America First - Nicholas J. Fuentes - The Pennsylvania Special Election (Live) | America First Ep. 124

00:00:03.000 Good evening, everybody.

00:00:04.000 We're watching America First.

00:00:05.000 My name is Nicholas J. Fuentes, and we have a great show for you tonight.

00:00:09.000 Thank you for joining us for our coverage of the special election in the 18th District of Pennsylvania tonight.

00:00:16.000 We are joined by the great, oh, whoops, one second, actually.

00:00:20.000 We are joined tonight by the great Jazz Hands McPheels of Fascination.

00:00:25.000 Jazz, how are you doing, my friend?

00:00:28.000 How are you, sir?

00:00:28.000 Doing well, Nick.

00:00:29.000 I am doing great.

00:00:31.000 I think we have a very exciting show for the people today, some great, some of the top analysts.

00:00:37.000 In the country today, gathered here, the greatest minds to discuss what will happen.

00:00:42.000 And for people that are watching the show, we have a great little spread here.

00:00:45.000 We've got our people up top.

00:00:47.000 We've got the New York Times live, I guess, record of the vote totals.

00:00:52.000 And then we have CNN, or rather ABC News playing in the bottom.

00:00:56.000 So we've got a full spread here.

00:00:57.000 But we're talking tonight about the 18th district, the election, the special election between Connor Lamb and Rick Sacone.

00:01:06.000 And if I could just get some initial thoughts, what are you thinking about tonight?

00:01:08.000 What are you feeling?

00:01:09.000 What's going through your head right now?

00:01:12.000 Well, Nick, it's totally a toss up at this point.

00:01:15.000 I mean, I'm sure you've been following the polls as closely as I have.

00:01:18.000 I mean, it was a one point race.

00:01:22.000 I mean, now, but it's when you look at the trend, Connor Lamb has overtaken.

00:01:27.000 I mean, if you take the polls at face value, he's overtaken Rixicone.

00:01:32.000 And Rixicone was up by five, 10 points maybe two or three weeks ago.

00:01:36.000 And now that's no longer the case.

00:01:37.000 And so, you know, a lot of people are saying it's going to be Lamb by one point, but we really don't know what's going to happen.

00:01:44.000 I mean, it's going to be interesting to see.

00:01:46.000 Right, yeah, no, I think that.

00:01:48.000 Whoops, let me turn my game down there a little bit.

00:01:50.000 We're getting a little echo.

00:01:52.000 I agree.

00:01:53.000 I think that the only thing that we can be certain about tonight before anything actually happens is that it's going to be a toss up.

00:02:00.000 It's going to be completely unpredictable.

00:02:02.000 We've been watching the polls the past four that have come out have either Connor Lamb up by a few or Rick Saccon up by a few.

00:02:09.000 They averaged almost neck and neck within the margin of error.

00:02:12.000 And it's tough because, on the one hand, we know about this district, about the 18th district.

00:02:17.000 It's right on the border of West Virginia, it's in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.

00:02:20.000 We know that this district skews about 20% Republican in the last presidential election, in the previous one, in the past eight congressional elections in this particular seat.

00:02:31.000 But by the same token, we see a candidate in Connor Lamb who is a blue dog Democrat. 0.61

00:02:37.000 If there are any remaining, I think he represents it a young guy, a Marine, social conservative, somebody who supports President Trump's pro union, pro blue collar worker message.

00:02:47.000 And so I think it's pretty interesting how, on the one hand, this, by all intents and purposes, Should be a Republican district, but yet you have somebody like Connor Lamb competing.

00:02:56.000 What do you think that says about the Democratic Party?

00:02:59.000 What do you think that says about President Trump for his base, for the Republican Party?

00:03:03.000 Because it is supposed to be a Republican district.

00:03:06.000 It is, yeah.

00:03:08.000 And this is an anachronistic candidate.

00:03:10.000 I mean, I saw Martin O'Malley was on, I think it was Laura Ingram last night, and he was saying, you know, all five foot two, Martin O'Malley was saying that this is the future of the Democratic Party.

00:03:21.000 And it's so funny because.

00:03:23.000 There is no future in the Democratic Party for a candidate like Connor Lamb.

00:03:26.000 This is the only sort of district where a guy like Connor Lamb, with Connor Lamb's message, which I think is just superficial and on paper only, I don't think he really believes these things.

00:03:36.000 I think he's saying whatever he can just to get elected and get a propaganda victory.

00:03:40.000 But this is a district that is 96% white, 84% urban.

00:03:45.000 And as you mentioned, yeah, it's a lot of southwestern Pennsylvania, a little bit of Allegheny County, not much of the city of Pittsburgh.

00:03:52.000 But he has to hit these points.

00:03:54.000 He's run a race where he doesn't mention Donald Trump by name.

00:03:57.000 He attacks Nancy Pelosi.

00:03:59.000 But as Trump has said, and I believe Trump, and you can tell by the way that Lamb is, is, you know, he's a wolf in Lamb's clothing.

00:04:06.000 He's going to go out there and he's going to vote with the Democrats 100% of the time and piss off the constituents in Pittsburgh, just like Doug Jones did down in Alabama, where he's voting in favor of gun control and things like that.

00:04:20.000 I mean, this is the good news is that, you know, if this is a loss for Sacon tonight, it'll do a couple things.

00:04:28.000 It will show the Republican Party that they can no longer keep running these candidates who don't have a strong.

00:04:33.000 Platform on immigration, strong platform on opioids.

00:04:36.000 That's the craziest part about Seth Cohn.

00:04:38.000 He doesn't have anything on his website about the opioid crisis.

00:04:41.000 And the 18th district is going away as a result of that Supreme Court decision in Pennsylvania.

00:04:46.000 So whoever wins this election is going to lose this seat no matter what.

00:04:50.000 I mean, that's the bottom line with this.

00:04:53.000 Right.

00:04:54.000 Right.

00:04:54.000 Yeah, that's a great point.

00:04:56.000 And if you could, could you mute yourself?

00:05:00.000 I'm getting a little echo.

00:05:01.000 No problem.

00:05:01.000 Sure.

00:05:02.000 Okay.

00:05:03.000 Yeah, just because I don't know what's going on with the audio.

00:05:06.000 But no, I think that's probably the biggest point here is that the Democrats, in order to compete in a district like this, where I think they should be competitive, you look at some of the congressmen that have been elected in 15, 20 years ago in this district, and they were Democrats.

00:05:22.000 Only recently, relatively, did this become a Republican district.

00:05:26.000 I think it's quite telling that for Democrats to compete in a white district, in an industrial district, in a district that's by West Virginia, Pennsylvania, where this used to be, Somewhat blue dog Democrat type territory, they have to completely go against their message, which is this progressive far left platform.

00:05:44.000 They have to disavow their own establishment.

00:05:46.000 And so I think it is interesting that, you know, somebody like Conor Lamb, you're right, he has no future in the Democratic Party.

00:05:52.000 People ask me, you know, is this scalable?

00:05:54.000 Is this repeatable that the Democrats could challenge people in deep red Trump country?

00:05:58.000 And the answer is no.

00:05:59.000 Maybe they could this time around.

00:06:01.000 Maybe they could in a few districts.

00:06:02.000 But the kind of candidates that the Democratic Party is cultivating, the kind of Base that the Democratic Party is cultivating, that will not be hospitable.

00:06:12.000 That will not be welcoming.

00:06:13.000 That will not facilitate candidates like Conor Lamb in the future that are appealing to white people, that are appealing to middle class people, that are social conservatives.

00:06:22.000 So you're right, this is not the Democratic Party.

00:06:24.000 This is Trump's platform hijacked by an opportunist.

00:06:27.000 He's not going to go in there and vote for Donald Trump.

00:06:30.000 It is just like Doug Jones.

00:06:32.000 And you're also right on the Republican Party in the sense that this is the last time, this should be the last time, that the Republicans run somebody so weak.

00:06:40.000 You know, here we have another election.

00:06:42.000 Just like Alabama, that should have been a grand slam where it's deep red, where they could literally put up somebody who's dead.

00:06:50.000 They could put up a vegetable and they should expect that they should compete or win.

00:06:54.000 But this is the last time that we should expect the Republicans to put up somebody who can't fundraise, who can't campaign, who isn't strong on the issues that Trump was strong on opioids, immigration, trade.

00:07:05.000 I mean, Rick Siccone says he was the Trump before Trump was Trump.

00:07:08.000 He says that, you know, he's this rock rip conservative and yet he can't fundraise.

00:07:12.000 He hasn't been campaigning very much.

00:07:14.000 Like you said, on the website, there's nothing about the opioids.

00:07:17.000 He's not strong on the issues that count.

00:07:19.000 And this is the last time I think that we can expect this from the Republican Party.

00:07:22.000 We have to demand a little bit better.

00:07:24.000 But I don't know.

00:07:26.000 I mean, I'm looking at this district.

00:07:28.000 And what do you think the effect that President Trump plays on this district is?

00:07:32.000 Because you do see Conor Lamb, who adopts like a Donald Trump type platform.

00:07:37.000 And whether he's going to follow through on that or not is kind of irrelevant just to talk about the messaging.

00:07:42.000 He's adopted the Trump messaging.

00:07:45.000 He's adopted the social conservatism, the trade policies, very Trumpian type candidate, young, energetic.

00:07:51.000 And what does that say about President Trump that he's able to compete?

00:07:54.000 Is this a rejection of Trump by Republicans?

00:07:56.000 Is this a rejection of Trump by Rush Belt, Middle West, industrial state Republicans, or is this just the candidates?

00:08:04.000 I mean, what's your read on how this reflects on the president?

00:08:08.000 Well, I think it's a reflection that his policies are popular, which is why Conor Lamb has to basically steal the platform from Trump.

00:08:18.000 Now, Conor doesn't mention immigration, he does that on purpose, but virtually all of the other prominent pieces of Donald Trump's platform from trade, To opioids, to support for the steelworkers and the tariffs and everything.

00:08:32.000 I mean, it's all borrowed from Trump's campaign.

00:08:36.000 Whereas when you look at Rick Sacone, if you go out on his website, he says very little about immigration.

00:08:41.000 He says very little about opioids.

00:08:43.000 He says he's a right to work candidate in a heavily union district.

00:08:48.000 I mean, I just don't see it as an endorsement of Trump's platform in a rejection of the GOPE, essentially.

00:08:58.000 And You know, a lot of people might think, well, they should have won a better candidate.

00:09:02.000 A lot of that comes down to the state parties.

00:09:05.000 And this just shows that nobody was expecting Trump to win.

00:09:09.000 Trump came out of nowhere.

00:09:10.000 It's going to take time for a lot of Trumpism to trickle down into these local GOP political kind of sectors that have been kind of the same for decades.

00:09:22.000 And a lot of that comes to the younger generation to get in there and start changing things as these older people kind of move on.

00:09:30.000 But those are the people that ultimately decide the candidates.

00:09:33.000 They're the ones that hold the conventions, and they're the ones that fielded Rick Sacone.

00:09:37.000 And there weren't that many good options.

00:09:40.000 The funny thing is with Sacone, he's the guy that says, I was Donald Trump before Donald Trump was Donald Trump.

00:09:47.000 And it's like, oh, really?

00:09:49.000 Because look at his platform, and I'm not trying to totally trash him, but the upside to Sacone being rejected here is that, again, it's a rejection of the establishment.

00:09:59.000 It's an endorsement of Trump's platform because it shows the Democrats had to borrow from it to run.

00:10:04.000 And, like you said, they have not been cultivating candidates like this around the country.

00:10:09.000 Connor Lamb is an anachronism.

00:10:12.000 He is someone who is not going to be in every race.

00:10:16.000 They're going to have a hard time finding people like that to run.

00:10:20.000 But it's a lesson to the GOP as well because Saccon doesn't have the credibility to say, hey, I agree with these things that Connor Lamb is running on.

00:10:29.000 They need to start running candidates that say, no, I represent what Trump wants.

00:10:33.000 This is what I want.

00:10:33.000 I'm America first.

00:10:35.000 Conor Lamb is a charlatan. 1.00

00:10:36.000 He is a fake. 1.00

00:10:37.000 He's a fraud. 1.00

00:10:38.000 He's a sham, as Trump said. 1.00

00:10:40.000 Right. 0.99

00:10:40.000 It's true. 0.99

00:10:41.000 Yeah, no, we do need to have more authentic and actually Trumpian type candidates that are going to have that platform.

00:10:47.000 I think that's a really good point about the success of the policy, about the success of the messaging that President Trump has been getting out, that the Democrats had to steal it, essentially.

00:10:57.000 They had to co opt it.

00:10:58.000 And I guess good on the Democrats.

00:11:00.000 They're smart enough to see that it's working, that maybe the president isn't wildly popular among the middle and among the left, but.

00:11:07.000 The message does that kind of broad appeal. 1.00

00:11:11.000 And Republicans are stupid if they don't adopt that. 1.00

00:11:13.000 You're right about how it has to make its way down into the local parties. 0.99

00:11:17.000 Because as much as we see the country moving in a rightward direction, as much as we see Donald Trump pulling, I think, a lot of the middle and the left to the right, and you see this with Conor Lamb, I think you see this with white, middle, and working class America, that they rejected moderate Republican candidates like Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush and some of these other characters in favor of Trump, I think shows how he's pushing to the country.

00:11:39.000 To the right.

00:11:40.000 However, Republicans haven't been able to capitalize on it.

00:11:43.000 They haven't been able to field candidates who can effectively get out the message in the same way that Trump does.

00:11:49.000 And it's funny because they will all day long criticize the president's messaging.

00:11:53.000 They'll criticize the president's personality, his tweeting, his this, his that.

00:11:57.000 And yet he is so far one of the few Republicans that has been able to successfully run and win on this message.

00:12:04.000 You look at Roy Moore.

00:12:06.000 You look at in Virginia with the gubernatorial election and the state house elections over there.

00:12:10.000 They haven't been able to capitalize.

00:12:12.000 And we need a new Republican party.

00:12:14.000 Maybe it's generational.

00:12:15.000 You know, like you say, with it's a lot of these stodgy, you know, kind of older conservatives that are in there who run the conventions that are fielding the candidates.

00:12:23.000 And you see that with a guy like Conor Lamb, he's a young guy.

00:12:26.000 He's in his 30s.

00:12:27.000 He's a Marine.

00:12:28.000 Maybe it is up to these newer generations in the Republican Party that will say we have to be a party that is authentic, that has credibility on these issues, and can feel this kind of message.

00:12:39.000 My only concern about Donald Trump is this he went out in Alabama and he went for Luther Strange, right?

00:12:46.000 He went out there, he had a big campaign rally for Luther Strange, and Luther Strange lost a primary to Roy Moore.

00:12:51.000 And then he went out on Twitter even after the sex scandal.

00:12:54.000 And he wholeheartedly endorsed Roy Moore.

00:12:56.000 First, it was kind of tepid.

00:12:57.000 He said, you know, whatever you think, we need a Republican, not a Democrat.

00:13:01.000 But then he said, go and vote for Roy Moore.

00:13:03.000 And then Roy Moore lost.

00:13:05.000 He goes out to campaign in Pennsylvania for Rick Sacone, and he brings on Rick Sacone.

00:13:09.000 And I thought it was a fantastic rally, really great, lots of publicity, said some outrageous things.

00:13:14.000 And he really hit the opioid thing very hard, which was strategic.

00:13:18.000 You think about that in the context of Rick Sacone, who hasn't been strong, and that was smart.

00:13:22.000 But what happens now if he goes out there for another big rally?

00:13:25.000 He's backing a candidate, and this candidate loses.

00:13:28.000 Even though Conor Lamb might have won on Trump's message, what does that say about Trump that he just keeps picking these losers, whether it's Luther Strange in the primary, Roy Moore in the general, now this guy?

00:13:38.000 I mean, let's say worse comes to worse and Rick Sacone gets beat or he barely makes it or he gets beaten soundly.

00:13:45.000 I mean, what does that say about President Trump and his power, the sway that he holds over the party in the midterms, both in the primaries and the generals?

00:13:54.000 Well, I think what he's going to have to do, and he has been no stranger to doing this in the past, is he will throw Rick Sacone under the bus.

00:14:02.000 And he will say, This is, you know, this is, here's another candidate that I've gone out there on a limb for because he has to as the president.

00:14:09.000 I mean, it's, it's, it would be bad if he didn't go out there and support this guy.

00:14:12.000 So he's kind of forced to do it.

00:14:15.000 But he's going to have to, he's going to, if Rick loses, he's going to have to throw him under the bus and make a clear message because one of the other big concerns is that the DNC, even though they don't have a lot of money, we've been talking about this a lot on Fashion the Nation, the fact that the DNC isn't broke, they're in the red.

00:14:32.000 That doesn't mean that all the ancillary progressive groups, Aren't flush with cash and they are, and they're helping out the DNC and they're going after college students, uh, they're going after minorities, uh, to try to drum up the vote.

00:14:44.000 The RNC seems to be asleep, they seem to not be doing what they need to do.

00:14:50.000 Now, some people, uh, might say that they're doing that on purpose because ultimately they think that Trumpism is a phase, it will pass, we can go right back to the business of William F. Buckley, and things will be just as they were before.

00:15:03.000 But this is no party for, um, Aspiring cucks.

00:15:08.000 It's not going to happen.

00:15:09.000 These people are not going to win.

00:15:10.000 They're going to get 1% of the vote nationally.

00:15:12.000 And they have to retool.

00:15:14.000 They have to realize that they aren't going to win elections by running people like Rick Sacone.

00:15:19.000 They're not going to win.

00:15:20.000 They have to field better candidates.

00:15:22.000 Now, that's not to say that the primary field right now isn't ripe with good candidates.

00:15:27.000 It is.

00:15:27.000 There's a lot of really great candidates that are out there that are running for office.

00:15:31.000 The question is is it generational?

00:15:33.000 Are there enough?

00:15:34.000 Is the Republican Party doing enough?

00:15:37.000 Or are they sitting back?

00:15:38.000 And are they not, because they're flush with cash, they have tons of money.

00:15:42.000 Are they not doing enough to get out the vote, to get out there?

00:15:45.000 Because they, you know, Rick Sacone's campaign was asleep.

00:15:48.000 They've poured $10 million into this race.

00:15:51.000 His Twitter followers, I think he has half the followers that you and I do.

00:15:55.000 I mean, he's just been totally kind of absent.

00:15:58.000 And then all of a sudden, they realized that this was going to be, you know, at the very most, a propaganda victory for the left.

00:16:04.000 But I don't see this having a long term effect.

00:16:08.000 The only thing is, is that if it's a loss, it can be used to apply pressure.

00:16:12.000 I think a win for Sacon is going to be an endorsement of GOPE policies, even though they had to, like, keep.

00:16:20.000 This guy afloat with 10 million bucks.

00:16:21.000 I mean, it's, I don't know, you know, I kind of, it might be better for this to, you know, be a catalyst for change.

00:16:30.000 I don't know.

00:16:30.000 We'll see.

00:16:31.000 That's actually an interesting thought.

00:16:33.000 I haven't thought of that.

00:16:34.000 I haven't thought of that way.

00:16:35.000 That way.

00:16:35.000 You're echoing a little bit again.

00:16:38.000 That's all right.

00:16:38.000 Sorry.

00:16:39.000 It's all right.

00:16:40.000 But, but yeah, no, I haven't thought of it that way in the sense that if Republicans come out with a win in this deep red district, it skews 20% to the right, and they just edge out there, even though they didn't spend their money wisely, and they, They put in $10 million, or I think it was one site said it was $10 million, some one site said it was $8 million that the Republican Party has injected into this race through other PACs and other things.

00:17:04.000 This campaign has only spent about $1.5 million, $2 million.

00:17:08.000 They haven't been spending the money very well.

00:17:09.000 They haven't been, you know, this campaign hasn't been doing very well.

00:17:12.000 They picked a candidate who is not energized, who is not putting out the right message.

00:17:17.000 And I think you're right.

00:17:17.000 There is this element of complacency, there is this element of moral hazard that if the Republican Party Can basically rest on their laurels and they can take a back seat.

00:17:28.000 And who knows, maybe they're hoping that Donald Trump loses his majorities in both chambers of Congress.

00:17:33.000 Maybe in a sick way, maybe they're hoping for that because Lord knows that if Donald Trump gets his majorities, they're going to be pressured to move the country in his direction.

00:17:42.000 They're going to have to go his way on immigration, go his way on all his policies.

00:17:46.000 We know that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell haven't exactly been happy campers going along with Trump's message, but that's a little conspiratorial.

00:17:53.000 But if they're not going to support the majority, if that's not the case, Then, at the very least, they are going to become complacent.

00:18:01.000 You're right, in the sense that if they pull out a win here when they shouldn't have, when they got licked and they deserve to because they didn't campaign hard enough, they weren't smart in their messaging, they didn't pick a really solid candidate.

00:18:13.000 I mean, he's a good guy.

00:18:14.000 I think he's a good guy and he's a vet and he's a conservative, but they didn't pick somebody who is an effective campaigner and yet they're able to pull it off anyway.

00:18:23.000 The message that that sends to the Republican Party is business as usual works.

00:18:27.000 It is a tacit approval.

00:18:29.000 Saying this is going to work.

00:18:31.000 Hey, we could still pull off these Hail Marys in the end.

00:18:33.000 We're always going to pull it off.

00:18:35.000 But if we have another humiliating defeat after Virginia, after Alabama, and Alabama wasn't so much GOPE because they actually pulled the money from Roy Moore.

00:18:42.000 But if they come out with a loss here in a deep red district, 20% to the right, where by all odds Donald Trump and the Republicans should have had a victory, then at least, at the very least, there is an element of leverage where they can say, hey, look, you're not getting the job done.

00:18:57.000 Something has to change.

00:18:58.000 And I'm sure Donald Trump can employ leverage.

00:19:01.000 I think the people can employ leverage.

00:19:03.000 I think people within the party can say, hey, look, like you said, we're flush with cash.

00:19:07.000 The Democrats are in debt, and we've never been better financially.

00:19:10.000 Our turnout is at record highs like it was in Texas.

00:19:13.000 Our party approves of our president by 95%.

00:19:16.000 We're getting things done.

00:19:17.000 We have a tax cut.

00:19:18.000 And we're not seeing numbers.

00:19:19.000 We're not seeing people go to the polls if it's a loss.

00:19:22.000 And we are kind of presupposing it a little way.

00:19:24.000 But hypothetically, if it's a loss, then at the very least we can say, hey, get your stuff together, figure it out.

00:19:30.000 So I don't know.

00:19:31.000 I think that is an interesting way to look at it.

00:19:33.000 But the Republican Party, I think at the end of the day, just.

00:19:36.000 Simply hasn't been effective.

00:19:37.000 That this is even being focused on by the media tells you a lot because this was not a race that Democrats should have even been competitive in.

00:19:45.000 People forget that.

00:19:47.000 Maybe they forget that looking at the coverage tonight that the Democrats shouldn't have even been competitive here.

00:19:52.000 The person who left office that vacated this seat and why we have a special election, he ran uncontested in the past two elections and he won by margins of more than 15% in the past eight elections.

00:20:05.000 Skews 20%.

00:20:06.000 Mitt Romney won by 20%.

00:20:06.000 Trump won.

00:20:08.000 They shouldn't even be competitive here, let alone polling at 6% above the Republicans.

00:20:13.000 So that we're even talking about it, I think, is an embarrassment and shows how far the Republican Party.

00:20:19.000 Has fallen.

00:20:20.000 But, you know, let's say he loses, actually.

00:20:24.000 Let's say he loses by a hair or it's contested.

00:20:27.000 You said this would not have as much of an impact on the midterms.

00:20:31.000 What do you mean by that?

00:20:31.000 Elaborate a little bit on what you think this effect will have on the Democratic Party and how they'll be able to mobilize.

00:20:38.000 Will this simply be a morale boost?

00:20:40.000 Will it be a small one, a big one?

00:20:41.000 Will this drive a get out the vote thing in November or for the primaries?

00:20:45.000 Or do you think it'll be a muted effect?

00:20:46.000 Do you think it'll be kind of an anomaly like in December with Roy Moore and Doug Jones?

00:20:52.000 Well, we're still a long way out from the midterms.

00:20:56.000 We're getting closer, but we're still a long way out.

00:20:58.000 We're still two months away from many of the primaries.

00:21:00.000 Like Lou Barletta's primary isn't until May 15th, another Pennsylvanian that's running against Bob Casey, but he's still got to beat out all the other Republicans first.

00:21:07.000 So there's a lot of runway left.

00:21:09.000 The other thing is that this media cycle, as you well know, Nick, is so crazy that this is going to be a very, it will be a propaganda victory.

00:21:19.000 The media will spin it that way if Sacon.

00:21:22.000 Loses.

00:21:23.000 And they're even going to spin it as a propaganda victory if Saccon wins by a point or two, because of course they're going to spin that narrative and say, well, he should have won by 20 points.

00:21:33.000 It's a problem with Trump.

00:21:33.000 Why didn't he?

00:21:34.000 But it's really, as we've been saying, a problem with the Republican Party.

00:21:38.000 And so it won't, it will be fleeting, because as you know, the IG report is coming out next week.

00:21:43.000 You had the probe going away yesterday.

00:21:46.000 There's probably going to be the appointment of a second special counsel, we hope, knock on wood, see if it happens.

00:21:51.000 I think all of that stuff.

00:21:53.000 All of this, whatever this becomes, if Sakone loses, is going to get swallowed up by the media cycle.

00:21:58.000 And they're going to try to make it last for 24, 48 hours.

00:22:04.000 And they're going to be talking about a blue wave.

00:22:05.000 But if you go out and you look at the Cook Political Report, you go out and look at Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball from the University of Virginia, they've all been writing analysis that show you must be very cautious about talking about a blue wave.

00:22:20.000 The Senate map does not look good for Democrats.

00:22:22.000 They've been walking their people back from the edge of the cliff, just as they've had to walk their people back.

00:22:26.000 Back from the edge of the cliff with regard to impeachment.

00:22:30.000 However, if this is a loss for Trump, they're going to.

00:22:34.000 Trump can even spin it and say, look, you know, he can blame it on the Republicans.

00:22:38.000 He can blame it on the GOPE, which I think he'll do.

00:22:41.000 But even if he only wins by one point, and the media narrative is, oh, well, Trump should have won, or this Saccoon should have won by 20.

00:22:48.000 This is a referendum on Trump.

00:22:49.000 He can still spin it against the Republican Party and use it as leverage because you're not doing enough.

00:22:55.000 You're not running the good candidates for all the reasons that we've listed.

00:22:59.000 But I think the net result of this having any impact because of the unique situation of the district is going to be fleeting.

00:23:08.000 I think the danger here is, as you mentioned, it does allow the Democrats to say, hey, here's a strategy that works.

00:23:16.000 And the thing that I fear, because I know that them talking about impeachment, them talking about Trump, them talking about Russia, all the polls show that nobody cares about this.

00:23:26.000 Normal voters, independents, the people that they have to win over, they don't care about it.

00:23:29.000 And so, The sooner the Democrats drop all that messaging, the worse it's going to be for the Republicans.

00:23:35.000 That's why they've put out an infrastructure plan.

00:23:37.000 That's why they put out a repeal tax bill.

00:23:39.000 They have to have some kind of platform.

00:23:41.000 They're smartening up.

00:23:42.000 And if they run Biden or they start moving in that direction, it's not going to be good.

00:23:47.000 I want them to double down on the coalition of the ascendant, which they've been doing.

00:23:51.000 But they might be wising up, and I don't want Connor Lamb a victory there to give them any confirmation to follow down that path.

00:24:00.000 So that's a really good point.

00:24:01.000 Yeah, no, I think you're right in the sense that this is probably not going to be a grand slam in terms of momentum.

00:24:08.000 You know, like you said about the blue wave, I think if you looked at the Texas primary voting last week.

00:24:13.000 I think that put to bed any serious concerns about a blue wave or a blue tsunami.

00:24:18.000 We saw the turnout in the Texas primaries, and although people are talking about early voting in the Texas primaries, where Democrats are voting more than Republicans, if you actually looked at the total overall turnout for those primaries on Tuesday, Ted Cruz won more votes than all the Democrats combined in those primaries.

00:24:35.000 And you looked at even party unity, where Ted Cruz won 85% of the votes in his primary and his opponent won 63%, and he lost about 20% to some Hispanic who won all the Southwestern vote.

00:24:46.000 So you looked at Texas, and that was a pretty good example where Democrats might have doubled their turnout from 2014, but it was still nowhere. 0.53

00:24:53.000 It didn't get the job done.

00:24:54.000 It wasn't good enough.

00:24:55.000 And so maybe it's not that much of an injection of morale into the Democrats because here would be another case where the Democrats have had to run a white Trump supporting male, a white male who supports Trump, who's a social conservative.

00:25:09.000 You had this with Doug Jones.

00:25:11.000 Actually, he was pro abortion, so maybe not fair to say he was a social conservative, but certainly he was more to the right.

00:25:16.000 Than other Democrats in the country, it would be the second time that you'd have Democrats flipping and taking this kind of populist element from Trump, taking parts of his platform, and even in some cases, support for the president.

00:25:28.000 And maybe the fear then is not, like you said, is not that you're going to have this big momentum, that Democrats are going to go to the polls in droves and they're going to vote, but maybe the fear then is they find the model that works.

00:25:44.000 Whereas we've been very confident in our messaging.

00:25:47.000 And confident because the Democrats' messaging has been so poor because it's been focused on Russia, it's been focused on Stormy Daniels, ridiculous scandals people don't care about.

00:25:56.000 Democrats seem to back all the wrong policies every time, whether it's a ban on semi automatic weapons, or it's opposing the Muslim ban, or it's opposing X, Y, or Z.

00:26:05.000 They always seem to take the wrong position.

00:26:06.000 The messaging has been so ineffective from them.

00:26:09.000 They failed to really put forward a positive vision for the country.

00:26:12.000 But if they learn from Doug Jones and now from Connor Lamb that this is something that can work, this is something that'll win elections.

00:26:20.000 And not only win elections, but win elections in Trump country, win elections in contested blue, or rather contested red states that Trump won in 2016, where they have a Republican governor, states like Missouri, states like Montana, and they could become competitive if they say, hey, look, Connor Lamb won.

00:26:37.000 We're going to change our calculus for the primaries.

00:26:39.000 We're going to change our calculus for the general.

00:26:41.000 We'll change it up for 2020.

00:26:43.000 And maybe they start to learn.

00:26:44.000 Maybe they start to get a little dose of reality. 1.00

00:26:46.000 And that is probably the worst thing because the best thing we have going for us coming into the midterms is that the Democrats suck. 0.98

00:26:52.000 It's not even that the Republicans are strong. 0.98

00:26:54.000 It's that the Democrats just are an abysmal failure in messaging, and they have been for quite some time, I think even since 2012.

00:27:01.000 So we'll see.

00:27:02.000 Already we have some numbers coming out from Pennsylvania.

00:27:06.000 We have our first district reporting in.

00:27:09.000 We have some from Green.

00:27:11.000 We have some from Allegheny, or rather from counties.

00:27:14.000 And it looks like Connor Lamb is up, but with very few votes in.

00:27:17.000 And it still looks like it's a little bit of a toss up.

00:27:20.000 The average forecast is now a 52% favor or 52% probability for Lamb.

00:27:27.000 And it's estimated by the New York Times that Trump will, or rather, Lamb will win by half a percentage.

00:27:33.000 And very, you know, like I said, those are very early numbers.

00:27:36.000 Doesn't really mean anything yet.

00:27:39.000 But we're going to read out some super chats right now.

00:27:41.000 We'll see what some of the people are saying, and then we'll jump right back into it. 0.60

00:27:45.000 We have Tim Geglein who says, A new age where men will matter more than ideas.

00:27:50.000 That's an interesting thought.

00:27:52.000 And Tim is a buddy of mine on Twitter, and he says this that maybe we're entering into an era where politics is now more about personality than it is about platforms.

00:28:01.000 Certainly, I think that could be said about Trump.

00:28:03.000 Chicago Joe says, Nick, where's the knife?

00:28:05.000 Got to have it, bud.

00:28:06.000 You know this.

00:28:06.000 We need it.

00:28:07.000 The knife, I would have it.

00:28:09.000 It's all the way over there on my desk.

00:28:11.000 We'll have it for next time.

00:28:13.000 And Joe the Serb, who says, Four grand on this, Nick.

00:28:16.000 Don't let me down like more.

00:28:18.000 Goomba, I don't know if you should have four grand on this, but we'll see.

00:28:22.000 So, McPheels, what do you think about this idea?

00:28:24.000 Because I think it is an interesting idea about politics now, particularly in America, becoming more about the men than the party.

00:28:31.000 I think American politics is more predisposed to this naturally because we have, as opposed to a prime minister system, like a first past the post system or a proportional system, like in the UK.

00:28:43.000 We vote on people instead of parties.

00:28:44.000 But do you think there is any truth to this, the idea that politics is now more about the people, the candidates, the personalities than about the platform?

00:28:53.000 Or has it always been this way?

00:28:54.000 Or is it not moving in that direction?

00:28:56.000 What are your thoughts on that?

00:28:57.000 Well, by God, I hope it starts to become more about personality because that'll clear out about, I don't know, two thirds of the Republican Party.

00:29:05.000 Just chop it right.

00:29:07.000 Yeah, I mean, I hope it leads to a revolt within the GOP, like the civil war that's kind of going on within the Democratic Party.

00:29:14.000 Party right now.

00:29:15.000 I mean, there's huge, lots of infighting within the Democrats right now.

00:29:19.000 And a lot of that has to do with personality and the type of people.

00:29:22.000 And a lot of that has to do with, you know, we're moving away from being a homogenous society that cares about the policies more than it cares about the personalities.

00:29:31.000 But, you know, because everybody's kind of plugged into the pleasure matrix and you want somebody to make you feel good.

00:29:37.000 How did this person make you feel?

00:29:39.000 You know, they say, you know, people will often forget what you say, but they never forget how you make them feel.

00:29:45.000 And how you make them feel is important.

00:29:47.000 And Trump really hit home.

00:29:48.000 He made people feel like, for the first time on the right, there was a politician that spoke to them in their language that made them feel like they were being represented.

00:29:57.000 Whereas, you know, the GOP has always been cold and dry and unemotional.

00:30:02.000 And the only things that they get emotional about is moving the needle to the left for the Democrats.

00:30:07.000 I mean, the controlled opposition angle.

00:30:09.000 And so, yeah, I think we're moving in that direction politics of personality.

00:30:15.000 And we're moving toward a culture where people want.

00:30:19.000 Somebody that makes them feel good.

00:30:21.000 And if the policies are right, that's okay with me because I think there are policies to back up what Trump is saying.

00:30:29.000 Whereas with Barack Obama, I think one of the things that happened with the left is he made all those people feel so good, but then ultimately just didn't deliver.

00:30:39.000 I mean, except on Obamacare.

00:30:41.000 And then the rest of it, I mean, a lot of the stuff he did was very neoconservative in the way that he carried out his warmongering and everything else.

00:30:48.000 So, you know, it depends on what you're saying and what you're offering.

00:30:52.000 So, yeah, that's a really good point, especially about how candidates make us feel.

00:30:57.000 You know, you always hear, I think we've heard pretty recently in the past 25 years, the advent of this political theory that we want a president who we would get a beer with.

00:31:06.000 We would want a president who we could hang out with, that we see him as like a down to earth kind of a guy.

00:31:12.000 And I think it's really always been this way in American politics.

00:31:15.000 I mean, we look at the great personalities in America uniquely, I think, compared to other countries, whether it's the founders who are all, You know, pretty eclectic characters in themselves, but even through to Jackson, through to Lincoln, through to Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK Reagan.

00:31:30.000 I mean, these were larger than life personalities.

00:31:33.000 These were cults of personality.

00:31:34.000 There is something about American politics, I think, which does drum it up and makes you larger than life.

00:31:40.000 And I think that's in large measure because of the way the system works.

00:31:43.000 You know, whereas we just saw the other week in Italy where we saw the election of parties.

00:31:48.000 We saw a right wing coalition.

00:31:50.000 We saw the five star coalition, the left wing coalition, and they had their various leaders.

00:31:54.000 But when people go out to vote, they vote for their party.

00:31:56.000 Or in the United Kingdom, they do this.

00:31:57.000 Or in, you know, other countries in Europe, they do this. 0.67

00:32:01.000 In America, you vote for the men.

00:32:02.000 And it was interesting.

00:32:03.000 This might be a vindication of the personality politics.

00:32:06.000 When Trump went and campaigned and he did this rally, In Pennsylvania, the other or during the weekend, he said Rick Sacone is going to vote for us.

00:32:15.000 But he also said, Hey, Rick Sacone is a good guy.

00:32:17.000 He said, More than anything else, Rick Sacone is a good man, and that's important.

00:32:21.000 That's significant to us.

00:32:22.000 And I think that was very telling because it shows us that in this age, I think personality played a big part in the 2016 election.

00:32:30.000 You know, I think maybe people liked the policies that Hillary Clinton wanted.

00:32:35.000 I'm sure you could get somebody like a Joe Biden who pushed those and was more effective, but people didn't like Hillary Clinton. 1.00

00:32:42.000 It was a likability factor.

00:32:43.000 You know, even in the Democratic primaries, people liked Bernie Sanders more than they liked Hillary Clinton.

00:32:48.000 They weren't necessarily socialists, they probably were more centrist leaning.

00:32:52.000 But Bernie Sanders was a card, he was a character.

00:32:55.000 Or even during the Republican primary, maybe you liked Ted Cruz, but I mean, come on, the guy wasn't very likable, at least not compared to Trump, who was funny, who was exciting and energetic.

00:33:04.000 You even saw this in 2008.

00:33:06.000 You know, that was the famous moment during the Democratic primary debates when the moderator essentially asked, you know, people don't like you, Hillary. 1.00

00:33:14.000 People say you have a likability problem.

00:33:17.000 And, you know, Barack Obama said, you're likable enough, and, you know, a famous moment, but there is something about that in politics.

00:33:23.000 And here you have it on full display, where the policies are, you know, I think you could debate the trivial differences about, well, you know, Rick Sacone didn't have this on his website, and the Democrat might not follow through.

00:33:36.000 And these are important, I think, in the long run.

00:33:37.000 But in terms of messaging, Trump endorses Rick Sacone, and Trump represents this uniquely pro white or more pro white than other Republicans in past years, pro union.

00:33:49.000 Pro working class social conservative message, and it's being regurgitated by the Democrat as well.

00:33:55.000 And even though the messages are similar, even though they're kind of running on the same thing, and that's why the Republicans have had trouble mounting effective attacks on Conor Land because he is so similar to their platform, and he's a Marine and a social conservative and a Catholic.

00:34:08.000 The reason the Democrat's pulling ahead is because he's young.

00:34:10.000 He's young, he's handsome, and he was a Marine, and he's just likable and a good campaigner.

00:34:15.000 So I definitely think there's something to that.

00:34:17.000 But let's see, we'll pull up our map here.

00:34:19.000 And it looks like we're holding at about 52, 53% for Lamb.

00:34:24.000 If you go on Predict It as well, Predict It is a good metric, I think.

00:34:27.000 Maybe not the day of because it tends to fluctuate wildly, but on Predict It, it's got 86% for Connor Lamb, 17% for Rick Sacone.

00:34:36.000 So it's looking like it's going to be tough.

00:34:38.000 Now, we're looking at the votes that are coming in, and it looks like in Allegheny, Lamb is pulling away with 6% of the vote reporting.

00:34:45.000 He's got about 1,200 more votes than Rick Sacone, and Allegheny's the most populated.

00:34:51.000 Green County looks like Rick Sacone is pulling ahead, but not by much.

00:34:55.000 What do you make of the political geography here in this district?

00:34:58.000 I mean, if you've read into it at all, we have these four counties Allegheny, Green, Washington, Westmoreland.

00:35:05.000 Allegheny's suburban, the other three are rural, pro, Republican typically.

00:35:09.000 Allegheny's a Democratic stronghold.

00:35:11.000 What do you think about the political geography here?

00:35:14.000 What should we be looking for as we watch the vote totals come in?

00:35:18.000 Sure.

00:35:19.000 So, yeah, the four counties are essentially broken up across the screen there.

00:35:24.000 So, Allegheny County is mostly, most of Allegheny County is Pittsburgh actually.

00:35:29.000 What you're looking at on the New York Times is that squiggle that's going along the bottom, is the Monongahela River.

00:35:36.000 And so everything north of that broken part of Allegheny County is essentially downtown Pittsburgh and the North Hills and very Democratic strongholds.

00:35:46.000 And so the numbers that come in from Allegheny County, as we're seeing already, are breaking.

00:35:51.000 It looks like two to one Lamb to Sacon.

00:35:54.000 However, Greene County, southwestern Washington County, and most of Westmoreland County are all going to be the strong areas for Sacon, very heavily Republican.

00:36:04.000 Very strong in that sense.

00:36:07.000 There's industry in a lot of those places.

00:36:09.000 Monroeville is out in Westmoreland.

00:36:10.000 Washington, the city of Washington, is in the center of Washington County, and Greene County is very rural.

00:36:15.000 So I expect Greene to go very hard in favor of Sacon.

00:36:19.000 The thing about Allegheny County, especially along the river, is where all the steel mills are.

00:36:24.000 And so the people that are going to be in tune with more of Lamb's message on the working class vote, the pro union vote, people who have been traditionally Democrat before.

00:36:35.000 Who would have crossed over to vote for Trump?

00:36:38.000 Yeah, they would have crossed over to vote for Trump in 2016 and would have contributed to Trump winning this district by 20 points.

00:36:38.000 I'm sorry.

00:36:45.000 However, they may go back across the aisle to someone who is more their speed. 0.77

00:36:51.000 Hillary is not their speed.

00:36:53.000 A guy like Connor Lamb, whose father was in Pittsburgh politics for a very long time.

00:36:59.000 Like you said, he's a Marine.

00:37:01.000 He's also an attorney who was prosecuting gangs.

00:37:05.000 People in Pittsburgh.

00:37:07.000 It's a tough city.

00:37:08.000 They don't like the gang activity.

00:37:10.000 They don't like the crime.

00:37:12.000 This is the message from Trump that resonates with them.

00:37:15.000 And here you have Lamb, who is putting those people in jail.

00:37:17.000 Very strong, very strong on that aspect of it.

00:37:21.000 However, so much of this district is rural.

00:37:24.000 It could go.

00:37:25.000 That's why the polling has been so close.

00:37:26.000 It really could go either way.

00:37:28.000 Yeah. 0.73

00:37:29.000 And they still have it in toss up territory.

00:37:31.000 I mean, they're projecting that Lamb, they're projecting him by half a percent, but nobody knows right now.

00:37:36.000 It's all speculation.

00:37:37.000 It really is a toss up.

00:37:39.000 And And I don't know.

00:37:40.000 I think really it comes down to Trump.

00:37:43.000 It comes down to the message. 0.99

00:37:45.000 It comes down to turnout, which people say that's kind of asinine. 0.76

00:37:48.000 Of course, you know, that's what comprises an election.

00:37:51.000 But I really do think this is critical.

00:37:53.000 I think much more than Alabama, I think this is something that both parties need to really take a long, hard look at.

00:38:01.000 Alabama, I think it was easy for people to write it off, essentially, and say there was a scandal.

00:38:07.000 The turnout from the Democrats was crazy.

00:38:09.000 You know, if you looked at the turnout from Birmingham, if you looked at the black turnout, Where the proportion of blacks voting in the election was higher than it was when Barack Obama was running in 2012. 0.94

00:38:18.000 I mean, ridiculous turnout.

00:38:21.000 So many remarkable, exceptional things about that election that I think people could take it or leave it, essentially.

00:38:27.000 They could say, yeah, we lost, but I mean, look at the context.

00:38:31.000 With this election, I think the context proves how critical it is, what this reflects on.

00:38:36.000 It reflects on the Republican Party, it reflects on Donald Trump, it reflects on the messaging.

00:38:40.000 And it's really curious, I think.

00:38:43.000 The kinds of things that Trump said during his campaign rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend.

00:38:48.000 Because one thing that stood out to me more than anything else, I mean, he made some jokes.

00:38:52.000 He made fun of Chuck Todd.

00:38:54.000 He called Maxine Waters low IQ. 0.95

00:38:56.000 But what was really interesting about it was the part where he said that we should give the death penalty to drug dealers.

00:39:04.000 And I thought that was something really peculiar.

00:39:06.000 I thought that was something that really struck me as a little bit out there, a little bit risky, you know, because if you were watching the rally, the crowd, Wasn't really excited by that.

00:39:15.000 That wasn't an easy applause line.

00:39:17.000 That wasn't, you know, an easy platitude to throw out there like, we're going to build a wall or we're going to say Merry Christmas.

00:39:22.000 That was something that people were, they didn't really know how to feel about that, but it was very strong and very strong on an issue that's very important in this kind of an area.

00:39:30.000 And I think that just goes to show how smart the guy is, how smart Trump is, that it seems like he tailored it to that.

00:39:35.000 But we're talking about Pittsburgh.

00:39:37.000 We're talking about the outskirts.

00:39:38.000 And it will, I think, at the end of the day, be kind of this divide between how much is Pittsburgh going to turn out?

00:39:44.000 How left will they go versus how much will the world turn out?

00:39:47.000 How much will they vote?

00:39:48.000 And tell me if you agree with this.

00:39:51.000 You know, we know Pittsburgh is going to swing left, we know the rural areas will swing right.

00:39:56.000 The real issue, I think, here is turnout, right?

00:39:59.000 I think at the end of the day, it is a question of turnout, as it always is.

00:40:03.000 Republicans, if you were at the CPAC, the straw poll had them at 96% support for the president.

00:40:08.000 If you look at the job approval, it's wild numbers.

00:40:10.000 Republicans support Trump.

00:40:12.000 But at the end of the day, if they can't turn out in these kinds of elections, if they can't turn out in the primaries to vote for pro Trump candidates, if they don't turn out in the general, it really doesn't do us good that the approval is high if the Democrats are meeting us there.

00:40:23.000 So tell me, do you agree with that?

00:40:24.000 Is it so much that we watch the votes, but so much that we watch the turnout in the rural areas?

00:40:30.000 Yeah, I think the turnout is important.

00:40:33.000 Depending on how energized people are, it's all going to come out to that turnout.

00:40:37.000 Now, looking again at this map, I mean, Allegheny County does encompass parts of southern Pittsburgh, the city, but these are wealthy, median, high median income households.

00:40:49.000 So this is kind of very swipely areas, you know, white working class, white middle class people commuting into the city.

00:40:57.000 It does not really encompass a lot of kind of minority neighborhoods.

00:41:01.000 So You're not going to see high minority turnout. 0.92

00:41:05.000 It's going to be basically whites turning out for lamb.

00:41:08.000 And so it could be a little bit different. 0.66

00:41:10.000 Like I said at the beginning, this is 96% white, 84% urban.

00:41:15.000 And so there is a lot of urban areas there, but I'm seeing counties coming in, a lot of the rural counties already coming in for Sacon.

00:41:23.000 So it's going to be interesting to see what happens.

00:41:27.000 I mean, ultimately, I don't know what the, you know, it could even come down to weather.

00:41:30.000 I don't know.

00:41:30.000 Like I heard that there may have been a snowstorm impacting the far East Coast.

00:41:35.000 But I really don't know what the weather is like in Pittsburgh today.

00:41:38.000 So that could be a factor as well.

00:41:41.000 Yeah, that's a good point.

00:41:42.000 Yeah, that's a good point.

00:41:43.000 And you see this a lot in the cities.

00:41:46.000 I think you see this a lot with some of these populations that don't turn out so well in terms of people who already have lower turnout.

00:41:55.000 I think Democrats have lower turnout in the midterms.

00:41:57.000 And in a special election, you have lower turnout.

00:41:59.000 I mean, there's all kinds of things that affect the turnout.

00:42:01.000 But something like weather, something like if there's long lines, something like if there's bad traffic, people will make the decision whether they're going to vote or they're not.

00:42:09.000 And I think.

00:42:09.000 At the end of the day, that comes down to how energized the people are.

00:42:13.000 If people are dead set against Trump and they want to get out there and make a point, they want to go out there because they're so fed up with the president, they have to get out there and vote.

00:42:22.000 Or on the flip side, they're so energized.

00:42:25.000 They love what their president is doing so much.

00:42:27.000 They love his policies.

00:42:29.000 They love what he's been doing with taxes, with tariffs.

00:42:32.000 And people are saying maybe the tariffs aren't going to have that big of an effect because there's not that many steel workers.

00:42:37.000 But hey, maybe he mobilizes those 10,000 steel workers.

00:42:41.000 Maybe he mobilizes.

00:42:42.000 That small percentage of the vote that is steel workers, and maybe that puts them over the top.

00:42:46.000 People that say, you know what?

00:42:48.000 He went out there and he put out those tariffs.

00:42:50.000 He went against the Republican Party, the establishment.

00:42:52.000 He's got my vote.

00:42:53.000 I'm going to make it to the polls.

00:42:54.000 So those things do, it is consequential.

00:42:57.000 It does come down to that in many cases.

00:42:59.000 And we'll check out some super chats here.

00:43:01.000 We'll see what people are saying. 0.91

00:43:03.000 We have, let's see, Rex Kwando says the Amish don't have SS numbers, work outside of the tax system, live, chat, high birth rates, devout Christians, give up the Catboys and convert. 0.80

00:43:15.000 So somebody talking about the Amish vote.

00:43:17.000 What happened to Ricky Vaughn? 0.97

00:43:18.000 The unwashed masses want to know.

00:43:19.000 He'll be joining us sometime between 8 o'clock and 8 30 Central Time.

00:43:25.000 So he'll be joining us pretty soon.

00:43:28.000 John Shepard says Do the cruise crew type Republicans get Trump when he comes out in favor of gun control, for example, which is the most important issue to the non dissident right Trump voter?

00:43:37.000 Who isn't turning out?

00:43:38.000 Is it them or who is it?

00:43:40.000 I think that's kind of interesting in the sense that, you know, Trump, does he hurt his turnout?

00:43:46.000 Does he hurt the turnout when he says he's in favor of raising the restriction or raising the age restriction?

00:43:52.000 At which you can purchase a rifle?

00:43:53.000 Does he hurt his turnout when he makes these overtures to the left, which, Jazz, you and I both agree is political theater?

00:43:59.000 But nevertheless, does that hurt his turnout in these short term engagements, in the special elections and the primaries, when he says things like DACA are fine people and we should legalize them, or even if we're not going to make a deal, we still like them and want them to come here, or when he talks about the guns?

00:44:16.000 Maybe we see the long term viability of that in the macro political sense, but does that hurt him in the short term?

00:44:22.000 Is that hurting him with his base, the people that are.

00:44:25.000 That we can count on to vote reliably and turn out for Republicans?

00:44:30.000 It's possible.

00:44:31.000 I know in places like Pennsylvania, where again, 96% white, very few illegal immigrants in Pennsylvania, doesn't mean there are none, but it means that the immigration question isn't as prominent on these people's minds in places where the plants have been shuttered for sometimes a few years, sometimes decades.

00:44:53.000 That is what's at the forefront of their mind.

00:44:55.000 I think Trump had a big impact by going there and kind of. 1.00

00:45:00.000 Juicing up Sacon's sleepy race.

00:45:03.000 Trump has been to the Pittsburgh area five times since he announced he was running for president.

00:45:09.000 That fifth time was last weekend.

00:45:12.000 It was a very high energy event, and the people there loved that.

00:45:16.000 There are some other factors as well.

00:45:18.000 There is no early voting in Pennsylvania.

00:45:20.000 I also just looked up the weather, and it was a clear but cold day there.

00:45:25.000 It was about in the 20s.

00:45:26.000 And so I don't know, they're used to that in this time of year.

00:45:31.000 I don't think whether it would be a factor.

00:45:33.000 I was curious when I was thinking out loud about that.

00:45:36.000 But since there was no early voting, like in Texas, the Democrats poured tons of money into early voting because the agency of a lot of the people that they're trying to get out to vote isn't that great.

00:45:47.000 And so they convinced them to go at any time.

00:45:49.000 You can vote any time.

00:45:50.000 But Pennsylvania has so far resisted that.

00:45:52.000 It's more of a high agency, low time preference sort of place.

00:45:56.000 And so they have no early voting.

00:45:57.000 So they had to turn out all their people today to get those people out there.

00:46:01.000 So that's going to be a factor.

00:46:04.000 So we'll see.

00:46:05.000 I think Trump's message is strong.

00:46:08.000 I think Conor Lamb has been running a good race.

00:46:10.000 But again, this is something I wanted to say earlier a lesson to the Republicans it's like you spent $10 million on a guy who wasn't able to raise very much money on his own.

00:46:20.000 You basically kept this guy alive, limped him along through the race.

00:46:24.000 And Trump comes from the opposite side of the spectrum.

00:46:27.000 He was really solid on the issues, was able to market himself very well, get double the impact for half.

00:46:34.000 The money, sometimes like a quarter of the money.

00:46:36.000 I mean, remember how under budget his campaign was because he's able to get an impact.

00:46:42.000 And it just shows, you know, what's the Cohn and the RNC and everybody else that's been in there, the NRCC, trying to keep him afloat. 0.81

00:46:51.000 It's just silly.

00:46:52.000 And so Trump had to come in and save the day. 0.89

00:46:54.000 And again, maybe it'll be enough.

00:46:57.000 But, you know, my 4D chess narrative here, Nick, is that maybe in the, like, you know, I want the GOP guy to win.

00:47:05.000 I want the guy to win so it's a propaganda victory for Trump, not because I like.

00:47:08.000 You know, his platform, his policies, but maybe as we're far enough out from the midterms and other primaries, that it sends a message to the GOP.

00:47:18.000 And the price that's paid is a small propaganda victory for the left that's going to get eaten up by the media cycle.

00:47:24.000 And the Republicans have to play, learn a hard lesson.

00:47:27.000 And it gives Trump, who's not afraid to do it, the opportunity to come out and say, You need to get better about this.

00:47:32.000 You need to be more supportive of my platform and what I want to do.

00:47:36.000 You need to get in there and help these people run these races like the Democrats are doing.

00:47:41.000 And he should say so out loud because the Democrats, they don't want to talk about the efforts that they're making.

00:47:47.000 Somebody should be talking about these things.

00:47:49.000 And I think the president is a good one to kind of light a fire under the GOP and say, hey, you guys got to get busy.

00:47:56.000 You got to go do get out the vote.

00:47:57.000 You got to do canvassing.

00:47:58.000 You got to get out there and start interacting with people and putting people on the ground.

00:48:02.000 And you're not doing it.

00:48:02.000 The Democrats are.

00:48:03.000 And that's why they're pulling this out.

00:48:05.000 So.

00:48:06.000 Yeah, no, no, that's a good point.

00:48:09.000 And I think that that shows us that whether we come out ahead or not tonight, and it's looking like it's still a toss up.

00:48:16.000 New York Times says that Sacon may have a slight advantage.

00:48:20.000 Now they're projecting that he'll be up by a third of a percent, or rather three tenths of a percent, and we'll see what happens.

00:48:28.000 But I think you're right that even if it is a loss tonight, or even if it's contested, even if it's neck and neck, if Sacon slightly pulls it off, or if Lamb slightly pulls it off, I think either way, we will have a very strong pretext.

00:48:44.000 Donald Trump will, the ascendant.

00:48:46.000 America First element in the party will have a strong pretext to say, hey, look, dummies, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, the chair of the Republican Party, we have to get our act together.

00:48:56.000 And I think that this will happen regardless.

00:48:58.000 I think that the propaganda defeat for the left would be, or rather for the Republicans, would be devastating in the sense that here is Trump country.

00:49:07.000 This is West Virginia.

00:49:08.000 I mean, this is Trump's bread and butter.

00:49:11.000 These are the types of people that put him over the edge in 2016 and barely in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

00:49:17.000 Michigan and Wisconsin, in particular, razor thin margins he won by.

00:49:21.000 And so, if he loses this, where it skews 20%, where him and his sons and Pence have made a couple of visits, I mean, a lot of visits, in terms of that this is just a small special election that, you know, by the time November rolls around, it won't even be a district anymore.

00:49:38.000 But I think that either way, we will get the pretext to say we need to get this together.

00:49:42.000 I think it'll be a devastating loss if we do lose, but it will be motivating.

00:49:47.000 And, you know, I think even if.

00:49:48.000 Even if we barely pull it off, you won't have as strong of a reason to tell Republicans to get it together.

00:49:54.000 But even then, this is something that we should have won 10 times over with all the visits by the president and his son and his vice president, with all the money that was poured in.

00:50:03.000 I mean, even if we come out ahead by a couple of points, we did it at the cost of $10 million and a rally and several appearances.

00:50:11.000 And it was a challenge to win a district that was 20% Republican.

00:50:15.000 And I will add, additionally, here is something that's different between this election and the Alabama election.

00:50:21.000 The Alabama Senate election relied 100% on the black vote.

00:50:26.000 The reason that Doug Jones is a senator now and not Roy Moore is because of the black vote. 0.76

00:50:30.000 Because not only did blacks go 97% against Trump or against Republicans or for Democrats, but they turned out in numbers that were unbelievable. 0.88

00:50:39.000 Some would say so unbelievable that they were cheating. 0.78

00:50:42.000 But the Democrats won Alabama by bussing in the black vote, whether that was in the city or from other states. 0.70

00:50:48.000 I mean, who knows? 0.73

00:50:49.000 But they got blacks to turn out in numbers like you would see in a regular presidential election.

00:50:53.000 In a presidential election year, which usually that's when you see higher turnout.

00:50:56.000 From all sides, from all parties, from all peoples.

00:50:59.000 That is not the case in this district. 0.93

00:51:01.000 This district, like you said earlier, is 96% white. 0.71

00:51:04.000 And I think that tells us something about how our electoral politics works with these racial groups that maybe we don't expect to win a state like Alabama, where if the blacks are turning out like crazy and they're voting 100% basically against Trump, well, what really can you do except for beef up your own turnout numbers? 0.74

00:51:22.000 But if we're losing working class whites, if we're faltering on the white vote, I mean, that's what propelled Trump into office. 0.67

00:51:28.000 That's the constituency for the Republican Party. 0.85

00:51:31.000 We've lost the blacks. 0.97

00:51:32.000 We've lost the Hispanics. 1.00

00:51:33.000 We're not getting them back anytime soon. 0.98

00:51:35.000 Maybe, you know, in 30 years, we realize this Bush gambit of finally we get the, you know, a sizable proportion of Hispanics or blacks going red, but not anytime soon. 0.96

00:51:45.000 Not today, not in November. 0.64

00:51:46.000 So, what does it say if we're contested, if a significant amount of these people go for the left and they're white?

00:51:53.000 What does that tell us about Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio and North Carolina and Iowa in 2018, but also in 2020?

00:52:03.000 You there?

00:52:04.000 Well, yes, I am.

00:52:05.000 Sorry, I was fumbling with the unmute button.

00:52:08.000 So, yeah.

00:52:09.000 So, yeah, I mean, I think, I think, you know, there is the Southern strategy versus the Rust Belt strategy.

00:52:15.000 I think, you know, and I have a lot of friends who are from the South.

00:52:19.000 And so, you know, but the problem is that in those states, if they, you know, by hook or by crook are able to do kind of the turbo black turnout like they did in Alabama, I mean, nobody was predicting that Moore was going to lose.

00:52:35.000 I mean, even the polling was saying that it was going to be very close, very similar to this race.

00:52:41.000 But The expectation that that was going to happen was pretty slim.

00:52:46.000 I mean, but out of nowhere, the Democrats were able to go out there and do some kind of historic, if not illegal, mobilizing of, you know, plus 100% turnout in some of these districts in Alabama. 0.85

00:52:59.000 So in the Deep South, you're going to have that as an unmitigated circumstance with black voting and the potential for fraud. 0.98

00:53:07.000 So I think they're going to have to watch out for that and crack down on that. 0.99

00:53:10.000 And the Rust Belt, Maybe in some of the industrialized urban centers, you might have that problem.

00:53:17.000 Certainly, Milwaukee, certainly Madison, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, all those places are going to have that similar issue. 0.71

00:53:28.000 But overwhelmingly, it's a very white area. 0.72

00:53:30.000 Pittsburgh is extremely white, but that's going to be the issue now.

00:53:34.000 But it all goes back to do the Democrats have a bench of candidates that they can run on that message where it's believable?

00:53:42.000 I mean, Connor Lamb.

00:53:44.000 Like the way that I kind of framed it in the article I wrote for FTN and VDAR essentially was he is the perfect Democratic candidate.

00:53:54.000 I don't know how you find another guy like that.

00:53:59.000 White male, gang prosecuting former Marine who is Catholic.

00:54:05.000 There are a lot of people, Pittsburgh is a very Catholic city.

00:54:09.000 So I don't know how you find the perfect candidate.

00:54:12.000 They'd have to have a bunch of perfect candidates.

00:54:14.000 Now, there is a danger if they do have people like that.

00:54:17.000 But if they're trying to run, you know, basically like people that you would find from the Star Wars bar scene, they're not going to have a lot of success in the Rust Belt.

00:54:28.000 But going back to this topic of what happens if Sacon loses, I mean, I hope it leads to a GOP revolt.

00:54:36.000 I think the narrative should be it's not a referendum on Trump, it's a referendum on Paul Ryan, it's a referendum on Mitch McConnell.

00:54:44.000 And it should even be a referendum on Rana Romney.

00:54:49.000 McDaniel, chairwoman of the RNC.

00:54:51.000 I think heads need to roll.

00:54:53.000 Trump has no problem firing people.

00:54:55.000 I mean, he fired Tillerson and Tillerson's deputy, Goldstein, today.

00:54:59.000 So, I mean, I don't think, I think this has to lead to a catalyst for change if this is what goes down.

00:55:07.000 And again, if, if, if Saccon wins, I mean, great.

00:55:12.000 We, we handed the Democrats a propaganda defeat.

00:55:17.000 But it's a defeat for us as well because it gives the GOPE ground to stand on to say, we're going back to business as usual.

00:55:17.000 Awesome.

00:55:25.000 We're going back to what we're, what we're going to do best.

00:55:28.000 And that's, that's just totally wrong.

00:55:30.000 I think that is, does a disservice to us in the long run.

00:55:33.000 So.

00:55:34.000 Yeah, no, I think that's really important that the messaging after this election, if it's a loss, if it comes close, is that this is not on Donald Trump.

00:55:41.000 I think that's a really good point that you make that it's not a referendum on the president who has moved mountains so that we could win these types of elections with tariffs, with taxes, with making appearances and rallies and the things he's been doing for these swing states, whether it was West Virginia where he converted the governor to being a Republican, or Arizona where he let Arpaio out, or Wisconsin or Michigan where he's bringing factories back.

00:56:04.000 I mean, this guy is moving mountains.

00:56:07.000 Reforming the message of the Republican Party like we haven't seen in decades, maybe since Robert Taft, maybe since Mr. Republican in the 50s and 60s.

00:56:16.000 And yet we are still held back by the Republican establishment.

00:56:20.000 And so you're so right that if it's a loss, if it comes out as not a good result, the messaging, regardless, has to be that this is not a referendum on Trump, who did everything in his power to do this.

00:56:32.000 And by the way, in this district, who has a solid job approval rating in a state where he has a solid approval rating.

00:56:38.000 I mean, these people.

00:56:39.000 In Pennsylvania, in this district in particular, among Republicans, they, I think, compared to Texas, compared to the South, they are really fans of Donald Trump. 0.97

00:56:48.000 And if we couldn't pull it out because, you know, Mr. Trump, before Trump was Trump, couldn't pull it out because he's not campaigning effectively and the money's not being spent effectively and the messaging is garbage, is frankly garbage in these kinds of states that we're trying to win.

00:57:03.000 Maybe that kind of stuff will fly in Alabama or Mississippi or Texas or Tennessee, but it's just a different ballgame in the Rust Belt in these industrial states.

00:57:11.000 I think you're right that maybe it is worth it.

00:57:14.000 Maybe it is worth a propaganda victory for the left that we are able to put our own house in order.

00:57:19.000 Because if you think of it, it would probably be a much bigger disaster that Republicans don't have their head on straight and we have all kinds of Rick Sacones running around the country.

00:57:29.000 And I don't mean that like Rick Sacones is a bad guy, he's a good guy and he's an okay candidate.

00:57:33.000 He's not, you know, the end of the world.

00:57:35.000 But people that are not optimal, people that are not as effective, that are not getting the message out, that would be a much greater disaster that we see very close.

00:57:44.000 Tight elections like this in red states like Missouri or Montana that are easily winnable, but that we're just throwing down the drain because we don't have effective messaging and strategy.

00:57:53.000 Now, that said, we are looking at some better odds here.

00:57:56.000 As the votes are coming in, Sacon is holding pretty strong with a 61% chance of winning, according to the New York Times.

00:58:03.000 They're projecting he'll be up by two.

00:58:05.000 So it looks like as the votes are being counted, as they're being tallied, and Conor Lamb is still up by about 14 points, but just based on the projected vote totals in these rural areas, it's looking like as the votes come in, Higher chance for Saccona.

00:58:19.000 It's still a toss up.

00:58:20.000 We still have, they're still projecting that it's about what?

00:58:25.000 Let's see, about 24% of the votes counted.

00:58:28.000 So we're still, it's still early, but it's looking like we're doing better here.

00:58:32.000 We're going to jump into some super chats.

00:58:33.000 We'll see what people are saying.

00:58:36.000 Dan Mann says Will Trump claiming the economy is great backfire as the dollar will fail?

00:58:41.000 Economic collapse is going to happen as many great Austrian economists have been predicting the Fed expansion of credit.

00:58:47.000 I mean, the economy will collapse at some point, but not in the near future.

00:58:50.000 That really won't have a bearing here.

00:58:52.000 And if you look in these states, the economy is doing better in terms of microeconomy for individual consumers.

00:59:00.000 What Trump has done with the tax plan in time for these primaries and midterms, what Trump has done with trade, what Trump has done with some of these deals he's made with companies, is he's introduced a real effect for individual voters that they can feel more money in their pockets.

00:59:15.000 They see more money in their paycheck.

00:59:17.000 Their factories are coming back.

00:59:19.000 So there is a noticeable change, at least more noticeable than under Obama.

00:59:23.000 Begbie says, What administration was Lamb a Marine under?

00:59:26.000 I'm not sure on that one.

00:59:28.000 Maybe Jazz knows.

00:59:29.000 And we got one from Solomon who says, Remember that these people voted for Romney and McCain by the same margins.

00:59:35.000 The Republican Party is dead.

00:59:37.000 Long live the party of Trump.

00:59:40.000 Very true.

00:59:41.000 Very true.

00:59:42.000 And so, Jazz, do you know what president he was a Marine under?

00:59:45.000 I'm not sure what years, so I'm not totally sure.

00:59:50.000 It would have been George W. Bush.

00:59:52.000 And potentially part of Obama.

00:59:54.000 I mean, he's 33 years old.

00:59:56.000 He's been an attorney for a little while.

00:59:59.000 So you imagine that he was in the military in his early 20s and probably did some schooling in there as well.

01:00:06.000 So I'm guessing maybe early part of the Obama administration, trail end of Bush.

01:00:10.000 So.

01:00:11.000 Okay, yeah.

01:00:12.000 Well, I don't know.

01:00:13.000 I mean, it's looking like it's going to be a toss up.

01:00:16.000 And I think this tells you something because a lot of people were saying on either side, they were saying it was going to be a landslide.

01:00:21.000 They were saying that if.

01:00:22.000 It could be neck and neck, but they said it also is within the realm of possibility that's a landslide in one direction or the other.

01:00:28.000 And I don't think we're seeing that so much.

01:00:29.000 It's looking like it's going to be hotly contested, at least with these original numbers.

01:00:34.000 We're already back now to a 51% chance of Lamb up by 0.3.

01:00:39.000 So, really, even with a quarter of the votes counted, it's estimated that a quarter of the votes are counted, we're still in toss up territory.

01:00:45.000 So, it's looking like it's going to be very close, and we'll see.

01:00:50.000 But I'm going to go in and just check on predict it really quickly, and we'll see.

01:00:54.000 I'm sure the betting markets are fluctuating wildly here.

01:00:58.000 Let me pull it back on.

01:00:59.000 While you're doing that, I was just going to comment that one interesting data point here is that I see Greene County is coming in and it's coming in very heavily in favor of Sacon, which is what we've been saying.

01:01:12.000 Westmoreland is also coming in very heavily for Sacon.

01:01:16.000 And we're not even into the eastern part of Westmoreland, which gets more rural.

01:01:21.000 It's actually the parts that are closest to Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River going down to the south.

01:01:28.000 So that's interesting.

01:01:29.000 So around the steel mills, it's actually tipping in favor of Saccon.

01:01:33.000 The other interesting thing is that Allegheny County, the most urban part of the map, is already 58% reporting, and Saccon is losing Allegheny County, but not by the numbers that I thought he would.

01:01:47.000 It's actually very close.

01:01:49.000 In the most urban part, in the most swipely white upper middle class part of Pittsburgh, he only trails Lamb by 8,000 votes, and it's 30,000 to 22,000.

01:02:01.000 So that's kind of interesting because, you know, again, it's going to be Allegheny County that tips things in Lamb's favor.

01:02:07.000 These other places, Westmoreland, Washington, and Green, are all going to be heavily towards Sacon.

01:02:12.000 So this is going to be interesting to see how this turns out. 0.95

01:02:15.000 Yeah, that's a really good point.

01:02:16.000 That is a really good point in the sense that we're already at 60% reporting in what should be the Democratic stronghold, Allegheny, like you said, the city, Pittsburgh.

01:02:27.000 I mean, this is where you're going to see the most Democrats turn out.

01:02:30.000 And it's looking like they're coming up a little bit.

01:02:32.000 Sure.

01:02:33.000 Now, I don't know how these, you know, special election in this district usually goes, but, you know, with 80% or rather 60% coming in and he's only losing by 8,000, a Republican like Saccon is only losing by 8,000.

01:02:44.000 And you look in Westmoreland, they haven't even, it looks like they haven't even begun to tally any part, any eastern part of the state, anything remotely east.

01:02:55.000 Washington, no numbers are coming in from there.

01:02:59.000 Green, it looks like we're seeing a higher number reporting from there, about 64%.

01:03:03.000 But it's looking like there's still a lot of Republican votes that have yet to be tallied.

01:03:08.000 And it looks like the Democrats, their stronghold is coming in.

01:03:12.000 And it looks, at least from this perspective, it looks like it's going to be underwhelming.

01:03:16.000 But Again, it comes down to turnout.

01:03:19.000 If we see a sizable turnout, if we see a major turnout in these rural districts in Westmoreland and Washington and Green, if it's a big turnout and it's decidedly Republican, that's what's going to put Sacon over the top.

01:03:33.000 And you're looking in green, and this is a rural area, this is closer to West Virginia.

01:03:37.000 The margins here are pretty solid 63 to 34 in Wayne West, you've got 66 to 31 in Jackson, you've got 58 to 38 in Wayne East.

01:03:48.000 You've got 64 to 34 in Whiteley.

01:03:50.000 So it's looking like where the number should be, it's pretty solid.

01:03:53.000 And this, in a lot of ways, reminds me of what we saw in Alabama.

01:03:56.000 We covered Alabama live when it was happening in December, and we saw essentially the same thing.

01:04:01.000 And this is, I guess, we see it all over the place, but it is a balance. 0.53

01:04:05.000 It's a battle between urban Democrat turnout and the red world turnout.

01:04:09.000 And it's a question not just of margins of how much Republicans are winning, but also about how many people are showing up compared to the cities.

01:04:15.000 I think, you know, if we look at Alabama in particular, the trouble wasn't that.

01:04:20.000 You know, Republicans weren't voting for Republicans.

01:04:22.000 The trouble was that 600,000 of them stayed home.

01:04:25.000 600,000 stayed home, contrasted with 2016.

01:04:29.000 And so that's where what we say about the GOP establishment becomes so important because if people are not energized, if the message doesn't resonate emotionally, if they're not charged up by it, and they're not going to go out to vote on a Tuesday evening, you know, it's not a primary, it's not a general, it's just a special election, you know, you're not going to be able to win elections.

01:04:50.000 You're not going to be able to pull it off.

01:04:51.000 Maybe Republicans support you, but if they're not, Excited, if they're not energized, it's not going to happen for you.

01:04:57.000 And this is where Trump talks about how, more often than not, or I think it's historically true for every president, they tend to lose the House in the midterms.

01:05:05.000 And they tend to not do well in the first midterm because people get complacent, they turn out in the election.

01:05:11.000 And then the contrast maybe between the campaign and the governance, between soaring promises and rhetoric and the nitty gritty of politics, people say, ah, you know, I'm not really excited.

01:05:21.000 And they maybe lose sight of things.

01:05:23.000 I think at the end of the day, it'll come down to how much that rural turnout will come in.

01:05:27.000 And it looks like a bunch of votes just came in from Washington, where now Washington has decidedly gone red, and we're getting some higher turnout there.

01:05:36.000 Still a toss up.

01:05:38.000 But what is your reaction to some of these newer numbers that are coming in?

01:05:41.000 What do you see here in these new vote totals that have just been reported in these rural counties?

01:05:49.000 I think it's a solid indication that he's performing extremely well.

01:05:54.000 But this is just indicative of the fact that.

01:05:58.000 It's going to be a close race.

01:05:59.000 But again, it comes down to these rural counties that will turn out for him.

01:06:05.000 I mean, this is deep red Trump country.

01:06:08.000 And I think the fact that Trump was just there, and like I said, he went to Pittsburgh five times, this is an exciting thing.

01:06:18.000 I think that he may have helped Saccon get across the finish line if that ends up being the case.

01:06:26.000 Now, the other interesting thing that I'm seeing is that Allegheny County is now getting a lot closer.

01:06:31.000 For Lamb and Sacone.

01:06:33.000 So it's 63% reporting, and, you know, there's the differences.

01:06:38.000 Socona is trailing, but he's doing pretty well.

01:06:41.000 I would expect like a two to one there, and I'm not seeing that at all.

01:06:46.000 So we'll see.

01:06:47.000 It's going to be interesting.

01:06:48.000 I mean, what's the total percentage in?

01:06:50.000 45% so far?

01:06:52.000 Interesting.

01:06:53.000 Well, we'll see.

01:06:54.000 No, it's surprising that we're still, I mean, we're getting there.

01:06:54.000 Yeah.

01:06:58.000 You know, a lot of the votes have been counted, and even still, it's a toss up.

01:07:02.000 And I think that says whether it's a defeat or not, whether it's a win or not, It should be reiterated, it's worth mentioning again that Democrats should not have even been competitive in this district.

01:07:14.000 This district went double digits for Trump, for Romney, for McCain.

01:07:18.000 This district skews 20% to the right.

01:07:21.000 They didn't even have a challenger run against a Republican for this seat in the past two elections in 16 and 14.

01:07:27.000 They won by 15% margins for 16 years.

01:07:30.000 And Democrats, that's the story.

01:07:33.000 I think that's the story, regardless of the outcome, because it'll be a toss up.

01:07:37.000 I think right up until the end.

01:07:39.000 But whether it's Sacon who edges them out, whether it's Lamb who edges them out, the story is Democrats were competitive in a deep red, 96% white district that goes 20% to the right that went for Trump.

01:07:52.000 That should scare the hell out of the GOP.

01:07:54.000 That's why it might even behoove them that they lose.

01:07:56.000 Because if they lose, like you said, it's a resounding rebuke to the Republican Party that this is not going to work.

01:08:03.000 If we are up for grabs, if we have Senate seats, if we have congressional seats up for grabs in 2016 in red states, And they're vulnerable in the red, and they're vulnerable in districts that skew 20%.

01:08:15.000 What about the districts that went 5% for Trump?

01:08:17.000 What about the districts that went 10% for Trump?

01:08:20.000 Are we going to even have a chance?

01:08:21.000 Will we even hold the candle?

01:08:22.000 And it is important that, you know, the Democratic candidate here, like I said earlier, he's perfect.

01:08:27.000 You know, young, he's white, he's Catholic, social conservative, he's, you know, he's all the things that should be impossible in the Democratic Party today.

01:08:36.000 And even his record as an attorney general, as a Marine, or a federal prosecutor, it's hard.

01:08:41.000 For Democrats to replicate something like that in other places, but not impossible.

01:08:45.000 They can come close.

01:08:46.000 They can approach that.

01:08:47.000 They learn from this.

01:08:48.000 They can replicate it.

01:08:50.000 And we've got a real problem on our hands.

01:08:51.000 We're going to have to spend a lot of money in 2016.

01:08:54.000 It'll be a real chore.

01:08:56.000 And I don't think that's what we want.

01:08:57.000 You know, it'll be interesting and it'll be competitive in 2018.

01:09:01.000 But I don't think it's going to be good for our agenda that it will be a slog in every state and every race.

01:09:07.000 And especially when the Democrats, by all measures, should be more vulnerable.

01:09:10.000 They've got 15 competitive Senate seats up for grabs, a lot of them in In counties, or rather in states where Trump won in 2016, where you have a Republican governor or a Republican legislature, or both in some cases.

01:09:23.000 And so, this is just if anything is to be learned from tonight, it's that the GOP has to change.

01:09:29.000 Trump has to remake the party in his image.

01:09:32.000 This boomer kind of evangelical Ted Cruz constitutionalist stuff, it's not going to work anymore.

01:09:39.000 It doesn't matter if you like it, it doesn't matter if that's where you're at.

01:09:42.000 It just simply will not work.

01:09:44.000 The country has moved leftward.

01:09:46.000 The states that we need to win, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, they don't really care about a lot of the issues that people talk about at CPAC, at these other things.

01:09:55.000 They care about jobs.

01:09:57.000 They care about the economy.

01:09:58.000 They care about crime.

01:09:59.000 They want a New York Republican.

01:10:01.000 They want an Eastern Republican.

01:10:02.000 And we're not giving it to them.

01:10:03.000 We're giving them Roy Moores and Luther Stranges, and it's not working.

01:10:08.000 But it's looking like we've got a lot more votes.

01:10:10.000 Still a toss up.

01:10:11.000 We'll pull up some super chats here to get it going.

01:10:15.000 We've got.

01:10:15.000 And let's see.

01:10:16.000 Emperor's Finest, who says GOP needs to win because Lamb win would equal Democrats are learning and also the House.

01:10:24.000 And TR Pilot says, Nick, you and Jazz make a great team.

01:10:26.000 This is some of the best political analysis I've heard.

01:10:28.000 Keep it up.

01:10:29.000 Well, thank you for the compliment.

01:10:31.000 Much appreciated.

01:10:32.000 And I think the other thing we haven't covered so much is that this seat will not go to LAM, right?

01:10:38.000 Because they are redistricting Pennsylvania.

01:10:41.000 So whoever wins will have to decide what district they're going to run in in November.

01:10:45.000 So I think it's worth mentioning that whoever wins, they don't go into the House.

01:10:49.000 I mean, they do, but they're not going to be consequential here in the sense that by November, they're running again.

01:10:55.000 I don't even think they get seated, correct?

01:10:58.000 Yeah, no, it kind of just goes up in smoke by virtue of the fact that.

01:11:02.000 The state Supreme Court in Pennsylvania redrew the map at the whim of the governor.

01:11:08.000 And the GOP really, you know, I got to give them a little bit of credit in Pennsylvania for threatening to start impeaching judges, but they didn't follow through on that.

01:11:16.000 And I think, you know, it would behoove all of the party, including Mr. Trump himself, to begin going full Andrew Jackson in a lot of these cases.

01:11:26.000 Because, you know, it can't be that a panel of unelected Judges get to decide what the district is in Pennsylvania.

01:11:36.000 Now, maybe it'll work out in our favor where Connor Lamb is not in this district or he loses his seat or he becomes basically a competition between him and whichever Democrat is kind of in Pittsburgh proper.

01:11:52.000 But it's going to be interesting to see what happens.

01:11:54.000 Like I was saying before, this is a referendum on a candidate who could never win a nationwide race, which is Connor Lamb, versus the GOPE, the failed candidate.

01:12:06.000 It's a referendum on Paul Ryan.

01:12:08.000 It's not a referendum on Trump because Trump's policies aren't really on the ballot here except with Connor Lamb.

01:12:15.000 And that's what is seemingly so popular.

01:12:18.000 And so I noticed that the New York Times popped another map up on the screen here that shows the shift from the 2016 presidential election, heavily shift to the left in Allegheny County.

01:12:29.000 Not really much of a shift.

01:12:31.000 There is a shift in Washington and Greene County.

01:12:35.000 But that may not be representative of.

01:12:38.000 They are moving toward leftist policies.

01:12:41.000 What they're doing is they're moving.

01:12:43.000 The prevailing direction is still in favor of things that are Trump.

01:12:47.000 So that's how I read these arrows these people are coming out and they're voting on the issues.

01:12:53.000 They're voting for things that have been a part of Trump's platform.

01:12:56.000 That's why you're seeing it go toward the Democrats.

01:12:59.000 It's not going toward the Republicans because he's not running on Trump's platform.

01:13:04.000 He had Trump come out and campaign for him.

01:13:06.000 So maybe that's why these numbers aren't as bad as they are.

01:13:10.000 So we got.

01:13:11.000 72% reporting, it looks like now.

01:13:14.000 And yeah, the numbers are not as good for Lamb as I thought.

01:13:18.000 And he seems to, Sicone seems to be doing very well in these more rural counties.

01:13:22.000 So we will see.

01:13:25.000 But if Sicone wins, the narrative then needs to be that he got lucky, that he should have won by 20 points.

01:13:32.000 Nobody should have had to spend a million dollars, let alone $10 million on him.

01:13:37.000 And he needs to get a better message.

01:13:39.000 But again, like I said, I'd rather, I'm a low time preference guy, Nick.

01:13:43.000 I'd rather take a little Pain now and have the Republican Party learn some hard lessons and have Trump go ham on them a little bit and make some serious changes than have Sacon win and it be kind of like, well, business as usual.

01:13:59.000 You know, because again, I think it'll be pretty short lived if that ends up being the case.

01:14:03.000 Yeah, no, I think you're right.

01:14:05.000 I think that you're okay, okay, we're good.

01:14:09.000 But I think you're right about that.

01:14:11.000 I think it is worth it.

01:14:12.000 I think a defeat here would be worth it.

01:14:14.000 You know, I mean, this we can recover from.

01:14:17.000 Bad candidate, or not a bad, I hate to say it because I like the guy.

01:14:21.000 You look at his face, and he looks like a good man, and he is a solid man, and he's a solid guy, but not an effective candidate going up against a supremely effective candidate.

01:14:30.000 That's something we can recover from.

01:14:32.000 If the GOP does not change in time when it really counts, you know, because at the end of the day, this is like a trial run.

01:14:39.000 This is a test run because this person will not be seated.

01:14:42.000 Whoever wins is not going to be a congressman in 2018 or 2019, or at least they're not guaranteed to be because they're redistricting and then there's another election in November.

01:14:53.000 But this is a test drive and we can recover from a bad test drive.

01:14:57.000 We can recover if, you know, you don't do so hot on the trial run.

01:15:01.000 It's really not consequential in the sense that I don't think people are going to.

01:15:04.000 In November, which is eight months away.

01:15:07.000 I don't think a black voter in Alabama or a black voter in Missouri is driving home from work and they're thinking, well, you know, don't you remember when Connor Lamb won in the 18th district eight months ago back in spring?

01:15:20.000 It's fall now, but I'm driving home from work and I'm really tired, but I'm going to go to the polls because a blue wave is coming because Rick Sacone got, you know, that's, I don't think it'll have that much of an impact.

01:15:30.000 And even if it does, it's not going to be as dramatic as the impact that will happen in red states, which we can count on, which is.

01:15:38.000 People do not turn out.

01:15:40.000 We don't have effective candidates because we're not putting forth an effective message.

01:15:44.000 And so I think you're right.

01:15:45.000 And the writing is on the wall here.

01:15:46.000 If you're looking on the New York Times, the shift from the 2016 presidential election, that is what the margins are, even in the rural districts, from what they were in 2016 compared to today, almost all of them are shifting leftward.

01:15:59.000 Almost every county here is shifting leftward.

01:16:04.000 And not just slightly, a lot of them, even in the rural, the red parts are significantly shifting to the left.

01:16:10.000 And that should scare people.

01:16:12.000 Here's a district.

01:16:13.000 Where, minus the personality, we should be winning on the issues, and we're not.

01:16:17.000 And we're not because the issues aren't winning.

01:16:19.000 Obviously, they're winning.

01:16:21.000 If Trump was not pushing forth effective policies and effective rhetoric, Connor Lamb wouldn't adopt the rhetoric, wouldn't adopt the policies, and he wouldn't be doing well.

01:16:32.000 The fact is that he is.

01:16:33.000 The problem then, if we hold all things being equal and the message is working, the problem then is we have a fuddy duddy conservative here who's, you know, rock rip conservative instead of somebody who's talking about jobs.

01:16:46.000 And I think that's really striking.

01:16:47.000 Here's what's different about Trump and Ted Cruz or Trump and the GOPE, Trump and Paul Ryan.

01:16:52.000 Trump is not an ideologue.

01:16:54.000 He doesn't get up there on the pulpit.

01:16:56.000 Notice he doesn't get up there on the pulpit and say, we love conservatism and we want a conservative country and a red country and we're ideologically conservative.

01:17:04.000 He goes up there and says, hey, this isn't working.

01:17:07.000 Let's fix it.

01:17:07.000 Hey, this is broken.

01:17:09.000 This is wrong. 1.00

01:17:10.000 We have millions of people here illegally and they're taking jobs and we want jobs, right? 0.82

01:17:14.000 He doesn't get up there and say, we want to protect against cultural Marxism and we want to stop the European style socialists. 0.87

01:17:21.000 You know, in a very, we may like the dog whistling there, but it's not a Wayne LaPierre speech where he goes up there and it's this loud, ideological, far right, conservative message.

01:17:30.000 He goes out there and says, Hey, look, I'm a pragmatist.

01:17:32.000 You like to solve problems.

01:17:34.000 I'm good at solving problems.

01:17:36.000 And here we're seeing the fruits of that, where Conor Lamb is saying, I'm going to give you jobs.

01:17:40.000 I'm going to lock up people that are committing crimes.

01:17:42.000 And it's supremely effective.

01:17:45.000 And let's see where we're at right now.

01:17:48.000 Still in toss up territory.

01:17:50.000 With 61% reporting, and this is from the New York Times, it's still in toss up territory.

01:17:55.000 The betting markets are going crazy.

01:17:57.000 Let's see what's on our Super Chat, and then I'll check in and we'll see if Ricky Vaughn's going to hop on.

01:18:01.000 David Bowman says Dems have PACs and political organizations to motivate their base.

01:18:07.000 What do we have?

01:18:07.000 Anything that doesn't toe the line for the GOPE?

01:18:09.000 That's a very good point as well.

01:18:11.000 What role do you think the unions play in this, Jazz?

01:18:13.000 Do you think the unions are?

01:18:15.000 I mean, we know they're very political.

01:18:17.000 We know the AFL CIO are very political, and there's some shady things that go on there.

01:18:22.000 They tell their people who to vote for.

01:18:23.000 Maybe that's old fashioned, but I mean, we know that the unions break left and they organize for the left.

01:18:27.000 Do you think that plays a part in a place that's maybe decided by Pittsburgh?

01:18:32.000 Well, I've seen the unions, especially the United Steelworkers, were coming out in favor of Trump's tariffs.

01:18:40.000 You had Richard Trumka out there.

01:18:44.000 I think he's president of the AFL CIO, he was out there being very positive about Trump's tariffs late last week, very supportive.

01:18:52.000 And I think that.

01:18:53.000 Ultimately, is the play for the GOP is getting those people on board with the party.

01:19:00.000 I mean, they have nowhere else to go.

01:19:02.000 I mean, these people really have been abandoned by the Democrats.

01:19:07.000 You know, if Lamb wins, it will be a lot of them.

01:19:09.000 It will be because a lot of them just went back to their default position.

01:19:13.000 A lot of them voted for Trump because it was, you know, something different, something for their speed.

01:19:18.000 But now, you know, they might have just gone back to their default position with Lamb.

01:19:23.000 But ultimately, yeah, I think it's going to come down to.

01:19:26.000 Whether these people were enticed by Trump's message.

01:19:29.000 I mean, the good thing is that in Pittsburgh, but as well as neighboring West Virginia, Trump's policies have translated into tangible results.

01:19:39.000 With the employment rate being as low as it is in both of those areas, especially in West Virginia, coal mines opening, mills opening again, the announcement that the U.S. Steel is going to be opening up a plan again, although it's in Illinois, that doesn't, you know, they're talking about also opening up some of the ones down there along the Monongahela River.

01:19:56.000 These are translating into tangible results.

01:19:59.000 Now, Conor Lamb doesn't have, you know, he's one guy saying, I'm going to promise you all these things, but the Democratic Party has given those people nothing but misery and poverty for the last many decades.

01:20:13.000 And if enough of those voters are high info enough to realize that it's been globalization that has led to this, I think they realize that these jobs have gone overseas.

01:20:24.000 Trump is the only one that's bringing them back.

01:20:26.000 It's not the GOP, it's not even the Democratic Party.

01:20:30.000 And as you know, the unions have lost membership.

01:20:33.000 They've been hemorrhaging membership, not just because of job losses, but because there's no point in paying dues to a Democratic Party, ultimately, through the money laundering of the process, is that they're not delivering any results for these people because Democrats have abandoned white working class voters.

01:20:51.000 And they're trying in this election to pretend like they haven't.

01:20:55.000 Now that's just going to be a question of whether or not it's enough.

01:20:58.000 But the GOP, you know, like you said, Sacon is a good guy.

01:21:03.000 Really positive thing about him is that he's scandal free.

01:21:03.000 The one.

01:21:08.000 But the GOP has to run candidates who are not just genuine in their behavior, but genuine in their policies.

01:21:16.000 And we've gone back around again on this.

01:21:19.000 He doesn't have the opioid crisis on his website.

01:21:22.000 He had a woman at a campaign event ask him, What are you going to do about the opioid crisis, Mr. Sacone?

01:21:30.000 And he said, This is a fiscal conservative, one of these guys who just wants to.

01:21:34.000 Cut and slash the budget no matter what.

01:21:37.000 Unthinkingly and kind of unfeelingly, he responded to the woman and said, Well, what program, ma'am, would you cut first so that we could start funding an addiction program for your addict son or whatever?

01:21:51.000 And she sat there like blinking at him.

01:21:54.000 And it's like these guys do not understand what they're doing.

01:21:58.000 I don't know what Socona's from there.

01:22:00.000 I don't know whether he's just insulated from that or what.

01:22:04.000 I don't know to what degree Lamb is really connected to it, other than he is.

01:22:09.000 Smart enough to put it on his website and start talking about it as a campaign issue.

01:22:13.000 Trump went down there and redirected the message.

01:22:17.000 But like I said, if it ends up being a loss for Sacon, it's good that it's happening now.

01:22:21.000 Many months from when primaries are going to be happening, it's recoverable.

01:22:26.000 It's a single election night.

01:22:28.000 It's not, you know, we don't have five races running in concert tonight.

01:22:33.000 So, this is a good time to learn a hard lesson.

01:22:35.000 And I think we'll see how it pans out.

01:22:38.000 Yeah, that's a good point.

01:22:39.000 And, you know, in this state, in this district in particular, the drug epidemic is so important.

01:22:48.000 And that Rick Sacone hasn't talked about it at all.

01:22:52.000 It seems to be a non issue for him.

01:22:53.000 You go on his website, like you said, and it's not there.

01:22:55.000 You go on Connor Lamb's website, which I just did, and it says if you scroll down right under the donation part, it says the biggest issues facing the 18th district aren't partisan.

01:23:07.000 The first thing heroin kills both Democrats and Republicans.

01:23:11.000 Healthcare is too expensive.

01:23:12.000 The roads and bridges we all use are crumbling.

01:23:14.000 I mean, this sounds like Trump's platform infrastructure, appealing Obamacare, the opioid epidemic.

01:23:20.000 And interestingly enough, none of these issues, except for with the exception of healthcare, the infrastructure, Heroin, the industry, the jobs that are going offshore.

01:23:30.000 Republicans don't have answers for these.

01:23:32.000 They don't have effective ones.

01:23:33.000 These are not priorities for Republicans.

01:23:36.000 I went to a Ted Cruz rally at the Iowa caucus last year or two years ago, two January's ago, January of 2016.

01:23:44.000 And I went to his rally and Glenn Beck was there and Glenn Beck opened for him and then it was Ted Cruz and they talked about Israel and they talked about Christian nation and they talked about this kind of stuff.

01:23:54.000 There wasn't anything about drugs.

01:23:55.000 There wasn't anything about infrastructure. 0.56

01:23:57.000 There wasn't anything about Offshoring.

01:23:59.000 There was a lot of stuff, like you said, about fiscal conservatism, cutting taxes, cutting programs, and all that, but nothing about these things in the states that matter.

01:24:09.000 Look, we got Alabama on lock.

01:24:11.000 Hate to break the news to you, Paul Ryan.

01:24:13.000 Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, if you don't run people with terrible sex scandals, they're a lock.

01:24:19.000 Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, these are the ones we need.

01:24:23.000 These are the ones we have to target aggressively.

01:24:26.000 And they don't care so much about whether Israel's capital is the eternal capital of Jerusalem.

01:24:31.000 They care about their brother or their nephew or their neighbor's kid who died because of heroin or opioids or something like that, pharmaceuticals.

01:24:41.000 And I thought it was so telling that Trump went out there and he went harder than anybody I think ever in American history on drugs. 0.99

01:24:49.000 We're going to kill drug dealers. 0.94

01:24:51.000 I mean, you've never heard anything like that, at least not in the last 30 years. 0.99

01:24:54.000 Maybe you heard crazy stuff like that.

01:24:56.000 I don't think it's crazy, but things that are outside the mainstream like that in a long time.

01:25:00.000 And he went hard because there is a real deficit between the GOPE.

01:25:05.000 And the priorities they have, and the voters, where the voters are at, and Donald Trump's party is at.

01:25:11.000 And so you're right, maybe it will take a tough loss for these Republicans to get their heads on straight because you're right, this is not a loss for Donald Trump, who has tangibly brought jobs back, who has tangibly brought the opioid epidemic to attention and brought the drug crisis to attention, and who's bringing back, you introduce an infrastructure bill versus the GOPE, who's done none of that, who cares about none of that, who, you know, that horrible moment with that woman that you said.

01:25:37.000 This will be a referendum on the GOPE.

01:25:37.000 I think you're right.

01:25:39.000 It might be worth taking a loss.

01:25:41.000 It looks like our pal Ricky Vaughn is ready to jump in.

01:25:46.000 So let me add him here to the call.

01:25:48.000 Let me see if I can do that.

01:25:51.000 I'm so good today with the technology.

01:25:53.000 It's incredible.

01:25:54.000 So I'm bringing Ricky Vaughn in.

01:25:57.000 Ricky Vaughn, or I guess we're ringing him now.

01:26:00.000 So we're waiting on him to pick up.

01:26:03.000 But there he is.

01:26:04.000 Rick, can you hear me?

01:26:06.000 Hey, what's up, fellas?

01:26:07.000 Hey, how's it going, big guy?

01:26:09.000 Good, you?

01:26:10.000 Doing well, doing well.

01:26:11.000 So, have you been watching the coverage or are you just getting with us?

01:26:16.000 I watched a little bit of the coverage to warm up here.

01:26:19.000 And so, what's your take?

01:26:19.000 Excellent.

01:26:21.000 We got Ricky Vaughn, the irony bro in chief here.

01:26:27.000 So, what are your thoughts right out of the gate as you've been watching?

01:26:29.000 If you've been seeing things come in, what's your first thoughts here?

01:26:33.000 Well, the optics of the race are very tough. 1.00

01:26:36.000 I'm a doctor in optics, so I have a doctorate degree.

01:26:40.000 The optics of the race are very tough for Sacon right now.

01:26:42.000 I think it's right about a tie ballgame.

01:26:46.000 However, the DEM intensity is strong, so he could easily pull this out, but it's It's a 50 50 race, and that's not where you want to be if you're Sacon.

01:26:57.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:26:58.000 No, I think that's concise, but true.

01:26:58.000 Yeah.

01:27:01.000 I mean, we shouldn't be 50 50.

01:27:03.000 What do you think about all this?

01:27:05.000 All that I just said, all that Vaughn just said.

01:27:08.000 Jazz, what is your take?

01:27:10.000 Well, we kind of have some breaking news.

01:27:13.000 So it looks like Nate Cohn, who is one of the people who puts together this New York Times poll, or sorry, the results in the analytics and all the things that are kind of trending in one way or another.

01:27:26.000 He just tweeted a few minutes ago that Westmoreland County, one of the counties where Monroeville is, and it's out to the east, a very Republican area, has told us that they aren't going to report results by precinct tonight, though they had previously told us they would.

01:27:42.000 So his entire model is based on Westmoreland reporting their numbers.

01:27:47.000 And so that's interesting because what they've been predicting, and now those gauges have disappeared, but before they disappeared, what they showed was that it was going to be a half a percentage point race.

01:27:58.000 And that they were only 52 or 53 percent in favor of Lamb, but that was without any information coming in from Westmoreland County.

01:28:08.000 And now that Westmoreland County is not even being counted, he had to kill his entire model.

01:28:13.000 But what that says is that none of those heavy Republican votes were coming in, were being counted so far.

01:28:19.000 I mean, they're showing up here on the bottom, but I think he had to kill his model because of that.

01:28:24.000 So it's going to be, I don't know, I don't know how reliable this is going to be, but I guess we can still kind of use it.

01:28:30.000 I'm going to open up some other.

01:28:32.000 Maybe the Pennsylvania State Board of Elections site will have something.

01:28:36.000 No, even New York Times has shut down their forecast as well.

01:28:40.000 They completely shut down the where we were accessing the probability and what they were projecting.

01:28:47.000 It now says under their live estimates of the final vote section precinct results are not currently available in Westmoreland County, a heavily Republican part of the district.

01:28:55.000 We're monitoring the county level results closely, but for now we cannot responsibly make a forecast without more detailed information.

01:29:03.000 About where in Westmoreland County the votes are coming from.

01:29:05.000 So it looks like, I guess at the county level, they're monitoring it.

01:29:10.000 I guess votes are coming in, but they don't know from where, maybe.

01:29:14.000 But yeah, I guess this is happening all across the board that nothing is coming in from Westmoreland, nothing is being counted.

01:29:20.000 And how is that going to affect the projections?

01:29:23.000 It looks like we've got 71% reporting, 422 out of 593 precincts, and Rick Sacone's got 70,000.

01:29:32.000 It looks like.

01:29:34.000 Allegheny is 83% reporting Democratic stronghold, so it looks like that's just about spent.

01:29:41.000 And we've got nothing so far, or I guess they do have stuff from Westmoreland, but they don't know from where.

01:29:46.000 Washington's still at 33% reporting, so it looks like we're running into some drama here on the campaign trail, some drama tallying the votes.

01:29:57.000 Yeah, well, I have the Pennsylvania State Board of Elections website pulled up, and it is current, it is live data.

01:30:04.000 They have 70% reporting.

01:30:06.000 Reporting in at the moment.

01:30:09.000 Westmoreland County is favoring Saccon by 14 points.

01:30:15.000 Socone is tied in Washington County and he is beating Lamb by 16 points in Greene County.

01:30:23.000 So it's kind of interesting to see how this is all going to play out.

01:30:27.000 But it's neck and neck right now.

01:30:29.000 It's 51 to 48, Lamb leading by three points.

01:30:32.000 So we'll see what happens.

01:30:36.000 Rick, what is your take?

01:30:37.000 What are your thoughts on all this? 1.00

01:30:39.000 Well, I'm following a guy named Dave Wasserman who handicaps this kind of stuff. 1.00

01:30:45.000 And he says that.

01:30:46.000 Lamb is holding steady at 43% in Westmoreland with 77% reporting.

01:30:53.000 Now, if Lamb can hold steady at 43, that's where he would need to win.

01:30:58.000 So it looks like Lamb has to be feeling pretty good to be this close to winning.

01:31:04.000 But like I said, it's going to be a toss up going right down to the wire here.

01:31:08.000 And yeah, people have to throw out their left versus right sort of political compass for this kind of a race because.

01:31:20.000 What you've got is a guy, Lamb, who's kind of doing what Trump did in the presidential election, which is throw out the lefty right spectrum and turn it on its head.

01:31:32.000 Because these are sort of classic old time Democrat counties where people loved FDR, they loved JFK.

01:31:43.000 And so Lamb is sort of a throwback to these sort of candidates, sort of a chicken in every pot, economic populism.

01:31:53.000 And Sakone is kind of this fossil, GOP Bush Republican fossil.

01:32:00.000 I mean, his pitch to voters is like, I support Israel. 0.98

01:32:06.000 So it's like a pretty pathetic pitch. 0.94

01:32:08.000 And what we saw in Virginia was the candidate Ed Gillespie lose. 0.94

01:32:14.000 He tried to do cultural populism, but he didn't touch on economic populism.

01:32:19.000 And that's kind of what you got with Sakone, too.

01:32:21.000 You've got the cultural populism.

01:32:23.000 But he's sort of a throwback boomer Republican who loves Israel and free markets.

01:32:29.000 So it's a tough race for the types of people voting in this district are not really thrilled with that sort of Republican, which is why they went for Trump by 20 points.

01:32:40.000 Yeah, no, that's, I think, the most striking thing here is the contrast between Sacon, who looks like a fossil of Bush era, Reagan era conservatism, and versus this ascendant Trump party.

01:32:52.000 I think in many ways, Conor Lamb.

01:32:54.000 Resembles Donald Trump and the ascendant nationalist coalition in the Republican Party than Rick Sacone does.

01:33:01.000 If we were to strip away Republican and Democrat and put these people in a hat, you very well might think this is a Republican primary.

01:33:08.000 You very well might think this is a Republican primary, no different in some cases than the 2016 presidential primary, where you have Connor Lamb, social conservative.

01:33:18.000 He thinks healthcare is too expensive.

01:33:20.000 He wants infrastructure.

01:33:21.000 He wants jobs.

01:33:22.000 He wants the opioid epidemic solved.

01:33:24.000 This is not a partisan race.

01:33:25.000 This is not an ideological race.

01:33:28.000 And unfortunately, it looks like Saccon didn't get the memo on that.

01:33:31.000 It looks like Saccon is out there touting his conservative credentials and his ideological partisan credentials.

01:33:38.000 And I don't think voters want to hear that.

01:33:40.000 I think that's something that's striking. 0.73

01:33:42.000 Democrats have to do it this way, but Republicans are dumb not to do it this way in the sense that, you know, Lamb almost has to say, look, it's not about party, and I disavow Nancy Pelosi and I won't vote for her. 0.93

01:33:55.000 Because for him to associate with the Democratic Party and play the racial politics and pander to minority voters, it would be suicide here. 0.98

01:34:03.000 And he has to do it, but Republicans are dumb to not do it because we could do it so much better. 0.95

01:34:07.000 We have a president who's been working towards it, and this would just be I think this would be the wake up call of a century. 0.98

01:34:14.000 Look, Republicans, you need the white vote. 0.92

01:34:17.000 You need the white vote. 0.58

01:34:19.000 You need the working class vote. 0.99

01:34:20.000 You need the Rust Belt and the industrial states. 0.74

01:34:22.000 How are you going to win them?

01:34:24.000 You've got the South.

01:34:25.000 You've got the West.

01:34:27.000 Let's complete this picture of 270 electoral votes and 56 or 58 or 60 votes in the Senate.

01:34:34.000 And they don't have an answer for that.

01:34:38.000 And we need strong, populist, young candidates, which is what you see with Connor Lamb.

01:34:38.000 Yeah.

01:34:43.000 This is a guy who refused.

01:34:45.000 To go along with gun control when some of his more liberal constituents were pushing him on that issue.

01:34:53.000 He is in favor of clean coal and also fracking.

01:34:57.000 So that takes a lot of the wind out of Saccon's sails.

01:35:01.000 And with Saccon, he's just this sort of boring guy.

01:35:05.000 He likes to talk about sort of, he like all he had to say, in my opinion, was that Lamb supported amnesty because Lamb was going around telling people.

01:35:17.000 That he wants a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegals, not just the DACA people. 0.84

01:35:26.000 So I wonder, I'm so Sikoun with no political instincts.

01:35:31.000 And it's a little bit of a shame Trump didn't get the memo on this either because he could have talked about this in the rally.

01:35:37.000 All you got to do is hit him on amnesty and say, this guy's not going to build the wall.

01:35:42.000 He's not going to deport the people he wants deported.

01:35:46.000 He's very soft on illegals.

01:35:49.000 And this would have been a huge issue, but Sikoun, he wanted to stick with Israel and a strong military, which is sort of Bush 2000 kind of stuff.

01:35:59.000 Right.

01:36:00.000 And it looks like I've been hearing actually about the Westmoreland County episode.

01:36:06.000 So you've got four counties here Allegheny, Westmoreland, Washington, and Green.

01:36:10.000 Allegheny is suburban.

01:36:11.000 The other three are rural and Republican.

01:36:13.000 It looks like Westmoreland, the reason they've taken down their projections for probability and for estimated vote count is because Westmoreland.

01:36:22.000 Is not releasing their numbers until tomorrow.

01:36:24.000 They're not going to say until tomorrow where the votes came from.

01:36:27.000 And so I guess we're just going to be operating in the dark here without any projection, without any estimate.

01:36:32.000 We will just have to look at the raw numbers.

01:36:35.000 And we're up to 87% reporting, and it's 50.4% for Lamb, 49% for Sacon.

01:36:44.000 So just like we predicted from the beginning and even last night on the show, to toss up, it's going to come down to maybe a half percent, maybe 1%.

01:36:53.000 And my earpiece here is.

01:36:55.000 Just announced low battery to everybody, so I may have to switch over to the headset.

01:37:00.000 Whoops.

01:37:02.000 Oh, whoops.

01:37:02.000 I may have to.

01:37:04.000 I just lost.

01:37:06.000 What just happened there?

01:37:07.000 I just lost Skype.

01:37:09.000 So let me get that back up.

01:37:13.000 One moment here.

01:37:14.000 Hey, folks.

01:37:16.000 Sorry, I lost you for a second.

01:37:18.000 There he is.

01:37:19.000 But yeah, I was just saying I may have to switch over.

01:37:21.000 But anyway, go ahead.

01:37:22.000 No worries.

01:37:24.000 Well, what I was going to say is that in the last few minutes here, we're now gaining votes.

01:37:29.000 In more rural areas.

01:37:30.000 And as you pointed out, it's 86% reporting.

01:37:34.000 However, when it was 72% reporting, it was still four points.

01:37:38.000 Lamb was four points ahead of Sacone, and now it's within one point.

01:37:45.000 And so, yeah, we're seeing the race close as we're seeing precincts and districts coming in from more rural areas.

01:37:54.000 So we'll see where this goes.

01:37:56.000 But again, even if Sacone wins by a point, the narrative is still that Sacone got really lucky.

01:38:02.000 He shouldn't have won this race.

01:38:04.000 It was 10 times more expensive than it needed to be to keep this GOP guy afloat in a district that he should have won by 20 points.

01:38:11.000 If he loses, it's a referendum on Paul Ryan.

01:38:14.000 It's a referendum on Mitch McConnell.

01:38:15.000 It's not a referendum on Donald Trump because Donald Trump's policies, the only ballot that Donald Trump's policies were on was under Conor Lamb's name.

01:38:24.000 And that's just not a strategy that is going to turn out minorities in some of these places.

01:38:29.000 Like, blacks aren't going to turn out for a Conor Lamb.

01:38:33.000 They could only do this in a 96% white district.

01:38:36.000 They're not going to be able to do this in a lot of places, certainly not in statewide elections like Claire McCaskill is running in.

01:38:43.000 Yeah.

01:38:44.000 I mean, the problem with that is they did do that with Doug Jones.

01:38:48.000 I think that a charismatic white man can win these minority voters with the right type of race.

01:38:55.000 But, like you said, that was the Moore race I have a hard time with.

01:39:01.000 And Nick pointed this out earlier the scandal ridden piece with Moore.

01:39:08.000 And the other thing, I don't think it was so much Doug Jones' charisma. 0.66

01:39:12.000 I think it was Roy Moore's quotes and comments about that, at least, were memed into the minds of black voters. 0.51

01:39:20.000 That he wanted to go back to a time of slavery and things like that.

01:39:25.000 Maybe they're going to succeed trying to meet to a candidate and try to do this, this guy wants to put you all back in chains mentality, but I don't think that's going to work.

01:39:35.000 I mean, you really have to come up with some crazy narratives to turn these people out.

01:39:39.000 I know, but they did it with Northam.

01:39:42.000 They did it with Northam in Virginia.

01:39:45.000 And that was classic. 0.98

01:39:48.000 I mean, he had a lot of help there turning out minorities with the whole Charlottesville fiasco.

01:39:53.000 But They did it with Northam.

01:39:55.000 They did it with Gillespie.

01:39:56.000 They can do it with Lamb.

01:39:59.000 The Democrats, you know, they are a threat.

01:40:01.000 I think it's, you know, you really have to hit them hard with economic and cultural populism if you're going to beat them.

01:40:09.000 Right.

01:40:09.000 All these Paul Ryan, Mitch, Paul Ryan going out and saying, oh, these tariffs are terrible.

01:40:15.000 Like, this is not good for the Republican Party.

01:40:18.000 This weakens the Republican Party.

01:40:20.000 If they want to win, they had better stand behind Trump's policies.

01:40:25.000 100% of the way.

01:40:27.000 Maybe you can quibble a little bit on saying, oh, his Twitter is not very nice, but they better be standing behind his policies because that's what the voters want.

01:40:35.000 And if they don't, they're going to lose big in 2018.

01:40:39.000 Yep, that's exactly right.

01:40:40.000 That's exactly right.

01:40:42.000 And it's looking like here, if we're looking at our turnout, just for an update on the results here, it's looking like it's neck and neck here with 87% in.

01:40:52.000 But if you break it down by county, Allegheny's only got 9% more to report.

01:40:57.000 But Westmoreland and Washington have 12 and 25 percent respectively.

01:41:01.000 So it doesn't look like Lamb's going to be able to hold on here.

01:41:04.000 I mean, we'll have to see what the turnout will be in Westmoreland and what the margins will be in Washington and Westmoreland.

01:41:04.000 I don't know.

01:41:10.000 But it's looking like he's running out of Democratic stronghold to vote.

01:41:15.000 I would imagine that if they were doing the live estimates, you would start to see a bump for Sacon.

01:41:19.000 But I mean, I think at the end of the day, that's the takeaway.

01:41:22.000 The takeaway for the Republican Party is the old Republican Party, it didn't work then.

01:41:28.000 It's not going to work now.

01:41:30.000 It didn't win us in 2008.

01:41:31.000 It didn't deliver the country in 2012.

01:41:34.000 It never delivers.

01:41:36.000 It didn't deliver in the 2016 presidential primaries.

01:41:38.000 And ultimately, we won the general on a Trump platform.

01:41:41.000 And only Trump could have won because he won these contested states.

01:41:45.000 He won the Rust Belt.

01:41:46.000 He won the industrial states.

01:41:47.000 So I don't think there is a future for the Republican Party nationally, like you said, Ricky, if we're not explicitly populist, if we're not appealing to those blue collar workers, to these white middle class type people that you're seeing here today.

01:42:01.000 And that.

01:42:02.000 Rick Sacone is having such a tough time that he's getting killed here in a race where we should have won easily just goes to show how easy the Democrats can scoop up on their legacy, on their, you know, maybe a precedent that they have of being the union guys, being the working class guys.

01:42:18.000 We still have to battle them for that constituency.

01:42:21.000 It goes to show how powerful, how important they are.

01:42:24.000 If Republicans can jockey the union people, the white working class people out of the Democrats' hands, we have a solvent and a viable party in 2020 and, you know, In a few years before Texas goes blue and all that happens.

01:42:36.000 But if we don't even try to do that, if we have not convincingly done it yet and we're not making an attempt anymore, if Trump is the only one pushing, forget about it.

01:42:45.000 You'll see this everywhere in 2018.

01:42:47.000 So we got to learn the lesson.

01:42:49.000 Yeah, there will be absolutely.

01:42:51.000 There really will be no cuck insurgency.

01:42:54.000 But the danger is like there isn't going to be, John Kasich is not going to win a national campaign.

01:42:59.000 Mitt Romney is not going to win a national campaign.

01:43:01.000 Jeff Flake is not going to win a national campaign.

01:43:03.000 The danger with those guys is they have no hope electorally.

01:43:05.000 But the danger with them is that they can be a foil.

01:43:08.000 As we talked about before, these margins are razor thin in a lot of these places.

01:43:12.000 You know, Trump, if the momentum, if the election had been able to go on for another 30 days, it's possible Trump could have won Minnesota.

01:43:19.000 I mean, he was headed there.

01:43:21.000 He did a campaign stop there.

01:43:22.000 He didn't ultimately win there.

01:43:24.000 But the momentum was heading in that direction.

01:43:26.000 If the messaging had time to kind of permeate through the minds of the voters for a longer period of time, that is popular.

01:43:33.000 It has to be explicitly populist.

01:43:36.000 There has to be outreach to white working class voters.

01:43:39.000 The problem is, though, is that these candidates that can come out there and capture enough of the respectability, we're just egalitarianism and all the stuff that is espoused by the GOPE.

01:43:55.000 I like what Donald Trump says, but I don't like the way that Donald Trump says it.

01:43:59.000 It gives those voters an excuse either to stay home or come out for a guy like that.

01:44:04.000 And so these people have to be thoroughly, thoroughly repudiated.

01:44:09.000 By these election results.

01:44:12.000 And again, I don't know what's going to happen with Lamb here.

01:44:15.000 We're now less than one point, it looks like, maybe right at one point with 90% reporting.

01:44:21.000 I don't know when they're going to call the race, but we'll see.

01:44:24.000 It's going to be interesting to see what happens.

01:44:27.000 Yeah.

01:44:28.000 Ricky Vaughn, what do you say about all this?

01:44:32.000 Yeah, I can't agree more.

01:44:35.000 It looks like we just had some results come in and the lead is down to under 2,000.

01:44:41.000 Yep.

01:44:42.000 So, yeah, we'll see.

01:44:43.000 There's roughly.

01:44:46.000 Oh, so a bunch of votes just came in.

01:44:48.000 Yeah.

01:44:49.000 There's only like 30 precincts left, and Connor Lamb's lead is down to 700 votes. 0.51

01:44:58.000 So hold on to your butts here, folks.

01:45:01.000 Well, yeah, no, we're down to a difference of 700 votes with 94% reporting in, and we've got 7% to go in Allegheny.

01:45:12.000 We've got.

01:45:13.000 3% to go in Westmoreland and 10% in Washington.

01:45:16.000 And Westmoreland and Washington are very strong Republican, but Allegheny has a much greater population.

01:45:22.000 And it's looking like if you look at Allegheny, the precincts which have not reported in, they don't look like Democratic strongholds in terms of you have some that are up in the northwest, which will go lightly for Democrats.

01:45:36.000 You have some a little bit closer towards Pittsburgh, which some have gone red, some have gone blue.

01:45:42.000 So it's looking like the Democrats have exhausted their strongholds.

01:45:45.000 You're not going to see.

01:45:46.000 Huge margins, I don't think, in these remaining districts, at least not compared to downtown or to the suburbs.

01:45:52.000 But Westmoreland, you got to imagine that's all going to be pretty heavily Republican if it's anything like Green, if it's anything like Washington.

01:45:59.000 Washington, the districts that remain are also going.

01:46:03.000 It looks like they would go very hard for Rick Sacone if they were to follow the pattern of all the other precincts here.

01:46:09.000 So as we watch it come in, it's a nail biter.

01:46:12.000 It's going to come down, you know, right down to the last vote, I'm sure.

01:46:16.000 And it looks like now it's still 1,000.

01:46:19.000 Even we're up to 95% reporting in now, still 1,000 vote difference.

01:46:24.000 But I'm cautiously, we can cautiously look at which votes and which precincts yet to be totaled.

01:46:31.000 And I don't know who's going to edge it out.

01:46:33.000 It looks like if I were to guess slightly for Sacon, but who knows?

01:46:37.000 It's still very unpredictable.

01:46:41.000 Yeah, we don't yet know what's going to happen.

01:46:45.000 I mean, even if it's a close race, the messaging has to be again, you didn't need to spend this money.

01:46:54.000 This is not money well spent.

01:46:56.000 You could have done this for one tenth the cost, you could have gotten double the turnout.

01:47:01.000 Even if Sacon wins by a half a percent, It has to be spun as a lesson for the GOP.

01:47:07.000 The worst thing can happen is that they get comfortable.

01:47:11.000 The other bad thing here is it gives an example for the Democrats as well.

01:47:16.000 I mean, granted, they can't run a candidate like this in many other places, especially with.

01:47:39.000 Some of these people that they have cultivated try to switch back to that message because it's just.

01:47:48.000 Hey, are you coming through now?

01:47:49.000 Yeah.

01:47:51.000 Hello?

01:47:53.000 Yep.

01:47:53.000 Hey.

01:47:55.000 Yeah, you're coming through again.

01:47:56.000 You went out for a sec because my other headset died, but you're coming through now.

01:48:01.000 Can you hear me?

01:48:02.000 Okay.

01:48:03.000 Yes, sir.

01:48:03.000 Okay, cool.

01:48:04.000 Yeah, I think you have a strong point there.

01:48:04.000 Yeah.

01:48:08.000 You know, and I want to say, too, A lot of people are trying to spin this on the right as sort of like a doomsday scenario.

01:48:19.000 And people got to understand this is not a battle that you're going to win or lose in one election or one special election.

01:48:28.000 So, I mean, Black Pillars, don't get too happy with yourselves tonight, no matter what happens, because what you got is here is a really bad candidate and a really good Dem candidate.

01:48:38.000 And anything can happen.

01:48:40.000 Yeah, like I said before, this is a referendum on the GOPE.

01:48:44.000 Um, if anything, uh, that's you know, by virtue of the fact that it wasn't a 20 point win for Sukkot, and it's a candidate that they can't that could not win a national election.

01:48:54.000 I mean, Lamb could not win a national election. 0.62

01:48:56.000 I mean, and it's it's it's because he can't these issues that he's espousing would not be attractive to uh Democratic voters by and large.

01:49:05.000 I mean, they could try to meme him into uh this candidate, but this is this is really they jumped the shark on this, and so so yeah, and in just trying to decide these as one elections, like I said, um.

01:49:18.000 I'd rather have Saccon lose, actually, and have a lesson learned here now, this early in the primary season, than have this happen later on down the road.

01:49:29.000 And Trump is willing to go out there and make the message about Ronnie McDaniel not doing enough at the RNC.

01:49:40.000 They can make it about Saccon not being strong enough on Trump's platform.

01:49:45.000 I mean, it's very easy to switch in that direction.

01:49:48.000 And I think Trump should.

01:49:49.000 I think it would be a wasted.

01:49:51.000 Opportunity if they don't do that and have some lessons learned.

01:49:54.000 The worst thing that can happen is complacency and business as usual.

01:49:58.000 I think that's really the takeaway here.

01:49:58.000 Yeah.

01:50:00.000 I think that's the best point no matter the outcome, if we don't do something with it, if we don't take this and use it as leverage, if Trump doesn't use it, if we don't use it, if the GOP doesn't learn, that is the worst consequence here.

01:50:15.000 This election, at the end of the day, and I hate to say this, but at the end of the day, whoever wins in this election, whoever wins more votes, This is not truly of consequence.

01:50:24.000 This is not make or break.

01:50:26.000 This is not going to kill us in the midterms.

01:50:29.000 The person who wins this election won't even be seated.

01:50:31.000 It'll just be, you know, they'll have to decide which election they'll run in November.

01:50:36.000 And so the real damage that will be done here is if we don't get our act together.

01:50:41.000 That is the most devastating thing that we might not even be able to recover from it if we continue, like you said, Jazz, and do business as usual.

01:50:49.000 I mean, that would be the killer here.

01:50:51.000 But it's looking like we've got some more votes in here.

01:50:54.000 We're up now to 205,000 votes.

01:50:56.000 It looks like Connor Lamb has slightly increased his lead by about 1,100.

01:51:02.000 It was about 1,000 before.

01:51:04.000 It looks like we've got 4% left to go in Allegheny, 3% left to go in Westmoreland, 10% left to go in Washington.

01:51:11.000 So these votes in Allegheny are being counted.

01:51:14.000 They've gone from 91% to 96%.

01:51:17.000 And the margin has only been increasing by about 100, 200, 4% to go there.

01:51:23.000 You've got 10% still in Washington.

01:51:26.000 He got 3% still in Westmoreland.

01:51:28.000 Obviously, they don't have the same population that they have in Allegheny. 0.74

01:51:33.000 But, you know, this is going to be a very close race, and it shouldn't be.

01:51:37.000 But we'll see.

01:51:38.000 We'll see.

01:51:39.000 We'll see what happens.

01:51:40.000 It's unfortunate we don't have the live estimate anymore.

01:51:45.000 You've got to wonder why that is.

01:51:46.000 I mean, probably because it's hard to project if they don't have the location from where the votes are coming from.

01:51:51.000 It's hard to project what that means and how they could estimate for other precincts and counties.

01:51:57.000 But it's making our job really difficult here.

01:51:59.000 We're really just, it won't end until we see a check next to one of the names, until somebody concedes and someone's declared a winner.

01:52:07.000 So we'll see.

01:52:08.000 But it's coming down to the wire.

01:52:10.000 And.

01:52:11.000 At the end of the day, it just shouldn't.

01:52:13.000 This is not a victory for Republicans.

01:52:15.000 If Rick Sacone wins, it's not a win.

01:52:17.000 There's no way, I don't think, that Republicans come out of this strong unless they repudiate what they did here.

01:52:25.000 What the reaction should be from Republicans is embarrassment, is shame.

01:52:29.000 This is a district that breaks 20% for Republicans in national and state elections in terms of partisanship, and they had to fight.

01:52:37.000 We may lose this.

01:52:38.000 And if we didn't, we had to fight really hard and outspend 10 to 1 and have visits.

01:52:43.000 And it's no good.

01:52:44.000 But, you know, like I said, even if people are saying, well, the Democrats win, like Ricky Vaughn said, this is nothing that they can scale up with.

01:52:52.000 This is not a Connor Lamb would never win a national election.

01:52:56.000 They could not win in Arizona.

01:52:58.000 They could not win in California, in L.A. or San Diego, where it's basically Mexico. 0.74

01:53:03.000 They could not win in many of these places.

01:53:05.000 So this is very specific, and we'll see what happens for the rest of the evening and what happens moving forward.

01:53:13.000 Well, and the one thing is also that once we get into.

01:53:17.000 A half a percent difference here, and we're at 0.6 right now.

01:53:22.000 It's 50% lamb, 49.4% Sacon.

01:53:27.000 0.5% triggers the potential for a recount.

01:53:30.000 It's voluntary, the candidate has to initiate it.

01:53:35.000 But we may be in a position where we don't know tonight, or we do know, and it's not something that sticks.

01:53:42.000 So that's another potential outcome here as well.

01:53:45.000 Right.

01:53:45.000 And I've also been hearing some rumors, just rumors on Twitter.

01:53:49.000 I don't know if they're true, unsubstantiated, but I've heard some rumors that Republican voters, when they turned out to vote, they were told that they had already been redistricted out of the 18th.

01:54:00.000 I don't know if that's true.

01:54:01.000 I don't know if that's widespread.

01:54:02.000 I don't know if people are making that up.

01:54:04.000 You hear a lot of stuff on election day that couldn't be true, but it is worth considering that Pittsburgh, you got unions.

01:54:10.000 It's a big Democrat city, Democrat machine.

01:54:12.000 You have to wonder is there some kind of tampering?

01:54:16.000 We talked about this a moment ago with Alabama, where the turnout for blacks was so astronomical and for Democrats.

01:54:23.000 It was hard to believe.

01:54:25.000 And then you had the Supreme Court rule that they wouldn't keep the electronic voting records and allow them to be destroyed.

01:54:30.000 I don't think we could totally put it past.

01:54:32.000 I don't think, you know, at the end of the day, that doesn't matter because Rick Sacone didn't mobilize Republicans.

01:54:37.000 You know, a few people being turned away does not win or lose an election.

01:54:41.000 But I have been hearing that.

01:54:42.000 So I don't know if that plays a role or not.

01:54:45.000 Certainly it does when it comes down to the wire like this, when it's a matter of 1,100 votes, you know, and we're seeing them come in.

01:54:52.000 And we'll be here for a little while because the last ones always take the longest.

01:54:56.000 I remember for Alabama, we were.

01:54:58.000 Well, into the evening with that one and pretty devastating results.

01:55:03.000 But Vaughn, you've been a little quiet.

01:55:05.000 What are you thinking as it all comes together?

01:55:08.000 We basically said everything that needs to be said about it, correct?

01:55:12.000 Yeah, definitely.

01:55:13.000 I think so.

01:55:14.000 I mean, Wasserman is saying slightly lamb.

01:55:18.000 So is Richard Barris.

01:55:20.000 So I got to give the edge to lamb right now, just based on what these guys are saying.

01:55:26.000 So I think it's going to be tough for Sikon to pull this one out.

01:55:29.000 And.

01:55:30.000 It's going to be very hard for Napota.

01:55:33.000 And, like you said, it's like the problem is not Trump.

01:55:37.000 These are not national candidates, but all politics is local.

01:55:42.000 Ralph Northam was the right guy to win the governor in Virginia.

01:55:47.000 Doug Jones got a little bit lucky, but he pulled it out in Alabama.

01:55:51.000 And Connor Lamb is the right candidate for this district.

01:55:55.000 So, Democrats are ready to go, and not to mention the CIA is ready to go.

01:56:01.000 Something like half of the Democratic candidates running.

01:56:03.000 In the upcoming elections, are former intelligence agents or military agents.

01:56:08.000 So they've picked their spots pretty well.

01:56:11.000 And Republicans, I think, are sitting on their thumbs right now. 0.99

01:56:15.000 They're running shitty candidates. 0.98

01:56:17.000 They don't know what their message is because they're still resisting Trump on the economic populism. 0.99

01:56:23.000 They kind of go along with cultural populism, but to a certain extent, but they're still resisting on the wall.

01:56:29.000 They resist on the tariffs.

01:56:31.000 And this is a big problem for them because.

01:56:34.000 While Trump is not the most popular figure of all time, the only reason that he's even competitive is because of his policies.

01:56:43.000 And if Republicans give voters the same old policies that they gave with McCain and Romney and Bush, then they are going to lose the House in the upcoming election.

01:56:57.000 I can guarantee you.

01:56:59.000 Yeah, you're right.

01:57:00.000 I mean, that's if they don't clean house and put out more effective messaging.

01:57:05.000 I mean, there would be no chance because we are seeing, you know, and people are so quick to say blue wave is fiction, blue wave isn't happening.

01:57:05.000 It's over.

01:57:13.000 But we saw double the turnout in the Texas primary last week, double the turnout from 2014 in the 2018 Democratic primaries.

01:57:20.000 And people can say it's one thing or it's the other, but Democrats are motivated.

01:57:24.000 You saw this in Alabama, you saw this in Texas, you see this here.

01:57:27.000 And if Republicans are not equally motivated, if they're not getting a message that is mobilizing them, that's energizing them, where they're going to the polls, And we're not spending our money effectively.

01:57:36.000 And the messaging isn't effective and tailored to the region, tailored to the voter, not to the donors, not to the think tanks and Fox News, but to the people in this district, which they wanted to hear about opioids.

01:57:49.000 They wanted to hear about health care.

01:57:50.000 And they heard about Israel and Korea and all this other stuff.

01:57:53.000 So if they're not able to turn it out and make good messaging, we lose the House 100%.

01:57:59.000 Senate's a little bit more vulnerable for Democrats.

01:57:59.000 Maybe even the Senate.

01:58:02.000 But if it carries on like this, we can't totally put it past.

01:58:06.000 It's worth mentioning, though.

01:58:08.000 That we look at this district, and if it's like Jazz was saying earlier, if it's a half a percentage or less difference, I guess there's a recount, right?

01:58:19.000 So, or no, no, no, I'm sorry, that's something else.

01:58:22.000 But I mean, I think we could also be looking at a recount here if it comes in and it's very tight.

01:58:27.000 I mean, certainly we're looking at it now where it's within 1%, and it looks like we have 13 precincts total to be counted in the rural areas.

01:58:39.000 It looks like we've got nine precincts left to be counted in Allegheny.

01:58:43.000 So you've got 13 that will likely break for Sacon.

01:58:49.000 You've got nine that will likely break for Lamb.

01:58:52.000 It's debatable how those will compare because Allegheny has a higher population.

01:58:56.000 But this one's going to come down to the wire here, just purely in terms of predictions.

01:59:01.000 But, you know, like we've been saying, regardless of the outcome, the message is the same.

01:59:05.000 If he wins, the message is the same.

01:59:06.000 If he loses, the message is the same.

01:59:08.000 Shouldn't have been contested.

01:59:09.000 GOPE has to change. 0.99

01:59:11.000 And they have to pay a price.

01:59:12.000 It would help if Donald Trump put that out as well, vocally.

01:59:15.000 Yeah, he's going to have to fight back against the narrative that gets spun that this is a referendum on Trump, because that's exactly what they're going to be doing.

01:59:24.000 Even if Saccon manages to squeak out a win here, they're going to say it's a referendum on Trump.

01:59:29.000 So he has to be prepared to throw Saccon under the bus if he has to.

01:59:33.000 Saccon is just a state senator, I think.

01:59:35.000 And, you know, it's not going to be, at the end of the day, it's not going to be that big of a deal.

01:59:40.000 It's going to be much better for Trump to do that.

01:59:44.000 And again, I think it's worthwhile to do that now.

01:59:47.000 It has to be, this has to be, this is all about learning.

01:59:50.000 This is all about test balloons, what works, what doesn't.

01:59:53.000 And it also means that.

01:59:55.000 The state and local parties are the ones who ultimately decide who these candidates are as they come up the ranks.

01:59:55.000 Okay, fine.

02:00:01.000 But what has to be decided then is that how much are you going to expend putting an effort of people on the ground to help this guy?

02:00:07.000 Because, like I said earlier in the show, Sacon's Twitter had like 5,000 followers until Trump went there to do his rally.

02:00:15.000 Now it's got 14,000. 0.87

02:00:17.000 It's been a sleeper of a race. 0.89

02:00:19.000 He doesn't have the opioid crisis on his website.

02:00:21.000 He hasn't been running on Trump's platform.

02:00:24.000 It's an example of almost like a will to lose, a will not to do enough because.

02:00:29.000 They could have gone down there.

02:00:31.000 The NRCC has pumped in a bunch of money.

02:00:33.000 PACs have been punching in a bunch of money.

02:00:35.000 There's no reason why someone wasn't down there.

02:00:37.000 Really, you know, if the candidate wants to be a sleepy guy who doesn't want to make donor phone calls, fine.

02:00:43.000 Then you put the people out on the streets to get that message out there.

02:00:46.000 You send Trump in there.

02:00:48.000 But I think a lot of this comes down to is a little bit of too little, too late, underwhelming candidate.

02:00:54.000 The guy has some, you know, potential problems with, you know, money in, you know, pork barrel and some stuff in Pennsylvania, too.

02:00:59.000 But we don't have to get down into the weeds on all that.

02:01:02.000 But ultimately, it comes down to running better, clearer minded candidates, people who can articulate Trump's message.

02:01:11.000 And a lot of times that's going to take some effort.

02:01:15.000 It's going to take some doing.

02:01:16.000 It's going to take some fighting because a lot of Trump's message, his platform, is diametrically opposed to the Democrat or the Republican Party, what their platform is all about.

02:01:26.000 When you're talking about tariffs, when you're talking about going hard on immigration, when you're talking about a lot of the things that he wants to do with infrastructure spending.

02:01:34.000 Those are core, well, not immigration, but the other issues used to be core Democratic issues.

02:01:40.000 And it's going to be tough as a Republican candidate to run on those things.

02:01:44.000 But you have to break through, and there's got to be some success.

02:01:47.000 Otherwise, it's going to be a lot of close traces and a lot of disappointment.

02:01:53.000 Well, yeah, they just can't count on Trump to put the whole party on his back.

02:01:57.000 I mean, that's what it comes down to.

02:01:59.000 Too little, too late is exactly what we saw here, which is this expectation that we can just continue to run bad candidates, we can continue to run ineffective candidates.

02:02:09.000 Bad candidates, and not bad people, but candidates that aren't fundraising effectively.

02:02:13.000 And this guy was not a good fundraiser, not making public appearances, not making good public appearances, messaging on the website and in the literature that's off, people that are not pounding on the doors, making phone calls.

02:02:25.000 And I guess there's this expectation in the Republican Party that Donald Trump can come and give a speech, and this is going to save the day.

02:02:33.000 And at the end of the day, we could always count on Hail Mary from Donald Trump, and it's too little too late.

02:02:37.000 It was too little too late with Luther Strange in the primary.

02:02:40.000 It was too little too late with Trump's endorsement of Roy Moore eventually in the general.

02:02:44.000 It was too little too late with Ed Gillespie in Virginia.

02:02:47.000 And it's too little too late here, where I guess they thought Trump would cap it off with a weekend rally and we'd be able to change the platform of the Republican Party.

02:02:56.000 And suddenly people are going to understand oh, you know, Rick Sacone has something to say about opioids and all this other stuff.

02:03:02.000 But it wasn't enough.

02:03:04.000 This is the failure of Paul Ryan.

02:03:06.000 This is the failure of Mitch McConnell.

02:03:08.000 This is the failure of the Republican National Committee.

02:03:11.000 They should be out there like the Democrats are.

02:03:14.000 And to their credit, the Democrats have really buckled down since 2016.

02:03:19.000 Doug Jones, they were shilling for him like you'd never.

02:03:22.000 I mean, the political machine that was on the ground for Doug Jones was unbelievable, bar none.

02:03:27.000 The way they were mobilizing voters and getting them out there, and it was all over the media.

02:03:31.000 And with Pennsylvania, you have a perfect candidate who's great at fundraising, who's out there.

02:03:36.000 He's the face, he's got a great platform.

02:03:38.000 The messaging is so effective, and they're bringing their A game.

02:03:42.000 They're going to bring their A game in November.

02:03:44.000 And we're bringing 2004.

02:03:46.000 We're bringing 2004.

02:03:48.000 We're saying, hey, everybody, remember all that evangelical stuff?

02:03:51.000 Remember all that Rush Limbaugh stuff?

02:03:54.000 And it's not going to work.

02:03:55.000 It's not the same electorate.

02:03:57.000 They're vying for influence or votes or support in states that they haven't been able to win in 30 years.

02:04:04.000 And it's just striking how they haven't won these states in 30 years and they're using logic from when they've been losing them for 30 years instead of the guy that won them all, the guy that fixed them.

02:04:13.000 So, Paul Ryan, this guy better fall in line.

02:04:16.000 Mitch McConnell better fall in line.

02:04:18.000 We don't want to hear any of this stuff about tariffs aren't good and we don't like them and we're not going to support them.

02:04:23.000 This John McCain stuff, it's got to stop, right?

02:04:27.000 It's got to stop.

02:04:27.000 Yeah.

02:04:28.000 The funny thing is, so now we're within recount territory, by the way.

02:04:32.000 96% reporting, 49.9% Lamb, 49.5% Sacone.

02:04:38.000 The one interesting thing is that I, so far, according to one metric that I've seen, is that there have been 1,274 votes cast for the Libertarian candidate, Drew Miller.

02:04:49.000 And we are within, we certainly are well under a 1,200 vote difference between Connor Lamb and Rick Sacone.

02:04:56.000 So it's very possible that the Libertarian Party.

02:05:01.000 May have thrown this election to Connor Lamb.

02:05:03.000 I guess we'll have to see how that plays out.

02:05:05.000 But isn't that ironic?

02:05:07.000 Yeah, I don't know.

02:05:08.000 I don't really buy that, though, when people say that a third party throws a race because those are voters a lot of times that wouldn't even bother coming out or they don't like either candidate.

02:05:19.000 But if I could touch one more thing on what you guys were saying about the Republican Party better get its act together.

02:05:27.000 One thing that the alt right has had to learn lately is unfortunately. 0.99

02:05:33.000 Once a loser, always a loser. 0.98

02:05:35.000 If I can mix metaphors here, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. 0.91

02:05:41.000 A leopard doesn't change its spots.

02:05:43.000 So, what we need right now is fresh blood in the GOP.

02:05:47.000 You can't just hope that, oh, Paul Ryan suddenly figures out how to be a winning politician or Rick Sacone, these types of candidates, oh, they all of a sudden realize how to be a politician.

02:06:01.000 A lot of these guys are never going to get the memo.

02:06:04.000 They're just doing what they've, they're going.

02:06:05.000 Through the motions of what they've always been taught to do.

02:06:09.000 And it's going to take fresh blood.

02:06:11.000 And this is what the Democrats have done get fresh blood into their primaries.

02:06:17.000 And that's what Republicans are going to need to do.

02:06:19.000 And if 2018 is too late, then 2020, we got to get our guys in there competing for this kind of stuff.

02:06:28.000 If not, these kind of Republicans are just going to keep losing.

02:06:32.000 And I don't see why they're going to turn out votes.

02:06:37.000 Yeah, no, that's exactly right.

02:06:39.000 We need new people.

02:06:41.000 I don't think the old guys are going to cut it.

02:06:43.000 That's what the Democrats did.

02:06:45.000 That's what the Democrats have done with this Connor Lamb guy.

02:06:49.000 And additionally, you look at some of the up and comers in the Democratic Party.

02:06:53.000 They're having trouble with this at the national level.

02:06:56.000 Their leaders are Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders. 1.00

02:06:59.000 I mean, all really old people that have been around the block.

02:07:03.000 But you see Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, these are some younger folks, Tulsi Gabbard.

02:07:07.000 And the GOP has to do the same.

02:07:09.000 Where are our young people?

02:07:11.000 It seems, unfortunately, like all of our young people are being swept up into this William F. Buckley, this Bush era conservatism.

02:07:20.000 I mean, look on the college campus.

02:07:22.000 You look at the conservatives that are being brought into the fold, even in the Northeast, where they should be Donald Trump type Republicans on trade and drugs and all the rest.

02:07:31.000 And they are these, they're worse in many cases than George Bush.

02:07:36.000 I mean, they're worse in terms of they're more this William F. Buckley libertarian ideological stuff.

02:07:41.000 They're more talking about lower taxes, this Koch Brothers stuff, because they've been brought in in many cases by these organizations that are bought and paid for by the same multinationals and corporations and banks.

02:07:53.000 That are paid for by people that benefit from immigration, people that benefit from free trade.

02:07:59.000 And so that's the unfortunate part is that there really has to be a grassroots and an outsider insurgency in the Republican Party, in the right wing, that is nationalist, that is populist.

02:08:12.000 Because the quality of people that are coming in, that are being brought in by the Republicans, is unfortunately more of the same.

02:08:18.000 You look at like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and you got neocons, neoliberals.

02:08:23.000 You look at all these people.

02:08:24.000 Young up and comers, and they're clean and they look great.

02:08:26.000 And they're like John Kasich.

02:08:27.000 They're these compassionate conservative types.

02:08:29.000 And so that's why, for anybody that's watching this show, for people that watch America First or Fascination or fans of Ricky Vaughn, we all are on the same page, essentially, on nationalism, on what needs to be done in the country.

02:08:41.000 This is a perfect opportunity to tell you look at what's happening to the party, look at what's happening to the electorate.

02:08:48.000 It is ripe for the taking.

02:08:51.000 Join up in your local GOP, call your county GOP tomorrow and ask them when the meeting is, where the meeting is.

02:08:57.000 How you could get involved.

02:08:59.000 Join up at an organization on your college campus, whether it's YAL or YAF or it's college Republicans, or start your own and start infiltrating.

02:09:07.000 Because, like Ricky Vaughn says, he's a fan of saying this, I am as well.

02:09:11.000 All politics is local, it's not metapolitical.

02:09:15.000 That doesn't change anything.

02:09:16.000 Shifting the Overton window, I'm sorry, this is ethereal, this is not tangible.

02:09:20.000 You want to make a difference, join your county GOP and choose people who will run in the elections.

02:09:26.000 And we prevent this problem from happening.

02:09:28.000 So, let's check in now and we'll see where we're at.

02:09:31.000 It looks like we're at the same place we were before.

02:09:34.000 Westmoreland's at 99% reporting.

02:09:38.000 Allegheny, people are telling me, people are countersignaling me.

02:09:41.000 They're saying, Nick isn't pronouncing Allegheny correctly.

02:09:44.000 Somebody correct him.

02:09:45.000 All right, all right.

02:09:46.000 Allegheny is at 97%, and Washington's still at 90% reporting.

02:09:51.000 So we've still got a number of precincts left for Washington, still a number from Allegheny, and it's still in toss up territory two and a half hours later.

02:10:02.000 Yeah, we'll have to see what happens.

02:10:04.000 Unfortunately, I'm going to have to get going here, hit the old dusty trail.

02:10:09.000 But I just want to say thank you, Nick, for having me on your program.

02:10:13.000 It's been great kind of talking about this race, and I guess we'll see what the outcome is.

02:10:18.000 I guess my quick take on it being a close race, one way or the other, like we were saying before, I mean, the messaging doesn't change.

02:10:26.000 It was too little, too late.

02:10:27.000 They didn't do enough. 0.62

02:10:29.000 We need to get more people energized in the grassroots. 0.99

02:10:33.000 The Republican Party is comprised of a lot of Old people, even, you know, old boomer and late boomer, and even older than that. 1.00

02:10:40.000 And those people are going to be moving on. 0.92

02:10:43.000 And they, I think a lot of them take these local and state level positions for granted.

02:10:50.000 So they're, you know, but it isn't totally binary.

02:10:53.000 There are still a lot of Republicans in the party who are not beholden to people like Paul Singer.

02:10:59.000 They're not beholden to donors and the like.

02:11:03.000 There are some kind of really independent voices.

02:11:05.000 And I think putting effort behind those voices and showing that those people are the example, incentivizing more of that and disincentivizing the people who don't matter, a lot of that's going to happen on its own because those people can't win elections.

02:11:21.000 But the messaging has to be that this is a referendum on the GOPE, and the GOPE failed.

02:11:27.000 But again, it's going to be a short term win for the Democrats in terms of a propaganda victory because this is all going to get eaten up by the media cycle very quickly anyway.

02:11:37.000 So that's my take.

02:11:40.000 It's been great, guys.

02:11:41.000 Hey, thanks for coming on.

02:11:42.000 We appreciate you.

02:11:43.000 Very good, insightful analysis, as always.

02:11:45.000 And we'd love to have you back some other times during 2018.

02:11:49.000 We'll see a lot of these, I'm sure.

02:11:51.000 Yes, sir.

02:11:52.000 Catch you guys later.

02:11:53.000 Take it easy, buddy.

02:11:54.000 Take care.

02:11:56.000 Good guy.

02:11:57.000 Our good friend joining us, but now he's taking off.

02:12:00.000 Good to have him on.

02:12:02.000 And Rick, Ricky, you and me now looking at the race.

02:12:06.000 It's coming down to the wire.

02:12:09.000 And let's see.

02:12:10.000 What do you think?

02:12:11.000 If we could spitball a little bit here, what do you think?

02:12:13.000 What do you think is going to happen?

02:12:14.000 You said it was you would give the edge to Lamb, right?

02:12:19.000 I still give the edge to Lamb.

02:12:22.000 Lamb is looking good right now, I got to say.

02:12:25.000 He's up 918 votes, and I just don't know that the votes are going to come in for Sacon in the remaining precincts.

02:12:32.000 There's only 22 precincts remaining.

02:12:35.000 So, hey, don't rule it out.

02:12:38.000 He could sneak up here and win a net 920 votes, but I'm a little bit skeptical.

02:12:46.000 Yeah, no, I think you're right.

02:12:47.000 It looks like there's just not enough votes to make up the difference for Rick Saccone.

02:12:53.000 You know, Lamb has held a strong lead from the start.

02:12:56.000 It's evaporated, you know, really down now to about 1,000 votes.

02:13:02.000 But I don't see where Saccone gets the votes from here.

02:13:06.000 I mean, you still got, it looks like we got a couple more in.

02:13:09.000 So now it looks like Lamb is up by 800 with 97% reporting, 98% now reporting in Allegheny.

02:13:17.000 10% left to be counted in Washington.

02:13:20.000 Washington, it looks like, is the third smallest county here.

02:13:25.000 They've only had, what is that, about 40,000 votes total counted in Washington on both sides versus about 97,000 in Allegheny and probably closer to 100,000 by the time it's counted.

02:13:38.000 So I just don't see where Rick Saccon makes up the difference here.

02:13:44.000 The votes will not come in.

02:13:45.000 I don't think that, even if he got all the votes, I think it would still be tricky.

02:13:48.000 That said, it's a very slim margin, so it's not impossible.

02:13:51.000 But this will be a tricky one.

02:13:53.000 This will be a tough one.

02:13:55.000 I got to imagine, though, while we say it'll be a propaganda loss in the short term, it'll be a propaganda win for the left.

02:14:05.000 It's got to really be tough on Trump.

02:14:09.000 Because you imagine that we can sit here and we can diagnose the real problem here, which is the GOPE and a candidate who wasn't so hot.

02:14:17.000 But it's got to be really rough that Trump goes out there and he gives a wholehearted endorsement.

02:14:21.000 I mean, he went over the weekend and he gave it his all.

02:14:24.000 That was a rally like we haven't seen in a long time.

02:14:27.000 It was high energy.

02:14:28.000 It was funny.

02:14:29.000 It was effective in the messaging.

02:14:31.000 And it was long.

02:14:32.000 And he gave a great, a glowing endorsement.

02:14:35.000 And his sons have been there.

02:14:37.000 He's been there.

02:14:37.000 Mike Pence has been there.

02:14:39.000 And you got to wonder is Trump's leverage in the party weaning?

02:14:43.000 I mean, maybe we can say as outsiders, Trump is not the problem.

02:14:46.000 It's a referendum on Paul Ryan.

02:14:48.000 But in the party, does this have this effect where primary candidates and general election candidates on the Republican side look at Donald Trump as somebody who's less and less effective?

02:14:57.000 Is that.

02:14:58.000 An effect where they see, hey, look, he did a rally for Luther Strange and he lost.

02:15:03.000 He supported Roy Moore and he lost.

02:15:05.000 He supported these people in Virginia and they lost.

02:15:07.000 He supported Rick Sacone.

02:15:09.000 He went out and gave a rally and it didn't cut it.

02:15:11.000 I mean, I don't think they'll shirk his influence and say, I don't want the president to rally for me.

02:15:11.000 It wasn't enough.

02:15:16.000 But does that decrease his leverage in the party?

02:15:20.000 Yeah.

02:15:21.000 Allow me to burn a few bridges here and counter signal you, Nick.

02:15:25.000 Oh, boy.

02:15:26.000 Oh, no. 1.00

02:15:27.000 I hate you. 1.00

02:15:28.000 You're disavowed. 0.99

02:15:29.000 You might have to disavow me by the time this is done.

02:15:32.000 No, but I think that Trump pulled out all the stops and.

02:15:37.000 Really went into a heroic effort to bail Saccon out.

02:15:41.000 I think that Saccon was down five points in the polls.

02:15:46.000 And the fact that it's this close, I think, reflects on the fact that Trump did pull out all the stops.

02:15:52.000 Trump Jr. swung through the district, Mike Pence, and they were able to sort of really push an effective message in the closing days of the campaign.

02:16:03.000 I think that they were able to swing some of the undecided voters back to Saccon.

02:16:09.000 And so Trump knew either way he was going to get blamed if he lost, whether he campaigned today or not.

02:16:16.000 So, hey, why not just go all in?

02:16:19.000 Go all in.

02:16:20.000 And he did the right thing here.

02:16:21.000 And like I said, Sacon was down in the polls, you know, six, five points and closed really nicely.

02:16:30.000 No thanks to his campaigning, really, all thanks to Trump.

02:16:34.000 And so the GOP, I don't think they're going to increase their leverage over Trump here.

02:16:41.000 Because they got to realize Trump's issues are winning issues.

02:16:46.000 Even McConnell just today or yesterday said, you know what?

02:16:50.000 I don't think we're going to repeal the tariffs legislatively because I think McConnell is a smart guy.

02:16:58.000 Paul Ryan, not that smart.

02:16:59.000 McConnell knows sort of what's going on, though.

02:17:02.000 And he knows that if the GOP goes after those tariffs, then the GOP establishment is going to burn up so much political capital and they're going to lose in the midterms big.

02:17:13.000 Right.

02:17:13.000 Yeah, no, I guess I do agree with that.

02:17:15.000 I mean, I was just asking the question about, you know, just optically, you know, another favorite subject of ours, counter signaling is one, but optics is another, that he did.

02:17:24.000 I do think it was a heroic.

02:17:26.000 That's the right word for it.

02:17:27.000 Like you said, it's a Herculean effort that he went out there and he put the whole team on his back and charged ahead, even though, you know, like you said, no thanks to Rick Sacon and his campaigning and whoever was running that campaign, which turned out to be ineffective.

02:17:43.000 So, You know, maybe that just goes to show he's a team player.

02:17:46.000 So I guess there are two sides to that.

02:17:47.000 On the one hand, he's backed a lot of losers in the past four special elections or so, primaries and generals.

02:17:54.000 But by the same token, he's proved that he's a team player.

02:17:57.000 When the chips are down, when his guy's in trouble, he's going to go out there and he's going to do what has to be done.

02:18:02.000 So I think there is an element to that.

02:18:04.000 And we're looking at it, it's so close now.

02:18:07.000 New results, baby.

02:18:09.000 Yeah.

02:18:10.000 We're down now to a difference of, if I could do the math really quickly in my head, We're down to 585 vote difference.

02:18:18.000 Is that correct?

02:18:18.000 585 vote difference.

02:18:21.000 Down to 0.2%.

02:18:23.000 And it looks like Allegheny is 99%.

02:18:27.000 Westmoreland is 99%.

02:18:29.000 Washington, 7%.

02:18:31.000 So I don't know.

02:18:32.000 I mean, now that you have Allegheny at 99%, they've got 1% left, but Westmoreland still has 1% to pull out.

02:18:40.000 Washington has 7% to pull out.

02:18:42.000 It's looking more and more in the realm of possibility that Saccon has a chance to pull it out.

02:18:46.000 He's really closed this gap.

02:18:49.000 As it's winded down in ways that he needed to.

02:18:51.000 I mean, we were looking at a thousand vote difference, 1,200 vote difference, and it looks like that's been cut in half.

02:18:57.000 And we've got more counties between Washington and Westmoreland than there are in Allegheny.

02:19:02.000 I mean, Allegheny has more, or Allegheny, sorry, Allegheny has, you know, they've got more people, perhaps, but you've got more counties in these other two.

02:19:12.000 So it's really, this is a close race.

02:19:15.000 It's kind of incredible, though.

02:19:17.000 You've got to say how incredible it is that we're able to get within with 200 and some thousand votes cast.

02:19:24.000 We're getting down to 600, maybe even lower than that.

02:19:27.000 I mean, that's pretty wild.

02:19:29.000 But this is going to be a nail biter.

02:19:31.000 I don't think either side will concede tonight.

02:19:33.000 I think you may even see a challenge.

02:19:34.000 You might see a recount because this is close.

02:19:38.000 And that'll depend on the margins we see in the remaining counties.

02:19:40.000 But, I mean, wow.

02:19:42.000 And it sucks all the same that we don't even have a projection from the New York Times.

02:19:48.000 I mean, the Westmoreland thing really threw us for a loop.

02:19:50.000 They're not going to report until tomorrow where the votes came from.

02:19:54.000 So nobody's doing live projections or estimates.

02:19:56.000 So, I mean, we just got to wait and see how the votes come in.

02:20:01.000 Does your analysis of do you think seeing these new votes come in, do you think Rick Sacone has a stronger chance or a weaker chance?

02:20:10.000 I think he's still alive.

02:20:12.000 He only needs 46.

02:20:13.000 There's 13 precincts remaining.

02:20:15.000 So he only needs 46 votes.

02:20:17.000 Let's say 50 votes per precinct net to win.

02:20:22.000 And so, hey, I think he can pull it off.

02:20:24.000 And, you know, if I just had to, before that precinct came in, I would have said the land was going to win.

02:20:29.000 But now, if I have to guess, I'm going to say.

02:20:32.000 Sacon is going to win.

02:20:34.000 Highly speculative.

02:20:36.000 But I have to laugh because I watched the betting markets on this and I've been watching predict it.

02:20:41.000 And people are just so, I don't know what it is that they are.

02:20:45.000 But you see, you know, Connor Lamb, when you had like 1% reporting, Connor Lamb, it was like he's got a 52% chance of winning.

02:20:53.000 And on the betting markets, 95% chance for Lamb, 5% for Sacon.

02:20:58.000 It's over.

02:20:59.000 Forget about it.

02:21:00.000 And I just have to laugh at that.

02:21:01.000 But why don't we do some super chats now?

02:21:04.000 We'll check and see what our super chats are saying.

02:21:06.000 If you want to drop in a question or a comment, throw it up there in the super chat.

02:21:11.000 And so we've got a blunderbuss who says, Did Putin hack or rig this election too?

02:21:16.000 Yeah, that's a great question, right?

02:21:20.000 Andy Doherty says Trump should have backed Lamb.

02:21:20.000 Let's see.

02:21:23.000 Interesting strategy.

02:21:25.000 Michigan Wave says he agrees with McPheel's biggest tricks to GOP is if Dems go fake right in 2018 with a rehash of Washuck's Bill Clinton, I guess, for the Dems.

02:21:35.000 Begbie, how is Nick for Fascination A?

02:21:37.000 And Matthew says, say Allegheny one more time.

02:21:40.000 Yeah, all right.

02:21:41.000 We're trying.

02:21:42.000 We're correcting, of course, here.

02:21:44.000 So, some fun super chats.

02:21:45.000 People are in great humor, great spirits.

02:21:47.000 I think we're all basically on the same page here about this election.

02:21:51.000 I don't think anybody's going to be crying if we don't get the result that we want, or maybe the result we want is a loss.

02:21:57.000 I think we've basically decided what it's going to be.

02:21:57.000 Who knows?

02:22:00.000 But just because it showed it was as close.

02:22:03.000 If you looked at the polling, the Monmouth poll had.

02:22:09.000 The Monmouth poll had Lamb up by six points, which is obviously, he's not pulling ahead by six points.

02:22:14.000 He's not pulling ahead by one.

02:22:15.000 And the margin of error was like 3.8 or 4.

02:22:18.000 I think that just goes to show the polls are not going to be reliable here.

02:22:21.000 Polls will not be reliable, I don't think, in House races.

02:22:25.000 They'll be a little bit more reliable in Senate races, and they'll be more reliable for both when they're not special elections.

02:22:30.000 But I think it just goes to show the polls are not really a good tool these days to gauge because the polling would have had it that Lamb was up significantly or even that.

02:22:39.000 Sikon was up significantly.

02:22:40.000 One of the polls had him up by four.

02:22:42.000 And we saw this in 2016.

02:22:44.000 We saw this today.

02:22:46.000 I think it also tells us something about the metrics that we're using for the election, these results that the polls are not good, right?

02:22:55.000 Which polls?

02:22:56.000 Sorry?

02:22:57.000 The Monmouth poll and some of the others as well.

02:22:59.000 Yeah, the Monmouth poll was lamb by six.

02:23:02.000 So that's not a great poll.

02:23:06.000 But I do have to say, we do have breaking news another precinct, and the lead is down to 300.

02:23:13.000 I also have a.

02:23:15.000 I just read something on Twitter that is definitely going to be of interest here.

02:23:19.000 Apparently, they're not counting the absentee balance until the morning.

02:23:26.000 And that might just be Washington County absentee ballots.

02:23:30.000 So I think if Sacone catches Connor Lamb here, then he probably will win.

02:23:41.000 But let me just say, I think I got the math wrong, actually.

02:23:46.000 I think Lamb just increased his lead to 700 votes.

02:23:51.000 So it's going to be tough for Mr. Sacone.

02:23:55.000 But those absentee votes, I don't know.

02:23:57.000 We could go to sleep tonight not knowing what's going to happen if the margin is close enough for those absentee votes to make a difference.

02:24:04.000 Yeah, yeah, you're right.

02:24:05.000 That new precinct just came in.

02:24:07.000 Now we're down to 12 precincts remaining.

02:24:10.000 And it looked like that precinct gave Connor Lamb another 300 votes.

02:24:15.000 Now it looks like we're down to exactly, exactly 700 votes.

02:24:19.000 So that gave him, what, 115 additional votes?

02:24:24.000 Yeah.

02:24:25.000 Which is going to be, like you said, it'll be tough for Sacon now to recover because.

02:24:30.000 These districts that are out in Washington, let's just look at the surrounding ones.

02:24:34.000 They're not pulling in massive numbers.

02:24:37.000 So Combs pulling ahead with 80, 100, 120 in some of these districts towards Pittsburgh.

02:24:45.000 I don't know.

02:24:45.000 It gets a little bit slimmer.

02:24:48.000 But, you know, for example, if you look at Washington County, Peters, you know, A through C, some of them go like on the.

02:25:01.000 Eastern side of the Washington County, you've got Sacon winning by 23%.

02:25:07.000 On the western side, you've got him winning by 12%, by 2%, I think, in one of them.

02:25:13.000 Yeah, 2% in North Strabane.

02:25:15.000 So the counties that are left remaining here in Washington, it looks like one of them will go solidly Democrat.

02:25:23.000 Several of them could go solidly Democrat.

02:25:25.000 The ones remaining, it looks like they will skew Republican, some more than others.

02:25:30.000 It looks like you've got maybe one left in Allegheny, but.

02:25:34.000 Yeah, if it comes down to absentees, we're looking at differences of 700.

02:25:38.000 I don't know how many people vote absentee in a special House election, but could swing it.

02:25:43.000 We're down to the wire.

02:25:48.000 Yeah, and I think the absentees are going to lean lamb. 0.94

02:25:51.000 So Sacon had better get a little bit of a cushion here. 0.70

02:25:55.000 But Allegheny, 99% reporting.

02:25:58.000 Westmoreland, 99% reporting.

02:26:02.000 It looks like only Washington.

02:26:05.000 Has a significant number of precincts here, 7% left to go.

02:26:10.000 So, yeah, I don't think we're going to know who wins this tonight.

02:26:14.000 Yeah, I don't think so either.

02:26:16.000 Maybe we'll call the quits.

02:26:19.000 I'll call the quits at 10, 15 maybe.

02:26:22.000 You can drop out earlier if you'd like.

02:26:24.000 But, I mean, it's looking like we're probably not going to see a decision made on this tonight because you've got this issue with Westmoreland.

02:26:33.000 You've got the issue with.

02:26:35.000 The absentee, these 12 precincts are very stubborn and they're not coming in.

02:26:40.000 I'm reading on Twitter that some of the sentiment among Republicans is about the tax bill, which I think is interesting.

02:26:46.000 I've been reading this on several sites that the tax bill hasn't been exactly effective in these areas because the Democrats have been smart enough to frame it as a giveaway to corporations and the wealthy, which I think is interesting because a lot of the wisdom, and even I've said this on my show with the tax reform, was that if we did tax reform before election season, people would get money in their pockets and this could quell a Democratic uprising and maybe even energize the Republican base.

02:27:14.000 And I don't know.

02:27:15.000 I mean, this is just.

02:27:16.000 This is anecdotal stuff that we hear on Twitter and we see on some of these far left mainstream websites and papers.

02:27:22.000 If people are not getting the message that this is putting money in their pocket or if it's not doing that significantly, that's going to be an issue for Trump.

02:27:29.000 I think he's relying in a lot of ways on the tax reform, or maybe that was the calculus if we cut the taxes, people got more money in their paycheck.

02:27:37.000 This could keep him afloat in the midterms, and this could maybe subdue a blue wave.

02:27:42.000 People will be a lot less upset with Trump if they are making more money and their 401k is growing.

02:27:47.000 So, what do you think about that?

02:27:48.000 Do you think that's Democrat lies?

02:27:50.000 Do you think that's, you know, they're trying to demoralize us?

02:27:53.000 Or do you think there's some truth to that?

02:27:57.000 Yeah, I don't know.

02:27:58.000 It's hard for me to say.

02:28:00.000 I mean, yeah.

02:28:03.000 With that, I mean, there is a little bit of truth to it.

02:28:07.000 I mean, Republicans are having some problems.

02:28:10.000 What do you think?

02:28:10.000 I don't know.

02:28:11.000 Yeah, I don't know.

02:28:12.000 It's tough to say because, on the one hand, you know, the Treasury Department said, 95% of Americans are going to get their taxes cut.

02:28:21.000 And even the mainstream press was pretty honest about this.

02:28:24.000 They showed people, wealthy people, middle class people, working class people, all getting more money on their taxes, some more than others, but all getting money back.

02:28:33.000 So I don't know.

02:28:34.000 Maybe the crumbs thing has some truth to it.

02:28:37.000 Nancy Pelosi said it's crumbs that they're giving away.

02:28:40.000 Compared to the cuts that the corporations are getting, I don't know.

02:28:44.000 I mean, people are getting bonuses from Walmart and they're getting the minimum wage raised.

02:28:49.000 A lot of these companies are giving out bonuses and they're giving out.

02:28:52.000 You know, they're raising the minimum wage or they're doing charitable giving or investments in infrastructure.

02:28:56.000 But purely in terms of the tax people pay because of the cut, I don't think it's going to push it totally one way or the other.

02:29:04.000 That's not to say that that's not a lot of money, that that's not going to make a difference, but will it energize the base?

02:29:10.000 I don't think you're seeing it here.

02:29:11.000 I don't think this is an election which says tax reform has been supremely effective in energizing the base and quelling the Democrats.

02:29:21.000 Right.

02:29:21.000 And I think that the tax reform is a positive.

02:29:25.000 But I don't think it's enough to win by itself.

02:29:28.000 I think that the groups you're going to see very happy in 2018 are going to be the conservatives, the sort of doctrinal conservatives, and the Republicans.

02:29:41.000 I think they're going to go vote.

02:29:42.000 Now, the big question is, though, is the middle.

02:29:45.000 The populist leaning working class people, they like the tax cuts.

02:29:51.000 It's not enough for them to come out and vote for Trump, though. 0.90

02:29:56.000 They need stuff like the tariffs.

02:29:58.000 They need action on immigration. 0.58

02:30:02.000 And that's going to put the Republicans over the edge.

02:30:04.000 So I think that the tax reform, the tax cuts, definitely helps.

02:30:11.000 But like I said, not with the swing voter.

02:30:14.000 Those voters are going to have to be brought out by Trump really delivering on some of his unorthodox populist proposals, the wall.

02:30:29.000 Deportation, etc.

02:30:32.000 Right.

02:30:32.000 Well, I'm hearing some things on Twitter.

02:30:36.000 Apparently, the absentees total 7,000, 7,000 votes.

02:30:41.000 I don't know if that's true or not, but I'm just hearing some things on Twitter.

02:30:45.000 If there's 7,000 votes to be counted, we're not, you know, that would decide the election if there were a big margin there, you know, when it's down to 700 votes.

02:30:54.000 I'm hearing also that a lot of the remaining votes are from a place called Peters Township, which is favorable to Rick Saccon.

02:31:03.000 I hear people on the ground are saying that Saccon is probably up 100, probably up 100 if you look at in Washington County, or rather in Washington, if you're looking at Peters County, And you add all those up, the margins would be enough to put Sacon over the edge by about 100.

02:31:21.000 But, you know, again, until those absentees are counted, if there's an injection of 7,000 votes, that's a percentage, you know.

02:31:28.000 That's probably a full percentage here, and it's a half a percentage race right now.

02:31:32.000 So, I don't, we probably won't know tonight.

02:31:35.000 Like I said, we'll keep going another half hour, and we'll watch and see if these 12 precincts come in.

02:31:40.000 Kind of boring just waiting.

02:31:42.000 I mean, why can't they just count the votes?

02:31:43.000 How many votes do they have to count, you know?

02:31:45.000 But we'll keep an eye on it until then.

02:31:50.000 I have to say, it's a shame.

02:31:54.000 This is an election which we shouldn't have lost, or we shouldn't have even had to worry about losing.

02:32:00.000 Win or lose, Democrats recovered a 20 point skew in favor of Republicans, and they did it with somebody.

02:32:07.000 It's no secret how they did it.

02:32:09.000 This is not a mystery.

02:32:10.000 This is not a blue wave.

02:32:11.000 This is not Democrats being energized.

02:32:13.000 This is not Republicans in a referendum on Trump.

02:32:16.000 Democrats put forward a message that resonated with the people.

02:32:20.000 It happens to be the same message that Donald Trump campaigned on, and that he campaigned on.

02:32:24.000 For Rick Sacone, more effectively than Rick Sacone, which is address the opioid epidemic.

02:32:29.000 This is going to make or break him.

02:32:32.000 If he can effectively campaign on this, this is an emotional issue.

02:32:35.000 It's one that hits home for all the voters in Ohio.

02:32:38.000 I forget which study, but it said something like everybody in these states knows somebody who's affected by opioids.

02:32:44.000 That's going to get people to the polls.

02:32:45.000 If they could say, Trump saved my nephew, Trump saved my uncle, Trump saved my brother, he made a difference in my state with this epidemic, he gave us the funds, they got the treatment they needed.

02:32:55.000 That's going to get people to the voting.

02:32:57.000 Booths, but it'll also keep Democrats away. 0.98

02:32:59.000 It'll subdue their enthusiasm.

02:33:02.000 And if we're not hitting that issue, if we're not hitting health care, you know, that we didn't get Obamacare repealed, I think is an understated disaster of the first year of the Trump administration.

02:33:15.000 I mean, he made up for it and that he got the individual mandate gone and he got some of the taxes repealed, and that was a great thing.

02:33:21.000 But John McCain sinking the Obamacare repeal was a disaster.

02:33:25.000 Health care is like something that 83%, something like 83% of voters say that's a priority for them.

02:33:31.000 And Trump didn't get the single central thing Republicans have campaigned on with health care for six, seven, eight years, you know, for as long as it's been around.

02:33:40.000 And so, if we can't get on health care, if we can't get on opioids, we can't get on infrastructure, we can't get on jobs, tariffs, blue collar work, unions, forget about it.

02:33:48.000 Forget about 2020.

02:33:50.000 Forget about 2018.

02:33:51.000 Democrats are working their butts off to get Connor Lambs in, to get these kinds of people that will appeal.

02:33:57.000 They did it with Doug Jones, they did it with Connor Lambs.

02:34:00.000 They're more flexible than we thought.

02:34:02.000 We went into this thinking we were going to be strong because Democrats will be running frizzy haired liberation theologists, you know, essentially in Alabama and Pennsylvania.

02:34:10.000 And that's not the case.

02:34:11.000 They're adapting.

02:34:12.000 We have to adapt.

02:34:13.000 Yeah.

02:34:14.000 And this is something I covered with the poster, the tweeter, Echo Autiste, in my second podcast.

02:34:24.000 And that is that the desperation of the American middle class and working class is very palpable.

02:34:32.000 These swing voters, they are living paycheck to paycheck.

02:34:37.000 If they have an incidental expense like a medical problem or a car crash, they are going to be in the red.

02:34:46.000 And these people are desperate.

02:34:49.000 And these are the people who really respond to populist issues, economic populism, because they do not care about Conor Lamb being soft on Israel.

02:35:01.000 They just don't care.

02:35:03.000 They are living paycheck to paycheck and they don't care about half measures either.

02:35:08.000 What they want is to flip the switch, flip the board, flip the game over.

02:35:14.000 They voted for Trump because he said he would flip over these trade deals and reset the American economy.

02:35:20.000 They did not vote for Hillary Clinton half measures.

02:35:23.000 So, if we're going to run candidates who are going to be promising all these economic half measures and undercutting Trump on the big populist issues, then the Republican Party is going to run into a lot of trouble. 0.71

02:35:38.000 People are losing their neighborhoods to illegal immigration. 0.86

02:35:42.000 They're losing their livelihoods. 0.99

02:35:44.000 They're living paycheck to paycheck.

02:35:46.000 Their liver standards are going down.

02:35:47.000 They do not care so much about whether an AR 15 is legal.

02:35:52.000 They do not care so much about whether, whatever his name is, Rick Sacone stands with Israel or not.

02:36:00.000 And if you don't speak to these issues, then these voters are just not going to vote, or they're going to go and vote for an FDR style Democrat like we see with Connor Lamb, like we are seeing a couple of FDR style Democrats running.

02:36:14.000 In West Virginia now.

02:36:15.000 That's what's going to happen if Republicans keep on being the party of George H.W. Bush.

02:36:24.000 Right.

02:36:24.000 Looks like a development here.

02:36:28.000 CNN says that absentee ballots are being scanned right now.

02:36:32.000 4,100 were sent out, not 7,000.

02:36:35.000 4,100.

02:36:36.000 That's still a sizable percentage here.

02:36:39.000 They said to expect absentee ballot results by 11 15 p.m.

02:36:44.000 So, 10 15 central time, so about a half hour.

02:36:47.000 So, we're holding on.

02:36:49.000 We got another precinct that came in as well.

02:36:52.000 We're now down to 11 precincts remaining.

02:36:55.000 And it looks like Lamb increased his lead by another 50 votes or so.

02:37:00.000 He was at 700 clean, and now he's at 755 vote lead.

02:37:06.000 So, he went from what did he go from?

02:37:08.000 650?

02:37:10.000 Or where were we at before?

02:37:12.000 700.

02:37:13.000 No, no, I mean before that even.

02:37:15.000 We were at.

02:37:16.000 We were at a 0.2% difference.

02:37:17.000 It was 585, then it was 700.

02:37:20.000 That's right.

02:37:21.000 Yeah, so it was 585, then 700 now.

02:37:23.000 So it looks like we're increasing the lead there.

02:37:27.000 That said, Allegheny is at 100% reporting.

02:37:30.000 So all the votes that are going to come in now, minus the absentee, are coming in from Washington and Westmoreland.

02:37:36.000 1% in Westmoreland, 7% in Washington.

02:37:39.000 Both of these counties have gone pretty strongly for Sacon, so I'm sure we can expect more votes for Sacon.

02:37:46.000 It looks like in Peters Township, which still remains to be counted.

02:37:50.000 For some reason, I hear Sacon's going to have a strong showing there.

02:37:54.000 We've got another one that should come in Republican if you're looking at surrounding areas.

02:38:00.000 One may come in Democrat, it's looking like, or a couple rather, may come in Democrat from Washington.

02:38:05.000 But now it comes down to Westmoreland, Washington, and the absentees.

02:38:09.000 I doubt, although maybe there could be another 4,000 votes in these remaining 11 precincts, but absentees are going to flip it.

02:38:17.000 And we'll see when those come out.

02:38:19.000 Maybe I'll try and pull up and see if we have.

02:38:22.000 CNN's live coverage if they're going to get the absentee first.

02:38:26.000 We got to, I guess, watch on all the different outlets here because maybe New York Times is a little slow on the draw.

02:38:32.000 I know it was with Alabama last time around.

02:38:35.000 So let's take a look here on CNN, which we hate, which is fake news.

02:38:41.000 Looks like they got the same numbers as everybody else.

02:38:44.000 So we'll see what happens.

02:38:46.000 But it's so exciting to watch these last 11 precincts come in.

02:38:53.000 And just while we're waiting, I guess, while we're waiting, do you want to talk a little bit about the Trump rally over the weekend?

02:38:59.000 Maybe not even so much as consequential for the race, but consequential for.

02:39:05.000 Trump himself and the rhetoric.

02:39:06.000 I mean, what do you make of the things that he was saying just while we're waiting for these precincts?

02:39:11.000 What do you make of some of the rhetoric that we heard over the weekend?

02:39:13.000 I mean, do you think we've been hearing this stuff about the opioids, killing drug dealers, really going on fire with the insults on Maxine Waters, on Chuck Todd, and hitting the wall and immigration pretty hard?

02:39:27.000 What do you make of the rhetoric out of that rally if you saw it?

02:39:30.000 Does that help him?

02:39:31.000 Does that hurt him?

02:39:32.000 Is that good for his base?

02:39:33.000 Is that good for moderates and the left?

02:39:35.000 Is he hurting himself?

02:39:36.000 I mean, what's your make, what's your read on all that?

02:39:40.000 Yeah, one last take and then I got to run.

02:39:44.000 But yeah, let me give you my take on that.

02:39:47.000 You know, I think that it helps the base.

02:39:49.000 I think that it fires up the base.

02:39:51.000 And I think that it's good for the country because what we're seeing, and this is what I'm basing off of some news reports, you always have to take it with a grain of salt.

02:40:01.000 We're seeing Trump has been in office for over a year and he seems to be more and more comfortable with the levers of power compared to his first.

02:40:12.000 Days when he was just sort of testing things out, and we saw things backfire on him.

02:40:20.000 So, from what we're seeing in the news, he's getting more comfortable with the levers of power.

02:40:26.000 He's moving some of his people into place, and he's not, he's all out of patience with the deep state at this point.

02:40:34.000 He's saying, You're not going to be able to slow walk me anymore.

02:40:39.000 I'm ordering the tariffs right now.

02:40:42.000 Lawyers aren't going to be able to pretend like they're not ready.

02:40:46.000 For the tariffs yet.

02:40:46.000 They're going to have to draft him up right now.

02:40:49.000 And we also saw him boot Secretary Tillerson for Pompeo.

02:40:55.000 And Pompeo is a guy, from all accounts, that Trump is much more comfortable with.

02:41:00.000 He's been listening to Pompeo for months and not Tillerson anyway.

02:41:05.000 So moving him over to Secretary of State is more of a formality.

02:41:08.000 I wouldn't worry about Pompeo's hawkishness because Pompeo doesn't make the decisions, Trump makes the decisions militarily.

02:41:16.000 Pompeo is going to be a diplomat.

02:41:19.000 So I think you've got a president who is starting to become more comfortable with the levers of power.

02:41:25.000 He's moving out some of the undercutters, the underminers within the White House and within the cabinet.

02:41:33.000 And I think we're going to see a president that's going full bore with his agenda. 0.99

02:41:39.000 Black pillars be damned. 0.98

02:41:41.000 Trump is ordering, apparently, according to Axios today, he's upping the trade war with China. 0.98

02:41:47.000 He's asking for.

02:41:49.000 Tens of billions of dollars in tariffs on China.

02:41:53.000 So, this is big news and this is exciting.

02:41:55.000 We should be excited.

02:41:57.000 We should be cheering him on every step of the way cautiously.

02:42:02.000 We know we should be a little bit wary of things that could go wrong, like always, or failures that could happen.

02:42:11.000 But I think we should be cautiously optimistic and cheering Trump on now through this stretch.

02:42:16.000 And I think it's going to be exciting for the MAGA base.

02:42:19.000 And hopefully, this translates into 2018.

02:42:23.000 At least holding the House.

02:42:25.000 I think we're going to pick up Senate seats, but we've got to hold the House.

02:42:28.000 Yep.

02:42:28.000 Agreed.

02:42:29.000 But I think that's all true and all things we've been saying all night.

02:42:29.000 Agreed.

02:42:34.000 And you got to take off.

02:42:36.000 That's your last take.

02:42:38.000 Thanks a lot for having me on.

02:42:38.000 Yes, sir.

02:42:40.000 It's been a pleasure, as always.

02:42:42.000 Oh, thanks for joining us.

02:42:43.000 Thank you for your insight, your hot takes. 1.00

02:42:45.000 You're here to trigger the Black Pillars, make them all very upset. 1.00

02:42:48.000 But thanks for coming on. 0.98

02:42:50.000 Thanks for a fun evening.

02:42:52.000 Thank you.

02:42:54.000 Take care.

02:42:54.000 And I'll be tuning in to America First tomorrow night.

02:42:58.000 My man.

02:42:58.000 All right.

02:42:59.000 Thank you, buddy.

02:42:59.000 Take it easy.

02:43:00.000 Take it easy.

02:43:01.000 Bye bye.

02:43:02.000 Good guy.

02:43:03.000 We love the Ricky Vaughn.

02:43:04.000 We love the jazz hands.

02:43:05.000 And finally, I could take this off.

02:43:07.000 My head itches in this thing.

02:43:10.000 I had to really bite my lip there because I was fighting the urge to just rip this thing off and scratch.

02:43:17.000 I don't know.

02:43:17.000 You know, we got the Turtle Beach look.

02:43:19.000 It's not exactly.

02:43:20.000 This is a gaming headset, technically.

02:43:21.000 But, you know, it's a backup.

02:43:23.000 It gets the job done.

02:43:24.000 I didn't charge up my headpiece earlier.

02:43:27.000 I should have done that.

02:43:28.000 You know, it worked.

02:43:28.000 That's all right.

02:43:30.000 So now we're waiting.

02:43:32.000 We're playing the waiting game.

02:43:33.000 And.

02:43:34.000 Oh boy, do we love just waiting and waiting to watch and see for these last 11 precincts.

02:43:40.000 Hey, actually, looks like we've got some numbers here from Peters Township.

02:43:46.000 And like I said earlier, it's looking like the votes are coming in for Rick Sicone.

02:43:53.000 And it doesn't look like they've updated their vote total yet because it looks like they've got, oh no, maybe that was an error, I guess, because it looked like it was all filled in and now it's filled in again.

02:44:05.000 So they're having some issues, it looks like, on New York.

02:44:07.000 Times.

02:44:08.000 If you're watching the live coverage here, Peters Township is coming in.

02:44:12.000 It's going out.

02:44:13.000 The information that they've uploaded and then quickly took away is that in every single part of Peters Township, Rick Sacone is pulling away.

02:44:23.000 Not by crazy margins, but by a lot by 70, by 100, by 110, 115, in all these different parts of Peters Township.

02:44:32.000 And hey, it's a 700 vote race right now.

02:44:34.000 So let's wait and see if the New York Times will update the totals.

02:44:38.000 They've uploaded the information, but they haven't incorporated.

02:44:42.000 These totals into their precincts or into their vote totals.

02:44:45.000 I don't know if that's because it's not complete or if they don't like the result they're getting.

02:44:49.000 I'm going to check in on CNN and see if they've uploaded it.

02:44:52.000 It's kind of peculiar that 538 is not keeping track of this.

02:44:56.000 538, they're the election specialists.

02:44:58.000 You know, what's his name?

02:45:00.000 Is the savant over there, Nate Silver.

02:45:03.000 He was supposedly so great until 2016 really upset his Apple cart, but they're not doing a live coverage.

02:45:09.000 And usually they have the commentary they did for the Senate election.

02:45:12.000 They don't have it today.

02:45:14.000 And it looks like CNN didn't update the numbers.

02:45:16.000 Now, New York Times has.

02:45:19.000 And it looks like he's leading.

02:45:20.000 Connor Lamb is still in the lead by 95 votes.

02:45:25.000 100% of Washington is in.

02:45:28.000 100% of Allegheny is in.

02:45:30.000 And you got 99% in Westmoreland.

02:45:33.000 Two precincts left to decide the election.

02:45:37.000 95 votes to a difference between Connor Lamb and Rick Sacone.

02:45:41.000 And you also have 4,100 absentee, according to CNN.

02:45:46.000 And so we'll see when those.

02:45:48.000 Absentee ballots are counted.

02:45:49.000 They say it should be in the next 20 minutes.

02:45:52.000 They should be uploaded in the next 20 minutes.

02:45:55.000 And so we'll see what happens.

02:45:57.000 But now we're really getting down to the wire.

02:46:00.000 95 vote difference.

02:46:01.000 That's recount territory.

02:46:03.000 95 votes is recount territory.

02:46:06.000 So it looks like we got everything in Washington, got everything in Allegheny, everything in Green.

02:46:11.000 Westmoreland's got two precincts left to report.

02:46:14.000 Absentees, and then it's decided.

02:46:16.000 And let me pull up CNN because they were the ones that initially reported the absentee information.

02:46:20.000 They may upload it first.

02:46:24.000 But wow, it is really coming down to the wire.

02:46:26.000 I don't think anybody, maybe some people expected it was going to be a nail biter, but 95 votes, I mean, that's pretty close.

02:46:33.000 And it certainly goes against the polling because we saw in the polling, if I could pull it back up on 538, because they did do a little bit of a forecast before the election.

02:46:42.000 The most recent poll from Monmouth had Joe Lamb, or Joe Lamb, I keep wanting to call him Joe Lamb, Connor Lamb, because he's just like an average Joe kind of a guy.

02:46:52.000 Connor Lamb, they had Connor Lamb up by six points in the most recent poll.

02:46:57.000 Rabba Research had them up four points.

02:46:59.000 Gravis had Sakon up three points.

02:47:02.000 Emerson had Lamb up three points.

02:47:05.000 So they had Lamb doing considerably well.

02:47:07.000 And now we're down to, it's pretty tight, absent the absentee ballots.

02:47:13.000 Down to 95 votes.

02:47:14.000 Wow, wow, wow.

02:47:16.000 And now we wait.

02:47:17.000 Now we wait and we monitor it.

02:47:19.000 I don't know.

02:47:19.000 Should I just play Fortnite now?

02:47:21.000 Should I just play like a game on Miniclip while we wait?

02:47:23.000 Because that's, I mean, that's really what it comes down to here.

02:47:27.000 Just waiting for absentees to come into the next 20 minutes and the two precincts left remaining.

02:47:34.000 But again, we've said it before, we've said it again.

02:47:37.000 I think the takeaway that we all concurred on from Ricky Vaughn to McPheels to myself the two predominant things are GOP has to get this stuff together.

02:47:46.000 Paul Ryan's fault.

02:47:47.000 We have to reform the GOP.

02:47:49.000 It's okay to take a tactical loss here if it's going to spare us in the midterms, but also that we should not have been here.

02:47:55.000 This should not have been the result.

02:47:57.000 It doesn't even matter.

02:47:58.000 As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter who wins.

02:48:01.000 You know, whoever wins, this district is gone by November.

02:48:05.000 They're redistricting the state of Pennsylvania.

02:48:07.000 It's in the courts right now.

02:48:08.000 They're fighting, and they don't know what it's going to look like if Republicans are going to be able to gerrymander as much as they have or if the courts will rewrite it.

02:48:16.000 This district won't even exist by November.

02:48:18.000 District 18th is gone.

02:48:20.000 Bye.

02:48:21.000 You know, it's not there anymore.

02:48:22.000 So it doesn't really matter so much who gets more votes because that person will not be seated for a full term.

02:48:28.000 That person.

02:48:30.000 I don't think they will offer a big injection to the Democratic Party because at the end of the day, this was about local politics, not about national politics.

02:48:38.000 You know, Conor Lamb won.

02:48:40.000 The Democratic Party didn't win.

02:48:41.000 Nancy Pelosi didn't win.

02:48:43.000 Chuck Schumer didn't win.

02:48:44.000 Donald Trump didn't lose.

02:48:45.000 Conor Lamb won.

02:48:47.000 You know, if he does, if he pulls it out.

02:48:49.000 And Rick Sacone lost, if he loses. 0.99

02:48:51.000 And even if Rick Sacone wins, it was still humiliating that Republicans had to pay $100 per vote and still get their asses kicked, right? 0.99

02:48:59.000 And it would still be humiliating that this is a district that breaks 20% for Trump and they get killed here. 0.96

02:49:04.000 So it really is, at the end of the day, is it so much consequential who gets more votes?

02:49:09.000 No.

02:49:10.000 And I say that if Saccon wins, inconsequential.

02:49:13.000 If Lamb wins, inconsequential.

02:49:15.000 What matters here is that Democrats recovered a 25% break for the Republicans.

02:49:21.000 They recovered 25% cleavage in favor of the Republicans in this district.

02:49:27.000 And that should be a scandal because the issues that Lamb has won on are all issues that Donald Trump has championed.

02:49:34.000 They're all issues that Donald Trump.

02:49:37.000 Has sung to the rooftops that he campaigned on that distinguished him from all the other Republicans in the primaries in 2016 opioids, trade, the economy, to some extent, I guess, healthcare, infrastructure.

02:49:51.000 And these are all things which the GOP, in which Sacon, were not effective.

02:49:56.000 They weren't even good, as far as I'm concerned, as getting the message out on those things.

02:49:59.000 And we could pull up, maybe we could do this.

02:50:01.000 We'll pull up Rick Sacon's website, and I'll just show you what we're dealing with here.

02:50:07.000 With ricksacone.com.

02:50:08.000 So I'll pull it up here on the screen so you can take a look.

02:50:13.000 I will add it in as a media source and hope it doesn't crash my computer.

02:50:18.000 Whoops, not a media source, a browser source.

02:50:21.000 For my Generation Z tech people who could understand this computer talk that we're getting into.

02:50:27.000 So let's pull up ricksacone.com here.

02:50:31.000 And here we are here on ricksacone.com.

02:50:35.000 And here we are leadership and experience that will make a difference.

02:50:38.000 I'm having trouble scrolling here.

02:50:40.000 I don't think I'll be able to whip it out.

02:50:42.000 Browser capture is not working.

02:50:43.000 So whatever.

02:50:45.000 Forget about that.

02:50:46.000 We're not going to be able to present it.

02:50:47.000 But I'm on his website now on my browser.

02:50:49.000 We're having trouble pulling it up on the screen.

02:50:51.000 And you've got Rick Sacone.

02:50:52.000 You know, he's got a nice face.

02:50:54.000 I will say his face is good.

02:50:56.000 We talked a little bit about the physiognomy during the Alabama election.

02:51:00.000 You know, that the Democrat Doug Jones didn't look so hot.

02:51:05.000 But Roy Moore did.

02:51:06.000 He was a good looking guy.

02:51:07.000 This fella, Rick Sacone, he's got great facial symmetry.

02:51:10.000 He's got a very warm face.

02:51:11.000 He looks like that guy on.

02:51:16.000 What is that YouTube series where they have kids react and elders react?

02:51:20.000 If you've ever watched the elders react videos on YouTube, he looks like.

02:51:24.000 One of the guys.

02:51:24.000 Let me try.

02:51:25.000 I could definitely pull that up.

02:51:28.000 The comparison here.

02:51:31.000 Let's see.

02:51:31.000 I'll pull up Elders React people.

02:51:34.000 And let me see if I can find an image of the one.

02:51:36.000 Because he's got this great.

02:51:37.000 He's got this very nice, very warm grandpa look where it's like, I don't know.

02:51:42.000 You want him to tell you stories about the war with swears and that the parents will get mad about.

02:51:48.000 So here we go.

02:51:49.000 Here's Elders React.

02:51:51.000 I'm going to pull him up on the screen.

02:51:54.000 Doing it very quickly.

02:51:55.000 Flying fast.

02:51:55.000 Hands.

02:51:56.000 They call him Fly Influentist because the hands are flying so fast on the keyboard.

02:52:01.000 Because I am good at computers, because I am a smart person.

02:52:04.000 And so here's Elders React.

02:52:07.000 Okay.

02:52:08.000 Here's Elders React right up here.

02:52:11.000 I guess we'll put him over McPheels because he's not on anymore.

02:52:14.000 And then we'll get Sacon over Ricky Vaughn.

02:52:20.000 He's got this very interesting look about him a very nice, gingerly grandpa.

02:52:23.000 This is a little off topic, but you know, we are waiting.

02:52:26.000 For these things to come in, I'll have to get a smaller image, otherwise, it's going to take over the whole screen.

02:52:30.000 Let's pull it up here.

02:52:32.000 Our man, Rick Sacone.

02:52:34.000 That's what I have to say.

02:52:35.000 He just looks it.

02:52:35.000 He's a good guy.

02:52:36.000 He just looks like a really solid guy.

02:52:38.000 And it was unfortunate because if you watched the campaign rally with Trump, he got up, and when he started speaking, his voice was all rough.

02:52:47.000 His voice, I don't know if that's from campaigning or what, but it seemed like he lost his voice.

02:52:52.000 Very, very raspy.

02:52:53.000 So here we go.

02:52:54.000 Here we've got Elders React, and then we've got Rick Sacone, right?

02:52:58.000 I mean, is that.

02:53:00.000 You're not going to get that anywhere else, that keen eye, that quick comparison.

02:53:04.000 We've got Rick Sacone and Elders React.

02:53:06.000 If I put them both in cups and mixed them around, you couldn't tell who was who.

02:53:10.000 So he's a nice guy.

02:53:12.000 But that's on his website.

02:53:13.000 We've got Ricky up there.

02:53:16.000 And let's go back to his website here.

02:53:18.000 And if we go to his website, you've got him, and we've got who is Rick Sacone.

02:53:22.000 He's a diplomat, he's an elected guy, he's an Air Force guy.

02:53:26.000 But then we get down to the issues.

02:53:28.000 And what are the six issues that are front and center on the campaign website?

02:53:33.000 First is lower taxes.

02:53:34.000 More jobs, government reform, fixing Obamacare, immigration reform, keep us safe.

02:53:40.000 None of these are energizing.

02:53:42.000 Nobody who's been killed by the Obama economy, killed by Obamacare, killed by a gang member, killed by opioids, nobody hears lower taxes, more jobs, government reform, fixing Obamacare, immigration reform, keeping us safe.

02:53:54.000 Nobody hears this stuff and gets energized.

02:53:56.000 This is what everybody says.

02:53:57.000 Instead of lower taxes, say more money in your pockets.

02:54:00.000 Instead of more jobs, say bring back factories.

02:54:03.000 Instead of government reform, say fighting government corruption.

02:54:06.000 Instead of fixing Obamacare, say make healthcare cheaper.

02:54:09.000 Instead of immigration reform, say secure the border.

02:54:12.000 I mean, so many things could be done here, but most striking that McPheel said, that Jazz said, is just nothing about opioids.

02:54:20.000 Contrast this with Connor Lamb's website.

02:54:25.000 Let me whip that one up here ConnorLamb.com.

02:54:30.000 And let's pull him up.

02:54:33.000 New energy and honest leadership, young, handsome guy, Marine.

02:54:36.000 I mean, he's got the look.

02:54:37.000 But then you go down to the issues here, which he calls priorities.

02:54:43.000 And he says the biggest issues facing the 18th district aren't partisan.

02:54:47.000 Heroin kills Democrats and Republicans.

02:54:50.000 Health care is too expensive.

02:54:51.000 The roads and bridges we all use are crumbling.

02:54:55.000 But the people we send to Washington aren't solving these problems.

02:54:58.000 All of this rhetoric is powerful.

02:55:00.000 It's emotive.

02:55:01.000 It's nonpartisan.

02:55:03.000 And more importantly, this stuff is actionable.

02:55:07.000 It kills Democrats and Republicans.

02:55:09.000 It's too expensive.

02:55:10.000 The roads and bridges are crumbling. 0.97

02:55:12.000 These people are corrupt. 0.85

02:55:12.000 And you know what? 0.85

02:55:14.000 I'm anti establishment.

02:55:15.000 I'm an outsider.

02:55:16.000 I'm running for Congress.

02:55:17.000 I'm trying to make that change.

02:55:18.000 That's an inspiring message.

02:55:19.000 And not like people are going to his campaign website.

02:55:21.000 Not to say that people are making their decision based on, oh, I went to the website and I like this or that.

02:55:26.000 But it just goes to show the campaign rhetoric that's being used in the literature, that's being used in the stump speeches, that's being used in the appearances.

02:55:33.000 I'm sure the advertisements.

02:55:34.000 I'm sure if we pulled up an advertisement, we'd see similar things.

02:55:37.000 And it just goes to show the rhetoric is important, the messaging is important.

02:55:41.000 Sacon dropped the ball on this.

02:55:43.000 He's talking about.

02:55:45.000 Low taxes, more jobs.

02:55:46.000 Oh, yeah, that's really great. 0.97

02:55:48.000 How about heroin kills Democrats and Republicans?

02:55:50.000 That's more effective for people in Pennsylvania ravaged by the opioid epidemic.

02:55:55.000 And we'll check real quickly here.

02:55:57.000 Still nothing.

02:55:59.000 Still nothing on the absentee on the other precincts that we have that remain here.

02:56:09.000 Or it looks like, actually, on CNN, it looks like they're reporting some different numbers in the New York Times.

02:56:14.000 It looks like we got, is that absentee or is that something else?

02:56:19.000 Let's see, the CNN official tally here has Lamb at 111,875 and Sacon at 111,028.

02:56:29.000 So it looks like those could be the absentee ballots.

02:56:32.000 I'm not totally sure about that.

02:56:34.000 It looks like that's about, what, 1,100 for each?

02:56:38.000 So that doesn't look like that's all of the absentee, if it is.

02:56:42.000 But they are reporting that Lamb has now pulled ahead with about an 850 vote lead, which.

02:56:48.000 That's tough to see how Sacon comes back from that.

02:56:50.000 I don't think there's enough votes in Westmoreland to recover that.

02:56:53.000 If that tally is correct that CNN is reporting, and I'm not seeing it on New York Times, but if that's correct, it looks like the race is over, and it looks like it's decidedly for Lamb.

02:57:03.000 But I'll wait for New York Times to publish that.

02:57:06.000 We'll see where those numbers came from, because New York Times is still telling us 95 in.

02:57:11.000 Or, no, I'm sorry, New York Times is now adjusted, and Connor Lamb leads with 847 votes.

02:57:19.000 Still, we got two precincts left, so I guess that was the absentee.

02:57:22.000 Maybe not all of them, but some.

02:57:24.000 So it looks like Conor Lamb wins.

02:57:25.000 I don't see how Sacon pulls it out.

02:57:28.000 I don't see how he recovers in Westmoreland with two precincts.

02:57:31.000 He's going to recover 800 votes between the two.

02:57:35.000 An 800 vote difference?

02:57:37.000 So I think we can safely call it at this point for Lamb, unless that's not all the absentee.

02:57:37.000 Not going to happen.

02:57:47.000 And those numbers don't add up because we were at 109,000 and some.

02:57:52.000 And now we're at, so it looks like only about, oh no, maybe 2,000 each.

02:57:57.000 So it could be all the absentee, but we'll wait until it's called.

02:57:59.000 We'll wait until somebody makes a definitive statement here.

02:58:04.000 But it's looking like it's going for Lamb.

02:58:05.000 Like I said, I don't see how Sacon recovers those 800 votes.

02:58:09.000 That's probably set in stone.

02:58:11.000 You know, absent any absentee ballots that pour in for Sacon, it looks like it's gone.

02:58:18.000 So let's see.

02:58:20.000 Let's see what people are saying on Twitter, if they've called it or if not yet, if Sacon is conceded.

02:58:25.000 But, I mean, if it's over, it's over because of Sacon.

02:58:28.000 It's over because of Paul Ryan.

02:58:29.000 It's over because of the messaging.

02:58:31.000 Jake Tapper says with 3,000 absentee ballots and two precincts outstanding, Lamb is up.

02:58:38.000 Okay, so you still got 3,000 absentee ballots to go.

02:58:41.000 Maybe they counted about 1,000 of them.

02:58:43.000 And you got two precincts left, so I guess it's not over yet.

02:58:46.000 A little premature to say.

02:58:48.000 You know, Sacone, he's still in it, he's still alive, but it's not looking good for him.

02:58:53.000 Looks like it's going to come really down to the wire.

02:58:55.000 So, anyway, we'll keep an eye on that.

02:58:57.000 But back to what we were saying about the messaging you look at the website here and what Sacone is saying, and there's nothing about opioids, there's nothing about infrastructure, there's nothing about outsourcing.

02:59:09.000 More jobs.

02:59:10.000 The tab here for Sacone is Rick Sacone was named a guardian of small business by the National Federal.

02:59:16.000 Federation of Independent Business for his pro business legislative record.

02:59:19.000 I'm sorry, that doesn't do anything for me.

02:59:22.000 I want to hear about how jobs are coming back from China.

02:59:24.000 I want to hear about how we're bringing jobs back, bringing factories back.

02:59:28.000 We're opening factories.

02:59:29.000 Communities are thriving again.

02:59:30.000 I don't hear that with more jobs and lower taxes.

02:59:33.000 Fixing Obamacare.

02:59:34.000 Under Obamacare, health care has become unaffordable.

02:59:37.000 Rick Sacone will utilize free market principles to fix our health care.

02:59:40.000 Yeah, I don't care about the free market.

02:59:44.000 I don't really care about free market principles.

02:59:46.000 I want health care that's affordable.

02:59:48.000 I'm saying this as a voter in Pennsylvania.

02:59:51.000 People that are out there getting killed with the Obamacare mandate and with higher premiums, they're not going to hear, what's really important to me is that we utilize the free market.

02:59:59.000 They don't care.

03:00:00.000 They want cheap health care.

03:00:01.000 They want good health care.

03:00:02.000 They don't care that you were voted the guardian of small business.

03:00:06.000 They don't care about balanced budgets and all of this.

03:00:09.000 They want their taxes cut. 0.52

03:00:10.000 They want their jobs back.

03:00:12.000 They want their factories open again.

03:00:14.000 Just the messaging here couldn't be worse.

03:00:16.000 The only thing I will say is immigration reform.

03:00:18.000 He did hit that.

03:00:19.000 It wasn't a focus, I don't think, so much with Roy Moore, but this is one of his six pillars.

03:00:24.000 That said, Not strong rhetoric, not strong language.

03:00:28.000 So we'll see.

03:00:30.000 Has it changed all on CNN, New York Times?

03:00:32.000 Doesn't look like it.

03:00:34.000 So we'll check in on our super chats while we're hanging out here and we'll see.

03:00:37.000 I think I'm going to call it in five minutes.

03:00:39.000 I'm tired.

03:00:40.000 I'm really hot.

03:00:42.000 The space heater's on, which was a bad idea.

03:00:44.000 And now my body's overheating.

03:00:46.000 It's like in that show Osmosis Jones in the movie when the guy's got a fever of 110.

03:00:52.000 That's how I'm feeling right now.

03:00:53.000 And all the cells in his body are dying.

03:00:55.000 That's how I feel.

03:00:56.000 And I'm just tired of waiting.

03:00:58.000 So it'll probably drag on into the night.

03:01:00.000 So let's take some super chats and then maybe we'll call the night in about five minutes.

03:01:05.000 JB Summers says, Dealy reminder, Black Pillars BTFO.

03:01:09.000 Very true.

03:01:10.000 They've been having a rough year.

03:01:12.000 John Shepard Smith, why can't we get the Westmoreland County votes again?

03:01:16.000 I'm not sure, but they've said that they're not revealing where they came from.

03:01:20.000 So we've got the votes.

03:01:21.000 We don't know where they came from until tomorrow.

03:01:23.000 I don't know why that is, but them's the rules.

03:01:26.000 And Tim coming in who says, Yet another sign we are entering an age of men, not ideas.

03:01:32.000 In politics.

03:01:33.000 Very true.

03:01:34.000 The men, possibly more important.

03:01:36.000 I don't know, though, because Connor Lamb came through on the ideas, but then again, he came in because he's a young, attractive white guy who has credentials in his role as a federal prosecutor and all the rest.

03:01:48.000 So the case could be made both ways.

03:01:52.000 So let's take a look.

03:01:54.000 Somebody saying even if Rick got 60% of the votes in the absentee ballots, he'd still fall 200 votes short of catching Connor Lamb.

03:02:01.000 That's a tough hill to climb.

03:02:03.000 Yeah, so unless Republicans.

03:02:05.000 Really outshone the Democrats in absentee voting, unless they were, you know, went above and beyond, above 60%.

03:02:12.000 And in these precincts and in the absentee, it's going to be real tough.

03:02:17.000 I'm going to prematurely say Connor Lamb, probably the favorite here.

03:02:21.000 He's probably got the edge here.

03:02:23.000 Still a toss up, but probably got the edge.

03:02:27.000 And let's take a look.

03:02:28.000 If we've got any more super chats, I guess we'll wait it out until 15 and then we'll call it night.

03:02:32.000 I'm tired.

03:02:33.000 I guess while we're waiting, we can talk about some of the things that are coming up here on America First.

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03:04:19.000 And we'll jump back in.

03:04:20.000 We'll check in and we'll see if we got any results here.

03:04:25.000 And it looks like it's still the same.

03:04:26.000 It's not moving so much.

03:04:28.000 So we're probably going to call it a night here.

03:04:31.000 It's a shame, you know, we couldn't carry it out.

03:04:33.000 But frankly, this could go on all night.

03:04:36.000 They're still counting the absentees.

03:04:37.000 This could go on well into the evening.

03:04:39.000 These precincts are not reporting.

03:04:41.000 So we have no idea.

03:04:42.000 Still a toss up.

03:04:43.000 I say, as we close out, Lamb has the edge, Democrats have the edge.

03:04:48.000 And we've talked all day long about.

03:04:50.000 Whose fault this is, who's to blame, what the messaging is, and why this is not the end of the world if we take an L here tonight.

03:04:55.000 But that's going to do it for us here on America First.

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03:06:13.000 Take it easy.

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03:06:44.000 With respect.

America First - Nicholas J. Fuentes - March 13, 2018

The Pennsylvania Special Election (Live) | America First Ep. 124

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