Thursday, April 2nd, 2026 Today, the Supreme court heard oral arguments on birthright citizenship and most of the Justices seem skeptical of Trump’s side; Donald Trump requested commando style plans for troops to seize Iran’s uranium but he appears poised to surrender in a public address tonight; Donald’s approval rating on the economy has hit an all time low; the administration plans to move the U.S. Forest Service from DC to Utah in an effort to cull employees; mass student loan discharge notices have been sent out to over 170K borrowers after a Trump Department of Education loss; and Allison delivers your Good News. Dana is out and about.
Thursday, April 2nd, 2026
Today, the Supreme court heard oral arguments on birthright citizenship and most of the Justices seem skeptical of Trump’s side; Donald Trump requested commando style plans for troops to seize Iran’s uranium but he appears poised to surrender in a public address tonight; Donald’s approval rating on the economy has hit an all time low; the administration plans to move the U.S. Forest Service from DC to Utah in an effort to cull employees; mass student loan discharge notices have been sent out to over 170K borrowers after a Trump Department of Education loss; and Allison delivers your Good News. Dana is out and about.
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msw media. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Thursday, April 2, 2026. Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on birthright citizenship and most of the justices seem skeptical of Trump's side. Donald Trump requested commando style plans for troops to seize Iran's uranium, but he appears to be poised to surrender. In a public address tonight, Donald's approval rating on the economy has hit an all time low. In a CNN SSRS poll, the administration plans to move the forest service from D.C. to Utah in an effort to cull employees. And mass student loan discharge notices have been sent out to over 170,000 borrowers after a Trump Department of Education loss. I'm your host, Alison Gill. Hey, everybody. So happy it's Thursday. Shit, shit, shit, shit. it is Thursday. We had some, interesting, back and forth news today. I'm going to go over all of it for you. Later in the show, I'm going to talk to the executive director of Swing Left, Yasmin Raji. Really, really important conversation. I hope you stick around for that. Dana's out today. She's traveling out doing her fundraising for, you know, vulnerable communities and doing amazing work, all the amazing work that she does. So she'll be back in your ears tomorrow. And I just finished watching the Artemis II rocket launch. And I love this, I'm a huge nerd for this stuff. But what's interesting, I'm 52. This is the first rocket launch to the moon in my lifetime. That's how long it's been. And this is a NASA rocket. Now, you know me, I bitch about the privatization of space travel all the time. This wasn't SpaceX. This wasn't whatever Bezos's company is or whatever. This is NASA. Now, I, mean, obviously there are private contractors who work to build the rocket, but this is a, you know, NASA owns it. And so three U.S. astronauts, one, woman and then a Canadian, which went up today. And, it was just really, really nice moment given all the other going on. If you get a chance to watch it, I'm gonna play the. I'm gonna roll some brief footage on the Beans Talk video podcast today. You can get that over at MSW media pods on YouTube. So give it a watch. It's. It's heartening. And I know we've got a lot of stuff we need to pay for here on Earth, you know, for us. But, you know, I've always been. Cut the Pentagon budget. Why are we spending a billion dollars a day? Why does Kegseth need $200 billion. I'm for spending big money on this kind of stuff. I like science. Science is cool, exploration is awesome, and we should be cutting the Pentagon budget. Just my two cents. Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox now. I like space stuff. We have a lot of news to get to. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot, notes. First up from NBC, tackling one of Trump's most provocative policies. And idiotic Members of the Supreme Court Wednesday expressed skepticism about the lawfulness of his proposal to limit the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. And I'm going to say the word skepticism here. NBC is doing a lot of work. They were pretty brutal to, John Sauer, Trump's Solicitor general, announced on the first day of Trump's second term in office. As part of his hardline immigration policy, the executive order at issue would limit birthright citizenship to people who have at least one parent who is a US Citizen or a permanent resident. As a result, babies born to temporary visitors who entered the country legally or to people who entered illegally would not be citizens at birth. Trump attended the oral argument in person, a first for a sitting president. Hermeet Dhillon went on Twitter and said, guys, stop bitching. It's not unprecedented. There's an actual seat for the president at the Supreme Court. And that's just totally made up. There's no seat for the president at the Supreme Court. But anyway, he was there, which is just bonkers. But he left before it ended. Okay, he got maybe sleepies. I'm not sure. Maybe he was mad at the woman who started talking because he left 10 minutes into the ACLU lawyers arguments, and she's a woman. And then he tweeted our truthed or whatever, we are the only country in the world stupid enough to allow birthright citizenship. No, there are many countries that allow birthright citizenship. It's like 35. Most of the Western hemisphere does. it. We're the only country in the world stupid enough to put you in the White House, if that's indeed what happened. Now, Trump's executive order upends the traditional understanding of a provision of the Constitution's 14th Amendment known as the citizenship clause. Quote, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. That's it. That's what it says. Seems pretty straightforward, but there's some fucking weirdos out there. By the way, that's not NBC. This is me now who think that it applies only to the babies of freed Slaves or something. Amid the discussion of how the issue of mass illegal immigration was not anticipated at the time the amendment became law, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and others pushed back on the government's new interpretation. I would say wrong interpretation, maybe even racist, bigoted and ridiculous interpretation. And what, John Roberts told Sauer was, it's a new world. It's the same Constitution. Now, the clause ratified with the 14th Amendment after the Civil War to provide equal rights to formerly enslaved black people has long been assumed by officials at all levels of the government to apply to almost anyone born in the United States, regardless of the legal status of their parents. A few exceptions, understood at the time, included children born to diplomats and foreign invaders. Trump's executive order was immediately blocked by courts around the country and has never been, in effect, conservative. Justice Gorsuch, addressing Sauer's reliance on citizenship being conditioned on someone being a long term resident of the United States, pointed out that at the time of the 14th Amendment's ratification, that would not have turned on whether someone had entered the country legally. If somebody showed up here in 1868 and established domicile, that was perfectly fine, he said. And so why wouldn't we, even if we were to apply your own test, come to the conclusion that the fact that someone might be illegal is immaterial? That's Gorsuch. Now Barrett, another conservative, and they use the word conservative, but whatever, also poked holes in Sauer's approach, questioning how his assertion that the children of slaves brought to the United States unlawfully would be citizens under the 14th Amendment, how that was consistent with the rest of his argument, quote, how would that apply to children of illegally trafficked people today? She added. Now, Sauer, referring to the parents, said that it would depend on whether their presence is lawful, not how they entered the country. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan suggested Sauer was relying on pretty obscure sources to make his arguments. Quote, the text of the clause, I think does not support you. I think you're sort of looking for some more technical, esoteric meaning, she added. Even conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, often a reliable vote for Trump, asked Sauer to be more specific when raising the question of how the 14th Amendment was intended to repudiate the notorious 1857 Dred Scott ruling that said black slaves were not citizens. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito emerged as the only sympathetic voice to Donald Trump, who sat silently in a section of the courtroom reserved for government officials, not a special chair for the president. You know what I immediately thought of is at Petco park, the ballpark here downtown, there's a La Z Boy special seat where some lucky fan wins a lottery and gets to sit in this cool box out in left field in a big comfy La Z boy. That's what I picture. Trump thought was going to be a chair for him in the Supreme Court arguments anyway. Alito suggested it would be reasonable to apply the subject to the jurisdiction thereof language to new situations not contemplated at the time it was written. What happened to Mr. Originalism? Quote? What we're dealing with here is something that was basically unknown at the time when the 14th Amendment was adopted, which is illegal immigration. He said, okay, great, so then we can slap bans on certain guns then since we didn't know about those, we didn't know they were going to happen. We didn't know about AR15s when the Second Amendment was was that cool? No just here where you want to keep brown people from being citizens of the country. Dickheads. Most legal experts predicted ahead of the argument that Trump would face an uphill battle. But Cecilia Wang, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney leading the challenge to this executive order, also faced tough questions. Wang, herself the daughter of immigrants, and she would not have had citizenship at birth if Trump's interpretation of had been in effect. Then several justices pressed her on her reliance on an 1898 Supreme Court ruling, U.S. v. Won Kim Ark, which concluded that a man born in San Francisco to parents who were both from China was a US Citizen. Sauer argued that the case only refers to people domiciled in the United States, which he interprets as those with permanent residency. Wang, in contrast, argued that the ARC ruling affirms the broad principle of birthright citizenship and would need to be overturned for her to lose. Chief Justice Roberts noted that the ARC ruling includes multiple references to the word domicile, suggesting that might buttress Sauer's argument. Quote, isn't it at least something to be concerned about to say that since it's discussed 20 different times and has that significant a role in the opinion, that you can't just dismiss it as irrelevant? He asked. Wang responded in part that the word was used because in arc's specific case, his parents were long term residents of the United United States. Trump's executive order, if it were implemented, would affect thousands of babies born every year across the United States. In addition to the probing language of the 14th Amendment, the justices also questioned whether the executive order falls afoul of a federal immigration law that uses similar language, including, quote, subject to the jurisdiction thereof. The court could rule that the executive order is unlawful under that law without having to decide the 14th Amendment question and put the onus on Congress to act. The Supreme Court has a 6:3 Maga majority, as we know, which repeatedly ruled in Trump's favor last year. But the court handed him a major defeat on the tariffs case. Now, Trump responded to that ruling with harsh criticism of the justices who voted against him in a 6:3 decision, calling them disloyal to the Constitution. NBC leaves out that he also said they were subject to foreign influence. He called him out of the State of the Union. Not all of them were there. And Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, she's my favorite of all the justices, went hard after John Sauer on his domicile bullshit. Anyway, really interesting arguments. I'm very much looking forward to Steve Vladek's one first blog today. He's going to be writing that up Thursday morning. Check it out. One first by Steve Vladek. You'll want to subscribe. It's free to subscribe. Next up from the Post The US Military has given the President a plan to seize nearly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium in Iran. That would involve flying in excavation equipment and building a Runway for cargo planes to take the radioactive material out, according to two people familiar with the matter. This sounds fucking insane to me. The complex plan was briefed to the President in the past week after he asked for a proposal. He wanted to know the significant operation risks if he could. Can I do this? Trump's request for the plan, previously unreported, signals his interest in contemplating what would be an unusually sensitive, high stakes special ops mission. The consideration of such an operation was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. This is insane. You gotta fly in, build things, build runways, get excavators, dig down, go in, grab it, take it up. But, put it on the. No, but as you know, as we record this show, we record it in the evenings, the night before it comes out to the public. Now, if you're a patron, you get it the night of, you get the show the night it comes out, the night it's recorded. But as of this minute, as I record this show, we're still a couple hours away from Donald Trump addressing the nation. He's going to interrupt Survivor 50, I guess, at 7:00pm 9 Eastern. And Politico is reporting that what he intends to say is he's going to use this primetime address to declare the war is over and we've won. Against this backdrop of spiking oil prices and increasingly dismal poll numbers, which we'll get to In a second. The president has telegraphed that message in interviews, social media posts, public comments over the past 24 hours, laying the groundwork for a speech that's expected for him to say mission accomplished, to claim all military objectives have been met. That's according to six people familiar with the planning and granted anonymity. To speak candidly, he also intends to harshly scapegoat NATO allies for the biggest unresolved matter of the war, the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump caused. Steve Bannon said the president will essentially declare victory, laying out what he's achieved and what he'll do before the US Leaves, along with, quote, dumping on NATO allies, saying, it's your issue, quote, two, three weeks, definable objectives. I came, I saw, I conquered. And we're hanging around a couple more weeks to conquer some more. Maybe even then a ceasefire, while reiterating that the Hormuz situation is the Gulf, Emiratis and the Europeans to solve and then declare victory. That's what Bannon said. There's no way to keep open the Strait of Hormuz. So he's given up declaring victory, he's surrendering. Let's be real. The president's decision to deliver a major address about the war's end game, coming as an additional 2,500 US Marines make their way to the region, may be primarily an attempt to assuage our concerns and Wall Street's unease. Ding, ding, ding about energy markets and the knock on effects of the strait closure. With the conflict ongoing, the speech offers Trump an opportunity to lay out the war's objectives. To open the strait that I caused to be closed, what amounts to victory, and how he intends to move forward if ceasefire talks sputter. Iran, ah, has said there's no ceasefire. We don't know what you're talking about. Politically, it's a heavy lift for the president. That's putting it mildly. Given the broad unpopularity of the Iran war and his own relative unease at delivering more scripted formal remarks direct to camera should be a shit show. Although Trump has made several public statements declaring that indirect talks with Iran are making progress, there's no evidence that the two countries are anywhere close to an agreement. And some in the Iranian regime continue to insist no talks are happening at all. In a social media post Wednesday, Trump asserted that Iran has asked for a ceasefire. But he added a key condition for accepting we would consider when the Khorbuz Strait is open, free and clear, declaring an end to the conflict with Iran and still blocking the strait, which by the way has driven oil prices over $100 a barrel. That further clarifies Trump's desire to find an off ramp to a conflict that he initiated along with Israel and MBS 32 days ago. Although the president has not ruled out ordering ground forces to restore open navigation through the strait or seize Iran's oil supply, he has in recent days taken to blaming European allies for not doing more to ease the bottleneck that he caused. On Tuesday, after weeks of grumbling about NATO allies reluctance to send forces to Iran, Trump urged European allies to, quote, build up some delayed courage and go get your own oil. Hours later, the attacks ratcheted up further, with the president threatening to formally withdraw the US from the alliance altogether. In an interview with the Telegraph newspaper in Britain, Trump called NATO a paper tiger and said he was reconsidering America's role as the linchpin of the transatlantic alliance. He said, I would say it's beyond reconsideration. In an interview published Wednesday, a senior White House official granted anonymity to speak freely. That the president's growing anger is very real, especially as European countries, including Italy and the UK have barred American forces involved in the Iran war from using their bases in airspace. We've been talking about that here on the beans. Formally withdrawing the US from NATO would require a vote by the Senate, where the alliance enjoys strong support, including from the gop. Trump, who first threatened to leave the alliance at its 2018 summit, has veered from hot to cold when it comes to NATO. Let me tell you something. I know it requires a vote because Joe Biden signed a bill that said the POTUS cannot unilaterally withdraw the United States from NATO without approval from Congress. You know who spearheaded that bill? Marco Rubio. But regardless, does he really need a magic stamp from Congress? He can effectively and practically withdraw from NATO without legally withdrawing. He can pull our troops. He can refuse to respond to an Article 5. I mean, he's already kind of wrecked it because Putin wanted him to. So I'm not sure. I mean, it was. I'm glad that we passed that law. I'm not going to say, you know, I'm going to please continue to remind everyone that he would violate the law if he unilaterally withdrew from NATO. I don't think that legal designation means much with all of the fucking destruction that he's causing our 80 year alliance. So we'll talk about what he says at that address, although I imagine it's just a big airing of grievances. Again, next up from The Post, and I know a little bit about this. The U.S. forest Service will relocate its headquarters from Washington to Salt Lake City, moving hundreds of positions as part of a broader agency reorganization the Trump administration says would move officials closer to forests. The move threatens to hollow out the current staff of the service's D.C. headquarters, who may decide not to move to Utah. He did this with the USDA back in the day. He did it with my job to get me to quit my job at the va moved me as the tricare liaison at the West Region tricare office, which is in San Diego, to the east coast, knowing I couldn't make the move. In fact, something that the Post doesn't mention here, which is weird because this came from the Washington Post, I think, on an Aug. 6 article in 2019, where they wrote that Mick Mulvaney had spoken to a bunch of Republican donors and said, we've got this great new way of getting rid of disloyal federal employees we don't like. We move their jobs across the country and they quit because they know how difficult it is to actually remove someone from federal government service because of all the protections, at least the ones we used to have. I think they're now in limbo, in court, being litigated. But I've seen this play before. President Trump has similarly moved the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to Colorado in his first term, leading 90% of the staff to leave the agency, only for it to return to D.C. when Biden was back in office. Now, in its announcement, the Agriculture Department, which oversees the Forest Service, did not say how many staff would be relocated. Agency leadership told employees that 260 positions would be moved, according to two sources familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The agency will be reorganized around 15 directors, overseeing one or more states from offices throughout the country. The USDA did not immediately respond to questions about how many staffers would be moved. Critics of the move said it would undermine the agency, Quote, the decentralization process in this guise is an attempt to destroy the capacity and effectiveness of agencies like the Forest Service. That's, ah, Char Miller, ah, a professor of environmental analysis and history at Pomona College. Now, Miller argued, in order to carry out the functions the Forest Service is meant to do, a Washington office is needed because that's where Congress is, that makes the budgetary decisions that drive the mission of the organization and what it can and can't do. Steve Ellis, former deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service employee, said the Forest Service needs people in Washington to form relationships with counterparts in Congress and the Office of Management and Budget to ensure the agency gets the resources it needs. The Bureau of Land Management move to Grand Junction, Colorado also led to brain drain of the experienced staff leaving the agency who didn't want their children to change schools or their spouses to leave their jobs in Washington. Quote, if you want to downsize a federal government and get federal employees to leave, this is one way to do it. You're losing a lot of seasoned talent, a lot of institutional knowledge when you do that. I can confirm. Next up from the Hill, a little bit of good news. A CNN SSRS poll found 31% of respondents approve of Trump's handling of the economy. That is a new low relative to this outlet's previous surveys. It's an all time low. The survey released Wednesday found the president's approval rating on the economy is 8% lower than it was in January. The latest survey also found that more than three quarters of respondents believe the economic conditions in the US are poor. More than three quarters. While 65% of respondents says Trump's policies have worsened economic conditions, 65% marks that are 8 and 10 points higher than they were in January. That's insane. Even among Republicans. The president's approval rating on the economy is down 14 points since January. Among Republicans younger than 45, his approval rating on the economy is down 23 points from January. Nearly 3 in 10 Republicans said Trump's policies have worsened economic conditions, 30%, up from 13% in January. Now, this polling comes as gas prices continue to surge amid the US Israeli war with Iran surpassing $4 a gallon on Tuesday for the first time since 2022. In response to the initial wave of strikes by the US And Israel, the Iranian government limited shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, as we know. And that's had ripple effects on the global economy. As I said, the president is going to address the Nation 9:00pm Eastern Wednesday night regarding the war. It comes as the Pentagon deploys more troops to the Middle east and Trump touts talks with Iranian officials, discussions again that the Iranians say don't exist. Other data show that the economy has evolved slightly since Trump returned to office. The inflation rate stayed at 2.4% in February, the same mark as the previous month and 6/10 of a percent lower than it was the month of his inauguration. That's according to bls, but that sucker's going up in March. Bet. All right, from Forbes, some good news. The Education Department sent out a mass student loan discharge notice to thousands, hundreds of thousands of borrowers this week notifying them their federal student loans are eligible to be canceled. The development, which is the latest in The Sweet v. McMahon legal battle, McMahon M being Linda McMahon, former wrestling guy's wife, who's now the head of the Department of Education. This is a win for borrowers who've been waiting nearly four years for this. Student loan forgiveness notices were sent to borrowers after the Education Department's request for an emergency stay of the settlement was denied by a federal appeals court last week. But the relief won't be instant and there's some uncertainty that could remain because there'll be an appeal. So you're going to want to keep an eye out for that. But about 170,000 borrowers who are considered post class applicants under Suite V. McMahon and who had attended an Exhibit C school and had not received a formal Education Department decision on their borrower defense application, were supposed to receive notices by March 30 that their federal student loans were approved for discharge following the 9th Circuit's ruling rejecting the department's request for an extension. Borrowers received those notices this week. Let us know if you got one. Send it in to us at the good news dailybeanspod.com and click on Contact now. It says borrowers should be aware, however, that some uncertainty about borrower defense relief remains as the Education Department's appeal of its obligations to discharge federal student loans under The Sweet v. McMahon settlement is still pending. The department noted in the student loan discharge notices sent to borrowers that the specific timeframe within which the Education Department must process your application is the subject of ongoing litigation before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. We'll keep you posted. We will keep you posted. All right, everybody, I've got a really, really great interview coming up with the executive director of Swing Left, Yasmin Raji, right after this break. Stick around. We'll be right back after these messages. We'll be right back. Hey everybody. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor. IQ Bar is the better for you. Plant protein based snack made with brain boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash. And right now, IQ Bar is offering you an exclusive deal. 20% off all IQ bar products plus you get free shipping. Just text daily beans all one word to 64,000. 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As promised, we are here to talk with the executive director of Swing Left, Yasmin Raji. Hi, Yasmin. How are you today?
Doing well, Allison, it's great to see you again.
I am so excited to see you. And I'm so happy for you because we finally have, like, a. An election coming up where more good things than bad are gonna be happening, at least in the results category. There's probably gonna be a lot of shenanigans from Republicans, in red states where they control those kinds of things. But I wanted to talk to you today about the new initiative from Swing Left called Ground Truth, because this is gonna be so essential. I mean, look, we could just sort of do nothing and probably flip the House, but the idea here is to flip it big and maybe even to flip the Senate. We'll talk about that in a minute. But talk a little bit about Ground Truth when it launched and where you're at with it. What is it?
Yeah, you know, I think, when you and I last spoke, it was about a month before we launched, which was in early September, which, you know, for your listeners, pay attention to this. But that's over a year before the midterm. So that meant that we had volunteers going out and talking to voters about the midterms over a year before the election, which is a big deal. And our pilot was from that early September time period all the way through Thanksgiving. And essentially what Ground Truth is is a, reimagination of voter contact. Because from our perspective, Democrats have a trust problem. I don't think that is a controversial, ah, perspective. I think it is clear in the numbers of where we are as a party, even in this incredibly negative Trump environment, we still have a brand problem on the Democratic side. And from our perspective, to rebuild trust, we need to do more listening, and that is the first step. And so what we mean by ground truth is a reimagination of voter contact is if we know that Democrats tend to talk to voters too late, too transactionally, and we are mostly only talking to the people that we know already agree with us, and we're talking much less and oftentimes not at all to people that could be on our side if we invested more time, energy, and trust building with them. ground Truth is flipping all of those elements on their head. And so in early September, well over a year before the election, we had volunteers going out and knocking on every door. We mean that in the literal and in the figurative sense, meaning rather than skipping doors to just talk to strong Democrats who already are ready to vote for Democrats. But maybe, you know, we'll forget to vote or need to ride to the polls, et cetera. We're knocking every door, talking to Republicans, talking to independents, talking to the base Democrats that have been moving away from us.
Oh, so this isn't just a prepared list of folks who might probably vote for us but don't feel like voting today. This is everyone.
Exactly, exactly. And that is for any of your listeners who have volunteered for a campaign that feels incredibly countercultural. And honestly, it's what a lot of volunteers have long wanted to do. Not just in. And when I say the figurative sense, it is, yes, we are knocking every door, but also sometimes, you know, this, has happened countless times for me. I go to a door that is prepared for me, that I'm told this is the most important door to knock on, on this block, talk to this voter. And I knock on the door and that voter isn't home, but another voter is there and is ready to talk to me. And traditional campaigning, we would skip that conversation and, we move on to the next one because that person is not a target here. We're talking to everybody. So it's in the figurative sense too, of knocking every door. And what our volunteers are doing is not just saying a traditional script that most people tune out. They're asking a really open ended question. They're introducing themselves as a volunteer with Ground Truth, which is a program to help Democrats do a better job of listening. And they're asking how that voter feels about the direction of our country. And what they're doing throughout their conversation is trying to be non judgmental, ask probing questions, be curious and be a normal human being who talks like a normal human being, which is what the best volunteers do anyway.
It's like Ted Lasso, right? Be curious.
Exactly, exactly. Exactly. I think we would be much better if the country and our politics were closer to Ted Lasso and then what we're doing, but what we're doing with that is when someone has a real authentic conversation with a voter, often we then reduce it to like, okay, this is a reproductive freedom voter, or this is an economics voter. What we're doing is our volunteers are then doing a voice memo of everything they just talked about in a 10, 15 minute conversation in all the details. Not just here's what we talked about, but also I walked to the door and I saw a Marine veteran sticker on the window. I saw kids toys all across the front yard while we were talking. The voter was incredibly frustrated about the state of our country and feels like neither party cares about them. All of those things are the ways that normal people talk. And rather than try to distill that into is that an economic conversation, Is that a veterans conversation? Our volunteers are getting all that messy conversation into our canvassing app and that's turning from voice to text. And we are on the back end running AI large language models with human check. And we're not in a, in a way that is not sharing that with AI companies to train their models. And we're using that to then share with campaigns, hear the insights of what people are saying on the ground. And I'm excited to share those all with you. But the headline of our pilot was to test out is this is our tech going to work? Are these scripts going to work? Because we are learning from the movement world of deep canvassing but trying to apply into Democratic campaigns. And what we learned in the pilot was our theory is pointed totally in the right direction. Volunteers had a remarkably positive experience. And so I can share what voters discussed and what came up. But I think the headline of where we are now is we're just trying to scale the program so the door is now wide open to anybody who wants to help join us in this way of rebuilding trust with the Democratic Party. Wow.
Yeah, that rebuilding trust is super important. I often wonder, you know, we see our general or generic ballot polls come out. It was 8 and then 11, and, you know, we've got a pretty massive lead in the generic ballot, but the Democratic Party favorability is pulling, rolling under 20% in some cases.
Totally.
It's like right up there with Pam Bondi as about as favorable as totally. Some, members of this administration. So I often wonder, like, what would it be like if the trust was built back? What would that generic ballot look like? How much of a blowout, a bigger blowout would it be this year? And talk to me about the scaling, because it has to be so daunting this year, because, like in Texas, for example, a Democrat is now running in every single district in the state. For the first time in the history of the state, more Democrats are running than probably in the history of elections, especially at least midterms, because sometimes they just jump in when it's a sexy presidential year. But this is actually a very sexy election year because of, you, know, gestures broadly. So what does scaling up and talking to every voter in that kind of environment mean? I mean, the increase in engagement has to be exponential compared to, to previous canvassing efforts.
Yes. You know, I think big picture, what we are finding is there is so much about this election cycle that rhymes with 2018 and yet is so entirely different. And I'm starting there because I think in 2018, a midterm year that much like this one, the main line of defense, the first line of defense against Donald Trump's power, was winning back the House. Ditto. this year, hopefully we can also
stretch for the Senate.
But it's a tougher map. Those elements rhymed. But the zeitgeist of, that cycle was that this was an aberrant moment in our politics and in our history. And if we all participated and did what we could as volunteers, as candidates for office, as donors, if we did whatever we could, we could stop Trump forever and go back to, you know, the correct path and moving, bending that arc of history back in our direction. This is a, midterm year where it is very clear that that was not an aberrant moment. Right? We are doing a long term fight. And the zeitgeist has m moved away from holding a mirror to grassroots and saying, you can do this, you can be a part of the fight and with your help we can win. And instead a lot of volunteers, a lot of small dollar donors, a lot of people who ran for office in those critical races all across the country are like, did I do the right thing? Did I do enough? Was I pointed at the right thing? Did we have any impact? Does any of this matter? And it's not that there is not still that deep, deep, deep commitment to action. We're still seeing a lot of action. There's just more skepticism about are the actions that we're doing actually impactful? Because this is a really tough long fight. And Donald Trump is, it's like, you know, it's not just Trump 2.0, it's Trump on steroids this time around. And so going to the scale question, we feel really bullish about there being a gap in the ecosystem of not enough organizations are opening their door to anybody who wants to be a part of the solution in a true way. And what I mean by that is there are plenty of ways to sign a petition, donate $5 by midnight to support XYZ organization. There are very few places where volunteers who are like new volunteers or seasoned ones who are like, this fate of our country is something I care deeply about. I want to do more than just click a button and do a thing. I want to be a part of the strategy to fix things. There's not enough ways to do that. And I think the places that are really inspiring in the advocacy and in the movement world are of course the amazing organizing around no Kings, which I think is like, we will remember this moment in the history books as how much incredible mass mobilization happened there. It's also in so much of the incredible sort of neighborism organizing that has happened, notably in Minneapolis, but all over. I see it, in my neighborhood in D.C. too, of just neighbor to neighbor support, particularly to support immigrants and block ice whenever and wherever possible. But electorally there's not really a wide open door saying if you want to participate, unless you want to run for office, where there's a lot of open doors, here is how you can have agency and there's not a ceiling on what you can do. It's not just show up here and we'll tell you what to do. And that's where we see the real opportunity for scale because a lot of people want to do that and they want to be partners in the fight ahead. And we've just got to a open the door really wide for everybody who goes to those New Kings rallies, who wants to support, who is helping and supporting their neighbors. Fight ICE to also be a part of the midterms and to see that as, a fundamental part of their time budget.
Yeah. Now let's talk about some of the things that you're finding and what you're scaling to and what the future looks like, because I'm very interested in. Once you go out, ask these open ended questions, knock on every door, you start figuring out you can't put a label on everything. Politics exists on a spectrum, but we have a binary system. And what do campaigns do in that instance? I mean, it feels like if you were to draw that political spectrum out just on a line that instead of, you know, the half, the left half being blue and the right half being red, it feels like 80% of the line is Dem. Because there's just so many policies and things that fit underneath that totally in that sort of vein. And I think that that's what made, for example, Zoran Mamdani's campaign so successful as he went out. Asked open ended questions, didn't talk at people, the kind of stuff that, you know, that you're employing here at a massive scale with ground truth. So what kinds of things are you hearing from voters? Because right now we agree on so much, whether it's the economy and the three main things impacting the economy, which are immigration, tariffs and the war. There's a lot of seems like that blue line is getting longer and longer. And so I'm wondering how that. It's just, it's such a, it's so antithetical to rational thinking to have a binary system of government when politics exists on a spectrum.
Totally. I mean, I think there are truths that are all existing at the same time and seem to be in conflict, but are not. One is exactly what you said, which is on the vast majority of issues in the Democratic platform, 80% of voters agree with the Democratic platform. And so so much of the Democratic platform is majoritarian, period, full stop. It's not like a 51%, it's an 80% issue. We also live in a hyper polarized, hyper calcified political climate. And to your point, it is like red versus blue team behaviors are very, very baked in to people. And that is more than just connection to the issue it is, you know, tribal. It is all the things that make cult. Like, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Well, it also, it just makes it like there are very few swing voters. There's very few swing districts because most people are just team Red or team Blue. And with all of those things being true, there's a third thing that is true, which is voters are human, and humans are really weird. All of us, you and I are also really weird. Everyone is weird. We don't always want to admit it. And so I think that there is a perception that I see over and over again get disrupted among volunteers, which is that they go and talk to a Trump voter and they expect that that person is going to talk, like Twitter, and then they talk to that person, and that person is, like, really far left on health care, really far right on immigration, somewhere sort of like all over the place on reproductive freedom. And I think the average voter is not perfectly lined up, on partisan politics across the issues, people are weird and idiosyncratic and hold many truths all at the same time. And so for us, the question is not how do we resolve the fact that we are both polarized and the democratic platform is 80% majoritarian, and also that the same voter is full of contradictions that are sort of not just like, oh, they're all center. It's like they're really extreme on a bunch of issues, maybe somewhere in the center on some other ones. Those are all just true at the same time. And so the way to reconcile those things is to really lead with listening and to make sure that candidates are more closely rooted to the ground. Because if they are rooted to the ground, then it doesn't feel weird that voters are idiosyncratic. It will be the most normal thing in the world because candidates will be fluent in the texture of their districts, not just because they once were fluent in the texture, but because they're constantly hearing the stories of people on the ground.
Yeah, it's. It's case study more than it is empirical. You're getting exactly, you know, subjectivity instead of. Anyway, it's, I think that that's fascinating. But let's talk a little bit about the flippable seats, where you're focused, what you're going to be. Because the scale up, I imagine, is just going to keep going on and on and on and on until we vote, because it's almost infinite. But talk a little bit about what you're finding, where you're focusing and where you are headed.
Yes. So we are currently targeting 33 competitive House seats, there are not that many competitive House seats, much to our disappointment. And so this is, these are the most competitive ones. 19 of them are flippable Republican seats. 14 of them are frontline, meaning incumbent Democratic seats that are really vulnerable. And when we say these are competitive, some of these districts, two of which are, right around the corner from you in California, came down to Adam Gray in Northern California, Central Valley, about 200, votes total is how he won Democrat there. Derek Tran in Southern California, just under 700 votes. And then on the Republican side, the most vulnerable Republican in the country is in Iowa. Marionette Miller Meeks won her race by 799 votes. So these are just like tiny, tiny, tiny marginal races. We are focused on those 33 places. And then, folks should stay tuned and join our email list because a sneak preview of there may be some additional races added on to the slate. And we are also going to be announcing sometime soon to be announced, what Senate races we're going to be targeting and also what state level races we're going to be targeting with an asterisk of the state level races will be, through our grassroots fundraising program, not through Ground Truth, because it's just a federal program. So stay tuned for more of that. But I think the reason why, we think it's important to talk about the map holistically is the average person, even the average person who pays really close attention to politics gets very quickly overwhelmed by the inundation of, you know, emails, texts, ads, saying, I'm the candidate for the most competitive race in the country and here's my really amazing and like charismatic video. And the average person is like, well, I guess it's a competitive seat. And then they might donate their entire budget to that race and then a few months later be like, whoa, whoa, this person lost by 20 percentage points. Like we lost this other seat by 699 votes. What am I, you know, what was I thinking? And so our perspective is we've got to invest our time and money in the most competitive places and we constantly update our map to reflect the shifting dynamics, which the dynamics of today are different than they were a, year.
Yeah, I was going to ask about that because the definition of a competitive seat has certainly changed. I mean, what, 30 to nothing? On special elections we're getting 10, 15, 23, 31 point swings. So I think that that has to be something that you're grappling with too. Like, oh, competitive is no longer A, ah, two point difference. It can be, could be a 10 point difference and be competitive.
Totally, totally.
And the redistricting, you have to be on top of all that.
Exactly. The redistricting of it all is a huge factor. Our initial slate of targets, which might have been right around when we last talked, was 25 seats. We've already expanded. We're going to need to expand a little bit more for exactly what you said. And while it is fluid, you said this earlier, and I want to just double emphasize it, we need to win by a comfortable majority. So the odds of us winning the House, I think the last, poll I've read is it's looking like 85% like it is. We have to really screw some things up or Trump has to do historic levels of funny business for us to not win the House. Either of those is possible. Yeah, to put it politely. But we can't just win the House by one or two seats, period, Full stop. That is. There is just too much at stake. Number one, that opens the door for more funny business from Donald Trump. Number two, we have seen a lot of people in Congress get sick, die, retire, all kinds of things. We have to. We have a very old Congress. Nothing is stable. And so if we win by one or two seats and then all of a sudden unprecedented things happen and we are back to a tied Congress, we are not going to be able to put that real check on Trump. So we need to win by a big margin for the ability to put the check on Trump and for stability these next two years in terms of opposition organizing in Congress. And we also need to win by a big margin because that is going to set the important groundwork that we need for 2028. And I think some folks are sort of like taking the odds that we win the House as a given to. I'm not going to worry about anything until we have a presidential nominee. We need to be figuring out the tactics, building the infrastructure, winning the House by a big margin, so that the second that we win the House, we are then pivoting to 2028 and winning big giant majorities in 2028 and of course, winning the presidential for reasons I don't need to explain to your audience.
Yeah, no, exactly. And, and I'm really glad that swing left ground truth is going to be expanding to the Senate or swing left, because again, that has to do with what is a competitive seat. If you had asked me a year right after Donald Trump won the election, right after he was inaugurated, I was asked multiple times about, and I said, forget the Senate. It's A super hard map. Senate is not within reach. I guess I failed to calculate. I knew how badly Donald Trump would screw things up. Maybe I failed to calculate how badly. But the Senate is within reach and it has been in my mind for several months now. So that's also really exciting to hear that you're gonna be working on those.
Totally. And I think to sort of double emphasize the.
It's still gonna be hard. Sorry to interrupt you. I just wanna let everybody still. A hard map.
Yes, it is a really tough map. And the winds are aggressively, the hurricane winds are moving, in our direction. So we have a lot of opportunity. We do need to think aggressively about the Senate and I think importantly, when we think aggressively about these really important races, even if we don't get across the finish line in all of them, because some of them are going to be really hard. The Iowa Senate race is going to be really hard. The Alaska Senate race is going to be really hard. These are all places where they're really important to invest, but they're going to be very challenging. yeah, if Ohio, you know, all these, all these spots. But if we, if we are not successful and then all the things that we built just disappear until the next Senate candidate comes, then shame on us. If we are running good campaigns and building infrastructure, meaning everything we're doing at ground truth is in partnership with the state parties so that we are building infrastructure that doesn't disappear the day after the race. That is important for the future of the Senate in case that we don't get across the finish line. It is also really important for the presidential, like we can't just keep restarting over and over. It's such a waste of resources, it's a waste of people's time. And it's also, we have some. Not to, not to put people in a panic, but it's not just 26 and 28 that are important existential elections. 2030 is also when, reapportionment, which is, that's a word that folks have not heard before. It's when we decide how we draw the district lines for the 2032 election and for future presidential races. And the long and the short of that is we are probably going to lose Electoral College votes in blue states like New York and California. We're probably going to gain Electoral College votes in red states like Texas and Florida. It's all has to do with population growth. And so if we don't build infrastructure that is sustainable and strong and is not just like we are riding the wave of, people don't like Donald Trump. We are going to be totally screwed in 2032. And the existential stakes are not going to suddenly be all our country is not going to be healed programs are not going to be all back up and running. So we need to be building for the long haul and building strong, resilient infrastructure that can help us win election after election.
Yeah, no, I agree. And I haven't even looked, like I've just been stuck in the swamp of sadness with Atreyu, but I haven't even looked at what the 2030 Senate map looks like or the 2028 Senate map looks like. I don't even know. I mean the last one was really 2022 was extremely hard. This one is like a four out of five hard. Hope it gets easier.
Well, I think that a couple of
hard maps it is.
I don't want to bring my full doom spirit. There is a lot of hope, but that all the pieces are connected. Right. Like if we do not compete in the Senate and so we lose races that we could have won, 2028 is going to be way harder than if we elect people like John Ossoff. If we elect these amazing Democrats to seats that we can hold, if we flip some races. It's just like the Senate is so tough. It is tough for Democrats. Structurally we need structural reforms, but in the world as it is right now, we have to compete everywhere and win everywhere that we can. Not just because that is important for the policy landscape and for protecting people's lives, but also because we've got a bunch of elections that are going to matter existentially every time. And if we take our foot off the gas for one, it is going to be that much tougher for the next one.
Yeah. And they're connected. They don't live in a vacuum from one another, so.
Exactly.
Well, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah. It's been so good to see you every time. Tell everybody if they want to do this, if they want to learn how to have those conversations to get with the group, to go knock on every door to get be part of ground truth. How do they do that?
Yes. We would love for anybody who is interested in this, whether you have done something like this or not, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, to come and join us@our groundtruth.org that's O U R groundtruth.org they can also find us@swingingleft.org and we are all working in the same direction. But we hope that folks will sign up, even if it feels intimidating. I would say every single one of our volunteer leaders that moves mountains and organizes thousands and thousands of people every single year started on their journey with swing left thinking that they were not a leader because they are humble people who really care about impact and winning. And all of them are leaders. And many of the people listening here who maybe are new to action will find that in themselves as well. And we need a leaderful movement to make it through the incredibly high stakes work ahead.
well, I appreciate you coming talking to us. I hope you come back after you launch this more, like statewide national thing and scale up another time, sometime in between that as we get closer to the election. I would love for you to come back and talk about how it's going, how many people you've got and you know where it's headed. Because I think this is so crucial, this is why we do know Kings is so that we can get in community, find each other and figure out what to do with this 8 million strong coalition of like super street people, but then like, you know, your street team, but then to get other people involved as well. That's why we do these kinds of organized, that's why we do this kind of organizing. So I appreciate your time today. It's really great to see you.
Thank you. And thank you for all that you do and thanks to your listeners for all that they do in their communities.
Amazing. All right everybody, if you stick around, we'll be right back with the good news. Thanks so much to, to my good friend Yasmin Raji. We'll see you in a minute.
Thank you.
everybody, welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news?
Everyone? Then good news, everyone.
Good news, good news. All right everybody, if you have any good news or good trouble suggestions or maybe a shout out to yourself or a loved one or a small business in your area or a non profit, you want us to know about a government program that's helped you? Are you one of those 170,000 people that got a student debt relief notice? Send it to us. We want to know about it. You can send all your good news to us@dailybeanspod.com and click on contact. And all you got to do to get your submission read on the air. Is it still on the air on the pod? Whatever. all you got to do is submit, ah, your pod pet tariff, which means attach a photo of anything really. It can be your pet, it can be an adoptable pet in your area. It can be a bird watching photo, which means a bird, or you flipping the bird to a Trump building. It can be a random animal on the Internet. It can be baby photos, your baby photos. It can be photos of the no kings event you went to, just, this past weekend. Anything at all that will bring a smile to our face, send it in DailyBeansPod.com click on Contact. First up is your good trouble. Good trouble today comes from Bruce in Georgia. Pronouns he and him. I don't live in Georgia. 14. But the runoff early voting to fill empty G's vacant seat is on. And the in person voting day is next Tuesday, April 7th. I'm praying for a miracle. And I sent Sean Harris's campaign some money. So we have some opportunities to help Sean Harris between now and Tuesday. You can find those at the Democratic party of Georgia on mobilize. We'll have a link in the show notes. There are virtual phone banks. This is such a cool idea. And door to door canvassing events. No seat left behind, y'. All. Sean Harris is an amazing candidate. He's got an uphill battle to win Marjorie Taylor Greene's seat, but I don't know. I think he's got a shot. The campaign link seanforgeorgia.com so check it out. All the links are in the show notes. Attached is a photo of our two dog breeds below, playing in the Georgia snow. Both of them each long ago crossed the rainbow bridge. But if you look at their coats, you can see a subtle pattern that matches typical coloring. They're white, not albino. Okay. All right, you got me, man. I don't know. Let's see. White German shepherds. All right. Okie doke. Well, they're beautiful. And, sorry that they're across the rainbow bridge, but what a bunch of beautiful, beautiful babies. All right, next up from Tony. Pronouns he and him. My dear beans, I'm sitting in the shade outside of the supreme Court. Fuck yeah. I've joined a very diverse crowd demonstrating to support birthright citizenship. I've arrived early to find all access blocked by police for the arrival of the mango Mussolini. In just moments, his motorcade zoomed by and the orange stain passed less than 10ft in front of me. I got a quick glimpse of him slouching in the beast. I was so astonished that I didn't have the sense to flip him off. They led us through. Minutes later, we have had speakers representing African, Hispanic and aapi people. The great plus grandson of Wong Kim Ark, spoke Very emotionally, about learning of his heritage and his family's history and defining what it means to be American. I got to see friends I met at previous rallies, and I was able to greet Reverend Barber. He shook my hand and said, keep doing what you're doing and pointed at all my big flags. I've seen them more times than you know. Wow. Holy cow. Wow. We have music, people greeting each other. It's a wonderful vibe. Times like this give me great hope. Attached are, pics of the flags and a frog. Everybody knows your flags, Tony. I'm telling you, the frog is amazing. The flags are amazing. Thank you so much, Tony, for sharing. We love your reports. Next up from Jess Orchestica, pronoun she her. Hello, leading ladies of the laguminati. This past no Kings rally is the second protest I've ever been to. My daughter has gone with me both times, and I couldn't be more proud of her for exercising her constitutional rights. I'm sending you pictures of my sign, my daughter and my bestie. Mine is a twist on a Mary Poppins song and some other funny signs we saw this past Saturday. Our little southwest Michigan village of Cassopolis has a population of a little over 1700 people, but 500 folks turned out. I couldn't be more surprised and happy. Thank you for this community and for all that you do. Love, Jess. These are some great signs. There's a war pig sign. There's a so fucked up even introverts are here. And a super callous fascist racist extra braggadocious. That's really, really wonderful, Jess. Thank you so much for sending that in. Oh, look at all these pictures, man. 500 out of 1700 people. That's like a 35% turnout. That's crazy. Good job. Next up from Jim Pronouns, he and him, ever luminous ladies of the lagoons. I just want to give a quick shout out to the dozens of volunteers from indivisible TopPkins in Ithaca, New York, which helped pull off our no Kings 3 event. I'm enclosing photos of the around 3,000 people we got in our small town to take to the streets. We marched from the Ithaca commons at the center of town down along Six Mile Creek to one of our main drags, Route 13, for a honk and wave that stretched almost three quarters of a mile. I've been part of our local indivisible chapter since shortly after the orange madman came back to power. And they were a core group of us that stayed up after midnight many nights to lend our skills to the Organizing effort and many more who helped the day of. They all deserve a great deal of thanks for my pod pet tariff. Since you've seen all three of our cats, here's a photo of a cute little red squirrel munching on some of our non soy based bird seed. What? Too soon? Oh, that is a really red squirrel. Look at that. Look at those protesters. Beautiful. Thank you, Jim, for sending those in. Next up, Tabitha Pronoun. She and her I love that name. Hello, lovely beans queens. First of all, thank you for everything you do to keep us informed and somehow sane. Truly, the only way I can process the absolute chaos of the world is when it's delivered with swearing, righteous anger, and a sprinkle of name calling. It's called balance. I'm a born and raised Wisconsinite, which means I've had plenty of opportunities to yell at my elected officials over the years. Don't even get me started on Scott Walker. My blood pressure cannot take it. But today, we celebrate a win on this transgender day of visibility. Governor Evers said not on my watch. And vetoed five anti trans bills. Two aimed at banning trans athletes from sports, One that would have forced outing. Yikes. And two targeting doctors providing gender affirming care. But Governor Evers stayed consistent and made good on his promise to veto anything that makes Wisconsin feel less safe, less inclusive, and less welcoming for LGBTQ folks, especially kids. As he should. I'm, already pre sad about him leaving office at the end of his term, but I'm choosing optimism and maybe a little delusion that we keep that seat progressive for years to come for my pod pet tariff. Please enjoy Winifred, my laundry basket queen. This diva gets a fresh basket of warm towels daily like she's running a luxury spa. And honestly, she deserves it. She works very hard at being adorable and judging me. Anyway, thank you again for being the voices in my ears that help me scream into the void. But, like, productively. Thanks, Tabitha. Great submission. Love the beautiful baby girl in the laundry basket. do you. I have a question, though, Tabitha. Do you have a need to wash the towels every day or do you just do this? Do you just throw a bunch of towels into the dryer and warm them up, like, specifically for the cat? Because this is something I would do, so I'm just curious. Next up, from Michelle Pronoun. She and her dear beans queens sharing pictures of my protest buddy, Dino. He comes to all protests with me, not only exercising his rights, but also bringing joy to all the peeps and my fellow furry protesters out there. You might say he's a protest pup pro. Also sharing a pic of his sibling, Mazzy, as in Mazzy Star, one of my favorites, who, although she is my BFF and fierce protector, is also not capable of attending protests, let alone walking down the streets without reacting to every single dog she sees. She's a work in progress. Remy, the cat that goes on hikes with us too. Oh, I love hiking cats. That's so cool. Thank you for all you do. Love your podcast. And then we have a trans pride flag, bunch of rainbow hearts, and happy Trans day of visibility from a proud mom of an LGBTQ plus child. Kiss. Thanks. We have Dino, who looks like maybe some sort of an Aussie, and then we have like, a Mazzy, who looks like a good German shepherd. Akita. Pity something. I am probably way off. Let's see what we've got here. Aussie and Silver Lab. Okay, I got part of Dino. And then, ah, Belgium Malinois, which is, come on like German Shepherd, Belgian Malinois, Australian cattle dog, Great Pyrenees border collie, boxer, mini pincher, super mutt. I got none. I'll give myself half a point for saying German shepherd when it's actually 30% Belgian Malinois. But I'm very proud of the Aussie. The half of the Dino that I got. All right, next up, from Anonymous. Pronoun. She and her hi Ag and dg. The friends I usually protest with weren't available to go to no Kings 3, so I ended up going by myself. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, and I met a couple other people who were also there by themselves. Anonymous. I'm always there by myself. But by the way, the turnout was huge and so many of the people in the cars passing were honking and waving. I'm so glad I went. Then. Today I went to the Hy Vee grocery store, and I was uplifted again. They had a big display of rainbow desserts for transgender visibility Day, and they had disabled people with their caseworkers bagging groceries. All of this in a red state. I've been feeling down lately, so I was extra appreciative to be reminded that there's so many good people. I'm including a picture of a couple of my favorite signs from the no Kings 3 protest. Thanks for all you do. We've got Congress get a spine. for the Epstein time. No ice, no war, no kings. Great, great signs. Thank you, Anonymous. I do. I love going to these protests I just recently started. when I go on vacation, I just go by myself. I mean, like, I know. I don't know why I was so worried about going places, on my own before, because when I was a, you know, a touring comedian or touring as a podcaster, I was always by myself. So I don't know. But I love it. I absolutely love it. You always meet so many incredible people, especially at the no Kings rallies. All right, our final good news story is from Diana. Pronouns she and her thanks so much AG&DG for all you do and those you showcase. You fuel the fight. Just wanted to send along a few pics of signs at our local NK3 in Richmond, Virginia. Enjoy. We've got. If only Congress was alive to see what was happening to the United States right now. we have. You may have Palantir, but we have Frodo. Nice. Oh, it's so great. 300 million sarcasm slash. Fantastic. Beautiful. Wonderful, everyone. Thank you so much for sending those in. I'm pretty sure Dana's back. Yes, Dana is back tomorrow. I just checked the count calendar, so she'll be here with me. So make sure to go put your good news together. Send in all your baby photos. Dana loves baby photos. She'll be back tomorrow. Let's welcome her back with a tranche of baby pictures. Or otters. She loves otters too, so let's do that for her and we will see you tomorrow. Until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health, and take care of your family. I've been AG and them's the beans. The Daily Beans is written in executive order produced by Allison Gill with additional research and reporting by Dana Goldberg. Sound design and editing is by Desiree McFarlane with art and web design by Joelle Reader with Moxie Design Studios. Music for the Daily Beans is written and performed by they Might Be Giants and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Media Network, a collection of creator owned podcasts dedicated to news, politics and justice. For more information, please visit msw media.com msw media.