European Politics, Democrats' Post-Debate Panic, and Mexico Drug Cartels with Henry Olsen, Jeff Mason, and Abe Hamadeh
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We're going to be diving into a lot of fun issues for the day. Our first guest up today, Henry Olson, friend of the program. He is a political analyst and opinion columnist, host of Beyond the Polls podcast, and author of The Working Class Republican. You can follow him on X at Henry Olson EPPC, and he's been following the fun overseas and

And, man, we had a couple of, frankly, fairly historic but also very interesting elections for the U.S. that happened in France and the U.K. And France is having their second round this Sunday. France is having their second round this Sunday.

There are a lot of lessons for both sides of the aisle here in the U.S. on what happened there. And so we're very, very excited to have Henry Olson back on the program to talk about that. Henry, thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you for having me. So, Henry, I view France and the United Kingdom in this way. In politics, donors who give before the election are called Monday friends. People who give after you win are called Wednesday friends. I view United Kingdom...

And France is Monday friends for the United States. Even though we have our differences, when it hits the pavement, they would be there, I feel. Tell us what the significance is, for example, and what happened in the United Kingdom. There's some interesting things there. The Tories had such a big...

win, but their margin overall was, I don't think it was above 36%. Could you tell us more about it? Yeah, they got fewer votes than they did in Jeremy Corbyn's election total. Go ahead, Henry. Yeah. You mean the Labor Party? Yeah, the Labor Party. Yeah, the Labor Party. Right. No, I mean, this was a rejection of the Tory party. The Tory party had been in government for 14 years. By Tories, I mean Conservatives.

And they had made a lot of promises that weren't kept. Public services declined in quality. Tax burden went up. Immigration that they promised to reduce to the tens of thousands set a record high of 600,000. Put another way, that would be the equivalent of $3 million.

legal immigrants each year into the country, adjusting for population to the United States. And its voters had enough. People in the center defected to not necessarily labor, but other centrist parties like the Greens or the Liberal Democrats. But the big split was on the right to reform, on Nigel Farage's party.

And a party that had 43 percent lost votes to its center, lost votes to its right, and will have the worst result in its 190-year history.

It's funny reading about it last night and this morning. I've been following it fairly closely. Even the pundits were not saying, well, look, this is really not about labor, which we need to understand. This is not about labor. And also the new prime minister has really moderated his tone. Right. It's NATO. It's Ukraine. We're not going to do all these tax increases, things of this nature. And so how how do you what do you see as a model for that for the United States?

politicians. Yeah, so Sir Keir Starmer is going to be the new prime minister. He, as we were told multiple times last night in the relentlessly machine-like talking points of his spokespeople, has changed the Labour Party. By that they mean he has dragged it

in many ways, unwillingly to dissenter. They have adopted no-tax pledges on the three major taxes. They've pledged to raise defense spending to 2.5%. And they've expelled a number of their farthest left members, including former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

So what that says is that there can be some political advantage for the center left that's willing to see off the far left, which is something that the Democratic Party in the United States has not done. On the other hand,

They didn't gain in vote share very much. What happened was they took advantage. They dragged themselves to the center enough that they didn't lose more votes than they had lost in 2019. But they really took advantage of the Tory implosion.

in some seats, tactical voting by people who said, I want the Tories out, meant they did get some vote gains. But mainly they won their seats because of the Tory split going to the centrists and mainly to reform. And that means that Starmer has a record high majority, but he has to look to his left to keep defections down, and he has to look to his center to keep

maybe attracting people from the center to join his party. It's going to be a very difficult balancing act. So the general election results shows Labor's vote share 34%, their seats in the parliament are 64%.

Conservatives got 24 percent, 19 percent of the seat share, whereas the Reform UK, which is basically conservatives who are mad about immigration, promises not being kept, received 14 percent of the vote share and only 1 percent of the seats. So basically conservatives on the right were at 38 percent.

That's pretty remarkable. Yeah, now some of those reform voters were not former Tory voters. Reform basically annihilated the Tories in working class labor seats, getting most of the former labor voters who supported Boris Johnson in 2019, but also some new ones. And so, but if you were able to unite them in a coherent whole, the Tories, if

if not having, maybe they wouldn't have won a majority of the seats, but they would have at least deprived Labour of its majority. So the first question is, how do you reunite the right without alienating the centre? And that's the great debate that will take place over the next few months and probably over the next few years in British conservative circles, both partisan and intellectual. Henry, what do you think the chances are that Starmer is able to maintain

the labor coalition that just voted for him? Because fundamentally, Joe Biden campaigned in a similar way, but his track record in office or his staff's track record in office does not mirror that at all. They've just run far to the left. Is it likely that Starmer will have to do the same to keep his base in line? Well, that's the great question for him, you know, is that the political...

advantage is to run to the center and starmer realizes that but if he actually holds to that you will see the leftist discontent grow greens gained three seats and many more votes

uh... in some labor heartland seats that they used to have seventy or eighty percent of the vote they either lost or barely one to uh... muslim challengers and uh... many uh... inner city that have sort large number of muslim uh... voters who supported uh... pro-gaza independence or third-party candidates you know you so you will see that pressure from their left uh... either to the greens or to a nascent

uh... islamist uh... independent movement uh... but if starmer cotton's to them then some of those centrist voters will look at either reform or the tories and say well that's a better lot for me uh... it's very difficult balancing back in the first pass the post system

All catch-all center-left or center-right parties are under pressure everywhere in the world, and it's harder and harder to keep this coalition together because to move in one direction means to anger the other direction. Let's move to France. France, like England, has a lot of people who are not happy with the way things are turning out. Immigration is a huge deal in France, as it is in England.

Talk a little bit about the parties, who's there, what you expect to see happen for the second round of voting on Sunday. Well, if you think that England's four-party, five-party system, including the Greens plus nationalists plus another whole entirely different party system in Northern Ireland is confusing. You ain't seen nothing yet, the frat. Charles de Gaulle once said, how can you govern a country with 300 types of cheeses? Well, it's almost 300 different parties.

And they're all grumpy. And they're all grumpy. And they're all grumpy. So what you've got in France, aside from lots of small independent parties, is a four-party leftist or five-party leftist coalition going from the pro-Hamas...

uh... france unbowed and the new anti-capitalist party uh... over to the greens uh... the greens being this interest of the group uh... you've got the multi-party centrist coalition ranging from uh... of the modem movement of francois of they wrote to uh... the center right edward philippe's horizons then you have the center-right republicans

And then you have National Rally, which is the Marine LePap party. National Rally is not going to win a majority unless every poll is wrong. They are going to become the largest party in Parliament, and if they and France Unbowed have a majority...

then the center has collapsed. The center has to make a deal with one of the extremes. And whichever extreme they make a deal with, probably France Unbowed, means that the centrist voters who can't stand the far left will begin to look at National Rally and say, well, I guess the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And that means the former president

pro-Vichy party from when it was founded 50 years ago becomes the main party of the center-right with a larger reach into the center. It's very difficult to see how France comes out of Sunday with a workable, coherent government given this multiplicity of parties slash cheeses. Is...

Is the alliance, because we're seeing it here in the U.S., you're seeing it in the U.K., you're seeing it in France, you're seeing it in Germany, is the alliance between the far left and Islamic fundamentalist parties, how big of a time bomb is that for the left? Because it seems like fundamentally you could not have two groups that are less aligned on anything in terms of underlying values. Yeah.

Well, which is why you have and you had Starmer exile Jeremy Corbyn, who nevertheless won reelection against the official Labour Party candidate in Islington North. So he was exiled, but he hasn't been removed from the political scene. This is why Macron attacked France unbowed as being an extreme well-off.

Given what happened in the result, it's highly likely he'll have to make a deal with the extreme. And that means that the center voters who look at this and say, I don't want any part of this, have to start looking at the right. And that's just a tension that is inherent when you have such a large vote

vocal left, whether it's Islamist or whether it's highly progressive, as it is more in the United States with a much smaller immigrant Muslim population. It's just unstable. But this is the thing is on the right, you have to include people who love Nikki Haley and people who can't love them enough, Donald Trump in the same party. The

Fractures of any casual party. So we have like 45 seconds here left here. But Sam and I were talking. There's real lessons in this United Kingdom election for conservatives who think, well, I'm just going to break off and start my own party.

It doesn't have a happy ending. You've got to find your 80% you agree on and persuade the other side one way or another. Am I wrong on that? You are absolutely right, and maybe that you have to find the 30% you agree on. But in first-past-the-post systems or majoritarian systems, you either hang together or you hang separately. And if you try and split off, you will hang separately at the end.

And there's a lot of people in Europe who are about to be hung separately. Thank you, Henry Olson, for joining us. We really appreciate having you on the program, folks. Follow him at Henry Olson EPPC on X. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with yours, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our next guest up today, Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters. You can follow him on X at Jeff Mason one. Given his job, Chuck, I assume this is a man who's had absolutely nothing to do over the last week, 10 days.

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So check them out. Invest the letter Y, then refy.com. Jeff, thanks for joining us today. So I'm sure you've been doing interviews with other outlets, MSNBC, CNN, so forth. How are they handling this whole Biden post-debate scenario? Will he stay in? Will he stay out? Will we lie to or will we not lie to? What is the general mood in that White House briefing room with reporters?

Well, you know, I'm not going to speak for other news organizations, but I can tell you that our reporting is focused on what the party is doing. The party is panicking. And the donors, some lawmakers, some of the party heavyweights are all just kind of on the edge right now about President Biden's performance in that debate and the implications that it has. And it has led to this sort of, at least in my perspective,

16, 17 year career of writing about politics. That's not my full career, but just my writing about politics. I've never seen anything like this kind of a crisis that is happening within the party right now. And it's happening within the circle of President Biden as well. He's working really hard right now to tamp it down. He's saying he's going to stay in the race. And it's

You know, we'll see. We'll see how things go with the George Stephanopoulos interview and with the other events that he has scheduled in the coming weeks. But I can tell you this, everyone, including the press corps that you just asked me about, everyone from us to the public, to advisors, to people on the Republican side who work for President Trump, former President Trump, are watching every move really closely.

We're with Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters. So, Jeff, let me – I know you wrote an article on this, so I want you to play professor, as I know you are at Georgetown for a minute. If Joe Biden decides I'm not going to run again, what is the process for replacing him? Because I get asked that question a lot, and I think you did a wonderful write-up on it, but I want you to play Georgetown professor for me. We're a bunch of freshmen in the class. What happens? Yeah.

Yeah. No, I appreciate you asking that. And I did write a piece about that, which got a lot of eyeballs because I think a lot of us didn't know how does this work? It's so unprecedented and I'll explain it. Georgetown had offer on the, the process is that president Biden has, has won multiple primary elections over the last several months. And he,

as a result, has a whole bunch of delegates who are pledged to vote for him. But under Democratic Party rules, pardon me, those delegates are not bound to vote for him. And that means if he decides to step aside, then those delegates can vote for someone else. And what the party would no doubt want is for there to be just one candidate, probably

probably Vice President Kamala Harris, who coalesce, or around whom voters coalesce and delegates coalesce. But there's no guarantee that that could happen. So it could end up in a, what would be called a brokered convention, where a handful of different candidates run, they have to get a minimum number of delegates to vote for them, and then they'd have a few different rounds of voting, and eventually somebody would rise to the top. So,

So that's in a nutshell how it would work. But the bottom line is it's about the delegates. And right now those delegates are committed to voting for Biden. But if he releases them or if he were challenged, which it doesn't look like is going to happen, if he steps aside, though, then those delegates would be free to vote for somebody else. And there would either be a big, very messy race within the party or they would coalesce around someone and that person would most likely be Harris.

Would it be possible, Jeff? This is a bit of a difference between the Republican and Democrat structure at this. But in the Republican primaries that Trump has won, for example, his team basically picks the delegates. They say these are the people that are going to go. Is that the same on the left, which means essentially there's no chance of this happening without Biden releasing his delegates? Or is it a little bit different in that regard also?

It is a little bit different insofar as the way I understand it and the way I wrote it in this story is that the Republican Party rules require the delegates to vote for the person for whom they're

their states or the electorate in their respective states or territories voted, which, by the way, seems pretty democratic, right? Correct. That makes logical sense. And on the Democratic side, it's like that, but there is an out, and that out is that delegates are allowed to vote their conscience. And so if, let's say Biden stayed in the race,

and somebody else challenges him. That's not going to be Vice President Harris. I can almost guarantee you that she's not going to break with him. But let's say somebody else did. Delegates would, under Democratic rules, have the right to switch. And the way Elaine Kamarck, who is my main source in that story, she's a Brookings Institute scholar and historian,

has written a lot about presidential politics and how we elect our presidents. The way she explained that to me was she said, say when John Edwards way back when was a candidate, let's say hypothetically, he had gotten more delegates than he ended up getting and got close to being the nominee. And then hypothetically,

perhaps after getting all those delegates or winning those primary races, the news about his affair with Will Hunter came out. That might have been an example of where delegates would have decided, we're not going to go with this guy because he's probably not going to win. That is still a hypothetical. Of course, that didn't happen. The very non-hypothetical is the situation in which we find ourselves now as a country in which people are questioning whether or not the

The person who has essentially won the nomination, Joe Biden, should stay at the top of the ticket. We got two minutes in this segment and we're going to have you come back for another one. You also wrote in the article about how Democrats could replace Biden as presidential candidate. That to be if there's an open convention that you have to have 600 delegates sign on to you to be part of that conversation. Did I read that wrong?

No, you didn't read that wrong. There are roughly 4,000 delegates who would be at a convention. So for any candidate to rise to the top and be placed in nomination, you have to get a minimum. And I referred to that earlier without mentioning the number, so I'm glad you said the number. It's 600. So they would need to get at least 600 delegates to

to sign on and say, we support Kamala Harris, we support hypothetically Gavin Newsom, we support hypothetically Josh Shapiro. So that way there's not like 50 people all of a sudden running as the candidate. It would just be the ones who have a threshold of support, and that is the threshold. Can a delegate sign more than one petition? No, I don't think so. Wow, so basically you're not going to have more than four, four or five. Correct.

That is interesting. I...

No one else is talking about this, and it seems more and more likely that this could become very relevant. Well, it's more theoretical. Yeah. It's a possibility. It's certainly more than theoretical. It's a possibility. We're going to be coming back with more in just a moment from Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters. So stay tuned for that, folks. And you don't want to miss the podcast today. We've got more murder and mayhem from Kylie in Kylie's Corner, as always. And then we'll close with our sunshine moment because we like to go from the blood straight to the sunshine somehow.

stay tuned for all of that breaking battlegrounds back in just a moment

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So we if we do have an you know, the reality, if it happens that Joe Biden says I'm not going to run and we have an open convention, we're going to have four or five top Democrats. Based on your analysis, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the top four or five you see as being possibly in that broker convention conversation?

Well, I'd kick it off with Vice President Harris, who is, I think, far and away the frontrunner if that happens. And let me explain why. Number one, she's his number two. Right. So she has the experience.

experience of having worked with President Biden for the last two and a half years. She can take some joint credit for his successes on infrastructure, climate change, the legislation that they passed, the administration's efforts in foreign policy, et cetera. Those would all be strengths. Another strength that she would have naturally over

other potential contenders is she would have access to the money. And that means the millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars. 200 million. 200 million. There you go. Bingo. That the Biden-Harris campaign has raised. She wouldn't have direct access to the money that the party has raised.

So that piece of it would be potentially accessible to others. But the war chest that the campaign has would be hers. Drawbacks to Vice President Harris, or cons, as you said, she's got some popularity problems. Her polling over the three and a half years that she's been in office hasn't been great. So she would need to be able to make the argument that she has a better chance of beating former President Trump than these other candidates.

And and then I guess that's a transition to speaking about the other ones. You've got California Governor. Can I ask you one question? Is it fair for the press to ask her since if Biden resigns, it's because of age related issues that she went out and for the past couple of years has testified and said that he is, you know, he's there, he's energetic, he's competent. I mean, is that a fair question that she'll be asked about over and over?

Were you lying? I suspect it is. Sure. I mean, but I don't think, you know, I don't think that's I don't think that's an were you lying question. I mean, I think that she can answer that by saying he look at everything they've done. And I know that because that's what they're saying. Right. His spokesperson was just discussing that on Air Force One.

just a few minutes ago before I joined with you guys. You know, I don't think that that would end up being a question about lying. But I do think it's a question broadly for the White House right now, and that would include Vice President Harris, is have you all picked up on anything before this debate? And if so, why have you been trying to hide it? That's a legitimate question. And Gavin Newsom, you're talking about Gavin Newsom. Go ahead. Yeah.

Yeah. So Gavin Newsom is in the mix because he's been a very prominent surrogate for President Biden. He did a debate with the governor of Florida when he was still in the Republican race. He is popular with Democratic heavyweights. He's absolutely in the mix. The others who are in the mix, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro,

Very important political battleground state. That alone makes him in the mix, aside from the fact that he's quite popular, too. Gretchen Whitmer, Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. Michigan is also a very important battleground state. And she was one of the runners up for vice president. Also very popular in the party.

There are a handful of others, maybe Pritzker, the governor of Illinois. We're talking mostly about governors here, if you haven't picked up on that. Yes, yes. So it's, you know, you don't hear names like Elizabeth Warren or some of the candidates who ran four years ago, which is interesting.

The only one of those I think I'm interested that we're not hearing is Pete Buttigieg because there's no real knock to take on him from these last four years with all of those others, whether it's covid economy, other things. There are ways for people to go after them.

which is much more difficult, I think, in his situation. I think the Republicans would find a way to go after him. I think they would say that his record as transportation secretary hasn't been stellar. They'd talk about some of the problems with Boeing and airlines and...

And a little bit of controversy to the extent that it was a controversy when he took some parental leave, when he understandably wanted some time with his kids after they were born. So they would find things. They would find things.

Without a doubt, although I think that parental leave thing would play in his favor if that was made an issue. In 2024 it would. Yeah, absolutely. Jeff Mason, thank you so much for joining us today. Folks, you can stay up with him, Reuters.com or on X at JeffMason1. And we'll be coming back with more from Breaking Battlegrounds in just a moment.

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Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

digital security, and total freedom. And if you use the code BATTLEGROUND at checkout, you get your first month of service for just $9 and save $10 a month for every month of service after that. Again, that's code BATTLEGROUND at checkout. Visit 4freedommobile.com to learn more. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks,

We keep telling you, you need to go. Go visit the website, invest the letter Y, then refy.com. Learn how you can earn up to 10.25% fixed rate of return on a secure collateralized portfolio. You can't get any better than that. And when you're...

making money for your family. You're actually helping kids pay off their high-interest student loans and get their lives back on track. This is just a brilliant opportunity to do well for yourself by doing good for others. So check them out, invest the letter Y, then refi.com or give them a call at 888-Y-REFI24. Now we're continuing on. Our final guest for today, Abe Hamadeh, friend of the show, former U.S. Army Reserve Captain and Intelligence Officer.

Maricopa County prosecutor, and he's currently a candidate for Arizona's 8th Congressional District. You can follow him on X at AbrahamHomiday.com. It's just X at Abraham Homiday. Abe, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the program.

Thank you. Good to be with you, Sam and Chuck. I should probably say you're the leading candidate for the 8th Congressional District based on what I've seen. Yes. Yes, this is true. So let me ask you this, Abe, leading candidate for District 8. What is the number one issue when you meet with voters that they talk about? What just really has got to burn their tail about?

Well, I think probably the polling that you're seeing matches this, but it's always when I talk about it, the border, border, border, border. I mean, here in Arizona, as you guys know, you know, we see the real effects of it. I mean, just a few months ago, we had this Chilean crime syndicate that was burglarizing people's homes all over the valley. You know, they were terrorizing people.

with these dinnertime robberies. But, you know, you look at what they're doing with the fentanyl coming into the schools and the communities, they're saying that the open border is not just bringing illegal immigrants, which they've brought in over, I don't even think the government has accurate numbers, but at least 10 million illegal immigrants in the last three years, which is bigger than the population of Arizona. So I constantly hear the border is the number one issue, but I also hear, you know, my district has the highest number of retired immigrants

retirement people in the district and in the state. And they're telling me that their income isn't matching inflation with their fixed income on Social Security. And you see the rise of inflation and you see the devalue so significantly that it's hard to live in Joe Biden's economy. Not just Social Security, but I've talked to a lot of folks, Chuck, who are on annuities and

Yes. Their annuities are not keeping up with inflation either. These are people who saved a lot of money over the years. Expecting a constant paycheck. Yeah. And now they're they're finding out they're in trouble financially. That's daunting when you're when you're that age.

Absolutely. And when I talk to younger voters, they say that they're making decent money. They're making almost six figures, and they don't feel that they can take a vacation, Sam and Chuck. What kind of country are we creating right now with this Joe Biden economy? It's really sad. This district I grew up in, my family had a small business. We were on food stamps at one point.

And yet now we are successful and we attained the American dream. And I really do credit it to, to Northwest Valley. So I'm just, I think right now with Joe Biden's economy, it's turning the American dream into an American nightmare. And this is why we have to turn things around so quickly, but,

You know, those are the, you know, of course, elections are always constantly brought up. I mean, CD8 was hit the hardest with those machines going down in the last election. So, you know, I constantly hear these three things. I mean, there's so much going on. It's almost like whiplash every single, you know, news cycle, depending on what happens. But, you know, I think people right now, they're paying attention a lot more than ever before. And I think they want solutions. They want hope right now. And, you know, I think Republicans...

for one of the first times in a long time, we can take up that mantle that we can return back to prosperity. We can return back to peace through strength. So I think people are optimistic so long as the America First movement continues to be ascendant.

I don't know. You've got your own race, but I don't know if you saw what happened in the UK yesterday with their elections. A lot of that comes down to the conservatives not delivering on their promises for many years, specifically the promise around immigration. Should that be a warning shot to Republicans across this country who are campaigning on this issue now?

Absolutely. You're exactly right. You saw the Conservative Party do terribly yesterday, and you see the Reform Party, led by Nigel Farage, pick up some seats. I think they got around 14% of the vote. But this is where Republicans here, they need a wake-up call. You know, the American people are sick of them being controlled opposition. What I mean by that...

What is controlled opposition? Well, to me, it means that many of these politicians don't even realize they're controlled. What that means is that they're being controlled by the media because they're scared of the media or they're scared to not get invited to the cocktail dinner parties or get that invitation. So this is where we need people to understand what's at stake this November. I mean, Marxism is running rampant through our country. The Democrat and Marxist left wing have taken over every single institution. But

This is where we have to deliver results. And that's why I pledge when I'm in Congress, it's not just talking about the border. We all know the border is completely open. But what are we going to do about it? This is why I've said I want to classify the Mexican drug cartels as a foreign terrorist organization. If there's one war we should be fighting, it's against this threat at our southern border that making tens of billions of dollars through fentanyl that's being shipped in from the communist. Nobody in this country who's a serious person would care if cruise missiles started going up.

up the you-know-whats of a bunch of cartel members in Mexico. Well, I mean, you saw the media flip out the other month when apparently it was suggested that Trump was planning to do hit teams on some of these drug cartels. And, you know, it's just

You know, we defeated ISIS in Iraq and Syria under President Trump's leadership, and we did it very quickly despite the media saying that it could never be done. So this is where it's going to take courage. It really is. And in my district, as you all know, I mean, this is a district which is going to have national security implications. And I'm a former intelligence officer. You know, I've served my country overseas.

We're bringing in all these Taiwanese semiconductor microchip manufacturing, which is great for economic development. But how could we have that when we also have 30,000 Chinese nationals cross our southern border in the last six months? I mean, I'm an intelligence officer. You have to think like the enemy. The enemy is going to exploit our weakness. And these 30,000 Chinese nationals, you know, just imagine if some of them are spies and this district is going to be a prime target for their intelligence gathering operations.

We have to get smart border security and national security. Well, that's the whole point that the –

Press keeps missing. No, 90% of these people crossing do not have ill intent to the United States. They're here because they want to be with their families. But it doesn't take 90%. It doesn't take 10%, right, to do damage. So people need to wake up to this. So let me ask you this question. Okay, you go and say you win in November, okay, and you're up for reelection in 26. What are one or two single subject bills that you think could pass Congress? Okay.

regarding border security that you would feel like you could go back to your constituents and say, look, we have accomplished something. It's not a grand slam, but these are significant steps forward. What are those two things that you think you would like to see implemented and put into law?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think classifying the drug cartels as a foreign terrorist organization, using Congress's authority to pressure the State Department to do that would be very advantageous. And I know President Trump is going to be looking at that as well. And what that would do ultimately, Chuck, it would...

it would stop their financial transactions globally. Right now, they're taking advantage of so many of these loopholes. So that's one thing that I think we can start to push back against the drug cartels, 'cause I think once you start getting aggressive with them, the flow of immigration is gonna slow down significantly. Right now, there's no resistance offered. But another thing, Congress controls the power of the purse.

And I'm worried that so many of these agencies are not actually doing what they were intended to do. Look at the Border Patrol. I mean, Border Patrol has basically become a travel agency for these illegal immigrants. We need to start pressuring. This is why it's so critical we get President Trump in office. My strategy is going to obviously change, Chuck, if –

President Trump's not in the White House. I mean, that's going to require a different strategy. But, you know, assuming that President Trump's in there. It's going to be tough, Abe, if you're dealing with President Michelle Obama.

I don't think she won. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't either. She's the one I think could win most likely. But she's not going to run. Anyway, so designating them a terrorist organization and making sure the agencies that we're funding are held accountable to do their actual job and not be babysitters in travel agencies. Yeah, precisely. And regarding election integrity, Chuck, you know, I don't know anybody who's been more of a victim for an election integrity than me.

than me. So I'm going into Congress with that in mind and President Trump also. And hopefully, God willing, we have Senator Kerry Lake in there, too. I mean, one of the things I want to propose is a ban on federal ranked choice voting. I think it's going to be tough to try to get some of these, you know, senators and swing states. But I know there's a push at the

state level. Here in Arizona, they're trying to bring in some ballot initiative. In Alaska, they're trying to overturn their ranked choice voting. So, you know, there's clearly an appetite right now. And I think it requires the correct messaging. Abe, explain to our audience, we have not talked much about ranked choice voting. And you're right, we have a Democrat in Congress from Alaska because of ranked choice voting. Explain to our audience what ranked choice voting is and why it is a horrible idea.

Well, essentially what it is, it removes the primary process. So it removes... Right now, the Republican Party has lost control. At least the establishment has lost control of the Republican Party. So what they're trying to do is basically remove the primary so that...

you know conservatives not just conservatives can vote in them but anybody can vote and basically what they're trying to do is have a top two system. You know it all depends. They have these fancy terms. Some of it is ranked choice voting, some of it you know they call it different names but all it essentially does is remove the primary, the party primary system. And what that allows to happen is to allow corporate interest to drive up, prop up candidates and to make a battle in the general election like what you mentioned in Alaska.

I mean, Alaska has a Democrat congresswoman right now because of ranked choice voting, because it a lot, especially the Republican Party's at civil war right now, much more so than the Democrats. Democrats are pretty much unified in their Marxist vision. Even the far leftist, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar are way more embraced within the Democrat Party than, say, some of the Republican Party's firebrands. So this is where it's kind of a last-ditch effort that the establishment is trying to do to control

to control the party system and basically remove it and to prop up their candidates. It's literally the definition of what people say the Uniparty is. And I know Arizona is going to have a ballot initiative in November. I would encourage everyone to vote no. And so we could preserve our longstanding tradition of primaries. I think it's very healthy to have that, to have a fight said to have a look what I'm going to Chuck. I mean, I'm running in the nastiest primary in the entire country and yet I'm not moaning or anything about that. I think it,

all it does is make me smarter. It makes me, you know, it allows me to go to DC with, with, uh, with a steel spine. I think that's appropriate. So, uh, you know, I think the part of the process, it's been working, but, but just because the establishment has lost control, now they're throwing a fit and that's unacceptable to the voters. What is the United States role in the world? For example, let's look at Israel. What is our role there? Well,

Well, our number one role should be to put America first and to stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies who are a beacon of hope. And in many ways, they're the first, they're on the front lines of what could happen to the United States. October 7th, Chuck, was a dark, dark day for Israel and the world and for the Jewish community. I mean, when you had Hamas terrorists brutally go in and murder over 1,200 innocent people, it is so shocking. And to see the Democrat Party, you know, almost...

you know, they're taking the sides of Hamas propaganda. It's very concerning. I don't think, I think Israel's in a very difficult situation right now because you are starting to see the rise of some of these far right influencers and you have some of the left. And now it's, you know, they're getting a lot of pressure applied. This is scary. If I've been to Israel, Chuck, you know, I've seen it. Israel is a multicultural country, you know, has Arabs, it has Druze, it has the Bedouins, you

you know many of them are very very pro israel and yet you have this media narrative that try to tries to drive this wedge in between it that says you know all god is not all palestine you know you have the west bank the west bank isn't being on the way god is why is god of being bomb just because i'm not brutally committed a terrorist attack that they thought hostage remember they felt hot

Remember, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza back in 2004. Errol Sharon, he withdrew from Gaza. There was Israeli settlements there. They said, okay, we're going to allow you to self-govern. And what happened? Well, they elected Hamas. And now Hamas has been sending missiles constantly. And it seems like when I was in Saudi Arabia with the army, I was deployed there. There was that 2021 war that lasted about a month in Gaza. So this is a constant thing happening. But President Trump, if you remember, he's the one who signed the Abraham Act.

Peace through strength. We have a role. You know, we can be a good arbiter in so much of these conflicts. And he was also the president that moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Every other president has paid lip service to that. But President Trump, he understood what it means to stand with your allies. But this administration, what it does is it emboldens our enemies. They've given billions of dollars to Iran. They've left our equipment to Afghanistan. They're still funding the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It's totally unacceptable. Absolutely. Abe Hamadeh, we're going to let that be the final word. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on the program, folks. You can follow him at Abraham Hamadeh on X. Abe, what's your website real quick also?

Abe4AZ.com. Abe4AZ.com. Check that out, folks. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back on the air next week, but you don't want to miss the podcast segment. We have Kylie's Corner. We have a Sunshine Moment. We have plenty of good stuff coming up, so stay tuned.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds, the podcast edition where we have so many stories about crime and mayhem.

And, of course, a sunshine moment to close out the weekend. I'm your host, Chuck Horne. Sam Stone has to step out and take his cat to the vet. That's a discussion for another day. Kylie, what's going on in the world of crime and mayhem? Oh, my gosh. It is getting out of control over here in Massachusetts. I am telling you. You think they'd be happy because the Celtics won the championship? You would think. You think people would calm down? And the sun's coming out. And the sun's coming out, right? Calm it down. Yeah, but...

I don't know. I just keep coming across crazier things. So we came to a conclusion in the Karen Reid trial, ended in a mistrial. Which you weren't surprised with, right?

No, I wasn't surprised. I especially because they had already come back twice and said they can't come to a verdict. And the judge just kept saying, go back and deliberate. You haven't done it enough. And they just kept coming back and saying, we're not going to agree. We've already discussed this. It's not happening. And virtually the Commonwealth came out immediately after and said, we're going to retry this case. And they already put it on the books. So they have another trial.

They think they'll retry it before the end of the year, but they have another meeting in July to discuss about when they'll. It will be a mistrial again or she'll get off. This is a horrible case. I agree because following this, the lead investigator, Michael Proctor, was also relieved of his duties. Yeah, I saw that. So I don't know how you convince a jury after saying, you know, we had to get rid of the lead investigator.

Yeah.

And then the next day, this guy, Aiden Kearney, his name is Dr. Turtle Boy on Twitter. He's responsible for basically getting all of this news out and kind of making this a really big case that this could be a cover-up. He's extremely hated by the people who think that Karen Reid is guilty. He gets all these nasty voicemails, all these crazy voicemails I was listening to. Well, the next day after the mistrial,

His name's Dr. Turtle Boy on Twitter. There was a snapping turtle hanging from its neck outside of his home. Oh, my goodness. What is wrong with these people? With a bullet through its head. Oh, my goodness. Does no one have a ring camera in Boston area? No.

That is what I'm wondering because he's like, oh, we're investigating it. And I'm like, it was on his, he had like little railings. So he had steps going down. He posted a photo. It was disgusting. That's horrible. I mean, that's just absolutely disgusting. And I can't believe more people don't have ring cameras out in Boston. I mean, there's been two instances in front of my homes where they've had like a wreck or something. And the police come like, oh, we know you have cameras. Can you give us a tour? I'm like, sure, here you go. I just can't believe more people don't have that.

Especially a doctor. I think he's a fake doctor. So he's a chiropractor? Yeah. So he's also being sued for intimidating witnesses and he's suing people for intimidating him. It's chaos. But the last week of trial, I came across the Sandra Birchmore case, which also happened at the exact same police station in Canton in Massachusetts. This happened in 2021.

Her case, she was three months pregnant, was ruled a suicide. Her family did not believe it. So they hired an outside forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden, to review the autopsy. He ruled it a strangulation. She died by strangulation. It was not by suicide. And he thinks this is a homicide. He thinks that the family hired him because prior to the death of Sandra, they were suing Canton police because Sandra was a part of their family.

police explorers program for kids. She entered the program when she was 13 years old. Yeah. Okay. She apparently during all of this, when she was 13 to 15, she lost her virginity at 15 to three officers, a part of Canton police. Oh my gosh. And allegedly they would use, they exchanged thousands of explicit photos, texts, videos, all sorts of things. And I guess there was one of the officers that was introducing her to other officers at the police station and

And encouraging her to start sexual relations with them as well. Oh, my gosh. You're pimping her. Yeah. Isn't that called sex trafficking? Basically. Oh, my goodness. It's just like within their department. And then she's so then there's footage of her when they ruled her death of suicide. There was her last footage, which is her in the lobby of her apartment. She leaves to go pick up one of her packages. She comes. She brings it upstairs. She comes back. She cleans off snow off of her car.

And then goes back upstairs. Then there's a man put up mask on who goes upstairs, comes back down, you know, moments later. And she has never seen leaving her apartment again. So they're saying all these facts you just laid out, they ruled it a suicide. Yeah. Or any or any criminal amateur sleuth such as Kylie Kipper could just make the determination like this seems a little weird that you would go clean off your car.

go back to your apartment and a masked man comes up to your apartment and then you don't come back down. I mean, this, I mean, if you wrote that script for a criminal procedure show on TV, uh,

they would fire you as a screenwriter because it's so obvious. Not interesting enough. It would be a five minute episode, right? Yeah. The cherry on top of what I cannot make up is the first investigator on the scene was Officer Link, which was the first officer on the scene of the McCarran retrial. And then he went back to the scene to get to look for more evidence. And he brought Albert, Officer Albert, where John O'Keefe was found dead on his front lawn. How do these people have jobs?

I don't know. That's incredible. Yeah. How old was she when she died? She was 23 at the time when she died. Let me say that. She wasn't dead. She was murdered. Yes. This was not suicide. No, I absolutely, yeah. I think she was for sure murdered. Do you have that clip you can put on our social media for people to see? Yes, I will. Yeah, put that on our social media. I won't put the turtle. No one wants to see the turtle. No, no one wants to see a turtle, but we want to show that.

This 23-year-old woman going downstairs to clean the snow off her car, go back into the apartment building. A masked man follows her. And for some reason, getting the snow off her car, she decided life's not worth living anymore. Yeah. How anybody thinks that makes any sense should just go move to a deserted island and be by themselves. Mm-hmm. I know. So I will not be driving around Canton. I'm going to...

Go around that city just in case. Stay far away from Canton, Massachusetts. That juju down there. Do you have any other horrible stories you're going to share with us today? Are we done with those two horrible things? We're just going to leave it on those horrible things. And next week I'll... Maybe not. Before we close off this sunshine moment, I'm really fascinated...

how the increase in pricing has affected people. So I don't like the stats we get. So I like to ask drivers, I like to ask construction workers, people who come service home or whatever you see. So today I flew in this morning and I have this driver I've had forever for 15 years. And we were just talking about inflation, what it costs. And he has a very successful business here in the

and a very steady clientele. And he's got, I think he said nine or 10 drivers now, right? They'll have their cars. And he was talking about how the gas prices have really affected their bottom line right now. They're not bad right now, but they have been bad, which people don't understand. Just because they go down to do it doesn't mean it didn't affect you the rest of the year, right? But he made a point to me. So I asked him, I go, what about insurance? He goes, well, I used to pay for our vehicles around $600 a month.

insurance, right? Because they're carrying passengers, so it's much higher than what you would have for your regular automobile. He is now paying $1,100 per vehicle per month. I mean, this is what

And the Biden enablers and fans keep missing. These prices have all gone up significantly. He also told me he does the grocery shopping for his house. So his wife owns a business. So the way they sort of split duties, she gets the girls ready for school. But he does like the grocery shopping and stuff like that. That's sort of how they split their duties. And he says, I go, what? He goes, I go to Costco once a week. And I go, what do you spend? He goes, it's double. I spent like 220 bucks. Now I'm around 400.

And, you know, this is a guy that watches those type of pennies or small business or she owns her own business. He owns his business. They watch his penny. So I'm getting very frustrated with government officials saying the economy. Yes, there's lots of people have jobs. Now we have a new job report today. It's a lot of smoke and mirrors as well. Again, you know, a third of it was government jobs, which means all of us here is tax dollars have to pay for those government jobs. Right. So that means we have to be making money.

a big portion of it was service industry, you know, for travel and tourism. Those jobs averaged $30,000 a year. And you're now seeing all these reports saying you need $176,000 to get a home. I mean, it's just, it's unsustainable the way it is. I don't know what the solution is, but it's unsustainable and something has to happen. I think you're going to really start seeing people spill out in the streets about it. It's very difficult. So anyway, that's my comment on inflation this week. So

Jenna, we have provided you with lots of bummer here. So now that you can go and leave our audience with a little joy, a little smile on their face, what do you have for us today at the Sunshine Moment? You are my sunshine.

So I have something that's pretty good following up after the 4th of July. I'm a big Legally Blonde fan. As you should be. Everybody should be. I think, I don't know, I need to get my pink suit one of these days. Make it happen. Make it happen. But, you know, her favorite nail tech has the comment, Oh, you look like the 4th of July. Makes me really want a hot dog. So I have...

A story about just the Nathan's Hot Dogs on Coney Island has an annual 4th of July hot dog eating contest. Correct. Which ESPN has made quite famous now, right? I mean, most people knew that would happen, but the last 10 years they've been covering it.

So now it's quite, it's part of our culture for 4th of July now. Yeah, yeah. And I hadn't looked too much into this before seeing the article from ESPN. And the more that I see it, it's a sport. It's very, like, people train for a while to do this. So this year, there's been a reigning champion for several years, Joey Jaws Chestnut.

But this year he was – he decided to go do a different competition out at an art base. A vegan hot dog, right? Was it like a vegan hot dog or something? I think it was. Yeah. Yeah, he was disqualified because he took a deal with the vegan hot dog company. Yeah. Okay, imagine eating those things. Anyway, continue. Yeah, no, I don't understand it.

Yeah, no, but so he was out of the picture for this most recent, you know, he was at a different place for this most recent competition. So we had a new champion, Patrick Bertoletti,

And so he ate 58 hot dogs. I believe it was in 10 in a 10 minute. Oh, my goodness. Timespan. Oh, my goodness. And yeah, so I don't know. I don't know how you do this. But he said that he to prepare. He lost weight and practiced for three months with, he says, an urgency.

to prepare for the event. And so he said, like, with Joey not here, I had a shot. I was unable to unlock something that I didn't know where it came from. So he bested his prior record of 55 hot dogs at the event. And I, like, kind of went down a rabbit hole and started looking into this. And, like, there's, like, the training is really intense. I bet. And...

Yeah, and so he spends three months training for it. And so, like...

Yeah. So he said it's all about stomach elasticity. Right. And so our bodies have what's called a satiety reflex. So once we feel our stomachs just aren't about. So you have to break that barrier a little bit for your stomach. So the trick is to drink a lot of water in the weeks leading up. Because it expands it.

Basically, it expands it. Yeah. So that's a good one. And I visited my brother who's in the Navy the other week and his good friend. They teach us at the Naval Academy. Is that what you're telling me? That was the most – the longest conversation I had with one of his officer buddies was, yeah, he was prepping to eat 53 donuts and, yeah, that –

That whole, that whole, those, all the shenanigans to like prep himself for that. But yeah, and so also you, some have drank, like eaten heads of boiled cabbage to prepare. One of the tricks is keep your body cool.

A warmer temperature, I guess, can like, especially if you're drinking water, can tighten up your or a colder temperature can tighten up your. Interesting. OK. OK. Yeah. And so it's a muscle. Of course, the muscle. So the cold tightens my stomach up. Yes. The cold, the cold. Yeah. So Kylie now lives in a 50 degree department. I'm trying to shrink it.

Yeah, so go lower on the liquids the day that you're jamming your stuff in. So if you're in line at a buffet and you're at the front of the line, you want to get as much down as quickly as possible before everybody else gets it. Yeah, just don't drink a lot of water that day, and you'll be able to get a lot more down. But yeah, so Major League Eating doesn't recommend that you try this at home, but those are kind of the...

The tricks. It's so cool. There is a great episode of Modern Family. I believe it's the last or second to last season where Phil Dunphy and his son Luke are preparing for a hot dog eating contest. And they spend quite a time, a good bit of time on the show going over their training. It was pretty funny. So everybody should check that out sometime. Well, that's interesting. Well, and congratulations to our new winner.

Yeah. We decided he likes the actual taste of a hot dog and not some disgusting vegan thing. But I'm sure we'll get a lot of hate mail on my comment on that. But that's OK. We'll go from there. Joey's watching his girly figure. Yes. As you probably should after winning 10 years in a row or whatever.

Folks, thank you for joining us this week. We hope you will share this episode with your family and friends. We hope you learned a lot about if President Biden resigns, how do they replace him, what the process is, what the European elections in the United Kingdom and France mean for America, frankly. And we appreciate your time. So you can find us on Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts on

On behalf of myself, Sam Stone, Jenna, and Kylie, thanks for joining us. Have a fantastic weekend. Goodbye.