Guy Benson ShowNovember 4, 20252h 3m

Guy’s Elections Scenarios

Showing mention at 36:58 — highlighted below

Transcript

285 segments
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It is Tuesday, November 4th, 2025 Election Day here on Guy Benson. I'm Guy Benson, your host, a Fox News contributor. And we are here together for the next three hours over the course of today's program. It's a big one because of the elections taking place across the country. Some more significant than others. We have a very significant lineup today packed in over these three hours, starting later in our first hour with Senator Marsha Blackburn. Republican of Tennessee. Josh Krasauer will also be our guest. Fox News radio political analyst looking forward to getting his take ahead of tonight and all the outcomes that we will see all the votes being tallied. What does Josh expect? What is he looking for tonight? John Reed is running for lieutenant governor. He's on the statewide Republican ticket in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We'll get an update from him on what he's seeing and hearing on the ground. Congressman Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, will weigh in on the New York City mayor's race, which of course is today. Plus the government shutdown. What is it? Day 34, almost the longest government shutdown ever. We'll get... the very latest from Congressman Mike Lawler. And then a bit of a treat for me as a baseball fan, what a world series it was. Huge ratings came in for game seven as a lot of Americans' imagination collectively captured by that spectacle with the Blue Jays and the Dodgers going extra innings. What a game it was, what a series it was. Jeff Passon. MLB Insider at ESPN. He covered the World Series. He's covered many of them. He will be here to talk about that toward the end of the show. So that is all on deck over these next couple hours as this show unfolds. I want to start by just giving you some overall thoughts on Election Day heading into a number of these races. I know we've talked quite a lot about New York, New Jersey, and Virginia. Those are the biggest races. Yes, there's California with Proposition 50, which I think is unfortunately very likely to pass. That is a very blue state, a state that hates Trump. a state that poured tons of money and deceptive messaging into a referendum on partisan Republicans and Trump, and Gavin Newsom's trying to burnish his credentials to run for president. That's what that's about. So barring some sort of miracle, I expect Prop 50 to pass, which could have additional effects around the country reverberating as other states, redder states, might decide to respond in kind.

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There have been threats of that sort of thing. Some Republicans have been reluctant to change the district lines mid-census, like mid-decade. But if California is going to engage in this sort of thing, and if the Democrats are going to play really dirty politics or try to in a place like Virginia, you might see some spines stiffened. among Republicans elsewhere, saying, okay, if we're all just playing for keeps now, we're going for maximal power back and forth, fighting them, you can't bring like a half-assed effort to a fight if the other side is really determined to squeeze every ounce of power that they can get out of the system. I don't think it's a healthy thing for the country overall, but what happens in California, I think, will have implications elsewhere tonight. But let's focus on the big races that we've been talking about. What do I think is likely to happen? So I've kind of came up with a couple, or come up rather, with a couple scenarios in my head. I think there is a best case scenario for Republicans. And I hope to be proven wrong, by the way. Maybe there's an even better case scenario that I don't think is realistic, but voters could have other ideas, right? But I'm just giving you within the realm of what I think is likely. There's a best case, a middle case, and a worst case. The best case scenario in my mind is in New Jersey, Jack Ciattarelli pulls a narrow upset. and beats Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominee. She has been unimpressive, really from the jump. She's uninspiring. I think she has some ethical issues. She's made the whole campaign seemingly about Trump, some wild attacks on Jack Ciattarelli claiming that he killed tens of thousands of people. I mean, just like really over the top. He has been energetic. He's been impressive. I think he represents New Jersey. very well and he has been everywhere he has worked so hard i've been impressed with him now is that enough to overcome some of the headwinds that he'll be facing as a republican in a blue state in what historically would be a blue year i don't know But both parties acknowledge, even the New York Times is writing about this, both parties are treating this race as, quote, highly competitive. The race has tightened considerably in recent days, the Times reports. I've heard from people on the ground in New Jersey, people who were involved in the campaign saying that Jack Ciattarelli was cresting at the right moment, tons of momentum and enthusiasm. But we know that Democrats have built a sizable lead in the early voting and the mail voting. So it's going to take a gigantic turnout today among Republicans who often tend to prefer to vote on election day. There are some indications that there's a really good turnout and that proportionally Republican turnout is up and Democrat turnout is down in parts of the state, key parts of the state. But again, a lot of that is just trying to squint and see something.

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As we wait for hard data and numbers to come in later tonight, there were some bomb threats apparently called in to some polling places around the state. And I think that whoever is responsible, you could see it as an effort to suppress the Republican vote. Election day voting tends to be more of a Republican phenomenon. And the New York Post noting, as I quote here, several New Jersey polling sites have been closed and the voting locations moved on Election Day following bomb threats in at least seven counties, including heavily Republican areas, officials said. So, I mean, I think it's just a civic duty for everyone to make sure that they get their votes in. But if they're changing locations. In some cases, or they're like pausing the in-person election day voting because of these threats. I mean, that is, I know we talk about threats to democracy. I think bomb threats to polling sites on a key day for especially Republican turnout, would that qualify as a threat to democracy? Not sure who's responsible. I hope that whoever it is is caught and severely punished. But if you are a voter in New Jersey, you cannot be deterred. I am confident. That this is just fear tactics. You've got to vote. You've got to vote. The only way my best case scenario plays out with a narrow victory eeked out by Jack Ciattarelli is really, really strong Republican turnout today and a really good showing by Jack among independents. Democrats still have such. an advantage in the state of New Jersey in terms of voter registration. But there's at least in my mind a path for Jack Ciattarelli. So him winning, I think winsome series is likely to lose to Abigail Spanberger in Virginia. I don't know that's going to happen. You should still vote. I voted. I voted early. But the polling suggests that it's mid to high single digits, maybe into double digits. If there's a scenario, and I'll talk about this in a little bit, where Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat, wins by double digits, I think that has implications down ballot as well. But if it's relatively close or closer than that, that would bring me to number two or step two of the best case scenario here that I at least have in mind, which is Jason Mierrez, the Attorney General in Virginia, holding on to his seat and being reelected over this sociopath. Jay Jones, the murder fantasy guy, right? He was recently convicted of breaking the law who wants to be the attorney general in this state. The polls are so close in that race. Miaris leads in most of them. There's one or two polls, one out yesterday, showing a last minute surge for Jay Jones. I saw one analyst of the poll saying it looks like Democratic voters are getting sort of like a bump of enthusiasm to vote for Jay Jones, the guy who wants to murder Republicans and their kids. I mean, if that's not motivation for Republicans to get out and reasonably minded decent people across the spectrum to deny that office to that man, I don't know what it would take. But while Miaris might be slightly ahead in the polling average,

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You know, I think it depends on what happens at the top of the ticket and, of course, turn out and who's actually showing up today. So in the best case scenario, which I think is realistic here, Miaras wins. And then maybe the best case scenario in New York, in New York City is Zohran Mamdani winning, but clearly under 50% and maybe not by that impressive of a margin. where it's hard to make a case for some mandate for his big socialist project. But, I mean, I don't think it is realistic to see a loss from Maldani. I don't. Would I be thrilled to be proven wrong about that or the governor's race in Virginia? Yeah. I'm just trying to give you analysis, not wishcasting, but what I think is realistic. Now, the middle category, the middle maybe. series of possible outcomes that I think about would be Democrats sweeping, basically across the board, except for Jason Miaris. Miaris hangs on and wins, A.G. in Virginia. Jack Ciattarelli puts up a hell of fight in New Jersey, but falls short, again, just barely. And the rest of the ticket wins in Virginia. Zohran Mamdani wins maybe in the ballpark of, you know, 50%. That's the middle scenario. That might be the most realistic one in my mind. Then there's a worst case scenario, which is just a straight-up Democrat sweep. They easily pass Prop 50 in California. Zohran Mamdani wins and it's not really close and he gets a majority in New York City. Mikie Sherrill gets a relatively early call in New Jersey. Jack Ciattarelli, impressive guy, but... Both Virginia and New Jersey, these electorates traditionally historically move against the party that is in the White House that just won the previous presidential election. That's what happens almost every time. So history is on the Democrat side. So I could see very much a scenario where Cheryl, underwhelming as she is, rides the anti-Trump message to become the governor of New Jersey, and they just continue with more of the same, which a lot of New Jerseyans are sick of, but it's an off-year election. Democrats are, it seems to be the high performance in terms of high-propensity voting party these days. So it's a sweep across the board, including in Virginia, where yes, even Jay Jones wins under this worst-case scenario. And the fact that there were a few polls just in the last 2448 hours showing Jay Jones pulling closer to Miyares or even in one poll I saw ahead. Again, if Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat at the top of that ticket, if she wins by double digits, that might be enough of just, you know, party line Democrats saying, oh, well. Either we love Jay Jones and his murderous threats, like there's certainly an element of the party that's all about that thinks it's fantastic. Others saying, well, I don't really love that, but he's apologized and, well, it's better than a Republican. Or, gosh, Trump, which is the whole theme of the Jay Jones ads.

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So I think even though Miaris might be slightly favored in the race, I absolutely, especially if this one gets away from Winsome Earle-Sears in a big way, and Abigail Spanberger racks up a double-digit victory, I think just that tide might sweep Jay Jones into office as well, which would be a very, very dark and disturbing thing, given everything we know about that man. That's the worst case scenario, but a realistic worst case scenario in my mind. So we'll see, right? That's just some preliminary analysis from yours truly. There's a lot of squawking on social media. I'm getting texts from people saying, oh, I'm hearing this. I'm seeing that. Oh, the weather here is good. So that's a good sign for whomever. I mean, I think a lot of that is just jitters. You get this every election day where people. are just frantically looking for anything to fill the hours until we know something. And you don't really know anything until we get those results. That's always the case. There was a Washington Post story. Mary Catherine Hamm pointed this out to me. She texted me yesterday. A Washington Post story where the headline said that Democrats look to be overperforming in terms of a lot of their early voting metrics. That was the headline of the story out of Virginia. And then if you read the actual text of the story itself, there are so many data points that actually said the opposite. It's like, well, actually, Republicans are doing better than they have before in all of these ways. And quoting experts saying, well, you know, maybe the Republicans are doing a lot better than we expected in a certain respects. And, you know, maybe the Democrats are right to be a little nervous about what we're saying. It's a complete, like, divorced story from the headline in a lot of ways. So that's confusing. Like, you know, I saw some data suggesting that Democrats are doing better in the early voting than they were last year, 2024, in New Jersey and Virginia. So that'd be building up a really big firewall that would need to be, you know, breached, overcome by Republican turnout and big independent support on Election Day itself today. You know, that makes sense. But the truth is, we don't know what we don't know. And what we do know, quote unquote, is shoddy and sort of conjecture at best. So rather than make big predictions or feed you certain cherry pick data points to say, oh, spirits high, go vote. I just don't know. What I do know is you should vote. If there's an election where you live, not just in the states or the places I've just mentioned anywhere. Local races in places like Washington State and North Carolina, judicial elections in Pennsylvania. There are other really important elections around the country. You live in a free country. People have fought and died for your right to vote and chart our collective course together. We do that at the ballot box. Please do it right now if you haven't already. And then tomorrow, thank goodness, this will be over, and we can talk through what actually happen and what it means and what it doesn't mean and what it means for 2026, if anything. I think you can often read deeply into off-year elections. Some of that probably has some merit, but events change, right? Next year is a much bigger election all across the country.

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But we'll get the first taste of the political environment post-20204 in a significant sense tonight with full analysis here on Guy Benson tomorrow. So a couple scenarios plus an urging to go vote on election day. It is Guy Benson just underway. Please stay tuned. New talk for a new generation, Guy Benson. Across the country, United Health Group is working with local partners to build healthier communities every day. That includes helping partners like the Goodacre provide 45,000 meals and lower A1C in the Twin Cities. And helping Hello Family Dool Us deliver 44% fewer underweight births in Spartanburg. Because building healthier communities starts by giving people access to the care and services they need to live healthier lives. Learn more. at UnitedHealthgroup.com slash commitment. I'm Guy Benson. We're back with the Fox News Alert. Any Americans woke up today to the news that former Vice President Dick Cheney has passed away. He was 84 years old. He had heart problems throughout much of his adult life, but lived to a pretty old age, thank goodness. And, of course, his family is grieving. Our hearts go out to them. He leaves behind a complicated legacy, but a consequential one. He was vice president, a very powerful, influential one during a very important time in modern American history, especially after 9-11. And the decisions that he helped make for the country will be debated and discussed for a long time. Dick Cheney, dead at the age of 84. Rest in peace, Mr. Vice President. We'll be right back. They call this one Bill. Aliens? Am I on a spaceship? Affirmative bill. What's with the laser saw? An Xfinity Mobile transmission says you can cut your bill in half. Oh, your mobile bill, not me, Bill. Xfinity Internet members cut your mobile bill in half. Plus try Xfinity Mobile free for a year. No commitment. Learn more at XfinityMobile.com. Restrictions apply. Savings compares one line of Xfinity Mobile Select to comparable plans from T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T as of 32426. Taxes fees extra. $30 monthly discount limited to new mobile customers only. After 12 months, regular rates apply. Not the same talking points here, but Guy Benson. We are back here on Guy Benson. Very glad to have you along, Guy Benson.com, podcast always free. We are joined now by U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, a Republican senator. Good to have you back. Always so good to be with you. Thank you so much, Guy. Of course. So I just want to start with this. We mentioned it in the last segment. I have more to say about it probably later in the show as well. But this morning we learned about the passing of Dick Cheney.

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Vice President of the United States under President George W. Bush, he was 84 years of age. Just your thoughts on Vice President Cheney and how you are reacting to that news today. And, you know, Vice President Cheney had one of the most interesting and full careers in public service. And I always found it to be so intriguing that he was a staffer in the White House. Then he was chief of staff. in the White House. He served as a member of Congress. And when he was in Congress, he served as his own chief of staff and ran his office. And then, of course, his service to our country in so many other ways, including as vice president. He was energized by being of service. And I think that... We will all miss him. We appreciate his service, and we appreciate the legacy of service that he has left. Let's turn to current politics, current policy, Wall Street Journal's story. Headline, in Crime-Weary Memphis, your neck of the woods, Senator, many welcome the National Guard. Let's talk about crime in that city and how this lesson applies to maybe some broader questions about crime and law enforcement and battles that we're seeing across the country. And, you know, one of the things so interesting, a guy in Memphis, you have a police chief and a mayor and so many citizens that are standing up and are welcoming the 13 federal agencies and the National Guard, the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and they are thanking them every day for helping fight crime. And this summer, we started a surge with the FBI. It was incredibly successful. I had asked Kash Patel to do that. He's been true to his word to help us with Memphis. But the phase two is these 13 agencies. Now, if more cities would look at Memphis and look at what they are doing and let Memphis be the model. where people come to the table and work together. We've had nearly 2,000 arrests. You've got over 125 gang leaders that have been apprehended. You've got 85 missing children that have been rescued. You've got about 400 illegal guns that have been pulled off the street, and that is all in a month. I mean, those are startling statistics. You look at the gangbangers getting, you know, rounded up and arrested. You mentioned, what, dozens of kids who were missing have been found, safely rescued, all those illegal guns off the streets. I understand that some of these Democratic leaders, mayors, governors, whatever, think about Illinois, think about California, some of these places, their entire...

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worldview from the moment they wake up and put their feet on the floor in the morning is like, you know, what can I do to signal how much I hate Donald Trump? And if that means fighting with the feds and protecting... criminal illegal immigrants and in some ways fanning the flames against federal agents and assaults that have spiked against CBP and ICE and others. I just, I guess the politics on some level I can compute, but when you look at the results that you just talked about in a place like Memphis where there's cooperation, you don't see. some of the confrontations that get very dangerous. You get kids rescued and you get bad guys arrested. That seems like a win-win. It does seem like a win-win because it is. And in addition to all of that, our U.S. attorney, Michael Donovan, is he's got about 150 indictments on these weapons charges and federal charges. You know, you've got assault, rape, murder, all sorts of things. And they are prepping those cases for court. They are getting ready to move forward. with these cases because these individuals that have been apprehended, they want to get them to court and then they want to get them sentenced so that they are out of the neighborhoods and they're not back trying to commit crimes. The other thing you're seeing happen in Memphis is the citizens there are pushing to make certain kids are in school, that they are dealing with the truancy issues. that they have had. And then you have great organizations like the Boys and Girls Club and the YMCA and Memphis Tomorrow and Pure Academy. And they have programs where they are working with at-risk youth to make certain that these are young people that are going to have the proper mentoring. and the opportunities around them that will keep them from being recruited by a gang. And I've got legislation, the After-School Act, that Senator Cortez Mastow and I are doing. And this would be grants for organizations that have those programs in the after-school hours from 2 to 6 so that young people have somewhere to go. sports and music and mentoring and assistance with homework. And they're not going to be out on the street and be recruited by a gang because we know these gang leaders have been recruiting kids to do smash and grabs and carjackings and to carry out some of their crimes because the burden is lower at the level.

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with those kids and they don't get sentenced. They are turned back around. They go back to the gangs and go back to committing these crimes. Senator, let's turn to Washington, D.C. and the government shut down. We're now four days into the second month of this shutdown by the Democrats. They voted in the Senate, your colleague specifically. Almost every House Democrat, I think all but one, voted to shut down the government. But in the House, the Clean CR passed, pinged over to the Senate. A bipartisan majority supports that bill. including the Republicans and a handful of Democrats, but just not enough to get to 60 votes to overcome this filibuster that the Democrats have now been waging week after week after week, roughly 15 votes they've held to keep this government shut down. They are simultaneously bragging that this is their leverage while also screaming about the negative impacts of their own shutdown. It's something that makes very little sense to me. They feel like politically, I guess they have to do it. There's a story in the Hill about how Senate Democrats are now divided about cutting a deal to end the shutdown, which might start with the CR and then a move to some votes on health care that they're talking about. Do you see any end in sight? Have you heard any of the scuttlebutt about how Democrats might? look to tonight and say, oh, look, we won some elections. You know, we've won. It's the longest shutdown ever. All right, let's reopen the government. That's at least one of the theories. Well, and that is the predominant theory at this point. You've got some of the Democrats that really have become quite embarrassed by their left flank and Chuck Schumer and how they've handled this and the callous nature with which some of them have spoken about they know people are suffering because they're not getting paychecks. They're not getting SNAP benefits. The AFGE, the largest federal employee union, is against the Democrats on this. They're siding with Republicans, so is the air traffic controllers. And so the Democrats are beginning to feel the pressure. And they wanted to get past No Kings Day. Then they wanted to get past November 1st. And now they're saying they want to get past the elections. What we are hearing is that there is a group of them that have told Chuck Schumer that now they want to go ahead, reopen the government. And you mentioned the Obamacare and those subsidies. One of the things that has been of such interest to me, this is so misleading what they're saying. They're saying the Obamacare subsidies will expire. Well, Obamacare subsidies are permanent.

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But what happened was in 21 under Joe Biden, there was the bonus COVID credit, the Biden bonus COVID credit that Biden put in place. And it allowed a lot of zero dollar premiums and took off the income caps. So somebody could be making a half million dollars a year in salary and still get. an Obamacare COVID credit to buy their insurance. So therefore, the taxpayer was paying 80 or 90% of that wealthy person's insurance, and they were paying a small part. But the Democrats see keeping those Biden COVID credit bonuses as a way to get more people into Obamacare. And Guy, as you know, the Democrats have always said Obamacare is a step. on the road to government-controlled health care. That's what they want. Some of them, this is how it always works, right? Some of them say, yes, this is an important step towards single-payer government-run health care, like the failures that we see in the UK and Canada. Others insist, no, no, that's not it at all. This is the Affordable Care Act, and this is all we're doing. It kind of depends on who they're talking to and what their base looks like and what kind of voters that they're trying to convince. But just like they say, no, there's no funding for health care for illegal immigrants. What are you talking about? We're not shutting down the government to get free health care for illegal immigrants. You just find their own statements. Many of them are on the record supporting. taxpayer-funded health care for illegal immigrants. There's even in the bill that they had as their alternative to the government shutdown scenario. So there's a lot of spin all over the place. I agree with you the way that you frame this issue on Obamacare. Let's say this government gets reopened in the next couple days. I don't know if that's going to finally take place, but let's assume the madness ends and the fever breaks at some point here for the Democrats, and the government gets reopened. They're then going to say these emergency subsidies that you were just describing. They said temporary. They said emergency. They said COVID. Where taxpayers are on the hook for huge amounts of money, including for these benefits going to wealthy people. The Democrats are going to say the Republicans need to come help us bail out our failed Obamacare or else it's going to hurt all these people and it'll be their fault. And I just wonder, I mean, is that a messaging war they can win? I mean, they've kind of convinced a lot of people that this is a Republican shutdown, which is simply untrue. I don't think they're going to want to own their Obamacare failures and all the broken promises that they made when they jam that law through. Now they're trying to get Republican fingerprints.

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on propping it up, and we know the arguments that they're going to make. What's the attitude? What's the sort of temperature among your Republican colleagues in the Senate on this question? Because you know it's coming. Yeah, indeed. And we've talked about this because Obamacare is too expensive to afford. And to do this bonus, COVID-era credit is about $400 billion over 10 years. And that's your baseline on it, Guy. And it is too expensive to afford. The solution is to put choice and options out there. that the American people actually want. You know, you have couples that are having to pay for maternity insurance, and they're not going to, they're too old to have children. You don't want nuns having to pay for maternity insurance. You've got teetotlers that are having to pay for alcohol treatment, and people want something they are going to use. This is not... a workable, usable insurance product because they've tried to do one-size-fits-all, so it's too expensive to afford. So changing the choice and options are what people want to see. And one of the things that is backfiring on the Democrats is that people get their insurance notice, and then they call a navigator on this, and they say, hey, why has this gone up so much? I don't want to be paying for this, this, this, and this. I don't need it. It doesn't apply to me. And the navigator says, sorry, you got to. And people think, well, this is kind of a yucky product. I don't want this. I want something else. And so they're looking elsewhere. So I think this is backfiring on the Democrats. It is unaffordable. And let me tell you something. Tennessee was a test case for Hillary Clinton Healthcare back in the late 90s. It was a product that was so expensive. You couldn't afford it. It quadrupled in cost. And we ended up with a four-year state income tax battle over this issue. Fortunately, we defeated that state income tax. And the program... got reformed, and Tennessee became an economic powerhouse because the people of the state stood up. When I'm in Tennessee, people are saying, do not give in to the Democrats, do not put more money into health care insurance, that you might have an insurance card, you might have access to the queue, but it's hard to get access to the doctor. What we need is a different kind of health insurance product. Well, that is going to be a very, very important discussion to have in probably the days and weeks to come. And we know exactly what the Democratic playbook is going to be. And Republicans have to figure out exactly what their position is going to be and what that looks like and get on the same page because the Democrats might finally fracture on the shutdown.

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But then they'll be looking to drive a wedge on health care to paper over their own failures on that front. The Affordable Care Act that they passed with zero Republican votes said it would do all these amazing things with no downside. And, of course, we're seeing those results not come to fruition. We're seeing a lot of our predictions. Coming true, unfortunately, for the American people, and now they want Republicans to help them, and they want to blame Republicans for what they've done. That is a fight that is brewing right now. Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, our guest here on the show. Senator, appreciate your time. Thanks so much. You got it. Take care. By now. With that, we will step aside. We will come right back after this very short break. It is Guy Benson. Same issues, but with a fresh perspective. Guy Benson. With the all-new Dynasty Blueprint in EA Sports College Football 27, you can build your program by earning Dynasty points to spend on NIL, staff, and more. But the fun doesn't end at graduation. With the EA Sports MVP bundle, get College Football 27, Madden, NFL 27, plus deluxe edition rewards in both games. Make your rise with the MVP bundle, available now at EA.com. Rated E for everyone with mild lyrics, user interact, and in-game purchases, includes random items, conditions, and restrictions apply. See the link for more info.

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Back on Guy Benson, one of the pain points of this Democrat Chuck Schumer shutdown is big delays, ground stops, et cetera, at airports. FAA might have to shut down parts of U.S. airspace, which would be extremely disruptive. Major U.S. airlines have come out. asking the Democrats to end the blockade and end the shutdown, as have various government unions. The Democrats are just sticking with this, though, to show that they're fighting Trump and blaming the Republicans all along. On the subject of air travel, Fox News Alert from today, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy tweeting this just hours ago. Earlier today, a united flight from Houston to Washington, D.C. received a bomb threat. The flight landed safely at DCA. Passengers were evacuated. Law enforcement conducted a full search of the aircraft. The FAA has received the All Clear and operations have resumed. I want to thank our brave men and women in law enforcement for their quick response. Obviously scary. Seems like that was a hoax, but it was a bomb threat. Very frightening. Glad everyone's okay. But that's the second bomb threat story of the day, including the bomb threats at the polling places in New Jersey. So disconcerting to say the least, but at least that one, that issue has been put to bed at Reagan Airport. A new hour of Guy Benson up next. Josh Krasauer here on tonight's elections. Straight ahead. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha-chings from every channel, right in one spot, and turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.

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A new generation of conservative talk. Right here, right now. Fair, fun, and backed by the trusted voices and reporting resources of Fox News. Fox News. You're listening to Guy Benson. And now here's your host, Guy Benson. A new hour is here on Guy Benson on this election day. Thank you for being with us. Guy Benson.com, the online home, the podcast free every day on demand. That's Guy Benson.com or Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Fox News Alert. The Dow sliding again today, 251 points in the red, down to 47,085. That market update, sponsored by Americans for Prosperity. Just had a little meeting with them last night, actually. AFP has a mission based on timeless principles. Expanding Opportunity and Freedom for Every Single American. Join them at Americans for Prosperity.org. You can find an AFP chapter near you. They've also got a lot of exciting things in store for America 250 next year. So stay tuned for more on that. Joining us now is Josh Krasauer, Fox News Radio Political An Editor-in-Chief at Jewish Insider. Josh, good to have you back. Hey, Guy, great to be with you on this Election Day. All right, it is Election Day, and I sort of opened the show giving three scenarios that I think are plausible for Republicans' best case scenario in my mind is Jack Ciattarelli squeaking out a win in New Jersey, Miaris hanging on as AG in Virginia, and is Zohran Mamdani winning but under 50% in New York. Middle scenario is Dem sweep everything. Miaris wins, barely. And worst case scenario, very plausible is it's just a sweep. And the Democrats win, including Jay Jones, a sociopath in the AG race for Democrats in Virginia. That's sort of where my head is. I'm wondering what you are thinking, what you're seeing, what you're hearing so far. Yeah, no, I think you laid out those scenarios very nicely. Look, I think the way I would put it is the most competitive governor's race is that New Jersey governor's race, I would say Cheryl has, at least based on the public polling and the reporting I'm hearing on the ground. The Democrat has a narrow lead over Jack Ciattarelli, but that's going to be one to watch on election night. It's going to be maybe a little into the night that we get the results out of New Jersey. Virginia is going to report their results. first, I would imagine, of all the big elections. And you're right. I mean, the governor's race, most likely the lieutenant governor's race, probably heading in the Democrats' direction. But it's that we'll know early on tonight. If Jason Meera is ahead and looks like he'll win, that would be a...

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Good early sign for the Republicans. It would certainly show that the types of scandals, the political violence that Jay Jones was wishing upon his colleagues, that would be beyond the pale politically. The polling in Virginia, though, in that race has tightened in the last week or two. It's very, very close. So if the Democrat, Jay Jones does win, it does indicate that there could be a democratic wave, a sweep of some of the big races tonight. And then New York City. I mean, what are you thinking there? I mean, there's seeming like this for months, a foregone conclusion that Zohran Mamdani is going to win. I know some polls showed some late movement away from him or towards Andrew Cuomo, but, again, with three people in the race, and Zohran Mamdani, I mean, I've seen pictures of the ballot in New York City. Zohran Mamdani's name is on the top line. Under two different parties, Andrew Cuomo's name much harder to find, like bottom right-hand corner, no ID required in New York. I mean, it just seems like this thing is absolutely Zohran Mamdani's to lose. I mean, because the Zohran Mamdani opposition is split, very, very likely, unless it's a huge surprise that he's not going to win. The margin does matter, though. And look, I think the big question for me in terms of... where a lot of people who are not fans of socialism are looking, is there an anti-Montani majority? If Zohran Mamdani gets 45% of the vote, which is about where he's polling, actually, that's about the polling average. It would be a little higher now, but between 45, 46, 47, you know, if a majority votes against Zohran Mamdani, it's a sign that he may have won the election, he'll be the next mayor, but there is a majority coalition against it. If, on the other hand, there's a surge in youth turnout, a surge in progressive turnout, that he wins over 50%, closer to 55%, maybe, then that would be a big red flag about where the Democratic Party is headed and where, frankly, a lot of deep blue cities in the country could be headed in the future. So, you know, I think the margin does matter. Trump's endorsement of Andrew Cuomo, and at the last minute, I think that was very strategic. Curtis Sliwa is obviously, you know, the anti-Zohran Mamdani votes split between Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa. If Republicans at the last minute vote. hold their nose and vote Andrew Cuomo instead of Curtis Sliwa. You could see that margin. I actually think there's a good chance. You could see the margin a lot tighter than some of the public polls have indicated. But for Andrew Cuomo to really make this a race, he would have to win almost all of the Curtis Sliwa vote. And I think that's very, very hard to see happening. Do you think, and granted, admittedly, this could be like, you know, desperately... casting about for some silver linings if New York's going to elect a communist with Hamas sympathies to become mayor. But if let's say he wins with a plurality or it's a very weak majority, he's the Democratic nominee in a very blue city. And the numbers have not been that impressive in terms of his lead. It's just his opposition is split, as you mentioned. If he kind of, he gets in there, but it's not with this big sweeping mandate. Could that send maybe a false signal to the Democratic base and progressives around the country that, oh, this kind of unapologetic left-wing stuff works? And they've attacked Zohran Mamdani. They threw everything at him. But look, he won anyway. This is the way for us. This is the future for us.

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ignoring the fact, perhaps, that he didn't even win a majority in New York City, ignoring the fact that the opponents were a Republican with no chance and a scandal plague, disgraced Democrat with all sorts of baggage, splitting the vote against him. I just feel like... Clearly, if Zohran Mamdani wins, the left-wing base of the Democrats are going to be energized and electrified and very, very excited. I just wonder, might they and therefore large elements of the party draw the wrong conclusions about what is viable elsewhere in the country? Or could stuff like this become viable elsewhere in the country? Well, it's important to remember that New York City is not North Carolina, which is the swing Senate race. coming up next year. It's not Maine. It's not, you know, it's a lot different than the average swing district in the battle for the House next year. And the polling, about two, two-thirds of Democrats are voting for Zohran Mamdani. The Quinnipiac poll had it at 66%. That is his, you know, remarkably low. The one-third of Democrats are not voting from him, Donnie, in addition to a whole lot of independence and almost all Republicans. So, like, if you translate that to the main Senate race. And you only get the Democratic nominee, and if there is a left-wing guy, Graham Platner, who's got all kinds of baggage, if he's the nominee and you're only getting two-thirds of your party, which when you're controversial and you have extreme views, that's not out of the question, you're going to lose almost every battleground race in the country. So if you have Zohran Mamdani's running in most races, you're going to lose, Democrats are going to get swept. New York is obviously one of the most. liberal Democratic cities in the country, and that's how you can lose a third of the Democratic vote and still win an election. But also some unique circumstances, as we've talked about. But, yeah, like, if Democrats get that lesson, if they extrapolate the unique situation in New York City and think you can win in almost any swing district or swing state in the country, they're going to get swept. And that's why, you know, you're seeing that, you know, Trump has had his challenges, his job approval rating has taken a hit lately, but the Democratic Party's image. is still at historic lows, and that's what's keeping Republicans in the game, the fact that the Democratic Party just can't get its act together and has been moving ideologically towards the left-wing extremes. Yeah, and part of the reason their approval rating and favorability rating is so low in the Democratic Party is because a lot of their own base hates them because they feel like they're losers and weak and all of that. And then it's also because more independent-minded people, swing voters think... They're crazy. And if they keep pandering to the aforementioned group, the former group, that will further alienate the latter group. So it's like it's a tough thing for them to negotiate. But, you know, midterm elections still a ways off and the economy will be number one. So that's something we're going to be talking about, Josh, next year quite a lot. Because you mentioned Maine, just very quickly on this, I know it's not an election happening today. But you and I have talked about that Senate race up in Maine. Susan Collins, the incumbent Republican running for re-election. The Democrats are trying to figure out who to run against her. You mentioned Graham Platner. He's the guy with all this baggage, the Nazi tattoo, rather the calling himself a communist and all the attacks he made on.

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white rural people and police. I mean, you go down the whole list. I had heard that there were more shoes to drop with this guy, but he's become a darling of the left, sort of in the mold of Zohran Mamdani. And a lot of the base is just throwing money at him, and he's done well in a lot of the polling. And they're like, oh, the more the establishment attacks him, the more we like him, at least internally, over the last couple of weeks, he retooled his whole campaign. There was a big reshuffle. And since the reshuffle, I think it's now four high-level senior staffers have now resigned again. So there's a new reshuffle because all these people keep leaving. I mean, it seems like something of an implosion, but at the same time, could it weirdly help him with the base? Yeah, look, I think a lot of the reporters that have gone to Maine and tried to figure out what's going on in that race often miss – don't distinguish the primary electorate and the general electorate. It's very, very clear that among Democrats, among people who don't like Donald Trump, who are very anti-Trump, that Flider has not lost a whole lot of support. Though I think it's still a little bit unclear. There is some polling that I've heard and seen after the Nazi tattoo stories have come out showing he has lost. quite a bit of altitude among Democrats. But TBD, and I'm willing to believe that he still, as a lot of reporters have concluded, still has a lot of support with the Democratic base, even against the state's sitting governor. The problem is that general electorates, swing voters, and a lot of them in Maine, are not the same as base voters, primary voters. And we haven't seen any polling of the general election since all these scandals hit. My guess would be that there is a critical mass of swing voters that Susan Collins, by the way, has done very well in her political career with those. swing voters, independents, even some moderate Democrats. And I would think that when you spend money to litigate the platinum baggage in a general election with moderate voters, that is going to be very damaging. That's like the 5% you need to win. The Zohran Mamdani question statewide in a contested Senate seat. That's why I raised it in this context. Josh Krasauer, thanks so much for your time as always. Thanks, Guy. We talked about Virginia, one of those candidates joining us coming up. Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts. Why did I search the internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Health care just got less painful. I'm Guy Benson. We are back with a factor follow-up, a disturbing story that we mentioned a few days ago, some more details coming out. ABC News with the headline, two U.S. citizens arrested in alleged ISIS-inspired Halloween plot. according to the DOJ. The men allegedly used the term pumpkin day ahead of the planned attack. Two men were arrested on Friday for allegedly plotting an ISIS-inspired Halloween attack in Michigan, according to court records, unsealed on Monday. The men allegedly used the term pumpkin day for their plans, according to the complaint. Attorney General Pam Bondi thanked the FBI for stopping the plot, quote, before innocent lives were lost.

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Mohmed Ali and Majad Mahmoud, both U.S. citizens, allegedly bought a shotgun, an AR-15-style rifle and a forced reset trigger that allows a shooter to increase the rate of fire in a semi-automatic weapon, according to the documents. The man and three other co-conspirators, this was a cell. Make no mistake. This was a terrorist-Islamist cell in Michigan, in Dearborn. So five of them. The men and three other co-conspirators allegedly practiced shooting guns at firing ranges around Michigan, according to the complaint, and allegedly drove around to outside locations to practice their shooting. The DOJ also alleges that in other terrorist attacks, the perpetrators had practiced shooting with fireworks beforehand. They allegedly used online encrypted communications and social media applications to share extremists and ISIS-related materials that encourage similar attacks elsewhere. In searching homes on Friday, FBI agents found multiple AR-15-style rifles, shotguns, handguns, tactical vests, as well as more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition compatible with AR-15-style rifles. The FBI was first alerted to the men after a 2024 review of one of the unnamed co-conspirators' phones. When that person returned to the U.S., a customs and border patrol officer searched the phone and found Google searches related to ISIS and the Islamic State and pictures of what appeared to be the co-conspirator in military-style clothing with weapons, the document said. By the way, you have leftist running around. threatening border patrol officers, gang members putting hits out on them. This is some of the important work that they are doing, saving lives, keeping us safe. While the co-conspirator was traveling abroad, Ali and Mahmood participated in a group called discussing traveling overseas to join co-conspirator number one and then later traveling together to Syria to join ISIS. That is when, according to DOJ, the men said they were going to stay in the U.S. to do the same thing as France, referencing the 2015 ISIS attack in Paris. Listen to this. Later in the conversation, the men allegedly referenced a potential attack at a club or disco referencing the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, which ISIS claimed responsibility for. That, of course, was a gay club in Orlando, Florida. where a bunch of people were shot and killed and wounded by an Islamist pledging his allegiance. Again, that was back, what, nine years ago, to ISIS. It appears that they were looking to that incident as inspiration, potentially, and Fox News.com had a story about this just a few hours ago, targeting the LGBT community in the Detroit area. Islamism and tolerance for gay people, those things do not mix. Like violent extreme Islamism, look at those societies, look at even the governments in those places and the laws, let alone what terrorists do. Are you paying attention queers for Hamas or whatever you call yourselves? Are you paying attention or do you not care? They probably don't even know about this, honestly.

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On October 17th, Ali allegedly told an unnamed individual, we've got some new plans for real, for real, and urged that person to learn how to shoot. The next day, Ali allegedly said he would hold a meeting to discuss how to move ahead with the alleged plan. On October 24th, the unnamed person in the indictment said to Ali, quote, I talk to my brothers, we are going to do pumpkin, document said. A reference to Halloween. The plan was to go murder a bunch of Americans in Michigan on Halloween, quite possibly at some sort of gay club or bar, drawing inspiration from both ISIS and the ISIS-linked Pulse Night Club attack. This, by the way, separate from another ISIS- or Islamist-terrorist-inspired plot. in Michigan that was uncovered just a few months ago. In a state in a community where death to America was chanted in the streets at a rally last year, which was met with largely silence from a lot of the leadership in the state who were looking to win those votes. The ideology that attacked us on 9-11 decades ago. The ideology that champions globalize the Intifada today and sides with Hamas, it is very much alive and well around the world, including in this country. And it's a threat that requires vigilance. Thank God that the FBI was on this and that Border Patrol actually had a role in this as well. And these are not terrorists crossing the border. These were homegrown in our own communities, U.S. citizens, at least in this case. as we learn more about a very disturbing, would-be incident that was, thank God, for it. More of Guy Benson coming up. Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at Fox Newswineshop.com with code FN Radio 20. 20%. 20% discount excludes wine club offers and cannot be combined with any other promotion. Expires July 31st, 2026. Must be 21 order to order. Please drink responsibly.

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Guy Benson, sponsored by Previgin. Previgin, made for your brain. Halfway through Guy Benson on this Tuesday, thank you for tuning in. I was up very early this morning, preparing for Fox and Friends, and the topic was going to be the shutdown and the elections, and sitting in the chair ready to go, minutes, like two or three minutes from the hit time, we got the Fox News alert on air. that Dick Cheney had passed away at the age of 84, the former vice president, who really had a distinguished career, member of Congress, White House Chief of Staff, Defense Secretary, Vice President of the United States. And there are many things to say about Cheney. I shared a number of my own thoughts on Fox and Friends in that coverage, and I tweeted some of the clips as we were covering that breaking news. One of the things that popped into my head was Cheney being a very solid, reassuring presence on the campaign trail in particular. And he was not a flashy person. He did not have a classic form of political charisma. But he did have a level of seriousness and authority in Gravitas. That was part of the reason why he was selected by President Bush to be his running mate in 2000. And I think in many ways, Cheney served Bush well. Now, there will be lots of debates about Cheney's legacy, the Iraq War, post-9-11 policies, all of that. And it's a mixed bag. They kept us safe against seemingly all odds. We thought it was an inevitability. after 9-11 that we were going to get hit again in a big way. Did not happen. And a lot of people worked very hard and did some very difficult things to make that the case. But Iraq, the treasure and blood lost in those deserts. The nation building, right? It's a mixed legacy politically, geopolitically, no question. But Cheney was influential. He was a giant in American politics for years. And even though he was not, as I said, overly, overtly charismatic, he did have a colorful side, part of which we got a glimpse of. Back in 2004, so 21 years ago, and I brought this up in our interview as we were rolling with this news that had just broken moments prior, I was reminded of a column written in 2004 by our late, great, dearly missed colleague Charles Crowdhammer. Crowdhammer wrote a column inspired by Cheney and an incident that occurred on the Senate floor. And I made reference to this piece on the air. It was something that occurred to me in the moment. And then after I was off the year, I went back, found the column, and reread it for myself with great enjoyment. And I actually mentioned this column after Krauthammer passed away, those now multiple years ago. I read a piece of it on the air, if I'm not mistaken.

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And if this is an excuse for me to read Dr. Krauthammer, doing what he did best in a lot of ways, with a twinkle in his eye, based on an incident involving the newly departed Vice President Cheney, I suspect that Dr. Crouthammer would approve of that, and that Vice President Cheney would approve of that as well. So without further ado... Here is July 1st, 2004, a column in the Washington Post syndicated by Charles Crodhammer entitled, In Defense of the F word. You might be hearing this for the very first time. You might remember when I read some of this. Those years ago when Crowdhammer died, either way, you're in for a treat. Quoting now, I am sure there's a special place in heaven reserved for those who have never used the F word. I will never get near that place. writes Crowdhammer. Nor apparently will Dick Cheney. Washington is a buzz with the latest political contratoms. Cheney, taking offense at Senator Pat Leahy's imputation of improper vice presidential conduct regarding Halliburton contracts in Iraq, let the senator know as much during a picture-taking ceremony on the floor of the Senate. The F-word was used. Washington is scandalized. By the way, just an aside from me, doesn't this feel like a bygone era? Just the beginning of this setup? Back to Crowdhammer. The newspapers were full of it. Lamentations were heard on the decline of civility. The Post gave special gravitas to the occasion, spelling out the full four letters, something that it had done only three times previously. Democrats feeling darned outrage demanded apologies. The vice president remained defiant, offering but the coyest concession that he, quote, probably cursed, coupled with satisfaction, quote, I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it. The Federal Communications Commission just last year decreed that the F word could be used as an adjective but not as a verb. Alas, this Salomonic verdict, fodder for a dozen PhD dissertations, was recently overturned. It would not get Cheney off the hook anyway. By all accounts, he deployed the pungent verb form, in effect a suggestion as to how the good senator from Vermont might amuse himself. Flood the zone coverage by investigative reporters has not, however, quite resolved the issue of which of the two preferred forms passed Cheney's lips. The priceless two-worder, verb U, or the more expansive three-worder, a directive that begins with go. Though I myself impartial to the longer version, I admit that each formulation has its virtues. The deuce. is the preferred usage when time is short and concision is of the essence. Enjoying the benefits of economy, it is especially useful in emergencies. This is why it is a favorite of major league managers going nose to nose with umpires. They know that they only have a few seconds before getting tossed out of the game, and as a result, television viewers have for years delighted in the moment the two-worder is hurled right on camera. No need for sound. The deuce was made for lip reading.

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Which makes it excellent for drive-by information conveyance. When some jerk tailgator rides my bumper in heavy traffic, honking his horn before, honking his horn before passing and cutting me off, I do a turn to the left, eyeball to eyeball, through the driver's window, two-worder, mouthed slowly with exaggerated lip movements. No interlocutor has yet missed my meaning, Crowdhammer writes. Nonetheless, while the two-worder has the directness of a dagger, the three-worder has the elegance of a wide-arched saber slice. It is more musical and being more clearly spelled out more comprehensible to the non-English speaker, a boon in major urban areas. It consists of a straightforward directive containing both a subject and an object, charmingly the same person. The column goes on. It's so well written. It is playful. It is amusing. Years later in 2008, Cheney was asked by our former colleague, Chris Wallace, on Fox News Sunday, if that really happened, that alleged incident on the Senate floor. Cut 28. Did you really tell Senator Leahy bleep yourself? I did. Any qualms or second thoughts or embarrassment? No, I thought he merited at the time. Very straightforward. He said it. He meant it. He stood by it. There are many things to say about Dick Cheney on the occasion of his passing. This little vignette felt appropriate. And as I said, I think Dr. Krauthammer and the former vice president would agree. Guy Benson returns after this break. America is listening to Guy Benson.

1:08:27

Back on Guy Benson, glad you are listening. It's Election Day in a couple of key places around the country. If you have not done so already, please vote. Well, speaking of an election, here in Virginia, we have with us the Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor in the Commonwealth of Virginia. John Reed is back on the program. John, welcome. Thanks, Guy. We're counting down the hours. I've been to probably nine precincts already, and people are in a good mood, and it's great weather, and I think the turnout may, you know, do this in our favor. I'm hoping. So what are you hearing? Because I have gotten all sorts of conflicting reports, and you get this on election days, right? Always. People are wanting to grab onto any little tiny anecdote or piece of data because people are desperate for information as this waiting game can be really exhausting and nerve-wracking. And so, you know, people will cling to that sort of thing. But there have been experts or at least really veteran political observers that I've seen. on both sides of the island, Virginia, saying, you know, some of this stuff looks really good for the Democrats. Or, you know, these patterns over here compared to 2024 or 2021 are looking actually quite strong for the Republicans. It's kind of hard to cut through the noise and figure out what is real. I know that you have a great invested interest in the race, obviously, as you're on the ballot. But. Based on your team and the state team for the Republicans and the metrics that you've been trying to achieve, is there anything you can tell us up to this point that gives you pause or gives you optimism, fill in the blank? Well, the optimism is that we've had two weeks of really good polling. In my race in particular, it's been tied in one poll. I was a little ahead. One poll, my opponent was a little ahead. And that's been consistent. So with a 7% undecided, it's how you get those people to show up and break in your favor, what rhetoric you use, what issues you talk about that'll move them. Winsoms close the gap. And then depending on which poll you're looking at, She's running for governor, so that gets a lot of attention. We've just got to turn out that Southwest Virginia vote that supported President Trump. and make sure that they show up today. And, you know, he had a Teletown Hall last night. I hope that's going to move some people. You know, after seeing Charlie Kirk assassinated and after all the death threats against our members of the House of Delegates, death threats against me, and the Jay Jones text scandal where he said that he'd be fine with people getting bullets to the head and their kids getting killed, I think that should motivate.

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any decent person in a red part of the state to show up, I would hope. So anecdotally, I've been in northern Virginia, which doesn't traditionally vote Republican, and this is going to sound silly, but people have been very, very polite to me. And compared to a couple of months ago, when the F word was being thrown around pretty significantly, I feel like maybe this is a good sign that the hostility has died, at least amongst some of the folks. I mean, you still got the TDS crowd, but that's not going away. It is disturbing to me, and I've mentioned this a few times, because you brought up the AG race. Jason Miaras, your running mate, is up for re-election as the attorney general. Democrat Jay Jones, as you noted, and we had Governor Glenn Youngkin here yesterday talking about it, said he wanted to put two bullets in the head of the Republican Speaker of the House and also murder his kids. He reportedly said something similar about wishing death upon cops. He also has a conviction recently on his record, and there are questions about whether he appropriately actually fulfilled his own sentence for that crime. It is disturbing to me, John, that that race is even close. I mean, the poll suggests that it is a toss-up. I understand it's a polarized time, and we live in a very partisan age. But I guess I just have to hope that some degree of decency still has enough hold in a place like Virginia among the electorate where... that kind of behavior is rejected by voters. But at least right now, that is very much an open question, which is why I think it's so important that anyone listening to me in Virginia who hasn't gone to vote yet goes and participates. Do whatever you want, vote however you want. But to me, especially in that race, the fact that Jay Jones is hanging around and has a chance to win, I'm just sort of astonished. It's a pretty devastating indictment of the culture if Jay Jones somehow pulls this out or even remains close to Jason Mierrez. We're living in a society where you lose your job if you don't use someone's pronouns correctly or you tell an off-color, you know, sexist joke. You'll be out of your workplace really quickly. But then this guy who's running to be the top cop in Virginia. can talk about murdering people and being fine with cops getting killed and no one really sees that as a disqualifier because he's a Democrat. I'm astonished by it too, and I'm just hoping that the decent people of Virginia who aren't on the blue team are going to say this is too far, too much, and they're going to certainly vote for Jason. I hope they'll send a message to the Democrats. across the board by voting Republican from the top of the ticket down to dog catcher. In your race, your opponent, I saw some images at a debate where she didn't show up. You were like debating an empty chair or like an AI version of her or something. What was that all about? And why does a lieutenant governor race matter in a place like Virginia?

1:14:45

Well, it wouldn't matter if the state Senate, which only has 40 seats, was like 3010, because then you probably wouldn't be casting a lot of tie-breaking votes. But we've got 40 seats, and it's 2119 in favor of the Democrats at the moment. So for Republicans, this is the only Senate seat that is up this year, essentially, and it's going to matter because it's likely that we can pull one reasonable Democrat and tie it up. the lieutenant governor is going to make the tie-vote, tie-breaking vote, on some really, really key issues. And, you know, Gazala Hashmi, my opponent, for 125 days, she. rejected any efforts to have a public appearance with me, a debate with me. I offered to do 10 of them. We even agreed to do national public radio in D.C., and she turned that down. I mean, how much more can I rig it in her favor? So I wasn't going to allow her to deny me the headlines or the ability to speak to the people of Virginia. So I hired a producer and produced my own debate, and the only way that she could be represented was by artificial intelligence. We didn't rig it. We used her real quotations. They were all cited and referenced. I didn't make her look stupid or any more dumb than she normally does. And I thought it was a really interesting experiment. It was the first one in the world, supposedly. And anybody who watches it, I hope they think that I was pretty fair about it and that on my own I came across pretty well. It was unscripted, no teleprompter, no advance notice to me. I did it. walking in off the street in one take, and I thought I held up pretty good. Yeah, and this was something, of course, she was unwilling to do. I know Abigail Spanberger, who's at the top of the ticket, said that if you're unwilling to debate, you shouldn't be running for office. That's something that she said in the past. I wonder if she would apply that to one of her running mates. We know that she has refused to unendorse the other running mate who's fantasizing about murdering Republican children. So that's the state of the Democratic ticket. in Virginia. If you have a problem with that, if you feel like things have been going actually pretty well under the Glenn Youngkin administration, there's a way to make your voice heard, which is to vote. There's only a few hours left in the Commonwealth. Big election here. Some headwinds nationally, of course, but we shall see what happens. John Reed is the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in that race, our guest here on Guy Benson. John, appreciate it. We'll see what happens tonight. All right. Thanks so much, Guy. I really appreciate the chance to be on with you. Absolutely. Straight ahead. The final hour of Guy Benson will talk about the mayor's race in New York City plus the government shutdown with Congressman Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, really good important conversation upcoming. You don't want to miss it. Keep it here.

1:17:48

Raise your glass to Guy Benson Happy Hour. Brought to you by the Finnish Long Drink. Finland's most popular alcoholic beverage is taking America by storm. Visit thelongdrink.com. And now, here's Guy Benson. Time for the happy hour here on Guy Benson, our Tuesday edition, Election Day. Thank you very much for tuning in, Guy Benson.com. Podcast is free every day when the program ends in just about an hour. That's Guy Benson.com or Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcast. You can reach us, GBSS at Fox.com. gbs at fox.com or follow us at Guy Benson twitter instagram facebook you can follow me personally Guy Benson this radio hour sponsored by the finish long drink great sponsors of ours i'm a big fan of theirs many of you are as well please drink responsibly always 21 plus only the long drink dot com Well, joining us now is Congressman Mike Lawler representing the 17th District of New York. It's a swing district. He is a Republican. Congressman, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me, Guy. All right. It is Election Day in New York City. I want to get to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. in a moment. But first, let's just talk about what's happening right now in the Big Apple. I know you've been following the mayor's race extremely closely. It is significant for the entire state of New York. I think it is significant for the entire country as well. I know some listeners probably feel like there's been undue attention paid to one local election in one city, albeit... our largest city, most populous city. There are other mayoral elections happening in places like Seattle and beyond, of course. But I do think the leadership of New York is significant nationwide. If you agree with me, what's your case to people living anywhere but New York, why they should be paying attention? Well, as we've seen, you know, what happens in New York, what happens in California does not stay in these locations. And in fact, you know, you've seen since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's ascension in 2018 arise in the number of socialist candidates running for public office and actually winning, especially in major cities. Zohran Mamdani got elected in 2020 in the underlying Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's district to a state assembly race. And so what you've seen is, you know, a very methodical approach over the last, you know, eight years or so in which, you know, these folks have sought to build the socialist movement, especially in cities like New York. And the fact that he is on the precipice of becoming mayor.

1:20:45

is not good, both from a New York standpoint. I think it's disastrous for New York. But I also think it is disastrous for the country, because what you will see is they rise in the number of these candidates taking on, you know, let's say more traditional Democrats in primaries, for Congress, for state legislature, for city council, et cetera. And they're going to start winning because this is where the base of the Democratic Party is moving. And so when you have districts and cities that are heavily democratic, you're going to have more voices like this becoming the mainstream. And that is not good for the country. And so that's why this matters. That's why there's been so much attention paid to, you know, his policy positions, what he's advocating for. And it's why, you know, people are pushing back. And ultimately, New York, for better or worse, it is the financial capital of the world. And, you know, when a lot of folks around the world look to the United States, they look to New York. And so this is not good from the standpoint of our founding principles, the values that, you know, really are at the underpinning of this country, are capitalist markets. which is really why America has been the leader of the free world. It's because our capitalist capital markets are the envy of the world. And yet this is all in jeopardy under a socialist mayor. You know, there are a couple of things that happened just in the last few days that I think encapsulate my concerns about Zohran Mamdani. One was the resurfacing of a quote of his on video, not in 2020 when he was a full-blown adult, by the way, this idea that those tweets and... Comments don't count somehow from five years ago. Ridiculous. But this was from just two years ago when he was already an elected member of the state legislature, he said that when NYPD's boot is on your neck, it was laced by the IDF. And then he referenced the Israelis or the Jewish states capitalist interests. in New York City and in the U.S., and it was kind of just this distillation of what he's passionate about, his hatreds, law enforcement, the Jewish state, et cetera, really fixations, obsessions. And then the second piece of it, very much in alignment with those concerns, was the fact that Jeremy Corbyn, who was chucked out... in the UK as leader of the Labor Party because of rank anti-Semitism within the Labor Party under his leadership, where he was the opposition leader there for a number of years when the conservatives were in charge, Jeremy Corbyn infamously sympathetic to terrorists, famously lay a wreath at the grave of a terrorist, and oversaw this explosion of anti-Semitism within his party. That same Jeremy Corbyn was phone banking. This is a foreigner. phone banking for Zohran Mamdani, whom he sees as, you know, a brother in solidarity, a comrade in political arms. And it just felt to me like those two examples, Congressman, exemplify the globalized the intifada mentality and the workers of the world unite mentality that may take over Gracie Mansion tomorrow or after this election.

1:24:11

No question. And that is the worldview that's over on Zohran Mamdani espouses. You know, he was asked point blank on CNN whether or not, you know, he supports capitalism. And he said no. And, you know, obviously we've seen, especially in some of these Western European democracies, a lurch towards democratic socialism. And that is what he is espousing. That is what he is advocating for. And I would venture he goes well beyond that. He has engaged in Marxist theory, his father. You listen to his father. and his teachings, it is very much rooted in Marxism and anti-American and anti-Israel bigotry and hatred. And so this is a turning point in New York as a lifelong New Yorker. It is jarring to see, especially, you know, given how vital New York has been, yes, there are challenges. Yes, there are. are differences, you know, politically from other parts of the country. But New York has still been essential to America's growth financially, as well as, you know, America's role in the world. And to see someone embrace this ideology who is so rooted in a hatred of Israel. and frankly, in a hatred of the very things that have made America great, it is deeply disconcerting. And so when he's aligning himself with world leaders who espouse similar perspectives, where he's saying things like, I will arrest the duly elected prime minister of Israel if he comes to America, it's deeply disturbing. One more point on this. Then I want to turn to the shutdown in Washington, D.C. You were just describing the worldview embraced by Zohran Mamdani. We also have to talk about the people embracing, in turn, Zohran Mamdani. And it's a lot of them, from Barack Obama to other major figures. I want to focus on Kathy Hochul. your governor in New York, who's up for re-election next year. She made the decision. She waffled out there and twisted in the wind for a while and then finally decided, well, I guess I need the base. They love the guy, so I'm going to endorse the communist, which is what she has done. And then Hakeem Jeffries, who is the House Minority Leader. I know Democrats are saying, oh, well, it's one race. He's not the face of the party. There's other people who are going to be that. He's not even a Democrat. Sorry, he's the Democrats nominee in New York City. And this is the... highest-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives from New York City who finally decided that he was going to also get on board the Zohran Mamdani train and give him his blessing. I mean, I feel like these should be and need to be live issues in the midterm campaigns in New York and beyond because Hakeem Jeffries represents a district in New York, but he's the leader of the whole party in the House at least nationwide. I don't think they can duck questions about Zohran Mamdani moving forward.

1:27:24

Oh, no, absolutely not. And, you know, there's a reason why it took Hakeem Jeffries so long to make an endorsement. And frankly, why Chuck Schumer chose not to publicly endorse and why Kathy Hochul was stumbling all over herself. They know this is a disaster. They know that having an avowed socialist who wants to seize the means of production and ban private property ownership and freeze the rent and raise taxes by $9 billion. defund the police and shut down prisons and legalized prostitution. They know that's a disaster for their party, but they are betwixt in between because they have a real problem. The far left base of their party is growing, and that's where the energy is, and that's where the primaries will be decided. And so they are making a very personal political calculation that they need to endorse him or embrace him or... at least, you know, not speak out in opposition to him and, you know, try to keep the core of their base with them or they're going to lose primaries. And Hakeem Jeffries is petrified of a primary from a city council member, COC, who is very close with Zohran Mamdani, who literally today, you know, with the news of Dick Cheney's passing, tweeted out rest in piss. You know, that's what we're dealing with here. These are the type of people, you know, associated with Zohran Mamdani. But Zohran Mamdani said today when he went to vote that he voted for himself on the working family's party line. He didn't even vote on the Democratic line for himself. So that speaks volumes to where this party is headed, where this movement is and where it's going. And he will be the face of the Democratic Party. They can try and run and hide. They can try and dismiss. They can try and diminish. But he is where the energy is on the left, and he will seize control of that party, especially in New York. And it will backfire in, you know, races like mine where I'm in the immediate suburbs of New York City. 50% of households in my district have a cop, a firefighter, a veteran living in the household. They're not going to tolerate this crap. And so, you know, this is going to be a major issue across the country in the midterm elections, but especially in the suburbs of New York City and, you know, in swing states and districts around the country. Congressman, stand by. I'm up on a break, but I want to expand the contours of this discussion from New York and the race there to the national picture, the government shutdown. You've been active in this debate. Is there an end in sight? We'll address that question with Congressman Mike Lawler of New York as soon as we come back. A fresh perspective on the topics of the day. It's Guy Benson.

1:30:17

We're back on Guy Benson. Mike Lawler, New York Congressman is our guest here on the show. Congressman, right before the break, you were talking about some of the internal dynamics within the Democratic Party. And I think, yes, they apply to electoral politics, but they also apply to another huge story going on right now. The fear of the base is, I think, the explanatory factor. Number one, for this government shutdown, 34 days, more than a month. possibly some end in sight, but it's still very unclear. This was done by Democratic leadership in particular, worried about that left flank, wanting to show fight. And there are a few things that are perplexing to me that I have put to a number of guests, including some of your colleagues. The Democrats seem like they want to score brownie points with the base. in terms of their fighting and going against Trump and this shutdown, which they call their leverage, but they also blame, with some success, by the way, based on polling, the Republicans saying, oh, well, they control everything so it's their fault, knowing full well internally in terms of the mechanics, it's a democratic shutdown. They're trying to confuse people and say, no, it's a Republican shutdown. And then they're whining about some of the negative impacts on SNAP recipients, for example, and, you know, paying the troops in this sort of thing. FAA, real concerns there with ground stops and concern about maybe having to shut down parts of airspace in the U.S. because of shortages and that kind of thing. They are highlighting these things and fulminating about them and expressing outrage over these consequences of a shutdown they are causing and could end in the Senate. Any time, right? They've had 15 chances or so to reopen the government with a clean CR. They won't do it. While blaming the other side, it's just so incoherent to me. And yet their strategy, at least politically, seems to be, while cynical, somewhat successful because the polling is not clearly blaming the Democrats for what they're doing. Well, I think you articulated this very well, Guy. I mean, this is the Chuck Schumer shutdown and in large measure because he took so much heat and incoming in March when he and seven other Democrats voted to pass the clean CR and keep the government funded through September 30th. I mean, so much so that he had to cancel his fake book tour about combating anti-Semitism. But meanwhile. You know, they basically decided that as a result of that, that they were going to shut the government down no matter what come September 30th. And so they voted 14 times now no on the clean CR that has been sitting in the Senate for nearly six weeks. I mean, it's totally insane that they have done this. They've created this crisis for the American people, hurting people. who rely on SNAP and WIC. And again, they voted 14 times to defund SNAP and WIC, no matter how much they try to spin this. They voted 14 times not to pay our troops, not to pay our air traffic controllers, not to pay our Border Patrol agents. This is a crisis that they have created. And they're going to have to find an off-ramp, you know, this week because this is really going to spiral.

1:33:37

The emergency SNAP benefits only lasts you a few weeks. They don't even cover the full month. And, you know, these are the same people saying Trump's a king. Trump's the king. Meanwhile. They want him to violate federal law. They want him to ignore the appropriations process and just pay for all of these programs that they themselves have voted not to fund. Right. They want him to do it unilaterally, which he's not allowed to do, and then calling him a king for other things. Again, the whole thing is incoherent, but they're just careening ahead with it. Part of the issue with the clean CR, this is my last question for you, Congressman, is at some point it's like running out of time, right? The clean CR would already be expiring in a matter of days. It's almost the longest shutdown in history. I think that milestone would be tomorrow, if I'm not mistaken. John Thune on the show yesterday said you might have to pass a new clean CR to... allow breathing room for an appropriations process. There are maybe some other possibilities out there in the mix that I've heard about, just rumblings at this point. How do you think this gets resolved? They're going to have to pass the current CR that runs through November 21st. And then I think very quickly, you know, we're going to have to pass an additional one because, obviously, as you point out, we're running up, you know, to that date. And we don't want to have this same crisis in just, you know, three weeks' time. So we're going to have a very short window here to likely have to extend again, probably into December. so that we can actually finish the appropriations work. I mean, six weeks have been squandered by the Democrats here on all these issues that they fear of importance. And they've gotten absolutely nothing out of it. All they've done is create hardship for the American people, all so they can appease their far left base and keep them energized and motivated to come out in these elections today. I mean, it's completely absurd what they've done. And, you know, the hypocrisy. among Democrats who, you know, 13 times voted for clean CRs under Joe Biden and, you know, did the same under Barack Obama, is really just shameful here. Mike Lawler is a congressman from New York, the 17th District. He is a member of the GOP. Congressman, we appreciate your time on the program today. Thanks so much. Thanks so much, Guy, Guy, take care. And we will be right back. It's the happy hour on Guy Benson.

1:36:10

In the swamp, not of the swamp. Guy Benson. Back here on Guy Benson. Thank you for listening. Guy Benson.com. Podcast always free. We made very brief mention yesterday of Game 7 of the World Series over the weekend. And it just felt like one short segment was not nearly enough to address the epic world series that baseball fans just witnessed. I know that we have many very happy campers listening to us right now on KABC in Los Angeles, as their Dodgers have repeated as world champions. But that was almost not the case. And to the extent that we have an audience in Ontario... I know there's going to be a lot of long faces there for a while, tortured over how that series ended. There are a couple of inflection points where I feel like the Js could have wrapped this thing up and they just couldn't get it done and the Dodgers won it all. So here with us. to give an expert analysis on what many fans just saw and enjoyed. Is Jeff Passon, senior MLB Insider at ESPN? Jeff, it's been a minute. Welcome back to the show. It's great to have you. It's great to be here, Guy. How are you on this happiest of election days? Well, I'm fine for now. We'll see how the election results go. And if I'm feeling more like a Dodgers fan or a Blue Jays fan when we get all the votes tabulated a bit later on. But look, I have to talk about this World Series with you because it's America's pastime. It's America's game. I know the NFL... And football is king in a lot of ways. But I'm a fan of baseball, and I think we've seen a real resurgence in interest in this sport. I saw some of the ratings, for example, including very much Game 7. I mean, what a ratings bonanza at Fox 25 plus million viewers for Game 7, peaking over 31 million viewers. You compare that to like an NBA Game 7, blew it out of the water. Talk about the ratings and what it means for the game. Because, you know, you've heard them. There are these rumblings like, hey, baseball is a sport in decline. It's never going to be the same. It might not, you know, recover. I'm not sure those critics are chiming in quite the same way right now. Yeah, I'd love to be in decline like baseball. It's fun to be in decline when you're actually in a cent. But look, I don't know that television ratings or ratings in general are directly reflective of the health of something. But I'll say this. When they're going up, that can't be a bad thing. That means there's more interest. That means there are more eyeballs. That means there are more people who are falling in love in baseball.

1:39:06

I think the most interesting part of it goes beyond the domestic ratings. You see half of Canada was watching that game. You see tens of millions of people in Japan were watching that game. And maybe it's different if the Dodgers aren't in it. And if Shohei Otani is not with them and Yoshinovu Yamamoto isn't pitching the way that he is. But the idea that baseball is this worldwide game, I think, hasn't. hasn't been appreciated nearly as much as it actually is. And that the fandom across the world found this World Series, as compelling as it does, or as it did rather, I think speaks to where the sport is going rather than where it is. And that, you know, whether it's due to the pitch clock or other factors, the number of... recognizable stars that are in Major League Baseball right now, it doesn't matter where it's coming from. What matters is that people are appreciating the sport. Yeah, it's real. And as somebody who, for his entire life, has been an enormous baseball fan and continues to be to this day, I'm glad that others are finally seeing what I feel like I've seen for decades now. Was that the best World Series you've watched? I have covered 22 of them, and I'm 45 years old, so my World Series viewing goes back to 86 or so. So I've got 40 or so years of experience. If it's not the best, it's certainly among the top. three. And the thing that this World Series had, it wasn't just a great game seven. The Great Game 7 was like a cherry and fudge on top of a really good Sunday already. Because games one through six, all of them were either good games or had really compelling elements to them. And to me, that's the beauty of baseball guy is in the stories that it tells. And Because of the volume of games that we have, it's different than other sports. You know, in the NBA and the NHL, they play 80-something games a year. In the NFL, it's... 17 plus playoffs. In baseball, you have 162. You have the opportunity to really weave this very nice tapestry over the course of the season. And for it to end in the way that it did with an October that wasn't just a great world series, but I feel like had fantastic series throughout, really did a nice job to sell baseball to the world and say, hey, you know, maybe you didn't pay attention these last six months. But maybe you should have, because the regular season has just as many awesome things that happen as the postseason.

1:41:56

You know, Jeff, I was watching Game 3, I believe, was the marathon, 18 innings. And I was in a hotel in New York, and I finally had to give up because I had work. Like, I had to do things the next day. So I think in the 14th inning, I threw in the towel, and I woke up to that final score, having watched the Jays run themselves out of innings, getting thrown out at third base and home plate and all this stuff. And I said to myself, well, the Dodgers are going to win now. Dodgers are going to win this series. That's a backbreaker, I thought, for Toronto. And then, of course, they battle back. They take a three-two lead in the series. Heading home, they just got to win one. They can't do it. They really could slash should have done it in game seven. I think a lot of their fans would say it. Am I overstating it to say that Blue Jays fans will be tortured? by like four or five little flashes of moments over the course of seven games, but really over the course, I would say, of two or three games, where if one of them goes differently, the Jays are probably world champions. No, I don't think that's an overstatement at all. And Blue Jays fans, no torture. They went after Shohei Otani. They didn't get them. They went after Juan Soda. They didn't get him. They went after Yoshinobu Yamamoto, didn't get him in free agency. They've had all of this building up over the last 30-plus years of not even being to a World Series. And then they get this team that has the best record in the American League and goes and validates it throughout the American League playoffs and gets to the World Series where they're decided underdogs. And it turns out that they're every bit as good of a team, if not better. than the Los Angeles Dodgers who are going to spend $500 plus million on payroll and taxes this year significantly more than everyone else. And yet, that's baseball right there, man. That's baseball in a nutshell. You know, somebody a couple days ago said to me, pitching is a game of milliseconds and millimeters. And I think the same thing can be said about baseball. As much as football is a game of inches, baseball comes down to... such minute moments where if Isaiah Kiner Folefa had taken one step more of a lead off of third base in the bottom of the ninth inning. his foot gets in before Miguel Rojas's throw gets home. And the Toronto Blue Jays are world champions. Instead, yesterday, we watched Los Angeles hold a parade for its team. So, yeah, there will be those moments of what could have been and what wasn't. I think Toronto fans, amid all of that, are trying to appreciate the team that they had this year. And maybe they're taking solace in it only because of what they didn't get. The Blue Jays is a story to me are a wonderful example of what happens when a collection of people become more, you know, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. And the Blue Jays were an awesome team to watch. I think they outplayed the Dodgers, frankly, in the World Series.

1:45:13

When you have a team like the Dodgers that is talented as it is, there are things that it can overcome. And one of those was a team as good as the Toronto Blue Jays. The thing about the Dodgers, and I know a lot of our listeners right now in Los Angeles, might take issue, take exception to your characterization of which team was better in the World Series. Like, hey, who's got the ring, right? Which is fair. Here's my take on the Dodgers. It's annoying from my perspective to see them win again. They've had a lot of success. They buy all these players. I mean, these were the complaints, though, about the Yankees of old when I was growing up and they were really good and had that dynasty. People would say, oh, the money, the money, the money. Yes, the Dodgers are spending insane amounts of money, and it's working for them. That being said, I mean, talk to baseball fans in New York City of either team. Yankees or Mets. You can toss gobs of cash at a team. And it doesn't guarantee anything. You still have to go out there and win. And watching the Dodgers do what they did, you just kind of have to grudgingly respect it. I mean, that performance by Yamamoto in game seven is the stuff of legend already, Jeff. And so there might be some Dodgers fatigue around the league and around the country, but you kind of just have to take your hat off to what they've achieved. It speaks for itself. Yeah, Guy, there's no might-be Dodgers fatigue. There is Dodgers fatigue. And there's anger, I think, among fans, particularly in smaller market fan bases, wondering whether the game, as it's currently constituted and the financial system that's in place right now is fair. And I understand that. When you have payroll disparity to the level that you do in Major League Baseball right now and all three of the other major North American sports are capped, It's, you know, it's kind of a sore thumb. And yet I understand completely why Major League Baseball players do not want to operate under a cap system. And I don't know, frankly, that a cap would be the panacea that people think that it would be. I don't think that it would solve. a lot of the problems of disparity that exists right now because the numbers that they would come to, the top end and the bottom end would be far enough apart where the Pittsburgh Pirates of the world would cling to the bottom end like a baby does to its pinky. And the Dodgers at the top end would do everything they could to... squeeze as much into whatever constrictions there are. As they have. Talent despair. Yeah, absolutely. And that the talent disparity that comes along with payroll disparity would not change all that much under that type of system. That being said, baseball fans, I think right now are being treated to the best level. of baseball that's ever been played. The knowledge that exists right now and the ability of players to go out and find the best versions of themselves is revelatory and wonderful as a fan of the game to see happen in real time. And the Dodgers, more than anyone, have just figured out how to maximize their resources.

1:48:32

And yeah, of course it's easier when you have an enormous payroll like they do. And yet there were other teams that were willing to offer $300 plus million for Yoshinobu Yamamoto. There were three other teams that were willing to give Shohei Otani the exact contract that he took from the Los Angeles Dodgers. Part of this is just that guys want to play for the Dodgers because they know the organization's really good. It's good at getting the best out of players. It treats them in their families well. And they win. Exactly. And you know. You don't know because you never know in sports. But you have a pretty decent idea that you're going to get some hardware out of it too. And for guys who want to play for rings, what better place is there to go? You know, there's a video circulating around in the aftermath. Blake Snell, who signed for $182 million over five years this winter. And Tyler Glass now who got traded to the Dodgers and signed $136.5 million extension. They're standing there. And they were teammates with the Tampa Bay Rays. So they've known each other for a long time. And the Rays are one of the most well-run organizations in baseball. They are the Dodgers with one quarter of their payroll. And they just haven't been able to break through. And Tyler Glassnow jokingly said, you know, if you can't beat him, join him. And there's something in sports, I think, where we frown upon that. You know, Kevin Durant going to the Golden State Warriors, guys who weren't able to, you know, quote-unquote do it on their own. I'm sorry, but if I'm a competitor and winning a ring is the most important thing to me, why wouldn't I want to go to the team that gives me the best opportunity to do that? Why would I want to go and create something, perhaps, with a far lower chance of fulfilling the goal that I have? I just don't look down on people who do that. I look at them as being extremely pragmatic and prioritizing the thing that's important to them. Jeff Passon, one minute, when you look back on the 2025 World Series and the ratings and the hype and the drama and the excruciating pain for the Jays and the elation for the Dodgers, and you think about the legacy of that series, what is the single moment that you will think about that represents the greatness of the game? Just to put you on the spot, 30 seconds. Yoshinobu Yamamoto coming out of the bullpen a day after he threw six innings of one-run baseball to win game six on the road in the same series where he threw a complete game shutout, excuse me, a complete game in game two, and going out there and throwing the final two-thirds innings to clinch a championship. It was one of the fiercest, most warrior-like performances I can remember in my near quarter century of covering baseball. Jeff Passon, Senior MLB Insider at ESPN. Jeff really appreciated the conversation. Thanks for stopping by. Pleasure is always, my guy. Thanks for having me. A short home stretch up next. Miss a minute. Miss a lot. Guy Benson.

1:51:50

And now it's time for your favorite segment of the day. Home Stretch. It's basically the only segment I'm on. So I've declared it the audience's favorite segment. Guy Benson. Home Stretch, Guy Benson, Tuesday edition. Guy Benson.com podcast always free. Well, the day after tomorrow, Thursday, November 6th. The Fox Nation Patriot Awards are on 8 p.m. Eastern on Fox Nation. Tickets still available, a handful, at foxnation.com slash Patriot Awards. It's at the TILA Center for the Performing Arts that's in New York. Go check it out, buy these last couple tickets, snap them up, and join a very special experience. A couple new announcements about guests who will be there in the house, including the First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump. She will receive a major award. Jason Aldeen, the country music star, will also be there, as will Erika Kirk, the widow. of the assassinated conservative leader charlie kirk she will be presented with the first ever charlie kirk legacy award very appropriate we will hear from her and so many others so by those remaining tickets you have just a day and a half left basically foxnation dot com slash patriot awards it's this thursday the 6th november 8 p.m eastern fox nation and the mc for the evening will be our colleague and friend the one and only Sean Hannity which will be a lot of fun speaking of emcees and big events we've been informed that producer christine has been invited back to once again engage in some MC duties at a slightly smaller gig, but still one she's going to take a crack at apparently. Maybe she's looking for some advice. Maybe she's learned some lessons from years past. That is something that we will likely explore with Cookie on the home stretch, maybe tomorrow because we're out of time. We went along with Jeff Paston from ESPN. Great conversation about baseball and the World Series. I think if you're a baseball fan, it was riveting. It was for me. Even if you're not a baseball fan, there's something very American about the sport and what a World Series it was. So thanks again to Jeff. Thanks again. To all of you for tuning in every day to Guy Benson back here with election result analysis tomorrow at a Jersey, Virginia, New York, and beyond, and whatever comes our way. We'll talk to you then on Guy Benson. Have a great night, everyone.

1:54:37

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