and Greg both find this far-fetched, considering the huge goals Hegseth is pursuing for our military and because there's not much he could run for in Tennessee anytime soon.
Please visit our great sponsors:
No missed calls, no missed customers with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at https://Openphone.com/3ml
Keep your skin looking and acting younger for longer. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code 3 ML at https://www.oneskin.co/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
and Jim Garrity of National Review. Free Martini's coming up.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Very glad you're with us for the Thursday edition of
The Three Tiny Lunch. We've got good, bad, and crazy
for you, and all of them are pretty intense their
speculation now that Pete Haigseth could potentially be leaving the
Pentagon to run for elected office. Zoorn Mamdani trying to
backtrack real fast about his defund the police comments in
(00:33):
the wake of the mass shooting in Midtown Manhattan this week.
I don't think anybody's really buying it though. Nonetheless, he's
doing pretty well in the polls unfortunately. But also we
might not have Kamala to kick around anymore because after
her failed attempt to win the presidency last year, she
has announced that she is not going to run for
governor of California next year. So that's where we start.
(00:55):
And Jim, of course, last year, Biden gets forced up
by his own party after the disastrous debate. Kamala Harris
is pretty much coronated thanks to Biden's endorsement. Everybody's trying
to pretend that she's perfect for the job. In the end,
she loses, of course, loses all the swing states, and
then for the most part she goes quiet. Made a
(01:15):
couple of comments around the time of the wildfires, but
hasn't said a lot. She will be on Colbert soon though,
because she's got a book to push, and of course
he's very reluctant to have politicians on. But yesterday she
announced that she will not not be a candidate for
governor of California in twenty twenty six. I don't think
this comes as a huge surprise. There had been some
grumbling in the party that they weren't that excited about
(01:36):
her running. She had been looking pretty good in the
polls to basically due to name recognition. Of course, Jim,
you devote much of the Morning Jolt to this today,
and you link to a California based reporter named Alex Michaelson,
who says a source familiar with Kamala Harris's thinking says
she was tempted to run for California governor but ultimately
didn't want to do the job. She's been an elective
(01:58):
office for decade and wants to take time to experience
life as a private citizen and see how she can
be most helpful. She's writing a book, setting up a nonprofit,
and will travel the country to campaign for Democrats. She
genuinely has not decided whether to run for president in
twenty twenty eight, but knew her heart wasn't into running
for governor of twenty twenty six. Jim, unless you're really
(02:20):
in difficult financial straits, I'm not sure why you're tempted
to try to get a job that you don't want.
But nonetheless, we won't have Kamala Harris word salad on
the campaign trail for the next year and a half,
which is a little bit sad, But ultimately we know
from her executive experience in Washington she'd be a terrible governor,
and so the people of California heavily's been spared that.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
You know, Greg, I think the best way to think
of her, you know, in the end, she just didn't
want to do the work of the job. Much like
being borders are she you know, it's just like she
had the assignment, she had the title, but really had
to look I jokes aside, I genuinely want to say
good for you, Kamala Harris. Obviously, there were people who
seemed to think that this was part of a redemption tour,
(03:03):
that this was going to be something important. And I
think if you're not interested in being governor, you should
not run for governor. And I had been kind of
beating the drum on this for a couple of months.
As you mentioned, her public appearances were not exactly frequent,
and when she did, she generally talked about national issues. Now,
to me, if you really want to be the next governor,
you figure you'd be talking a lot about state issues.
(03:24):
It's not exactly but a quiet year in California, and
you know, her social media feed was mostly national issues.
She'd offered a three minute video to the California Democratic
Party state convention. She just did't act like she was
that interested in it. So this announcement is not surprising news.
The idea that, oh, well, if she's not running for governor,
she's definitely running for a president. I would not bet
(03:47):
a lot of money on that. I think she can
at least look at this and realize that she would
not have an easy path. When she ran in the
twenty twenty cycle, she literally didn't make it to the
year twenty twenty, dropping out in late twenty nineteen, you know,
and she had She was handed the nomination in the
summer of last year and did not succeed. So I
think she would recognize that it would be a challenging path.
(04:08):
There are a lot of ways to help your country
without running for office, and I hope Kamala Harris can
find ways to do that. And I hope this catches
on amongst Andrew Cuomo and Anthony Wiener and bid O'Rourke
and Stacey all these candids who've run a couple of
times been rejected, and like there seems to be more
of this addictive need to run for office rather than
(04:30):
any clamoring amongst the public for that. So honest a goodness,
good for you, Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, I think Michaelson's one of his paragraphs here tells
the story. She's writing a book money there apparently, I
would think setting up a nonprofit, depending on how that's structured,
that's a good way to get rich. And we'll travel
the country to campaign for Democrats. I'm guessing not in
the Swing States, but since she wasn't exactly all that
popular herself in those places. But I guess we'll see.
(04:55):
It's kind of like Biden, remember Biden in twenty twenty two.
And for the most part in any competitive race, you
know what, you got a lot on your point, mister president.
It's okay, it's okay. You don't need to come here
for me.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
One, by the by em Hoff makes really good money
as a Hollywood lawyer, so owns several like, so it's
not like she needs the money. And as for her
as a you know, campaign surrogate or you know, look,
you bring her in for the state Democratic Party dinner
in most states, they'll she'll get donors to show up,
they'll line up to have their picture taken with her,
and she'll give.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So like, she'll do that.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I would not have her in September and October campaigning
in Nebraska or may probably not North Carolina or a
bunch of these other really key swing states. But she'll be,
you know, a reliable, helpful voice on the what they
used to call the rubber chicken circuit.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
That of course leaves the question now, well, who is
going to be the next governor of California. And obviously
there's a lot of time to sort that out. But
Politico with the story on that that former Congressman Katie
Porter her insanity are not exactly the best of friends.
She lost a Senate primary to Adam Schiff last year,
so she's not in congre right now, but she is
running for governor and her camp was quick yesterday to
(06:03):
re up pulling from the spring, so it's been a while,
but it suggests she has the support of thirty six
percent of likely primary voters. The survey, which was conducted
by GBAO Strategies, also found that Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kunelakis
and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio via Ragosa, were tied
as the second most popular Democrats, although they trail Porter
by double digits. And you know what that means, Jim,
(06:27):
is that a certain very prominent Canadate is basically an
afterthought already in this primary. And it's a guy that
Joe Biden had in his cabinet, Javier ba Karia, Javier Bakaria,
Javier Bisera. But as I went back to get that
clip of Biden mispronouncing Bessera's name, listen to the longer
sentence here about how Biden introduced him.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
For Secretary of Health and Educations. Are I nominated Javier.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Ba Karia Secretary of Health, Health Entation, Health and Education,
health educator and whether there is a department since the
Department of Education was created forty five years ago.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Oh so, the people were saying that Joe Biden had
it all together when he first took off, as.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
He was good in the first of years. Snow he wasn't. No,
he wasn't.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I'm pretty sure that's not how his staff wrote.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Itet larger font on the teleprompter.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Phase.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
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that we send you, all right, Jim on to our
bad Martini now and this is perhaps a triple bad
Martini here all of the issues related to zoo on mom. Donnie,
(09:01):
of course, he is the Democratic nominee for Mayor of
New York City, handily defeating Andrew Cuomo and everybody else
back in June. He was back in the headlines briefly
this week after that horrific mass shooting on Park Avenue
in midtown Manhattan. The guy allegedly looking for NFL offices
thinking he's suffering from CTE, but killing an NYPD cop
(09:22):
who's already got two small kids and another one on
the way. Just a horrible story, as well as other people,
of course, who were killed in that shooting, another one
seriously wounded.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
He held a press conference yesterday, and as you might expect,
the question came up, Hey, you had all those tweets
a few years ago about defunding the police. Now you're
going on and on about how much you love first responders.
So what's the deal. Do you actually mean what you
said back then or have you thought about this and
do you regret what you said back then?
Speaker 5 (09:50):
My statements in twenty twenty eight were ones made amidst
a frustration that many New Yorkers helped at the murder
of George Floyd and the inability to deliver on what
Eric Adams of all people described as the right for
(10:14):
all of us to be able to enjoy safety and
justice that we need not choose between the.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Two, So getting rid of the cops would have that
balance between safety and justice, So that he's obviously feeling
the heat a little bit on that particular one. But unfortunately, Jim,
a new poll from New York City shows that he
is well ahead in this mayoral race, even with a
crowded field, fifty percent support now in this zenith Research
and Public Progress Solutions pull from July sixteenth to the
(10:41):
twenty fourth, Andrew Cuomo now at twenty two percent, Curtis
Slee with thirteen, Eric Adams just seven percent, and one
other guy at one percent. In a four way race
without Cuomo, mam Donni's support increases to fifty five percent.
In a four way race without Adams, mam Donnie's backing
rows to fifty one percent, and Base there's no head
(11:01):
to head matchup that's even within single digit at this point.
So despite all of the efforts to expose exactly what
a Marxist this guy is, and now you've got Politico
pointing out that they think there's something called Mamdani derangement
syndrome because people are a little alarmed that a communist
might be leading the largest city in the country. Still
doesn't seem like the New York City residents are all
(11:21):
that worried.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Greg you know this one, You know, there are aspects
of this one that are a hemlock martini.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Among them.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Because like there was a part of this as I
was ready to say, as you're going through those numbers,
there have been a bunch of surveys that had incumbent
formerly Democratic Mayor Eric Adams in a distant fourth place,
And I was about to say, you know, this talk
that Sliewas should drop out, like, you know, Adams should
drop out. Well, it's not dropping out, but his support
is disappearing seven percent, Like it's one of the Adams
(11:51):
should get out, so that seven percent could.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Go to one of the other guys. And it doesn't
really matter.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
It's not even much point in calling for Adams to
withdraw at this point. Second, on the talk about mom
Dami growing and reflecting all of the comments that he
is running from. Right now, we're made like in the
last five years, this is not you know came in.
He's thirty three, all right. The reason nobody's saying this
guy should run for president because he's not old enough
to run for president. He would assume by the next time,
(12:18):
you know, but by the next presidential election. Like I
cannot say that there was a time in my naive
youth that I thought Adam Gase was going to be
a good coach, you know, Like there are just limits
to how far your philosophies can can grow and evolve
in that And this whole thing is like, look what
I was saying to abolish the police. Just think of
the time. It was twenty twenty. We were all crazy that. No, no,
that doesn't get you off the hook. But so I'm
(12:39):
just going to shift aside all of this depressing news
is just gonna observe about Politico Playbook. So they have
two editions, a morning edition in the evening edition. This
is the evening edition, yester where they talked about the
alleged widespread breakout of mam Dami derangement syndrome. Now people
have heard Trump derangement syndrome.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Before then we had Obama the derangement syndrome, I guess.
But for a while there's attempt to catch on this
idea of Biden derangement syndrome. Not all criticism of an
elected official is a derangement syndrome, right, And I think that, like,
you probably should reserve terms for derangement syndrome for that
friend of yours who's like constantly posting stuff Beames on
Facebook and like every time you talk to you, like
(13:18):
nice weather we're having today? Is it or is it
just the earth banking because of Trump?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And is pollution?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
You know, Like, I think derangement syndrome should really be
reserved for this. Now that they kept in the political newsletter,
they come up with two examples. One, Greg is a
conservative social media influencer. As we all know, those people
are never deliberately incendiary to get more clicks because they're
trying to monetize their social media. You know that that
(13:43):
they're really known for their well reasoned, even handed, calm
and easygoing takes. That's that's what they're known for. The
other example they point to is Republican Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles,
who did call for mom Dommy to be deported. And yeah,
that's that's pretty in cindiary if you want to call it,
you know, derangement syndrome.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Five.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Keep in mind, this is the guy who's already called
for amending the Constitution to allow Donald Trump to run
for a third term, one of the FBI and the
Secret Service to investigate James Comy as an assassination threat.
Over that eighty six to forty seven social media post.
He has introduced the quote make Greenland Great Again Act,
and he sends out Christmas cars featuring his family holding
(14:21):
rifles in front of Christmas.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Dream So would you.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Say, ah, can you believe Andy Ogle said something crazy? Yes,
I could believe that very easily. This is who the
guy is. This is not exactly shocking. So I don't
think you can point to him and say, oh, my goodness,
can you believe that Andy Ogle's is saying something in
sidiary about Zoro and mamnomy? It must be that there's
some mam Dami derangement syndrome spreading over the country. So
I try to walk through for this for any slow
(14:45):
learners out there New York City, because people might be saying, oh,
you know, Jim Greg you guys have a national politics podcast.
Why are you talking about the New York City mayoral
race so much? Well, what happens in New York City
has far reaching effects all across the country. It is
easy to say New York City like where to break
off and form its own country. It would be the
ninth largest economy in the world. New York City has
a larger economy than Brazil. New York City has a
(15:08):
larger economy than Canada. I can see you know, listeners
saying that's not that surprising, And yes, New York City
has a larger economy than Russia. But like you know,
everything from media, advertising, banks, accounting, cy biotechnology, fashion, international trades,
because the report of New York is huge, tourism really
like just just a ton of that. Right, So if
things slow down and get bad in New York City,
(15:28):
there's a ripple effect that kind of goes out from
that area across the country. So whether you're left right
or center, you should want New York City to be
thriving as much as possible. And if you're electing a
communist manchild, you're going to end up with a whole
bunch of problems in there. And you know, so it's
yet like you poured out some of the the abolished
the police. He also called for abolishing private property. That's
(15:49):
not Bernie Sanders lovable Vermont crunchy Ben and Jerry's socialist
that's full on communist right, you know, we need to
nationalize the means of production style, right, you know. And
here's people say, oh, you know, if he's elected, he's
not gonna be able to do all these things. Okay, yeah,
do I get that he's still going to be a
very bad leader and he's going to try to push
policies in the direction that's the wrong direction as much
(16:10):
as possible for a four year span.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And will the governor be able to prevent some of this?
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Does the power you know, does city council going along with?
Not necessarily, but like it's just you know, New York City,
has it recovered some sons of the worst days of the pandemic? Yes,
has noted in this podcast little bit, it's a crime.
Numbers actually getting better so far this year. I post that,
and I was like, oh, he's saying alf No, nobody's
saying it's solid, just saying that the statistics are going
in the right direction month by month up till like June.
(16:36):
It's the last day of July. We'll see what the
numbers are for July. But like, hey, you know, that's
pretty good. It's not doing Eric Adams that he good
as as obviously but it's like, I don't want New
York City to make a terrible mistake. And if pointing
that out and saying that means that I have de
arrangement syndrome, well I guess I have de arrangement syndrome.
It's called caring about the city syndrome too.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
No, it's exactly right. And he's clearly yanking the party
to the left. And if he wins, which it appears
from these polls that he's like to do, the party's
going to follow in that direction even more. I mean,
the drift of this party to the left has been
pretty intense over the last several cycles as it is,
and now a guy who literally espouses open communist principles.
You know, he had a few people in the beginning
(17:14):
kind of I don't know about this after he won
the primary, but I've got like we talked about yesterday,
Pete Boodh Jedge, he's like, well, he is who he is,
you know, welcome to the big tent and everybody else
when he was on Capitol Hill for the most part
trying to get a picture with the guy. So he's
kind of a celebrity. And if he wins, he's going
to be a bigger and bigger deal, and the party's
just going to drift more in that direction. So it
does matter that he espouses those things. And in terms
(17:34):
of the media coming up with this Mamdani derangement syndrome,
you know, with just a couple of examples, reminds me
of the time that Obama was pardoning the turkeys. And
one anonymous that nobody really knew in town's staffer of
a pretty obscure congressman commented on the apparel of the
Obama girls when they were teenagers, and it was.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
A story for weeks.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yes, so they'll find any little nugget to try and
create a narrative from.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, and you know where people say, oh, you know, well,
if this pulls Democrats to the left, it will make
Republicans more likely to win, Okay, but that's still like
they're not gonna win every election, and so at some
point you end up with a Democrat who is full
on socialist communist rather than merely you know, left liberal,
which is bad for the country. Secondly, if Democrats end
(18:22):
up if he wins the mayoral race, then more Democrats, Oh,
maybe that's what we need to win, and you end
up instead of a country that's got kind of a
socialist communist fringe that starts to become the mainstream of
the of the party. And that is again very bad
for the country because someday Republicans are going to lose
another election.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
That's just you know, like I know, everybody wants to
believe that they're gonna win forever, but that is not
the case.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
And as for the media, yeah, I rarely do you
see what struck me as such a transparent effort to
create a narrative that, ah, mom, Dami is just another Democrat.
But look at this derangement syndrome calling him a communist.
They're calling him a communist because he's quoting Karl Marx.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
That seems kind of fair.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
I don't you know.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah, the only silver lining here is that he was
not born in the United States, that he will not
be well to run for president, unless, of course, a
federal judge just says you have to let him run.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Boy, aren't you glad we didn't change the rules for
Arnold a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yes, yes, there was that push, believe it or not.
But AOC's going to be old enough in twenty eight
we'll see what happens there, crazy crazy, crazy all the
way in New York City. And folks, you still got
time to get sane. But it doesn't look like it's
going to happen, at least not right now. If you
have any friends in New York City, give him a call,
even during business hours and tell them get a clue
(19:38):
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no missed customers. All right, Jim, onto our crazy martini now.
And I have a feeling this isn't going anywhere, But
it is strange that we haven't had a clear denial yet.
I guess at NBC News reporting yesterday, and it's your
addendum today in the Morning Jolt that Secretary of Defense
(21:06):
Pete haig Seth is considering running for office in Tennessee
and doing so next year, which means he would have
to start the campaign pretty soon, which means he would
have to stop being Defense Secretary fairly soon if he
wanted to do that. But as you point out in
the addendum, the only problem is that under state law,
Heggseth hasn't lived in the state long enough to run
for governor. Most of the other state wide offices aren't
(21:26):
elected by the general public, and other than that, there
might be one house seat that could potentially be available
for him to run for. So I just find it
pretty odd that it's possible that he's already looking for
another job after just a few months being the top
guy at the Pentagon. A clear no would be good
in terms of a response on this, But ultimately I
(21:47):
suspect he's not really going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
But for what it's worth, I mean.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Sean Parnell, the Pedagon's chief state pokesman, did give a
statement to NBCDS saying heg Seth's focus remains solely on
serving under President Trump unquote. However, Mike Experience, a story
like this is awfully specific and it seems kind of weird.
Like my my experienced, stories like this are rarely made
up out of whole cloth. Now does this mean heg
Seth has put a lot of thought into this? My
(22:11):
guess is no. This may have been idle chit chat
or something. But by way, if it is true, it
is a little troublesome that, you know, six or seven
months into the job, heg Seth is, you know, wondering
about what his next step is going to be. It
certainly has been not been a quiet six months on
the job. Everything from the strikes against the WHO, these
strike on the RAND nuclear facilities, the signal chat getting leaked.
(22:34):
There's been a lot of turnover and churn in heg
Seth's staff, which is, you know, maybe maybe there's you
feel some friction or some heat from that. But may
walk through all the possible offices in Tennessee because I
this this can't have been a serious focus because there
simply isn't any There are very few offices you could
run for.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
You mentioned governor.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Under Tennessee law, to hold the office of Tennessee governor,
person must be at least thirty years of age. Check
citizen in the United States. Check and you have been
a citizen of Tennessee for seven years before the election. Well,
HeiG Seth and his family moved to Tennessee in twenty
twenty two, so he would not be eligible to hold
that office. And you might like, oh, well, how about
Lieutenant gart Well, Tennessee doesn't directly elect the lieutenant governor.
(23:13):
Speaker of the Tennessee Senate serves as that job. The
state Supreme Court appoints the state attorney general. So it's
not like that's an elected position, state Secretary of state,
state treasurer, control of the treasury. All of them get
elected by the General Assembly for a four year term.
That assumes heg Seth would even want any of those jobs.
If you name a state commissioner job, there's a very
good chance it's appointed by the governor. So all the
(23:35):
state government jobs he's either ineligible for or that's not
directly elected. So you can't imagine he would do that. Yeah,
there's a Senate race next year. Tennessee has a Republican
senator named Bill Haggerty Runn who's pretty arned popular in
the state. He's running for reelection, and you know, there's
no area like for a primary challenge. You know, Stephen
Miller described the other one, not the funny one, said
(23:58):
that this he's a you know, said, Hagitty is.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
As maga as maga can get.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
So there's not like there's a room for a primary
challenge from some Trump loyalist or something like that. So
then you get to the House of Representatives. Now it
turns out that there is an open seat race where
John Rose is going to run for governor next year.
This is Tennessee's sixth district, and guess what this is
actually where heg Seth's hometown of Goodletsville is in this district,
(24:24):
and he would appear to meet the residency requirement to
run for the US House of Representatives in Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
There you have to have been a.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Citizen for the state for three years a resident of
the county representative for one year immediately preceding the election.
Assuming that you know, Haig Say's voter registration and legal
residents is still out there in Tennessee, obviously spending most
of his time in the Pentagon and in the Northern
Virginia area. But if he's still okay, fine, that's probably
not going to be an issue. What I find a
little head scratching there, Greg, is that would heg Seth
(24:51):
want to stop being US Secretary of Defense in order
to be a freshman congressman.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
That that strikes me as a step down. That strikes me,
and also like.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
One he says out, sounded like being Secretary of Defense
was his dream job and there was so much work
to do and he couldn't wait to get started. And
also remember he got elected. The senidate was split fifty
to fifty and JD. Evans had to break the time,
so this was not exactly an easy lift for Republican
senators to get him into that position. If head or announced,
hey it's been a year, Okay, everybody see, I'm gonna
(25:20):
go on for the House of Representatives, I think Republicans
would be pissed, and I think they'd have a good
reason to be pissed. I think when they thought when
they put when they confirmed Haig says for that job,
that he'd be there, if not the whole Trump term,
then for a good long stretch. So I think this
is generally nonsense. Maybe he's had a conversation about this.
I can't imagine he's put a lot of thought into this.
(25:43):
And if he really were interested in leaving the Secretary
of Defense job, which again there's not much indication of this,
would you want to be a House member or would
you want to go back to Fox News? I know
one is heck of a lot more lucrative and a
lot for your headaches. So yeah, again, I think NBC
News is barking up, if not even the wrong tree,
maybe the wrong orchard.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Yeah, definitely, I think given his passion for the two
things that he wanted to do and you know, rooting
out DEI and the military and improving lethality. I feel
like those are significant goals that are going to take time.
It's not like he can say, you know, we've accomplished
these things. So I think he is committed to those things,
and as long as he's got the support and confidence
(26:23):
of the President, there's no reason to think that he
would depart, because, like you said, it was quite an
effort to get him across the finish line. And I
think not only that he would want to stay, but
that he pretty much owes it to the president to
stay until further notice. So I think this will probably
go away for a lot of reasons, including the reasons
you laid out that there's just not a great political
(26:44):
avenue for him right now. Maybe somebody overheard him saying, oh,
down the road when we know administration is over and
I've you know, been in Tennessee for a while, maybe
maybe something like that.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
But at the end of a long, lousy day, right
after the signal, chat comes out, Hey, you know I
went for office in Tennessee. How long do I have
live there? You know, that's entirely understandable. But yeah, I
think there's there's still a lot of work to be done.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yeah, be very surprised if this would actually happen. So Jim,
have a great day. See tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
See tomorrow, Greg, Jim.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Garretty, National Review. I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks
so much for being with us today. Please be sure
to subscribe to our three Martini Lunch podcast if you
don't already, tell your friends about us as well. Thanks
also for your five star ratings and your kind reviews.
Please keep those coming. Get us on your home devices.
All you have to say is play Three Martini Lunch Podcast.
Follow us both on X He's at Jim Garritty, I'm
(27:33):
at Greg Corumbus. Have a terrific Thursday. Join us again
on Friday for the next three Martini Lunch
Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
and Jim Garrity of National Review. Free Martini's coming up.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Very glad you're with us for the Thursday edition of
The Three Tiny Lunch. We've got good, bad, and crazy
for you, and all of them are pretty intense their
speculation now that Pete Haigseth could potentially be leaving the
Pentagon to run for elected office. Zoorn Mamdani trying to
backtrack real fast about his defund the police comments in
(00:33):
the wake of the mass shooting in Midtown Manhattan this week.
I don't think anybody's really buying it though. Nonetheless, he's
doing pretty well in the polls unfortunately. But also we
might not have Kamala to kick around anymore because after
her failed attempt to win the presidency last year, she
has announced that she is not going to run for
governor of California next year. So that's where we start.
(00:55):
And Jim, of course, last year, Biden gets forced up
by his own party after the disastrous debate. Kamala Harris
is pretty much coronated thanks to Biden's endorsement. Everybody's trying
to pretend that she's perfect for the job. In the end,
she loses, of course, loses all the swing states, and
then for the most part she goes quiet. Made a
(01:15):
couple of comments around the time of the wildfires, but
hasn't said a lot. She will be on Colbert soon though,
because she's got a book to push, and of course
he's very reluctant to have politicians on. But yesterday she
announced that she will not not be a candidate for
governor of California in twenty twenty six. I don't think
this comes as a huge surprise. There had been some
grumbling in the party that they weren't that excited about
(01:36):
her running. She had been looking pretty good in the
polls to basically due to name recognition. Of course, Jim,
you devote much of the Morning Jolt to this today,
and you link to a California based reporter named Alex Michaelson,
who says a source familiar with Kamala Harris's thinking says
she was tempted to run for California governor but ultimately
didn't want to do the job. She's been an elective
(01:58):
office for decade and wants to take time to experience
life as a private citizen and see how she can
be most helpful. She's writing a book, setting up a nonprofit,
and will travel the country to campaign for Democrats. She
genuinely has not decided whether to run for president in
twenty twenty eight, but knew her heart wasn't into running
for governor of twenty twenty six. Jim, unless you're really
(02:20):
in difficult financial straits, I'm not sure why you're tempted
to try to get a job that you don't want.
But nonetheless, we won't have Kamala Harris word salad on
the campaign trail for the next year and a half,
which is a little bit sad, But ultimately we know
from her executive experience in Washington she'd be a terrible governor,
and so the people of California heavily's been spared that.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
You know, Greg, I think the best way to think
of her, you know, in the end, she just didn't
want to do the work of the job. Much like
being borders are she you know, it's just like she
had the assignment, she had the title, but really had
to look I jokes aside, I genuinely want to say
good for you, Kamala Harris. Obviously, there were people who
seemed to think that this was part of a redemption tour,
(03:03):
that this was going to be something important. And I
think if you're not interested in being governor, you should
not run for governor. And I had been kind of
beating the drum on this for a couple of months.
As you mentioned, her public appearances were not exactly frequent,
and when she did, she generally talked about national issues. Now,
to me, if you really want to be the next governor,
you figure you'd be talking a lot about state issues.
(03:24):
It's not exactly but a quiet year in California, and
you know, her social media feed was mostly national issues.
She'd offered a three minute video to the California Democratic
Party state convention. She just did't act like she was
that interested in it. So this announcement is not surprising news.
The idea that, oh, well, if she's not running for governor,
she's definitely running for a president. I would not bet
(03:47):
a lot of money on that. I think she can
at least look at this and realize that she would
not have an easy path. When she ran in the
twenty twenty cycle, she literally didn't make it to the
year twenty twenty, dropping out in late twenty nineteen, you know,
and she had She was handed the nomination in the
summer of last year and did not succeed. So I
think she would recognize that it would be a challenging path.
(04:08):
There are a lot of ways to help your country
without running for office, and I hope Kamala Harris can
find ways to do that. And I hope this catches
on amongst Andrew Cuomo and Anthony Wiener and bid O'Rourke
and Stacey all these candids who've run a couple of
times been rejected, and like there seems to be more
of this addictive need to run for office rather than
(04:30):
any clamoring amongst the public for that. So honest a goodness,
good for you, Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, I think Michaelson's one of his paragraphs here tells
the story. She's writing a book money there apparently, I
would think setting up a nonprofit, depending on how that's structured,
that's a good way to get rich. And we'll travel
the country to campaign for Democrats. I'm guessing not in
the Swing States, but since she wasn't exactly all that
popular herself in those places. But I guess we'll see.
(04:55):
It's kind of like Biden, remember Biden in twenty twenty two.
And for the most part in any competitive race, you
know what, you got a lot on your point, mister president.
It's okay, it's okay. You don't need to come here
for me.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
One, by the by em Hoff makes really good money
as a Hollywood lawyer, so owns several like, so it's
not like she needs the money. And as for her
as a you know, campaign surrogate or you know, look,
you bring her in for the state Democratic Party dinner
in most states, they'll she'll get donors to show up,
they'll line up to have their picture taken with her,
and she'll give.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So like, she'll do that.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I would not have her in September and October campaigning
in Nebraska or may probably not North Carolina or a
bunch of these other really key swing states. But she'll be,
you know, a reliable, helpful voice on the what they
used to call the rubber chicken circuit.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
That of course leaves the question now, well, who is
going to be the next governor of California. And obviously
there's a lot of time to sort that out. But
Politico with the story on that that former Congressman Katie
Porter her insanity are not exactly the best of friends.
She lost a Senate primary to Adam Schiff last year,
so she's not in congre right now, but she is
running for governor and her camp was quick yesterday to
(06:03):
re up pulling from the spring, so it's been a while,
but it suggests she has the support of thirty six
percent of likely primary voters. The survey, which was conducted
by GBAO Strategies, also found that Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kunelakis
and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio via Ragosa, were tied
as the second most popular Democrats, although they trail Porter
by double digits. And you know what that means, Jim,
(06:27):
is that a certain very prominent Canadate is basically an
afterthought already in this primary. And it's a guy that
Joe Biden had in his cabinet, Javier ba Karia, Javier Bakaria,
Javier Bisera. But as I went back to get that
clip of Biden mispronouncing Bessera's name, listen to the longer
sentence here about how Biden introduced him.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
For Secretary of Health and Educations. Are I nominated Javier.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Ba Karia Secretary of Health, Health Entation, Health and Education,
health educator and whether there is a department since the
Department of Education was created forty five years ago.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Oh so, the people were saying that Joe Biden had
it all together when he first took off, as.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
He was good in the first of years. Snow he wasn't. No,
he wasn't.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I'm pretty sure that's not how his staff wrote.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Itet larger font on the teleprompter.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Phase.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
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that we send you, all right, Jim on to our
bad Martini now and this is perhaps a triple bad
Martini here all of the issues related to zoo on mom. Donnie,
(09:01):
of course, he is the Democratic nominee for Mayor of
New York City, handily defeating Andrew Cuomo and everybody else
back in June. He was back in the headlines briefly
this week after that horrific mass shooting on Park Avenue
in midtown Manhattan. The guy allegedly looking for NFL offices
thinking he's suffering from CTE, but killing an NYPD cop
(09:22):
who's already got two small kids and another one on
the way. Just a horrible story, as well as other people,
of course, who were killed in that shooting, another one
seriously wounded.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
He held a press conference yesterday, and as you might expect,
the question came up, Hey, you had all those tweets
a few years ago about defunding the police. Now you're
going on and on about how much you love first responders.
So what's the deal. Do you actually mean what you
said back then or have you thought about this and
do you regret what you said back then?
Speaker 5 (09:50):
My statements in twenty twenty eight were ones made amidst
a frustration that many New Yorkers helped at the murder
of George Floyd and the inability to deliver on what
Eric Adams of all people described as the right for
(10:14):
all of us to be able to enjoy safety and
justice that we need not choose between the.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Two, So getting rid of the cops would have that
balance between safety and justice, So that he's obviously feeling
the heat a little bit on that particular one. But unfortunately, Jim,
a new poll from New York City shows that he
is well ahead in this mayoral race, even with a
crowded field, fifty percent support now in this zenith Research
and Public Progress Solutions pull from July sixteenth to the
(10:41):
twenty fourth, Andrew Cuomo now at twenty two percent, Curtis
Slee with thirteen, Eric Adams just seven percent, and one
other guy at one percent. In a four way race
without Cuomo, mam Donni's support increases to fifty five percent.
In a four way race without Adams, mam Donnie's backing
rows to fifty one percent, and Base there's no head
(11:01):
to head matchup that's even within single digit at this point.
So despite all of the efforts to expose exactly what
a Marxist this guy is, and now you've got Politico
pointing out that they think there's something called Mamdani derangement
syndrome because people are a little alarmed that a communist
might be leading the largest city in the country. Still
doesn't seem like the New York City residents are all
(11:21):
that worried.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Greg you know this one, You know, there are aspects
of this one that are a hemlock martini.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Among them.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Because like there was a part of this as I
was ready to say, as you're going through those numbers,
there have been a bunch of surveys that had incumbent
formerly Democratic Mayor Eric Adams in a distant fourth place,
And I was about to say, you know, this talk
that Sliewas should drop out, like, you know, Adams should
drop out. Well, it's not dropping out, but his support
is disappearing seven percent, Like it's one of the Adams
(11:51):
should get out, so that seven percent could.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Go to one of the other guys. And it doesn't
really matter.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
It's not even much point in calling for Adams to
withdraw at this point. Second, on the talk about mom
Dami growing and reflecting all of the comments that he
is running from. Right now, we're made like in the
last five years, this is not you know came in.
He's thirty three, all right. The reason nobody's saying this
guy should run for president because he's not old enough
to run for president. He would assume by the next time,
(12:18):
you know, but by the next presidential election. Like I
cannot say that there was a time in my naive
youth that I thought Adam Gase was going to be
a good coach, you know, Like there are just limits
to how far your philosophies can can grow and evolve
in that And this whole thing is like, look what
I was saying to abolish the police. Just think of
the time. It was twenty twenty. We were all crazy that. No, no,
that doesn't get you off the hook. But so I'm
(12:39):
just going to shift aside all of this depressing news
is just gonna observe about Politico Playbook. So they have
two editions, a morning edition in the evening edition. This
is the evening edition, yester where they talked about the
alleged widespread breakout of mam Dami derangement syndrome. Now people
have heard Trump derangement syndrome.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Before then we had Obama the derangement syndrome, I guess.
But for a while there's attempt to catch on this
idea of Biden derangement syndrome. Not all criticism of an
elected official is a derangement syndrome, right, And I think that, like,
you probably should reserve terms for derangement syndrome for that
friend of yours who's like constantly posting stuff Beames on
Facebook and like every time you talk to you, like
(13:18):
nice weather we're having today? Is it or is it
just the earth banking because of Trump?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And is pollution?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
You know, Like, I think derangement syndrome should really be
reserved for this. Now that they kept in the political newsletter,
they come up with two examples. One, Greg is a
conservative social media influencer. As we all know, those people
are never deliberately incendiary to get more clicks because they're
trying to monetize their social media. You know that that
(13:43):
they're really known for their well reasoned, even handed, calm
and easygoing takes. That's that's what they're known for. The
other example they point to is Republican Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles,
who did call for mom Dommy to be deported. And yeah,
that's that's pretty in cindiary if you want to call it,
you know, derangement syndrome.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Five.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Keep in mind, this is the guy who's already called
for amending the Constitution to allow Donald Trump to run
for a third term, one of the FBI and the
Secret Service to investigate James Comy as an assassination threat.
Over that eighty six to forty seven social media post.
He has introduced the quote make Greenland Great Again Act,
and he sends out Christmas cars featuring his family holding
(14:21):
rifles in front of Christmas.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Dream So would you.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Say, ah, can you believe Andy Ogle said something crazy? Yes,
I could believe that very easily. This is who the
guy is. This is not exactly shocking. So I don't
think you can point to him and say, oh, my goodness,
can you believe that Andy Ogle's is saying something in
sidiary about Zoro and mamnomy? It must be that there's
some mam Dami derangement syndrome spreading over the country. So
I try to walk through for this for any slow
(14:45):
learners out there New York City, because people might be saying, oh,
you know, Jim Greg you guys have a national politics podcast.
Why are you talking about the New York City mayoral
race so much? Well, what happens in New York City
has far reaching effects all across the country. It is
easy to say New York City like where to break
off and form its own country. It would be the
ninth largest economy in the world. New York City has
a larger economy than Brazil. New York City has a
(15:08):
larger economy than Canada. I can see you know, listeners
saying that's not that surprising, And yes, New York City
has a larger economy than Russia. But like you know,
everything from media, advertising, banks, accounting, cy biotechnology, fashion, international trades,
because the report of New York is huge, tourism really
like just just a ton of that. Right, So if
things slow down and get bad in New York City,
(15:28):
there's a ripple effect that kind of goes out from
that area across the country. So whether you're left right
or center, you should want New York City to be
thriving as much as possible. And if you're electing a
communist manchild, you're going to end up with a whole
bunch of problems in there. And you know, so it's
yet like you poured out some of the the abolished
the police. He also called for abolishing private property. That's
(15:49):
not Bernie Sanders lovable Vermont crunchy Ben and Jerry's socialist
that's full on communist right, you know, we need to
nationalize the means of production style, right, you know. And
here's people say, oh, you know, if he's elected, he's
not gonna be able to do all these things. Okay, yeah,
do I get that he's still going to be a
very bad leader and he's going to try to push
policies in the direction that's the wrong direction as much
(16:10):
as possible for a four year span.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And will the governor be able to prevent some of this?
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Does the power you know, does city council going along with?
Not necessarily, but like it's just you know, New York City,
has it recovered some sons of the worst days of the pandemic? Yes,
has noted in this podcast little bit, it's a crime.
Numbers actually getting better so far this year. I post that,
and I was like, oh, he's saying alf No, nobody's
saying it's solid, just saying that the statistics are going
in the right direction month by month up till like June.
(16:36):
It's the last day of July. We'll see what the
numbers are for July. But like, hey, you know, that's
pretty good. It's not doing Eric Adams that he good
as as obviously but it's like, I don't want New
York City to make a terrible mistake. And if pointing
that out and saying that means that I have de
arrangement syndrome, well I guess I have de arrangement syndrome.
It's called caring about the city syndrome too.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
No, it's exactly right. And he's clearly yanking the party
to the left. And if he wins, which it appears
from these polls that he's like to do, the party's
going to follow in that direction even more. I mean,
the drift of this party to the left has been
pretty intense over the last several cycles as it is,
and now a guy who literally espouses open communist principles.
You know, he had a few people in the beginning
(17:14):
kind of I don't know about this after he won
the primary, but I've got like we talked about yesterday,
Pete Boodh Jedge, he's like, well, he is who he is,
you know, welcome to the big tent and everybody else
when he was on Capitol Hill for the most part
trying to get a picture with the guy. So he's
kind of a celebrity. And if he wins, he's going
to be a bigger and bigger deal, and the party's
just going to drift more in that direction. So it
does matter that he espouses those things. And in terms
(17:34):
of the media coming up with this Mamdani derangement syndrome,
you know, with just a couple of examples, reminds me
of the time that Obama was pardoning the turkeys. And
one anonymous that nobody really knew in town's staffer of
a pretty obscure congressman commented on the apparel of the
Obama girls when they were teenagers, and it was.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
A story for weeks.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yes, so they'll find any little nugget to try and
create a narrative from.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, and you know where people say, oh, you know, well,
if this pulls Democrats to the left, it will make
Republicans more likely to win, Okay, but that's still like
they're not gonna win every election, and so at some
point you end up with a Democrat who is full
on socialist communist rather than merely you know, left liberal,
which is bad for the country. Secondly, if Democrats end
(18:22):
up if he wins the mayoral race, then more Democrats, Oh,
maybe that's what we need to win, and you end
up instead of a country that's got kind of a
socialist communist fringe that starts to become the mainstream of
the of the party. And that is again very bad
for the country because someday Republicans are going to lose
another election.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
That's just you know, like I know, everybody wants to
believe that they're gonna win forever, but that is not
the case.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
And as for the media, yeah, I rarely do you
see what struck me as such a transparent effort to
create a narrative that, ah, mom, Dami is just another Democrat.
But look at this derangement syndrome calling him a communist.
They're calling him a communist because he's quoting Karl Marx.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
That seems kind of fair.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
I don't you know.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah, the only silver lining here is that he was
not born in the United States, that he will not
be well to run for president, unless, of course, a
federal judge just says you have to let him run.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Boy, aren't you glad we didn't change the rules for
Arnold a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yes, yes, there was that push, believe it or not.
But AOC's going to be old enough in twenty eight
we'll see what happens there, crazy crazy, crazy all the
way in New York City. And folks, you still got
time to get sane. But it doesn't look like it's
going to happen, at least not right now. If you
have any friends in New York City, give him a call,
even during business hours and tell them get a clue
(19:38):
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no missed customers. All right, Jim, onto our crazy martini now.
And I have a feeling this isn't going anywhere, But
it is strange that we haven't had a clear denial yet.
I guess at NBC News reporting yesterday, and it's your
addendum today in the Morning Jolt that Secretary of Defense
(21:06):
Pete haig Seth is considering running for office in Tennessee
and doing so next year, which means he would have
to start the campaign pretty soon, which means he would
have to stop being Defense Secretary fairly soon if he
wanted to do that. But as you point out in
the addendum, the only problem is that under state law,
Heggseth hasn't lived in the state long enough to run
for governor. Most of the other state wide offices aren't
(21:26):
elected by the general public, and other than that, there
might be one house seat that could potentially be available
for him to run for. So I just find it
pretty odd that it's possible that he's already looking for
another job after just a few months being the top
guy at the Pentagon. A clear no would be good
in terms of a response on this, But ultimately I
(21:47):
suspect he's not really going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
But for what it's worth, I mean.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Sean Parnell, the Pedagon's chief state pokesman, did give a
statement to NBCDS saying heg Seth's focus remains solely on
serving under President Trump unquote. However, Mike Experience, a story
like this is awfully specific and it seems kind of weird.
Like my my experienced, stories like this are rarely made
up out of whole cloth. Now does this mean heg
Seth has put a lot of thought into this? My
(22:11):
guess is no. This may have been idle chit chat
or something. But by way, if it is true, it
is a little troublesome that, you know, six or seven
months into the job, heg Seth is, you know, wondering
about what his next step is going to be. It
certainly has been not been a quiet six months on
the job. Everything from the strikes against the WHO, these
strike on the RAND nuclear facilities, the signal chat getting leaked.
(22:34):
There's been a lot of turnover and churn in heg
Seth's staff, which is, you know, maybe maybe there's you
feel some friction or some heat from that. But may
walk through all the possible offices in Tennessee because I
this this can't have been a serious focus because there
simply isn't any There are very few offices you could
run for.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
You mentioned governor.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Under Tennessee law, to hold the office of Tennessee governor,
person must be at least thirty years of age. Check
citizen in the United States. Check and you have been
a citizen of Tennessee for seven years before the election. Well,
HeiG Seth and his family moved to Tennessee in twenty
twenty two, so he would not be eligible to hold
that office. And you might like, oh, well, how about
Lieutenant gart Well, Tennessee doesn't directly elect the lieutenant governor.
(23:13):
Speaker of the Tennessee Senate serves as that job. The
state Supreme Court appoints the state attorney general. So it's
not like that's an elected position, state Secretary of state,
state treasurer, control of the treasury. All of them get
elected by the General Assembly for a four year term.
That assumes heg Seth would even want any of those jobs.
If you name a state commissioner job, there's a very
good chance it's appointed by the governor. So all the
(23:35):
state government jobs he's either ineligible for or that's not
directly elected. So you can't imagine he would do that. Yeah,
there's a Senate race next year. Tennessee has a Republican
senator named Bill Haggerty Runn who's pretty arned popular in
the state. He's running for reelection, and you know, there's
no area like for a primary challenge. You know, Stephen
Miller described the other one, not the funny one, said
(23:58):
that this he's a you know, said, Hagitty is.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
As maga as maga can get.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
So there's not like there's a room for a primary
challenge from some Trump loyalist or something like that. So
then you get to the House of Representatives. Now it
turns out that there is an open seat race where
John Rose is going to run for governor next year.
This is Tennessee's sixth district, and guess what this is
actually where heg Seth's hometown of Goodletsville is in this district,
(24:24):
and he would appear to meet the residency requirement to
run for the US House of Representatives in Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
There you have to have been a.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Citizen for the state for three years a resident of
the county representative for one year immediately preceding the election.
Assuming that you know, Haig Say's voter registration and legal
residents is still out there in Tennessee, obviously spending most
of his time in the Pentagon and in the Northern
Virginia area. But if he's still okay, fine, that's probably
not going to be an issue. What I find a
little head scratching there, Greg, is that would heg Seth
(24:51):
want to stop being US Secretary of Defense in order
to be a freshman congressman.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
That that strikes me as a step down. That strikes me,
and also like.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
One he says out, sounded like being Secretary of Defense
was his dream job and there was so much work
to do and he couldn't wait to get started. And
also remember he got elected. The senidate was split fifty
to fifty and JD. Evans had to break the time,
so this was not exactly an easy lift for Republican
senators to get him into that position. If head or announced,
hey it's been a year, Okay, everybody see, I'm gonna
(25:20):
go on for the House of Representatives, I think Republicans
would be pissed, and I think they'd have a good
reason to be pissed. I think when they thought when
they put when they confirmed Haig says for that job,
that he'd be there, if not the whole Trump term,
then for a good long stretch. So I think this
is generally nonsense. Maybe he's had a conversation about this.
I can't imagine he's put a lot of thought into this.
(25:43):
And if he really were interested in leaving the Secretary
of Defense job, which again there's not much indication of this,
would you want to be a House member or would
you want to go back to Fox News? I know
one is heck of a lot more lucrative and a
lot for your headaches. So yeah, again, I think NBC
News is barking up, if not even the wrong tree,
maybe the wrong orchard.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Yeah, definitely, I think given his passion for the two
things that he wanted to do and you know, rooting
out DEI and the military and improving lethality. I feel
like those are significant goals that are going to take time.
It's not like he can say, you know, we've accomplished
these things. So I think he is committed to those things,
and as long as he's got the support and confidence
(26:23):
of the President, there's no reason to think that he
would depart, because, like you said, it was quite an
effort to get him across the finish line. And I
think not only that he would want to stay, but
that he pretty much owes it to the president to
stay until further notice. So I think this will probably
go away for a lot of reasons, including the reasons
you laid out that there's just not a great political
(26:44):
avenue for him right now. Maybe somebody overheard him saying, oh,
down the road when we know administration is over and
I've you know, been in Tennessee for a while, maybe
maybe something like that.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
But at the end of a long, lousy day, right
after the signal, chat comes out, Hey, you know I
went for office in Tennessee. How long do I have
live there? You know, that's entirely understandable. But yeah, I
think there's there's still a lot of work to be done.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yeah, be very surprised if this would actually happen. So Jim,
have a great day. See tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
See tomorrow, Greg, Jim.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Garretty, National Review. I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks
so much for being with us today. Please be sure
to subscribe to our three Martini Lunch podcast if you
don't already, tell your friends about us as well. Thanks
also for your five star ratings and your kind reviews.
Please keep those coming. Get us on your home devices.
All you have to say is play Three Martini Lunch Podcast.
Follow us both on X He's at Jim Garritty, I'm
(27:33):
at Greg Corumbus. Have a terrific Thursday. Join us again
on Friday for the next three Martini Lunch
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