BONUS: Mamdani as kingmaker: Is there a Seismic shift in American politics?

A day after U.S. District Chief Judge Patrick Schultz denied the Department of Justice subpoenas targeting Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and other elected officials saying they were politically motivated and without merit. Governor Walls is taking some action of his own today. Walls's office has filed 16 Freedom of Information Act requests with multiple federal agencies seeking records, communications, and writings from the Trump administration. Walls says Minnesota has been subject to more than 100 federal demands in... investigations, lawsuits, and threats to illegally withhold critical funding from the state, actions Wall says amounts to a coordinated campaign of retribution. One of the fundamental disagreements between mayors like Zohran Mamdani and governors like Waltz and GOP leaders revolves around how much America should spend to prop up its poorest. Here's Jason Derusha from WCCO on food assistance programs known as SNAP benefits. Do you think people on government assistance should be able to use that money to buy pop and buy candy and buy Doritos? I don't. I don't. There are other types of food. that I do wish people could use their snap benefits on. I think you should be able to buy more prepared foods, as is the way so many of us live. You go to the grocery store, you buy a rotisserie chicken, or you buy some mac and cheese or whatever. This is in the news right now because a federal judge blocked one of the Trump administration's efforts to essentially allow states to ban. Snap recipients from buying soft drinks and candy. This is part of that. Make America healthy. Sort of the maha thing. And the judge blocked this saying the move would destabilize food access for people on food stamps. They said it makes it difficult for people with chronic illness to access foods or drinks needed to maintain their health, including items to manage blood sugar. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. It is a fundamental question as to what? these benefits, what food stamps, as we used to call them, and now snap the supplemental nutrition. What is the purpose? Is the purpose to provide nutritious, nourishing, filling food? Or is the purpose just to... say you're broke and here's some access to food. And if you want to buy Doritos, it's your life. Go do it. This has become, you know, to a certain degree, this has become, well, it's sort of interesting how today this has become a very political issue. And I guess it's not actually sort of interesting because everything is very much a political issue. But it's difficult to detach the motives of people who are urging for this kind of stuff.

from the policy. The motives, I think, are suspicious. The motives, I think, are designed to make people who are on government aid feel like their second-class citizen. That's what I think the motive is. That said, I think you do want to help people out who are low-income or on disability or in certain situations where they need, and these are not always young people, often it's seniors. trying to figure out like, all right, how do we help you get back on your feet or how do we help you live? How do we do it? A number of states had reached out to the Agriculture Department. The Ag Department is who administers SNAP benefits. And a number of those states reached out and said, you know, we would like to only allow people to use their SNAP benefits on Whole food, healthy stuff. Now, does this, is this a practical thing to execute? I don't know, in an age where you scan every item, there's some things, and you see it when you're at the grocery store or at the farmer's market, you see certain food that is snap eligible, other food that isn't. The question is, should we put a... limit on junk food. No chips, no ice cream, different things like that. Now, the question is, does enacting something like this really make a difference when it comes to obesity or does it just make us feel good like we're like, oh, we're telling people how they can spend their benefit? Paul and Coon Rapids says no, that money should be used for necessities, not for recreational use. I will say I used to be somebody who believed like, look, we need to stigmatize people any further by... saying, well, you can buy this and you can't buy that. But the reality is, like, we already do that. You're not allowed to buy prepared foods with this. And frankly, there are a whole lot of prepared foods at the grocery store that I'd rather see people being allowed to buy than a couple of bag of chips and a case of soda. So important, especially for seniors out there. to take advantage of federal benefits that are available to them. And I think so many seniors would feel embarrassed or feel like they're taking a benefit from somebody else and they're not. And you should use those benefits. I do think that we could be smarter in the way that we sort of nudge people into buying healthier food or food that's going to. Feed their family. Crystal has thoughts on this. It must have been like 10, 15 years ago at least. And they did a report on how somebody got food stamps for like a week. Right. I remember this. Yeah. And like you couldn't eat healthy on the benefits you got. And it's still the same. I was on food stamps, I don't know, a few years ago. And I mean, let's be honest. If anyone goes to the grocery store right now, pick one.

What is more affordable, junk food or healthy food? Yeah, it's junk food for sure, right? And so if you've got to sit down and feed your kids, and I work in the social services field, and you look at kids and they're hungry, and you're like, oh, sorry, well, we can't afford to eat because we're not allowed to buy junk food. We're not allowed to buy chips or whatever, so we can only afford... bananas today. That's all you get. Yeah, yeah. In Minnesota, you can buy fruits and vegetables and meat and poultry and fish and dairy and grains. You can't use it for alcohol, tobacco, supplements, or hot foods. But within that... You know, there are a lot of questions. And you look at like Jonathan saying, it's sad to me that Trump took away those snap benefits for Minnesota families who needed it the most on his retribution to her. I think that's right. And we saw food shelf visits go through the roof. So those snap benefits are such a key connector. Joe brings up the other correct question where you say, how do you draw the line between something that's a necessity and something that's a junk food? You know, I think we, you, you think about the grocery store, there are certain aisles, right? You're like, the chip aisle feels like maybe not the aisle that you would cover, the soda aisle. But then you say is Coca-Cola junk food and LaCroy not? Yeah, I mean, it's true. You look at certain of the, you know, supposed waters or what do they call them like? functional beverages, is that all right? What about ice cream? What about, I mean, should you not allow people to get dessert? I don't know. My goal is to get people to get the most out of their benefits, not to punish them. I do think some of this is about punishing Susan. Another major fracture between both parties is abortion. Here's Bloss Olson with more from WCCO. You know, today's the anniversary. You've built a killer sports podcast. You bring the heat every week, and you have a loyal audience. But when it comes to monetizing, you're still leaving too much on the table. That's where the Odyssey Creator Lab comes in. We host your show for free. No fees, no catch. You focus on delivering the play-by-play and hot takes, and our experienced sales team goes to work bringing in ad dollars. Let's turn those downloads into revenue. Apply now at creators.odicy.com and start making money from your podcast. We have the Dobbs decision from the Supreme Court on abortion. And both conservatives and liberals are calling that out as an anniversary that is out there. And I have some opening comments. I mean, I think it is a historic moment. It was obviously a massive issue in 2022 when the Supreme Court made that decision. It was still a talker in 2024. But I truly haven't heard anyone bring it up in any conversation about the election this year. But it shows how the activist... audience and community wants to continue to keep these beach balls in the air that either raise them money or bring attention to issues when they're not necessarily on the minds of everyday voters when the economy, fraud, health care costs, and other issues really dominate every conversation I have right now. That is so interesting because I remember back in the day, that was the litmus test of whether some people are going to vote either direction.

how people landed on the abortion issue? Oh, it was a major issue in the 2022 gubernatorial election. It was a major issue in the 2022 midterms. But it just, it's not a talker right now. And I think, you know, the activist community really likes to keep these things going to get their base riled up on both the pro-life side and the pro-choice side. What do you, where can people get the daily agenda so they can read all this? You go to the daily agenda.com and you can sign up there. Thanks for us. So, all these points of contention and we're still one great big country. But what's the real story of America? Here's Annie Fry in St. Louis. The algae, I mean, when you've got people in inflatable costumes walking around the reflecting pool and it's being utilized as the very publicly. easily, easy to join public location in Washington, D.C., especially amidst tomorrow is when the festivities kind of really kick off. I would imagine that while there are going to be people descending upon Washington, D.C., to celebrate America 250, and have fun. Just essentially have fun celebrating this country. The people around the reflecting pool are going to grow. Because if the public is there, then the protest. We'll go be there. I mean, that kind of makes sense. If you're going to protest, you want to be in a place where your message is seen by people. One of my daughters has been begging to watch Hamilton. Have you seen Hamilton? No. So Lynn Manuel Miranda, I'm not going to spoil the story for anyone. It's been around for a while. Plus, it's the story of our founding father, so specifically Hamilton. I know that there are a few parts in that where they interject some modern, easy to call it woke kind of winks to the audience. I get it. There's some talk about immigrants and you're, it's, you know, initially 1776, so everybody's kind of an immigrant. But Hamilton. is a story of our founding fathers. They kept the fact that George Washington was an imposing figure in size. He was this tall, strong, masculine person. They just changed his skin color. You know, Hamilton is Lynn Manuel Miranda, so he's Latino. Aaron Burr, black guy. Those shows sell out. People still want to see this play because it is incredible. You should watch it. What I find so incredible. is that the story of the founding of the United States of America. I don't know anybody in my life who was like, slavery was really a high point in the United States of America's history. Like everybody has a collective understanding of how bad it was. And it's always important to remember that we shed our own blood over ending it. When the rest of the world, it was implemented and enforced and marketed across the world. The United States of America stepped in and said, we will kill each other overending this practice. And we did. And we did.

But isn't it incredible that the story of America's founding, isn't it evidence of the incredible nature and the unlikeliness that we would make it this far 250 years in to being the best country on the face of the planet? Because of what these men were willing to do. The unique part of that story is that we had founding fathers who did think against it, who did... put us in a position to eventually rid ourselves of it. That's the unique. That's a special part of the United States of America. And when you switch the races of the people who are telling the story and the story is still great, then you just have to admit that the story is fantastic, don't you? At least that's the way I took it, took it. When you listen to Greg Gutfeld's clip there at the beginning of this segment where he's talking about the algae, like you don't get rid of the algae and it goes away. You have to continue paying attention to it. You have to continue tending to it. And for 250 years, we've had to continue tending to the algae creep in our government structure, in our we the people structure, in our appropriate balance of a democratic republic that has a constitutional that reigns supreme over the whole democracy, which is the republic part of it. The algae is always going to start to creep back in, and we always have to be at the ready to combat it, to keep it out. Tommy Tucker Carlson at WWL in New Orleans discusses the divisions in America. We're going to talk politics here and really get into it with Charles Hunt, Associate Professor Political Science at Boise State University. He wrote an op-ed that got our attention about. I guess I'd call it a race to the bottom how it doesn't matter who your guy is. It matters who the other guy or the other woman is because I'm not voting for them. Yeah, I mean, I've been observing what's been going on in this. primary season. I mainly study congressional politics and particularly a couple candidates who have gotten a lot of attention, one on the left, one on the right. Graham Platner in Maine may be a name that increasingly your listeners know. He's the Democratic nominee for that Senate seat. And Ken Paxton, the Republican running. In Texas, you know, both guys sort of have their share of personal or in Ken Paxton's case, professional or legal scandals. And, you know, scandals aren't new to American politics. But what I think is new is the readiness with which we as voters seem to be willing to just accept them right off the bat. And I think it's due to a couple things. One is how polarized the parties are. It's not a secret, I think, to your listeners that we're really deeply divided between the two parties. But what that division does is it pushes the other side away from us, makes them seem more different. We're more ready to...

sort of ascribe really negative traits to them, call them evil, think that them being in power is an existential threat. And so when that happens, it makes it much easier to look at really flawed candidates on our side and say, you know what, I can live with it because no matter what they've done, it would be worse to have the other side empower. And I think that's, you know, one of a couple big reasons we are where we are today. Let's talk about, you know, and I'm going to tell you, as soon as you start talking about Ken Paxton, people are going to say, yeah, but blah, blah, and as soon as you start talking about Graham or Platinum, people are going to say, yeah, but blah, so tell me about some of Ken Paxton's troubles, tell me about some of Plattenor's troubles, because these are two flawed candidates. Yeah, and I mean, it's a mix. Every candidate is different in, and I'm not going to, you know, make a judgment or compare them. But with Ken Paxton, you know, you've had a big series of things on the personal side, extramarital affairs, things like that, mixed in with really serious, you know, abuse of power and legal issues. He's the Attorney General of Texas. He was, of course, impeached by the Texas legislature, which is not a ton of Democrats in that body. So that should tell you something about how serious the charges were. He was acquitted by the Senate, didn't get enough votes to remove him from office. But, you know, lots and lots of sort of self-dealing and those kinds of scandals. With Graham Platner. It's a lot more personal. He's a political newcomer, no one anybody had heard of in this country a year ago. And, you know, he emerged on the scene quickly and captured a lot of hearts and minds in the Democratic Party because, you know, he is a very talented communicator. But of course, he has this tattoo that he has since had covered up that. It came to, you know, apparently he came to learn was a symbol for the SS, the Nazi paramilitary group. And, uh, and then a series of, you know, sexual, you know, misconduct or inappropriate behavior there that has since come out. You know, he's, he's either, you know, denied or or said, you know, that stuff's in the past. But it just seems like, you know, in terms of Graham Platner, you know, Democrats and in terms of Ken Paxton, Republicans, you know, they both won their primaries fairly handily. And they both beat pretty powerful political figures within their own party. And so in those primaries, you know, the partisans seem to be lining up behind them. Can you go back as a political scientist and find a tipping point where it changed from, okay, I disagree with you. I'm a Republican. You're a Democrat. I'm a Democrat. You're Republican. We're both Americans. We live down the street from each other. We just have different ideas of how the government should be run to.

That is the enemy. That person is going to change my very life in the United States to go take life away as I know it. As you said, existential threat. I don't know what we're going to do. It's going to be terrible if the other side gets in. I mean, that's how some people are revved up and feel about it. Sure. Sure. I mean, this animosity between the parties, you know, how voters, say, how Democratic voters feel about Republicans and vice versa, it's been growing for years. And so even if you go back just to, say, the late 1970s, political scientists ask this survey question. They use this feeling thermometer, like rape the other party on a scale of zero to 100. 100 means you love them. Wouldn't change the saying. Zero means there's completely irredeemable. Both parties. felt about the other party right around 50. So like basically neutral. I don't love them. I don't hate them, but it's not an existential threat if they're in power. Gradually, that started sort of really retreating. And it was really after the turn of this century, after 2000, you know, 2004, where that really starts to take a big dip and then particularly in the last. 10, 15 years. So, you know, I'm particularly the Obama, Trump, Biden, and second Trump presidencies, where today those numbers are both 19. So only, you know, we're only feeling 19 degrees warmly towards the other party. Not much room to drop there. And so the negative feelings on a really personal level, not just a political level, are at least at a modern high for sure. Were there any instances or individuals that led to this polarization? I think Barack Obama's race had something to do with this, and I think that talk radio, specifically Rush Limbaugh, had something to do with this. You might think it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I think that led a lot of demonization of the other side where it's not just a political disagreement. This is our very existence that we're talking about. Yeah. I don't think you're far off the mark. It's always hard to tell in political science, you know, whether something's a cause or in effect, you know, I think... Whether it reflects it or it causes it, right? Right. And so, you know, rise of sort of right-wing talk radio and Rush Limbaugh, particularly in the 90s and 2000s. you know, is that because, did that fill a growing appetite for more sort of partisan media or did it cause more divisions between the parties? Probably a little bit of both. But yeah, I mean, I do think you see, this isn't the only trend, you know, a number of trends, whether it's gridlock in Congress, right, inability to pass big laws, gridlock in state legislatures. the rise of presidents having to do things on their own, right? All of these really do take a serious turn, I think, after Barack Obama gets elected. And certainly, I think, his race had something to do with that. I do think there was this kind of racial backlash. And then, you know, I think, I do think Donald Trump is kind of the elephant in the room here. You know, when we're talking about sort of.

personal behavior. I mean, certainly if we're talking about scandals, but if we're talking about the use of personal language to attack your opponents, I don't think we can talk about that without talking about President Trump. And so, you know, I think all of these things emerge around the same time, but I do think there's a big difference, and I certainly notice it with my students who don't remember anything different. But even I sort of do, and it can be pretty dispiriting. Going to what we were talking about before, I think President Trump is more of a reflex to an reaction of the times that exist rather than the cause. Thoughts? I think it could be, again, I think it could be a little bit of both. I mean, but when you get to, say, 2015, when he emerges onto the political scene, I think you're right. We're already plenty polarized. We are already really divided. I mean, the early Obama years, the inability to get stuff through Congress and the animosity was already, I think, at a modern high. I do think, you know, the last 10, 12 years have just kind of ratcheted things up. So I don't deny that at all that that was definitely a sort of a reaction and kind of a rubber band effect there. No, it's fascinating, fascinating political science research. I can't take credit for it, but I think it's one of the more interesting findings I've seen in a while, which is that when there are scandals that involve candidates in our own party, it triggers this kind of defensive partisanship in that it... Like they do an experiment and when there's a scandal in your own party, it actually increases the amount of hostility a voter has towards the other party, right? That we circle the wagons. We defend our own team. I think you see this happening in both Ken Paxton and Graham Platner's case. I think if anything, it's like hardening support for Graham Platner in Maine among Democrats who. you know, were really inspired by the early stages of his candidacy and saw a lot of themselves in him. They sort of take him under their wing and say, no, like, this is, this is unfair and get even more supportive of him. And I mean, I think that's a super interesting finding and speaks to the fact that. you know, the stakes, the existential stakes become even higher. And so, sure, yeah, of course, if you see the other side as an existential threat to the country, then it's not actually that surprising. It might be sad. It's not actually that surprising that you see people really circling the wagons and saying, nope, doesn't matter. what my guy did or what supposedly he did, right? Because you're also more willing to believe that the other side just made it up or that, you know, it's a hit job or things like that. These are the things you hear a lot. So I think you do get this defensive partisanship. Thank you for listening to On Deadline, your radio news from Odyssey. On Deadline is written and produced by me, Christy Strausser, and by Lauren Barry. Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.

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