In this episode of The Jenny Beth Show, political commentator and former Newsmax host Steve Cortes dives into the critical issues shaping the 2024 election. Focusing on key battleground states, Cortes highlights how inflation and immigration are dominating voter concerns. He explains that while Donald Trump’s policies on these issues resonate with voters, the tight race against Kamala Harris persists due to media bias and her protection from scrutiny. Cortes emphasizes the importance of exposing Harris’ radical policies, particularly on energy and the economy, to ensure a Trump victory in 2024. Cortes also discusses the emotional toll inflation is taking on American families, particularly when it comes to skyrocketing food prices. He reveals polling data showing a growing pessimism among voters about their economic future and stresses the need for early voting and grassroots mobilization to counter the Democrats’ strategy. With a focus on real-world issues like energy, food prices, and economic hardship, Cortes outlines how Trump can secure a second term if voters are informed and motivated to take action.
In this episode of The Jenny Beth Show, political commentator and former Newsmax host Steve Cortes dives into the critical issues shaping the 2024 election. Focusing on key battleground states, Cortes highlights how inflation and immigration are dominating voter concerns. He explains that while Donald Trump’s policies on these issues resonate with voters, the tight race against Kamala Harris persists due to media bias and her protection from scrutiny. Cortes emphasizes the importance of exposing Harris’ radical policies, particularly on energy and the economy, to ensure a Trump victory in 2024.
Cortes also discusses the emotional toll inflation is taking on American families, particularly when it comes to skyrocketing food prices. He reveals polling data showing a growing pessimism among voters about their economic future and stresses the need for early voting and grassroots mobilization to counter the Democrats’ strategy. With a focus on real-world issues like energy, food prices, and economic hardship, Cortes outlines how Trump can secure a second term if voters are informed and motivated to take action.
Twitter/X: @CortesSteve | @jennybethm
Steve Cortes (00:00):
Get your friends and family, get your circle of influence, whether it's work or church or mom's playgroup, whatever it is, people who you believe are on our side, be a little bit of a pest and get them to vote.
Narrator (00:13):
Keeping our republic is on the line and it requires Patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms. Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. She's an author, a filmmaker, and one of time magazine's most influential people in the world. But the title she's most proud of is Mom To Her Boy, girl Twins. She has been at the forefront fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade. Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny Beth Martin (00:45):
In today's episode, I'm joined by former Newsmax host and political commentator, Steve Cortez. We dive into the biggest issues shaping the 2024 election from the impact of inflation and immigration on battleground states to why Donald Trump's message continues to resonate with voters. Stay tuned for a compelling discussion on the future of our country, Steve Cortes Inc. So much for joining me today.
Steve Cortes (01:09):
You bet, Jenny Beth. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Jenny Beth Martin (01:12):
So you've been doing a lot of polling and message testing around the country to figure out what people are thinking and to figure out the temperature of the election and what is that showing you? What are people thinking?
Steve Cortes (01:24):
Sure, Jay be, we've done a bit of national polling, but we've done really extensive ballot ground state polling, and now the seven traditional ballot ground states that we believe are in play and will determine this election. And what we found through that very extensive polling is that by far the two biggest issues are what I refer to as the two i's each are immigration and inflation, and they switch places sometimes as to which one is the number one concern, but they are always in every poll we've done the number one and number two, and also in every case Jenny Beth, they are far separated from the number three and four issues. So in other words, those are just the dominant themes and sometimes we can use different terms. We can say border and economy, but regardless of what the terms are, it is the economy and sovereignty over this country and immigration, which are certainly top of mind for voters.
Steve Cortes (02:12):
Now, thankfully for Donald Trump and for those of us who want to see him serve a second term, when we then poll about the issues related, the specific policies related to those issues and the subsets of those issues, voters strongly prefer his messaging and his policies on these issues. But then that also might bring up the natural question is, well, okay then why are these races tight? And they are tight races right now. We saw a reasonably tight race when Biden was still the nominee, but Trump up in the swing states, but not by a lot up three to 4% generally in the swing states before he was effectively deposed by the power brokers of the Democrat party. Well, since Kamala Harris has been anointed and really coordinated by the Democratic party, because of course she wasn't elected by any primary voters, not in 2020 and not now, she has tied in that gap.
Steve Cortes (02:58):
What I would point out though is that she's doing better than Joe Biden certainly, but it's because she took voters away from undecided and from people who were formerly supporting the RFK. She has not taken away voters from Donald Trump. Donald Trump has been very sticky in ballot ground state polls, both the ones that I'm running and the credible public ones that are out. There's been very sticky around 47%. But again, it leads to the natural question of if he's leading significantly in terms of policy on the top issues, why is he not leading significantly in terms of the horse race for the fall? And I really believe that the issue is that it's twofold. Number one, Kamala Harris has been thoroughly protected so far by the corporate media, by a very corrupt, very biased corporate media in this country. She has done almost zero live interactions.
Steve Cortes (03:45):
Well, she's done zero live interactions, almost zero interactions period with the press she's done none with a skeptical press or with a press conference where she faced an array of questions and have to answer them in a live fire basis, which is very much a contrast of course to how Trump and Vance are behaving and performing on the campaign trail, make them available constantly to regular citizens to highly adversarial media. So that's part of it is that she's been protected. But I think the second part is most Americans, quite frankly don't know who she is. That's just the reality. And I believe that in the coming weeks, the more we expose who she is to them, the more we expose that she's a California Marxist, we're going to see that gap widen again. So I'll be the first to concede that she's closed. The gap there has absolutely been a lift to bring this race into effectively a tie across the battleground states.
Steve Cortes (04:33):
But I also firmly believe that she's so out of step with regular Americans, particularly in battleground states. And I also believe that she's so untested coming from that Democrat party machine in California, she really didn't get very much screwed me in 2020, neither in the primaries where she could perform miserably and was out too early to really sort of undergo the battle of a primary campaign. And then she was largely ignored in the general election campaign. So I also believe that once we expose who she is, what her agenda is, what a California Marxist she is, and once she's really tested particularly in the debate, and it looks like there'll be at least one debate, thankfully, I hope there's more that the American people will realize that she's not good for their national security, not good for their street safety, and certainly not good for their pocketbooks prosperity.
Jenny Beth Martin (05:23):
What is it that the don't know about her? You said that when you're testing you see that people like Trump's policies and they align with his messaging. Do they know that it's his messaging that they're aligning with or just broadly speaking policies that he's stating and then what is it that we need to teach people about Kamala?
Steve Cortes (05:46):
Yeah, no, they don't necessarily recognize the policies as being Trump's or the negative policies as being communists. And so that's where I think we have a lot of work to do. Those of us who are full-time in this game, also just regular Patriots out there who are rolling up their sleeves and getting to work who don't do this for a living but care deeply about this country. And to be specific with you, for example, when it comes to energy policy, Kamala's trying to really have it both ways, right? Of course, when she ran in 2019, the 2020 primary, but she didn't even make it to 2020 because she dropped out before Iowa never got a single vote. But in the 2019 beginnings of that Democratic primary, she really tried to run as one of the most leftist members of the already radicalized Democrat party. And in part of that platform for her was saying she wanted to ban fracking.
Steve Cortes (06:29):
I mean, fracking has been miraculous for this country, what it has done for our national security because we're not dependent on foreign oil any longer, particularly from the volatile Middle East, it's been an absolute economic boon, particularly to some of the places like Western Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Texas ref fracking has been used so successfully. But most importantly of all, it's been such an economic benefit to just regular Americans who have been able, at least before Joe Biden, have been able to count on plentiful affordable energy to fuel our lives, whether it's factories, farms, or just individuals soccer moms and dads driving their kids around. So it's hard to overstate how important fraction has been in the United States. Kamala Harris said, and this was a quote, she said, there's no question I will ban fracking. She's now trying to backtrack on that without any reasonable explanation by the way, of why she's backtracked.
Steve Cortes (07:17):
But I think the more we can expose that to the American people, the more we do that through earned media, through paid advertising, to get that message out to folks and say, Hey, the energy situation has been tough already in the last few years for you because of what Joe Biden did remember his first action in taking office, his very first action as president of the United States was to ban pipelines so harmful to this country, so harmful to our national security, to our economic prosperity. And yet he prioritized that as his first action in office. And Kamala Harris owns that record. She owns the whole record of omics, but including the anti-energy policy. So energy has been a sore spot for Americans in recent years. The average price at a gallon of gasoline at the pump is over a dollar higher now than it was in Colin Harris was sworn in as vice president of the United States.
Steve Cortes (08:04):
That's bad enough. But Jenny Bev, I would posit that it can actually get much, much worse because her energy policies are more radical than Joe Biden, even if she's trying to right now equivocate and claim otherwise. And again, I think the more we communicate that to the American people, the better off Trump will be, the better off this country will be. I would also add this, by the way, I focused on energy prices, but one of the things we found in polling, and this frankly surprised me at first, is that food prices are far and away the most irritating aspect of inflation to Americans. And the reason I say it surprised me is most people spend far more on their mortgage or on rent than they do on food. And so I thought that would be the number one issue is housing affordability because it's just a much bigger bill for the vast majority of people.
Steve Cortes (08:48):
But believe it or not, that comes in second typically when we ask about economic concerns. But what comes in first every time, every single time is food prices. And I think what's going on there, Jenny Beth is even though you spend more on rent and inflate on rent and mortgage prices, and that has been terrible under Joe Biden, mortgage rates for example, have more than doubled under Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, but I think Jenny Beth, there's a frequency bias going on here is what I've determined and through our polling and some focus groups as well. What I mean by that is you pay that rent or that mortgage check once a month and you might be angry about it that day, but then you sort of get over it, whereas you buy food throughout the month. For example, I looked this up and this wasn't my survey, but a lot of your credible surveys out there show that women, particularly if they have a household, that they have husband and children, they buy food 10 times a month.
Steve Cortes (09:35):
So in other words, they're getting angry, they're being shocked at their food prices every three days versus just every 30 days. And so I think that that frequency aspect is what drives that incredible anxiety and irritation about food prices. And of course also, everybody needs a place to live, but everybody also has to eat. These are not luxuries we're talking about. These are the staples of life, the necessities that people are really struggling to afford right now in America. So again, Kamala Harris owns that record. We need to make sure that we as Republicans, as conservatives, as America first activists, we need to make sure that we properly assign that blame to her, that it's important. She's trying to run as a change agent, which is really something for somebody who's an incumbent vice president for three and a half years, but the media is doing everything they can to assist her in that subterfuge, in that slide of hand to try to fool the American people that she's something new.
Steve Cortes (10:34):
And again, she may be new to a lot of Americans who don't pay a lot of attention to politics, but she's obviously not new to the policies that have inflicted so much pain in America. And if we do our job of exposing this in the coming weeks, I do believe that Donald Trump's going to win. But I want to caution people also. Listen, I think he's going to win, but I think it's going to be really tight. And anytime I hear people, even when Biden was about, when I heard talk of a landslide, I said, that's nonsense. Okay? And I believe the idea that we can pick up new states outside of the seven states is nonsense. Also, it's a waste of energy that's simply not going to happen. Can we do that over time? Can we do that by 2028 by 2032? Absolutely. But in terms of the 2024 election, I promise you it is going to be tight.
Steve Cortes (11:16):
I think we can prevail. Okay? I'm not being in any sense pessimistic, I think we will prevail. But I also want to encourage everybody to zero complacency. Again, roll up your sleeves, get to work, whatever your platform is. And you may have a relatively small platform, or you may have a huge platform in terms of your influence, but whatever your platform is, work to make sure that you convince people to vote and to vote early. If they're not registered, get them registered right now. And then this is something new for a lot of us on the political right, because we believe in game day voting. And by the way, listen, I wish those were the rules, okay? Those are not the rules. We have to play the game right by the rules as constructed, even if we don't like them, because the only way we change those rules is by winning.
Steve Cortes (11:59):
And part of how we win is we cannot go into game day as behind as Republicans typically do because we're all counting on voting on game day. The problem with voting on election day is things happen. Terrible weather, you get sick, something happens in your life, boss won't let you leave work, okay? Lots of things happen that prevent people who intend to vote on election day from voting on election day. And again, I'm not criticizing that instinct. As a matter of fact, I think it's correct, and I'd like to get to that place of in-person voting only paper ballots id, all of it. But we only get there if we win. And the best way for us to win is that we have to again adopt some of the tactics, not the philosophy, but some of the tactics of the left and the Democrats. And they have far outpaced us in past elections at early voting.
Steve Cortes (12:43):
So I want to encourage people out there, even if it's not your natural inclination, again, I respect, get your friends and family, get your circle of influence, whether it's work or church or mom's playgroup, whatever it is, people who you believe are on our side. Be a little bit of a pest and get them to vote. Twist their arms, nudge them, encourage them, offer to drive them if they want to do in-person early voting, for example, lemme just say that by the way, personally, I just will not mail my vote. But what I do in Tennessee where I now live is I in-person early vote to make sure that it's bank to make sure that nothing's going to happen on election day to keep me from voting. And so again, not only do it yourself, but drag some friends and neighborhoods, drag some relatives along who you believe are on our side and are going to do that as well.
Jenny Beth Martin (13:28):
Yeah, that's exactly right about the early voting. And I understand, I completely understand concerns about it, and I think that we should be back to a point where we have election day on a single day. But you're right, these are the rules that we're playing by that we have to play by. Whether we like it or not, these are the rules. So we've got to make sure that as we're working within these rules, that we do it in the way that will help us win. And one way to do that is to make sure you get in there and you vote as quickly as you can. That way your vote is cast. If somebody else for some reason tried to cast their vote as you, they can't, they'd get stuck with a provisional ballot. You've already cast your vote. And if you are voting for the Republicans, we're doing this from our 5 0 1 c four.
Jenny Beth Martin (14:19):
So I try to be careful, but if you're voting for Trump, if you're voting for Trump and they know the campaign knows you're going to be voting for Trump, well if you go ahead and vote, that means they can just drop you off of the list and they don't have to communicate with you anymore. It saves money so they can continue to communicate with the people who don't always vote who we have to get out there to vote. So you're actually helping the campaign and you are helping cast a vote for the candidate. You want win.
Steve Cortes (14:52):
Yeah, that is such an important point. Sorry to interrupt. I just want to please, because some folks out there who aren't sort of activists themselves may not understand this if they're just patriots who just love this country and are trying to save it, that both the actual campaigns as well as outside groups who are working on behalf of candidates and movements, it costs an enormous amount of money to effectively chase the ballot of somebody who we know or we strongly believe is a supporter of ours. But until they actually vote, because again, of course who you vote for is not public information, but the fact that you voted is public information
Jenny Beth Martin (15:23):
And
Steve Cortes (15:23):
It saves the Democrats an enormous amount of money when they know that their voters have banked their vote that it's in, you're exactly right. They take it off the list, okay, now we can spend more time, more attention, more money on chasing down the other voters who support us who have not yet banked their vote. So you save the campaign money, you effectively, you've made sure that your vote's going to count no matter what. And again, I believe me, we're on, you and I are clearly on the same page, Jenny Beth, I'm sure a lot of people in the audience are on the same page. I want to get back to in-person voting with ID with paper ballots. But we don't get there unless we win and win overwhelmingly. And so even if we don't like the rules as constructed, them's the rules for right now. And let's use those rules to our advantage because the Democrats have, and let's make sure we use them to win.
Jenny Beth Martin (16:13):
That's right. And I want to say one other thing because people are hearing this, and like you said, they may not be the same way you and I are, where we're working the list and getting out the vote every single time. I've said this a few times and people will say, well, how do you know? You know who voted? The fact is that in pretty much every seat in this country, either locally or at a state level through the Secretary of State's office, consultants, campaigns, candidates, outside groups like ours can go and buy the data to figure out who has voted and who has not voted. So it is available information, and that's how they wind up figuring that out. So it's out there, it's, it's something that is essentially for sale and candidates and campaigns use it. And it's not for sale for consumer purposes, but it is for sale for political purposes.
Jenny Beth Martin (17:13):
And there's one other thing, Steve, you're in the media so you'll completely understand what I'm about to say. I noticed that in 2022 during the runoff election, every single day it seemed like the media was reporting. This many people who were Democrats voted today, and this many people who are Republicans voted today in Georgia. We don't even vote by party affiliation. We don't register by party affiliation. But they had determined who normally votes in a Republican primary who normally votes in a Democrat primary. And then they were counting that sort of like we're in the middle of a game and this is a score. You have no idea how the people cast their vote, but they're almost reporting it as facts. So if we're not out there in the game, it creates this echoing effect that seems like we're behind and we'll lose. You're
Steve Cortes (18:04):
Exactly right. It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It can because there's a certain amount of voters out there, believe it or not, and again, probably not in your audience, there's a certain amount of voters out there who want to vote for the winner. It's important to them to be on the winning team, and that's why there's a lot of poll propaganda. That's one of the reasons I'm doing so much polling is we are doing our polling rigorously and scientifically, we're not putting our thumb on the scale trying to always make it look good for Trump. Again, I just put out a Michigan poll where he is down two now. I think he's going to win Michigan, but again, I don't cook the books. We don't do what's called push polling. We do rigorous scientific polling, but there are a lot of groups out there that absolutely do push polling.
Steve Cortes (18:38):
I would tell you, for example, Bloomberg, which is obviously a huge, incredibly important news organization in America, run by one of the wealthiest men in the world. Michael Bloomberg, of course, liberal democrat, wasn't Republican for a while, but a very establishment Republican now a liberal democrat, Bloomberg morning consult just put out a bunch of polls in the swing states, which were ludicrous cherry bath, okay? It showed Harris on eight in Wisconsin. I mean, that's just nonsense. There's no credible way to make that argument. Showed Harris up, 11 in Michigan showed Harris up four in Pennsylvania. I don't even think that's credible, but that kind of push pulling that propaganda, why does it exist? Well, because they want to try to encourage people or to persuade people that this race is over. They want to discourage Republicans from voting or America first adherence from voting, say that you can't win.
Steve Cortes (19:27):
And they want to encourage their team effectively, Hey, look at the scoreboard. We're up. So you're exactly correct. It's not just done in bowling, it's also done with early voting. And in some states of course you do register by party, so you have a much better idea of who they are. But generally this stuff gets very scientific. And then by the way, the left is just as good as this, if not better than we are on the right. And a lot of folks out there may not like the privacy aspects of this, which I do understand, but believe me, they know a lot about you. We know a lot about you. Generally, we know who you're going to vote for. Your ballot is secret. Of course that's sacrosanct. But with a high degree of accuracy, we have a very, very good idea of who you're going to vote for.
Steve Cortes (20:06):
And so do the depths. This isn't obviously our providence at all. And because of that though, again, that gets to these issues of number one, how much money do we have to spend to try to get you to actually vote if we think you're on our side? But number two, that point that you make, which is key that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy for the left, unfortunately. And so let's fight all of that. And the way we do that is making sure you're registered, getting your vote early, getting everyone around you who you think agrees or do to do the same. If all of us do that, if we have a force multiplier effect, again, even if your circle of influence is just a few people, maybe you just talk politics with a couple of your neighbors and that's it, it still matters. Or maybe you have a very large circle of influence, maybe CEO of a company and you deal with hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people on a regular basis, or you're the pastor of a church and you have a very big literal pulpit to speak about these issues.
Steve Cortes (20:56):
But whatever your circle of influence is, I implore you and ask you to please use it and to realize that this is a very winnable election. And again, the issues favor us. The issues strongly favor us. For example, one question we've been asked a lot, which is really kind of the most foundational question in most elections is are you better off when you have an incumbent running and she is an incumbent even though the media's pretending she's not. So when you have an incumbent running, are you better off now that you were four years ago? That question was largely made famous really by Ronald Reagan all the way back in 1980. And we were in economic doldrums at that time, which are very similar to today's. It's the last time in this country that we had significant inflation inflicted upon America. We were in an economic malaise under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan did a very effective job of asking that very just primary foundational question of Americans, are you better off? It's one of the reasons that he won. He beat an incumbent president. Of course, it's not easy to do.
Steve Cortes (21:54):
Now, that same question, I've been polling on it. I hope Donald Trump asks it more. I don't think he asked it enough to be honest, but I've been asking that same question. Were you better off when Trump was president, particularly the pre covid economy or now, and we are in all of these swing states, Jenny Beth, we're getting about 60 30 most of the time. The worst we're getting is say, 55% saying I was better off then versus 35. Mostly we're getting 60 30. I mean, we're literally doubling people saying, I was better off then. So again, the issue set is in our favor, but we have challenges because even though the issue sets in our favor right now, we're effectively tied. But the issue sets also convince me that ultimately once we expose e Kamala is once the sugar hide dissipates once she's forced to endure at least some scrutiny.
Steve Cortes (22:42):
And I don't know if it'll happen besides the debate, that may be the only time that she's truly scrutinized. I suspect it will be. Unfortunately, Jenny Beth, I just think the media's going to protect her. She's not going to do a real press conference or real interviews, but we'll at least have that one occasion. It will undoubtedly get a Super Bowl sized audience. We see what happened to Joe Biden and it literally took him out of public life after 50 years one debate. So one debate can do a lot, and I hope and believe that that's when she will be scrutinized by the American people and they'll say, okay, number one, she just talks in ludicrous platoons and just word salads to go nowhere and mean nothing. Something that might fly in her hometown of Berkeley at the University of Cal Berkeley faculty lounge, but doesn't work for regular Americans who know they're struggling in their lives right now. But number two, when she does say things that are actually sort of definable and sensible, they are far too left for most Americans to agree with. So I'm confident we're going to get there, but all have us have to do two things. You got to pray and you got to work. Alright. We do those two things. I think by election day we prevail.
Jenny Beth Martin (23:45):
I think you're exactly right with that. And we have this will be airing in a week or more from now. So we just saw at the time of this recording, the interview that she did was CNN, which course got edited down to only be 18 minutes. And as of this recording, the transcript hasn't been released. But even in that, I noticed two things that you were talking about. She does talk in word salads. When they were asking her specifically about fracking, one of the things she said was, my position has not changed. Well, you actually just said your position changed from 2019 to 2020, but now you're saying your position didn't change. It did change your policy position change. So she doesn't even tell the truth. She just throws things out that she thinks will work for her. And then I also noticed that she was talking about how things were difficult over the last decade and talking about Trump. Well, Trump was only president for four years. The rest of the time a Democrat was president. So if things were bad over the last decade for six of those years, it was either her as vice president or Biden as vice president or President Obama. So look in a mirror, but they're letting her get away with it because the follow-up question to that, but Trump was only president for four years. It just sort of let it slide as if Trump has been in charge for a decade.
Steve Cortes (25:16):
Yeah, no, you're exactly correct. And Dana Bash, who conducted that interview, by the way, let me try to be fair. I thought Dana Bash and Jake Taber, shockingly to me did a pretty good job during the Biden debate. And I think it's one of the reasons Biden's no longer the nominee is that they were pretty fair moderators. And I think a lot of us who support President Trump were frankly surprised. I certainly was. I also know both of them quite well. I used to work for CNN, believe it or not. I went there at the request of Donald Trump and for two years was on primetime almost every night on CNNI was effectively the Scott Jennings role that he has now. They're lone conservative that they put out there and everybody teams up on. I think he's doing an excellent job, by the way. And I know from experience's, not an easy job.
Steve Cortes (25:55):
But anyway, so I want to give some credit to Dan Bash in the debate at least being pretty fair. But boy did she revert back to form, to liberal leftist bias form in that interview of Kamala Harris. She did not press her. She didn't press her with follow up questions, for example on fracking. I mean, that's just a layout to say, no, you have changed your position now. Can you explain why? Okay, it's okay for a politician to change a position. Now that's a pretty massive change in just four years, but explain it to us, right? None of those kinds of follow-up questions. And of course there wasn't even time for those kinds of follow-up questions because as you point out, only 18 minutes of total airtime, well, the interviewer talks a lot. Tim Walls was there inexplicably, I guess, as sort of a support pet
Jenny Beth Martin (26:40):
Security blanket.
Steve Cortes (26:41):
Yeah. So very actual talk time. But again, I wish I could tell you, Hey, corporate media is going to hold her feet to the fire. She's going to have to answer the type questions. I don't believe that. I don't outside the debate. So thankfully we'll get at least one debate. It looks like maybe two. There's a lot of machinations and negotiations going on there. But I hope and believe I don't want to be pessimistic. I hope and believe that that will be enough to expose the American people who she really is. And again, another thing that I can tell you from my surveys is the American people, I mentioned food prices, gasoline prices, it gets even broader than that. For example, we pulled the swing state of Arizona, and this was frankly just sad to find out and to learn. It's the reality on the ground.
Steve Cortes (27:23):
We asked, is the American dream attainable? 18% of Arizonans said yes, that is it, 18%. And in case you think, well, maybe Steve has got a bad poll, very similar result from the Wall Street Journal, which has been conducting a poll for over 30 years with the University of Chicago, where they ask, are your children going to be better off than you are? So similar question in many ways, right? And in the American dreams, at least partly about your children, that just hit 80% saying no, it was actually 78% exactly saying no, that children will not be better off than I am. That is the worst by far the worst mark in a survey that goes back 35 years. So the pessimism right now is pervasive in America. And for that reason, I believe that the incumbent party, and to your point, the Democrats have not been the incumbent party in the White House by the time the election was around for 12 of 16 years.
Steve Cortes (28:14):
And the actual incumbent vice president, as much as she pretends she's new to the scene, the incumbent vice president, I believe, will own that blame and will have to wear that pessimism that is so pervasive right now among the American people. And by the way, just even outside of politics, those are just sad statistics that we need to reverse because it's not the history of America. It certainly isn't what made America great. America has always been a country of unbounded optimism, and it's one of the reasons that we are always different from where most of us came from in Europe or in Latin America, right? I mean an entirely different ethos here. We're losing that right now. We're losing it in systemic ways, not in ways that are just temporary. So it's just critical that we reverse all of that. And part of reverse net's not the only aspect, but part of reversing all of that, I firmly believe is electing Donald Trump and electing JD Vance.
Steve Cortes (29:04):
And let me just say a few words if I could about JD Vance, somebody I'm very tight with personally. I worked for him most of 2022 and his Senate run in Ohio. I think he's doing a terrific job on the campaign trail. Talk about somebody willing to take on tough interviews. Almost every day he does an incredibly confrontational interview with CNN or SNBC or nbc, you name it. I mean, this is a guy with the intellect and the guts to say, I can handle these questions. I don't need a teleprompter. I don't need a security blanket of my running mates standing next to me. Even though Trump's incredible doesn't need that. Not only is it crucial, I think for us to elect Donald Trump, of course, but if we do that, we have this incredibly young, vibrant, super smart vice president who I believe will be in the driver's seat to then become president afterward.
Steve Cortes (29:49):
And if we talk about 12 years of Trump, followed by total four years of Trump, followed by eight years of JD Vance, I think we can reverse a lot of those problems. That's so afflict America, like that crisis of confidence that is revealed in my polling and in public polling out there 12 years combined of Trump and Vance as presidents could really do wonders for this country and it's something worth working towards. So there's a lot of reasons to be worried and anxious about the country. I get all of that, believe me, four children, I worry a ton about their future. They are not growing up in the country I grew up in, and that's vaccine and worrisome. But I also believe there are valid reasons to be really optimistic. And to me, the biggest one when I look at the public sphere and the public policy realm is man, 12 years of Trump advance could really do a heck of a lot, so let's make it happen.
Jenny Beth Martin (30:42):
I think that you're exactly right about that. I have a couple other questions, but I want to say something about food prices. I was talking to someone a few months ago, it may have been about a year ago, and this is a mother, she has four children, a daughter and three boys, and the boys are teenage boys and becoming teenage boys eat.
Narrator (31:09):
So they eat. Yeah,
Jenny Beth Martin (31:10):
They eat a lot.
Jenny Beth Martin (31:12):
And you know how you were mentioning that it was surprising to you to find out that the food prices hit harder than housing? I think that there may be two other factors for that. One is the fact that mortgage prices are very difficult if you have variable interest rate loans, so all of a sudden it costs more. Or if you have purchased a house recently and taken out a loan and had to pay that higher interest, but there are a lot of people in this country who were able to lock in a fixed rate at a low rate, and so that mortgage change may not be affecting them as much because they were smart enough and able to lock it in and they have a lower rate. So it's still a good portion of their monthly income, but it isn't as bad as it could be for other people.
Jenny Beth Martin (32:03):
The second thing is what this friend of mine said, she was talking about the cost of food, and she actually started crying and she had tears in her eyes because she was saying she didn't know if she was going to be able to afford all of the groceries at this point, and her children are drinking a gallon of milk almost every day. If it's not every day, it's every day and a half, she's going through a gallon of milk. And I think that part of the reason it hits home so much is not just the fact that it costs more, and that's annoying, but as moms and providers and the one who nurtures your children, you worry about that. Am I going to be able to provide the food that my children need because they have to have this to live?
Steve Cortes (32:51):
And
Jenny Beth Martin (32:52):
That becomes, I think, part of that reason why that bothers people even more than housing.
Steve Cortes (32:58):
Yeah, that makes great sense. And yeah, because you're right, it is emotional as well as intellectual, as well as just being purely sort of rational of this. Cost is a problem. It's also a matter of being a good parent,
Steve Cortes (33:13):
Literally feeding your kids. And by the way, let me put some numbers on that too though, just to be rational. I'm a numbers guy right now. CPI says, and I think there's a lot of problems with the consumer price index's, the way it measures inflation, I think it vastly understates inflation, but even CPI says that since Kamala Harris took off as vice president, that grocery prices are up 20% and that's bad enough, terrific in just three and a half years, but the Biden inherits their own department of agriculture, so kamala's, department of Ag, USDA puts out what I think is much more accurate, and it's called the thrifty plant. So this is grocery prices where they literally put together a basket of common grocery items for a family of four who are trying to be frugal, hence the name thrifty. Okay, so this is not luxury items.
Steve Cortes (33:56):
This certainly isn't going out to dinner. It's not ordering DoorDash that has gone from when she took office, it was $675 per month for a family of four according to the USDA, it is now $975 a month. It's up $300 a month. That's 44% since Kamala Harris took office. That's an extra $75 a week. Now to some families, an extra $75 a week is crushing to them. I mean, it really, really matters to their budget, especially in light of everything else that's going on in their budget. And to your point, if they don't have a locked in low straight mortgage, they're paying rent and the rent keeps getting reset. Since Kamala took office, they're paying rent, car insurance is absolutely soaring. Every price in their life is soaring. Then on top of that, an extra $75 a month just to eat just for survival, it's crushing to a lot of families, and that's why we see that those families aren't doing well.
Steve Cortes (34:47):
We point this out too. One thing I would say about Kamala Harris is, and this is why the Democrats of course pretend to be the party of the working class, but they're exactly the opposite. If you are already very successful, the policies of Harris and Biden might actually be good for you. What I mean by that is let's say you have an extremely valuable home and you either have a super low locked in mortgage or even you've paid for it, it's a paid for home. An inflationary economy is actually pretty good for you then because the value of your house is inflating, if you own a lot of assets, the value of assets generally are inflated. So the very small percentage of Americans who have a tremendous amount of assets, and that's a tiny portion of the country, but people who can live off of their assets rather than off of their pay, they're doing okay in this economy, which is one of the reasons that they're overwhelmingly democratic, which is why we see that, for example, urban, highly credentialed elites, overwhelmingly support, and I see this in my polling that's out there, and all the public polling overwhelmingly support Biden and now Kamala Harris, but the masses of working class people who if they do own significant assets, it's in their 401k and it's for either a rainy day or it's for their retirement decades to now who are living off of their income, who are living off of their paychecks.
Steve Cortes (36:00):
That's again, almost all of America. Those folks are really suffering economically, and they express that to us in the polling. It's obvious in metrics like grocery prices, and it's the most compelling reason that plus open border, the two most compelling reasons why we need a change in leadership, why we need Kamala Harris to be fired from the White House and to be replaced by a second term for dollar trend.
Jenny Beth Martin (36:25):
That's exactly right. And that's $75 a week. That's almost $4,000 a year, and that is extracurricular activities for your children or your family vacation or you're no longer able to save for the future at all that it adds up. It may not seem like a lot on the surface when you see $75 a week, but when you think about it over the course of the entire year, I think that there are probably a lot of families right now who aren't going on vacation or their kids are not involved in as many activities as they want them to be involved in just because they can't afford it,
Steve Cortes (37:02):
Right? No, absolutely. Families are really having to make hard choices, and I think a lot of the important people in society, Jenny Beth, they don't get this, and I'm not sure they even care to get it. And I'm talking about, for example, politicians, corporate CEOs, media mavens in the Acela corridor and newsrooms in Washington DC and New York, because to them, and maybe in their social circles, things seem like they are okay, but they're not okay for wearing glass people. And you're exactly right. People are having to make really hard choices. Can I get my son the new pair of shoes that he really needs for this upcoming season for football season now, or basketball travel team? Can I afford the travel team costs this year? Maybe not, right? These kinds of hard choices are being made all over the country, again, because the necessities have become so difficult to afford.
Steve Cortes (37:51):
And why has that happened? Because of the inflationary policies of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden because of the exorbitant borrowing and spending on boondoggles like these, so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which is really just all green new deal nonsense, a giant scam that benefits their cronies, benefits big business, but has created inflation that crushes regular Americans. That's the reality we're dealing with right now, and we've got to effectively communicate that to the American people. And if we do again, then I think we prevail, but it's our job. It's incumbent upon all of us to be as persuasive and as effective as we can be in making sure that people understand it. Because also, listen, I'll be the first to admit, I spent 25 years as a bond trader before I got into politics. So for me, inflation interest rates, all this is secondhand for most people.
Steve Cortes (38:43):
It isn't economics when we start talking economy, they know that they're hurting. But when we start talking interest rates, when we start talking inflation rates, CPI versus PPI, a lot of people understandably, their eyes lays over, they're like, oh, gosh, I don't get this. I'm not all that quantitative. I'm not the mathematical. So I think the more we put it in really easily digestible, tangible terms, for example, I will use percentages, but I actually prefer to use dollar figures. I just think it's more effective with regular folks, especially if they're not all that statistically inclined. Let's use dollar figures. The more we try to explain complex scenarios and complex cause effects, situations in ways that are easily digestible for people who may not be following financial markets closely or may not be super mathematical, the more effective I think will be at earning their votes because they know they're hurting, right?
Steve Cortes (39:32):
We don't have to explain that to anybody. They know that there's anxiety. They know there's not enough money in the bank account. They know that they cringe at the checkout line at the grocery store or at the gas pump. All of that is known to them. They know that they can't afford a house or they have grown children who are nowhere near being able to afford a house. For example, getting back to my polling housing affordability, we've tested that in every swing state, and we ask, can a middle class family afford to own a home in your state? And in almost every state we get in the 80% range. No. Again, so very similar to that American dream question, will my children be better off? Roughly 80% depending on the state, say no, that have sometimes even higher Arizona, they really have high housing there.
Steve Cortes (40:13):
And Arizona actually, that was 88% said, no, you can't get 88% of America's degree on anything. You can't get them to agree on what month it is. We're in such a polarized country politically, but in the eighties, agree, middle class people can't buy a home and forget about it. If you're young and aspirational and want to get married or you're married and want to have children and want to get in that bigger home, it's just become impossible. And these are because of policy failures. This isn't bad luck. This isn't the business cycle. This isn't just the way things have to be. This is a created crisis, created crises, really plural because of the policies of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, by the way, because we've mostly been talking about the economy. If I could tie that back to the border, Jenny Beth, there's so many reasons.
Steve Cortes (40:57):
An open border is terrible. It's terrible for our street safety, terrible for our national security. We know who the heck is coming into this country. For example, tens of thousands of Chinese nationals who we just take their word for and who they are, they present in many cases, literally paper IDs that they then discard the minute they walk across the border. So it's terrible for a lot of reasons, but it's also terrible economically and specifically related to inflation because millions and millions, and there's been at least 10 million illegal migrants who've entered under Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, they create inflation, for example. They need to be housed, and many of them being housed at our expense, by the way, but what does that do? It drives up housing prices and we're borrowing the money to pay for them, which drives up interest rates, which drives up housing prices even more.
Steve Cortes (41:39):
So it becomes an awful sort of circular situation that is so exacerbated by an open border. So these questions are not entirely separate that in some ways they're inextricably linked the open border and the inflationary crisis in the United States, and we can end both of them. I mean, that's the beautiful thing. There are some problems and challenges that we face in this country that are frankly difficult to solve and maybe are not solvable, say in year one or two, excuse me, of a Trump v presidency. But as far as the border and as far as getting a handle on interest rates, these are problems that we can solve and solve quickly if we make the right decision on November 5th.
Jenny Beth Martin (42:17):
Yeah, it seems probably to the average person, it seems like something that would be very difficult to solve, but it is easily solvable. It doesn't mean that it's going to be solved at the flip of a switch, but a flip of a switch to pass some good legislation and then give that legislation just a little bit of time to kick in, and we'll notice a difference almost, not immediately, but very quickly. And that benefits all of us, whether you're a Republican or Democrat. If we've got a better economy and we've got a secure border, we're all going to be better off.
Steve Cortes (42:54):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And we can't do it particularly, it comes to the border. One of the places where the United States president actually has really significant unilateral power by statute, by the way, because assumed it. I mean, if you read, and I've actually read because I care so much about the issue, read our immigration statutes, and the President has in some ways almost king like power. Now, Donald Trump was often thwarted by the courts who made terrible rulings to try to frustrate him. I talked to him quite a bit about that when he was president his first term, and I always him in some cases, to defy them when they made rulings that were just totally inane and not based in law at all. They're worth defined or at least worth challenging all the way to the Supreme Court. Sometimes he didn't do that. I think that'll be different in the second term.
Steve Cortes (43:37):
I hope it will be, and I'm confident it will be. But to give you a specific example, the president of the United States can refuse entry into the United States for any foreign national for any reason, literally. Okay. Even somebody who is allowed to come to the United States who is coming here on vacation. I mean, he literally, for any reason can refuse any foreign national, and I just only offer that as an example of how vast the powers are regarding the border. And I believe and hope that Donald Trump as president will use those powers wisely and effectively and relatively quickly. Yeah, it's not day one, but it's not day 1000 either. It's not three years in. I mean, it's going to be quickly enough that it will be very noticeable.
Jenny Beth Martin (44:20):
Right. So a couple other questions. You mentioned Arizona and what people there think about the American dream and the cost of housing, the affordability of housing for middle class people. Do you notice any differences between the battleground seats in terms of when you dig into the issues or some things more important in one state versus another?
Steve Cortes (44:46):
Yeah, this is a great question. Arizona and Nevada, the two Western battleground states, housing a much bigger issue in those two states. And that has been, I mean, it's a big deal everywhere, but a bigger deal there. And I would say that the crime issue we found, and in your home state of Georgia, much bigger issue, particularly if we ask any questions related to Lake and Riley, that awful, totally preventable tragedy. Unfortunately, most Americans just don't know that story. They just don't know that this beautiful 22-year-old young woman nursery student was murdered in broad daylight on the campus of a seemingly safe university of Georgia by an illegal alien who didn't just cross the border illegally, but had been arrested twice after crossing the border in the United States and was not deported, arrested both in New York City, which is a so-called Sanctuary City, and then in Athens, Georgia, which is a so-called Sanctuary City, and a very liberal enclave within an otherwise purplish to slightly red state of Georgia.
Steve Cortes (45:44):
They are very, but Georgians are keenly aware of the Lake and Riley story, and because of that, they are more insistent on secure borders and they're more worried about crime, for example. So we do find those kinds of differences. In general, we're not finding significant differences, not in general, but there are certainly things that do pop up. One thing that pops up in North Carolina, and I think this is fascinating, North Carolina, again, our state did liens, conservative, it's a swing state, but it lean red, but it has some really, really liberal cities within it. Places like Asheville, the whole area around the universities around Duke and University of North Carolina, that county very, very liberal. And because of that, North Carolina, and we've poll on this, North Carolina has some municipal and county reparations movements that are going on, and they're pretty significant and literally take money from Hispanic, Asian and white citizens and give it to black citizens for crimes that were committed before any of us were born for things that happened 160 years ago in the United States.
Steve Cortes (46:39):
Kamala Harris is pro reparations, by the way. She's on the record as saying she's pro reparations, and I'm doing my best to get that message out there. I hope the Trump campaign does as well. I think it would be magnificent if he would confront her about this on the debate stage because I don't think she can run away from it. Like some of the other issues where she claims, oh, that was just a 2020 position. She has set it as vice president. She's in favor of reparations. But getting back to the polling in North Carolina, what we find is, I think just because there's an awareness, north Carolinians are over, and Americans broadly are overwhelmingly against reparations, but they are particularly so in North Carolina, and I think it's because they're seeing it literally start to happen in their home state, not statewide, but again, in these sort of liberal enclaves where people want to feel good about themselves by punishing white people for the color of their skin, which of course is about the most big thing you could possibly do is say, I'm going to literally tax you for something you didn't do, but because of your pigmentation, I'm going to tax you and make you paid.
Steve Cortes (47:34):
I can't think of anything more bigoted, but that's what Kamala Harris believes. So let's out her on this. Let's expose her for who she is, and I think if we do that again, that's going to help build the momentum to pop the balloon of this sugar high that the media has created for her.
Jenny Beth Martin (47:52):
And then the last question that I have, unless there's something that I didn't cover you think that I should cover, what do you think the effect of Robert Kennedy Jr dropping out and effectively endorsing while he did endorse Trump? How is that going to affect the Battlegrounds?
Steve Cortes (48:09):
Yeah, listen, it's a great question. And the Trump campaign put out a memo that was pretty convincing, and I think it was Tony Fabrizio. He was a good pollster who believes that it's going to pick them up. One, it's going to pick Trump up 1% in total in the battleground states. I'm a little less optimistic than that. I think it helps Trump, but from my analysis, it's probably more like half a percent. Now listen, half percent can matter. Okay? It can be determinative in these races if they're as close as they were last time, where states were decided by as few as 8,000 votes, right? So 43,000 votes last cycle reverses the entire election in a country of 330 million. So can it matter? Yes, it absolutely can. I'm not quite as optimistic as some people, and here's the reason I think it matters that RFK endorses Trump.
Steve Cortes (48:50):
I certainly want to do my best to try to persuade RFK supporters that they belong with us, that we won't agree on everything clearly, but I think they have much more in common with us than they do the Democrats. Certainly RFK himself has determined that. But here's the problem Jenny about is those RFK supporters tend to be fiercely independent in their mentality. And so even though they supported RFK, they won't necessarily listen to RFK afterward the way Trump supporters would, or the way frankly Kamala Harris supporters would in terms of determining their or swaying their votes. So I think it's helpful. I don't think it's a game changer, but I think he's a super sharp guy in a lot of ways. I've got problems with a lot of what RFP stands for too, but particularly when it comes to issues like medical freedom, I think he's fantastic.
Steve Cortes (49:34):
I would love for him to get some sort of significant role in the Trump administration, particularly as it pertains to FDA, to big pharma. And I should go even further than I guess just broadly in terms of health. I think he's got a lot of interesting things to say. He's extremely rigorous and scientific about it. Not to mention for a 70-year-old guy, holy cow, does he look fantastic? We should all look like him at 70 years old. So he's a role model as well. And so in terms of health, wellness, big pharma, public policy regarding health, I would hope that he gets a significant role in the Trump administration. I think he could do a lot of good for the country.
Jenny Beth Martin (50:07):
Okay. That is helpful to know. And I have met people who support him and I agree with them, especially when it comes to the issues of healthcare and not having lockdowns. And you're right, they are very independent. So I hope that as they now look at the field as it narrows down, that they use that independence to choose the candidate who will support their independence and not try to find a one size fits all solution for healthcare and a whole lot of other problems in our country.
Steve Cortes (50:44):
Yeah, exactly. No, again, I'm confident that it will be helpful. I don't know that it's going to be a massive issue, but I believe it'll be helpful. Yes.
Jenny Beth Martin (50:52):
Very good. Well, did I miss anything that you think we need to cover?
Steve Cortes (50:56):
No, listen, I mean, thank you for the work you are doing and it is so critical. And of course I know you're working all over the country, but particularly effective in Georgia. And you'll look, I believe that we're going to win. But again, I just want to exhort and implore everybody out there. Let's just work our tails off. We have a country to save. We only have weeks to do it. We can do it, but it's going to really take prayer, little work.
Jenny Beth Martin (51:19):
Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Steve. I really appreciate it and I enjoyed our conversation.
Steve Cortes (51:23):
Thank you, Jennifer. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Narrator (51:26):
The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Han, and directed by Luke Livingston. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.
Jenny Beth Martin (51:46):
If you like this episode, let me know by hitting the light button or leaving a comment or a five star review. And if you want to be the first to know, every time we drop a new episode, be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications for whichever platform you're listening on. If you do these simple things, it will help the podcast grow and I'd really appreciate it. Thank you so much.