Ilhan Omar to appear with Hasan Piker | Political Happy Hour

It's Tuesday, everybody. Welcome to Political Happy Hour. I'm Courtney Godfrey, and this is our political contributor, Bloyce Olson. Happy two weeks until Election Day. Happy two weeks for Election Day, and you're just off vacation, but it's Happy Hour, and we can't even get happy. Well, you know what? I'm laying off the booze. You told me that. I didn't know if you wanted to publicly hold yourself accountable. I am going to hold myself accountable and announce it today. I am one day sober. Until your birthday. So my birthday is December 3rd, and I am vowing to not drink until then. Okay. Check in on me. I will check in on you. I am not going to make that vow for the next two weeks. Yeah, well, I was going to say, if there's one thing that will lead me to drink, it is going to be election night. It could be election night. So happy two weeks. A lot could happen in two weeks still. I mean, we have seen crazy things happen in the days leading up to an election. Yeah, no, we have. And the interesting thing this year is I think there's more races that are competitive where people are trying to get to October surprises. I get pitched crazy ideas every day. I see new ads every day. Last night I saw a few ads and I didn't know the groups. And then I start working the phone and they're like, well, that's an affiliated group to this. and um and some of the claims the claims get more outlandish because it's harder for media to check them in a shorter period of time so yeah no a lot can happen in two weeks um and we have a couple you know things yesterday we talked about will trump come on saturday bernie sanders is coming but peggy flanagan's having bernie sanders in duluth because a guy by the name of Hasan Piker is being hosted by Ilhan Omar and Omar Fateh and he's clearly uh you know he celebrates 9-11 Yeah, he's anti-American and so my point is not that that's going to change things but those are the kinds of stories that could make an independent voter go what are we doing here or an incident could happen can we talk about that event specifically because Hasan Piker is this streaming guy he's a YouTuber or whatever he has he's he's said things that many would call anti-semitic he has basically said 9-11 was a good thing yep he's very controversial very left-wing and here's Representative Ilhan Omar who's in the middle of an investigation a federal investigation who's choosing to stand up on a stage with this guy right is that surprising to you that especially in this moment that she would double down and say yeah i'm gonna associate with this allegedly anti-semitic um left-wing activist i would say it's not surprising because nothing surprises me anymore and if there wasn't an investigation this would be on par what is interesting is Amy Klobuchar has said this is not the kind of person we should associate it with Angie Craig was very harsh. And this is part of the dynamic that is really frustrating. And when people questioned me about it last night and this morning, I just said, I'm done with this idea that one side can ask the other side to call out Trump, but they're not willing to call out their own. And I think this is a clear example where if DFLers aren't calling this out as not someone they want affiliated with their party, then their silence is support, and that they're putting party over principle. And I think those are the two or three things that have gotten us to where we are, especially in Minnesota. Has Peggy Flanagan said anything about- No, not to my knowledge. Now, I haven't scanned everything today, but I'm guessing I would've got a text, I would've got a news release, I would've got something had she said something, but she hasn't. So she's not denouncing him, and she's not supporting him. just kind of letting it sit. She's being very Minnesotan. We just don't say anything. Well, does that work? I don't think so. And I'm from here. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think it does work in a lot of cases. It does work. But I think that's what is frustrating to those independent voters and those more moderate voters. But are the independent voters paying attention to events like this enough that it can move the needle? Like a voter goes, wow, I can't believe that Ilhan Omar's associating herself with that person. I'm not going to vote for her. Or are they really not paying attention? Well, I think they are paying attention, but there's kind of this concentric circle. So this got announced last week. Then yesterday and Sunday, Angie Craig and Amy Klobuchar condemned it. And now it will begin. We're talking about it Tuesday. So it's at what point does that independent voter or news consumer get the news maybe tomorrow the Star Tribune does a story maybe it's when Thursday i don't know for sure but that's how these stories develop over time and there's a lot of runway on this one especially with Bernie Sanders coming to town uh or coming to Duluth this weekend and it does feel like for a lot of voters something major major major would have to happen for them to change their vote i think a lot i think the majority of voters on autopilot right now they're going to go DDD all the way down the ballot or they're going to go RRR all the way down the ballot and nothing is going to change their mind even associated with someone who is uh considered hateful there's fewer split ticket independent voters over the last um well since 2016 10 years uh certainly since 2018 um however there are signs that things have moved in the last couple years so for instance in 2024 republicans started making up ground in the suburbs again they hadn't done that since 2016 um the exurbs got more republican the urban areas have gotten more DFL the iron range you know went republican so there are parts of the state that are trending i think the biggest demographic question that applies to this group of politicians and voters is the young voters. So the young socialists, are they showing up in the midterm? And the overall Gen Z vote voted for Trump on the male side, even though they voted for Biden in 2020. And so that 18 to 29 year old group, they're still trying to figure it out. They're trying to figure it out. And we're trying to figure out if they're going to vote which gives you two variables it's really hard to predict okay in other news at 5 30 so in just about an hour the saint paul public schools are going to take up this issue of whether they lay off more than a dozen teachers not even midway through the school year and the reason why i bring this up as a political topic is because they claim These are English English language learners, and they claim that they have lost around 500 English language learners in their schools. Something that they say is as is a result of Operation Metro Surge and the ice operations that took place here over the winter. So I'm at the point our firm is at the point where the data has to match the headline. And what we've seen on issues related to Metro Surge or issues related to COVID is that there's never just one reason. And so I would just say in this story, I haven't seen their data. I can understand why they would attribute it to Metro Surge. But we also had a summer. We also have harder economic times. We also have charter schools gaining students. So I'm not willing to say this is all because of Metro Surge. If they say they're down 500 students, that's not the only reason. And one of the interesting places we saw this last year was hospitality during Metro Surge. They were saying hospitality is losing all these jobs. Obviously, Metro Surge was not good for hospitality, restaurants, etc. But it was also the tariffs went into effect in January. Prices went up. We had a very cold January. January is an awful month for restaurants. So Metro Surge is one thing. The Federal Reserve came out later and said 2,000 of the lost jobs in Minneapolis and St. Paul over the last four years are due to wage inflation, higher regulatory environment, higher price of doing business in those two cities. So you may say that Metro Surge costs 5,000 hospitality jobs. It might have been like 2,000 in a short term, and then those recovered. But you're not ever getting those 2,000 or 3,000 you lost over the last five years back. And so I look at these stories, and I just want to understand, do we really know it's all because of Metro Surge? Because I do think Metro Surge impacted us deeply in many ways. I just don't know that if everybody can always say that that's the only reason something happened. I think that's fair. in other news Target Center where the Timberwolves and the Lynx play is turning 36 years old i had no idea Target Center was this old it underwent a major renovation that was completed back in 2017 but this is a political topic now because obviously the Timberwolves and the Lynx want a new stadium they're under new ownership they've got celebrity ownership now they want a new stadium and usually new stadiums come on the back of taxpayers and it came up in the gubernatorial debate the other day we talked about it uh amy klobuchar and lisa damon both saying we'd be open to the conversation yeah the Wild want more money to enhance Excel Energy Center the Vikings have some needs US Bank is 10 years old yeah think about that time flies court yeah but US Bank stadium give me a break it doesn't need any upgrades it doesn't need upgrades but it has some maintenance needs come on so don't ask me for my taxpayer dollars to update that beautiful billion dollar stadium i talk to me in 10 more years then i'll have maybe some sympathy but 36 years for Target Center okay fair right uh i i i think the stadium's fine like i i don't know if I think that I'm a normal, everyday Minnesotan. I don't look at our stadiums and go, oh, I'm just disgusted by this. We need a new stadium. No, I'm going to go to the Timberwolves games and the Lynx games either way, and I'll be fine. The food is great. The concessions are great. I always have a lovely experience at Target Center. I've been there for concerts, been there for games. I think it's fine, and I think I'm an everyday, normal Minnesotan. I'm an average Minnesotan. I don't think that Minnesotans are going to be very happy about the idea of paying for a new stadium, not for only one team, but for two. I have not seen any polling data, but we will. We need it. We will get some in December and January, trust me. But I would say this, we are going to have a debate. Stadiums, going back, next year will be the 30th year that I was working on or talking about stadiums in this town. Oh my goodness. My first contract was in 1997. Let me just say that it's a shiny object, and we in the media and the readers love to talk about the shiny object. So we'll keep talking about it. That's it. The end. Let's take a break. We'll be back after this.