Trump's MIDTERM DISASTER? Jessica Yellin on Election Chaos, Texas & Michigan | Billy Bush
Nov 3, 2026
Midterm mayhem. It is upon us.
There are culture wars at the root of it.
We're told by the Republicans that we should be very, very afraid.
Of Abdul El-Sayed and James Talafrico
and Amy Acton is a liar
and she made up a story and it is wild.
And then there's two Dan Sullivans who are on the ballot in Alaska.
And that is a hoodwinking by Democrat operatives to try
and throw off Republican voters
so that they split the vote between two dudes named just
to dizzy the electorate.
Joining us right now from news, not noise,
is Jessica Yellen, and she was a longtime contributor
at CNN, covered the White House, everything like that.
But Jessica's with us now. And
hello. Hello. What the hell?
What the hell is going on out there, as the big man would say?
I mean, it is a lot of anxious energy today, Billy. I got to say,
We're either anticipating a blue tsunami
or a full-blown constitutional crisis and there seems
to be no middle setting left.
Everybody is predicting an extreme on one side or the other
and so I think it's a good time to kind of take a deep breath
and look at what some other options
could be. But I think that the big picture right now
is that Democrats are keyed up for a big win
And anything other than a blue tsunami
is going to have Democrats crying.
Crying fraud. So we're kind of in a reverse scenario election
from what we've seen in recent
years. But Trump is famous for calling fraud before fraud occurs.
I mean, let's not forget
when he was already calling fraud just
as a security blanket against Kamala and the Democrats
when he won in 24. He was saying there's fraud,
we have evidence, there's fraud,
we have evidence. And then he wins pretty handily and he's like, eh.
Okay, I don't need that anymore.
But he does, I mean, that's part of the routine.
It's a Roy Cohn, you know, right out of the Roy Cohn playbook.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Do you think it'll happen this time?
Or does it need, you're saying it needs to be a tsunami or else?
No, I'm being a little bit glib.
I think that what's happened,
let me give you a big picture look at what's going on,
which is the polling is telling Democrats
that they're going to have a massive
Um, just celebratory win tomorrow.
The latest polling that just came out
from the New York Times shows the two most competitive
races, El Sayed in Michigan, which you referenced,
and Tallarico in Texas, for the first time
in the entire midterms, with both of those men polling so well,
it's outside the margin
of error of the poll, meaning both.
We have not seen that the entire election cycle.
And so there are full-on expectations that both
of those men will not only win, but win big.
At the same time, and I was joking a little bit before,
we are seeing some serious threats by the White House
and the Department of Justice.
To interfere in the election,
they are already starting to do that at first through the courts.
But there's also all this expectation because Trump has warned
a bit that there will even be law enforcement sent out,
ICE agents, federal agents standing around these polling places.
And there are, I mean, when I say teams like.
And teams and teams of lawyers and judges
who have been preparing for more than a year
to be on call and ready tomorrow in the event
that some FBI team goes in and tries to seize
some ballots, some law enforcement does the same.
I mean, you know, bets are off.
Who knows what happens tomorrow?
And the threat is real,
but we also have to be realistic about, like, actually seeing
what emerges before we get panicked.
And then I think expectations have been set up for Democrats to win
so big that people need to temper their expectations
in case it's not exactly what the polls are showing.
Yeah. I think if there is a blue tsunami,
no one's going to believe Trump saying it was a
giant rigging so badly that it was 12 percentage points,
you know, was no one's going to believe
that. So he needs it to be close in order to feed,
you know, what it would need to feed his
narrative. First of all, I love your voices.
They calm me down. I'm like so on edge myself
ahead of the election. So thank you.
Secondly, you nailed it because the truth is
Cheating only or fraud pressure, which Trump uses,
only works on the margins, and it only works if the election's close.
So if there is a big win,
all these shenanigans really aren't going to make a dent.
And I agree with you that Americans know his schtick now,
and so it's not going to work.
It's going to be painful as we have
to live it through it if it happens again.
But I don't think Americans are going
to be hoodwinked on it if he cleans fraud.
Why?
Why?
Why?
How is it that I've never I've never talked to anyone
who could really put their finger
on on the very point of how.
He it's almost like I always get like I relate Trump to like Howard
Stern and that no other radio host can do what Howard Stern does.
Howard Stern can somehow, you know, play naked lesbian bingo
and then some guy like, you know, some guy tries to do it in his city.
He gets fired in two seconds.
Like, well, there's different rules for Stern.
Like with Trump, he.
Everyone knows what he's doing.
It's obvious, but no one holds the feet to the fire. I know
there's the flood the zone theory and he just keeps
so much chaos going at once that it really
does work and everybody's dizzy
and you don't have time to put your finger on something because
it's already on to the next thing.
But I wonder like we've never seen this happen. Like George
Bush would get killed for any Obama.
I mean, every president has been held to the highest standards.
Do we, is the standard gone?
After this, can presidents do whatever the hell they want
and there's going to be, you know,
no ramifications, consequences for it?
So first, your second question first,
I think we might do the opposite
where we'll swing the pendulum the other way
to display propriety, which-
Okay, I'll do that.
You know-
Oh, good, good.
Okay.
Who knows? Like after Nixon,
we had all these hearings to make sure that never happened.
Who knows? On your first point,
I spent a lot of time thinking about that. I don't think what's
like the magic that Trump has that he's able
to sort of voodoo his entire party into following
whatever he wants, even if it's absolutely insane.
How does the Republican Party doesn't look like
anything like the one I grew up in,
like the one I grew up with and watching? It doesn't look.
Look, and I actually had someone say to me at the USC game.
It's amazing to me. You probably have the same thing.
I don't know. People think that they know
me and they think they have me in a particular box.
This guy's like, I love it. Trump, I'm not
a Republican. I am MAGA. And let me tell you something.
They are not the same. This guy said
to me and I said, oh, OK, tell me more.
He goes, but you you were there from the beginning and we
love you. I'm like, what are you?
Do you not know my story? Who are you?
It's huge fun.
Your trauma must be deep.
I need some MDMA right now.
I won't touch that one.
I think that, but I have actually thought a lot about like,
I think that the core, I
don't have the exact answer,
but I think the core of why Trump is able to do what no one
else seems to be getting away with.
Is that he is completely unconflicted about it.
There's this deep shamelessness.
Like there is never embarrassment or guilt or responsibility.
He feels total freedom in doing what he does, violating rules.
And it's almost bewitching.
There's something, it looks like certainty.
It looks like truth because it seems so natural and free.
And so people are weirdly drawn to that.
It's the same reason our culture is weirdly drawn to sociopaths.
Like, we are obsessed with sociopaths.
Look at this Elizabeth Holmes movie.
Why are people wanting to spend time
with three people manipulating each other for three
hours?
We are some reason drawn to sociopaths.
And that's what we've got.
I don't know.
People say he's a narcissist, not a sociopath.
But you get what I mean?
Yep.
There's like a weird mental illness that we find alluring.
Yeah.
If you could do an emotional CAT scan,
you know, on him, you'd be able to see on the
graph or in the, you know,
on the digital image that there was in the shame area, it
was blank.
Like, and I was explaining this to my girlfriend's 11-year-old son,
who was like, he loves to
talk like Trump.
He's always doing the thing.
And I said, he goes, what's the deal?
He said, the scary thing about...
Now, the problem is he can be very entertaining,
but the scary thing about him, Johnny, is he...
There is no difference between a truth and a lie.
Like when I tell a lie, I get hot.
I get a little sweaty.
I get like, oh, like that didn't feel good.
You know, ----, I got to do it anyway or whatever it is.
But to him, it's all the same.
And we try to raise our kids to feel badly when they lie.
So your conscience bothers you
and your compass starts to tell you to do, you know, these things.
That's just, to me, the best way I can put it.
Was he different when you used to interview him in the past?
No, I mean, I spent so much time with him,
Jessica, more than anyone still,
because, you know, when I was the correspondent for Access Hollywood,
it was right when The Apprentice had exploded,
and I was the New York correspondent.
I covered everything in New York, and his office was,
you know, 10 blocks from 30 Rock.
So I was with him three days a week for years and years,
I'll never forget when he told me, I said, you know.
Of course, I got forever crushed for kind
of letting him say whatever he wants.
But this one time I was like, darn it, I'm going in there.
He's going to tell me his show is number one.
He's going to give us bullshit.
I am so tired of these lies.
I'm going in there and I've got my information.
I'm ready to go.
We're standing in there.
We get the interview gets going and I say,
he's like, well, we're number one again.
But I said, no, you're not.
Donald, I got to tell you,
I've looked at the ratings in every category.
You're not even in the top 20.
Not in any not in any department. And that's it.
And it's just the biggest. Wait a minute.
Did you see last Thursday's final quarter hour?
I go, I go, wait, no. And he goes, well,
you probably should take a look at that.
Now, look, anyway, any move? He doesn't even feel it.
The cameras are down. They're off.
And he says this time really off. And he says, Billy.
Don't worry about these.
You just you just tell people and they believe you. They don't care.
They don't look into it. You just say it
and they believe you and you move on. It's not a big deal.
And that just doesn't change when you become president.
And it's worked for him. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, it's worked for him in a big way.
Who's up to these midterms? We're told to be afraid of people.
I'm gonna be honest with you
because I've earned that right and I have my own platform.
I'm worried and nervous about El-Sayed.
I don't like that Abdul El-Sayed is preaching,
he refuses to denounce certain things.
And I understand we have these litmus tests, mostly
around the Israel-Gaza disaster,
but we have these litmus tests and he won't bite.
But on certain things like denouncing the Muslim Brotherhood
or any type of Islamist
extremism, to me, that's like, you got to do that.
9-11 wasn't that long ago,
in my mind. But he won't do it. And that really bothers me.
So one of the realities of this election cycle
is that we're seeing these divisions inside the Democratic Party.
And he is not just representing a specific voice, which we've
seen emerge since 10-7 in a really strong way in this country,
which is openly aggressive against Israel, openly like.
Critically, openly opposed to longstanding U.S. policy on Israel
and also non-apologetic about where that comes from and some
of the view that he wants to defend his core supporters in Dearborn
and their views.
That is his fundamental base,
and the Dearborn community is an immigrant community.
Speaking to that audience,
which is a growing audience in this country and in the Democratic
Party, and I think it's something
that the Democrats are going to have to address and
deal with in the next Congress, because you're going
to see more and more of these divisions.
On the specifics, for folks
who don't know what you're talking about, is that there was,
I don't know, have you talked about this ad before?
No.
Should I explain?
Yeah, please explain it, people.
Okay.
So there is this ad that was run by an outside entity,
a PAC, so it wasn't the campaign,
that essentially blamed Israel and, more broadly,
by implication, many Jewish voters feel, Jews,
for the affordability crisis in Michigan.
Basically saying that the reason we can't afford
our food prices is because of the war in Gaza
and that the U.S. is sending too much taxpayer money to Israel.
Now, whatever your views on that war and on U.S. policy,
as just an absolute point of fact,
high prices are not in the list of reasons why our prices are high.
That war, it doesn't even rate right tariffs and fuel costs.
And the list goes on and on is why we're feeling this stuff.
So, OK, I read.
And even Russia, the war in Ukraine,
because it's attacking refineries, which then take
more oil production offline
and that impacts global fuel prices like there's
it's all complicated. Right. And you.
Complexity is not something Americans are very interested in right now.
So the ad is viewed by Jewish Michiganders,
many, many, I can't say all, but as anti-Semitic
or at least insidious and playing on insidious stereotypes that,
you know, Jews are the source
of all your problems.
And that's a historic trope that's really troubling.
And so there was this, so Haley Stevens,
who had run against him in the primary, lost.
By one percentage point, she lost the nomination to El-Sayed.
And she was the mainstream person.
So she's the centrist against him as the progressive, right?
And so he's already the outsider rebel against the corporate Democrat.
She endorsed him right away,
did her party duty right after she lost in one stroke.
And then what's happened is they keep not once you endorse your rival,
what typically happens in politics is then you show up at his rallies
and you go to events and you campaign for him and you do all
this public stuff, not just say you're going to vote for him,
but publicly show your support.
And that hasn't happened.
And a lot of it has been about tension between the two campaigns.
And it all came to a head over the weekend.
Do you wanna tell the rest of the story?
Well, I mean, from what I understand,
she just pulled her endorsement.
She said, I can't support this guy. I'm actually gonna
vote for Mike Rogers, invoking who's,
I guess that's him standing right behind her.
So she's a Democrat Congresswoman
who is now gonna vote for the Republican candidate for US.
Senate because El-Sayed won't budge
and won't condemn this commercial that attacks Jews.
It's broad anti-Semitism.
It's unprecedented.
I guess it's-
So he said, I don't agree with it, which some people now-
You decide, is that, he didn't denounce and condemn it, right?
And there was also a lot of, there's a lot of drama,
like, she apparently told a bunch
of Democrats, very high up Democrats in the party
on Saturday night, that she was going
to endorse El-Sayed and appear with him on Sunday as planned.
Then she wakes up and not only,
and El-Sayed tells her she's not invited to a church service
he's attending.
And then she shows up a few hours later
and endorses his rival.
A lot of what she's said since then
is that if he doesn't want me,
like, there's an element of sore loserness in this
in addition to the stuff around anti-Semitism.
So there's a lot going on.
And it is weird that she didn't just say,
I'm not endorsing him anymore,
but then went out and actively endorsed
the Republican rival who she has denounced for months.
So, yeah, go ahead.
It's at least even the anti-Semitism and the anti-Islamism,
you know, that's out there for
El-Sayed. And, you know, at the risk of sounding that way myself,
I do want to hear him denounce
extremist, you know, Islam. It is the root of terror.
Can't you just say that and say,
you know, I stand firmly against it? Just.
Something, why won't he?
It's really upsetting.
Well, I can answer the why won't he from a, like-
As if Dearborn, Michigan and all the, you know,
the growing Muslim community there,
which there must be more Muslim Americans
than there are Jewish Americans in Michigan, I'm guessing.
So the most generous interpretation
is that he's playing his politics
and that he doesn't want to say things
that are going to be interpreted by that base
in a way that would undermine his support.
From another perspective, Billy, I don't, I mean,
there is a reality that you can have your,
people can have their views on Israel,
but there's this weird thing where when it comes to Jews
saying, this is extremely scary
and threatening that you won't denounce this, why won't you?
Some reason, you know, the left is like, no, that one doesn't matter.
We're going to let it go.
So interesting. Yeah.
It's a strange part of our current reality,
and it is really showing its face in this race,
and it's going to be a real challenge once the new Congress is seated.
I don't know. I mean, you're Jewish, I think, aren't you?
Yeah, I am, yeah.
So it's a tough one for you to cover, I imagine.
It's really hard to cover this, yes. You should see my DMs.
And it's one of the hardest things is—
What are they like? Are they attacking you for not being more—
Um, no—
Trying to be neutral?
No, it's more like, um, they just,
a lot of people will write very anti-Semitic things
and think I'm cool with it.
And I have to just like manage
my own internal experience and just do the job.
And that's weird.
I've never been in this position before.
And there's stuff I'd like to say.
And I don't say, because I'm like, I don't know how
this is going to get, I don't know
how to say this with enough nuance.
So it's weird.
Yeah.
It's a weird time.
Well, I'm you're doing a great job.
So I'm sorry. Sorry, that's on your plate.
But it seems to me like they say El Sayed is going to I mean,
I'm looking at my couch. I'm
looking at my couch. I do everything on couch here.
And Mike Rogers, I'm looking at couch.
And Wright Rogers is four times, you know,
if I want to get paid and Mike Rogers can pull it out.
But, you know, El Sayed is a smaller payout. I don't think.
I it sounds to me like El Sayed has proved to enough people
that he is not the danger that Republicans say he is.
And I'm just wondering, in your opinion,
have you seen enough to suggest that every politician is a straddler,
but he has he's not, you know,
a dangerous person that he's actually quite or do you think he is?
You're you're cutting out a little bit,
but I think I think I got what you said, which.
My, my sense is he's a politician.
He's going to get in there. He's, if he's elected,
if he's elected and we can't know,
because honestly, I don't even trust polls anymore.
You know, polls are based on a lot of data
and manipulation these days, not calling a lot of
people. It's a different world we're living in.
And so I know you use Kalshi, I use polls, who
knows? If he's elected,
I think that he'll play his politics and he'll be a voice that is going
It's going to be challenging.
standards and what we're used to, but I can't predict.
I have no idea. I have no idea who he's
going to be or what it's going to be like with him
in office if he's elected. I do know that
his numbers exploded after Obama went
and campaigned in the state. Like,
they were very close. And then Obama showed up
and all of a sudden he took off.
Barack Hussein Obama and Abdul El-Sayed, I mean,
and Obama makes the joke about Saddam Hussein's,
oh, you know, Trump's decor looks like Saddam Hussein opened
a cheesecake factory and,
but he's a bigger star than Trump.
And, you know, Trump is, what do you make of Trump running around
the country? Like putting, he loves to speak live and ramble to people.
He loves a rally, but
I think aren't most of these midterm Republican
candidates like stay home, dude, please don't.
It's embarrassing.
Like, we don't want you here.
Well, it's worse than that.
I mean, Donald Trump is going to deep red states
where there is enormous support for Republicans already.
And you only do that when there's,
nobody wants you in the close races.
So he, listen, this entire election
is a referendum on Trump.
I mean, this is one of those races
that's been totally nationalized.
The votes for Democrats are not generally in favor
of even the candidate, which is white,
or their, or the party.
The Democratic Party is wildly unpopular,
even with the people who plan to go and vote for
Democrats. It is a referendum on Trump.
And I will say that's also true. Obama went to that state,
not because he has a special liking for El-Sayed or not.
He is doing his duty as the former
president to rally Democrats,
to get the Republicans out so that there's some balance
in Washington. But I do think that Democrats
are going to have a really hard time sort of
Because there's no clear message
that the country wants from them right now.
They're unpopular too.
And they would make a huge mistake if they read
a big win tomorrow as an endorsement
of their platform.
Right.
It's all about Trump.
Yeah.
Some people want them to just investigate Trump and impeach Trump.
Some people are like, don't even spend time on that.
We need you to work on affordability.
You get it.
And then Trump is threatening to escalate the war in a week.
So who even knows what issues are going to be on our plate then?
It's a crazy time.
And there's a report that's out today that Stephen Miller
and others in the Trump administration
have been studying for months,
expecting a blue wave and expecting Democrat control
of maybe even the Senate to how Trump can continue to legally
or get around using Congress
at all and continue and continue executive orders
and dictatorship and things like that.
One would call it like creative legal rules.
Like we don't know what is the phrase?
You don't even know if they're legal.
They're untested.
You talk about Barack Obama coming
in and giving a boost to El Sayed in Michigan.
And then you look down in Texas and the reports are that.
George W. Bush, the former president
that's supposed to be shoring up for Republican
candidates, there's no secret that he can't stand Ken Paxton,
who is running against James
Tallarico. And by the way, Trump can't stand Ken Paxton.
He says it out loud. But George W. and
John Cornyn, who lost the nomination to Paxton, did a fundraiser.
And I know they gave to every
Republican running in the state except Ken Paxton.
And Bush family members have voted for, you know,
Neil Bush, younger brother of George W.,
posted about, you know, his vote for Tallarico.
Barbara Bush, George W.'s daughter, allegedly,
apparently gave money to a group supporting Tallarico.
There you go.
You know, there's, what do you think that is?
Is that the beginning of the Republican,
a move at least to try and bring the Republican Party
post-Trump back to what it was?
I'd love to say it is.
I mean, my reporting really is that this is a unique case
where Ken Paxton is so widely reviled
that Republicans organized against him.
Had Cornyn,
Cornyn was going to win.
Cornyn would have blown out Galarico.
It wouldn't even be close.
Trump loves a self-inflicted wound.
It's incredible.
So, and the weird thing is now there are all
these reports that Trump wants to fire
Susie Wiles or other people in the White House
because of if there's a big midterm loss.
And you're like, dude, if there's a big midterm loss, it is all you.
It's all Trump's doing Trump and getting things blown up because of it.
So it's, you know, Trump picking the wrong candidates
and Trump insisting on, you know,
doubling down on the war and tariffs, you name it.
Back to Texas. I mean, this is I always say people always ask me before
an election, like, do you think Democrats will win this time?
And I always say Democrats always get their heart broken in Texas.
They always think they're this close and it doesn't happen this year.
I think it could be different.
I really think, yeah, because even Republicans don't want
to vote for Ken Paxton.
And then Tallarico is a rare political talent.
I think he has been sort of distorted in the national coverage
because of these stories
about veganism and, you know,
all the genders and the Bible and all that, whatever.
Well, he said it.
No, no, I'm not saying, yes, but when you actually listen to him speak,
He is so powerful and profound because he is a man of the Bible.
He believes he knows the text
and he talks about the message of love and caring for those
who are suffering with this energy
and approach that combines sort of spirituality and politics
in a way that's really rare and quite powerful.
And he's extremely charismatic, extremely smart.
A great communicator
and I think he's just an effective candidate in addition to having
like the perfect rival for a rare Democratic win in Texas.
This is Texas itself being open to a new and evolved image.
Because the image in Texas, you see the commercials
is the guy in the truck and he's saying, you know, man,
you know, we got to watch our borders and protect our damn.
And here's this guy.
He's like the white Obama with his incredible, you know.
You know, his rhetoric, his oration, he's a terrific speaker.
He seems like a person of character in these things,
but he also doesn't seem very manly.
And Texas has got a manly vibe, you know, so far.
This would be a massive, this would be Texas saying,
no, stop, you know, that image of
We're, we're, we're.
We're not what you say we are. We're not what we've put out.
We're ready to change. It's a big one.
And the fact that the governor's race is so close
is also underscores what you're saying.
Like there is an amazing because of this race,
because the Tallarica race is getting so much attention,
not much attention is going to the governor's race where you have
this woman challenging Abbott and she could win.
Yeah, she could,
but I bet that Greg Abbott holds on and he wins a fourth term, which
would be incredible.
Crazy, yeah.
But, and Tallarico probably will.
You think he wins, Tallarico?
I do, I do.
I think it's one of those,
Ken Paxton is impeached by his own party
for bribery and fraud,
and he's just really a criminal.
He is really, really, really a shady character,
and I just can't imagine people can say,
are we gonna say that about ourselves?
And do you think it would be an outlier event,
or do you think it would start to change Texas
politics, like it would trickle into the rest of the politics?
Depends on how Tallarico rolls, how he fits into the job.
And by the way, if he goes in there and
he says, God, I'm glad I got that.
Now I'm going to go be progressive. He's dead. He's dead. He's
done. Don't mistake that for the idea that Texas
is somehow some kind of progressives.
He's going to have to find a way to moderate himself.
And, um, because I, and I think he will, I don't,
I think he is going to have to buck his own party.
He'll have to get to stand up to the progressive wing.
And if he doesn't, he'll be out.
But look at just what we've talked about.
You have one person in El Sayed who is just
super progressive and determined to drive that agenda.
And then Tallarico whose survival
depends on resisting that.
And that's what the future of the democratic party
looks like right now is this internal struggle.
He's going to have to find a way to shake hands with El-Sayed
and then learn how to stand up to him, I think,
because there's no Michigan and Texas ain't one and the same.
Yeah. Also, that's a beautiful thing.
I believe in coalition politics. You work together where
you align, and then you work against each other
where you have disagreements. And that's how
a functioning government and politics works.
We have lost the idea that we can disagree about
some things and still work together about others.
Good comment on the bottom here by Lisa. She said
it perfectly. She said, Tallarico's fine.
Paxton is an amoral felon, okay?
So she's just like, how far?
What are we saying about ourselves?
Quickly, because I know you got to run.
As Susan Collins, she's out, right?
Looks like Troy Jackson, the state senator from northern Maine,
is going to beat Susan Collins, which is stunning to me.
I mean, the thing about Susan Collins is she pulls it out in the end.
Her last campaign, the Democrat was up by like eight points.
And, and lost meaningfully. I can't remember the exact ratio.
I like Susan Collins a lot. I do. I'm just count that woman out.
I think she knows how to organize
like the grassroots of her state to get out the vote.
So she is genuinely threatened this time.
She, she could well lose probably the odd,
but I think this is a, I can't, I can't place a bet.
It could go either way.
Okay. And then will the real Dan Sullivan please stand up?
This is the greatest story ever. That
is incumbent Senator Dan S. Sullivan on the right
and on the far left in the sweatshirt
is the decoy. This is the stuff like of a Matthew Broderick movie.
This guy's like a retired teacher,
Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.,
which apparently Democrat operatives recruited in order to
to confuse people when they see two Dan Sullivans.
Might peel some away from the incumbent and benefit Mary Peltola,
the Democrat in the middle.
What? Well said.
What happens? Now people know, will they be carefully
looking for the real Dan Sullivan
or could it still work because people.
I think people could still, I mean, here's the thing.
This is called ballot stacking. It's a
creative way of ballot stacking,
which is this political trick where you get more names on the
ballot to dilute the vote and make it harder
for anyone to have an outright win in the system they
have, which is called rank choice voting,
where it's all about percentages. It's not how we
normally vote in the rest of the country.
And so Mary Portola, the woman here, she lost her
her last election because the Republicans ballot stacked against her.
So this is just how politics gets.
They didn't recruit somebody else
with the name Mary Peltola, but they recruited a lot
of people to fill up the ballot.
So it was hard for anybody to get a percentage.
So this happens.
They're making it like a criminal case.
I mean, literally, the administration has been suing over it.
So I think whatever happens,
this is going to be one of those elections that will be
litigated for quite a while.
And yeah, this election is not going to end tomorrow.
Well, God almighty, let's all just pray tonight
as you head into the midterms. And then, of course,
the mail-in ballots, 53 million Americans have already voted.
I voted. I voted here in California.
It doesn't really make a difference. It really is.
That's it. It's just a blue state. Steve
Hilton ran in a most aggressive campaign. He was hit the pavement like.
And he created things, he tried everything,
and he will get blown out.
Javier Becerra is my guess.
Who knows?
We'll all survive, I hope.
When will we have a decision on these things?
Ten, five days, six days?
Some states count quickly,
but California counts very slowly.
Texas is quick.
So don't expect a result tomorrow night in California.
Although we can predict the results, you know, as you said.
I'll do this. I'll do a next episode topless if it does not win.
I'd like to show up for that one.
I didn't say bottomless because anything can happen.
Jessica Yellen. It's news,
not noise on her sub stack.
If you just want a fair look at things, it's just what you've
had great success there.
And you're one of the first independent journalists to go out and say,
you know what? I think we can speak.
More directly to people.
And I like it.
You said it's the name says it all.
News, not noise.
So, Jessica, thank you so much for.
Thank you.
It's really a pleasure.
I love talking to you.
I really enjoyed it myself.
So let's do it again.
Great.
And that, folks, good luck in the midterms.
May the horse of your choice win.
And I will see you tomorrow.
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