The Scott Adams School - 08/19/26 Pollster Mark Mitchell joins Erica & Marcela.

Okay, are we going?

Good morning, everybody. Look who's here. It's no, it's not Owen live finally. It's Mark Mitchell. So our other co-host is Owen Gregorian, and he appears, Mark, only as a still pic for his anonymity. So I didn't want people to be like, oh my God, is that finally?

This is not Owen. I'm not Owen. My name is Mark. Great to be here.

Okay, guys, let's wait for everybody to come in. Here we go. And is YouTube— yes, YouTube, you're up and running. I love it. All right, guys, so we're so excited to have Mark Mitchell here. You know, he's gonna teach us all about how polling works. I have so many questions. We're gonna find out also if Scott's 25% rule works, where 25% of the people always get it wrong. So we're gonna find out.

Yes.

Spoiler, yes.

Um, but before we do any of that, and you guys, Owen's off today. He will be back tomorrow. But Marcella, you won't be here tomorrow, right?

No, unfortunately, I have court tomorrow, so I'll be back on Friday.

Give them hell, Marcella. I'll be here. Okay. All right. So before we do anything, there's one thing we got to do first. Let's go.

You know, that's why you're here. And all you need is a cup or mug or glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen, jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better, including America. It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens right now. Join me. Mmm, yep, yep. That's the good stuff.

Ah, including America. Only Scott could do that for us. So welcome, Mark. Again, everybody, my name is Erica. You are at the Scott Adams School. I'm joined by my beautiful, intelligent co-host Marcella and our special guest professor today, Mark Mitchell. Formerly, if you're saying, why do I know him if I don't know him, you might have recognize him from Rasmussen Reports, which he is no longer with. He now has his own company, living like a free human being, doing polling the honest way, let's say. So tell us why the Honest Poll and what happened, Mark.

And yeah, I'll try and keep it all fun. Like, don't tune out. We're not going to open up the spreadsheets or anything today. But like, just real long story short, Public opinion in America was really founded by a guy named George Gallup. And the whole reasoning behind it was, well, when you vote for people in a huge country, they go to Washington, DC, and they tend to not know how to represent the constituents. And I think we've seen that problem more now than it's ever been. And polling has become increasingly commoditized. A lot of people can do it and we can get into what it takes, but at the end of the day, it makes less money. And so the things that make money are being part of a major media conglomerate that has big advertisers that don't want certain narratives pushed or that want certain establishment candidates in office or trying to figure out how to get lobbyist bucks and trying to figure out how to attach yourself to a political action committee. Like, that tends to happen on the right. So Rasmussen was an independent pollster that had— I mean, it still exists, I guess, but the idea of representing America and doing public sentiment work. So it's not just like, who's going to win the elections? It's like, well, this is what the American people are feeling about this, and it's bad.

Yeah.

And it's very important for something like that to maintain its independence. When I got there, I did a lot of work to rebuild the relevancy of the company. We built a YouTube channel that actually kept the company in the black, brought in more business than ever, and a lot of it was based on my commentary. I actually had the chance last November because of my commentary to, to brief Trump about like, you guys are gonna lose the midterms in a year. Here's what you need to do to win. And unfortunately, that advice was not taken. But also, I had become very critical of the Trump administration because whether or not it was the right thing to do with Iran, I knew that it would be perceived as basically a rug pull, a shifting of what people had voted for him for. And I was attempting to avert disaster. And about the time it had become apparent that the owners of Rasmussen had been talking to and forming a conglomerate, like I was part of, with other right-leaning independent pollsters, and that there was potential for Republican Political Action Committee money. And I was told basically directly by these people that my criticism of Trump was endangering the business, meaning not helping them raise that money. And so not long after, they told me I needed to cease all commentary when that's literally what saved our business. So at that point, I was silenced for a few months, but I was building The Honest Poll. So now I'm a small business owner in America and I have complete editorial freedom. And my goal is to represent the American people. And unfortunately, I look at the list of people who I know who are trying to do this, and it's really just basically me and Rich Barris. Like, there are not a lot of other people. And people will say, well, you're a biased pollster. No, every pollster in the industry is biased. But they all pretend they're not. And what I'm trying to do is show through my commentary and through my numbers that I'm making objectively correct judgments about what Americans want. And they did not want this war in Iran. I can tell you that right now.

Okay, that's interesting. So I did reach out to Mark, you guys, you should know, a long time ago to have him on the show, and he couldn't come on because he was being silenced then. And so when I saw the Honest Polling Company start, and then I reached back out again, and he's like, yes, I can come on now, I can speak. And I said, well then let's do it. And what a perfect day and time for you to be here the way it worked out, because we learned of a big story today that's come out about a— let's see, Owen posted it, but I actually have a clip on it too. But there's a company that just pretended they were pollsters and they're like, we're just doing a social experiment and thought it would be fun. But before we get into that, I do wanna like give us, the listeners and viewers, some understanding of how polling works. So when I see that, you know, Scott used to always say too, have you guys ever answered a poll? No one's ever called me. I've never answered a poll. And wouldn't you lie if they called you? And I'm thinking, yeah, I would probably never take a poll and maybe I would lie. I don't know. It depends what the question is. So, you know, how do we understand polling? How do you decide as a pollster who to poll? And does it change for what the poll question is? And give us like an overview of when we see polling results, what does that mean to us?

Okay, so we'll start at the top level. And just to summarize, polling is hard, but it's also very important and generally effective. Okay, it ain't perfect, right? And the country's so huge and disparate and changes all the time, you would never even know if the polling is right or reality is right. So what it does is it gives us data and we use data to output data. We survey people and then we say, okay, we surveyed a bunch of people, but they're not really like exactly matching America. So let's weight 'em a little bit and make it match America and publish the results. And any data can be useful and some of the data is better than others and some bad data can be calibrated to be useful. And so generally there's no perfect data and there's no perfectly bad data. And so people are taking an aggregate of data from multiple sources and then adjusting it and making corrections and putting out data. Now, over time, a track record will show that this data is more valuable than others. And what we found now with the issues going on in the polling industry, like I said, it's hard to find those track records. It really is. And especially when things are changing as fast as they are under the Trump era, there's a lot of political realignments. So pollsters that used to be good were unable to capture MAGA. But basically when Gallup started it, they were sending humans just out into America and with a clipboard and writing down what they said about stuff. And then when landlines came around, they started calling people up with live operator polling. And that was like expensive. And it was, you know, basically major academia and big corporations like the Gallup company were doing that, right? But then it became easier with robodial, and that's when Rasmussen came on the scene, and that was obviously looked down at, but it allowed them to put out a huge body of work because they were automating it and making it less expensive and actually removing some bias because the pollsters were starting to insert bias the way they asked the questions and the way they led people because it was part of the networks and part of the mainstream media. And then it's gotten even more fragmented since then. So right now there's people that are still doing live operator cell phone calls. There's still people doing landline robodials. There's still like 80 million phones out there. There's people using online polling aggregators where you can sign up and take polls for money. And there's people texting folks a link to a poll to take online. There's a whole bunch of that stuff.

Mm-hmm.

Rasmussen is a high-volume pollster. I'll include more SMS, but at the time, Rasmussen, when I was there, was doing robodial landline to a panel of a couple hundred thousand older folks and was doing online panel aggregators. And that's good enough. That is, we were able to calibrate that. And so somebody could say, well, my data's more expensive than yours. It's like, okay, but we beat you. So, so it works. And the reason you haven't gotten polled and you're probably never gonna get polled is because you're on a cell phone do not call list. You don't have a landline, you haven't signed up for one of these online panels, or you haven't joined a polling company's panel.

Yeah.

So we'll eventually build our own panel as well. Reuters/Ipsos has one, YouGov has one. And if you want to take a poll, you can go out and join one of these data aggregators like MetroOpinions or SurveyUSA, and you will get to take political polls in the US. But you're going to have to answer a bunch of polls about what kind of cheese you like if you buy a poll.

Oh, I like that. I love cheese. So if people are like, well, no one polled me and I want to put my 2 cents in, then they can make this a reality so they can sign up to be polled?

Join polling panel, put it in Google. You can, you can just go and literally take surveys all day and get paid a couple bucks, you know. Okay. Um, again, that doesn't reflect America necessarily, but if you combine it with a source like landlines where it's older folks that show up at primaries, like, you can get a pretty good view. And then again, it's like every 2 years really you get a chance check your data and calibrate. And, uh, like I said though, it's getting a lot harder because everything is sort of falling apart.

Yeah, it sounds like it's, it's a tough industry for sure. Um, okay, Marcella, any questions thus far?

Um, so I actually get called for polling and I've never been put onto any of those. And I also get texts to get answer polling questions, but I live in California, So I don't know if it's different here, but I'm like, uh, you know.

Do you ever answer?

Do you know why I'm, like, harassed?

Well, you probably haven't joined some national, like, do not call registry, and what a lot of these people do is that they pull out of the polling file. So if you're, like, a registered independent and they want Republicans, you're not gonna show up, and, and also, There's, they buy this data from these big companies like L2, and it depends on what your voter file looks like. Like if you just show up in the low propensity, meaning you're very unlikely to answer your phone, then you're also not going to get— so some of it is like the people that get polled more are the people that are going to pick up like the Indian scammers more too. Like there's just like, but it's a big black box and it's really hard to know. And some people get polled and some people don't. Polling's still good and there's ways to make sure you do get polled. And, and if you, if people are really into this, you can literally go, I guess, like apply to the Ipsos panel run by a French company. And they're not very conservative leaning, like the results, like sandbag Trump approval by about 10 or 15 points. But when you do that, they have 50,000 people they think represent America, and they just ask them over and over again to take the polls. So it's not really a poll. It's like the world's biggest focus group. And it matters how you design that. Like, it has to be changed to reflect America as America changes. And that's one of the reasons these— like, Washington Post uses them, ABC News uses them, and they screw up a lot. And that's, that's why.

So for the big networks, I mean, they'll say— I guess they say what company that the polling is coming from. But I don't know, I feel like we always say, like Scott always said, follow the money, who wanted the poll? Do people ever go to a pollster and say, you know, we want to poll this thing, but here's the question we want you to ask? Or like, are they ever like— well, I guess we know that they are gunning for a certain result in the polls. Um, but as we just learned with the news that we'll show later, you know, that's a problem. I mean, just giving the wrong poll numbers doesn't solve problems. Although then we have also heard that, well, if you hear the polling is like, you know, this person's running away with it, then some people are like, oh, I don't need to show up and vote because they're going to win it by a landslide or they're going to lose it terribly. So I guess it really does matter. But if the person isn't being honest about the polling, I mean, does it— would a news network, not that you need to name one if this is true, do news networks ever ask for polling data and ask it to be slanted?

So most of these places have somebody in-house, like the New York Times has New York Times Siena Polling, and we'll bifurcate left and right. So usually on the left, they manipulate the numbers, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. It's hard to know. There's no— everybody's like, oh, there needs to be transparency in the polling industry, but it doesn't work.

Mm-hmm.

Like, I could delete whatever data points I want and put it out there and nobody will ever know. They couldn't even subpoena my files and find out whether I cheat, I put my thumb on the— or not, which is why integrity is so important. And then you have the problem with these major corporations is that there's like a board, there's advertisers, there's a managing editor, there's all these people that want and have these inherent biases. And so they will frame the results sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, in a way that generally Benefits the establishment, so they don't even hate establishment Republicans that bad. They just don't want the tax laws changed or whatever, or pharmaceutical companies held accountable or whatever, right? And for like I've seen examples, for instance, with the New York Times Siena, where I think they're a good pollster, and they put out a poll. I feel like they were manipulated by their managing editor to make sure that Trump didn't have the good headline that he was winning. in Pennsylvania. So what they did in the Pennsylvania poll is they sampled too many Biden 2020 voters and put out a poll that had Biden winning in Pennsylvania. But if you corrected for how many Biden voters they oversampled, it was a Trump win. So he put out a poll that had Trump winning, but the headline was Biden's winning. So that was a good poll, a bad headline. But then you have these other people, and one of the tricks they use in the industry is they're held— they're mostly only graded by their final call. Well, the final call, you could basically get a feel for who's going to win anyways. The betting markets kind of tell you in the last week. And so a lot of people, what they'll do is they'll put out like establishment candidate, like shilling slop during August, September, October when people are early voting, when people are making up their minds. And then at the end they'll be like, JK, like Trump's going to win.

You know?

So I was able to see a lot of this because we were putting out daily tracking numbers. And so when Kamala Harris, for instance, got selected in the summer of 2024, Reuters/Ipsos, Washington Post, all these other outfits showed this huge surge to the Democrats where they got to where they were 8 or 9 points further left than my polling was. Well, they finished about 4 points left. And so that is, in my opinion, intentional election interference.

Mm-hmm.

And so that happens now on the right. Again, the problem is lobbyists. So the American Beverage Association under the Trump administration was upset that they wanted to remove sugary beverages from SNAP. And so they went to Republican lobbyists and Republican pollsters and said, fix this for us, gave them a $2 million check, and they went and polled Republicans in Republican states and came back with the results that said, wow, look at that. The Republican voters don't want sugary beverages removed from SNAP. And it was probably because they primed them with all these questions about libertarian values and stuff like that. Well, I just went and asked the question and completely found the opposite. It was like 75% of Republicans were like, no, that's like stupid. Why would we do that? They shouldn't rot their teeth on our taxpayer money. And so that's exactly what Scott was talking about. They wanted a result, they paid for it, there was somebody there to do it. And it's the same people that are The voter is going to RealClearPolitics and looking at a pollster and saying, oh, I'll trust them because they're Republican-leaning. It's like, bro, they're going to sell you out for a check the second they can. And there's a story coming out in the Washington— or the Wall Street Journal, I don't know when, but soon, about this very thing happening over the issue of amnesty and deportation, where some of these people on the right were—

Mm-hmm.

Influencing Trump with polling that, in my opinion, didn't represent.

Interesting. Go ahead.

One of the things, um, uh, Sheriff, uh, Chad Bianco was running for governor of California. He's the sheriff in Riverside County. He's usually not a politician, and he was talking in an interview with, with PBD about, um, polling, and he realized that that his allegations were that the polling in the governor race were— at the, at the beginning they were correct, but later on he realized that a lot of those candidates like Javier Becerra and Steve Hilton, he said, paid or their PACs would pay for the polling to show a certain influence. And he talked also about— so basically the poll said one thing so that it could influence people to believe the poll was correct and so that they would gather. And, you know, it's like, what came first, the poll or the voter?

Yeah, you know, there's a lot of that. It's wish fulfillment polling. And really, there's all these— which is why I've done polling for campaigns. I really don't like it, and I don't get a ton in this business because people— so it's like, if you're a campaign and you're going to pay a lot for a poll, Like polls aren't that expensive, but it's a, if you're not an insider in the Republican, you're not getting all this RNC manna from heaven or whatever. So it's a big expenditure for them and they're going to want to raise funding off the poll. Like that's generally the idea. It's like, hey, show, show how good I'm doing so that I can go raise funds. Now there's a perverse incentive there because if you're the campaign's pollster and they get more funds, then you're going to get more polling. That absolutely happens.

Mm-hmm.

And then you even get some pollsters who the next poll will be bad and it'll be like, oh, you dropped. You need to allocate all this money to me for targeted advertising so that I can get another poll to show that you've improved again. It's really, and these people just get sharked by these, like, and the integrity is the problem. And it's not just the polling industry. I mean, we know it's all of politics.

Well, now we have the prediction markets, right? Poly, what is it? Kelce and Polymarket. And people believe that as more accurate than polling. And I'm like, hmm.

So they have their place. They're data, just like polling is. Now, I don't think I'm putting— when I put a poll out, I'm not putting out a prediction of what's going to happen in 3 months. I'm saying if the election were held today, this is what my numbers say, right? And that's kind of what, you know, it's different than what the betting markets are supposed to say, but they can't predict the future either. So it is really kind of the same thing. So it's like, okay, they're trading on what information they have today, plus feelings. And plus, like, here's the major problem. If you look at, there's so many of these markets, meaning within Polymarkets, you'll have who's going to win the House, Republicans or Democrats, but then you're going to have who's going to win each House race. You're going to have who's going to win by what margin, which candidate's going to win. There's thousands of these markets, which means that the amount of money that gets spent on that platform Doesn't— like, it's not focused on a lot of those markets, which means there's not— they're not deeply traded markets. Well, what that means is that somebody can come in with even a relatively small check of $5,000 or $10,000 and completely shift that market. Now, on the bigger markets, who's going to win the presidency, who's going to win the House popular vote, those are deeply traded enough that within a few weeks of the election, they're very hard to fix. And so if you look at Polly Markets, they had the whole Trump battleground map as of really about October 15th, and that was better than the polling industry. So they have their place. And, you know, I was there, I was like, oh, I think Trump's going to win all the battlegrounds. I was there really in probably September. And then it's like, okay, that's nice. Polly Markets came around in October, like middle of October and validated. It's like, okay, yeah, see what's going to happen.

So tell us about your opinion of Scott's persuasion and his ability to kind of see the way things were going. I mean, he was such a unique character. Um, and I know, you know, he would talk to you guys a lot. And, um, I don't know, he, you know, he on the polling, you know, he would just have us calm down and, you know, like, let's just settle down and like see what's happening which way. But you found him to be what, what do What did you call him before the show? It was great.

Oh, he was— I called him a public opinion visionary. And so really what this comes down to, like the whole point of this, is to create a narrative out of data. And he seemed to be able to do that just by looking at what people were saying and just, uh, osmosis, like taking in the pulse of America and the narrative and saying, you know what, I think this is gonna happen. Or this is the right thing to do. And, and it's instinctual. It's like taking all this information in, distilling it to an important line, like non-transparent by force about the election integrity stuff. Like genius. Like, that's the truth. And I just had a talk with somebody on the left for like 3 hours yesterday, and the issue of election integrity came up. And, you know, like there was a lot of quibbling about, well, this happened or no, it didn't happen. We explained that. Oh, well, the big lie, like all this gaslighting. And we, you know, we went back and forth. And it's like, okay, we both consume news from different places. We're not really going to agree to these on these things. But when you say it's like, well, fundamentally the main issue is that over half of America thinks that things happened there that were non-transparent by force, that they never got an answer to. It's like, well, there's no— like, yes, that happened and they don't have an answer to that. And he, you know, like sometimes he was so accurate he got himself in trouble, like with the Okay to Be White poll. And it's like, like he kind of had an accurate read of what the problem is there, which is about half of Black Americans wouldn't say that it was okay to be white. That's a problem. That's a real problem. And nobody wants to address it. And he's like, this is a problem. And, and so he would also consume the polls and find it's like the parts that smack you in the face. Now, I try to do that too, except I have to actually measure America. Like, I have to ask everybody questions and get the numbers and be like, oh, okay, I think I know what's going on now. He just seemed to do this all. Stuff instinctually. And I've, like, I don't think there's anybody out there that really does this stuff. So, and which is interesting because comedians, like people who put out content to try and entertain people, like fundamentally know that they have to be authentic and truthful in order to be successful. And so you see a lot of people who are like comedians on the right who have their finger on the pulse of politics because they can or will address these truths. Like, this is the problem where the Republican Party, again, like, we're in this multi-decade period where there's been this entrenched 50-50 country and this back and forth sniping between the red and the blue teams, and it's all falling apart. And both the Democrats and Republicans are coming to terms with what that means. The problem with Republicans is that for them to succeed in the future, they're going to have to change their opinions and values on certain things. And without the visionaries to know that, they're hopelessly unequipped. And we're seeing that right now. Like, they are doing a very bad job of adjusting to a post-Trump political era where we don't just automatically revert to George W. Bush. And not only that, they're attacking the people that are out there trying to tell them, like, you gotta change in this particular way. And so you're seeing, it's like, okay, you have a person like Scott Adams, On the internet who's saying a lot of the right things. And he's so far from the establishment Republican doctrine and all of the think tankery and all of the donor funding and how they word everything they run on and everything they put in their ads. And so that's the disconnect where I find myself in. And unfortunately, with his passing, America's like worse off in its ability to address The failings of the Republican Party.

I agree.

Of course, I just get attacked, you know.

And they— and the Trump administration, you know, a lot of people in there listened to Scott every day and would ask for advice and opinion and even ask Scott to talk to specific people within the administration to personally hear his opinion on things. Um, and I fully agree too that you have to be honest and truthful, and I think that's why so many of the best podcasts are comedians, like someone like Tim Dillon, who just says what he wants to say whether you like it or not. But he is basically saying the cold hard truth without sugarcoating it. I don't always love it, but you know, he's not wrong. Um, they are his opinions. Um, Joe Rogan is saying what his opinions are, and a lot of people don't like it, but he's— that's, that's what he's supposed to do. Is be honest, even if it offends or insults. Um, and then we don't get that from the people that are surrounding the president. What's that?

You made it a very important point that I want to highlight there. Yeah, when they say the truth, they're saying the truth about opinion. And this is what short-circuits the right, because they'll listen to Tim Dillon and say, he just said a lie, that's not true. But it's like, public opinion doesn't care about your facts, it just cares about what it feels. And if he's saying it and everybody's like, wow, he's got a point, Then your facts don't matter. Like, I'm sorry, Republicans. Like, you know, trickle-down economics isn't as popular as it was. People feel like they're getting screwed over by the economy, but they'll pound their table and they'll say capitalism, capitalism, capitalism. Okay. Like, enjoy your sinking ship. Like, sorry. And, you know, the— we know what we're dealing with. We're dealing with 2 very entrenched establishments. They want to maintain the status quo. They're clinging to it with, like, white knuckles. And when it's like, when the comedians are the ones undermining your establishment because they understand opinions and you do not, like, like, I don't even know what to say.

Yeah.

Like, this should be the peak of understanding public opinion. We should be improving democracy and making it better at reflecting what people want. And I feel like we're even farther than we were in 1940 at doing that.

Wow.

I'm reading Gallup's book. It was written in 1940 and they kind of like, Got it. You know what I mean?

You know, you see, it's such a— I don't even like us. I don't know what the word is. There's so many words I want to use right now. But you see how the country will bend over backwards to appease, like, let's just say LGBTQFYG, right? And then it's like, okay, you know, your gender dysphoria and this and that. But then it's like, okay, but then like, when there's other people that are saying, Listen, you know, you ran on this and you said no wars and no foreign this and blah blah blah, and you're going to focus on America first. And now, like the people over here are like, listen, I'm upset about that because this isn't what I voted for. It's like no no no. But but the other half of the country will bend over backwards for people are like, I'm a woman now. I'm pretending I'm a man and I want to be in the NBA. And it's like, you know, so why is half the country going off of people's feelings? And then the other half is just like just shut up and sit down, and this is what you're getting, and I don't want to hear. Your opinion anymore. And it's like, well, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I actually don't know who is going to be best positioned to be the next president, let's say on the Republican side, whether it's JD or Rubio or DeSantis or whoever might jump in. But if they don't start to come back to the center, to America first, I think we're going to end up with a socialist country. It's just my opinion.

So much to unpack there, but like mostly yes to all that, right? Like this is, this is the— okay, let's, let's, let's first say that there are insane people on the left, but not all of them. And in my opinion, to paint with very broad brushes, they generally vote differently than Republicans. So most Republicans are voting because they want somebody to come in And restore order and fix things. When Democrats are voting, in my opinion, this is based on my feels, they're voting just to win. And so to them, the policies don't matter as much. They'd rather just see the Republicans lose. And so sure, they'll pile in behind LGBT because it really upsets the other side, right? And it's like, that's what we want. All of them know, right? And it's like on the right, then they'll see these issues and say, well, look, they believe in the LGBT. We're the opposite of that. So vote for us. And then because they're expedient and lazy, the Republican politician will then, like a Nancy Mace, make that her number one thing. It's like, no, the number one thing should be returning the American middle class to a functioning status.

Right.

And so I think, again, there was a culture war under Biden. It was generally won by young people on the right pushing back against LGBT stuff. It's one of the reasons Trump got into office. But that's not what they want at the top of the ticket. Right. They want to be put first. And so, like, you know, I feel like we're— we've regressed to a period where Trump had the right platform, he had a mandate, people were really piling in behind him. And it's like, you know what, a lot of the independents and some Democrats said, you know what, like, yeah, we do need things fixed in this country. LGBT might not be that important. Let's give this guy a shot. The Trump administration immediately spiked the football and put out pump reels about blowing up the Middle East and ICE bashing doors in. And that's like proposing on a first date. You know, this was a first date. It really was. It's like, okay, finally, Trump, here's your chance. Fix the country with Republicans. And it required a very specific kind of approach. Now, I think what we're dealing with is everybody's saying, oh, Trump didn't do this, Trump didn't do that. And then the people who still support Trump are saying, no, no, he did. Look at all these lists. We arrested 50,000 people last night. These problems are too big to fix immediately. The goal has always been, and I told Trump a year ago, laser focus on the war that's happening against an economic system that has failed Americans and the influence that controls the government. And so he needed to be a wartime president that said, that knew why he got elected, knew who the enemy was, and convinced Americans every day that he was fighting That enemy. And unfortunately, when it's like, here's your 50-year mortgage, I'll give TikTok to Larry Ellison, building a golden ballroom, like, these are not things that convince America that he is fighting the correct war. And so that's the problem. It's him and his ability to stay on message and focus. And I said that, I was like, you got to stop fighting Republicans. Like, I know you want the SAVE Act passed. They're not going to nuke the filibuster, bro. You got to make it look like they can actually manage. So put out some bills that they will sign. And show that if Americans want Republicans to stay in office, there's a reason. Republicans have a vision for what America looks like. So when you said socialism is the default, yeah, people think this system failed. They think this system is capitalism. America, socialism now beats capitalism under 40. But the thing is, is that socialism is still not popular. It's under 50. So people don't really want socialism. They look at Japan and say, well, we should have a healthcare system like that.

Yeah.

And is that socialist? It's like, no, it's kind of nationalist. We should be able to do that. They want a government that works, and they gave Republicans a chance to fix it. And we're blowing up the Middle East and putting out pump reels about shocking illegal aliens with gloves. It's just not— that's not really American. It really isn't. And so that's the problem.

The persuasion of Trump being this this guiding principle and visionary of telling us where we're going, the Golden Age, that's not there anymore. It's like you— exactly like you said, um, maybe he means to do this, but he needs to put that emphasis where we look at, um, like facts don't matter. So in a way, it's—

They don't matter to him, you know, for sure.

So the emphasis should be on— since facts don't matter, then the emphasis of his truth posts should be America, should be fighting communism, fighting anything like that, restoring the middle class, you know. And a lot of the truth posts, what are they? They're just about Iran, South Korea, um, him, Canada yesterday. Um, so it's not really what they're doing. Because they might be doing that, like you said, but they're not talking about it. So the optics for the public is, oh, they're just building ballrooms for themselves, but here I am paying a ton of money for gas, for everything, and for everything else.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, he moved the ball 10 yards downfield and spiked the football. He said we were in a golden age last September, like, and everybody's like, uh, no. You know, so that was like, well, really when the wheels fell off was the whole Epstein thing. I mean, that's really, and like you could say, oh, it's not a big deal. It's not Americans' number one thing. And it's like, if you stack rank their issue, it's correct to say that Epstein would be kind of like low, but also one of the most unpopular things we've ever polled on is the idea of there being like a two-tiered justice and elites being able to get away with everything. And so when Pam Bondi said case closed, Only 20% of Republicans agreed with her, and 70% were like, no, we need to arrest these people. And Trump literally just like noped out of it. He's like, nope, nope, nope, my friends, I hate my followers. And it's like, that was the real gut punch to me when I'm like, something's really off here. Now, I got again, like an inside look in November, and this was helpful for me because personally, I was a Trump supporter. I was one of his early supporters. I was one of these keyboard warriors. Before I was a pollster, and you know it was always interesting to me because his promise to come in and upset the establishment was very important and made him dangerous to the establishment. I think at this point we can argue he's been captured or not, but when but it was like okay how does this White House work and what is the and I got a feeling you know based this is my opinion of I think what happened is that. There's, there's no like overarching plan. Like there's no, here's the 10 initiatives we're working on and we're gonna like focus today on this one and they're all domestic. He hired people into the cabinet roles, they're doing their thing, and that Susie's largely just there to manage Trump all day and keep him happy. And he focuses on what he wants to focus on, and what he wants to focus on tends to be what his friends around him want him to focus on. And the reason I got called in, I was told specifically, is that he had Charlie Kirk and they were really close friends and they talked a lot. And Charlie Kirk was making sure that the under 40, not straight ticket Republican voter, but just the young people in America and the future of America was being at least listened to.

Mm-hmm.

And when Charlie Kirk died, Trump literally lost that. And you can look, it's like, Wasn't that much longer until he was attacking the affordability hoax. He was talking about how great the H-1B program is. Like all of these are lightning rod issues for the younger people, right? The 50-year mortgage, stuff like that. And so in November I was literally told, it's like, well, we're trying to throw a bunch of people at Trump to see who sticks so that he could have somebody that represents the young people again. And I talked for 45 minutes and I was like, you're going to lose. And if you want to not lose, need to show that Americans, Republicans can govern America. You understand the economic plight of the younger voter because you had them. They, he had a 60% under 40 approval rating. And mostly because just Doge. And that was wild, you know? And of course Doge went away. And that also said that people haven't seen the government, the swamp drained. They haven't seen these government agencies reformed in any meaningful way. And I know it's a big problem, but you need to be perceived to be focused on these problems. Not—you don't have to fix it. I specifically said Americans don't want the golden age; they want a 20-year path to, and that's what they will vote for. And then he bombed Iran. You know what I mean? Like he wasn't even listening to me. You know, it's like he—you know what he did? He talked for 15 minutes about Lindsey Graham, how great a golfer he was, and how he can raise more money than every Republican. Oh, he's so amazing! And I just golfed with Brett Baier the other day, and.

Great. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to address some of the things going on in the chat, which I knew would happen. You guys, like, listen, here's what I want to say. So Flavor, you know, if you're in the chat on Locals or on YouTube, you know, there's a good chance I might see something you're saying and call it out, but you guys are used to me. So Flavor wrote, stop, he has a top-notch team. This is not helping people understand what positive things he's doing. Taxpayers aren't paying for the ballroom. So flavor. To you, I say, there's 3 of us sitting here. I think we're all intelligent. We all have different dynamics and priorities in our lives. We all voted for Trump 3 times.

3 times.

Yeah, 3 times. Okay, so we are Trump voters. We are Trump supporters. So this is like a little polling thing for you right here to see like a sample of 3 different people and how we're feeling now. Not to say that Trump hasn't done amazing things. Of course he has. You can't be perfect. We understand not everything's going to be a home run, but it's not up to us to shut our mouths so people can try and just focus on the good things he's done. There's some really big mistakes that he's making for the base of what is now the Republican Party, which is really leaning America first. And, um, we're not Democrats.

We're not team only, and whatever the team says, we go. Yeah, you know, we, we have to—

Like, Smelly just sent 20 coins to say shame on you guys. So it's really funny.

Let me respond to that too. Yeah, go ahead. I've been trying to help Trump because these are very predictable things based on things that I've been saying for a year. And objectively, I'm not a Republican now. I'm a pollster and I represent the American people. The American people— Trump's agenda was more popular than Trump was. And so the American people wanted Trump's agenda. And if he is one of the things that's going to jeopardize that for the American people, I'm obviously going to say it. It's not my job to shill for this guy. You can shill for this guy if you want, if that makes you feel better. But it's my job to shill for the American people. And right now, the things that Trump are saying Like, he's not getting credit for the things he did. I don't care if he did 'em or not. I'm saying from a public opinion, from a persuasion standpoint, he's not getting credit. And I'll give you an example. A couple months ago we asked, is Trump fulfilling his promises more or less than recent presidents? Only 33% said more, 50% said less. That's not good. It was only, I think, less than 60% of Republicans said more. And a majority, I think in the same question, said a majority of Republicans said his first term was better. So these are his own voters saying that there's a problem. Okay. Now you might not have a problem with what he's doing, but what I'm saying is when his base has a problem, it will be bad in the midterms. And so all I'm saying is based on the current trajectory and the way that Trump has governed for the second term, it will be bad for the midterms. Can things change? Sure, maybe, like, maybe the rapture happens and everybody's super happy and like, I don't know. But between now and November, it's very likely that he's just gonna lose the House and the Senate, and that will effectively kill his entire political cycle in America. I'm sorry, that's just the reality.

It is the reality. And you guys, this is like the most gentle conversation too. Like, this isn't even aggressive. It's so gentle. But if you're so clung on to like, you can't criticize the president, You know, take a deep breath. You know, someone just said, "Oh, Erica just can never accept other people's opinions." Really? I'm having an opinion that you just can't let me have. So, you know, go ahead, Marcela. I'll calm myself down.

I think the the the the issue with the chatters and you know some of the chatters, the beloveds. Uh, is regarding like, we do appreciate Trump, at least I do. And it's not really that I don't believe in him, it's just that I wish his messaging was better, his persuasion game was better in regards to what he's going to do, um, like in regards to a plan or what he would want to do for the voters, for the young people, for everybody in the United States. Because all that is the focus of the administration right now is Iran or immigration. And that's great. But a lot of the things that get independents out to vote, that get the young people out to vote, is things that are economically driven. So I think that We're all in agreement, I think, but I just— the messaging has to be stronger in order to get those voters.

Also, like, focuses. Yeah. Yeah. Also, um, where did you go rambling, Doug? You said something like there's a lot of, um, light between, you know, Trump's upsetting me to I'm voting for socialists. Like, I, I, you know, I'm not talking about any of us here. Like, we would never vote Socialism, but the younger group will. So that's what we're talking about. Like the under forty, they they're suffering. Like they're like, I can't get a house. I can't pay my rent. I can't. You know, my job sucks. I have no money. They're going to be like, okay, well, this is they're going to look at Trump's term as what hurt them that they couldn't get ahead, and then they're going to see like your AOC and your El-Sayed and all these people like, hey, you know, we'll just. We'll just give you free rent and this and that and free grocery stores. And they're like, okay, well, let me try that. So it's not about us sitting here, you guys. It's not about who we like and who we're voting for. We're talking about the country. Um, you know, so try to relax a little bit. It's okay if we criticize. It's okay if we have different opinions. Would I vote for Trump again tomorrow? Yeah, I would. Um, do I think he's the best president we could have right now? I do. And I have affection for him. I have love for him. I have appreciation for him. Um, I pray for him and, and everybody on his team. And I hope that, you know, he's guided to make the best decisions for this country and for himself. And I hope he stays safe. Like, I don't know what else I could tell you of, you know, the affection and love I have for this man, but I think he's doing some stupid shit that's gonna put us in jeopardy in the future. Is that okay? I hope so.

And then I have to, I have to, uh, focus the, the audience that Mark Mitchell has to be independent, has to be unbiased because he runs a polling company, and you want to have that in a polling company. So, you know, him, uh, being critical, you know, uh, that is part of the game of him being unbiased.

Flavor— like Flavor just said, what stupid shit? Like, do you think he's not doing anything that's stupid? Come on.

Yeah, the Iran thing is going to hang over his legacy in ways that we haven't even begun to contemplate yet. And he was told many times before doing that, and actually sent polling to the White House. So the problem is, is that on the left, they're not going to listen to the pollsters in the White House. But on the right, what was happening is there were a lot of pollsters putting out fake numbers that made the Iran strike look popular. And Trump was being manipulated behind the scenes with people who were telling him, you'll be a hero. Nobody wants Iran to have nukes. And it is true that very few Americans are okay with Iran having nukes, but when you stack rank their problems, it's way at the bottom, right? Like they, that's not what they think about every day when they wake up. And so doing something that would focus America on that for a long period of time destroys political capital. And so me being out there and criticizing Trump for doing this, look, and, and the polling that I sent.

Yeah.

Only it was a straight up question. Like most of the questions you see were pushing people. They're like, hey, Trump's going to get rid of the nukes and take out the Ayatollah. Do you support or oppose that? And people are going to support it, right? Because they're not being told at what cost. Well, the costs were high, but if you just ask the question, hey, like out of the blue, should we strike Iran or not? It was 37% say yes. And then they say that the Trump administration is too focused on foreign policy and needs to be focused on domestic policy agenda by over a 2 to 1 margin. Right? So it was not a surprise that this is exactly what would happen. And I was getting attacked because there are a ton of people on the right that think Trump could do no wrong and that this is fine, it'll be just like Venezuela. And those people were not correct. And so it's good to be objective and questioning and provide feedback and support. Does everybody have to do it? No. But the problem that the Republicans have now is that like 35% of Trump support came from Democrats and independents. And the under-40 Trump voter, half of them would be okay voting for a socialist. They, they told us that. And not only that, between 60% and 3/4 of them supports major socialist economic policies like excess wealth confiscation and nationalizing industries. So this is where the country's going. It's just a matter of time. It's like, unless the Republicans propose an alternative, you will get socialists winning. Does that mean we'll be socialist? Probably not. But they're like, some of them are crazy. It's probably a Trojan horse for Marxism, and I want to prevent that. And I want to prevent it by them being more effective at giving Americans the mandate or the agenda that they wanted. And it's just not happening right now.

That's right. So, you know, like Mary, I get you. Like, you know, you said, I don't think Iran is going well, but I also don't know what information he had that we didn't that compelled him to do it. Well, you know, Okay, but the thing is, is how is that going to shake out for us in the midterms? It's going to be a problem. So I agree with what a lot of you are saying, but the midterms are coming up. We're in a war that— I'll just zip that part. We're in a war. And a lot of you are like, no, it's worth it. It's worth it. Iran nukes. I get it. The fear of being nuked, I get it. Yeah. And Beverly, yes, we can thank Thune. That was a tongue twister for a lot of this too. But the midterms are coming and I think President Trump thought this would get wrapped up a lot quicker than it did, maybe thinking about Venezuela and what happened there. Had this thing been like, we're going to go in, we're going to strike and we're done in 2 weeks, it would've been so far in the rearview mirror, but that hasn't—

Sure.

Shaken out. And so we're still there, and now the military is upset, and like, they're, they're upset on their aircraft carrier, and now people are running with that story, and people are dying. And every day on this show, you see the dread on our face trying to give you an Iran update because it's like, it's on, it's off, it's on, it's off, agreed, not agreed. So it's— it doesn't look good. So I just, I just don't want to end up with A bunch of socialists in, you know, running the country. I'm not voting for them, but I'm just saying, like, if things don't turn around quick— so that brings me to a question, Mark. How, like, what percentage of people voting really sways the vote? I mean, I know it's like technically independents, but I feel like a lot of Democrats are walking away because they can't handle what's happening to their party. And some very prominent Democrats have said, like, I'm done, I, I'm voting Republican, you know, whatever. But how many people really do you think at this point now will sway the election?

That's a hard one to answer without talking about the election integrity problems. And I'm not just— I'm not talking about the machines, although I do think there's reasons to suspect them. Um, you know, I have polling reasons to believe that illegal aliens are voting in elections because they've told me they are, and not to these numbers that we've seen, like, oh, a couple hundred in Ohio. No, I think Lots of them. And also, we even ran a poll that 2020 mail-in voters, 21% of them said they committed at least one form of fraud out of a list of only 4 things, like filling out a ballot for somebody else, doing a ballot in another state. And we've continued to see this, like in the Democrat primaries recently with Al Syed and the other one, Francesca Hong. Yeah. They underperformed good pollsters by 15 to 20 points. And one of them won and one of them didn't. And it's also interesting to see that the Democrats piled behind Al-Sayed even though they tried to take him. That's not something the right would do, right? No. But it's reasonably reasonable to believe that there were a lot of hijinks continuing to happen in places like Detroit where, you know, they probably have SEIU people stuffing mail-in ballots in warehouses and stuff like that. But If you look at how Trump did, he got 60 couple million in 2016. It got all the way up to 77 or 78 million, whatever it was. Right. My opinion, that's the difference between somebody trying an interesting outsider and people crawling over broken glass to have somebody save America. And you have to be like, those people all didn't vote for Trump because they love Trump. They voted against Biden. They voted because they're holding their nose.

Right.

And they're definitely, definitely not all Republican. Now, the Democrats turned out 75 million, and presumably a lot of those were fake votes. I guess we'll never know at this point, but they're going to continue to turn out that number because remember why Democrats vote. They vote to win, and Republicans vote to fix America. And I think Republicans are going to be in a position where they're more frustrated that they think America's harder to fix. A lot of the non-straight ticket younger people who voted for Trump, they're not going to vote for socialists. They'll probably just not come out. They won't be excited by Marco Rubio or whatever, right? And they definitely don't really come out for midterms. So like, that's the problem we're faced with. Again, I still have a hard time coming up with a scenario in which Republicans overperform and surprise by keeping both houses. And what I've heard is that if the Democrats take the House, they've wised up. They're not going to try and impeach Trump, but instead they're going to systematically dismantle his government by going after real fraud that they've got evidence of certain places.

So, so, um, what kind of miracle would have to happen for Republicans? Like, like what? Like what could happen that would change people now to vote for Republicans? I'm guessing the war would end, but I see that happening?

Uh, I mean, I like— maybe, maybe they somehow pull out some Hail Mary or something, but like, Iran's got every incentive to just drag this out as long as he can— they can, right? And they're in a position to do that because they've shown that they're like hardened to our ability to punish them with the current conventional weapons that we're using, and that we're reticent to continue to spend more. That's a tough spot to be in. Yeah. Like I hate to say this, but a Gulf of Tonkin type of incident or some kind of Iran attack on America might galvanize people. But America is so cynical now; it's a different country than it was in 2001. And to be honest, like I don't see a reason why Iran would strike America right now, even if it could. And a lot of people too are being fed misinformation about these nukes. I don't want Iran to have a nuke. But it— if they do, it'll be a small-yield tactical nuclear weapon that is not attached to any delivery mechanism that could reach the United States. There are other insane regimes that have these small tactical nuclear weapons, right? And it's like, we're playing fast and loose with a major nuclear power, Russia, that with one missile could wipe out everything from Queens to Trenton. Not like take out SoHo. You know, like it's, it's a—

Right.

It's just a very different thing. And so again, who— I hate to say this— Iran with a nuke is not an existential threat to America. Is it a threat to America? Like, probably, yeah. But at the end of the day, mutually assured destruction exists for a reason, and Iran doesn't want 9 million people in Tehran killed, right? Like, they are rational actors from that perspective. But it could be argued that Iran with a nuke is much more of an existential threat to our greatest ally, Israel. And so I think that that's part of what potentially is—

All right.

Could there be a potential, like a 9/11 type of action, and that would sway the voting like it did under Bush?

It could. But again, like, why would Iran do that? They have everything they want right now. Like, really? I mean, they're suffering some economic pain, obviously, but They've been in a repressive regime for years. So you know what I mean? Like, I don't see them— like, you're not hearing reports of major uprisings that everybody was told was going to happen. And that's what you would do if, like, if this blockade was working, if their economy was collapsing. I mean, everybody points at their currency, you know, like, whatever. Our currency is kind of, kind of, you know, like, every— like, there's— everybody's a dirty shirt. Like, maybe we're the cleanest dirty shirt on the globe right now, but our treasury Yields don't look that great, and I like here's a hunch: Americans are less tolerant of economic pain than the current Iranian citizens. Is my right? So, like I don't know. I mean, I don't, and like I do believe they probably were talking about nukes. I think Kane came out and said that they had showed potential targets. Like that's kind of scary. Like. That would be insane. Like, we should not do that, right? Um, yeah, I know. I don't know how— I don't know how we get out of this Iranian situation. They own the strait, and we can't do anything about that without a major troop engagement. A major troop engagement would be a problem, let's just say. Yeah, there's no way to do that without, like, significant number of casualties, in my opinion.

Um, all right, so listen, you guys.

Yes.

We're at time already. Didn't that fly by? So I knew, I knew today was going to be a little bit ruffling of feathers for some people. It's okay. I think one thing is clear. We, we all agree that we want the best for America. So we're all on the same page, you guys. Okay. Nobody hates President Trump here. Well, maybe there are people in the chat that hate him. We don't. We all want what's best, and our concerns and our criticisms are because we're worried about the future of this country and the midterms. If you just put blinders on and say, but all the good things he did, that doesn't matter. You're already voting Republican. It's the people that are starting to walk away that you have to say, like, I hear you, I understand you, I, I get where you're coming from. What can we do to, you know, right this ship. The people that already know where they're going, you're not the issue. So if there's people that are feeling like us, we're all voting. We're— well, I don't know what Mark does. He's fully independent. And by the way, I'm unaffiliated with any party. I'm not. I'm a 3-time Trump voter.

I don't have any problem saying that.

So I'm a 3-time Republican voter and I'm unaffiliated in the world. So So we're all on the same team, you guys. Like, we do want what's best for the country. And I loved having a little bit of a disagreement today in the chat. You know, we can't just like float through the world just, you know, without ever feeling something. So I appreciated it. I appreciate the criticisms to me. Um, I don't care, it's all fine. I still love you guys even when, when you're mean. Um, but sticks and stones, I'm from Jersey, I'm good with it. So Mark, I would love for you to come back on and, you know, just revisit with us and have a good time here and get some different opinions going. I know, Marcello, wasn't that fun today? It was a good time.

Yeah, I'm just trying to seed a new grassroots movement. Like, it's going to be a problem. There's going to be— there's going to have to be a new, smarter crop of a conservative grassroots movement. And if you want to know what it needs to be founded on, it's fair capitalism. It needs to— you need— you can't just point at socialism and say that's scary because it's not going to work. People need to have a viable alternative. We've been through all this before. Teddy Roosevelt is on Mount Rushmore. He's a Republican on Mount Rushmore for a reason. And you should look at his economic positions. They are not trickle-down Reaganomics.

Interesting, right? Stella's saying that's enough. So listen, you guys, Stella's—

It's her cat, not her baby.

She'll step on the keyboard and end the whole show. So you guys, thank you so much. Thank you, Mark, so much for coming on. I can't wait for you to come back on again. And Owen will be back tomorrow, you guys. So as always, we always say thank you to Scott and Shelley for allowing this show to continue. We're so grateful for all of you that show up and have your opinions too, and that at the end of the day, we're still fam. And still love each other. So let's have a closing sip to our beloved Scott. Let's get out there and be useful today. Rob, you missed Owen. Don't worry, he'll be back tomorrow. He'll, he'll make you feel better. And, um, let's have a closing sip to our beloved Scott and to all of you guys. I'll stay for an Akira song, and if everyone else has to go, go ahead. Okay, to Scott.

I have court today, so I have to go, you guys.

Thanks, guys. Thanks, Mark.

Yeah, great to be here. Thanks.

Thank you. Bye, Marcella. All right, guys. What do we need to hear today? Hmm. Let's do. I gotta feel something that vibes for me. Do do do. Let's just let's just go with the old basket case theory. Let's go. Is everyone okay? We all still love each other?

There's somebody out here watching this right now. You might be watching it live, or somebody might be showing it to you, but I'm kind of talking to you, talking to you directly. You're feeling super lonely, you might be addicted, and you're trying to figure out what And you're thinking, what the hell do I do? I'm trapped, I'm lonely, um, and maybe addicted. I have low self-esteem. And all these people who are doing better than me are beating up on me and they're controlling me. Their opinions are actually just breaking my brain. I can't stop thinking about what they said about me.

I'm a drug addict.

Is that you? Yeah, that is you. I'm gonna give you at least a few tricks. This will just be a start. It's not gonna fix anybody instantly, but I'll give you a few tricks for escaping from that, okay? Some brain hacks and some life hacks. It goes like this. Number 1, always remember Always remember the basket case theory. That's trick one. Everybody's broken. Always remember the basket case theory. No complete people, just broken people. Always remember the basket case theory. That's trick one. Everybody's broken. They are just completely broken. And you should have pity on them. The person who's talking to you and is insulting you, they're broken. Did you say to yourself, oh my goodness, somebody who's normal is criticizing me? Do you know how many times that's happened? How many times has a person who's got it together and they're normal and they're criticizing you— how many times does that ever happen? Do you think a lot? Because the answer is zero. It's never happened. Nobody who has their act together is criticizing you in cruel ways. But you are getting criticized in cruel ways. You're being judged, not by good people. You're being judged by thoroughly broken people who are acting out. They're taking out their pain on you. If If you imagine that they're complete, somehow good people, well, that feels pretty bad. Because you don't want somebody that you respect, or at least think is normal, to be judging you. That feels terrible. They don't exist. They don't exist. That thing that somebody said, it was said. The words exist. But there's no one there. There's no such thing as an unbroken person. They think that kind of stuff. Always remember the basket case theory. That's trick one. Everybody's broken. Always remember the basket case theory. No complete people, just broken people. Always remember the basket case theory. That's trick one.

Everybody's broken.

They are just completely broken. And you should have pity on them. They are just completely broken, and you should have pity on them, and your first thought should be empathy, not feeling bad. So that's your first trick. Remember the basket case theory? Nobody's good. It just doesn't exist. And trust me, Go, go, go, go, go. The older you get, the more people you meet, the more you'll know this is true. There are no complete people, just broken people. The more broken they are, the more they're gonna come after you, 'cause they need that. They need to push you down so that they can feel good for today.

Oh, Akira's so great. We do miss you, Scott. Ah, you guys. Oh, thanks, Julie. You're amazing. That was fun today. Mark's great. He's a great guest. I was so happy to get him on. Um, you know, I tried a while ago and, um, he wasn't allowed to come on and talk. He was being silenced while he was still with the other company. So I'm so happy, happy to stay late with you guys. I truly, you know, disagreement is totally cool, you guys. Like, I get it. Um, Rob, you're the only one that makes it a little bit personal. Maybe you could not do that in the future. That would be good, just because it's just a good skill to not make it personal. So, um, I'd appreciate it. But yeah, that was a perfect song, you guys. So guess what? Tomorrow guest number 3 is coming on, Brian Romley. Can we stand it? So listen, tomorrow you'll be all relaxed and soothed with Brian, and we'll have a completely different discussion. So that'll be fun. Um, but it just can't always be like rainbows and unicorns, right? So that's fine, and it wasn't really that big of a deal. So anyway, you guys are the best. Thank you. Uh, you'll bring tortilla chips in case it gets spicy. I love it. Um, yeah, good, good, good. Yeah, the chat was really fun today. I wish I could have seen YouTube at the same time, but YouTube— uh, hey Ajax, I will come over and watch you guys after. Flynn, you guys are so great. Thanks Persuasion Club. I'm glad you're— uh, Kevin, I'm glad you're working on your affirmations. You guys follow the Persuasion Club on X. Good one today. Thanks, you guys. Love it. Mm-hmm. All right. So I'm going to get running and we'll be back tomorrow morning. Same time, same place. Thanks, Jackie. And thanks, SJV. I appreciate you. All right, guys, say your goodbyes so I don't hang up on anybody. I hate doing that. And we'll see you in the morning. Okay. Work on your affirmations. Oh, thanks, Jacobson. I'm glad you did. Good, good, good, good. Okay, EJ, thank you. Affirmations, I love it. Love you, Bookish. You guys good? Yeah, do something for yourselves today. Jim Courtney. Okay, bye guys. Bye, Phaedrus. Wait, I'm gonna say your name wrong. Animus. Phaedrus Animus. I see you, Phaedrus. Flavor, love you. Mwah! Bye, B. Dylan. See you guys later.