We play Shapiro defending his stricter posture and question how it squares with his earlier push for data-center investment. The hour closes with Brandon Dukes’ narrow special-election win over Scott Timko in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, a seat Trump carries by a wide margin in 2024, and a warning that working-class movement and affordability could cause real trouble for Republicans in November.
We continue the midterm discussion with gas prices, food costs, and the danger of telling voters their finances are better than they feel. Angie Nixon’s Florida Democratic Senate primary win then pushes us back into the fight between party regulars and Democratic socialists. We also revisit a South Carolina candidate’s rough answer on Taiwan, then look at socialist primary wins outside the Northeast and ask whether the movement is becoming a much broader challenge for establishment Democrats.
The surveillance debate gets concrete with a Colorado package-theft case in which license-plate cameras point police toward a woman who insists she is innocent. We hear an officer tell her the evidence is locked in, then follow the case as other evidence places her elsewhere and police drop it. Rich and the crew use the story to argue over warrantless vehicle tracking, government access to location data, and how easily a tool sold as a crime-fighting aid can become something much bigger.
Jimmy Failla joins us and starts with Byron Donalds’ Florida GOP governor primary win, praising Donalds’ ability to make a broad economic and public-safety pitch without centering race. Failla also gives his read on why DeSantis stays out of the primary endorsement fight, then we get nostalgic over Columbia House finally shutting down after 71 years and the old penny-CD deals that always come with a catch. We close the hour with polling on socialism and capitalism, a New York City DSA co-chair defending police and prison positions, and Failla unloading on the public-safety argument.
Aug 20, 2026
