Ben Wikler on the Realities of a Virtual Convention and Dan Mathews on America's Relationship with the Elderly

COVID-19 has changed the landscape of American politics in countless ways. The logistics of the November election leave a lot of questions lingering in the air. However, the chair of the Democratic Party for the state of Wisconsin Ben Wikler has plans laid out, not only for the national convention, but also for addressing voter suppression and Trump's dismantling of the United State Postal Service. Senior Vice President of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Dan Mathews also underlines the  the troubling inadequacies in how the country treats its aging population while discussing his unique relationship with his schizophrenic mother, as detailed in his new book "Like Crazy: Life with My Mother and Her Invisible Friends."

Show Notes:

01:15 – Intro
03:15 – Harris in rural Wisconsin
05:45 – A precedent for success
11:15 – An unfavorable idiot
20:00 – The plan for November
26:15 – Forgotten America
29:30 – Born without a name
34:45 – A disease with many faces
41:45 – The strength of community
47:30 – COVID's impact on the meat industry
53:30 - The right choice
57:30 - The town that predicts the election

Transcript:

Al Hunt: [00:00:00] In the podcast. Nice white parents, reporter Hannah Joffey wat you may know her from this American life started looking into this one school in her neighborhood. After her kids became school age in New York city, Hannah examines his public middle school traditionally filled with black and Brown students.

After a number of white families arrived. And then not satisfied. She fully, I understood what she was seeing. She went all the way back to the family of the school in the 1960s. And then up to the present day again, eventually Ana realized she could put a name to what was getting in the way of making the school better.

All these years, white parents. Nice white parents is a fascinating, listen. That's deeply relevant today. It's made by serial productions, a New York times company. Same people who made the hit podcast, serial and S

Ben Wikler: [00:00:50] town

Al Hunt: [00:00:51] launching CTA. Now through eight 19, it's available wherever you get your podcasts and new episodes are released every Thursday, CTA eight, 20 and beyond.

All episodes are now available wherever you do. Get your podcast.

Hello and welcome to 2020 politics for row with James. Carville still out in the shed. Andela where he's socially distancing. And I'm Al hunt here in Washington. We're proud partners with a sign and instituted American university in Washington, and we can't wait. To get back there at some point. First, I want to thank everyone who is subscribed to the show on Apple podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get.

Your pods. Every new listener is a pleasure to have on board and what perfect timing for our show this week as we, well, we react to Joe Biden's VP pick, which we will get to very, very shortly,

James Carville: [00:01:50] but

Al Hunt: [00:01:50] our first guest is considered one of the, the very, very best democratic state chairs in America. Ben Wickler, who was continued to invigorate the party and Wisconsin, which is critically important this week with a virtual convention that we used to roll.

And it, and also in November, Ben, thanks for joining us. We know this is not quite the mid August. You expected with a full fledged Milwaukee convention, other than disappointment, has that had any impact that there and what are you looking forward

Ben Wikler: [00:02:20] to next week? You know, having a virtual convention means on the one hand, you don't have thousands of people packed into tight spaces, having the kind of jubilation and also germ spread that comes with that.

Um, on the other hand, what we have is a virtual convention where people across Wisconsin and across the country can have the same experience that the actual delegations get. And that means that we can actually include more people. Uh, we we've been planning since last year to run a huge training during the convention to fire up and enlist thousands of volunteers to help us win in the fall.

Now it's a virtual training and I think we're going to have many more thousands of people go through that during the convention and plug right into the virtual phone banking and virtual text messaging operations that will power the Biden Harris victory in the fall because it's a virtual convention.

So to me, there's a huge silver lining. Well, I

Al Hunt: [00:03:11] hope you have a claim on the 2024 convention

James Carville: [00:03:13] also, even though it's four years away.

Ben Wikler: [00:03:15] Hi, yes. Memo to the next DNC chair. I think that's a great idea.

Al Hunt: [00:03:18] The Harris pick, how does it play in rural Wisconsin?

Ben Wikler: [00:03:21] You know, come on Harris as a Senator from California, California has a lot of rural areas.

I think people often think of California and think of San Francisco and Los Angeles. The truth is there's a ton of farming there and Kala knows how to connect them and every corner of California and in every corner of Wisconsin, I'm really excited about her. I came to Wisconsin in 2018 to help campaign for Tony Eavers R R.

A student after that elected governor and Tammy Baldwin, who's running for reelection and folks will loved her. She just really fired up crowds. Um, she is now going to be back here representing the ticket, um, one way or another, a virtual leader, or otherwise as, as we go into the fall. And I think it sets us up really, really well for a powerhouse ticket and a powerhouse November and a, uh, you know, the next, however many years of, of great governing.

Al Hunt: [00:04:15] Then, uh, there's probably no state or at least Wisconsin. And is one of the three or four States that's going to be most important. Most watched in November last year. You lost it by last time, rather than by I think a little over 22,000 votes and upset. Uh, the Marquette poll, which I've always respected, came out a couple of days ago had Biden four 50, 46, certainly.

Good, but not yet a slam dunk in the Badger state.

Ben Wikler: [00:04:41] You know, there is nothing, uh, that you could interpret it as a slam dunk in the Badger state until all of us. It's a been counted in 2016 on election day through real clear politics, polling average for Hillary Clinton at her six and a half points up.

Huh? We then watched Trump, uh, Just edge in to a victory by less than one percentage 0.3 of the last five presidential elections here have had less than one percentage point margins and the blue wave in 2018. Uh, the final poll that came out had a Tony by five, he wound up winning by 1.1 while Democrats, you know, sort of to landslides and Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The next year we thought we were up by eight points, both, both sides, polling. Said that the more progressive candidate for state Supreme court was up by eight points one week out. And we lost by about half a percentage point. So what that says to all of us in Wisconsin is that no matter what the polls say, we're going to run like we're two points behind and fight for every vote in every corner of the state, because it might come down to just about anything.

So,

James Carville: [00:05:43] and the Alaska state Supreme court race, I went to bed and said, Oh, they break this thing. And it had like five precincts in Milwaukee. And I got up in the morning and I'm opening my computer and I thought I saw misprint. If that was that a one off event or was it, was that, that state Supreme court racial, is that telling us something?

What was the significance of that is push forward?

Ben Wikler: [00:06:07] So our strategy at the state party, since I was elected chair in 2019, has always been to use this spring Supreme court election this year as a dress rehearsal for the fall. And that meant we made much bigger bets and threw ourselves in much more than, uh, historically the party's done.

Um, we not only helped raise a whole bunch of funding to support our candidate getting on the early, we also had a bigger field operation spring than we had in the fall of 2018. And what that meant for us was we could actually try the strategy that we thought might be. He used to defeat Trump in the spring and because COBIT hit three and a half weeks before the Wisconsin Supreme court race.

We we're the only state in the country to have had a statewide general election in this pandemic. And we, we made this giant gamble, which is okay, you focused 100% on vote by mail rather than trying to do what we've always done in every election before, which is to try to get people to. So we had webinars, we train all of our activists on how to do virtual organizing.

We reached out millions of times to voters to walk them through the process of requesting an absentee ballot, which is not easy in Wisconsin. And the numbers started blowing our minds. Um, ultimately the previous, uh, record for absentee voting in Wisconsin was 250,000 votes in 2016. In the presidential year.

This spring, it was more than a million votes cast absentee. It was 61% of every vote cast was cast by mail and among votes cast by mail. We won it 10 percentage point, larger margin than votes cast in person. So, you know, I can't guarantee we'll have a blow out like that in the fall, but this is the model for us.

And I think this is why Trump is so terrified about vote by mail, because we've learned how to help people to do it in a way that the GOP so far has not.

James Carville: [00:07:53] I'm went at American bridge, aware of it. We're spending a lot of money and rural and small town, Wisconsin, and doing a lot of research. And I just talked to Stan Greenberg.

He did a bunch of focus groups in Wisconsin. Alright, we're going to run about a news ruler, which we did in 2016. I mean, I genuinely believe that. Am I, am I correct? Do you anticipate some improvement or going to be a general view? When we talk about Roland, small town, Wisconsin.

Ben Wikler: [00:08:21] Yes. So I think this is the untold story of 2016, half of the swing from Obama's blob in 2012 to Trump's narrow victory in 2016, came from communities where a thousand or fewer votes were cast.

It is small towns and rural areas that racked up huge margins for Trump and pushed him over the top. So this fall, you know, we're, we're fighting everywhere where you're going to try to run up the margins and really turn people out in cities, across the state. We're going to work in suburbs where people are fleeing Trump, but we are also going to work and compete for every rural though, because Trump has completely failed.

Rural Wisconsin. You look at healthcare is really tough out there. Now you can see that in depths of despair, you look at farming. Wisconsin lost 10% of its dairy farms last year before COBIT hit and its still losing dairy farms at a rate of two, sometimes three a day. It's crushing communities that depend on agriculture and the president just doesn't have any answers for them has only answered is that you should get them bigger, go out.

And that doesn't work for folks that don't have, you know,

James Carville: [00:09:25] And I've talked to Greenberg who conducted focus groups. And the big issue is healthcare in people were saying they voted for Trump because they thought he was going to do something about healthcare. And the women in particular seem to have turned pretty, pretty hard against him.

Is that kind of some of the same thing that you feel in the hearing on the ground?

Ben Wikler: [00:09:44] There's a mammoth mammoth gender gap. That's absolutely right. And you know, when back when we can knock on doors, there were some places where local candidates would tell us, you want to knock before five o'clock so that you, you get to, if, if you know, mom is home with the kids in the afternoon before dad gets home, that's when you want to have the conversation, because it might go very differently.

If the husband answers the door at a lot of houses, uh, the healthcare is both. It's self incredibly powerful as an issue, and it's also become a kind of. A microcosm of so much else. I did promise he was going to get great healthcare for everyone. He wasn't going to touch Medicaid, social security or Medicare.

He said all kinds of stuff and people for who Obamacare wasn't delivering, especially in Wisconsin, where Republicans have refused to expand Medicaid. People wanted improvement in their health care situation. And Trump tried to steer the bus off the cliff. It is, it's pretty wrenching for someone who.

Thanks. The problem is that their deductibles are too high to watch a president. Who's trying to make things actively that much worse. And I think there's a huge opportunity now, especially with COVID with so many people who have lost their employer sponsored health insurance. It's just, we're just, just gasping, waiting for a public option that can help give people a cushion.

I, if, if, if private markets aren't delivering for them and support to, to close the loopholes and close the, you know, the gaps that the Republicans punched into the ACA, um, so that we can get healthcare to everybody.

James Carville: [00:11:14] So the way I look at Ron Johnson in Washington news, man, this guy is like, he's not

Ben Wikler: [00:11:21] what

James Carville: [00:11:21] people would have picked say, cover him back in Wisconsin.

Yeah. Conspiracies or he might be a CUNA Ontonagon if people are in Wisconsin,

Ben Wikler: [00:11:33] you know, the fascinating thing about Ron Johnson is that until pretty recently, most Wisconsinites didn't actually have a strong opinion of him. He doesn't cut that big a profile here. Now he, the mask, so to speak is off, uh, for all the people or against masks.

They've kind of unmasked themselves politically as well. And his unfavorable numbers are rising up. Um, he's now 33% favorable, 35% unfavorable. And as you can hear it still about a third of the state, doesn't have an opinion. Um, Those numbers I represent. Yeah, his, his, his unfavorables are creeping up since June.

They've been creeping up since last year. He used to have a strong net positive. He does not anymore. And I have to say the closer you are, you know, the more you're reading the news or seeing what he says and does the less you'd like the guy. Uh, I, I worked in DC before and he had this reputation. And as you know, just someone who was not couldn't cut the mustard in the Senate.

Um, it's not clear that he actually just deliberately, you know, spreads it on the walls and it is. Uh, it's not, it's not okay. And I think he has some real trouble in 22. Now he has said, he's not going to run again in 2022, which I interpret as meaning that he's probably gonna run again in 2022, but he might run for governor.

That's another thing he's used with. I think we just need to make absolutely clear to folks across Wisconsin, that this is not someone cut out for public office.

Al Hunt: [00:12:54] Well, James, just to pick up on your point, I would, I would urge all of our listeners to read a piece in a place called just security, a very reliable.

Mmm. Mmm, Mmm. Outlet on security matters. Ron Johnson is distributing, maybe unwittingly, maybe he's, uh, you know, just, uh, uh, you know, a useful idiot, but he's disseminating Russian disinformation. Uh, it really is. And I I've never thought he was the brightest bulb on the closet pen. And, uh, so maybe doesn't know what he's doing, but he's doing a lot of harm right now.

It's not just that, uh, you know, he's, he's a negative force. This is actually, I mean, to distribute Russian disinformation in order to discredit Biden is beyond any acceptable Norman politics.

Ben Wikler: [00:13:39] Yeah. He spent the 4th of July in Moscow in 2018 and he's. Well, I've been going after Biden all the way through and he's, uh, he's really out to lunch and he's amazingly, you know, he raised some concerns about the, um, uh, the thing that Trump was impeached for the withholding of, uh, funds for military support for Ukraine.

And then. He inquired and says, that's a quid pro quo. What is this? And he was told, like, shut up about it. And he became a huge advocate against impeachment, even though he had directly into the issue that was causing impeachment. This guy's willing to carry water for. You know, for anyone who's not out for the public.

Good.

Al Hunt: [00:14:19] Well, your state is incredible. I am just in the middle of a marvelous biography by Larry Ty on Joseph

Ben Wikler: [00:14:25] McCarthy.

Al Hunt: [00:14:26] And, uh, there are, I mean, God it's, if you haven't read it, then you gotta read it. It is a fabulous

Ben Wikler: [00:14:30] book next to my bed. It was a father's day yet. No, it was, I forget what it was a good for.

It, it was a gift just recently. So my mom gave it to me and I've been reading it. It's amazing.

Al Hunt: [00:14:39] And rot. And Ron Johnson is Joe McCarthy minus about 40 IQ points. But, um, uh, you know, your state is incredible because it produces the McCarthy's and then the bill prox Meyers, uh, and, uh, it produces a, a Ron Johnson as well as a David OB and a Tammy ball.

When, I mean, it really is, and it has remained an incredibly, uh, diverse, eclectic, uh, stage. And that's what is, seems to be at play this year, which way does Wisconsin swing? That's

Ben Wikler: [00:15:09] exactly right. It's like, what is the, what is Wisconsin fundamentally about? It's the birthplace of the progressive movement that the Republican party launched as a radical anti-slavery party in Wisconsin, we were the first state to ratify the 19th amendment that your grant women's suffrage, or, you know, we we've, we've done so much good in Wisconsin.

And yet there's this tradition, this kind of, uh, you know, nativist, just reactionary. Thread in our politics and it there's an internal struggle for which one is really the soul of our statement.

Al Hunt: [00:15:38] Well, or Joe started as a, as a new deal. Democrat. Just one more question, James, uh, you asked, you mentioned the re the legislature earlier.

Uh, the Republican legislature has tried to give the governor Fitch. They've taken powers away. What role can the legislature play if any, uh, on election day or on any controversies that follow well after

Ben Wikler: [00:16:00] the election? So. You know, our, our big concern in the legislature is to stop Republicans from getting a super majority.

Uh, it's a gift that they're going to read gerrymander, the state. They're going to do a lot at the you're asking if the election is contested, what can Republicans in the state legislature do to help Trump? Is that the question?

Al Hunt: [00:16:20] Yes.

Ben Wikler: [00:16:21] I will say that I wake up every day working to make sure that that does not happen as a situation.

So I have to dig into my constitutional scholarship to get a sense of whether the state legislature has a role. I know that if it goes to the house and it contested race, Then it's the majority, basically the majority of the delegation that cast the vote one way or the other to seat the new president.

And right now Wisconsin has five Republicans. Three Democrats are heavily gerrymandered seats, but if we can pick up any one of those five, then it's four, four, which would be a significant improvement in that situation.

James Carville: [00:16:55] So when I was researching the sheriff, I broke this down in my notes and I think it was in 2018 in the Wisconsin house.

The Democrats got 53% of the boat. And 38% of the seats is that a misprint

Ben Wikler: [00:17:09] that is not a misprint. That is the intentional result of one of the worst gerrymanders in the country driven by the Wisconsin GOP, you know, brides Priebus was the chair of that Wisconsin Republican party. At that time, uh,

Dan Mathews: [00:17:21] before he went

Ben Wikler: [00:17:22] off to DC, after 2010, we went from a blue trifecta in 2008 to a red trifecta in 2010.

And the second they had the wheel. They did everything they could to grab and lock in power as permanently as they possibly could. They smashed, uh, organized workers power. They gerrymandered the maps. They put in some of the most restrictive voter ID laws in the country to suppress the vote. They changed voter registration rules.

They can't change campaign finance laws that every, every page of the book, they changed it to rig it for Republicans. And what's at stake in this election is whether we can undo that damage. If we can stop Republicans from getting a super majority in the state legislature this year, then the governor will be able to veto their gerrymandered maps next year.

And we'll have a path to a real democracy in our state, but heaven knows we do not have one right now.

James Carville: [00:18:11] Wow. So I'll tell you just a little Wisconsin story. My dad was a boxer at LSU. And university of Wisconsin was like, I don't know, the Notre Dane of the New York Yankees at a new college box. All right. I mean, they would a real powerhouse and they took a train for boxing match in Madison and he never stopped talking about how cold.

She got off the train and, Oh my God. Well,

Ben Wikler: [00:18:43] I'll just insert a quick mini story. My wife grew up in little rock Arkansas, and for the minute we met were college sweethearts. I, I was talking to her about Wisconsin. We finally moved here and the about a month after the polar vortex hit. And, uh, it became.

Whereas, if you threw water, you know, a glass of water into the air, it would freeze before it hit the ground. So yeah, she feels, she feels your dad's painting.

James Carville: [00:19:06] It's quite a traumatic shock. What if you had to guess from right now, just little Kentucky, windage pro what was the race? The presidential race in Wisconsin as we speak what's your best guess?

Ben Wikler: [00:19:18] I think if the election were held today and it were free and fair, we would solidly with, I think we would probably win by three, four points. I think the challenges, first of all, it's not today. There's a lot of twists and turns to come. I do think the public has kind of seen through Trump at this point.

The thing I'm more concerned about is that Trump was going to do everything he can to try to break this election. He is sabotaging the postal service is, uh, he's planning a massive voter suppression campaign in person. Now that the consent decree on the, on the Republican party is, has been lifted. So.

Art organizing the work that our volunteers are doing. The work, our amazing staff, our organizing team is doing day in and day out is building buffers and plans to sidestep the GOPs voter suppression machine. Because the key to this whole thing is whether what the public wants in this election actually turns into the results.

Al Hunt: [00:20:09] Well, how about vote by mail? Have how much have you talked about the enormous success that you experienced under incredible. Um, uh, adversarial conditions in April, but how about November, as you say, first of all, the post office is being starved. He's putting in a donor and a political, uh, crony as postmaster general.

And, and to the extent that there are there's in there, there's polling there's in person polling. Can you get enough poll?

Ben Wikler: [00:20:37] So we have, phone-based going. Six nights a week to recruit poll workers so that we can keep as many precincts as possible open in November. This is a huge priority. And, you know, because they tend to be older people.

That was the whole problem in the spring is that we had like in Milwaukee, so many poll workers dropped out that they went from a 180 precincts down to five. And if that is repeated in the fall, it is a, it's a crisis for democracy. We actually had a partisan primary yesterday, the primary for the fall election for state legislature, Congress, Milwaukee yesterday had 168 poll precincts open, which is, I think, speaks to the, the enormous progress we've made since the spring.

Both folks, you know, all of us within the party and just civic groups, pro-democracy organizations and municipal authorities have been working around the clock to try to make this election work. But when we look at the fall, Um, the Marquette university law school poll came out yesterday. It said that among those who say they'll vote by mail 81% support Biden, 14% support Trump among those who will say they'll vote on election day 67% percent support Trump 26% support.

Bye. So that is really stark, just a massive Gulf. And you know, that is I'm sure what's motivating what Trump is doing to the most revered government institutions in America, the us postal service. So we are building. Alternate plans and alternate pathways. One of the things that I was calling voters this weekend to tell them about is Wisconsin.

If you have an absentee ballot, you can hand deliver it. You can turn it into a polling place. And in cities around the state, they're setting up Dropbox's secure boxes where you can just drive up and plug your, uh, your absentee ballot envelope right into the box, the same way you do with a postbox.

That's the kind of thing that can get around what Trump is doing at a federal level to the postal service. So

James Carville: [00:22:30] I have this project where on election night, I'm looking for one County in the state in a number that says like in Georgia, if you hit 60 in Gwinnette, you're gonna win. Aye. What is the comparable County in Wisconsin?

And what is the number I have to hit? Just give me one County and say, James, if we're getting, you know, 61 here. It's going to be pretty hard for us to

Al Hunt: [00:22:55] lose or James, when you say 38

James Carville: [00:22:58] or 38 or something. Yeah, maybe a rural County, something. If you just had to place your bet on one, county's vote, being determined to have this statewide outcome, which would it be?

Ben Wikler: [00:23:09] So Wisconsin has a, an embarrassment of riches in this, in this regard. Um, but I will say if we are. Above 48% in Brown County

James Carville: [00:23:21] in breath.

Ben Wikler: [00:23:22] That's green Bay. That's right. So that is, yeah, there's the drug that Trump can't can't get it. Uh, I'd also say you can look at sock County County is a good example of a, uh, you know, a County that is tracked, uh, Yeah fact presidential elections has been incredibly important.

Um, if we're winning sock County, you're for winning,

James Carville: [00:23:45] spelled

Ben Wikler: [00:23:46] S S a U K

James Carville: [00:23:48] South. Okay. Is that okay?

Al Hunt: [00:23:51] And that's in South, uh, Southwest, uh, Wisconsin.

Ben Wikler: [00:23:55] That's one of those Driftless counties.

James Carville: [00:23:57] And what do we need there?

Ben Wikler: [00:24:00] I think if, if we're running, if we're winning, we're winning. I think if we're, if we're about 50%, I think we're in strong

James Carville: [00:24:05] 50, 60 in Brown.

In the barn

Al Hunt: [00:24:09] and you lost you lost sack last time.

Ben Wikler: [00:24:11] Yeah. The last one I'd say is Richland County. Richland County has, is a, is a, is a good prospect for you because it has backed the winning presidential candidate in every presidential election since 1980. So recent County, it's another it's right next to sock County.

It's another Driftless, uh, Driftless region, Southwest Wisconsin. It is as you know, small by population, but big by predictive power. And again, if we're both 50% in Richland County, then Trump is toast. I mean, those counties were big for Trump. So this is the whole, this is all story, right? Right. Trump rolled up these huge margins, rural areas.

But then if you look at what's happened since like in the Supreme Supreme court race, those, both those counties went bright blue. It's not counting was 60%, uh, for Jill Kurowski and Richland County was 57%. So that swing, I think tells the whole story. Tammy Baldwin is another good example, rolled up huge margin there.

Um, if, if we're able to do that in the fall, then we're going to win. And that those are areas that have the Driftless region, the way that the, uh, they were skipped by the, by the glacier. So it didn't have the kind of snowball effect of making the whole thing flat. There's a lot of ridges and Hills and that geography makes it easier to have a small farm that continues.

Because it's just harder to aggregate a huge amount of land and, you know, run a single system to farm it. That's one reason why there's still a lot of small and organic farms in that region. And people think because of that, because the, you know, agribusiness monopolies haven't rolled up everything.

That's why there's more political diversity there. And so what you see now is this, this is just repeated hammer blows on the rural economy and especially the agricultural economy. That have made folks who hoped that things would get better under Trump really have second thoughts. And I think that's why that region has trended blue.

If, if, if Trump's going to win, he needs to somehow cleave that whole region back to the Republican column. If we can hold, if we can build on the progress we've made over these last three years, then, then he can't win the state. And I think that's a great place to watch.

James Carville: [00:26:19] I'll tell you that. Life in rural America.

People need to understand that th th th these people are having a very, very difficult time and, you know, the way that they grew up is not the way to their children are going to grow up at all. And it, it, it, it's very sad. And I think too often, the Democrats don't think about people in that situation.

And I think, you know, our. Even worse. We tend to give them the feeling that we don't much care about them and respect them and just has cost us a lot of pain. And I think Biden will not act like that, but I think we've got to take the charge out to these rural areas and we can, we can cut these margins significantly, particularly with women.

I really believe that

Ben Wikler: [00:27:04] absolutely agree. I, you know, when I was running for chair, I went to. About rural economies all over the state. And there are Democrats who live in every one of these counties, just the same as there are Republicans, but a lot of people feel overlooked. And, uh, you know, I think everyone who is in public life.

And I also think just anyone who's on social media should make sure to recognize the humanity of people well in every community, across race, across geography, across sector of the economy. A lot, I was talking to her a state Senator in Wisconsin who represents a very rural district. Earlier this week.

And she said, you know, when I think about a rural community, I think of people who are fighting poverty in an under-resourced setting, and they've got to see themselves reflected in the work that I've already does. And I think that that's a, just a vital piece of the work. Ben, we

Al Hunt: [00:27:52] gotta let you go, but let me just ask you, what are you going to be doing next week?

Ben Wikler: [00:27:56] I'm going to be doing a lot of zoom. I'm may be doing virtual app. We have these virtual trainings that I mentioned, anyone can go to training, dot, win and sign up there for free. They will teach you the basics and the advanced stuff in campaign, organizing digital, organizing communication. Um, I'm really excited about that.

We're going to have events for the Wisconsin delegation, including a big kind of welcome diversity. What Wisconsin virtual, not breakfast. We're going to have pre-programming before the, the. You being in the convention, I'm sure I'll be talking to a lot of journalists, uh, hopefully asking folks for money to support our work, to organize in Wisconsin.

And then I'll be watching the speeches. In the same way that everyone else in the country will on a screen, but I'm so excited about what we're going to see. A lot of the speakers is just outstanding.

Al Hunt: [00:28:38] Ben Wickler lots of luck next week. You were a great guest and we'll stay in touch between now and November three and we're going to watch Richland.

Salvin

Ben Wikler: [00:28:46] that sounds great. Thank you.

Mary Matalin: [00:28:57] Hey, it's married. I want to thank Jason L for letting me talk to one of my favorite people in the world of our politics, but that's how Dan Mathews and I met. And what we're here to talk about is something far more important than politics, and that is the. Human bond, the eternal bond and relation and confusion, and on spying love between parents and their children.

And in this case, a mother and a son, Dan Mathews, new book, I read it twice. I love it. It's called like crazy life with my mother and her invisible friend. You know, Dan Mathews from cheetah and other political activism. We'll talk about that later because of particularly, uh, connects to the coven, catastrophe and calamity we find ourselves in.

But let's talk about, about your book and your beautiful woman. Can I just start with the dedication that it says it all almost to Eleanor Mary Ellen. Ellen Marston Perry Lords, and any other handle mom used in her 82. Beautiful woman. You look okay. A lot like of Dan, why did she have so many names? Let's start

Dan Mathews: [00:30:10] there.

Well, my mom was born during the great depression. Uh, she was born in Washington, D C actually just a little, two years before the depression to a pretty wild woman, uh, who but no internet, no birth certificate on the no name on the birth certificate. So, uh, she ended up having a lot of names and a few different identities, always a really witty loving person, but she was schizophrenia and she was undiagnosed and untreated until I moved her in.

Uh, in her early eighties. Um, but she did not fall victim to disease. I think of her more as a weary survivors, she somehow left her way through life. Uh, by, uh, with her wits and with her intelligence, she didn't succumb to violence or booze or drugs. She, uh, had difficulty with maintaining longterm relationships with people, but she had a deep, deep bond with animals always.

And as a young child, despite my mother's occasionally erratic behavior. I learned to have the same bond as she did with animals, right? Animals, research, pure truth and honesty. And I learned that, um, a deep respect and the unique communication than animals have and their unique intelligence. Uh, and that was what inadvertently sent me off on my life of, uh, of, uh, devoting my life to animal rights.

I've been with PETA now 35 years,

Mary Matalin: [00:31:32] 35 years. I cannot believe that right out of college. Yes. And I, there's another book that Dan has done for all you bookstores out there who love reading, which is another thing your mother influenced you about loving. Books so important. Your other book committed the, a lot of your pita activities, but let me, in the case of your mother, she just didn't survive schizophrenia, which none of her family knew.

She lost two children early on. She was abandoned. She was abused. She was raped. She went by the time you moved her in, you're a pretty bone Bible cook globe traveler, a racket towards ordinary, highly successful in her eighties. You buy. A big old Victorian house in the no offense, but we're not for your beloved Jack whom I always liked, but now I love your husband, Jack.

You've broken, broken down money pit of a house and turn it into a castle for your mother. What, how, what went into that decision of you in the prime of your life, taking in your mother at the decline of her?

Dan Mathews: [00:32:40] Well, you know, in this country, uh, we often discard seniors like cigarette butts. Uh, there are the whole senior home industry, and I think, I think there's a few issues behind that one is that.

A lot of people don't develop a friendly rapport with their parents. They just have a parental rapport and it's, you know, people can't wait to get out of the house when they're out of high school. And I think that's a healthy, a healthy thing. I think people should be able to stand on their own two feet and not rely on their parents too much.

Of course, uh, with the economy being what it is now, a lot, a lot more young people are living at home. But for me, uh, the fact that she was addled and I didn't know what was, what her problem was, but there was something there. Yeah. It actually caused me to leave the country when I was 17. And after that high school, I saved up a thousand bucks and moved to Rome for a few years.

Just to sort of get a sense of the way life could be without a, what I didn't know at the time was with schizophrenia in it, where everything was just kind of upside down, but then as time went on and I started thinking, yeah, about how my mom was in my corner when I was gay. My mom was in my corner when I was a punk rocker.

When I would get beat up at school, she was not only my champion, but all of my friends who's, who didn't really fit in. She was the, my mom was the queen of misfits people who were neglected by their own parents, but often be cared for by my mother. This was especially true in the AIDS era when she was like a nurse Perry, always there to cheer people up and look people.

Uh, you know, keep people in good spirits as they died from many of my friends died of AIDS. And as time rolled on, I thought, you know, I really owe this woman. It may be inconvenient for me and I might not have the money. And I certainly don't think I have the skillset or the, um, the time, but I would never forgive myself if I wasn't there for her when she was in her declining years.

And it was lucky because. When she hit about 80, she stopped being able to bluff it. She was no longer able to block out the noises and she would imagine, and all these different people being dead or that I got fired for not getting a haircut from work

Ben Wikler: [00:34:40] or.

Dan Mathews: [00:34:41] People peeping into our second floor curtains, you know, as if there would be tall enough, you

Mary Matalin: [00:34:47] are.

Can I say you're writing about those incidents, where she was hearing songs, things you had the TV on full blast, because you could hear songs being signed in her head. Often she said in her own voice and she said she had a terrible voice, but she also mentioned and reported to you as she lit your whole house in candles.

One almost starting in that Alison fire, she stuck it in coffee beans. She told you that your father had died. Your, her best friend had died. Your brother had a heart attack. She had not only imaginary friend. She had. Imaginary catastrophic events that were very real to her. That's what living with schizophrenia is before, before we do you have to read the book cause we can barely scratch the surface, but one thing I learned and I think you learned and you report in the book is the notion of exactly what schizophrenia is and how difficult it is to get help for that

Dan Mathews: [00:35:47] schizophrenia.

A lot of people think it's. Split personality disorder, but it's not, that's something completely different. Schizophrenia is when you have an overlap abundance of dopamine in your system, and it clogs your message center. What a message going from one side of your brain? To the other, it can confuse you and make you think that somebody said something they did not say it makes you think that they thought something that they did not think it makes you paranoid.

And it, it can manifest in a lot of different ways. And a lot of people such as in my mother, it manifests in hearing sounds, hearing voices I would walk in and she would be having a phone conversation sometimes even very lovely, funny phone conversations. But we didn't have a phone. She couldn't hear it on the phone.

So it was, uh, she, you know, she had a, uh, a phone for texting, but she couldn't hear on it. And she would just be standing there holding a wooden spoon as if she was having a conversation. And I thought that was really sweet at first because I thought, you know what? His seniors have left, but these lovely, maybe that's just the natural course of things.

But when these visions and these things that she was hearing got darker and darker and darker, I had to get her out of the house to a hospital and get her tested. This was not an easy task ask. And I was able to bring her to the senior psych ward, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and with a minimal amount of meds it's the voice has disappeared.

And her last chapter in her life was actually one in which she was very much at peace and didn't hear the voices and. And, uh, we had wonderful times, uh, at home. Uh, my husband Jack was married to a woman. Uh, for 19 years. He had four kids from a previous sexuality and they, and his ex wife and me and my mom became one big unlikely family.

We celebrated holidays together. Even now that my mom's gone, we still have a great rapport. Um, and I was just really lucky because when I took this, this, uh, when I took my mom in and took on this project of both the mother and the house, I am not equipped to fix houses.

Mary Matalin: [00:37:49] Dan in that you are very much like my husband, there is not, I mean, flushing, the toilet is the extent of his ability to do mechanical things. And you actually had a toilet explosion at your house with your mother. I just, so people don't think this is, this is also a hilarious book. You're a beautiful poignant and hilarious writer because you went.

And I remember when you were making this life changing decision for both of y'all you felt, uh, insecure ill-equipped. And indeed in the first couple of weeks, because of you later learned Mel medication or wrong medicines or too much medicines, it's a very hard thing to treat, particularly in, you don't know what it is.

You had to face smashing incidents within two weeks of living with your mother. It's the reason I'm bringing you sub is because in this era of. Oh, we're always clamoring for our rights. We rarely talk about responsibilities, which are, must be concomitant with rights and the responsibilities you took to care physically, emotionally, mentally for your mother and yourself is as parties.

You had the masks chew or your Halloween bashes your Christmas bashes, pick it up any holiday and give us a typical example of life at the. Mathews Mathews

Dan Mathews: [00:39:20] Jack home. Um, you know, when we're Halloween is a block party at our house, it started, uh, right when we moved house and within the first 10 years, it became really a mammoth block party.

And for my mom's last Halloween, she wanted to pay tribute to Amy Winehouse cause she loved her. Uh, Amy had recently died. She'd go deed. So my mom, uh, who is 82 years old. Dressed as Amy Winehouse complete with the black beehive white Coke residue around her nostrils and lugging a bottle. Of Jim beam. She really did.

And it was a big deal cause I was born just before Halloween. And so I was born just after midnight and the doctor and my mom would always told me, I always tell me that the doctor came in on a Saturday night just before Halloween to deliver me back in the sixties, directly from the holiday green party.

So he was arrested. I was delivered. I count Dracula. I was a big baby. So I made a big bloody entrance just after midnight. And so I've always loved big, big, big entrances and, uh, uh, last year, uh, uh, arrivals and Halloween. Uh, and so my mom kind of it out with me all through our lives and, and, uh, we, uh, uh, w this particular party happened right after a hurricane had, had devastated our area here in Virginia.

And our whole, everyone up and down our block, nobody wanted to miss our Halloween party. So it was an all hands on deck people, chainsawing tree limbs that had fallen down, repairing the deck. And, um, I will say this is a small American community. We're a Navy base town. We live around the corner from the Portsmouth Naval hospital.

We include in our circle of friends, freshly discharged, PTSD victims, tattoo artists, you name it, everybody. From all political stripes, uh, uh, from all, uh, every color of the rainbow. And that's the kind of people you'll find in our house. And they really, these people in the neighborhood were such great characters, but they were also such great people.

They helped me and my mom get through some of these rough times, times that you have. And I had no idea when I was taking her in that a whole village would rally round to help us out, to help us get through our crises. It was a wonderful, wonderful thing. And that's what this book is about. As much as it is, as they're about schizophrenia, it's about how people rallied together to help, um, you know, uh, to help people are better in need.

And I just don't mean just financially and I need, I mean, like taking her to the doctor's when I'm traveling with work

Mary Matalin: [00:41:43] or just being with her, it might be a small town, but you have a big heart and it's manifested in your vast Ray of. Friends who not only did help with the house, stayed with your mother, cared for your mother, genuinely loved your mother, your friends from college remain her friends, even in your absence, which is a Testament to both of you.

And I, I, I want to make sure when you're sends there's so many beautiful stories. Mother's son stories, parental stories, friends stories. It does take a village. And I find myself thinking about, as you mentioned in the book, when you had her in the senior psych ward, what do people do? Don't have families who don't have a circle of friends.

I'm not making any, I don't know what the answer to that is, but it's a blessing that she had. You. And in the, in the end, I think you would say. At least I am going to say I found it a blessing to you. Your husband Jack is a set design and choreographer, very creative, lovely, lovely human being. And he had a great idea.

He and his friends had a great idea to send her off. In the, in her, what would have been her favorite way? Talk about the Nutcracker.

Dan Mathews: [00:43:12] There was a big freak for the Nutcracker. We went every year and she always aspired to be a dancer in life. It was one of those things that she just never got around to doing, but she loved the Nutcracker when we went to his kids every, every December to see it.

And so my friend had brilliant idea because she died just a few weeks before Christmas. To take my mom's ashes and scatter them in the, no that falls at the end of act one at the Nutcracker at the grand ballet. And, uh, he did it. We asked him to do it and he thought it was the most thrilling thing. Cause she was such a big fan.

And so her Memorial, you know, she died so close to Christmas. I was, I was low too. Call my brothers and get everybody to come some sad Memorial, right around Christmas time. I said, you know what? Let's send her off in a very theatrical way that she would have loved. And so. Um, a lot of rashes went down on the snow that falls in the Nutcracker at this grand theater.

But then I kept a little bits of rice just to send to my nieces and nephews. And I got all the, all of them, little Nutcracker, Christmas tree ornaments, and sent them a lot with her ashes. And now they talk about that when showing her ashes off, uh, all over the country. So my brothers were totally supportive that the, the book it's, I don't know if you've seen the movie, meet me in st.

Louis with Judy Garland. The 1940.

Mary Matalin: [00:44:29] Yes, of course. We looked through the garlands.

Dan Mathews: [00:44:32] Well, that book is set in four acts and it's four seasons all in the same house. And each season has a very distinct set of dramas that, that unfold. And so I kind of pattern this book in that same format where it's four different seasons in our beautiful house.

Uh, and then after each season, I skip ahead a year. So the next season, uh, and it's about it's, we live in such a beautiful part of Virginia that we really get the full force. Of all seasons from blizzards to hurricanes. And so it's a very kind of, uh, updated version of, of, uh, of, you know, an American, modern family situation.

Mary Matalin: [00:45:06] It is, it is a modern family and it's more than that. I know you're in the middle of your book toward just kicking off, but I, I want to say about this book, tell our listeners like crazy life at my mother and her invisible friends. Dan Matthew, Simon and Schuster. It's not everything. We've, it's more than what we've talked about.

It's a look at it's so many facts and my seasoned age, Dan, that I had never known about music. Think about literature, about writers, about Americana places and people all across America. You have such a lovely creative. Inventive and not lucky life, you work hard. And I want every, get this book, read this book, give it to your mother, give it to your brothers, give it to everybody before we sign off and you run off because,

Dan Mathews: [00:45:59] because when I first moved my mom in and I didn't realize yet that she was schizophrenia, but that she was just really off kilter and I wasn't quite sure how to deal with it. I remember, I sent you a note, you asked how she was doing, and I said, she's doing okay. I'm just not, I'm not sure I'm qualified for this.

And you applied Dan, you the only person qualified for this. And that really resonated with me. And it really, it really bolstered me up. So I want to thank you for that. And I hope that that's the kind of. Uh, advice that anybody who reads this book might feel like as we all have it in within us to, to take care of our own, um, it just might be a difficult decision, but when the chips are down, we do have the knowhow.

Um, we just figure it out

Mary Matalin: [00:46:41] and you know what, that was why I gave you that advice and what I hope people can take this time to reflect on. Is becoming a new parent because in essence, you became her parent. And the reason I said that is because James and I had our kids, I was 42 and 45 and I thought I was ill-equipped and I very much was ill-equipped.

But if love is your touchstone and you do things. Everything you do is out of love. Then you're infinitely, equipped to deal with these situations. So I love, love, love the book. Now you've referenced our relationship, which goes back, um, pre Dan and Jack invented Regan gumbo for you. New Orleans new Orleans, which has now become an institution and in a.

Louis Armstrong park and their only Scott don't miss a vegan gumbo thing, but how we got involved with each other professionally through Peter activism, which people tend to think is a. Big political lefty thing, but it's really bipartisan, nonpartisan everybody from Newt Gingrich to conservative sheriffs to your own.

Right-wing not me. Uh, we're involved with PETA in, um, monitoring their food supply, particularly, uh, animals being abused. And if you don't. Want to think about what you're eating. You can think about the stress that hormones that you would be putting into your own body, your children's body. We all get hormones and beef and all that, but the stress that would attend animals who are slaughtered in the way that PETA is helping them.

Not have to go through for our sake and for their think, of course you keep winning in the courts. But what I want to talk about now, which how that works, your, your work in with ad gag bills across the name, which is fits into COVID since the onset of COVID the incidents of food supply. Onsite inspections, reporting of, of food problems from Ecolab salmonella and he of foodborne illnesses has not only, it's not just precipitously.

In some instances of reporting and citations has gone from thousands a month to zero. So this is nothing PD people need to understand about the work that PETA does as much as. I love your creative chicken man and naked stuff. And I love all of the way, you know, what you get attention to your issues.

It's really important to all of us.  time, too. The work that you're doing. Can you explain that part of what Peter does for people?

Dan Mathews: [00:49:33] Well, the only reason that we're all on lockdown right now is because of the meat trade. And at this time it happens to have emanated from a live animal meat markets and Wu Han.

But, uh, HIV came from eating monkeys in Africa, uh, and the 1917, 1918 flu pandemic, which people call the Spanish flu, but it really started in Kansas. At a chicken farm. It just was written about insane the first time. That's why they call it the Spanish flu. But when we eat animals, there are a lot of diseases which are not harmful to the animals themselves, but when they cross over two people, they can be deadly.

There's these hold a zoonotic disease and are awake. PETA did investigations in six countries showing these live animal meat markets where. The blood of one species of wild animal that they're selling for some delicacy is intermingling with the blood of a fish or a chicken that is also being bought at the same market.

Repeat has been involved in banning these live animals. In both California and New York, as well as reminding people that this all started from the meat trade, uh, and domestically the issue is, is even kind of deeper. Um, just before COVID, uh, hit, uh, the pig industry, the pork producers council announced that they no longer allow government and health inspectors.

Into the processing plants into the slaughterhouses to confirm cases of where there were some on Ella outbreaks. There's also, they use so much drugs to keep animals in slaughterhouses alive, because they're so sickly because of how they're kept and confined that they give them so much, um, uh, antibiotics that does antibiotics get passed off to people.

And then when we get sick, the drugs that we take don't work because we've already run up a resistance to them from the drugs we're getting. And there's a lot of, uh, uh, slaughterhouses that, that particular problem that had been pinpointed, but they now refuse government inspectors because they don't want their brands of meat to be sullied by the, by the controversy.

So Pete is working to expose this all the time. And a number of States tried to make it illegal for anybody to go into slaughterhouses and take footage, uh, to get, uh, uh, evidence of fractions and the, uh, me trade to that by making it illegal, to take footage inside of a plans inside of a slaughterhouse, without permission from the owner.

And we worked very hard to get these laws. They were called the ag gag. Laws, uh, overturned and Mary, you were really instrumental in getting a few of these laws over to commend, particularly in Tennessee and Indiana. Just last month, we had a great victory in North Carolina where we will be able to have the law overturned as unconstitutional.

So even if you're not a vegetarian or a vegan, I know people want their, uh, the meat they eat to be inspected at least to some extent. And that is happening very, very little and right now, because of COVID. Uh, and it's something we all need to be very, very worried about.

Mary Matalin: [00:52:36] So right left in between, this is not political.

This is a health issue and the book is. Just what we need to read during our COVID, which is, has the silver lining of giving us time to reflect like crazy life of my mother and her invisible friends, Dan Matthew, Simon, and Schuster. Dan, I read the title to my daughters. They said sounds like somebody we know.

Why was she such success? And we're going to have parties for you. All of our homes that we can't sell, because I love you, baby.

Al Hunt: [00:53:19] Boy, that was, that was really, uh, a welcome addition to the show. Jane and Dan is doing a virtual book event with Alec Baldwin. Tonight, August 13, seven 30 live it'll be stream live@newsday.com James wheat. Before we go, we have to talk about the BP pig, Camela Harris. Uh, I think, I think you will incur, this is my preference all along.

I've written about that said it. I don't, um, I must say the rollout was even better than I anticipated, uh, in the sense that I think she's, she's certainly a safe thing. She's a predictable thing in that way. But I think the excitement has been clear from the reaction to people. First, I look at, you know, I've gotten several emails from, uh, Asian Americans who say, this is terrific.

Cause her mother is from Asia. Uh, she is somebody that I think the left really is not all that comfortable with, but can not criticize. And I saw where Ari Fleischer said, you know, she really, isn't going to appeal to, African-Americans asking Ari Fleischer about what appeals to African Americans is like asking Mike Pence about feminism.

Uh, so I, I think that, uh, I think the Biden Harris ticket is a good one.

James Carville: [00:54:31] Yeah. I been, look, I, um, Do not as much time the day afterwards, I certainly couldn't gain bone better, but I would remind everybody generally, when you have this kind of a rollout and this kind of almost unanimous enthusiasm, you know, they're going to be stuff is going to happen.

Just to bath wide. It's a big, this is the high watermark.

Al Hunt: [00:54:55] Yes. If you will. And they will play the race card against you

James Carville: [00:54:59] though everything, and they'll dig up something and they'll find somebody and they'll get us some, you just know all this is coming and I don't know how much more that can go because it's Bob and go get rid of God.

The Bible. Speak John. And what's an extra trader.

Al Hunt: [00:55:18] Well, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. I mean, Trump has already accused Obama of committing treason, so sure. That's next. I mean, you know, and you'll have to up that.

James Carville: [00:55:27] Yeah. We got to fit your brain. We can't. We got to see that in race. It's I don't know ever going to go.

Al Hunt: [00:55:32] Yeah. Well, you know, of course, you're right. And there will be all kinds of, uh, attacks on her, but I want to go back to the point I made earlier. I think Biden. Uh, is going to win this thing without whack from the left, but he's going to get flack from the left, which will be an annoyance now and in governing and they're going to push him and they're going to, and I think I really don't believe that most of the Bernie crowd is very happy with Kamela Harris.

They can't criticize her and they can't criticize him. And I think to some extent, it gives him a little bit. Uh, more leeway and, and that's again on the margins. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference, but a little bit. And I think she can comfortably campaign. We saw Ben Wicker said she could go to rural Wisconsin.

She can go to rural Wisconsin. She can go about anywhere. And my final point is I would guess that Canada candidates like Doug Jones in Alabama and Cal Cunningham in North Carolina are pleased with this choice.

James Carville: [00:56:28] I would think so, you know, again, I caution you. This is probably the best day in generally, and it doesn't matter, but maybe this time certainly seems to have potential to help in not more potential, upside and downside, but it's the most cautious thing I could say right now, actually probably feel a bit more optimistic.

Than that. But I think anybody that's seen as many cycles we had would say, it's, you know, to Oklahoma chant is done. It doesn't matter very much, but a little bit better chance of Madison upside than the downside. I think I'd say that would be the position I would take right now. I'm borrowing Alto, but some of I'm intrigued by it.

You should do it money. A college closer to election day is pick out one County in every important state that we get to watch on election night. I just think it's a good little, that's a good little trick in it. And as probably going to be, we'll be pretty close to right. The rowdy States

Al Hunt: [00:57:29] where he gave us two in Wisconsin, and we've already talked earlier back with net.

Uh, and Georgia and there's some to watch. I would watch. Yeah, I would watch Erie in Pennsylvania. I think, uh, some of those Northeast counties are also worth watching, but Erie is Erie goes with a winner. Arie went with Trump last time after going for Obama twice. Uh, I think that's an interest to them, but you're right.

We ought to just compile those between now

James Carville: [00:57:55] and 1986 area was to bell. All right. Three 30, four years later, Pennsylvania here is still the bell. That's right. That's right. You know, some things, you know, the state of saying some things change. I think that Pennsylvania is a place that has been the mini state has probably been as static as anyone over there.

Al Hunt: [00:58:19] Well, wait, wait, wait, let me disagree with you. I think you're right about Erie. Totally. I think you're totally right about Arie, but we know Westmoreland in Washington in 86 were Democrat and Montgomery and Delaware in the East were Republican. So that's, 

James Carville: [00:58:33] Jeff that's shifted a lot, but the point is Arie stayed.

You know, you had the red and the blue all shifted him. It's an eerie, still sounds. There stayed the same swing of swings. It's a. Yeah. I mean the demographic split and everything else is split in the suburban, you know, Westmoreland and just County, foot places, and Beaver County and Montgomery County a flipped basis.

You name it cost, but it just is a, it is odd that one County and maybe remote and the extreme Northeast corner of the state still swing.

Al Hunt: [00:59:10] Yeah. Well, I talked to Tom rigs, the reformer Republican governor was in the Bush cabinet. Uh, no admire Trump and he's pretty confident that Biden's gonna carry Erie County.

So we'll, um, you know, if he does, I, first of all, I think Brian's going to carry Pennsylvania. Uh, and if he carries Erie County, he surely is going to carry Pennsylvania. Um, but anyway, we. I want to, before we go, I'd like to just come back just for a minute and you may have a couple other things too, so that Ron Johnson and that just security piece, people have to read it because I don't think that I think Ron Johnson is a unwitting, uh, Duke.

Of Russian disinformation, that's a serious charge, but the FBI has told him that the former chairman, uh, and the current chairman of the Senate intelligence committee has told him that, that he is using a guy named a Ukrainian named teller. Shenko who they have said. A is basically a Russian plant. And that's what he's doing now in order to try to tar Joe Biden.

And, uh, it was just, he was just one more thing I would say about it. And you ought to read the just security piece, you know, and that impeachment testimony in the house be on a Hill who was the Russian expert in the Trump white house. This is not some kind of crazy lefty said that the, what. What Johnson is, is, is there's peddling.

Now she called a fictional narrative is being perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services. I just think that that ought to be more front and center for Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley, who are really are playing it dangerous, uh, and a bad game.

James Carville: [01:00:53] I agree. I sometimes I think maybe that guy's problem.

It's just stupid. You know, Borden evil or anything else that he might, it might just be flat out stupid. That's no discount

Al Hunt: [01:01:06] or manipulated by staff

James Carville: [01:01:08] or that's stupid.

Ben Wikler: [01:01:10] Yeah,

Al Hunt: [01:01:10] it is. It is

James Carville: [01:01:11] good. And they played by staff and they get manipulated by the owners. They get manipulated by other people in the caucus.

Yeah. Yeah. Th I think it, I don't know this and maybe we'll get Ben back on the show and ask him his opinion. But I think the dominant trait to disguise stupidity, we got to give a shout out to the people in Northwest Georgia for nominating a coot Anon. She brought by, by big boat.

Al Hunt: [01:01:39] She said that the 2018 election was about an Islamic invasion of America.

James Carville: [01:01:45] Right? Got one 58, 59%. Yeah.

Al Hunt: [01:01:49] Ms. Green.

Mary Matalin: [01:01:50] Uh, she is,

Al Hunt: [01:01:52] yeah, she called, uh, George Soros, a Nazi. Uh, she says, she said blacks are slaves to the Democrats. I mean, you couldn't ask for a more offensive person and we'll see what the Republican party does or does not do about her.

James Carville: [01:02:09] We will. Okay. That was terrific. Show.

Al Hunt: [01:02:14] It was a good show.

James Carville: [01:02:16] It was an interesting, we should try to do it, you know, this kind of thing. It's kind of once a month, it's a little different. And, uh, you know, our listeners subscribers, you know, find is pretty predictable, not overly

Al Hunt: [01:02:31] predictable. Oh, I think so. Well, we got a, we got an interesting week ahead.

We'll be back with you. Uh, when we're in the middle of a virtual convention, whatever a virtual convention means. And James and wants you to be safe as always this week. And thank all of you for listening to 2020 politics war room. Follow the show on twitter@politicswarroomemailispoliticswarroomatgmail.com.

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