The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - Michele Tafoya, Former Sports Broadcaster & Minnesota Senatorial Candidate (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_1049)

00:00:00.000 Hi, everybody. This is Gatsad with The Sad Truth, another fantastic guest. She invited

00:00:06.120 me a while ago on her podcast. I was meant to reciprocate many moons ago, but finally

00:00:12.940 I convinced her to come on. Michelle Tafoya, how are you doing? It didn't take much convincing,

00:00:18.820 sir. It was an easy yes. It's great to see you again, and you have been a busy man.

00:00:25.000 Thank you so much. So many people will know you from your illustrious career as a sports broadcaster and journalist. We can get into that. But the most important reason you're here today is that you've got a big senatorial race happening, I think, November 3rd.

00:00:42.200 You're running for one of the two Minnesota senatorial seats. Maybe we could start there. What made you decide to throw that proverbial hat into the ring? How confident are you feeling? Tell us about it.

00:00:54.280 Well, let me tell you that it really started for me on 9-11 of 2001. And that was sort of an awakening for me. I had always been involved and interested in government and politics. But I was working very hard, as you mentioned, as a sportscaster and newly married at that time.

00:01:14.860 And I remember, I think we all do, that it felt like the the earth just shook that day, that everything is sort of like a Rubik's Cube got moved out of place and nothing was ever going to be the same again.

00:01:26.700 And I just dove into I cared so much about this country.

00:01:32.480 I just dove into history and biographies and politics and civics and just started reading everything I get my hands on listening.

00:01:40.140 And over the course of time, then also as an NFL sideline reporter, I witnessed, you know, players kneeling during the national anthem, all of these protests that were going on here in Minnesota.

00:01:50.980 We had the George Floyd protests and all that whole awful episode here in Minneapolis.

00:01:58.600 So there was just a lot that kept on stacking and stacking and stacking.

00:02:02.820 And finally, and I'd been asked, Gad, to run for office in the past, and the timing was never quite right.

00:02:11.040 This is a seat where a Democrat is stepping down.

00:02:14.040 Her name is Tina Smith.

00:02:15.060 She's the current senator.

00:02:16.300 And I looked at the field and I said, I think we could do this.

00:02:21.280 I think we can do this.

00:02:22.720 And we are very confident right now.

00:02:24.380 A poll just came out today that basically has us in a dead heat.

00:02:28.380 Wow.

00:02:28.620 And when we inform voters, yeah, everyone thinks Minnesota is cobalt blue, and it's really not. It's much more of a purple state. It's just been a while since we've had, I think, an opportunity like this. And so, yeah, I think people are starting to notice that this is a real race. And we are extremely excited about it because we have a chance to flip this seat and help maintain the Republican majority in the Senate.

00:02:55.780 Have you received the usual sort of hit piece accusations?

00:03:00.600 You're, who knows, an extreme far-right person.

00:03:03.240 You're not empathetic enough.

00:03:05.040 This is coming from the guy who wrote Suicidal Empathy.

00:03:07.200 What are some of the hits that you've received so far?

00:03:09.700 First of all, I have to mention that that term now,

00:03:12.380 suicidal empathy, because of you, it gets used all the time.

00:03:16.600 And I'm so glad that it does.

00:03:19.060 It has, I think, really made people think,

00:03:21.720 OK, what does he mean? Oh, suicidal. OK, wait a minute. I get this. Yeah, I've gotten all the hit pieces. No question about it. I'm going to be a rubber stamp for Trump. And all that I can say, look, Trump isn't hugely popular here in Minnesota. And what I will tell people is when he's doing something right, when the Republican Party is doing something right, I will get on board. And when they're not, I will stand up and I will not go along with it.

00:03:50.440 So I'm very much an independent thinker in my own person.

00:03:54.860 I know what I think my moral, I have a moral clarity.

00:03:59.680 And so hit pieces be damned.

00:04:02.440 We're running, we're running hard.

00:04:03.920 And my opponent is as crazy a leftist as you will find.

00:04:08.460 Oh, so she would score at the extreme of the woke blue haired folks?

00:04:13.700 I think so.

00:04:14.660 I think so.

00:04:15.740 She's said a number of things and she certainly has a record.

00:04:19.820 She's been our lieutenant governor for eight years, while all the fraud and all the chaos and all the declining test scores and all the crime have exploded here in Minnesota.

00:04:30.200 She can't run away from that record.

00:04:32.260 She wants to blow up ice.

00:04:34.200 She wants to defund the police.

00:04:36.080 She wants all of the things that the leftist wants.

00:04:39.940 She's been endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Ilhan Omar.

00:04:44.520 So that is her wing of the Democrat Party.

00:04:48.360 Yikes.

00:04:48.660 uh have you have you had the immense pleasure of interacting in person with ilhan omar

00:04:55.180 not in person no have you no okay i think she wants to keep about a 300 mile radius away from

00:05:04.040 me because i don't i don't suffer fools gladly and certainly not one of her ilk so i don't think

00:05:10.920 she'll be inviting me for an espresso anytime soon but i suspect that at some point uh god

00:05:17.960 willing, should you win this thing, there will be some interesting conversations in the hallways,

00:05:23.780 no? I would expect them to be very interesting or just getting the cold shoulder. You know,

00:05:30.520 this is one of the things, too, that makes me really sad, because when I was growing up in

00:05:34.900 America, Democrats and Republicans talked to each other. I mean, there were divisions here and there,

00:05:39.900 but they certainly weren't as pronounced as they are now. And with the left, Gad, going even

00:05:45.780 further left, just going to that extreme communist positions. They say socialist,

00:05:53.500 but we all know where it's going. It just feels incredibly divided. And I'd like to get us back

00:06:01.440 to the place where we can work together, at least on some legislation. My goodness, it's

00:06:07.160 always been said, hasn't it, that if America falls, it will be at its own hands. It will be

00:06:14.540 destruction from within, not from without. And it feels like we're getting closer to that than we

00:06:20.900 ever have before. And I'd like to stand in the way of that. If you were to become one of the

00:06:27.300 two senators in Minnesota, do you think that there is a I mean, I know one can never promise

00:06:32.420 something with 100 percent assuredness, but will someone be held accountable in a truly meaningful

00:06:39.760 way or or all the people that have stolen i don't know what the latest count in terms of the fraud

00:06:45.100 is it 10 billion 15 billion what what's the current number well you know it's still estimates

00:06:49.980 because the the everything's still being done the the the number that i tend to go with is the 9

00:06:55.640 billion which is a again a uh i think yeah yes yes and and in terms of holding people accountable

00:07:03.460 I'll tell you something. That's what Minnesotans want. They're angry and they're exhausted that they've been treated like chumps. I mean, honestly, this is their money. It was stolen, sent out through the airports. The people who steal it just live lavish lives around us.

00:07:23.460 around us. People have seen it with their own eyes and they've seen the repercussions that a

00:07:28.820 lot of these programs where people were supposed to be getting help just got ignored, got neglected,

00:07:34.400 or just not a single dollar went to those programs. So people are livid. But the most

00:07:39.740 important thing to them, to a person, is who is going to be held accountable and when? Because so

00:07:46.000 far, the only person who has paid even a modicum of a price is Tim Walz because he's not running

00:07:52.900 for governor again. He was going to run for a third term. But because this scandal blew out,

00:07:58.120 you know, just got so big, he realized he couldn't win. So he stepped down. But other than that,

00:08:04.380 I mean, his right hand is Peggy Flanagan, my opponent. She was lieutenant governor all these

00:08:10.500 years. And she cannot run away from this. She cannot say, oh, I wasn't part of that part of

00:08:16.020 the administration. Yes, you were. You were attached at the hip. You were in every meeting.

00:08:20.200 you can't cherry pick what you were and weren't a part of so she needs to be held responsible as

00:08:25.320 well so will there be debates between you and her at some point and what's the timeline if she shows

00:08:33.380 up we're we're saying yes to debates uh they're being scheduled now and we're gonna we're gonna

00:08:38.960 show up um we don't know if she will she tends to cancel a lot of her appearances what are some

00:08:45.200 things that happened exactly as you you would expect once you've thrown in your hat? And what

00:08:52.920 are some things that have totally sideswiped you that surprised you about the whole political

00:08:58.380 process? You know, I expected all the brutal nicknames and the stupid attacks. You can expect

00:09:07.380 those kind of like, you know, that giving birth is going to be difficult. But until you go through

00:09:12.660 you don't really know what it's like. So I expected the attacks, but until you go through

00:09:19.020 them, you don't know how they're going to affect you. And you know, I've got a family too. So I'm

00:09:22.660 very protective of my kids and my husband. I don't want them being attacked in any way.

00:09:27.780 They're not running. I am. So as far as the unexpected thing, it's been interesting in that

00:09:34.300 I think every person that I come into contact with feels that they have the answer, the silver

00:09:41.100 bullet on how to win this race. You've got to do billboards. You've got to do more yard signs.

00:09:47.340 If you use this in an ad, this will really work. It's just amazing to me. I knew that existed in

00:09:54.620 sports, but it is off the charts in this realm. It's incredible. So that's been kind of an amusing

00:10:01.980 surprise, but it's a lot of fun to talk to people about it. Well, I'm glad that you mentioned your

00:10:06.820 previous sports career, because my next question was going to be, what are some things that you

00:10:13.060 learned as a sports broadcaster that have offered you a unique set within your toolbox of abilities

00:10:20.960 in your now political run? I think the one thing I think of immediately when you say that

00:10:27.940 is all of the times that I talked to an angry coach at halftime who did not want to see me,

00:10:35.260 did not want to talk to me, wanted nothing to do with me, and was going to, you know,

00:10:41.080 treat me accordingly. Most coaches, I will say, were very nice and very just amicable and answered

00:10:49.080 the questions. Not all of them were quite that way. And you really had to brace yourself and you

00:10:55.400 had to prepare for sort of the counterattacks and the sort of the treatment that you were going to

00:11:01.280 Gat. Let me tell you about the thick skin I earned in 30 years of doing that, Gat. It's been across

00:11:08.020 the board from athletes and players and owners and coaches. And it was a pleasure and an honor

00:11:14.500 to do that job. I'm so grateful I can't even put it into words, but that will teach you a lot about

00:11:21.000 dealing with people, about straightening your spine, knowing that the question you're going to

00:11:26.240 ask matters, believing in what you're doing out there, holding your own. And there have been even

00:11:33.020 early in my career and even late in my career, people who just decided they weren't going to

00:11:38.840 treat you well or decided you were not important. You have to be able and willing to stand up for

00:11:46.900 yourself, to advocate for yourself and to just endure the sort of the grinder, the blender

00:11:55.640 that is that job and if anyone tells you it's easy they're lying

00:12:00.900 tell me if this is too personal of a question but uh it's not so personal you know i'm an

00:12:07.980 evolutionary psychologist so i i love studying things like that dynamics between men and women

00:12:13.360 so you you were a sports broadcaster hanging around with a bunch of you know handsome athletic

00:12:20.940 gorgeous men, did the beautiful husband ever come to you and say, I'm starting to get tired of my

00:12:29.480 beautiful wife hanging around all these gorgeous guys? Any of that ever happen? And if not, my

00:12:35.240 goodness, he must be confident. He is a very secure man. And, you know, I think when he met

00:12:42.140 me, I was already in this business and he was kind of in it too, because he was the son of a

00:12:47.640 college football coach. He saw what that industry was all about. He himself played baseball as a

00:12:53.720 division one baseball player, you know, and so no, it, it never bothered him. He, at least he didn't

00:13:01.900 tell me that it did. And I'll tell you something else. You have to conduct yourself in such a way

00:13:07.700 that is professional and under, and, and accepts the fact, cause it is a fact as you and I will

00:13:15.900 agree I think that these relationships that men and women interact a certain way and you've got

00:13:21.240 to comport yourself in a way that suggests I'm here as a professional I'm here as a journalist

00:13:27.440 there is no other reason that I'm here so don't even go there and I never presumed that anybody

00:13:33.740 would or did but I made very very clear walking into any situation that I was there to do a job

00:13:40.620 and that was it and so um so no one ever violated it no one ever took a run at michelle uh not not

00:13:47.920 in my television career no wow that's incredible either that or i'm really stupid and naive and i

00:13:54.380 didn't know it was happening uh i don't know if you know this but uh maybe it's a plug for my

00:14:01.180 family my nephew is arguably maybe not arguably maybe clearly the the top mma broadcast journalist

00:14:10.600 of all time do you know who that is no can you guess a name who's the most famous mma

00:14:16.960 broadcast i don't mean to put you on the spot you're putting me on the spot because i'm not

00:14:21.000 an mma okay so then i'll tell you have you ever heard of ariel helwani yes that's my maternal

00:14:28.860 nephew well bravo all of the humor that he exhibits is due to one single person his glorious and

00:14:38.720 handsome uncle any of his faults are not due to me of course not of course he only took the

00:14:44.860 positive there you go that is incredible you must be really proud i i really am he's fantastic now

00:14:50.260 here's an incredible story and then i'll ask you the same question once i set it up i used to take

00:14:55.840 him when he was maybe eight nine years old to the first his first ever i don't know what it was

00:15:01.400 called WWF or WWE, whatever. Okay. And back then, he was already exhibiting the interest to

00:15:09.500 eventually become a sports, you know, broadcaster and journalist, he ended up going to Syracuse

00:15:15.420 University, where they have a very good, you know, program. So he really is living out his childhood

00:15:21.980 dream and the most literal direct sense. So I turn it to you. Was this something that you had

00:15:29.220 hoped for when you then ended up being a sports broadcaster you know what it not when i was a kid

00:15:35.140 i think as a little girl gosh so you took him to his first match first absolutely you got to take

00:15:43.620 a ton of credit for this guy's career i'm sorry you just do um but he's not giving me any of his

00:15:49.080 big contracts any of the royalties any of anything please speak he needs he needs to plug your books

00:15:55.820 he needs to do whatever he can uh he needs to take care of you um listen i my first major league

00:16:03.240 baseball game when i was little my dad took my brother and me uh and it was nolan ryan pitching

00:16:09.420 a no hitter against the cal for the california angels against the minnesota twins where i now

00:16:13.700 live in minnesota i then lived in los angeles so that was kind of that's kind of an interesting

00:16:17.800 little tie-in but i remember just the excitement i loved the nfl more than anything growing up i

00:16:24.140 just loved it but it wasn't until I got to college that I even remotely thought about a woman being

00:16:30.440 a sports journalist because there really weren't any before then and you know Gail Gardner and then

00:16:37.300 you saw Robin Roberts, Hannah Storm, Leslie Visser and that's when I started thinking maybe I can do

00:16:43.160 this and I'm really honored and proud to call Leslie Visser a good friend she's been a wonderful

00:16:47.640 supporter of mine. Um, but yes, I think once I got there and I was doing it, I could, I can look

00:16:55.940 back now and say, that's what I dreamed of doing, especially Monday night and Sunday night football.

00:17:00.460 I mean, there's no better event and the Olympic games. Um, so yes, that was the, that was sort of

00:17:07.000 the pinnacle of the dream. And, uh, but I never really, um, when I was going to work and doing

00:17:14.240 my job, I was just so hell bent on doing it well and earning everything that I was getting, you

00:17:21.060 know, and making sure that, you know, that the work was being put in, that I really didn't take

00:17:27.020 much time to reflect on, wow, I'm living the dream. Other people kind of mentioned it to me,

00:17:31.500 like, this is what you always wanted, you know, but I honestly had blinders on. I was so

00:17:36.740 concerned about doing the job well and doing it right. And nothing was going to distract me from

00:17:43.640 that. So I think in retrospect, yes, I got to live the dream. I do remember one time,

00:17:50.800 Rio de Janeiro Olympics 2016, I was covering the pool. So I was covering Michael Phelps and Katie

00:17:56.500 Ledecky and this unbelievable American Olympic swim team. And I'd leave there sometimes in the

00:18:04.340 evening thinking, I can't believe this is my job. This is I'm getting paid to do this. That's crazy

00:18:11.960 because it was so, so fun. So those are a couple of moments. But honestly, I just had my head down

00:18:19.200 and I was working. Amazing. Well, you know, in this book right here, the happiness book,

00:18:25.080 I have a chapter where I talk about the two most important decisions that will either impart great

00:18:31.340 happiness upon you or great misery, depending on whether you choose properly. Number one is your

00:18:36.440 choice of spouse. If I wake up next to someone and go, yes, and then I return to that someone

00:18:42.040 at night, that's a good thing. And then in between those two, if I go off to a job that I also go,

00:18:48.700 yes, that I'm really excited about, as you just said, I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this.

00:18:53.260 And I feel that all the time. I get to just play with ideas all day long and speak to interesting

00:18:58.680 people and come up with interesting theories and share them with the world. I would do this for

00:19:04.300 free and i get paid for it wow i'm lucky uh is there a prescription that you can give people

00:19:10.440 aspiring you know there are young people that watch the show that that based on your experience

00:19:15.440 that can help us make the good decision for either decision one spouse or decision two occupation

00:19:21.460 it's while you were describing that when i was probably i don't know i don't know if i was in

00:19:30.600 grad school. I don't remember when I did this exercise, GAD, but I sat down and I said,

00:19:35.860 when I'm laying on my deathbed, what do I want to be thinking about? What do I want to have

00:19:42.160 accomplished? What do I want to have done? What do I want to feel? And it was really peace of mind,

00:19:48.920 happiness. Okay. So then I went from there. Okay. That's the end game. How do I get there?

00:19:55.780 And I just thought two things, just two goals.

00:19:58.820 And one was I wanted a great family and I wanted a great career.

00:20:02.740 So those are exactly the two things.

00:20:04.620 There you go.

00:20:05.600 And then I would recommend this exercise to people.

00:20:08.920 OK, what is it going to take?

00:20:11.000 What are the objectives it's going to take to have the great family and the great career?

00:20:15.780 And I literally had this list, this like tree of objectives, how I was going to get there.

00:20:21.800 What does that job look like?

00:20:22.880 What does that spouse look like?

00:20:24.080 So I will tell people, don't be impatient to get married.

00:20:30.280 Like, don't just think, oh, this is the best I'm going to do, or this is my only chance

00:20:34.000 at love, and maybe no one else will love me.

00:20:36.420 And if there are red flags, run the other way.

00:20:40.560 Wait till that person who makes you laugh, and the red flags are minimal.

00:20:47.060 Like, you really relate to this person.

00:20:49.500 As far as the job, yeah, draw it up.

00:20:51.840 What does it look like for you?

00:20:54.080 what is that? What is the environment? And then I would say this, I hope this isn't waning here

00:21:00.580 in America, but that desire to work hard, you will get lucky if you work really hard. That's

00:21:07.200 that old saying, the harder I work, the luckier I get. And it is so true. I can tell you that from

00:21:14.620 the time I was a little girl, I've been working my tail off, no matter what I was doing, whether

00:21:20.460 it was my paper route when I was 13 years old. No matter what I did, I was working really hard

00:21:26.800 and I've never stopped. Part of that is because I do really find it's good for the soul. I find

00:21:32.060 work gratifying. I love it. So if people kind of hate the idea of work, change your mind,

00:21:40.920 you know, change your attitude about it. It is something that can provide you with

00:21:44.720 so much intrinsically and extrinsically um so to to find something that scratches those itches

00:21:52.520 i had once uh i don't know if you know him do you know the political scientist and author

00:21:57.820 charles murray yes yeah so he was uh on my show several years ago we were discussing a whole

00:22:04.900 bunch of stuff and then at one point i was asking him i was i think at the process then of i was

00:22:10.360 writing the happiness book and i said so what is what is your prescription for a you know finding

00:22:16.720 the right spouse he said find your best friend whom you're sexually attracted to i said boy is

00:22:24.240 that i mean it really is that simple now doesn't mean you can find it but you know i always tell

00:22:29.880 my wife because sometimes she'll say oh let's go hang out with these people or these people where

00:22:34.920 she's kind of forcing a social setting and i'm a very extroverted guy i said you know what i don't

00:22:39.600 feel like going out and hanging out. You are my best friend. I'd rather just hang out with you

00:22:43.260 and the children than to force a situation, having small talk with people that I don't really care

00:22:47.860 about. So find your best friend whom you're sexually attracted to and problem solved.

00:22:54.500 Exactly. Can I give you my prescription for the occupational happiness? Please. Which may or may

00:23:00.100 not, you know, be relevant to the career that you chose. So I argue that at least for me, and I think

00:23:06.700 It'll apply for many people. If you can do these two things, you're well on your way to being

00:23:11.400 occupationally happy. Number one, something that gives you what I call temporal flexibility or

00:23:19.140 the opposite of scheduling asphyxia. I hate an airline pilot gets into the plane and the next

00:23:28.300 six hours, your destiny is set. You have to go from here to there. Whereas I work very, very hard,

00:23:36.140 long hours, but I feel like I'm not working because I'm vagabonding through my day. Now I

00:23:42.680 go for three hours to the cafe and I work on the idea for my next book. Then I come home and I

00:23:48.600 chat with the lovely Michelle Tafoa. Then I will go on the treadmill for an hour. Then I will work

00:23:54.920 on this. So even though if you add up the number of hours that I'm working, I'm working very long

00:24:00.480 days, I don't feel like it because you're not asphyxiating me with 74 meetings. So number one,

00:24:06.800 two, I argue that anything that allows you to immerse yourself in the creative impulse. So

00:24:14.420 you could be a chef or an architect or a standup comic or an author. Each of these folks are doing

00:24:20.400 something completely different, but they are creating something from nothing. When you came

00:24:26.020 to see me doing the stand-up comedy routine i created that when you went on that bridge i built

00:24:31.680 that bridge i wrote that book what do you think about this theory am i on to something you are

00:24:36.900 on to something i i do think and i know these people there are people who love to be scheduled

00:24:43.920 they love to be they like their life in a lane like here's my work time and then i go home and

00:24:51.380 I just, there's no more work. And, you know, I want to be scheduled because God knows we need

00:24:57.180 the airline pilots. So even though they're stuck in the sky for however long their route is, we

00:25:02.580 need them too. I think you are an incredible, obviously you're brilliant creatively speaking

00:25:08.900 and in every way, but you are a creative person. I tend to be more creative too. But I think there

00:25:17.340 are those people who really like the structure. And I'm glad there are both because I think it

00:25:23.140 takes one half of the brain to do one and the other half to do the other. I like your vagabond

00:25:27.940 lifestyle. That's how I like to live my days too. I love it. We need the insurance adjusters and

00:25:33.300 the accountants, not just the vagabonds. That's right. I hear you. Okay. So if we go back to

00:25:39.700 your senatorial race, because I want to be mindful of your time. If you are directly speaking now to

00:25:45.280 all the Minnesotans who are going out to vote on November 3rd. Give us your best pitch, and then

00:25:53.240 I'll ask you one final question, and we'll wrap it up. Take it away. I think the world right now,

00:25:59.180 particularly here in America, but really in a lot of Western countries, we are facing this contrast

00:26:04.120 of common sense versus crazy. And I don't know how we've gone so crazy and how we have this

00:26:11.900 socialist agenda now, and I think it's trending much more toward communism than socialism.

00:26:18.160 All of those are bad things. They're bad options. They give control to other people

00:26:24.800 to dictate how your life goes. And I mean dictate. America has always been a place where freedom

00:26:33.480 is the most important ingredient, liberty, to do what it is you want. You can have a job

00:26:40.600 like Gad, if you're smart like him, you can become an airline pilot. You can become all of

00:26:46.020 these things, not because the government told you what to do, but because it was what you chose to

00:26:52.000 do. And in all of those ways, even with the things that you need, whether it's, you know, police

00:26:57.360 protection, food, all of those things. Yeah, we pay taxes for a modicum of those things, but we

00:27:03.200 also want to be able to make our own decisions about which hospital we visit, where we buy our

00:27:08.660 groceries, who we get to vote for, all of those things. That's the common sense side. My opponent,

00:27:15.660 she doesn't believe in that. She believes in more, bigger, bloated, fat government. And she

00:27:22.480 has proven over the last eight years that she cannot steward taxpayers' money, which is why

00:27:28.340 we've had these billions of dollars of losses. I'm doing this because I love Minnesota and I love

00:27:35.460 the United States of America. And as Gad and I have just been speaking, I had a tremendous

00:27:40.460 career, a really fun career. It was hard work. It was a grind, but it was fun. It wasn't as

00:27:48.380 glamorous as it looked, but it was fun and I loved it. And it gave me a lot of freedom and a lot of

00:27:54.320 intrinsic and extrinsic value. But I felt called to do something that would help, that is something

00:28:02.140 bigger than one person that helps this country stay on track and helps the state get back on

00:28:07.920 track. And so I come at this not as a political operative or a career politician, but as someone

00:28:15.020 who can lead with an independent thought and with a spine and with a willingness to listen.

00:28:20.900 So that's what we're offering. I think my opponent is offering something very, very grim.

00:28:26.880 And that is your choice in November. We can see better days in America and certainly here in

00:28:32.500 Minnesota. Beautifully said. One thing I'm sure benefited you when you were in your sports

00:28:39.240 broadcasting career now is the A word, authenticity. As you're speaking, you exude, and it's not

00:28:46.260 because I'm politically aligned with you. I mean, I can judge people's character. I could see when

00:28:50.820 someone exhibits falsity or not, they're inauthentic. I think your authenticity is really

00:28:58.080 uplifting. So best of luck with that. Last question. I used to live in Southern California.

00:29:07.820 By the way, I am doing my homework prior to coming on the show. You were I think you lived

00:29:12.880 in Manhattan Beach. I was born there. Yes. So my brother moved to Manhattan Beach. One of my

00:29:18.680 brothers moved to manhattan beach in 1984 i first visited him in manhattan beach in 1985 hung out

00:29:24.980 there the whole summer or half the summer and then he moved down to newport beach then he moved down

00:29:30.240 to laguna beach i was a professor at uc irvine so southern california is you know sort of the

00:29:36.520 promised land for me and i say that as a jewish person it's not israel the promised land it's

00:29:41.200 southern california how is it that a person makes a rational decision to leave southern california

00:29:49.260 and end up in minnesota future senator of minnesota well where are you now well i'm still

00:29:56.980 warm i'm in yes mississippi but it's not minus 30 of although you could turn to me and say

00:30:02.720 how many years did you spend in montreal canada let's talk about canada yeah but what what led

00:30:09.580 you to make that to leave is it it was it the politics of california no no no when i first

00:30:15.960 started my career i took a full-time job in charlotte north carolina i was not very happy

00:30:21.480 there uh so that when even a job in minnesota became available and it was a good sports

00:30:27.160 broadcasting job that that that brought me here i took it uh why did i stay because that guy i

00:30:34.120 fell in love with my husband.

00:30:35.320 Ah, there you go.

00:30:36.500 Raised our kids here.

00:30:37.100 Yeah.

00:30:37.660 So look, California, as beautiful as it is,

00:30:42.220 and it is a beautiful state.

00:30:44.100 I am heartbroken over what's been done to that state too.

00:30:49.080 It just doesn't have to be the way that it is.

00:30:51.880 And so that's a heartbreaker.

00:30:54.560 You lived in the very best parts.

00:30:56.820 Oh my gosh.

00:30:58.120 And is your brother still there?

00:31:00.160 No, he's now moved to Northern California.

00:31:03.740 okay he he was he was he really was one of the guys that really benefited from the original

00:31:08.620 dot com dot com boom a lot of money uh but maybe he won't be happy if i share this he was a guy

00:31:16.680 who lived larger than life he's single guy you always wonder how does mike tyson file for

00:31:22.300 bankruptcy when he's made 300 million dollars on a fight well on a smaller scale unfortunately

00:31:28.200 that happy with my brother so he had to kind of downsize his life but for about 20-25 years he

00:31:34.400 really lived it up in southern california well good for him good for him and northern doesn't

00:31:39.660 stink either northern california has a beautiful areas as well so yeah uh it's it's gotta take

00:31:47.100 something big like i said the best things in life are generally bigger than just you alone it's your

00:31:53.280 relationships it's your whole life my kids all of it and um and so here we are in minnesota all

00:32:00.400 these years i've been here for 33 years gad oh wow listen best of luck will you invite me to

00:32:07.000 your senate's office in dc if you yes okay for sure excellent well we wish you the best of luck

00:32:12.960 people if you're from minnesota november 3rd don't be apathetic go vote for michelle tafoa

00:32:18.800 do it. It's so important. Don't be apathetic. Don't be apathetic. Stay on the line so we can

00:32:24.320 say goodbye offline. Thank you so much for coming and you're welcome back anytime you'd like.

00:32:27.760 Thank you. Cheers.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - September 18, 2026

Michele Tafoya, Former Sports Broadcaster & Minnesota Senatorial Candidate (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_1049)

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