Bunker, Ballots & Billions: Inside Primary Day 2026 | McLaughlin & McKoon

[00:00:14] Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. Three Americans went to their mosque to worship and work. They did not come home. Two teenage gunmen opened fire at the Islamic Center in San Diego in the Claremont neighborhood. The three victims are dead. The two gunmen are also dead. One of those killed was Amin Abdullah, the security guard who protected children's lives. San Diego Police Chief Scott Wall called the security guard and

[00:00:43] who intervened heroic. And he is right. He was a hero. In America, everyone has the right to worship without fear. That right is enshrined in our Constitution, and I condemn such evil violence. Our prayers are with the families of the community of the Islamic Center in San Diego. This is being investigated as a hate crime. Also in California, a wildfire near Simi Valley, the Sandy Fire, has burned

[00:01:13] more than 184 acres and taken several structures. This is an active situation. Our hearts go out to the families affected there as well. Thankfully, at this point, no one has died from these fires. And overseas, the Iran ceasefire, the one President Trump has been working toward, is in the President's own words on life support. The President called off a scheduled attack, and he is continuing negotiations

[00:01:40] right now. The President has said the United States would go forward with a full-scale assault on Iran at a moment's notice if there is no acceptable deal. We will be watching that situation closely. Now, the show today. Today is the primary election day in six states—Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. The stakes are high. Meanwhile, the Save America Act is the most popular election

[00:02:08] integrity bill in a generation, and it has been stalled in the Senate for more than 96 days. And just yesterday, the Department of Justice announced a $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund, a historic settlement in President Trump's IRS lawsuit. We have two extraordinary guests today. John McLaughlin is the CEO and partner of McLaughlin Associates and President Trump's pollster.

[00:02:37] Josh McCune is the chairman of the Republican Party of Georgia. And on this particular primary day, there's nobody I'd rather have in the chair. Gentlemen, welcome to the Jenny Best Show. Pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. So, Josh, the polls are open right now in Georgia. You're the chairman of the Republican Party. Paint a picture for our viewers of what today looks like on the ground. Walk us through the Senate race, the governor's race, and the full ticket.

[00:03:03] So, we've had an extraordinary election campaign. Really, nothing ever has come close to this in my lifetime. The governor's race alone, we've seen one candidate spend over $75 million, and we're likely heading to a runoff there between Rick Jackson, a businessman in Georgia, and our Lieutenant Governor, Burt Jones. That's what most of the polling seems to indicate. We've had this three-way,

[00:03:31] there were obviously more than three candidates, but three seriously funded candidates for United States Senate that have been duking it out here in Georgia. Congressman Mike Collins has consistently led the public polling here. We have seen in just the last seven days, really, a move by Derek Dooley, who is supported by Governor Kemp. There seems to be a real contest going on for second place between

[00:03:57] him and Congressman Buddy Carter. So, that'll be something to watch this evening to see how the race for second place plays out in that race. We have three open congressional seats around the state. Of course, two caused by Congressman Collins and Carter running for U.S. Senate, and then the third vacancy caused by Congressman Loudermilk's retirement. Over in Congressional District 1 in the Savannah area,

[00:04:21] it looks like former Congressman Jack Kingston's son, Jim Kingston, certainly leads the field. The question is going to be, can he do enough in a six-way primary to clear the 50% hurdle here in Georgia to win without a runoff, or will he advance to a June 16th runoff? In the 10th Congressional District, Houston Gaines, a popular state legislator from the Athens area, seems the favorite going up

[00:04:47] against businessman Ryan Millsap. There's a third candidate in that race as well, so there's a possibility it could go to a runoff, but we'll be watching that closely. And then, of course, the race to succeed Barry Loudermilk is probably the hardest thing to handicap. It's been a short campaign. You have several candidates, Rob Adkerson, Congressman Loudermilk's chief of staff, Tricia Pridmore, a current member of Georgia's Public Service Commission, and then Dr. Cowan,

[00:05:16] who's been a former candidate for Congress in the 14th Congressional District. A lot of money spent in that race as well. We have down ticket races, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, State School Superintendent, all contested. So I think we're going to have a very busy runoff calendar on June 16th. It will be interesting to see how the results come in tonight. John, you've been polling

[00:05:41] these races, and I think I'm able to pull up an insider advantage poll on the screen. They have Collins for the Senate at 32, and Julie at 26, and Carter at 21. What do your numbers tell us heading into tonight, and what should viewers be looking for as the results start coming in in Georgia, as well as the other states who have primaries today? Well, by the way, full disclosure, I don't have a candidate in the governor's race or the Senate race. I do have some for the Congressional's.

[00:06:11] Brian Jackal, when he's unopposed, so I know that. But I think the one word that's going to say that about the healthy democracy in Georgia is runoff. You're going to have runoffs for governor. You're going to have runoffs for governor. By the way, what I like about Mike Collins, having been the pollster for Doug Collins. I'm sure there's some overlap there, but their districts are different. But they're

[00:06:37] headed for a runoff. And as the chairman already mentioned, you're going to have a battle between Buddy Carter, who I pulled in his first race, but I haven't pulled from lately. But Buddy Carter and Coach Dooley are running for second place there to get in that runoff. And the poll you showed had Buddy in second place. But there's been some recent polling where Derek Dooley is in second place. So as the

[00:07:03] chairman said, that's going to be for the Senate race, that's going to be an area where people are watching tonight. And also Trish Pridmore. I've worked for Trish. So that one, there's a lack of published polls on, but the candidates are working hard and she's a really hard worker. So we'll see. But I think that one's had a door runoff too. Yeah. And I think that the runoff system in Georgia

[00:07:30] is actually really good because it forces people to come back together after the general election. Of course, before the general election, of course, you still have to get through the general election and through the runoff. But I just think it's a way to help start healing from people who have sore feelings after they may or may not have won. I guess sore

[00:07:55] feelings would only happen if they did not win in the primary. And I just happen to like that. I also like it in the general election because then you know the person that you're electing actually got a majority of the vote and they're representing a majority of the people. Josh, let me come back to you because there's a story that's developing today and it's rather extraordinary. The secretary of

[00:08:21] state, Brad Raffensperger, who is actually on the ballot and running for governor, he is going to be aggregating tonight's primary results in an underground facility. It's called the bunker in, at least in Georgia, that's what we call it. And it's where they're looking at and working through all the results. He had closed it to the state election board, to candidates and to the public. You called

[00:08:46] it outrageous. There was a lawsuit. Tell us what happened. And we've got some breaking news about this, right? Absolutely, Jenny Beth. So we were very concerned. Obviously, many Georgians continue to be concerned about the security and integrity of our elections. We want the elections process to be open to all. I want to be clear about this. When we put out our statement, we wanted to be clear the state

[00:09:11] elections board as a whole, which has an appointee from the Democrats and the Republicans ought to be in that room. They ought to be able to see what's going on in real time so that they can assure us that the process is fair and that people can have confidence in what goes on today and this evening as votes are tabulated and counted. The secretary took the position that he was not going to allow. State election board members in the room. A lawsuit was filed, as you said, by State Senator Greg

[00:09:41] Dolezal, Chris Mora, who I believe is also a candidate for the Berry Loudermilk Congressional District, and I think there might have been another plaintiff as well. Judge Ural Glanville, the chief judge of the Fulton County Superior Court, issued a ruling earlier today granting that petition, making sure that state election board members will have access to the election night reporting

[00:10:04] room this evening. And to give you an idea of how stunning that is, Judge Glanville is no partisan Republican. Fulton County courts have not been kind to these sort of challenges in the past, but I think it's because the black letter law was so clear in this case that Judge Glanville really had no choice but to grant the relief. So we are going to have bipartisan observation of what goes on in that

[00:10:29] room this evening. I think it's really important that there is bipartisan observation. And back in 2020, I learned, we learned a lot about the state election law in Georgia and in quite a few other states around the country as well. One of the things that we learned as we're headed into the runoff that happened on January the 5th of 2021 is that the processing of absentee ballots before they are scanned, but just

[00:10:58] pulling them out of the envelope and processing those absentee ballots was to be open to the public because the entire election process is supposed to be open to the public. So it seems like what's happened, if you can observe the absentee ballots coming into a county office and being removed from an envelope or the outer envelope being removed from the inner envelope, then it certainly seems to me

[00:11:25] that when the secretary of state's office is aggregating all the results, that should also be open to the public. It just seems like common sense as well as state law to me. Absolutely. You know, I mean, I think with the secretary of state being a candidate for statewide office himself, that public interest is even heightened. Right. Absolutely. I mean, because what was shocking back

[00:11:49] in 2020 was because when I worked for Governor Deal, I was talking to the chief of staff, Chris Riley, and I was like, we didn't have drop boxes. We never signed off on that. And we wouldn't. There were requests to do that. And we wouldn't sign off. So when I did the post-election survey for a super PAC before the January 5th runoff, they had voted, the people that we spoke to, because I'm sure there were people we couldn't speak to because you couldn't find them, people were dropping off 20, 30 ballots in these

[00:12:18] drop boxes in Democrat areas. But the people we spoke to, they voted, we were the only statistics, because Raffensperger didn't separate mail-in ballots from drop box ballots. But in the survey, 73% to 27%, the drop box ballots told us that they had voted for Biden, not Trump. And it was just, and I remember saying to the president, I said to others, some major donors, we're looking to give

[00:12:47] money. I said, do not, you know, you're not going to have a fair election if it's under the same rules. You have to change. I was saying, you got to get the governor to call a special session, because if they didn't change the rules, we were going to have another bad outcome. And fortunately for the, you know, Georgia, you did change the election laws, but it was too late. It was after the runoff where Speaker Ralston, the late speaker who I worked for, was a great leader that he got

[00:13:14] that election ID bill passed, that you have election ID. If they vote early in person, they vote absentees, the drop boxes were put in government buildings. And if you vote on election day, you have ID, which is overwhelmingly popular. Jenny Beth, you know from your surveys, it's almost four to five voters support voter ID. It was 75% in your March national surveys. And for all types of whether they vote early or they vote absentee or they vote on election day. And that's, you know,

[00:13:42] that's the way it should be in America. And fortunately, Georgia has done that. And fortunately, we got rid of Joe Biden. So. That is right. We're very fortunate to be rid of Joe Biden. So, John, there are five other states that are voting today, Alabama, Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon, Pennsylvania. In Kentucky's fourth district, it's Thomas Massey versus the Trump-backed challenger, effectively a toss-up. And President Trump has been vocal about wanting Massey gone.

[00:14:12] Not only that, but early voting has now started in Texas. And right before we began the show, President Trump endorsed Ken Paxton in Texas. So what are you watching tonight beyond Georgia? What is a successful night look like for conservatives nationally tonight? And what do you make of this endorsement of Ken Paxton? Well, first of all, in Kentucky, in the Kentucky fourth congressional district, full disclosure,

[00:14:38] I work for the Trump super PAC there. And it's a close race, but it, you know, it looks like that Ed Galrains run a very good campaign and the voters there, although Thomas Massey has been there a long time. He's served for 14 years. They want a congressman that they can count on to support President Trump's positions, whether it's securing the border, whether it's voting against tax increases and voting for tax cuts, whether it's just being against transgender operations for children or to,

[00:15:08] you know, making sure that illegals don't get free healthcare. That's why they're going to vote for Ed Galrains. And that's why President Trump, he needs a vote he can count on for those types of issues. So there, that's my full disclosure on that race, but it's going to be close. And, uh, you know, we'll, that one will probably go for a while to count tonight, but we'll see. Uh, but Ed has the momentum right now. Uh, uh, as far as the other states and, uh, statewide, President Trump's endorsed Andy Barr. I was working for Daniel Cameron. He's a good guy

[00:15:36] and Trump supported too, but, uh, you've got these other races like in Alabama and you got Oregon. You know, there's been some polls that, uh, Dudley may be able to beat the Democrats in the general election, but we'll see that, but they have all mail-in ballots. So it gets a little tricky in November when they do that in Oregon. So, uh, but there's a lot of, a lot of exciting races in terms of the Republican base is very loyal to President Trump. They've stayed with President Trump

[00:16:02] because he stays with them on the issues. You know, granted he's our leader, but as you've seen on these issues, whether it's only citizens can vote, whether it's voter ID, whether it's having tax cuts, not tax increases, whether it's securing the border. President Trump has adhered to his, uh, his agenda that the majority of Americans support. And that's why, whether it was Indiana a couple of weeks ago where, you know, he turned out the senators that voted against the redistricting,

[00:16:28] uh, the state senators, or whether it's, uh, he was in West Virginia and Nebraska. He was like, uh, three and oh, and six and oh, in those states. And a week ago in those primaries, uh, the senator, Senator Cassidy, who voted to impeach President Trump, voted with the Democrats, uh, for that fake impeachment. Uh, you know, he got beat and, uh, he's, you know, he's not in the

[00:16:58] runoff. So now when you look at Texas, Ken Paxton was leading the polls and it was pretty obvious that if, uh, it was pretty obvious that if, uh, John Cornyn had gotten the Save America Act passed, because we, we put out a national poll last week where 56% of all voters would rat, uh, all voters across the country would rather see, uh, voter ID than protecting the filibuster.

[00:17:26] Only 28, only, uh, 28% wanted to protect the filibuster. So, I mean, President Trump's supporting Ken Paxton because- Correct. People want voter ID. It's such common sense legislation. And then, um, Josh, he, John was just talking about Bill Cassidy in Louisiana. Cassidy outspent his opponents three to one and he still finished third. That is a strong political statement from the

[00:17:52] voters. What message should Louisiana send to the Republicans in the Senate? And do you think there's going to be any kind of an echo statement in Georgia? Well, I will tell you, I had the opportunity to be with some of my Louisiana colleagues on the Republican National Committee last week at our spring meeting, and they were saying that Senator Cassidy was not going to make it. And clearly what the message is, if people have not figured this out yet,

[00:18:18] the best asset to have in a Republican primary is the endorsement and support of President Donald Trump. If you have President Trump's support, voters are going to follow that in a Republican primary because they like what the president's doing. They like the fact that the president follows through on his campaign commitments and his campaign promises, and they want to send him allies who are going to allow him to carry out the America first agenda. And you saw it in Georgia earlier this

[00:18:47] year. We had something like 17 people running to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene. And when the president put his hand on Clay Fuller, that was effectively the end of that race. So as a candidate, you want the president's support. And it's why you see candidates that don't have the president's support attempt to give voters the impression that they do, because there is just no currency right now in a Republican primary like Donald Trump's support. I think that is exactly right, Josh. It's very good

[00:19:16] insight. So redistricting has been in the news. We had the court decision on Calais. Virginia's gerrymandering case has gone to the Supreme Court. Georgia is looking at redrawing its maps for next years or I guess two years from now for the next election cycle. And then Kamala Harris was publicly outraged about the Virginia decision. John, as a pollster who models all of these races,

[00:19:45] how do you think that redistricting is going to actually factor into what we see in November? Well, it's going to be helpful for the Republicans because specifically on that one court decision, when they were using race to factor how they drew the congressional lines, it was effective affirmative action for Democrats. And now you, and by the way, all this redistricting,

[00:20:08] it started in New York with Kathy Hochul in 2024. A judge redrew her unfair lines in 2022, and you had 11 out of 26 Republicans elected in New York. But then she forced the chief of their uh, their chief court out and they got a new redistricting plan. And all of a sudden the New

[00:20:32] York courts allowed it to go through and it cost us a Republican seat in Syracuse. It cost us Brandon Williams seat. It, it, uh, got Tom Swasey back into Congress in New York three. It hurt us in New York four. And it hurt us, uh, uh, in another district upstate where, uh, Mark Malinaro lost. So she started this in 24, but they don't, but then she has the nerve to write a letter, uh, to governor Abbott in

[00:21:00] Texas about redistricting in, in, in 26. So, so basically the courts are trying to straighten this out because you know, the Democrats are the masters of gerrymanders we've seen in California because they ran that prop through, but in Virginia, uh, Virginia, God bless their, they had a Democrat on that court, a Democrat appointed judge who voted with the Republicans to overthrow out

[00:21:25] the unconstitutional illegal referendum that's governor Spanberger tried to push through. And it was just, it was poorly worded. It didn't fit their legal requirements. And the Democrats are all complaining about this. Oh, they voted out. Well, that was an illegal referendum. It was unconstitutional. And a judge threw that out in their own state courts and the, and the U S Supreme Court refused to hear it. So you've now got a situation where the Republicans probably picked up about 14 seats

[00:21:54] and the Democrats offset it with another six, five in California and one in Utah, but you've got new, new maps pending in Tennessee where the Republicans could pick up a seat, Alabama. Uh, they could pick up a seat, Louisiana. They might pick up two in South Carolina. They might pick up another. So that'll be helpful when you've got such a narrow, such a narrow Congress that, uh, narrow majority that the Republicans, you know, having more fair elections and, you know, granted, I can't think of a

[00:22:24] Republican Congressman in new England and you get about 40% of the vote for Republicans in new England, but there's not a single, you know, they have ranked choice voting. You talk about scams, they have ranked choice voting in Maine. And, uh, that's how we got the socialist mayor in New York, Mondami with the ranked choice voting in that Democrat primary. So, uh, uh, so that's, that's another thing to clean up. That's why I like your runoffs in Georgia,

[00:22:50] but it then the, uh, the socialist, uh, ranked choice voting that that system is just doesn't work. Yeah, it absolutely doesn't work. And Brad Raffensperger, the current secretary of state is actually in favor of ranked choice voting. Bless his heart. He's just wrong. He's completely wrong on that. Um, and I, I just am, I I've just gotten back from Alaska like two weeks ago and they

[00:23:13] are working hard to, to repeal their ranked choice voting. Everyone there hates it. And even when they voted to repeal it, the last time they attempted to it, it lost. There were millions of dollars coming into the state, working to keep it, keep ranked choice voting there because that's, that's the only way Democrats feel like they have a shot is if they can rig the system and make it so

[00:23:37] complicated. But apparently the wording was very confusing to people on the referendum the last time. And the message to voters this time is vote yes to end the mess. And that's what ranked choice voting is. It's a huge mess. Josh, you're, you're the state party chairman in the South. The Voting Rights Act has affected the South and the way that the South districts for many, many election cycles.

[00:24:05] What did you make of the Calais decision or the Calais decision? Well, it's long overdue. Um, and, and one of the reasons it's overdue is this narrative about the Voting Rights Act is, is totally fallacious. Um, you know, you talk about the, the South, uh, the Southern part of the country, the Voting Rights Act applied to states like Arizona and Hawaii and Idaho because Lyndon Johnson wanted to punish

[00:24:30] states that supported Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. I can't think of another federal law that we cherry pick what part of the country it applies to. And, uh, so this is long overdue. It's anti-American to racially segregate voters based on a mandate from the federal government to do so. We should be putting communities of interest together. I'm 47 years old. My hometown

[00:24:55] of Columbus, Georgia has been split between two or three congressional districts my entire lifetime. Now I'm just going to tell y'all, I love Thomasville, Georgia, but Columbus has a lot more in common with Hamilton right up the road than they do with Thomasville and communities that are at the Florida line. And so that's what we need are fair maps that put communities of interest together. And yes, that may benefit Republicans. It may not benefit Republicans, but this idea that the federal

[00:25:22] government's going to tell Georgia how we're going to draw our districts is absolutely ridiculous. So I'm, I'm glad that the Supreme Court made the decision. I'm glad that the governor has called a June 17th special session. So we can go ahead and lock in new maps, uh, that get rid of these artificial racial considerations. Yeah. And Columbus is not big enough to be split into two or three. It's, it's a small, it's, it's a city, but it is a small city. So it, it, I look forward to

[00:25:52] what they come up with, with redistricting and I hope they are fair maps and, and you're right. It may or may not benefit Republicans, but what it needs to do with the maps really should be doing is ensuring that it benefits of voters and that they have good districts and are able to elect someone to represent a district that is cohesive. Um, let's, let's shift gears and look towards Congress and the

[00:26:18] Save America Act. John, you commission polling for Tea Party Petrie's action, and you've done other polling on the Save America Act outside of what we've done. Um, our numbers were 83% of Americans support proof of citizenship to register to vote. And that includes 73% of Democrats. Why won't the Senate pass this? Why, why are we, why, what don't they understand? It's something that happens when you go inside the Potomac, when you're inside the beltway there

[00:26:47] in that, in that, in that area where all of a sudden they're talking about, they're saying, well, if we get rid of the filibuster, uh, then the Democrats will do it. They'll do it anyway. Kamala Harris is already talking about making Puerto Rico and Washington DC states. Puerto Rico may want to be a state, but, uh, but, but right now she's, and she's talking about packing the Supreme Court, but they'll get rid of the filibuster for their convenience. They did it before Harry Reid

[00:27:12] did it. Now you've got, uh, Republicans who are arguing for this. And I said, uh, when we asked this last month, we asked, do you, should we have voter ID or should we protect the filibuster? 56 to 38% among all voters, they said voter ID and your numbers were overwhelming. It was only citizens should vote 84 to 13 proof of the U S citizenship, 78 to eight, 77 to 18 photo ID. And this is on our

[00:27:39] website. It's on your website, I think. Uh, but, but photo ID to vote, whether it's early absentee in person on election day or a mail-in absentees, 75 to 21 and 89 to six people have real IDs. So you've got great numbers in favor of this. And the Democrats want to keep this bottled up. Why do they want to keep this bottled up? If you're a Republican, does this smell really bad to you? Doesn't this just,

[00:28:08] just reek of corruption in the election system that all of a sudden they don't, by the way, I voted today in a school board election in New York, you have to sign. You don't have to show ID. You don't have to show ID. If you pull out ID, they make you put it back. You, all you have to do is tell them your name and you have to sign this electronic signature. Your names have, it looks nothing like what you would sign a piece of paper. And then you have little old ladies who

[00:28:35] are nice that work there all day looking at this with their eyesight. And they're like, of course it's you. Can you imagine in New York City? I mean, we have to go through this. We have to get rid of Kathy Alpa. We got to get rid of, we got to get Bruce Blake from in there. But Lee Zeldin came close, but four years ago, you know, you, you have no voter ID, who knows? And, and checking the roles in New York, we have this motor voter law where you have anything to do with the federal

[00:29:01] government. You get food stamps, you get, you get welfare, you get free healthcare, but you can get a driver's license. They have a green light law. If you're an illegal immigrant, you can get a driver's license. They automatically put you on the voter rolls with any contact with the state, unless you decline. So they're counting on illegal immigrants to decline. And that's in New York City where 32,

[00:29:26] 30, 32% of the vote comes out. And the New York City council voted to let non-citizens vote. And it was fortunately thrown out as unconstitutional. So, you know, those are the stakes that we're fighting for in these, we just can't, you know, Georgia's the battleground state in the country. You guys have been, Mr. Chairman, Jenny, you have been through these, these wars every,

[00:29:51] it used to be a good Republican state and then it got to be a battleground state. So you're where all the action is. But if we don't flip some of these states with some of their bad laws, like California, that's why the, that's why the Save America Act is so important because if you're required for voter ID, California mails out ballots and they collect them. There's people that go collect these mail-in ballots, get paid for it and submit them. Who knows who filled those out? Nobody knows. So,

[00:30:20] so we've got to, we've really got to fight for the Save America Act. And it should be in reconciliation, in a bill that they should put forth to the Senate and the House. Yeah, it, it should. I don't know if it can withstand reconciliation, but they should be attaching it to every single bill coming out of the House and make the Senate vote on it. The Senate needs to get this done. Josh, what do you think of the Save America Act? What are Georgians

[00:30:44] saying to you? And I do think that the effort to keep non-citizens off of the voter rolls in Georgia, that's one thing that Brad Raffensperger has seemed to, he does care about and he has tried to, to get right. I kind of beat him up on a few other things today. So I'll give credit where credit is due. Well, and I think the secretary's support of it indicates, as y'all have been discussing, how broad and bipartisan the support for this is. This is common sense. You know, this idea that

[00:31:13] you need to be able to prove who you are to be able to cast a ballot. You know, that is, and that only citizens should be casting ballots. This, this notion that people that have no allegiance to this country should have something to say about the leadership at any level is absolutely bonkers. It just makes no sense whatsoever. So we certainly are very supportive of the Save America

[00:31:38] Act. I concur with you that it's something that the Senate needs to vote on. They need to be made to go on the record and let people know where they stand on this issue, because I cannot conceive of a reason to oppose this other than you want to expand the window for cheating in an election. It's just that simple. It's just like the discussion earlier about drop boxes. You know, all of these things

[00:32:06] are about making it less secure and making it easier to cheat. We've demonstrated over and over again here in Georgia and elsewhere around the country, you can have secure elections, you can insist on proof of citizenship, you can insist on proof of identification, and it not affect a single voter in terms of their access and their ability to cast a vote, which is the biggest lie the left tells about all election integrity legislation. So it's something we've got to be committed to.

[00:32:35] Obviously, the president's committed to it, and the Senate ought to give the respect of having a roll call vote. Absolutely. Okay, we're gonna, I'm gonna give our call to action, and then we're gonna take a quick break. So the first call, the call to action is kind of threefold. The first call is to your congressman. You're gonna make two, send two messages to your congressman. Call 202-224-3121.

[00:32:59] Again, that's 202-224-3121. It's the Capitol switchboard. Tell your member of Congress to join President Trump's call to attach the Save America Act to every single bill the House moves until this, this legislation is passed into law. The votes are there in the House, and we need the House to put the pressure on the Senate to get it done. So the way to do that is to attach it to what's called must-pass

[00:33:27] legislation. And I think the best way to do it is just to call for it to be attached to every bill that the House passes right now. For more information on that aspect, you can go to passtheSaveAmericaAct.com. Now, the second thing to tell your congressman is to tell them to stop the so-called Dignity Act. It is amnesty, and we do not want amnesty, not now, not ever. And contrary to

[00:33:53] what the bill's lead sponsor says, who says, well, it's not really amnesty because there's no direct pathway to citizenship, she is on the record in a video saying that it would eventually lead to a pathway to citizenship because someone else would come and pick up the next piece and pass more legislation to it. The way to stop amnesty is to not allow it to proceed. So no, absolutely not. And

[00:34:19] when you ignore the fact that people broke the law and you allow them to not face consequences for breaking the law, I've got news for her. That's amnesty. No amnesty. Then the next thing that you need to do is to thank President Trump. You can do that by reaching out to the White House through their contact form. And you can also tag him on social media. Thank him for his commitment to getting the

[00:34:46] Save America Act passed into law. Make sure that you indicate your support for that effort and urge him to veto legislation that does not have the Save America Act in it. So you can do that by posting on social media and tagging the president and the White House. You can also complete the White House form at whitehouse.gov forward slash contact. Again, whitehouse.gov forward slash contact. We're going

[00:35:14] to take a quick break and you can fill out that whitehouse.gov forward slash contact while we're doing

[00:35:19] this quick break. The Department of Justice announced a $1.7 billion anti-weaponization fund.

[00:36:32] It's part of President Trump's settlement with the IRS. As the chairman of the Republican Party in Georgia, given what happened to David Schaefer and other electors in the 2020 election, as well as as the president himself in Georgia and so many other people in Georgia and other states around the country, what does the creation of this fund mean for conservatives who believe they were targets of

[00:36:59] political weaponization? And what do you think it means from your position as chairman of the party that had to raise money to help defend people like David Schaefer? Well, I'm so grateful to President Trump, who obviously had very legitimate claims that he could have continued to prosecute to benefit himself personally. From reading the press release from the Department of Justice, it looks like he

[00:37:23] basically put those considerations aside in order to have this fund established. And as you pointed out, we could talk about my friends in Nevada, Michigan and other states as well who are in Arizona who are still fighting bogus charges. But here in Georgia, thanks to our appellate courts, we were able to have Fannie Willis thrown off the case. And then when the case actually got to a real prosecutor,

[00:37:51] it was thrown out. He said there was no prosecutable crime present. After four years of show trials and sham hearings, putting, as you mentioned, Chairman Schaefer, State Senator Sean Still, Kathy Latham, who was on our state executive committee, who were indicted in August of 2023 and went through hell. There's no other kind or polite way to put it. And then there were people who weren't indicted but

[00:38:16] were investigated for years. People like my good friend Kay Godwin, who at the age of 80 had investigators from the Fulton County District Attorney's Office come to her home and question her, wondering if she's going to spend the rest of her life in prison. So I hope that this is the beginning of a process. You can't give those people those years back, the years that they were unable to work, the years that they were basically made out to be pariahs. But hopefully they can receive

[00:38:46] some compensation for what they were put through. And again, just kudos to President Trump for thinking about all of these people around the country that stood with him to see that they're at least, they'll never, they will never be made whole, but they'll at least be given some measure of justice. That, that is right. And I think that the fund, it's quite substantial. When we got the settlement

[00:39:11] for the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, it was, it was just, it was such a small amount. We got to claim that they admitted they were wrong, but it was so tiny. There was no way to make whole financially from that, the groups and the individuals that were impacted. So I'm glad that this one can help, at least from a financial standpoint, go back and make some people whole.

[00:39:39] And Mike Roman right now, he's one of the ones, and John Eastman who are facing, they face indictment in Georgia and they're faced, facing it in other states. And John Eastman's gone through disbarment in California. It's, it is just so wrong. And I'm glad to see that this fund is being set up to help people like that. John, from a national political standpoint, we have acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on the record saying the machinery of government should never be weaponized against

[00:40:08] any American. How does this fund play with the broader electorate? Does it help or hurt Republicans to be talking about lawfare and government weaponization? Well, it's necessary because those of us who got subpoenas, I wasn't in Washington on January 6th, had nothing to do with it. I was polling for President Trump at the time. I had to sit with President Trump. And you think about, by the way, if you ever want to read something, read Eric Trump's

[00:40:38] book Under Siege about how the government tried to put the Trump family out of business and what they did to people. And as I listened to the chairman, and I listened to you, Jenny Beth, I mean, it was a disgrace. I had to sit with President Trump on February 10th and go through polls with him as he's sitting there watching the Senate try him on impeachment charges. And I'm sitting there reading a survey. I said,

[00:41:03] do you realize 63% of the voters want you to, Republicans, want you to run against Joe Biden again? And I'm sitting there looking at the polls and saying, you realize if you run against him, when he fails, you'll beat him. And that was, I said, it was like Ronald Reagan. For those of us who are old enough to remember when we volunteered for Ronald Reagan, it was like, if the Reagan lost the nomination to Carter, he would come back and beat Carter. I said to President Trump, you will come back and win.

[00:41:29] But the Democrats must have similar polls because everything they threw at him, they tried to take away his business. They tried to take away his civil rights. They tried to put him in jail. These were serious prosecutions. And he had a lawsuit going of $10 billion that instead of him taking a settlement to restore what his family and his, you know, him personally, I mean, I had to sit with

[00:41:56] him and Melania to go through polls. And you're like, the voters want your husband to run again. And then by the time we had won Super Tuesday and we removed the numbers, six out of 10 Americans, before Joe Biden got out, a monthly poll that I had, six out of 10 voters thought all these prosecutors were about Trump to stop him for president, for being president again. It was so transparent and it was so corrupt. And our government should never be part of that again.

[00:42:25] I got in September of 2024, I got subpoenas from the Department of Justice going after my contracts to poll for Likud and overseas clients doing polling in other countries, nothing to do with the United States. And it just totally disappeared after we won the election. It was a disgrace. And we had to spend six figures, my brother Jim and I, our firm, we had to spend six figures to hire

[00:42:49] legal counsel to find out what this was about because, you know, it was just totally Biden corruption where they were just, I was Trump's pollster and they were targeting us. And we went through the same thing in January 6th where fortunately we were able to take over Congress and that prosecution disappeared. So, so, you know, there's a woman in Colorado who's just recently

[00:43:14] released or is going to be released from prison because the governor is going to commute her sentence. And there's another guy, Jim Troop is a long time friend. He was trying to defend the election integrity in Wisconsin where there was proven corruption, but no remedy, proven corruption of a couple hundred thousand people that were permanently disabled, should not have voted. We're saying they were. And, you know, in the meantime, the, the attorney general in Wisconsin is prosecuting Jim to this day

[00:43:44] because it helps him win in her Democrat primary, uh, uh, for Wisconsin governor this year. So he's prosecuting Jim because Jim, Jim was a Trump supporter. So this, this is really dangerous territory. If we don't stop it now, the continued weaponization, but if Kamala Harris would get back in, uh, all sorts of these Democrats, your Senator in Georgia also has already promised to impeach Donald Trump. If he's reelected,

[00:44:14] what's he going to impeach him on? I mean, this is like, this is like legalized corruption. This is, this is what you get in third world countries, not in America. Yeah. Go ahead, Josh. I was going to say, it's the sort of thing that happened in the old Soviet union. Uh, we're going to figure out what the crime is later on, but we know you're guilty of something, right? Yeah. Yeah. Absolute disgrace. Yeah. It's absolutely horrible. And I had to go through the,

[00:44:39] before the January 6th committee, um, Tina Peters, that's who you're talking about from Colorado. I, I think that as soon as they decided they were going to release her early, she should have been released that day. Why make her spend another hour inside of that prison? Her, she's a gold star mom. Her son died for our country. And this is the way our government, it's not the federal government in

[00:45:04] her case. It's the state of Colorado. That's how they're thanking her. It's despicable. All she wanted to do is to make sure that the elections are secure and to make sure that the machines were doing what they're supposed to be doing. And every American, regardless of your party, should want to make sure that the votes are being counted properly. And Josh, you, you know, this, um, in Georgia, the Democrats cared about that before 2020 and they may point fingers at us and say, well,

[00:45:33] you weren't there in 2020 or 2018 paying attention to the things that, that we cared about. And they're right. We weren't there the way that we should have been, but you know what? Some of the concerns that they had about the machines, about making sure that there is somebody overseeing the secretary of state when the secretary of state is on the ballot. Those are things, those are lessons that we've learned. And you just were talking about it earlier. We need bipartisan oversight in Georgia

[00:46:01] when the secretary of state is administering his own election. And in the secretary of state, no matter who they are, should want that so that you don't have the questions at the end of the election. And I'm just glad this has happened. And, and I am hopeful that the people who really suffered like, like Tina Peters, Mike Roman, John Eastman, the ones who are indicted, especially, I hope that

[00:46:28] they're able to, to be made whole financially, even if they never get that time back. Um, okay, let me switch gears a little bit. We, we only have, we have a little tiny bit of time left. So let's kind of do a lightning round. Um, John Watson versus the, and really, I, yeah, I guess it's for

[00:46:52] John Watson versus, uh, the RNC is a pending case of the Supreme court. The decision is expected by the end of June, it could eliminate mail ballot grace periods for 15 States as a pollster who models these. Do you think that would change modeling? And how do you think voters would respond to that? So John, you take it and then I'll let Josh reply as well. I think that's mostly those States that

[00:47:15] don't have voter ID and the ballots keep coming in. They keep coming in after the elect. And I think it'd be great for the democracy just to, you know, most countries in the world, you got to vote on election day with voter ID. You don't have these mail-in ballots, uh, because it's just, there's, there's just too much room for fraud and corruption. So hopefully they decide that if it's, if a ballot's

[00:47:40] not there on election day, it can't be counted. So, uh, we need to, we need to, we need to restore integrity to our election system and whatever we do. So hopefully they do that. So. And Josh, what do you think about that, that case? It's incredibly consequential, um, because if we can get clarity that election day actually means that that's the day that we have the election, um, it's important, not, not because of who's up and who's down, but because you get the finality in the

[00:48:09] process, this stuff where the election drags on week after week, after week, whether the election was fair or not, the perception that is created among the public is, well, the result was this on Tuesday, but now it's something else, seven days or 15 days or 30 days later. And again, the reference was made about, you know, do we want to be a first world country or a third world country? Third world countries take months to tell you who's won an election. Uh, we ought to be able to tell people

[00:48:38] who's won right away. And that means you finish counting votes on election night. Absolutely. Okay. Josh and John Kamala Harris has been going viral. Let's listen to what she said recently. Let's engage in a good old fashioned round table where we agree there are no bad ideas and let's invite then approaches and ideas that are about, for example, Supreme court reform,

[00:49:05] including the notion of expanding the court. How do we push for statehood for Puerto Rico and DC? How are we thinking about the electoral college? But you know, frankly, we've got to neutralize this red state cheating. She's floating court packing electoral college reform, which will just ruin the electoral college and the way the founders set up elections, especially for president.

[00:49:34] She's publicly outreached over the redistricting decision in Virginia. Um, Josh, what do you make of what she's saying there? And then John, I'll have you respond as well. Well, Democrats are looking at the electoral map that Donald Trump has created and things are only going to get worse for them after the 2030 redistricting because of where the growth in this country is occurring. They're not going to be

[00:50:00] able to win, uh, presidential elections. They're not going to be able to go. Their go-to for decades was to run to the court and get the court to give them the wins they couldn't get in Congress. And so, uh, that's why one of the questions on our primary ballot today we're asking our voters about is, do you support a constitutional amendment to limit the Supreme court denying justices? Um, these are crazy ideas, but what I think people need to realize is they're very real.

[00:50:29] This could happen. We're one election away from them being in a position to abolish the filibuster and pack the court, um, or grant statehood or do all these other crazy things she's talking about. So while it may seem pie in the sky, these are real threats that we've got to take seriously, which is why this November election is so critically important. And John, I tell you, I totally agree with the chairman, but I'll tell you what's scary is

[00:50:54] we have a new poll that's coming out this month and her favorable rating in the country is 47 favorable, 48 unfavorable. And, and in the Democrat primary among Democrat primaries, she's ahead 20 nationally. Now it won't happen nationally, but she has 28% of the vote. Newsom 16, right? And you've got AOC and others at single, Buttigieg next, and you've got others in single digits, but she can resurrect

[00:51:20] herself and run for president. And that's what she's trying. But the way she just told you, if she had been elected, if God didn't let Donald Trump win that last election, if she had been elected, these are the things she'd be doing right now. She would be advocating all those crazy ideas and, uh, the democracy and the Republic wouldn't recover. We wouldn't know. We wouldn't recognize them. One of the other things they do is they count illegals in census for congressional seats,

[00:51:49] which rips off all the, you know, the ineffective. You're a citizen and you want to be counted, you know, for your share of congressional votes. Well, she's going to have illegal immigrants and open borders. She was the border czar. I mean, that was the Biden Harris, you know, registration program for the Democrats. Open the country up to all these other foreign countries, let them come in and then we'll, you know, give them money and then we'll let them vote. That's what she still stands for.

[00:52:16] That's, that's a real scary proposition. It is terrifying. And those numbers you just quoted there, John, really, really terrifying. All right. Last topic of the day. Maryland is sending primary ballots to voters today because of errors in ballots that already went out. President Trump posted about this in relation to the Save America Act on Saturday. And then recently, I think yesterday,

[00:52:40] he said that Maryland, um, the, I, I think that he, I've got the exact quote here. I know it's up on the screen. Maryland sent out 500,000 illegal mail-in ballots. They got caught and now they're sending out 500,000 more. And nobody knows what happened with the first 500,000. He's calling on the attorney general and the department of justice to launch an immediate investigation. Josh, big

[00:53:04] picture. Is the election integrity fight getting better or worse as we head into November? And what do you make of these, these ballots in Maryland? Well, I'll answer the first question. I think the election integrity battle is getting better because I think more Republicans are awake now to what is going on and understand the issues that, uh, continue to plague us. I mean, we talked about

[00:53:31] some of the good things we've done in Georgia. We've got a lot more to do here. Um, in the presidential election, we had the Democrats, uh, in Fulton County open election offices the Saturday and Sunday before the election to allow people to hand walk in absentee ballots, which Georgia law says nothing about. Um, so they're going to keep doing these things. Now what's going on in Maryland is insane, frankly. I mean, I don't know any other way to say it. And the president is absolutely right to call

[00:54:00] for some federal oversight since state officials apparently are unable or unwilling, uh, to do anything to reassure the public that this is going to be a fair election. John, what do you say? It's, it just heightens the mess, but I agree with the chairman that thank God the Republicans have woken up to this. Thank God we have president Trump and you know, the president and he's listening to you. He's trying to give us honest elections and, uh, the media, the liberal media and the

[00:54:27] Democrats are just doubling down on deranged corruption. And so we have to protect our democracy. And John, you're right. We do need to be thankful to God for president Trump. And we talked about that yesterday on the show and over the weekend at the rededicate 250, um, ceremony, that whole thing talked about the need to be looking towards God. And as you said that, I just think it's just a good

[00:54:52] reminder. We need to be making sure that we are praying for our country every day as we head into election day, but always because we want God to bless our country. John McLaughlin and Josh McCune, thank you both so much for being here. I really appreciate you being here today. Thank you. Thank you for

[00:55:11] having me. And you can follow John at J M C G G. Uh, John, John, what is your X ID? I took away, uh, took, took out the vowels. J M C L G H L N at AOL.com. Got it. And then what, and then your, your website, what is your website? That's easier. McLaughlin online.com. There we go. And Josh,

[00:55:36] what about you? How can people follow you on online? Um, on X, I'm just at Josh McCune, and then you can check out what we're doing at the Georgia Republican party at G A G O P.org. Gentlemen, thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thank you. All right. Before I let you go one more time, you've got to call the Capitol switchboard at two Oh two, two, two, four, three, one, two, one. You're calling your Congressman this week, and you've got two messages pass the save America act

[00:56:05] again and attach it to every bill that comes out of the house right now. Get the Senate, put the pressure on the Senate. So they will send it to the white house. Then, um, also tell them no, no to the dignity act, no amnesty, not now, not ever. Then thank the white house, go to whitehouse.gov forward slash contact. Tell president Trump, you appreciate him standing up for the save America act

[00:56:33] and urge him to veto legislation that does not have the save America act on it. For more information on the save America act, go to pass the save America act.com. And we put those numbers on the website up on the screen there. Scott Pressler and I are hitting the road again to advocate for the save America act. We're going to be in Maine on May 30th and the 31st. Then we're headed to Nevada

[00:56:58] on June the 13th and 14th. If you live in those seats, join us. You can go to events.teapartypatriots.org to RSVP. Again, that is events.teapartypatriots.org to RSVP. And finally, let's look at what President Trump, the builder, did today as he was giving a construction update on the new ballroom.

[00:57:23] Be another building like this built. I built a lot of great things, but there will never be anything like this built. And what we have is the roof is dead flat with absolutely nothing but strength on it. It's very strong steel. It's drone proof and it's meant for our military to be able to stay on it. You get a view of Washington. Also for the drone building capacity. Some of that takes place

[00:57:49] right down here. You can see the very large piping and the other things. It's a very complex building. It's all knit together. The roof goes with the ground floor. The ground floor goes with the roof. The roof also goes down into the basement. Everything is connected, intertwined, elevators, heating, air conditioning. It's one building. That's why we're trying to explain that. This is one

[00:58:14] well-knit building. The next time you come here, those columns will be standing even taller. How long did it take to design the underneath? Like you said, kind of the military was like, what was the architecture? Actually, the underneath part's a good question. It's far more complex than the upper because what you don't see are the floors that are beneath here. And they have very, very important rooms in there, the most important. This was the one opportunity for the military to do

[00:58:41] something. You know, they came. Normally I'd build a ballroom on flat land. I wouldn't have any of this. I'd have a, it would have been built. I would, I'm very fast. I'm a very fast builder. We're way ahead of schedule here, but we went down six stories. So it's actually far more complex than what's, the easy part is up. But again, we have a drone proof roof. We have all, it's all sealed. And all of this that you see is totally sealed. And we use it as a drone port. We can have unlimited

[00:59:11] drones up there and drones are what's happening right now. Thank you all very much. You know, that's one of the things I love the most about the president. He's a businessman, he's a builder, and he completely understands that aspect of the world. I watched the day that he was putting the flagpoles up on the White House lawn and in the front and the back of the White House. And he talked about how the polls were constructed. He understands this. And when people

[00:59:41] say that people who don't understand President Trump or don't understand the way that he does politics, they need to go back and understand he's a builder at heart and he loves building buildings and businesses. And what he's trying to do right now is rebuild our country. And I appreciate that very much about him. If you enjoyed today's show, be sure to check out our episode on the Save America

[01:00:05] Act with slash DHS funding. We did that with Cleta Mitchell and Rosemary Jinks. And you can find it at the JennyBestShow.com. And we have the link on the screen right now. You can find this and other episodes at JennyBestShow.com, as well as Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Instagram, X, and your favorite podcast platform.

[01:00:34] The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots Action. For more information, visit TeaPartyPatriots.org.