The 3 Guys Podcast: Episode6 - Wrapping Up 2025

Welcome back to The 3 Guys Podcast—our end-of-year, no-filter wrap on 2025. In this episode, Reuel Sample, Ben Schachtman, and Nick Craig dig into the highs and lows for both left and right: Trump’s historic return to the presidency, a blue wave in governor and legislative races, and how Democrats still can’t land a clear economic message.​

We dive into school book wars, the assassination of Charlie Kirk and what it says about our appetite for political violence, plus housing, affordability, dark money, and the coming 2026 knife fight in North Carolina politics. If you’re looking for real disagreement without screaming matches—and you’re willing to have your own side challenged—hit play, then hit subscribe and join the conversation.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Three Guys Podcast, I'm Reuel Sample, joined as always by Ben Shachman from WHQR Radio and Nick Craig from The Nick Craig Show. What's going on? Not much. Did you guys have a good Thanksgiving? I did. Yeah? Yeah. Eat too much? Yes. Oh, that's a good thing. And you? Yep, same thing. Okay, fair enough. I have discovered that it is almost impossible to avoid carbohydrates at Thanksgiving. Picked the wrong time to go on a diet. I really did. Yeah. Specifically a carb-averse diet. Exactly. If you were going on, well, I guess you could just front load a ton of turkey and be too full for carbs. Well, you know, that's what- Yeah, but that's like the like, I mean, I know this is going to be a hot take, that's like the least desirable part of the dinner for me. Really? You've got the stuffing? Carbs. Potatoes? Mashed potatoes? Carbs. Rolls? Carbs. Sweet potatoes? Corn? Corn, carbs. Yeah. So, yeah, but I actually read an article, Ben, where somebody said, if you're on a high carb diet, do exactly what you did, just front load and on the turkey. And hope your heart can take it. And you're asleep for the rest of the day. You know, something interesting on Thanksgiving this year, I know, I remember this big time back 2016, or I guess it would have been 2017, 2018, 2019, there was a whole bunch of stories about how people were like divorcing themselves from their families. Trump had just won and it was like, I hate my family now. And I saw a little bit of that this year, obviously the first Thanksgiving with Trump in office, but it didn't seem as prominent as in years past. I remember like reading dozens of these stories of people like, I can't see my father anymore because he's a crazy right wing Fox News viewer. I wonder if it seems like that maybe has kind of, people have gotten over it, maybe four years of Biden caused people to be like, oh, maybe these people aren't as terrible, but I don't know. I still saw some, but not as many as I remember back in 17, 18. I do feel like a lot of people, I mean, it went both ways. There were certainly, I knew plenty of liberals from 2016 to 2020 who, who, you know, walked away from family gatherings and then, you know, conservatives who said, you know, I can't be around my crazy liberal, whether that was because of COVID or, you know, quote unquote woke policies or whatever. But I do think I've seen fewer like fresh separations, but I heard from some people who are now trying to figure out a way back. You know, and it's like, I really, really hate this person's politics, but it is my uncle or my father or my grandfather and like my wife or my wife, what do you do when, you know, the politics is getting more and more acrimonious and especially when it's around cultural war stuff, it's often about deeply personal stuff. It's not like where you think the tax rate should be. It's, you know, it's stuff that you can get very personally invested in. Not R15 zoning debates, although I've seen some throwdowns over like, don't build a multifamily unit in my backyard. It is interesting. I mean, I don't, I come from a relatively mixed political background family and I mean, I guess I'm the abnormal one or maybe I'm the normal, it's just not like an issue. I mean, every, like everybody knows where I stand politically. I broadcast it all the time. Like Ben, you brought, like, it's not, this is not a secret and it's just like, it's not a, it's not a topic. It's not a discussion. It's not an issue. It's, it's, it's weird. I don't know. You know, in the, in the Navy, in the officer's mess, the wardroom, you have two rules. You don't talk politics and you don't talk religion. Now I was a chaplain, so that was a little bit difficult, but you know, it, it kept the peace and maybe, maybe families are kind of rediscovering that again. I don't know. I grew, I grew up with those rules. You know, those are the rules for family gatherings and also for bars. Well, yes. Yes. A good rule. If you have a drinking establishment. Yeah. And I've always thought that's why sports is so important in politics for politicians, you know, because it's like a, you know, it's a safe proxy vent. You can have, you know, if I'm an Eagles fan and you're a Dallas Cowboys fan, we could just say terrible things about each other based on that and walk away relatively unscarred. Yes. Except there's nothing really good to say about an Eagles fan. As an Eagles fan, I can tell you, you're correct. Well, gentlemen, it's been, it's been a good year. I always liked Ben, how you refer to this as an experiment in civility. And I think, I think it's been pretty successful this year and we're looking forward to continuing this next year and continuing the conversation because there is no end of topics that's going to come up in, in the realm of politics and culture and everything else. But we wanted to take a couple minutes before the end of the year to wrap up the year. And we're going to do some highs and lows from the left and the right. So Ben, I'll start with you. High for the, for the left, for 2025. I mean, obviously this most recent round of elections, people trying to find a way to surf the blue wave, you know, there's a lot of anti-Trump sentiment and that's not always enough to win. It's like a yes and it helps to get you most of the way. So just trying to find a message that resonates with people. So that's, I mean, that has both been a high for the Democrats, but I feel like you can fall from a great height and if they don't find a way to translate anti-Trump sentiment into pro-Democrat sentiment, then that'll be their downfall. But that was definitely the high point for them was those, those local elections, those governor elections all around the country. Nick, that blue wave continued into Miami yesterday and the Democrats won a city that's not solidly Republican, but has always leaned. Yeah. I mean, it had, I've had a Republican mayor for 28 years, I think is what I was looking at this morning. You know, the, the, the right wing angle on that would be, there was only like 30 some odd thousand people that voted. So in the grand scheme of things, a relatively low turnout election, that would be the kind of the cope for lack of a better term on the right. Right. But definitely what we saw with the special election in Tennessee back, I think what last week or two weeks ago, much closer, closer margins, a Georgia state legislative seat flip from, from R to D and then Miami obviously should be a concern on, on, for the folks on the right heading into 26. So I think we can all agree it has been a blue wave this year. Republicans, we always talk about red waves, but it never really seems to, to happen, but blue waves. Well, I mean, I don't know that I would say that's accurate. I mean, I think 2024 was a pretty outstanding red wave. I mean, going back to another large example would be, you know, 2010 to 2012, the rise of the Tea Party here in North Carolina, flipping the legislature after 160 years of Democrat control. To your point, it doesn't feel like maybe it materializes, but I think it still does. Okay. I can concede that I'm wrong on air. High point for the right. Well, January 20th of this year, President Trump's inaugurated, sworn back in as the 47th president of the United States. I mean, I don't know that looking at from a, from a right perspective, that has got to be the highlight of the, of the year. I mean, 45 now, 47, four years of political exile, one, you know, actual assassination attempt, another one thwarted down in Mar-a-Lago. As you know, even liberal pundits put it, this is the most remarkable political comeback in modern, maybe even all American history. So that's a huge, huge high point for the right. And within months, he started changing things through executive orders, through, you know, we can't forget the effect of doge that's come and gone, but it's still in effect. Yeah. I mean, some of the, you know, I know some, some folks like to poke fun at the, you know, I stopped, whatever the number is now, a gazillion wars or whatever the number of every time he speaks, the number goes up and up, but you know, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of victories and on some things internationally, domestic, maybe a little bit more work to, to complete on that. But I mean, that's your, if you're putting your star on the Christmas tree as a Republican, it's Trump for 2025. That swearing in of Donald Trump is tough for the left to swallow because after all those blue waves, Donald Trump is still the president and we're still left doing. Well, that's, I mean, that's the question folks on the left are, are struggling with. I think there was, the one advantage Trump had was that he had four years to capitalize on the Biden administration's missteps and bad messaging. And whatever you think of the, the Biden administration's policies, there was a lot of embarrassing moments and Trump didn't miss a single one. Listen here, Jack. Come on. Or Shane Gillis says those moments where he just turned into a Roomba and just sort of like drifted off stage. So, so now, you know, the, and obviously a lot of the Trump administration's policy uh, options have been really unpopular on the left, but again, I kind of come back to this idea all the time. I think if you, if you are left of center, that only lasts for so long and it'll probably last through the midterms, but what is, what is the long, long range view? You know, what is the, you know, in 2028, what are people going to go to the polls for? Um, when it's whoever runs against Trump's third term or JD Vance or whoever it is, but someone who's probably going to be, unless something very, you know, unexpected and dramatic happens, it'll be someone in the Trumpian mold. It'll be someone who's sort of melding populist, um, politics with, you know, some Silicon Valley help. And that has proven pretty successful and frustration with that just doesn't seem like it's going to be enough. So I don't know if affordability will be the thing or if we'll latch onto something else, but at a certain point people would like the government to do stuff that they like, you know, not just have a different person in the office. One of the things that Republicans won at the national level, but then seem to translate to the local level are the big ticket items like immigration taxes, uh, crime, uh, the gender issues, uh, Nick and Ben, are the Democrats ever going to tweak to that loss? Are they going to double down on things? I mean, from, from where we sit right now at the end of 2025, I can't in good conscious tell you that they are adapting and adopting. They're just not. The messaging is still very similar on a lot of these issues. I mean, just today in the North Carolina General Assembly, the superintendent and the chair of the Carboro, uh, the Chapel Hill Carbo city school district were hauled in front of an oversight committee getting railroaded by the Republican legislature over books with, you know, illustrations of, of anatomies, naked bodies. And Santa Claus is a, one of the books is Santa Claus is a black gay guy. And this it's about Mr. The book is called Mr. And Mr. Claw. I mean, just like stuff that would fall into that 80, 20 mold of those condo culture war issues that from all a data polling perspective would be seen by most people as relatively unpopular. Some of that stuff is still being pushed. So I can't say if, if I were a Democrat, I would want them to move off of that stuff because I don't think they're winning issues, but it doesn't appear that it's happening at a wide enough scale yet. From Bill Maher to George Caravelle, there's, he's, they're saying the same thing, but the left just doesn't seem to be getting that. In my, in my experience, my conversations to the left of the center, it feels like there are plenty of good cases to be made about why a book like that would, would exist. Um, but it's a lot of work to give a nuanced argument about why that experience would be important for a kid, what age range that's appropriate for. And if I was making this as a stump speech, I've already lost everyone. Right. So one, it's hard to communicate the good arguments for, you know, let's just call it diversity efforts writ large, you know, and the, it only takes one kind of combustible counter example. You know, um, I remember there was a book back in 2022 and it was a, it was a pretty graphic image and it was illustrated, but it was pretty graphic. And the argument that this, you know, shouldn't be taken away from any kid anywhere. I mean, it was a hard case to make. And the other part of this, I think the most important part of this is that everyone I knew in the center to the right, when they heard about that was apoplectic and would vote and did vote for anyone who got in front of them and said, I will get porn out of schools. Yeah. Now, is that an honest nuanced, you know, platform you could debate that, but it resonated with people. They said, there is graphic sexual imagery in schools. I'm going to get out of there. Boom. They're done on the left. There weren't as many people who were motivated by defending it for people who said, you know, I'm here to defend books because then you have to say, I'm here to defend all books or you have to get, get into sort of a wonkish NPR explanation of what this all means. And then again, you've lost a lot of your voters, right. Who have about 15 to 30 seconds of bandwidth to really take in what you're all about and then decide how they're going to go. So, well, and I think the issue with the books in particular is to, to Ben's point about how you've got 15 to 30 seconds, all you need. And exactly what happened today is a member of the legislature to hold up the book and say, here's illustrations of naked people in this book. That's in a fourth grade classroom in Carrboro. You see that image and you're like, well, shit, I mean, I don't want nobody wants this. It's to Ben's point. It's hard to defend because it's the other side can say, well, here it is. I mean, I'm reading from the book. Here is literally the material. And when you see that visually, it's hard to cast any sort of solid argument. If you're willing to have a deeper dive in conversation, sure. But your regular everyday middle of the road voter says that and goes, I don't want my third grader looking at naked pictures in school. Like what's going on here? How many times have you seen the video of the school board? I don't know where they were, probably Virginia, where they were reading a book. The parent was reading the book from the library. That was in Wake County. Was that in Wake County? And they shut them down because we don't allow that kind of language here. That doesn't help the left, Ben. It doesn't. And I think, look, I know plenty of people who are either they're free speech people or they actually do have a case to make for those books. But I also don't feel like that's what most Democrats and unaffiliated voters were worried about most of the time. If you were at a cocktail party and talking about the issue, they're like, yeah, you know, I don't really like this book banning talk. You know, it makes me feel queasy. I'm not on board. But they were still really worried about inflation. They were really worried about, you know, cost of living. They were worried about, you know, economic uncertainty. In almost every, we were talking about this off mics, but so many different, you know, industries were just so rattled by not necessarily policy choices, just uncertainty about what policy choice was coming next. They wanted some certainty. They wanted to know what to bake into their over and under. And so they needed a candidate who was going to come out and tell them that. And that's where I do think Democrats could capitalize on Trump's shoot from the hip approach is that there are people who don't mind tariffs, but they would like to know what the tariffs are. I mean, they've changed like over 500 times. They'd like to know what it is and where that rate's going to be so that when they're walking into a negotiation or they're talking about bringing a project out of the ground or whatever, they know what they can count on. And so if they have, you know, if you have Democrats who can say, we're going to give you reasonable, consistent leadership on the things that matter, you know, the economy, your pocketbook, I think they will do very well. But to both your kind of implied points, can they wean themselves off the, you know, the concerns of the progressive left? I don't know. I mean, that's everyone's kind of just waiting to see, are they going to do the sort of all shucks Midwestern thing? Are they going to attack to the center like Gavin Newsom or are they going to take a third bite at the same apple? It'll be interesting now. Well, I mean, Jasmine Crockett just filed for Senate. And I mean, if you are somebody that if you are a Democrat that wants the party to move closer towards where most of middle America is, that is not to me, that would not be an inspiring move. That is going to be a very interesting race. Oh, a fascinating race to watch next year. Yes. So I want to springboard off of what Ben was saying, because I think, can we honestly, can we say that the economy is probably the low point for Republicans 2025? Or did you have something else? I will come back. I'd say the low point for Republicans would be the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I mean, not that it was there that, you know, from a conservative ideological standpoint, Charlie's assassination over the summer was, I mean, the reaction to that, it's still kind of like whiplash seeing the immediate reaction to that. So to me, that's the low point for the conservative Republican movement of the year, when somebody that was rising and had, and I'll admit it, I wasn't a big Charlie Kirk fan. I had no idea what his influence and reach was. I went to the... Ben, did you go to the UNCW vigil that they had? No, but I mean... You saw the picture. I saw the photos. Yeah, I was out sick that weekend. I did actually want to go because I wanted to get that sort of on the ground sense of, okay, what's the fan base really like? But it was astonishing. And I know there was a number of media outlets that low-balled and had to correct because... Yeah, 150 people. People were rightfully saying... I mean, some places were like, oh, a couple hundred people. I mean, there was hundreds, if not close to a thousand. It is one of the toughest calls you have to make as a journalist is to estimate the size of a crowd because you can't win. I mean, unless you do an actual in-person head count, you're going to aggravate someone. The left was going to be mad because you were inflating the importance or the right was going to be mad because you were demeaning the turnout. But it was more than 150. Well, that was actually our very first show, gentlemen. Yeah, it was. And that was a low point for Republicans. Some of the left handled it well. Some of the left did not. Yeah, I mean, I think there were master lessons in class. People like, I think it was Barack Obama, who was like, heart goes out to the family. None of this, I didn't agree with him, but just this is a tragedy. Political violence is never acceptable. I grieve with his family and friends. That whole thing is still so bizarre to me. And both sides are guilty of it. But it's like, oh, well, I really hated this guy, but thoughts and prayers for his family. It's like, what are we doing? Why do we need this clarifying? Like, I am not in favor of people getting shot and killed or stabbed like we saw in Charlotte. What is the clarifying statement on that stuff? I'm not going to use the term dog whistle, because that's, I think, just an overblown and used term. But is it kind of like a dog whistle to your people that you're becoming radical right? It's not a dog whistle. It's a very transactional sometimes. It's like this. It's motivated by fear that your own people will turn on you. But it's very performative. That's a good term for it. So when someone like Dick Cheney dies, for example, do you immediately say, ding dong, the war criminal is dead? No. Like you say, thoughts and prayers for the family. Sure. And then if you work at the Times or the Post, and you have to write an obituary, and you have to take the sum of that person's life, then you have a really challenging task. And I think as Americans, we're used to that process, where when someone dies, you don't say, good. You say, sorry to hear that. And then you give people a couple of days to grieve and process. And then you can say, here was the good, here was the bad. Here was the man in full. Here was the woman. Here was the person in full. Whatever you want to say, if you feel it's incumbent upon you to do that. Often, it is not. You don't have to. Not every Facebook user probably needs to weigh in on the legacy of Charlie Kirk. Although many did. But I think that was the issue. It was the unwillingness or the fear of waiting a few days to have some kind of political or social analysis after some space and time, and wanting to cram that all into their first hot take on what had happened. Instead of, which I think what a lot of people would have liked to hear from influential people was, this is terrifying. Political violence is never OK. We're grieving with you. I think we first saw that with Ronald Reagan. When Ronald Reagan was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's, the response was good. And the internet was just coming out and everything else. But you started hearing, I think, because it used to be when somebody's dying or when they're dead or whatever, OK, they're done. They're out of the game. Leave them alone. But the game never ends, right? No. I mean, especially in politics. The game. And I don't say for better. I say for worse. It's not likely to change. I mean, it's a team sport. It's a blood sport. It's a nasty sport. And yeah, it will. I mean, even to this. I mean, even on Halloween. I mean, you have people. I saw a couple of posts. And of course, my ecosystem is going to be people, is more right-wing people. So that's what I'm seeing. People dressing up with the Charlie Kirk shirt with the red line across their neck. Halloween, when was he assassinated? August? I mean, it was in the middle of the summer. It wasn't that long after. I'll say this. I was also kind of uncomfortable with the tone policing and the witch hunts. The professors who said uncouth things about Charlie Kirk that I wouldn't say because I don't feel that way. And trying to get them fired or reputationally immolated or whatever you wanted to do. In some cases, this led to people actually being threatened. It was people have the right to say what they want to say. And if you were deeply, deeply hurt by many of the things Charlie Kirk said, you have the right to say that. The question is, who are you talking to? If you're in a liberal progressive silo, that's fine. But if you want to talk to the broader spectrum of Americans, you have to understand that's not how they feel. And you've got to negotiate that. You've got to find a way to navigate in that conversation with people. And again, the desire to immediately have a hot take on social media shuts a lot of that down. I think a lot of this was way better handled with interpersonal conversations. Exactly. I think so. That's a really good point. I think it's a really great point. I think one of the excuses that the right used was for four years, if you misgendered somebody, you were fired. If you said something about the mixed up cultural views towards gender, you're fired. The great example of the exec at Netflix, who used, I think it was the R word, but he was using it as an example saying, this word lands like this other word. And he's had the word, but as if he were quoting from a piece of literature. It wasn't like from his own heart. And it was still just, no, you're ejected from that corporate realm. So there was a lot of that. I think a lot of the vaccine mandate stuff, I know that there's not a direct parallel, but a lot of folks felt like, oh, we're being kind of persecuted and witch hunted over this issue. There were people. We're going to get, we're going to get the left back to hell with these people. We're going to get them back. That's unfortunate to say, but I think I would have, I would assume that many folks leading the right wing witch hunts on professors and other public officials making insane comments after Kirk's assassination are like, yeah, like buckle up mother effers. Like this is what you did to us. Race to the bottom. 2020, 2021, I got numerous emails from people saying this business owner was spotted without a mask. And I thought, and I was one of those ones who I thought, uh, the masking was, it was kind of stupid, but I was, I was willing to do it because I'm not a public health official and I'm sick. Fine. Also, this is the cost of me getting to go out of my house and get a six pack of beer. Fine. You know, I did go the wrong way down all the, uh, grocery store aisles. That's right. That's right. So you were, so you are the problem. I was the problem. I, uh, it would have been two weeks. Super spreader of that. And it would have been two weeks. It would have been two weeks were it not for my flagrant disrespect of the directions. There's patient zero, right? Were there times when like, I just forgot my mask or like after four hours of wearing it, I had to pull it down. Yeah, of course. And so when we would get like these, you know, blurry camera phone images of, of some local middling, you know, bureaucrat or business owner and saying, you know, wanting them to wanting us to do an article on it. It was, it was insane. And it wasn't a lot of people, but it was enough that I feel like that was in the air. Yeah. And I think, you know, we, it is unfortunate to say, and I don't say it with any sort of, uh, glee or anything. I mean, it is, it is truly a tit for tat race to the bottom mutual destruction. No one, no one's going to put the gun down because everyone else has just been putting the gun. It's unfortunate. And I don't, I don't, we're not anywhere near, I think resolution on that. And it, it's honestly a little scary because as you keep going down and down that race to the bottom gets real nasty and real ugly and real quick. I will, I will say as you know, it was, I didn't agree with anything Charlie Kirk said there, I did it. There's his card. But it didn't matter to me in the moment. I was really worried about political violence and I was really worried about adding fuel to a fire that was already burning and had been burning for some time. And I was probably more concerned about that than Charlie Kirk, if I'm being completely candid with you. But I think that was a reasonable thing to be worried about. And I, I also thought, you know, there was a tiny silver lining because I know there were people who did pull back from the brink a little bit and said, holy shit, this is where that goes. You know, the tit for tat, it's not just tit for tat, it escalates. Yeah, that's exactly right. You punch me, I pull a knife, you pull a gun, you detonate TNT or whatever is the next. That's where it was going. And I, I did see some, some soul searching and self-reflection. I didn't know he's last for one, but there was, I think there was a moment where there was an opportunity for people to pull back a little bit. I got to ask about this though, was very conspicuously Trump did not take that opportunity. And I know some people in my own family, some conservatives who are deeply religious, who are still kind of processing that extreme contrast between Erica Kirk's really, really moving speech and, and Trump's just being Trump. And that's his brand. That's the thing is that he cannot not be Trump. That's the problem. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's a little bit like the, the scorpion and the toad. That's a great story, by the way. It is a good one. But I mean, do you think people are still, and set aside what, what Trump said, but do you think there are still people who are still in that moment of reflection who are like, wow, like maybe we do need to take just a beat. Or is that, has that sort of window closed? My guess would be that because of where Charlie Kirk, excuse me, was so influential, I would guess maybe still on college campuses with younger people that, and I'm not saying only younger people followed him, but he seemed to have a much larger grasp of a early, late teenage, early twenties group. That was really his kind of core, not that he didn't have older, older followers. I would, I would assume maybe in some of those circles, especially those that are in college, and there's still some, you know, back and forth, butting heads with professors, maybe some of that's still going on. But I think for the, the rest of the political class, I don't, I don't think so. I mean, it was relatively, it was relatively short-lived. I mean, it, it, it lasted a couple of weeks and then it was like, all right, unfortunately with our news cycle, Ben, you know, onto the next. I mean, it's onto the next thing. The moral of the story is put the phone down, take a breath, step away. And then if you want to put a reaction down, okay. But, you know, this instant reaction that we have now on a cell phone, this allows us to do that. But you know what though, I'm going to push back on that a little bit. I don't agree with the instant reaction, but that is what, and to even Charlie Kirk, that is what he made his brand on. And I mean, that is, that is what a lot of folks are, are searching right now is the, even if it's ugly and it mostly, and a lot of the time it is ugly, the ability for that immediate reaction, you don't have to wait until three 30 in the morning when the newspaper hits the front door and you can run out and read what's in there. Something terrible happens and you can, or something good, bad, ugly in the middle happens. You can go on X or blue sky or Facebook and see an immediate reaction for good or for bad. And as a, I don't even know what gen thing I am, CXY, I'm not sure. That's the, that's the headspace that I'm in. I mean, it's, I was doing it today with the committee hearing in the general assembly, pumping out clips that literally the second they were leaving people's mouths. But you're a journalist. No, I'm not. No, it's not even from a journalistic standpoint. I mean, it's just the hot as a edgy, late 20 something. I think if you weren't a commentator, you'd still be doing it. Yeah. I mean the hot, the hot takes, I mean, look at, look, I mean, not to get too derailed on this, but you know, one of the big political stories this week was Pierce Morgan interviewing Nick Fuentes. Yeah. And I mean, you know, you want to talk about hot takes and, and, and that stuff. That is a guy that has gained unbelievable amounts of revel of relevance with nothing but hot takes. Yeah. I mean, a three, four, five hour nightly show with nothing but hot takes. Fresh, hot Nazi takes. For five, five hours every single night. And, and he's getting insane amounts of very prominent media coverage. I mean, that video has got like seven and a half million views on YouTube. Public radio is not going to be signing Nick Fuentes on anytime soon. Oh man, that would be a head spinner for you guys. So a low point from the left. Low point for the left. I hate to beat a dead horse. I'll say, I'll say two things. One were those people who couldn't find that human moment when Charlie Kirk got killed. And, you know, from a, from a personal point of view that, that troubled me, obviously I said that on our first show, but from a political point of view, not seeing the writing on the wall, it, to me, if you're in politics or you, or you're in culture and that was your reaction and you have any interest in talking to our nation, our country as a whole, if you're, if you're in your silo, that's fine. Again, you have the right to say what you want, but if you were trying to talk to the nation and, and that's what you thought the whole conversation was, you know, that there wasn't a human element here, that there weren't people who were legitimately grieving, not just, you know, mad that they lost, you know, a champion, but like, we're just sad, you know, that was, that was rough. But I also, I also think that, yeah, for me, that was a barometer of how well you understood this country and, you know, how far maybe outside of a blue leaning metro area you've traveled in your life. So that was one. And the other has just been at the national level. Um, the, the democratic party's inability to figure out what, what I think most people have a pretty good grip on. It's the economy, stupid, but also that if you're invested in the wellbeing of marginalized people, you know, trans people, um, immigrants, um, you know, people of color, well, they don't have to pay bills too. And they're going through some really rough shit, right. For whatever particular reason, based on their identity. But that struggle would be a lot easier if they could afford rent. You know, it's like dealing with bigotry and bill collectors at the same time. It's tough, man. So you could help them out by getting in on the ground floor. Yeah. You know, I think if you've got most of your Maslow's hierarchy sort of like built up, okay, then maybe we come back around to some of the identity politics stuff, but it's not like, you know, I remember someone once telling me that you should focus all journalism through the lens of a queer black woman. Um, cause if it affects them, it affects everyone. Okay. We're black women get to pay rent. You know, that's true. So, and the democratic parties, you know, it's right there. And I don't understand, I don't understand the inability to come together around a coherent policy platform and just say, here are four big things that we're going to fix for you. Your life's going to be better in these concrete ways over the next four to eight years. Because if you elect us, it's not, it's not rocket surgery. Nick, we've, we've talked several times about the inability of the Democrats to have any kind of a leadership and be any kind of unified message. Is that true? Is that, is that going to be a continued thing? Did you see that resolving at all? Yeah. I mean, one of the, one of the political analogies are not even a, one of the analogies I like to draw to politics is a plane landing. You have a runway. If you have a much, if you have a large plane, you need a much longer runway. If you have a tiny little Cessna, you need a shorter runway. Politics is, is the runway and every single day that goes by, even as we head into Christmas here in a couple of weeks and into the new year, that runway for both parties, I'll admit is, is shrinking. And with a plane or a boat or whatever you're talking about, things do not typically happen quickly. You got to plan this stuff out. You don't just pop up in mid August and say, here are four points to win, win the election in November. You gotta, you gotta seed this stuff. You gotta grow it like a plant. And I'm genuinely surprised and shocked that the message still hasn't begun to turn. It's been now more than a year since Trump cleaned the Democrats' clocks on the, on the national election. And I would have assumed at this point that the seeds would be in the ground and we'd start watering. Maybe we've got tiny little green spurs coming up. Nothing. I mean, we're still just looking at dirt on the ground. And we had, we had talked about the mayor of New York, Zondani being the leader. Oh, Momdani, yeah. Momdani, Zondani. Zoran Momdani. You just kind of, come on, Zondani, that's a good one. I like that. So, of being the leader of the party, but that's really not emerging. Is there a leader of the Democrat party? I mean, it depends who you, from my point of view as a journalist, no. You know, if you ask me, you know, who is, it's very clear who's in charge of the Republican party and has been for 12 years. Nick Craig. Nick Craig. Yes, the Nick Craig show. Stealth. Fully, fully in charge. Great, great eminence, stealth leader of the Republican party. No, I mean, Trump has had a lock on it and he has, and he has managed to exert such direct control that he can actually turn the whole party on a dime and then back in the same day on certain policy issues. We're in, we're out. You know, we're pro-Ukraine, we're pro-Russian, we're back to Ukraine, you know. And you haven't seen that, that schisming down, down the line through the party. The Democrat party doesn't have anyone who is, has anywhere near that. It's not Hakeem Jeffries. It's not Chuck Schumer. And it's certainly not Mondami because New York City is such a rarefied place. I mean, we have, we have seven Democrats on city council right now. They could, they have the power to call a special meeting that, and that Chestnut Street property that just fell through and say, you know, we have promised the North side a grocery store for too long. You know, the city has failed them. New Hanover Regional Medical Center failed them. The endowment failed them. The county failed them. And just, you know, score all kinds of political points. We are getting into the grocery business. We are building the North side co-op tomorrow. We break ground tomorrow. We've cleared all the permits. We've waived everything we're paying for. We're raising your taxes to do it. And they could do it. They're not good, but they're not doing that. Right. So I think, I think the fears, maybe fear is the wrong word, the rhetoric to try and rile up Republicans that, you know, this is, you know, this is a, this is the fourth horseman. This is the seventh trumpet. This is, you know, Mondami is coming to your town and he's going to build a government run grocery store. I don't see any of that happening. But, but to your point, that would at least be a vision, right? It might not be popular with everyone. I might be a little sketched out. I worked in a grocery store once. I know that that's not a good idea to have the government running that, but it would at least be a message, you know, we're going to build a grocery store in every town, a chicken in every pot. But I don't know. I grew up in the 1980s. You start talking about government run grocery stores. You automatically think food lines in the Soviet Union. So, all right. That's 2025 wrapped up. Ben, what are you looking forward to in 2026? You're not going to like this, but the election. Are you really looking forward to it? There's an election? Yeah. We're going into primaries. I think there might be a Republican school board primary. I know there's four. Is there a fifth one? Chris Sutton, through his hat in the ring. I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure it's as a Republican. Yeah, I believe so. There's only been, there's only been a couple. Not everybody's officially filed. People have announced. So it's, and I think what's filing is on the 19th. I think so. We're definitely going to have a primary for Democratic candidates. We're going to have a county commissioner. That's going to be wild. That'll be wild because you're, I mean, the left is not a monolith just as the right is not a monolith and they are all over the map. Yeah. You know, you've got some tried and true centrists. You've got some folks who are left. You've got some folks who are still experimenting with what their, you know, flavor of, of Democrat politics is going to be. So that's going to be really interesting to me. Um, and we finally, I heard today, we finally have a candidate, uh, running against Michael Lee. Oh, really? Yes. Uh, Jess Bickler. Okay. Political unknown, uh, helps run Wilmington yoga, I believe. Um, but maybe less baggage. Okay. Then, uh, a couple of yoga bats, Sam Hill and a couple of, you know, yoga. I tell you, uh, yoga bipartisan support for yoga. Really? People love yoga. They pay a lot of money to do stretches. Do you, do you, do you, do you? Absolutely not. I should have said amongst. Yeah. Now, um, are you looking forward to the election? Yeah. I mean, it's going to be, it's already started. I mean, you know, you go from, it's like you're, you've just recovered from what was the earthquake of 2024. Then municipal elections roll around and Republicans get torched primary season rolling around it. What, what the craziest part is that early voting, I looked at this yesterday. Early voting for the primary starts February 12th. So the second that the calendar flips to J one 2026, we are less than 45 days away from the start of early voting. And then it's a sprint to March 3rd is the day. But once March 4th hits, it's a sprint to November. It's never going to. So I want to ask about this, cause this is already from what I can see, uh, on X from, from posts I've seen from people like Dan Scalise and Woody white. The Republicans are, seem to be, uh, coming around an idea to address affordability through taxes, right? So attacking property taxes, attack, attacking regulations for, you know, minimum fund balances and stuff. That was, um, uh, that committee that's just been created to take a look at some of that stuff and it trying to chisel away at the affordability problem that way. Um, I'm not entirely sure what the democratic approach to maybe again, for the reasons I've, I won't go back through, but you know, do you think that's, uh, a successful strategy about saying like, look, we know these are tough economic times. And so we're going to attack this in the best way we know how as conservatives, as, as fiscal conservatives. Of course. I mean, it gets, it gets back to the root of what is, I mean, break down the word conservatism to, to conserve. And I mean, taxes has always, has always been, and will likely always be a, a more of a winning issue in terms of, of that for, for conservatives or those on the right. And, you know, while the affordability issue is one that I find fascinating, there's, you know, people have private property rights. And if a developer goes and spends $30 million on a plot of land and it's zoned, you know, for, for some level of medium to high density, they're allowed to build pretty much whatever the hell they want. I mean, that's just like, if you've got the financial resources to buy property, that's what you're allowed to do. And so there's, you know, yes, rezoning is a big discussion topic. Most people, frankly, don't give a shit. It's, I mean, they say they care, but no, they don't go to the public hearings. They don't watch the meetings. They get pissed off when they see the sign coming soon, this project on this corner. And so there's, you know, I've been of the mindset that there's not a whole hell of a lot that government can do in terms of people want to go buy property and build things. They aren't legally allowed to do so. You can reject their permits, but they're going to take you to court and you will lose because they have the right to do that. So yes, taxes and government spending would be a huge way for those on the right to, hey, how do you make your housing more affordable? Cut your property tax bill from $1,500 a year to 12. That's $300. That's pretty significant. I mean, the two flavors I've heard on the left, you've got sort of the Ezra Klein abundance approach where it's just, it's really kind of Reagan-esque actually. It's like, if we just get the hell out of the way and every, at every level and make this as easy as possible for people to make a profit in the development world, they will come and do it. And it will be like film subsidies, you know, whatever it's the most profitable, that's where Iron Man 3 gets filmed, you know? And so that approach is, okay, let's streamline zoning. Let's streamline permitting. And that is, developers tell me all the time, you know, that is a big part of it. But it's also, you know, the economic instability and, you know, steel tariffs and wondering what the market is going to look like. So I don't know if that gets you all the way. The other flavor, the further left flavor is the direct subsidy approach where you're like, we're going to build 1,000 units. We're going to build 2,000 units. And now you've got cities and counties in the development business. And that is tougher, I think, on the left, because the government has been doing that. New Hanover County and Wilmington have been putting significant funding into affordable housing. And you can see the results. But the results fall so short of the overall problem. If you need 10,000 units, it is hard to crow about creating 500 units, even though that is awesome for those 500 people who have been helped. That is genuinely good, right, for them. But for the other 9,500 people, you know, it looks like government's been spinning its wheels. So... Well, and that's always what you see. You see these projects and they're like, oh, 10% of these units are, you know, 80% AMI. And then you're like, well, how many is that? And it's like, oh, well, it's three and a half units in this apartment complex. And it's like, OK, so we're apparently all of the, you've built, you've subsidized three, count them, three units in this project. The rest of them are high price. The rest of them are market, you know, market price, market price rent. So you see this and you're like, man, you talk about taking a shallow victory. You're like, we've got, we've made people, three people's rent in the city of Wilmington or New Hanover County more affordable. I mean, it's just, it's insane. It is for 10 to 20 years, but same with LIHTC programs, like tax rebate programs. Those eventually roll over into market rate apartments. So, you know, I'll still be here. Nick will still be alive. A lot of people who are struggling with affordability right now, you know, even if we won that way, I don't really think we could, but as a thought experiment, even if we won the battle of housing affordability doing that, we could all just forget about it for 10, 15 years. And then we'd be like, oh no, you know, we've created a ticking time bomb. If you see me look off in the distance every now and then, I think somebody in another studio is practicing tuba or something else. He's looking forward to elections because he likes staying up until the wee hours of the night. Is that what you're looking forward to? Yeah, I'm more of the early morning than wee hours of the night. But I mean, I'm going to just echo a lot of what Ben said. You know, primaries are interesting. It doesn't look like that any of the, besides the New Hanover County Democrat, New Hanover County Commission Democrat primary, that was by far going to be the juiciest. There may or may not be a school board primary. I don't think that's going to get all that crazy. I mean, you might have, you know, have some infighting within GOP circles, but it's probably not going to gain a lot of prominent attention. And that's probably about it. I mean, the primary season, again, outside of that County Commission one should be relatively light. Doesn't seem like any of the General Assembly candidates are going to have a Republican. Like, I don't think Deb Butler's facing a Democrat primary. I don't think, you know, Commissioner Scalise or Charlie Miller or Michael are going to face a, or Bill Raven are going to face a primary opponent. So it's going to be interesting to see what some of these primaries look like. And there are some prominent ones across the state and the country. The big one for Republicans is the Senate race. You've got at least three Republicans that have declared. You've got Michael Wadley, Don Brown, and then you've got Elizabeth something. There is a third that has jumped into it. I mean, yeah, I think it's interesting. I mean, I see a lot of chatter on social media about Don Brown. I mean, and I've talked to Don, I've met him a few times. I've heard him speak. I think he's a nice enough guy. He is going to get blown out in the primary. I mean, I just. He's a classic pocket constitution guy. Yeah. And there's always going to be a portion of the population for whom that resonates. But yeah, it felt like he was coming up a little short. I mean, he's raised arguably no money whatsoever. Well, yeah. And, you know, this is not something that the grassroots on the GOP wants to hear. But the person that you are running against is the very, very, very popular eight-year governor, 20-some-odd-year AG in North Carolina, Roy Cooper. And if you don't have a guy that can make a call to Washington, D.C., and get a couple million-dollar checks in the bank like that, which Michael can. I'm not saying he's not flawed and he doesn't have any issues. If you don't have that guy on the top of the ballot, you have conceded that race. I think Don Brown's a great guy. He would be an atrocious general election candidate for Republicans. He cannot win. I don't have anything to add to that. I mean, you know, getting $20 in your. Getting a $20 donation online when you're running for U.S. Senate in what is expected to be a billion-dollar race is not. I mean, you can't. That's not sustainable. In the meantime, Michael Watley has to spend money on a primary money. Yeah, I'm not sure how much he's going to spend on the primary itself. Even Trump was in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night. Michael was there. He was talking about Michael. You've got the endorsement of the president. You're the former head of the RNC. Daddy Warbucks. You can make it happen. You mentioned earlier about Michael Lee having a general election challenger. If Michael needs to spend $20 million to win that Senate race, he will raise it and spend it. For good or bad, that's politics. Yeah, I mean, we have this conversation every year when I hear from folks. And they tend to be towards the further left and further right who want all money out of politics. And I think it's not that your average moderate loves it. They're just so habituated to it. They're just inured to it. Yeah, this is how it is. And it's always the people who are a little bit more willing to let their freak flags fly who are like, we've got to get this money out of politics. And it's like, yeah. But I've never even heard the alternative. Like, OK, so we get money out of politics. How does the person that you just mentioned who has not political name ID, if money is not in politics, how does she purchase television ads? How does she purchase yard signs? How do you purchase advertising? How do you do anything that a political? You're not going to spend all of your own money to go make $13,500 a year in Raleigh. My argument has always been that I to a certain extent, I do agree with the money in speech argument in that in that if I have money and I want to support a candidate. OK, you know, it's the dark money part of it that I think bothers me. I think that I think there's some bipartisan agreement that that is creepy because, you know, yeah, I have conservative friends. And if their candidate is being supported by the Koch brothers covertly through a 12 layer stack of, you know, super PAC, they're not super mad about it. But they get real mad if a DA is being backed by George Soros. Right. Yeah. And on the flip side or a Bloomberg. Yes. Put some money that trickled down into Wilmington a few years back. So, you know, folks will connect was understandably upset about that. And the other issue that Democrats have to answer is things like Act Blue. Right. You've got there's no doubt that there are some issues with Act Blue. Yeah, I think, you know, for me as a journalist, if I can't see where the money came from, right, I'm not going to be particularly enamored of whatever your excuse for it is. Right. It's like, oh, well, the Supreme Court said or oh, it's, you know, it's a it's a grass. I don't care. You know, if there's money in politics and you can't see where it's coming from, that's always going to be a problem, I think, for a lot of Americans. Yeah, I kind of have a split opinion on that. And inherently, I don't think I disagree with you, Ben on, you know, you'd like to see where this money is coming from. On the flip side of that, the argument isn't, you know, there was a major Supreme Court case in California that dealt with this is, what about people that want to support, don't want don't donate directly to candidates, but want to support a PAC, a larger organization? Do those organizations have to turn over their donor lists? And Kamala Harris tried to get those lists when she was the Attorney General in California. And the liberal Supreme Court in the state of California said, absolutely not. I mean, this is a huge invasion of privacy. So I'm not going to call myself a fence sitter on the issue. I understand the arguments on both sides. But we know that there's political retaliation. We were just talking about it with the Charlie Kirk thing. I mean, people say things and then they're fired from their jobs. You do this or don't do that with a COVID vaccine. You're fired from your job. We find out that Ben is donating a bunch of money to Republicans. And then the next thing you know, he's in hot water with his boss or I'm giving... Immediately. I'm giving a bunch of money to a Democrat because I don't like the Republican candidate. My audience or my supporters say, what the hell are you doing? And so I get both sides of it. It's kind of a... I don't like to fence sit on a lot of issues. I like to plant my feet pretty squarely one way or the other. But that one is just... There's really, really good arguments to be made on both sides. I can see some of that. I get the luxury of being a journalist. So I'm affiliated. I'm a journalist. I don't give any money to any candidate and I don't support or endorse any candidate because those are the rules of the game for me. So I get the luxury of being a purist and saying, no, you all have to show your cards. I'm not playing. You all have to show your cards. So you're the dealer in this case. Yes, exactly. Yes. I did make those deposits for you, by the way. Thank you. You're welcome. So the one thing I'm looking forward to, John, and I think it's going to decide the election, is that right now we're in the middle of a sausage making economy. Is that things are up and down. We have no idea where they're going. And whatever party determines the success of the economy is the one that's going to win in the upcoming election. Is that if the Republicans say, listen, if the Republicans can say, look, all you had to do is wait and prices are down, gas prices are down, because they already are. But anecdotal evidence. Eight cents on average. I don't know if that's enough to win the war. It's not enough to win the war. But if they can show that dramatically, then Republicans will win. If Democrats in November can say, look, you elected a bunch of folks and they did nothing. Or made it worse. Or made it worse. I think that's what's going to determine win or lose the economy. I agree with you. I think the, not that I'm rooting for anyone either way. I hope the elders have a good time out there on the elections. But I do think that Republicans run the risk of repeating Biden's mistake, which is looking at just the top half of the K-shaped economy. Looking at traditional economic indicators that benefit affluent homeowners. And not looking at some of the more populist price indicators that are screwing the lower half of the K. And if you are telling, and it's not that you don't take credit for the stuff, it's good. You obviously want to do that. You have to. Or people won't think you're doing anything. But it's at your own peril if you ignore the things that are hurting people on the lower half of the economy. And especially, God help you, if you gaslight them and just insist right down the barrel of a camera on Life News that the economy is doing great if there are enough people for whom it is not going great. I think both sides need to be open and honest where the economy is. So, wrapping up, both of you folks are from New York. Yep. For better or for worse. Jersey, even worse. Yeah, Jersey way worse. Yes, I'll be making my trek to the Great Northeast. OK. You heading home? You going to stick around? No. I'm going to brave 95. You're going to brave 95. I'm going to brave 95. There was an airplane that landed on 95 two days ago. Yes. Yes. I hadn't seen that. In North Carolina? On 95. And it didn't make traffic any worse. Nobody really noticed. Nobody really noticed. Maxed out already. Well, my wife and I are going to be here for Christmas. It's going to be a good time. And by the way, folks, if you are looking for that last minute gift, all you have to do is go to the Wilmington Standard store, and you can get the Three Guys podcast. Did you guys see that? I saw it, yes. The Three Guys podcast, wine tumbler, and drink tumbler. I was going to say wine or your beverage of choice. Or your beverage of choice. But we also have one of those big mugs things. Yeah, so check that out. And we've got other things there as well. Gents, it's been a good experiment. Likewise. Conversation this year. And we get renewed for a new season. It's like, you know, like you see these like Landman or the Tulsa King. It comes out in like the first episodes out. And they're like, and renewed for another season. Have we made, are we renewed for another season? We have been renewed. But we always ask you to like and follow us. So we're on every major podcast. We look at all of your comments. And so make sure that you check us all out. And everybody, have a great and Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Whatever holidays that you celebrate. I hope it's a good time of the season. We'll be back in 2026 with much more political insight. Much more analysis of today's issues. So Nick Craig. You're always there on Nick Craig Show in the morning. Yes, sir. On 7 o'clock every day. NickCraig.com. You can check it out there. And make sure that you check out Ben on WHQR, Sunday wrap ups. And do you have a regular show over there as well? Not really. I just, I fill in whenever needed. Okay. Yeah, we wear a lot of hats in public media. And make sure, please make sure to check out the daily update for the Wilmington Standard that gets published every morning about 6.45. So on behalf of the three guys, thanks for listening.