Show Notes
One week out from the midterms, the crew argues over Josh Turek’s new ad, which comes out against trans athletes in women’s sports and federal funding for gender surgeries. Was it smart harm reduction in a red state, or a gutless, reactive move that leaves his base cold right before Election Day? Zak defends the strategy but not the timing. Luke brings the numbers on how rare these surgeries are. Rich says Turek took the bait. They also look at how Rob Sand got away with distancing himself from Harris, and how Adam Hamilton in Kansas recovered on the same issue.
Plus: what Texas early vote numbers might be signaling, the 31 fundraising texts Tim got from a House candidate he’s never heard of, Trump’s latest rally detour about Nicki Minaj, and good news from abroad as Lula beats Bolsonaro’s son in Brazil and Serbia’s strongman goes down.
Election night, we’re live at the Gramercy Theater in NYC with Lisandra Vazquez hosting, Gangstagrass, and a long list of creator friends. Tickets at wearefindout.com/tour, or watch the stream on our YouTube channel (hit notify). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
More from The Find Out Podcast
Florida Democratic Senate nominee Angie Nixon calls in from the campaign trail to explain how a state that’s gone red three cycles in a row ended up with a competitive Senate race. She talks about ICE agents going after roofers rebuilding homes in the hurricane-hit Panhandle while FEMA is nowhere to be found, and about insurance companies dodging claims while Ashley Moody, then attorney general, took their money. Nixon also covers the 440,000 Floridians who lost coverage when ACA subsidies expired, her push for a congressional stock trading ban, and what she says when voters ask about the “socialist” label. She closes with a direct pitch to older Floridians on Social Security and health care.
Two weeks out from the midterms, Republicans are pulling out every old hit: Muslim, trans, socialist, vegan. Less and less of it is landing. Tim, Zak, Rich and Luke start with Abdul El-Sayed’s town hall, where a planted Republican operative kept demanding he “disavow the Muslim Brotherhood” and El-Sayed turned the question around on him. From there: why the trans panic keeps falling flat, and why the socialism attack is the one that still has teeth.
How do men learn what consent actually looks like, and who’s supposed to teach them? Director and content creator Brenna Perez returns to push Tim, Rich, and Zak on the Cornell 7 case: whether assault can happen without intent, why “she didn’t say no” isn’t the bar, and what dads owe their sons and daughters before college ever starts.
Grace Weinstein, senior correspondent at The Recount and creator of the Who Broke It Substack, joins Zak, Rich, Luke and Tim to explain why voters under 30 are abandoning the right. After delivering for Trump in 2024, young conservatives say they’ve been ignored on the things they care about: no new wars, affordability, and a shot at starting a family. Republicans haven’t made a serious effort to win them back.
Trump never misses a chance to say he loves the troops. The reality on the ground looks very different. Marine Corps combat veteran Matt Gordon (USMC Angry Veteran) joins the crew to talk about what DOGE cuts have done to the VA, including a clinic in his area of upstate New York that now has no mental health therapist for roughly 10,000 veterans. He explains why caring for veterans should be counted as a cost of war, and what a real Democratic platform for vets would look like.We also get into how the war in Iran has burned through U.S. missile stockpiles and credibility, new reporting that Netanyahu was warned before October 7th, Matt's theory about a 25th Amendment move to put JD Vance in charge, and the story from Hillbilly Elegy that Vance probably wishes everyone would forget.