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The Heartland Institute’s Donald Kendal, Jim Lakely, Justin Haskins, and Chris Talgo present episode 472 of the In The Tank Podcast. Donald J. Trump has been elected as the 47th President of the United States. Trump's victory comes after a years long campaign by the media to paint the President-elect as a racist, sexist, fascist, second-coming of Hitler. The media's narrative failed as Trump looks to lock up the popular vote. The In The Tank crew talks about the evaporating influence of the mainstream media and speculates on what the first 100 days of the next administration will look like.
Election Outcome and Exit Polls
NYT - Election Live Updates
NBC News - Exit Polls
Reckoning of the Media's Influence
Business Insider - Trump's victory shows the flagging influence of mainstream media
The Left's Narrative and Spin
The Atlantic - TRUMP WON. NOW WHAT?
Trump's First 100 Days
The Hill - GOP maps out agenda for Trump’s first 100 days
NPR - What Trump's first 100 days in office could look like
Creators & Guests
Host
Host
Host
What is In The Tank?
The weekly flagship podcast from The Heartland Institute features in-depth policy discussions connected to current news. Host Donald Kendal leads the discussion with the usual crew of Heartland Institute Vice President Jim Lakely, Socialism Research Center “Commissar” Justin Haskins, Editorial Director Chris Talgo, and others at this national free-market think tank. The entertaining and informative discussions often hit topics such as the environment, energy policy, Big Tech censorship, the troubling rise of socialism, globalism, health care, education, that state of freedom in America and around the world, and much more.
This podcast is also available as part of the Heartland Daily Podcast, the “firehose” of all the organization’s podcasts that take deep and entertaining dives into public policy.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are live on this wonderful episode of the In the Tank podcast. Donald j Trump has been elected as our 47th president of the United States. Trump's victory comes after a year long campaign by the media to paint the president-elect as a racist, sexist, fascist, second coming of Hitler. But it looks like the media's narrative completely fell on its face, and it looks like Trump is gonna not only win the election, but even lock up the popular vote. We are gonna be talking about all of this and more and maybe what even what the, first 100 days of the next administration is gonna look like on episode 472 of the in the tank podcast.
Donald Kendal:Welcome to the show, everybody. As always, I'm your host, Donald Kendall. Joining me, I've got a full crew. We're in a bit of a celebratory mood. I may be a little bit more enthusiastic than that lady in the intro.
Donald Kendal:But, joining us, I've got Jim Likely, VP of the Heartland Institute. He is muted, but I'm sure he's gonna take that off before he says anything. How are you doing today, good sir?
Jim Lakely:I I am doing good. I muted it because I was laughing so hard. I hope you enjoyed that, little twist to the intro for this week. I did that just for you, Donnie, and for, and for all of our wonderful viewers. And, actually, it was tiny Trump here, tiny Trump.
Jim Lakely:He he talked to me the other day, and he said, you really need to change the intro. Yep. That that guy too. So, yeah, it's a it's a good day. It's a good day.
Jim Lakely:It's a good week. It's going to be a good holiday season, and hopefully it's going to
Donald Kendal:be a a good 2025 and beyond. Also joining us, we have Justin Haskins, senior fellow here at the Emerging Issue Center at the Heartland Institute. How are you doing good, sir? I'm okay. It's a little bit
Justin Haskins:of a mixed bag for me. I mean, I'm happy that, things turned out the way they did on election day overall, but I'm a little bit sad that, you know, it's probably the end for Kamala Harris.
Justin Haskins:know, I'm gonna miss the cackle. I'm gonna miss, you know, the the endless gaps. I mean, she was incredible for material. Like, she was she was just great in that sense. You know?
Justin Haskins:She was. Like, comparing her to I mean, Joe Biden was, at a class all of his own. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I'm gonna miss it.
Justin Haskins:I'm gonna miss it. That off. Like, like Al Gore like Al Gore, I don't miss him. Like, I miss nothing Kerry. Sean Kerry.
Donald Kendal:It's unfortunate.
Justin Haskins:Anything about him. Barack Obama? No. Absolutely not. That guy was a nightmare.
Justin Haskins:But these 2? Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna miss them. They're
Donald Kendal:I'm sure we're gonna
Justin Haskins:be talking. Best. They were the best at being the worst, and that's some
Donald Kendal:of the worst.
Donald Kendal:Look at that. That's the the worst wearing it right there. Also joining us, we've got Chris Talgo, editorial director here at the Heartland Institute. How are you doing today, good sir?
Chris Talgo:Doing good. And, so I think the thing that I'm most excited about is July 4, 2026 is gonna be a big year, 250th anniversary, and guess who's gonna be at the head of that celebration? Donald Trump. Cannot Donald Trump. Wait.
Chris Talgo:Cannot wait.
Donald Kendal:Oh, yeah. You know, so much to talk about. So so much to talk about. But before we get into any of it, of course, I have to put that message out there to everyone, especially those that are, tuning into the audio only version, probably catching the show on a Friday or later. Why don't you leave a review for us in iTunes?
Donald Kendal:That'd be greatly appreciated. And consider joining us a day earlier at Thursdays at noon CST where we are live streaming us on Facebook and YouTube and Rumble and x. Join in the conversation. Throw your comments and questions in the chat. Maybe we'll show your comments on screen.
Donald Kendal:Maybe we'll address your, questions on the fly. Also help us out. We, we are demonetized by YouTube, but you can still go to heartland.org/inthetank. Donate to the show directly that way. That way, YouTube doesn't take a 30% cut.
Donald Kendal:Liking the video, subscribing, sharing the content, even leaving a comment on the video all helps break those big tech algorithms that product content like this from being shown to more people. With that out of the way, let's get into it. Like I said, lots to talk about. Something big happened on Tuesday night. You may have missed it, and that, of course, is the fact that Justin and I nailed our prediction.
Donald Kendal:If those people weren't, Andy, I think I sent you the link to that map. You gotta show it. For those that, didn't watch last week's episode, the last episode before the election, we all did, prediction maps, the electoral college maps. And Justin and I, coincidentally, had the exact same map. And the most marvelous thing about this map is that it is absolutely dead on Hillary, sorry, Hillary.
Donald Kendal:Kamala Harris taking home 226 electoral votes. Donald Trump reeling in 312. I think some places don't necessarily have Nevada and Arizona called yet, but, I think it's just a matter of time there. So, Justin, before we get into any of the politics stuff, Donald Trump, blah blah blah blah,
Justin Haskins:care to take a victory lap? What do
Donald Kendal:you what do you what do you have to say about, our amazing predictive abilities?
Justin Haskins:I absolutely will take this opportunity to take a victory lap. It isn't easy making predictions going out on a limb, as we both did.
Donald Kendal:Yes.
Justin Haskins:But when you're this good, sometimes you gotta do it. Sometimes you just gotta do it. And and so, you know, I feel really good about it. I I mean, frankly, this isn't the first time I we I actually predicted the 2016 election as well. I don't know if we have that that record anywhere, but, I got that one pretty darn close as well.
Justin Haskins:So, it feels great. I was a little bit worried going into election day that I'd be tired of winning after getting it right, but I'm not. I'm not tired of winning. So we're gonna keep your times rolling. It feels it feels great.
Justin Haskins:Look. The reality is this. The the reason we got it right is really the the what it comes down to is we believe we looked at the poll numbers, and we saw that the poll numbers showed Trump winning slightly in most of the swing states and losing very, very slightly in the, in a couple of I think only 2. I think it was Nevada and Michigan. And so we basically just said, look.
Justin Haskins:The pollsters have been wrong. The last two presidential elections, they have over, stated the amount of support for the Democrat by usually a few points in almost all the swing states. Not all of them, but most of them. And if they just do what they've done, the last 2 presidential elections, and we apply that to this time, he's gonna win huge. He's gonna win in all these states.
Justin Haskins:So we just applied that logic to the map, and we ended up with exactly the result that we said before because the pollsters are hopelessly biased and terrible. Our good friends over at the at at Rasmussen, Rasmussen reports, were were spot on in how they predicted the election, because they were not infusing their polls with biased analyses and outdated ways of of, coming up with results, and they weren't relying on faulty understandings about the 2020 race. So, I mean, it was it it just makes perfect sense. The the the pollsters continue to get it wrong because they really don't understand the American people, and they actually want to give the false perception that Democrats are more likable than they actually are. And that's how we ended up coming to the conclusion that we
Donald Kendal:Is it it's like, how did you how did you get it right on the money? How did you get it right? What are you, some type of genius or something? Yes. Alright, so let's move on to the actual watching results here.
Donald Kendal:So, well the other thing, I'll toot this horn as well. I made a second prediction on the show last week. I said that this wasn't gonna be 10 days out before we know the the outcome of the election. We are gonna know that night. And, I said maybe it'll bleed over into Wednesday, but, we're gonna know before the next step, the next episode of this show.
Donald Kendal:Nailed that one as well. I don't it depends on how late you stayed up, but, it was called essentially that night, at least by most places. I, myself, stayed up till 2 o'clock in the morning. Actually, I ended up staying up later because of baby not wanting the sleep issues. But I stayed up to 2 o'clock in the morning when the New York Times, declared Pennsylvania for Donald Trump, and that was enough for me to put the phone down and, rest easy knowing that he was gonna pick up Alaska, and that would be 270.
Donald Kendal:End of story. So, I mean, Jim, we I was sweating it. The reason I stayed up till 2 o'clock in the morning is because I was sweating it the whole time. You know, I was watching Pennsylvania. I was watching Michigan, seeing little minute decreases in his lead, and I was just so worried that if I put the phone down or went to sleep or something, I would wake up to bad news.
Donald Kendal:I did not want that to happen. You guys all seem confident. I was on a group chat with you and Justin and a few other people. You all seem confident. So were you sweating it at all that night, or or what was your take?
Jim Lakely:I mean, I was sweating it a little bit. I mean, I I thought that the returns coming in were good. I saw the you know, I was monitoring Twitter all day. I I will say that it's a good thing that we are our podcast is on Thursdays and not on Wednesdays. I was a little bit, tired.
Jim Lakely:Let's just say that on Wednesday, because I was up probably until, 3 AM. I wanted to stay up not only to see that the the New York Times and others have confirmed that Donald Trump was our will be the 47th president of the United States, but I also wanted to enjoy the liberal tears on CNN and MSNBC. I don't have cable cable, but I have a friend who gives me a login so I could watch it on my iPad, and I just kept flipping back and forth between MSNBC and CNN, and it was, it was glorious. This was going to be historic night. This was going to be a night that I would remember just like in 2016 when it was a a shock to the world that Donald Trump won.
Jim Lakely:But, yeah, seeing the early, you know, going into election day, the Republicans had done more early voting than they had ever done, and by a long, long way, you know, actual data was showing that Republicans were doing more early voting than Democrats, especially in the swing states. And the conventional wisdom, even from kind of glum Democrats was that holy moly. The Democratic party is gonna have to do an election day surge like they've never done in their entire life, as a party, and it just didn't materialize. And as the as the night wore on, it was, it was interesting to see that, yes, a polling company that the Heartland Institute works with, Rasmussen, was one of the one of very few that had this race, accurately pulled all the way across. I heard I was watching, Megan Kelly's show on YouTube and SiriusXM, yesterday, and, she was just railing against the pollsters.
Jim Lakely:Oh, we we shouldn't believe any pollsters anymore. They're always wrong. All the pollsters got it wrong. And I was like, no. No.
Jim Lakely:No, Megan. Rasmussen got it right. And so, you know, getting all that. So I was let's just say I was cautiously optimistic because you just never know what's going to happen. But, yeah, it was, it was amazing.
Jim Lakely:I I missed the mark of 312 by just 1. The only state I had going to democrats that Donald Trump actually got was the state of Michigan. I know that the conventional wisdom again is that if you take one of the Great Lakes states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, you usually get all 3. I wasn't quite ready to buy that yet, but, you know, it's a good day. It's a good it was a good night.
Jim Lakely:And, look. This was a sweeping mandate for Donald Trump. You know? The the the real blessing here is that this isn't even remotely close, that we did know on election night or election morning, if you wanted to stay up till 2:30 in the morning or 3 o'clock, you did know before that you had to go to bed who our next president was gonna be. That's the way it used to be in this country.
Jim Lakely:Our our vote counting systems state to state are still garbage for the most part except if you live in the great state of Florida, and so we need to clean that up. But, it looks like we had an election that was run fairly, that was run transparently, and that's, reflected accurately in a sweeping mandate
Chris Talgo:the will of the people.
Jim Lakely:And that's something to really be gladful, grateful for.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. There's a comment, from Peter in the chat here that says, if you fall asleep, then Freddie will come and dump a 1,000,000 votes
Chris Talgo:for Harris.
Chris Talgo:That's right.
Donald Kendal:That's exactly right. I would not sleep until I knew, that at least the New York Times was calling it. So that's, that was keeping me awake at night. Chris, the other thing. So I I was kinda keeping track of the New York Times, website, their tracker of all of it.
Donald Kendal:Very detailed stuff. But the thing the page that I kept refreshing religiously was their little, like, ticker that was, like, the likelihood of a candidate winning. And at the towards the beginning of the night, I don't know if it was, like, 5050, but when I started paying attention to this little New York Times ticker, I think it was at, like, 60%. And just watching it go up, 61% chance of Donald Trump winning, 62% chance of Donald Trump winning. On and on and on and on.
Donald Kendal:But then it would go up to, like, 75, and I'm feeling confident, and then it would just tick back to 74. And I would panic. I would panic. Oh, no. It's going the wrong direction.
Donald Kendal:Get up to 91%, then it would go back to 90. Oh, no panic. So, like, that's how on edge I was all night despite how everything was turning out. In hindsight, I kind of feel silly about that, but I was sweating it so much. But that was my feeling.
Donald Kendal:High anxiety that entire night. What was, what was your your take on election night?
Chris Talgo:Okay. So, I mean, I did text a couple times with you, and you were asking me early on, like, what do you think? And I told you I said, I think things are looking good. So this is what what I did. I went home, and once they started talking about once they released the exit polls and started to dive into them, to be honest, I was a little worried, and here's why.
Chris Talgo:Okay. Because the the, you know, exit polls can be a Rorschach test for, like, any, you know, for and anyone can interpret them in any different way. But okay. So the first one that came out was, right track, wrong track. 70% of people said country's on the wrong track, only 30% right track.
Chris Talgo:I was like, woah. That's great. That's really great. But then they started really getting into the, favorability factor. And when they talked about Donald Trump, uh-oh, I had noticed that, he was way underwater on favorability factor.
Chris Talgo:Uh-oh, Kamala Harris was, you know, less underwater than Trump. Then they started to, to go into the, most important issues. It was, grocery prices and gasoline. A cost of, you know, living was was the the big one. Went into, has your life become better or worse last 4 years, in terms of, you know, financial?
Chris Talgo:It was, vast majority, severely worse or much worse. Inflation, same thing. So I was like, wow. These kinda give me, like, you know, mixed signals. I don't know what to think of it.
Chris Talgo:But what happened was when the rubber met the road and people had to go in there and cast their vote, you know what they did? They said, I don't care about the guy's personality. I care about the guy's policies, and that's what won the day. So I'm just very glad that enough Americans, you know, like, 10,000,000 or so actually, said we're not going to vote on this guy's, you know, tweets and and some of the things he said over the years. We're gonna vote on the fact that we can't afford to put gasoline in our car, and we can't afford to go to the grocery store, and that's what matters.
Chris Talgo:So thank god that the American people woke up and, voted with their minds and not their hearts. That's to me that to me was the number one biggest surprise. Now one thing I do wanna talk about is okay. Obviously, we, we not we. The Republican party is gonna control the senate.
Chris Talgo:52 right now, possibly gonna get to 53 if, McCormick can win in Pennsylvania. I'm annoyed at the house races, and I'm especially annoyed at California because the past couple election cycles, California takes days, if not weeks, to count congressional races. Why is that? Why are, like, the vast majority of the outstanding races that are still not called almost all in California. Now I'm not sitting here accusing all of fraud, you know, valid, corruption, or anything like that.
Chris Talgo:But can you please just get your act together so that we can know a couple days after who's gonna control the house of representatives? Because now this thing is just lingering. And I, when I got to work this morning, I started checking some of the sites, and I don't think we're gonna know this for, you know, a couple more days at least. I I in in some of the races in California, they've only counted barely over 50% of the ballots. How is that possible?
Chris Talgo:I just don't understand it. Like, you know, Jim said earlier, Florida had almost every vote, counted by, you know, like, by Oh, no. We knew. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Talgo:So we knew straight up what was going on there in Florida. You know, I I was happy that, you know, Michigan and some of the other, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania got their act together and, you know, were able to do that, you know, pretty easily. Arizona took a couple days, but whatever. It didn't even matter at that point. But, yeah, I I I I do I just want some closure on the state of the house because that's gonna be a big deal going forward.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. No. It's, Justin, you when I was telling you my kind of election night, story and staying up till 2 o'clock, sweating it out, whatever, You're like, oh, really? You're like, I was in bed by 10 o'clock. So so so you were cool as a cucumber.
Donald Kendal:You thought this was a bad early in the night or what?
Justin Haskins:Once so, what I was most nervous about at first was Georgia. Once we knew that Georgia was good to go, I was never really that worried about North Carolina. But, once it was clear that Georgia and North Carolina were, you know, solid, I knew that at that moment, basically, Trump only needed to win, there there were there were several diff they needed to win 2 out of the remaining swing states, and there were a bunch of different combinations that would allow that to happen. And I also knew that if he just won Pennsylvania, it was over. So once we reached that point in time where he was leading in Pennsylvania, you had the New York Times saying there's, like, an 80 something percent chance he's gonna win Pennsylvania.
Justin Haskins:And then if he wins Pennsylvania, it's over. But even if he lost Pennsylvania, there's still several other paths to victory. I was like, I feel pretty good about this. And then by by the time we get to 90 something percent estimate that Pennsylvania was going to Trump, I was done. So I was I was in bed.
Justin Haskins:Yeah. I didn't I didn't see Trump's, acceptance speech.
Donald Kendal:Oh, I
Justin Haskins:stayed up for that. Yeah. I I didn't get I didn't get that. I I didn't. I mean, I really I really felt very good.
Justin Haskins:Probably better than I should have going to but but it just seemed like it wasn't just what we were seeing in the swing states. It was also that across the board, Kamala Harris was losing compared to Joe Biden. She she was underperforming compared to Joe Biden basically everywhere. And and and that is just a terrible, terrible, terrible sign. And as I have said, 50,000 times to everyone who will listen over the past year, Donald Trump lost the last election by fewer than 50,000 votes combined in 3 states.
Justin Haskins:Right. So he the margin for him to win was actually he didn't need to gain that much ground to win. That that's the reality. If he just did slightly, slightly, slightly better in the right places, he would have won the last time even with all the other issues. So I because we were seeing Virginia much closer than it should've been, he was doing much better in Georgia than he did the last time.
Justin Haskins:He was doing better than a lot of people thought in North Carolina. He was doing better in all these various counties, important swing counties in Pennsylvania, other places. It was like it just the odds that she would somehow, sneak that out while underperforming in all these other places just seemed so low to me that, I felt really good about it. And that was why the New York Times and and organizations like that were so you know, why their predictions were 80, 90 something percent pretty early on because she was doing so badly. This was a total and complete rejection of a person at a scale that you really don't see very often.
Justin Haskins:I mean, just complete rejection of this person.
Donald Kendal:There was one point awesome. There was one point. I I'm watching New York Times, you know, trackers of all the stuff. There was one point when the first batch of votes came in, maybe the first 15, 20% came in for Minnesota, and it went from leaning blue to toss-up just for, like, 20 minutes or something, and I was just dying. I was laughing so hard.
Donald Kendal:I'm like, if Trump takes Minnesota, this will be, like, the greatest election of all time.
Justin Haskins:Yeah. You know what's funny? Is they did you know, they do that stupid notch thing in New Hampshire. It's like the first people who've who the first results are this tiny little town in New Hampshire called Dixville notch, and there's only, like, 10 voters or something like that. 6.
Donald Kendal:It's like 6.
Justin Haskins:Six voters. There's like nobody who lives there. And and, I think Jim sent a text message to us saying something like, in Dixville, not you went from, like, 5 for Joe Biden and one for Trump the last time.
Chris Talgo:6 nothing.
Justin Haskins:Oh, so was it 6 nothing? It's something
Chris Talgo:that's 33.
Justin Haskins:It was clearly and it was like, is this a sign of things to come? And, obviously, he's, like, half joking. But I think there's some truth in that. I think he's landslide. I said it's 3
Jim Lakely:to 3 in Dixville Notch. Landslide.
Justin Haskins:You could take you could take a sample. That was the most incredible thing about this. You could take a sample from almost anywhere, and it showed Trump doing better, and it showed her doing worse. Mhmm. And it didn't matter where in America.
Justin Haskins:In Rhode Island. In freaking Rhode Island, which is, like, the most corrupt blue state on the face of the planet. Republicans haven't been in charge of Rhode Island in, like, a 100 years or something crazy like that, and that's real. I think it's, like, in the 19 twenties was the last time. They had they had, like, 40 something percent of the vote went to Trump.
Justin Haskins:It was, like, the highest that that the repub a republican presidential candidate has done there in forever. I mean, this is just it just was everywhere. It was everywhere. Even in places that still voted for Kamala, it was not to the level of Biden or Obama or Kerry or Gore or any of those people. And it's just, like I said, it it a rejection on a national scale of a person unlike anything we've seen in a really long time.
Donald Kendal:Chat, I chat, I'm wondering, anyone that's watching this, I'm curious of kind of your level of anxiety during the night. Scale from 1 to 10, what was the high watermark of anxiety that you were feeling during election night? Put it in the chat. I'm very curious to know. But, just staying on this topic of election outcomes and exit polls, I wanted to read some of these findings.
Donald Kendal:So, there was there was a bunch of I mean, so I'm not an expert in this, the exit poll stuff, and and, you know, so feel free to hop in and fill in some context in regards to kind of historical comparisons, whatever. But there was a couple of stories that I kind of kept hearing throughout the night when it came to the interesting demographic makeups of some of the votes that were coming in, especially in some of the specific counties. But one thing, for example, according to exit polls in key states, Trump received 46% of Hispanic and Latino votes compared to Kamala Harris's 52. That's only a 6 point, 6 percentage point difference between those, and that was up from 32% in 2020 for Trump. So it went from 32% in 2020 Hispanic votes for Trump up to 46.
Donald Kendal:That is a massive increase there. And if you break it down by gender, Donald Trump actually won the Latino men vote, 55% to Kamala Harris's 43% of that specific demographic. And then one county in Florida, in particular, there that has, like, a large Puerto Rican population, Trump way over performed in that county from 4 years ago, flipping that county red if I'm not mistaken. So the whole story about that whole story about, that one comedian during that rally, that said, like, a joke about Puerto Rico or whatever, apparently, that didn't resonate too much, but we'll get to the media's lack of, influence soon. Trump's support from black voters went up from 2020 according to the USA Today article, which I don't have in the show notes.
Donald Kendal:Trump only got 8% of black votes in 2020, and this percentage increased substantially to 13% nationally. And the shift was even more significant in Pennsylvania where black men supported Trump at a rate of 24% in that very crucial state. 24%, a rate more than double, more than, or more than double 4 years ago. So, though, those are very interesting, exit poll results. And then also when it comes to women, Harris carried that demographic only 53% to 45, only an 8 percentage point difference there.
Donald Kendal:So, I mean, maybe Jim or Chris, one of you can probably fill me in kind of the relativism compared to other Republican candidacies in the past. But, from the just the basic anecdotal stuff that I've heard, it seemed like Trump did a lot better in those, in in those exit poll demographic stuff that
Chris Talgo:I gotta I I gotta say something. You're totally right about that. Trump out overperformed among almost all the demographic groups. You know, a lot of people thought that this would, be determined by women, and Trump actually increased his vote share with women by 3 percentage points. Like you said earlier, he, improved it, immensely with, Hispanic voters.
Chris Talgo:But, Donnie, this is what I really took away from the election. It's not about identity politics anymore. You know what it is? It it's about it's about the working class. And Donald Trump was able to cobble together a working class coalition that has not been able to be done by Republicans since since probably Ronald Reagan in, 84, I I would say, because, George Shubby Bush was not able to put that kind of coalition together.
Chris Talgo:So for, you know, for all these years, Donald Trump has been focusing on these these common sense issues about, hey. We should stop sending our jobs overseas. Hey. We should stop overregulating so that companies can't build things here in the United States. Hey.
Chris Talgo:Maybe we shouldn't have a wide open border because that actually hurts American workers. All of that resonated so much with such a wide swath of voters. It didn't matter if you were a woman, if you were black, if you were gay, if you're straight, or any of that stuff. All that mattered is if you're saying, hey. You know what?
Chris Talgo:I want the American dream. I wanna be able to go to the grocery store and be able to, you know, have some money left over. I wanna buy a house. That's what this, I think that's what this election was really about. It was about, do you want to be able to work hard and, you know, have prosperity?
Chris Talgo:That's what this was about. Now, yeah, there were a bunch of other issues on this. Of course. No doubt, freedom and and, you know, freedom of choice, whether it's, you know, being able to choose what kind of appliance you can have or what kind of car you wanna drive, all that kind of stuff. I do think that that played a big role.
Chris Talgo:But when you look at the exit polling, one of the big things was the economy, immigration, and crime. Those 3 outweighed abortion, and that's what the Democrats were really thinking that this was gonna be all about. It's gonna be all about abortion, abortion, abortion. That did not pan out for them. And, also, I do think that they're, you know, calling Trump Hitler and Nazi and, you know, dictator and all this stuff.
Chris Talgo:I think it really backfired on them because one of the other big things from the exit polling was, democracy. And, on the CNN panel, they were all saying, well, that's bodes so well for Kamala because Kamala is the protector of democracy. But that's actually not what happened because I think a lot of Republicans thought, hey. Wait a second. The Democrats, they're not about democracy.
Chris Talgo:Look what they did with the law fair. Look what they did with just putting her in, you know, in in in charge. Look at look what they did with, you know, stabbing Biden in the, you know, right in front of the, you know, American people and and, you know, ushering in this coup. So I think that that backfired on them. And I think that what this really I I what I hope this does is this builds a working class coalition that the Republican party is gonna be able to bridge into the future for, hopefully, you know, elections to come.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. You know, it's, Justin on this podcast has said a lot that, you know, Trump's big Achilles heel is, basically suburban white women. According to the exit polls, he won white women across the country, but with 52%. 52% of white women in the United States supported Donald Trump for president. And, that's despite the fact I live here in Illinois.
Jim Lakely:This obviously, the presidential race was not competitive here, but and and I don't even watch regular TV on on my streaming. I'm watching YouTube. Every single commercial was abortion abortion abortion. They're gonna take away in vitro fertilization and all this other kind of stuff. Well, I guess it turns out that more women are actually concerned about the price of groceries and inflation, than they are about, about abortion or at least half of them are.
Jim Lakely:You know, obviously, this this election was a referendum on the Biden's disastrous economic policy, on inflation being out of control, which was caused by government in his in his policies, the disastrous border policy. And by the way, Hispanics in the United States are not all for illegal immigration. This is some sort of assumption Democrats seem to make. They don't realize that American citizens don't want, illegal immigration whether they're black, white, or Hispanic, or or Asian or anyone. Illegal immigration causes chaos in our communities, including the Hispanic communities, in the border states.
Jim Lakely:And in fact, Biden, I think, won not Biden. Trump won. He won a, I think, a majority Puerto Rican district in the state of Florida, county in in state of Florida, and he also won border counties that are dominated by Hispanics in Texas. And so this so so it seems like every bit of messaging from the left and from the Democrats fell flat with their with their demographics. We we had a chart up there a minute ago that showed that Donald Trump, with the exception of 2 states, he did better in, every single state than he did in 2020, except for, I think, the the exceptions were wash Washington state and Utah where it was a slight decrease in what his performance was in 2020.
Jim Lakely:And some of these states is remarkable. Florida, huge increase. Texas, huge increase. New York, New Jersey, huge increases. So he narrowed the gap.
Jim Lakely:And, again, I Chris is right. The these are, you know, middle class, working class Americans. And I really think the the real takeaway here is that this was an election where the American people just said enough. Enough with all of this. This was a vote against the insanity of the last 4 years.
Jim Lakely:And to get out of my face with all this stuff already, you know, get you know, enough with the radical leftist agenda in our public schools. You know, stop stop weaponizing the tolerance we have as good natured Americans, and then use that to impose craziness on all aspects of our society from drag screen drag queen story hours to, you know, you know, we went from, having the book Heather has 2 mommies in our in our public schools, I don't know, 20, 30 years ago, to now books like Gender Queer, which have graphic depictions of sex in them in middle schools. And people have just said enough. And if you showed up at your local school board to complain about it, the FBI is gonna open up a file on you as a dangerous, terrorist in America. You know, the the tolerance that Americans have, you know, we we were told to just accept the unfairness of having biological men competing in girls and women's sports, or else if you don't accept that, you're a disgusting hateful bigot.
Jim Lakely:That's not true. The American people do not believe that. And, and they said enough with that. You know, Americans want to be persuaded of things. They don't wanna be forced to do things against their, you know, common sense in nature just because you're gonna threaten with canceling them or or, you know, or some other kind of social cost to it, you know.
Jim Lakely:And and I really do believe that this election I think the COVID lockdowns and the insanity and the lies that this government, undertook during COVID, I think there was a a big hangover from that still, and people were were were talking about it, and they're sick of the constant scolding. This election, the American people said, enough Enough with this. Enough with DEI, which has turned our institutions from our from businesses to universities to sports, everywhere. It's made them worse. It's made it it's led to the decline of these once respected institutions.
Jim Lakely:The American people said, enough. Enough with all of this. Leave me alone. Stop with the nagging. Stop with the racial guilt you're supposed to have because you're a white person in this country.
Jim Lakely:Stop insisting everybody be an ally of whatever the latest leftist political cause is, or else we're gonna label you a terrible human being. Enough. All of that stuff is crazy. We don't agree with it, and we're tired of having it in our faces. Now Justin may think I'm projecting a little bit here because that's what I voted for, but I think the the broad rejection of the leftist agenda, there was a chance to do it on Tuesday.
Jim Lakely:And Americans from all over the country, even in blue states, said enough. We've had enough of this. Your policies are terrible. The way you talk to us is terrible. You you you insult us.
Jim Lakely:You call this country racist. We do not agree with that because it's false because that is not what America is. And and, November 5, 2024 was when the American people told the Democrats and the left what America really
Chris Talgo:is. Yeah.
Donald Kendal:You might have actually heard Jim on election night shouting out his window. I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore.
Justin Haskins:You're right.
Donald Kendal:So, yeah, I mean, I think that those exit poll numbers, are particularly interesting because they just fly so much in the face of just the media narratives that were constructed to undermine Trump in the last few months, particularly, but generally over the last several years. And the entire election was basically built on this idea that Trump is a racist and a sexist. And I think that those numbers that I repeated just kinda showed that people just aren't believing the BS spouted by the media anymore, at least not in the numbers that are enough to sway a majority of the country, and that and that's including popular vote. And, Justin, you wrote an article, about this. Why don't why don't you, give us your thoughts?
Justin Haskins:Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I I think that the media I I think there well, look. The the article, which was published in the Blaze, to today, is asking the question, who is the biggest loser in this election? And, Tim Wals.
Donald Kendal:Tim Wals. Was it Tim Wals?
Justin Haskins:No. No. No. Definitely not. From my perspective, actually, they're they're the Kamala Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are no nowhere near the biggest losers of this election, which I think a lot of people are kinda surprised to hear that.
Justin Haskins:I think it's a really very obvious who the biggest losers are. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are 2 people who have absolutely no business being anywhere near the White House. They shouldn't even be allowed on tours to go inside the White House. They should just be kept away like vagrants. Like, they have no business going anywhere near there, and yet they almost became president and vice president even though they're completely unqualified, horribly unlikable, terrible politicians.
Justin Haskins:Kamala Harris didn't get a single primary vote from a Democrat. Despite running twice, she never got a primary vote, and yet somehow she almost became president. From my perspective, that's a huge win. This person should not have been anywhere near the White House, and she almost became president. That is remarkable.
Justin Haskins:That actually, I think, I I I mean, this is like a handicap person almost winning a gold medal in a race at the Olympics. Okay? Like, you know, if he gets
Donald Kendal:mentally handicapped. We'll put
Chris Talgo:that aside.
Justin Haskins:Still. Snow. It's a if if if somebody with a severe handicap is getting the bronze medal at the Olympics, you're you know, that's pretty good. You know? So I feel like that's the situation here.
Justin Haskins:I think the biggest losers by far is the media. The media spent 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars worth of airtime, published 1,000 upon 1,000 of articles collectively, in probably the most, well, forget about all the thousands of hours, millions of hours maybe of television over the course of 10 years collectively, talking about Donald Trump as a Nazi, as Hitler, as his supporters being degenerates and deplorable and trash and, you know, not again, white, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, on and on and on. And they did this for 10 years. 10 years. There was one mission over 10 years.
Justin Haskins:It was to destroy one person. That was the mission. If you were to start every single year for the past, at least, 9 years, if you were to start probably 10, and you were to go at the beginning of each of those years and go to the heads of all of these news departments and newspapers and everything, you're saying, what is your primary goal? What is your primary hope and dream for this year? It was beyond their selfish stuff.
Justin Haskins:It would be beat stop Donald Trump. Make sure everyone knows Donald Trump's the worst. That's, like, the primary goal. And despite that being the primary goal, all these outlets, hundreds of outlets and newspapers and television stations running nonstop negative coverage about one person, they still could not accomplish the mission of keeping that one person out of the White House. Now that is incredible because we're not saying you have to, do something, you know, we're we're not talking about keeping this guy from running a Denny's or something.
Justin Haskins:The bar for getting into the White House, it's really high already. It's really hard. So you would think that if everyone in the media practically was trying to stop one person from getting that job, they would be able to do it if they had any influence at all. And yet they didn't do it. They failed spectacularly.
Justin Haskins:In fact, this was the best election of the 3. He's consistently getting more popular with every election in a way. I mean, that's amazing. When you think about he's getting more and more votes. This so what this shows beyond any shadow of it out in my mind is that the mainstream media is, for all intents and purposes, dead.
Justin Haskins:Now they're they're still alive within their echo chambers that they have. And their echo chambers are fairly big, so they it's not as though they're completely dead. They're on, like, life support. But when it comes to their impact and influence on the national conversation on shaping, real results in society, transforming government, doing things like that. It is so obvious and clear that these people do not have the power that they once had before.
Justin Haskins:It's not even remotely close.
Chris Talgo:Justin.
Justin Haskins:And and they'll never get it back. And and just one one last thing on that. I think, since we talked about the exit polls and all that other stuff, I just wanna point point something out. The the the proof of this is in the exit polls was suggested earlier. What was really interesting is that white people actually voted for Trump at a lower rate than, say, Mitt Romney in this election.
Justin Haskins:So if you go back to Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney actually did better with white people than Donald Trump. So there is some degree some of this stuff appears to be working, the white guilt stuff, the DEI stuff with white people. But when you actually look at the minorities who you would think would be most susceptible to it because they're the ones being told that they're the victims and that they're the ones that are being targeted, the the the support going back to Obama to where we are now is has plummeted for virtually every group except for well, yeah, basically every group if you're going back to Obama. I mean, some of the the exit polls show, for example, like Latinos, in 2012. For Obama, 71 percent 71% for Hispanics, 73% for Asians.
Justin Haskins:In this election, it was 52% support for Democrats. For Latinos, 54% for Asians. So we're talking about a 15 plus percentage point decline from Obama to today Despite the fact that the DEI stuff and all the media narratives and the hands up, don't shoot, all of that stuff has dramatically increased. And despite all of that, we're seeing a lot of minorities shift away. Now repub now white people are actually seemingly not the people who are shifting away necessarily.
Justin Haskins:It's mostly the minorities who are constantly being pandered to, which is just incredible, but it shows what it shows beyond any shadow of a doubt is that the media is it does not people do not trust the media. We've known that from polls for a long time, but that that lack of trust has now translated into the the the mainstream media is not important in the way that it once was. It's not able to impact people in the way that it once was, and the the lack of trust has now reached a level where they can't even destroy stop a single person despite spending 10 years doing obsessively doing nothing but that. They can't stop that single person from becoming president. So this is a new era of media because this is the first time, in in probably a 100 years that what I just said is true.
Justin Haskins:At least a 100 years. And so, we are entering a whole new era of of influence in media where the Joe Rogans of the world and the, streaming services of the world and YouTube and all of that are collectively going to be more are more influential than these mainstream media outlets in shaping public opinion. And it is it is thank god for that. That is probably the most important thing to come out of this election.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I I I've got something to say on that, but, Chris, you were gonna jump in?
Chris Talgo:Yeah. So, just a couple of things. First of all, when you talk about, white people, I think you need to differentiate between college educated and noncollege educated because college educated overwhelmingly went for Harris Walls, whereas noncollege educated overwhelmingly went for, Trump, Vance. And, Justin, you kinda hit on what I was gonna talk about, at the very end there. So, yeah, the mainstream media, I mean, I do watch a lot of mainstream media, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News and others.
Chris Talgo:First of all, their their viewership was down across the board, in in in the 2024, you know, election, viewership. So I could completely agree with you that, vast majority of people have just lost all confidence in the mainstream media. But at the same time, I think it's interesting that we're seeing this rise of, these, like, alternative medias, whether it's Joe Rogan or all these other podcasts Donald Trump went on. And when you look back at the campaign, Donald Trump barely did any. He did almost zero mainstream media interviews, especially on MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, and ABC.
Chris Talgo:What did he do? He spent the vast majority of his time reaching out to people who have giant podcast audiences. I did not watch that 3 hour Joe Rogan interview, but I think, you can learn a lot more about someone from a 3 hour uncut interview than a 3 minute, you know, prepared interview, on ABC or, you know, CNN or whatever. So I think that, the media landscape is changing. It's changing before our very eyes.
Chris Talgo:I think, you know, the rise of social media is also gonna be a big part of that. I agree with you that the mainstream media is extremely frustrated. I don't know if we're gonna go into this later. I guess we kind of are with the the spin and stuff, but, it's been interesting to watch the past, you know, 24, 36 hours how different the mainstream media is taking this. You know, sometimes they are getting introspective and saying, gee, how did we miss this?
Chris Talgo:And then other times, it's like they lurched the totally other direction.
Donald Kendal:We'll get to that.
Chris Talgo:Okay. So, yeah, I do wanna just say to throw that out there. It's it's been very fascinating to watch.
Donald Kendal:Well, oh, Jim, I've got a I've got a question for you because, I'm gonna spare our audience. We have a couple of prepared clips. Jimmy Kimmel crying about how this was a bad night for everybody. Got AOC that's talking about fascism on the march and all of that. We'll we'll save the audience for having to deal with with any of that.
Donald Kendal:But I have no I have no sympathy for those people, Jimmy Kimball and and AOC and and the ladies on The View. I really don't. But you started off the show and had that lady, like, crying in the, the intro. Right? And there's a million of those videos.
Donald Kendal:TikTok, reels, Instagram, all of these people just losing their minds. And I've heard plenty of anecdotal stories of people losing their minds thinking that, like, women are not only gonna be stripped of, like, their ability to get abortions, but take like, their ability to buy a house and have credit cards taken away from them. Like, this idea that that, like, Donald Trump is personally mailing them, a Handmaid's Tale, you know, outfits to wear. And it's just like the the idea that fascism is on the march and that people are gonna be, you know, put in in camps, and he's gonna start arresting all of his, you know, political enemies. And I just, like, at at at at one level, I just, like, shake my head and just, like, oh my gosh.
Donald Kendal:You're you're so ridiculous. But on the other level, I I have this, like, sense of compassion for them. Like, I feel sorry. Like, they were abused by the media. The media has been just, like, stoking these flames for years years years.
Donald Kendal:And I feel like these people, like, can't help but believe at least some of it. So I I have, like, compassion from a like, these are, like, abused people. Like, I I feel like there should be some sort of, one of those, like, like, lawsuit commercials where it's like, do you think that Donald Trump is the second coming of Hitler? Well, you might be entitled, sir, for some compensation because I feel like the media should be held the task for this. This is unbelievable that they're just like you know, the the word brainwash gets thrown around a lot, but these people are conditioned to really believe this stuff.
Donald Kendal:And, I don't know. Maybe it maybe it's because, you know, like, I'm a father now and a little bit more compassionate or whatever, but I don't know. What what are what are your thoughts on this?
Jim Lakely:Good for you for being compassionate. And and while that, while there are literally thousands of videos that you can see on x that are grabbed from TikTok of mostly, women going absolutely bat shit hysterical crazy on camera. I for 1, I don't even understand. Why do you film yourself doing this, and why are you sharing this with the world? Sure.
Jim Lakely:I think these there's there is a to be honest, when you see these things, we have a mental health crisis in this country that is not being addressed. So maybe if there's any good to come out of it, it would be that. But there is no reason for that for for people to be screaming into cameras that, you know, a a dark fascist night is now upon us. I mean, there's there was a there was a clip that went viral of a of a black woman saying that she thinks that, she she was afraid to go to bed because she didn't wanna wake up tomorrow and because she might be a slave tomorrow, meaning Wednesday. I mean, this and the mainstream media is the one to is really the chief one to blame for all of this.
Jim Lakely:As Justin mentioned, they spent they've spent the equivalent of maybe a $1,000,000,000,000 of free of of, you know, media buys, calling Donald Trump and his supporters fascists and Nazis, and, you know, someone who's gonna take all of your rights away, and like you said, you know, put people in camps. He's gonna be a dictator and all of this. But what did we see on Wednesday afternoon? We saw Kamala Harris go out, at Howard University, her alma mater in Washington DC, and say that she is going to, participate in the peaceful handover of power, the peaceful transfer of power to Donald Trump. Now if it really is the case that Donald Trump is is a new Hitler or Mussolini or some corner some kind of fascist dictator who is who's, you know, a threat to everybody's life and a threat to our way of life here in America.
Jim Lakely:Why would Kamala Harris say that? She would say that because not her, not any of her surrogates actually believe that Donald Trump is a fascist and is gonna be a dictator for life. Oprah Winfrey on in the last rally that she had in Philadelphia, I believe, with Kamala Harris said that this we need to vote tomorrow, we need to vote against Donald Trump, or this could be the last election we ever have. Right. You know, because Donald Trump is a is a fascist dictator, and he will outlaw elections, and he will stay in office for life.
Jim Lakely:Apparently, I suppose to pass over power to his son, Barron, when he is old enough, to rule over over the United States for the next, you know, a 150 years or so. I don't know. Uh-huh. Because Elon Musk will be there to extend Barron's life until he's 205 or something with the new technologies he's bringing about. I mean, we have a mental health crisis in this country because, to be honest, one party and our dominant media have dedicated all of their attention, their power, and their money to making people absolutely crazy by lying to them constantly about the nature of Donald Trump's first presidency.
Jim Lakely:We all lived through it. I don't remember any camps. In fact, there was some disappointment on the right that Donald Trump was not able to accomplish as much as he had promised and that a lot of people had hoped. He did a lot of good. A lot of good policies came out of Donald Trump's first administration.
Jim Lakely:And, really, what's actually very exciting about the next 4 years is that Donald Trump, in that Joe Rogan interview, admitted that he wasn't prepared to be president on day 1. He you know, it's not like an a a normal politician where and where they have the full support of the party, and they have all these people lined up that have been pre vetted and are ready to take positions in government and implement the agenda. And we also forget that the Republican Party was not happy that Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, and they spent most of the first two years of administration, the most important two years of any new presidency. They spent most of that thwarting Donald Trump's agenda, not wanting to cooperate with him, and so it is amazing that Donald Trump was able to accomplish as much as he did from 2016 to 2020. The exciting thing now is that he is ready, and the Republican party is behind him, and the American people are behind him with a sweeping mandate.
Jim Lakely:It's going to be there is gonna be radical change in this country. Radical change for good, not not, you know, not concentration camps for media people. And and so, I hope that I know this is putting hope before experience, but I I hope that the end of this sort of weaponized crazy making by our media will end. I don't think so, but I hope Well,
Donald Kendal:what wait. Wait. Before you wait. Before you jump in, there's a comment, from, it is I too that says, continue, Jim. Need to show this to my extreme left sister.
Donald Kendal:So I've heard, like, a bunch of these anecdotes of people talking to their friends and family that are just, like, beside themselves, this fear that Donald Trump is the second coming of Hitler. And I had this thought. I'm glad you brought up the Kamala Harris concession speech, but I think, Chris, maybe you told me that, oh, yeah. Reportedly, Kamala Harris called up Donald Trump to congratulate him, you know, on winning the presidency. And it's just like, why would she do that?
Donald Kendal:If she really thinks that he's Hitler, that he's some Nazi, he's a fascist in waiting, why would you call to congratulate him? And why would you facilitate
Chris Talgo:his transition? Right.
Donald Kendal:Are incongruent. Right? So to me, the only logical explanation is that she doesn't believe her own rhetoric. They they court they put themselves in a rhetorical corner by going so extreme about him being a fascist and her congratulating him calling him and congratulating him was proof that she doesn't believe her own rhetoric. So if she doesn't believe it, none of her supporters should believe it either.
Donald Kendal:So anyone that's so worried that they're going to be marched off into some camp, just know that Kamala Harris doesn't even believe that BS. So, that that was my last word on that. I do wanna go to the next topic, Chris, but if you have any final
Chris Talgo:thoughts on that. Just a real quick final thought. You know, I think the media deserves, you know, what we're giving them. However, we need to also point the finger at the education system. I'm a former teacher.
Chris Talgo:I was teaching during the rise of Donald Trump, and I cannot tell you how many times these teachers were also literally telling their kids that if you're an immigrant, you're you're gonna be deported and all this crazy stuff, and that's only one part of it. The other part of it is, you know, for for far too long in our schools, we've been, telling kids what to think, not how to think. So even if the media is absolutely biased, which, of course, it absolutely is, you know, it it would be the the a check against that is to have a, you know, a a a a populist populist that actually is, you know, willing to ask questions and dig deeper. And, you know, one of the things that the founding fathers said is, you know, unless we have a a, educated, you know, in the classic, you know, definition of that term, populist, well, then we're not gonna go very far. Because if you are just, you know, being told what to think, what to think, what to think all the time, you're much more vulnerable to these, you know, media narratives.
Chris Talgo:So I think that's another thing that just needs to be, you know, a a part of this. School choice, I think, is gonna be a big help for that. Unfortunately, one of the things that happened was a school choice was on, the ballot in a bun in a bunch of states, a referendum style. It got voted down. And that was a big shock to me.
Chris Talgo:Like, across the board, School Choice did very bad on, Tuesday night. I don't know. I mean, there's many reasons as to why that is, but I think that that's another thing that we need to really keep in mind during our, you know, assessment of why people are thinking the way they are. It's not that just because they are, you know, being, you know, indoctrinated by the mainstream media. It's because they've been they've been misled as to how to think critically and, you know, reason and use, you know, all those, skills.
Chris Talgo:So that's, I think, a big big part of this.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Yeah. We went in pretty in-depth on, the media and their kind of dwindling influence last episode, so you should check that one out. The the last episode before the election, check that out. It's got Bezos' big head in the thumbnail.
Donald Kendal:But, so, yeah, we know that the the media tried their darnedest to get, Kamala Harris across the finish line, and they failed epically. We've got a little bit of a prepared montage here. I think this is from the Daily Wire montage of some media meltdowns, reactions. I this all plays into the idea of, like, what's what's the what's the left's narrative on this? Where are they gonna go?
Donald Kendal:Are they gonna be introspective? Are they gonna maybe we were wrong to kinda push these policies. Are they gonna double down and start calling all of the country racist and sexist? I think this is this is the reactions on election night, and and it might offer a little bit of insight in the direction that they might be going. So let's go ahead and play that clip if we have it ready, please.
Loser Media People:This is the biggest red wave I've seen since Ronald Reagan's 49 state victory.
Jim Lakely:There were appeals to racism in this campaign, and there is racial bias in this country, and there is sexism in this country.
Loser Media People:I can't help but wonder if the American people have given up on democracy.
Loser Media people:I hear what you're saying. And I I I do see it differently because I'm thinking about the people who are not a part of anybody's elite, who are hurting tonight.
Loser Media People:If she were a 6 foot 4 white man from from Arkansas or from, you know, Florida,
Donald Kendal:do you think
Loser Media People:she would be losing by that much?
Jim Lakely:I
Loser Media People:think that we've gotta be honest. Among Hispanic men and black men, there's a lot of misogyny.
Loser Media people:There are African American women who know a little bit about being talked down to and know a little bit about having their economic dreams crushed, who tried to dream a big dream over the past couple of months.
Chris Talgo:It's not enough to get enough white women to vote, for vice president Harris, a fellow woman. This will be the second opportunity that white women in this country have to change the way that they interact with the patriarchy.
Loser Media People:There's misogyny, but it's not just misogyny from white men.
Chris Talgo:Mhmm.
Loser Media People:It's misogyny from Hispanic men.
Chris Talgo:Right.
Loser Media People:It's misogyny from black men.
Loser Media people:And tonight, they're trading in a lot of hope for a lot of hurt. And
Jim Lakely:Oh, man.
Loser Media people:They were hoping that maybe this time
Justin Haskins:This guy was a 911 truth in
Chris Talgo:any
Jim Lakely:way so
Chris Talgo:so that everyone will remember.
Loser Media people:One of their own could be seen as worthy.
Loser Media People:Things we've all been talking about who do not wanna
Chris Talgo:work might be be good on the line.
Jim Lakely:Might be
Loser Media People:race issues with Hispanics. They don't want a black woman
Chris Talgo:She's wearing a cape.
Loser Media People:As president
Jim Lakely:To all the the pollsters, the election pollsters, blow me. I don't
Donald Kendal:Oh, John Stewart.
Jim Lakely:From you again ever.
Loser Media people:People who said that he was a Hitler lever weren't Democrats. They're Republicans. People who said that he was a fascist were Democrats. They were Republicans who weren't for him.
Chris Talgo:You gotta be kidding me. Oh,
Donald Kendal:Justin, what do you think? What what what's what's what's what are you putting your, your money on in Vegas? You think they're gonna you think they're gonna pull back some of their more, radical perspectives and be trying to be the more moderate conservative? Or do you
Justin Haskins:think they're just gonna try
Donald Kendal:to power through and and then push this narrative that it's all just misogyny and racism? That's what's keeping us, out of the out of the ballot box. What do you think?
Justin Haskins:Well, I hope that they go the misogyny, racism route because, frankly, that's the one where we all have more fun. And it's also just, I think, a main reason why they're losing all these elections, and they just keep doing it. It's unbelievable. So, I I think, it's incredible to see a guy like Joe Scarborough, a rich white man, go on television next to a rich white woman and tell Hispanic men that they're probably misogynists and also racists. And it's like and that's the reason why they voted because of their misogyny, their pro white guy misogyny, and racism is the secret reason that they voted.
Justin Haskins:It's just like this is this is this is the whole point. You people are completely out of touch with reality. And the reason that a lot of people are voting in opposition to the narratives that, you know, that that have been imposed on them, in the case of a lot of Hispanic voters and a lot of Asians and other people is because they do not believe any of these things are true because it's not it's just not part of life. It isn't real. It's all no one would think these things if they weren't being told them by the media.
Justin Haskins:Like, that's the reality, though. Almost no one would believe in this this concept of, like, systemic racism and all of this stuff if they weren't being told it. I really believe that that's the case.
Donald Kendal:It's it's it's an inability to take any self responsibility. You know? They're they're trying to just push it. You know? It's not because we're, like, horrible at reading the room or we have our finger the furthest from the pulse of anything.
Donald Kendal:It must just be racism. We didn't we didn't figure the misogyny. We we didn't, think it big enough, you know, to apply to all the other
Justin Haskins:Yeah. And and the racism thing is especially crazy because minorities vote you know, he did much better with minorities. And so, again, it's like you're now telling the the minorities that they're racist. You're the white guy telling the minorities that they're racist for voting for a white guy and that that's why that this whole thing happened. It's like that's like mansplaining it with race.
Justin Haskins:You know? It's like the racist version of mansplaining, and it's just like I I thought we were supposed to be against that. I thought we were supposed to let people give us their truth and experiences and all this crap. No. I guess not.
Justin Haskins:I guess when they tell us their truth, we're supposed to say you're a racist and a misogynist and move and move on. But the but to answer your question of, like, well, what do I think will happen? I I mean, I'll be honest. I'm really struggling with this. They are in the left the left, the Democratic Party establishment, the people who are in charge of figuring out, you know, where do we go from here?
Justin Haskins:They're in a absolutely horrible situation. And I, truly do not know what I would advise them to do that's realistic for them to do. So what they should do is move to the center. That's what they should do. They should move they should follow the Bill Clinton model and move to the center and become the you know, we're the old school Democrats again.
Justin Haskins:We're not those crazy people who you think we are because that's the way we've behaved for the past 15 years. We're we're now the Bill Clinton people. We're, you know, working class, pro union, anti establishment, anti big corporations, you know, people. We don't have any like, we're not really into a lot of social issues and stuff like that. Like, they need to go back into that.
Justin Haskins:And and if they did, I think they would do very, very well because I think there are a lot of moderates in the middle who still feel more comfortable voting for a democrat if the democrat isn't crazy. There's just not many people in the democrat party running for powerful positions who aren't insane, so they don't have a lot of options. You know, I I met a guy at a at a a birthday party, children's birthday party, this past weekend. Guy, you know, I told him I was in politics and whatever and then pop public policy, and he was he told me, I never have voted for Republicans up and down every I'm an independent registered independent. I vote, you know, sometimes for Democrats, sometimes for Republicans.
Justin Haskins:I've never voted for all Republicans. He said this was the 1st election in my life, and, you know, he was like a guy in his forties or fifties. 1st election in my life where I just didn't even have to think about it. I went straight down the ticket, all Republicans. And the reason was simple.
Justin Haskins:The other side is a good saying, and I can't and I can't I just can't I can't do it. They're too insane, and I think there were a lot of people who feel that way. So that's what should Democrats should do. The reason they can't do that is because their most politically active segment within the Democratic Party is the craziest. And and
Donald Kendal:They're the loudest.
Justin Haskins:They're the loudest and the craziest, and they're in control of the media. And they're never gonna do any of that. They're never gonna move to the center. They think they they probably think, you know, that the center is a is racism too. Like, they could never go back.
Justin Haskins:They'll never do that. So of the realistic options, the only thing that I so this is what I think if I'm gonna put my money on it, this is what I think the battle is going to be next time around. I think next time around for the Democrats, the internal war is not going to be, should we move to the center? Nope. That's not possible.
Justin Haskins:And it's not going to be, you know, obviously, they know they can't go like the Joe Biden route again, like the old white guy who can't remember anything. Like, they have to pick somebody who's a little more who younger and energetic and all of that, but who and I think this is gonna be the debate. Will it be a more establishment democrat type who can, present themselves as being a moderate but but isn't because they'll never pick a moderate. So it has to be someone who pretends to be moderate but isn't. This is like Barack Obama.
Justin Haskins:Okay? Barack Obama was not a moderate. But if you go back and you watch his speeches and stuff like that, he presented himself that way. So that's an option. I think the other option, and I've already started to see this happen.
Justin Haskins:We haven't had a chance to talk about this off air yet, but I've already started to see this happen, is the Bernie Sanders people have made a really big push. They even put out press releases and stuff like this in recent Bernie Sanders himself put out a press release as well as other groups, basically saying that, yep, we we knew that this was gonna happen because you guys abandoned the working class democratic socialism model, and that was really popular with all the demographics that just so happened to now vote for Donald Trump. So what we need is a a left wing populism, which is like burn the Bernie Sanders model. It won't be Bernie Sanders because he's too old, but the Bernie Sanders model. And then I think on the other side, you're gonna have no.
Justin Haskins:No. No. We don't we we need a we need to, a more traditional establishment type, candidate who's a real progressive but who can pretend not to be a progressive. And I think this is going to be the future debate between the 2. It's the socialists are gonna use this as an opportunity to say, we're the only people who can appeal to these working class people who hate the elites.
Justin Haskins:We can appeal to them. You elite democrats can't appeal to them, but the Bernie people can. And that's we need another wave of of Bernie Sanders like socialistic policies and people. And and and that will be the battle, I think, in the future.
Donald Kendal:Chris, you you've you've probably watched some CNN as and MSNBC in the aftermath of the election. Do you get any sense of the direction that they're Oh, yeah.
Chris Talgo:Rhetorically? I got some thoughts on this one. Okay. So, election morning, meaning Wednesday morning, it seemed for the first hour of Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough, Mika, and all those people, that Joe was actually getting a little, introspective and asking, man, why did we lose, you know, with with, black men and Latino men and all that? That lasted literally for, like, 45 minutes, and then he just like, the whole show, for the most part, went just totally nuclear into we must stop Trump, Trump is a dictator, Trump is a Nazi, strong man, all that stuff.
Chris Talgo:Okay. So then when I got home last night, I flipped on, MSNBC, like, you know, around probably 7, 7 ish, and, they were still doing their election coverage, like, you know, with Joy Joy Reid and, Chris Hayes and all those people. And, wow, it was stunning. They were not even trying to understand why their candidate lost so massively. It was totally a 100%.
Chris Talgo:We must stop the strong man. There's a dictator who's about to come in the office. We must fight. We must rise together. Please do not get apathetic at this point.
Chris Talgo:Blah blah blah. And I was just like, woah. I guess they're gonna go in that direction. And here's here's why I think that's particularly interesting. Because after 2016, when the media got it totally wrong, for about a week or so, it seemed like they were trying to understand.
Chris Talgo:Remember, I think the New York Times actually came out with, like, a big article saying, like, we need to understand what's going on. Why were we so off? That lasted, what, maybe, like, a week or 2. So I think this is gonna last even less. And, you know, the the best, predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
Chris Talgo:For 10 years now, as Justin said in the beginning of this, these people have been obsessed with, you know, denigrating Trump and his supporters. That's not gonna change. There's no way that's gonna change. I think they're gonna double, triple, and quadruple down on this, and I think it's gonna blow up in their face even more because it would be probably a better business model for them to try to, move back to the center, to try to understand, you know, why people are making the decisions that they're making and all that. They're not gonna do that.
Chris Talgo:No way. It's not gonna happen. I'm already seeing it hap I'm already Yeah. I'm already seeing them just, you know, like, dig their heels even even even deeper. It's it's
Donald Kendal:It's a rhetorical corner they're paying themselves in. How do you compromise and work with Hitler? You can't do it.
Chris Talgo:Right. Right. They can't. They can't just come out and say, oh, hi, everybody. Just kidding.
Chris Talgo:For the past, you know, 10 years, we've been calling this guy Hitler's strong man, Nazi and, you know, fascist and all this. But, actually, we were totally making that up because we wanted to win the election. And he's actually kinda like, you know, like like, you know, just not that bad, and, he's gonna work with the transition team. President Biden already already, asked him to come to the White House to start the transition process. So once again, Donnie, if if if the guy coming in is Adolf Hitler, why would you facilitate the transition process?
Chris Talgo:I just I I gotta understand that. Right. So it just goes to show how empty their rhetoric is, and I think how desperate they were. But I don't think that the mainstream media, the MSNBC, CNN, ABCs, you know, the usual suspects are gonna change their tune anytime. I don't think so.
Donald Kendal:Jim, final thoughts on this topic. Oh, classic Jim. Classic Jim.
Jim Lakely:Classic Jim. Alright. Pardon me for for muting as I was typing something out. So, anyway, yeah, as Justin was was mentioning that the media landscape has changed, and it's not going back. I saw a story this morning from The Hollywood Reporter that this was the lowest percentage of of American households watching their returns on traditional television since 1960.
Jim Lakely:1960, not everybody had a television. It was still a relatively new technology, and it was expensive, and a lot of people couldn't afford it. So the lowest percentage of households in the United States watching the returns on TV since 1960. It was the, lowest total number of people watching on television just as a broad number since they started tracking that back in 2000. It is obvious that the mainstream media is is dying.
Jim Lakely:They're they're like, they're like the 6th sense. You know? They're walking around and they don't know they're dead. They they need, they they need to be told that they're dead so that maybe they just go off to the great beyond. But, you know, people are finding their own, options on streaming to consume news, and I watched, the Blaze TV, on election night.
Jim Lakely:I didn't watch the the cable networks until I wanted to see, to enjoy the, the lamentations and the crying that was going on in those networks. And just one last little data point. I mean, CNN's audience from from the 2020 election for the 2024 election, their audience was cut exact almost exactly in half. So the the old media landscape is gone, and they they they think they still have this influence. They do have a pretty malign influence, obviously, among a lot of Americans, but it is going to, you know, it's gonna continually decrease.
Jim Lakely:This is the last election in which probably even half of Americans will be watching the returns on a traditional network.
Chris Talgo:Jim, just one one thing on that. So I don't know. Do they count if you are watching a, premium channel, but you're not watching it with, like, your your cable box? Like, I cut the cord many years ago. I have DIRECTV.
Chris Talgo:So that just gives me a lot of those channels, but I'm pretty sure that I don't actually count as a viewer of Fox or CNN or MSNBC because I'm not, I don't have my cable connection any longer. Is that do you know the answer to that?
Jim Lakely:Well, they they I don't know the answer to that specifically. The Hollywood Reporter, story did did show that, you know, streaming services like CNN Max recorded its best day. I didn't know there CNN Max existed, but it recorded its best day ever.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. It lives under HBO Max now. Yeah.
Jim Lakely:Right. So so yeah. So it's it's it's not exactly clear, but, what is clear is that the traditional way of sitting in, you know, your living room and putting on m b c NBC, ABC, CBS to watch election returns, is the worst year that's ever been for that and by dramatic numbers. And so I think that trend is going to just accelerate.
Chris Talgo:Yep.
Donald Kendal:Yep. It, yeah. I don't know what the left's gonna do. I feel like they're gonna double down. That's my own, my own take on it.
Donald Kendal:We are so long in the tooth on this podcast, but we have one more topic. Donald Trump's first 100 days. Admittedly, I have no insight into this. I, I consider thinking about his first 100 days as kind of counting my chickens before they hatch, so this topic hasn't even occurred to me until he'd secured the election on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, whatever you wanna say. So this is more of a wish list for me about, what I hope that his first 100 days, looks like.
Donald Kendal:But before I get into that, Chris, do you real quick. Let's let's make this like a rapid fire kind of question. Do you have any insight on what is gonna be, like, kind of priority 1 when it comes to Donald Trump in his first 100 days? What what areas that I
Chris Talgo:know exactly what he's gonna do. Are you ready?
Donald Kendal:Go ahead.
Chris Talgo:Just go open project 2025, page 1, and start reading. It's that simple. Just kidding. No. What he's really gonna do, it's I think it's I think it's it's it's gonna boil down to the, you know, the the, border.
Chris Talgo:Obviously, he's gonna wanna secure the border. Obviously, he's gonna want to, revamp the, energy production. I think those are gonna be the 2 big ones. And I think that we're still gonna have to wait to see what happens with the house because if the Republican party does have the house and then they have, you know, control of, both houses of congress, his first 100 days could be FDR style. I mean, this could be really, really, you know, big time.
Chris Talgo:So I I'm just gonna have to say kinda, you know, leave that out there.
Donald Kendal:Well, on The New York Times tracker for the house, during the podcast, it went up to 207 seats called for Republicans to 209. So just over the span of our podcast, it's gone up 2 seats for Republicans.
Chris Talgo:Good.
Donald Kendal:Justin thoughts on what you're hoping that he's gonna prioritize in the first 100 days or any insights into what they're actually gonna prioritize?
Justin Haskins:Well, I think I think, the main priority I mean, a lot of this does depend on what happens in the house and, and to some extent in the senate, obviously, because especially in the senate, you really do need a lot of support to get things through, and you can't even get past filibusters in the senate without getting 60 votes. And so there's there's a lot of issues with getting things passed. So the first 100 days is going to be mostly focused on executive orders, and, I think there's gonna be a variety of things that they do. I think one of the big things is going to be, as Chris said, domestic energy production, doing everything they can to try to shore that up by reducing the wait times for leases, for oil and gas development. They're going to be reaching out to a lot of these, companies, these businesses that are in the oil and gas industry and saying, look.
Justin Haskins:Like, we're open for business again. We want you to really be aggressive. We wanna try to, do everything we can to help the refineries and help the processing and all of this stuff. Pipelines that have been delayed by the Biden administration or outright rejected, I think they're gonna be taking a hard look at that. It's gonna be a big part of it.
Justin Haskins:And I think the idea behind this energy production stuff is not just that it's going to generate jobs and help the economy grow and and all of that, but I think this is going to be viewed as one of the main ways to re, combat inflation. Because if you can bring energy prices down, then you can bring, prices overall down because energy is associated with the price of virtually everything. So I think that's going to be a huge component. I think another really big thing, which is not necessarily an issue that we cover a lot on this show, but a big thing is going to be trying to end that war in Ukraine, with Russia and Ukraine. That's going to have massive impacts on all sorts of other issues, including the economy, because the global economy is, has been shaped in a massive way over the past few years by that war.
Justin Haskins:And if that war can end quickly, I think and that's what Donald Trump says he wants to do. Then I think you're going to see the stock market and investors and businesses, especially multinational corporations, and the energy industry is heavily involved in that one as well, respond very positively to that. So I think that is also going to be a huge, huge, huge priority. Of course, you're gonna have lots of appointments and things like that is a is a is a massive part of it. Another thing that I'm hoping that they do is, deal with the ESG issue.
Justin Haskins:A lot of that can be done through executive action. The Biden administration, when they came into power, started undoing a lot of the anti ESG, policies that have been put into place by Trump. So I'm hoping that very quickly early on in the Trump administration, he's gonna go back and put those things into place. He's promised to do that in regards to ESG and banking, ESG in public pensions, and other things. So I think that would be a really huge step forward.
Justin Haskins:So there's gonna be a a lot of action here. Most of it is going to be on the executive order side of things. A lot of regulation cutting, a lot of pro energy policies. What I hope to see, but I don't think we'll see, is a real solid attempt at reducing government spending. I don't think that's gonna happen.
Justin Haskins:That's not Donald Trump's, priority by any means, but I think that government spending is the main reason why we have an inflation crisis because we have to print lots of money in order to keep paying the bills. And if you really wanna reduce inflation over the long run, cut government spending, and I I I really hope that that's the direction they go in. I don't think that's gonna happen, but I hope that they do. So I think that's just a a a preview of of of everything. Someone should also have a sit sit down with, 2 the 2 oldest supreme court justices, Clarence Thomas and Alito, and remind them that this would be a good opportunity to retire and ride off into the sunset so we can get a couple more more young conservative justices on the bench.
Justin Haskins:I would even let them pick their replacements. I think that's that would be a nice gesture.
Donald Kendal:Well, I can I I can say, pretty conclusively that, Justin I don't have anything to say that Justin didn't already say? So, Jim, final thoughts on this, and we'll wrap up the show.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. I mean, I think, obviously, the one of the first things he's gonna do probably on day 1 is pull us out of the Paris Climate Agreement again for a second time, and then we're never going back. Probably end, all these offshore wind leases that are killing marine life and are are an eyesore and are not producing reliable energy and are polluting our beaches. I believe the American people are behind that, so that could be done. I was reminded on Twitter, after the election that senator Ron Wyden of, your Oregon up there, Justin, introduced a bill to expand the supreme court to 13 members.
Jim Lakely:I think maybe, and Chuck Schumer supported it as well, so maybe we'll bring that up again. That would be nice. No. That that would be bad. I oppose it even when the left was gonna do it, but I just find that hilarious now.
Jim Lakely:They're they're gonna run away from that like crazy. It would be actually nice if in the 1st 100 days, he instructs the Department of Education before he dissolves it entirely, to withhold any federal funds from any public university that is has implemented DEI. You either dismantle it entirely and fire the people that are, in your DEI offices at, say, the University of of, you know, Oklahoma or something like that, or or you don't get any taxpayer money. So that's the way it is. So if you wanna do DEI, do it on your own, have your state, make up the difference.
Jim Lakely:You know, Elon Musk has said that, you know, he said he wants to basically be the grim reaper for the federal workforce. I'm totally for that. You can go in there, at least half the federal workforce, and he said it in a nice way. One of the stumps that he some speeches he did in Pennsylvania. Look.
Jim Lakely:You know? Thanks for your service. Here's 2 year severance. Good luck to you out there in the in the private sector. You're not needed here anymore.
Jim Lakely:You're not productive here. Go be productive in the private sector. We need more people doing jobs like that as well. That would be wonderful to see. The it's gonna be actually kind of funny to watch the media lose their minds over things like that, but that that's one of the great things about this election, and I was when I was worried that Trump might not win in the week leading up to the election, I was like, this would've what a what a missed opportunity this was going to be to have Elon Musk go in there.
Jim Lakely:And he may not succeed. I think he will try, but this would be the only attempt in our lifetimes to actually reduce the the power and scope, size, and personnel of government. And now we have a chance to do that, and I think that's that's really fantastic. And then finally, you know, he can implement, just as Joe Biden reversed every Trump immigration policy and border policy that he could in the 1st 100 days. Donald Trump can put it right back in there again, and he can do things like close the border, find those who snuck into this country, especially the criminals, identify them, and deport them, right away.
Jim Lakely:Day 1, start doing it immediately. I think, you know, this is a chance again. He was not really prepared in 2016 to be president and to implement policies as president. He is 100% knowledgeable and knows what to do and how to do it. And, so it's gonna be a a probably the most exciting first 100 days of our presidency we've seen in a long, long time.
Chris Talgo:Donnie, got one more thing I gotta add in there. He's gotta fire Chris Frey day 1. Day 1. Gotta fire that guy.
Donald Kendal:Alright. Well, I bet, we like I said, very long in the tooth on this podcast. Thank you for sticking around for this episode. Please plan on, joining us next week for a new episode of the In the Tank podcast. For those audio only listeners that are catching the show probably on a Friday or later, leave a review for us on iTunes.
Donald Kendal:That'd be greatly appreciated. And consider joining us a day earlier on Thursdays at noon CST, where we are live streaming this on Facebook and YouTube and Rumble and x. You can join the conversation. Throw your comments and questions in chat. Maybe we'll share your comments on the screen.
Donald Kendal:We will address your questions on the fly. You can also support the show, but not by super chats because YouTube has demonetized us. But you can go to heartland.org/inthetank and donate directly to the show. That way, YouTube doesn't take a 30% cut. And, you could also help out the show by hitting that like button, subscribing, sharing this content, and, you know, leaving a comment on the video.
Donald Kendal:All those things help break through those big tech algorithms that prevent content like this from being shown to more people. Feel free to follow us on Twitter at in the tank pod, and you can send us your comments, questions, and suggestions to the show by emailing us at in the tank podcast atgmail.com. Jim Lakeley, where can the fine people find you?
Jim Lakely:At jlakeleyonx@heartlandinstonx, and always visit heartland.org.
Donald Kendal:And Justin Haskins, same question.
Justin Haskins:Justinthaskins on xandjustinhaskins.com.
Donald Kendal:And, Chris Talgo, what do you have to pitch today?
Chris Talgo:Well, I don't do social media because I'd love my privacy, but I do love reading good books. And, this new book that just came out is called propaganda wars. It's really worth reading. So go to Amazon and buy the book.
Donald Kendal:That is a good thing to pitch. There's Jim's camera is showing it right there, propaganda wars. But, why don't we all end the show by just saying bye, Kamala Harris. So long. I know you wanted to be a part of our lives, but we reject you.
Donald Kendal:So so long, Kamala Harris. Bye bye, everybody. Thank you for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next week.
Chris Talgo:What?
Justin Haskins:What?