Just Vice President , and shes also just a total disaster. Shes this craven and calculating political animal, but she spends all her time having to put out fires of her own making, fires of her staffs own making. Shes just a disaster. And one of the sort of signature production things in the show, one of the things that the show does to great effect is that they use every last second of the show, during the end credits of each episode, the image on the right side of the Screen Squishes down a little bit, and they highlight in this while the credits are rolling, they highlight these campaign screwups and their various pr disasters. The end credits are like the best thing in the show. It the end credits in one show might be her ranting to her staff after a puff piece Television Interview turned out to be substantive or her awkwardly trying to connect with High School Students who are visiting the Vice President s office. If you have seen the show, you know about this excellent trickn basically that they do at the end. Heres kind of a perfect example of a veep end credit. This is her greeting people at a party at the Vice President s official residence. Es so you want to mingle . Yeah. Lets go mingle the [ bleep ]. Earnest, life boat association. Got a glass eye. I am so happy youre here. Disabled sports of america. Just had triplets. Triplets, wow, that must have hurt. Unless you had a csection. A triathlete. No hes not. Hello. N liam miller, nasa. Thats an acronym for , national aeronautics. Cr stop it. On the reverend terence clark, church of the living christ. Hes a baker. Christ is risen. Crist is risen. Hes a triathlete. Se no, hes not. Selina meyer, absolutely Iconic American Television figure from the great show veep. Now, this is a person who is not a tv character. His name is hovde. Eric hovde. Hes an actual person running for an actual United States senate seat in wisconsin. Hes trying to unseat democratic u. S. Senator Tammy Baldwin in wisconsin. And in wisconsin politics circles, right now, eric hovdes recent attempt to say the pledge of allegiance really t emphatically to make a big show out of really emphatically and like confrontationally saying the pledge of allegiance has been set to the Closing Creditsy of veep because once you see it, its impossible to not thina of it that way. Watch him try to make it through the pledge here. Im proud to be an american. I love my country. O so lets say the pledge of allegiance together. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States states of america. And to the republic for which it stands, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Amen. God bless america. Go slinger speedway. Thanks, eric. Were all so blessed to be part of the greatest country in the history of mankind, america. Is he waiting until the end of the Marching Band . The part he also belatedly realized was to put his hand on his heart. The Republican Party really desperately wants to take that senate seat in wisconsin. Again, that is the seat currently held by democratic senator Tammy Baldwin. They want that seat. They really want to unseat her. The problem is they have chosen this man as their candidate to try to do it. And he has succeeded in making National Headlines as the Republican Senate candidate forl wisconsin. Thats not necessarily an easy thing to do, but again, the problem is that hes made those headlines for things like this. Well, if youre in a nursing home, you only have five, six months life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is at a point to vote. Now, i am no political expert, but even someone who has never heard of the United States senate before could probably suss out that thats probably not a great political strategy. Yeah, old people shouldnt vote. Old people in Nursing Homes, they shouldnt be allowed most nursing home residents not at a point to vote. After that made headlines across wisconsin and indeed across the country, mr. Hovde tried to make this all go away as a news story but he did it again as if this was an episode of veep. Quote, in recent days, mr. Hovde has tried to clarify his comments. This week, he reiterated his belief that, quote, a large percentage of nursing home uo residents, quote, are not in the mental capacity to vote. And thats cleaning it up. Now, when i said old people in d Nursing Homes shouldnt be allowed to vote, everybody made that sound so bad. Led me clarify. O what i meant is a large percentage of old people in Nursing Homes shouldnt be allowed to vote. Because they dont have the e. Mental capacity for it. There, is that better . Now, i should mention, that description of the worlds most inept effort to clean up a political disaster, that account of that that i quoted from is me quoting from a national story, a New York Times story where i think the headline helps understand mr. Hovdes situatio. Even better because the headline on that story is this. Quote, lawsuit puts fresh focus on eric hovdes comments about t older voters. S what is this lawsuit, you say . Oh, turns out at the same time hes been questioning the menta capacity of nursing home residents to vote, he is also the head of a bank that is a codefendant in a california lawsuit that accuses a Senior Living facility of elder abuse,a negligence, and wrongful death. He is a codefendant in that lawsuit. His bank is a codefendant because it turns out eric hovde in addition to running for senate in wisconsin, he runs a r bank that owns a nursing home that in california has given rise to a fairly gruesome elder abuse and wrongful death lawsuit. At which point youre thinking, wow, that puts a way worse, Wayy Darker Spin on his already inexplicable repeated comments about how we shouldnt allow people in Nursing Homes to vote, because how dare they even try. But youre also thinking, wait, why did you say california . I thought he was running for y senate in wisconsin. Yes, yes, this is another problem that the local news in wisconsin has been trying to tell people about this guy from the very beginning. Back in may 2023, quote, Eric Ni Hovde may run for senate in wisconsin but hes living large in laguna beach, california. T he lives in california. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel basically running the red flag all the way up the flag pole for the Republican Party about this guy before they picked him. I mean, and the detail on it just makes it worse. E hey, look, eric hovde was named by the Orange CountyBusiness Journal as one of its 500 most influential people in Orange County in 2020. In Orange County, california. Where he lives in laguna beach, which is 2,000 miles away from wisconsin. He does run a bank. It is a utah based bank. He runs it from where he lives in laguna beach, california. Where indeed his bank is named , codefendant in a nursing home elder abuse lawsuit and he is running for senate in wisconsin where 18 of the population is over the age of 65. Hes running there by saying repeatedly that people in Nursing Homes shouldnt be allowed to vote because, hey, not like they have it together. V at most, they have six months to live. Why should they be voting . Amen, go slinger speedway. Okay, eric. Ng and i should underscore here how badly the Republican Party wants to win this senate seat away from democratic senator Tammy Baldwin. They really want to win this seat. But inexplicably, this is the guy they picked. And its not just wisconsin. This is a live dynamic right now in the Republican Party in way more places than you would think. Here for example is the a. P. Headline on The Republicans u. S. Senate candidate in pennsylvania. David mccormick is gearing up for a senate run in pennsylvania. But he lives in connecticut. That seems bad. I mean, if you think about a Pennsylvania Senate race, youll recall it wasnt that long ago that republicans lost a shot at a winnable u. S. Senate seat,. S last time around, last election cycle when they ran republican u candidate mehmet oz. T right . Hm Republicans Ran mehmet oz, dr. Oz for that seat in Ra Pennsylvania and democrats needled him relentlessly about a the fact he kind of lived in ne jersey. So whats he doing running in pennsylvania. Ia this time, theyre running a guy who lives in connecticut. He to try to maybe head off the same thing happening again, likb what happened with dr. Mehmet ap oz, they have developed a back story for their candidate this time around who lives in ei connecticut. They have decided hes going to describe himself as someone who started with nothing, who grew up on a family farm in pennsylvania. Ia did he start with nothing . Did he grow up on a family farm in pennsylvania . What do you think . Quote, mr. Mccormick has explicitly said that he grew upr on a farm. He claimed that he had, quote, started with nothing and that he, quote, didnt have anything. He and his campaign have recently described his parents as school teachers. In fact, mr. Mccormick is the son of a well regarded College President who later became re chancellor of Higher Education systems in pennsylvania and in minnesota. David mccormick largely grew up at what is now Bloomsburg University in the president s sprawling hilltop residence which students called the president s mansion. Or he started with nothing, grew up on a family farm. So in wisconsin, republicans are running a selina meyer understudy who is from california whose bank is being sued for elder abuse and says dont let people in Nursing Homes vote. Pe in pennsylvania, republicans are running a guy who lives in connecticut who grew up in a wh literal president s mansion andd said it was a family farm where he was so poor. But wait, theres more. In montana, republicans really, really want to take the u. S. Senate seat there that is currently held by Popular Democratic senator jon tester. One of the things that makes jon tester really popular in a largely rural state like montano is that senator tester is for st real a real farmer, drives the tractor and everything. Republicans have decided to run someone against senator jon tester in montana who is a person from minnesota. Who grew up in the suburbs of st. Paul. Since he has been running against jon tester, though, hes made a big deal of saying that he grew up near farmland. Turns out there was maybe farmland near the Multimillion H Dollar Lake House he grew up in in suburban st. Paul. Thats pretty much just like being a farmer. This follows another quite unusual controversy for this montana Senate Candidate in which he either dropped a loaded gun in a parking lot at Glacier National park and the gun went i off when it hit the ground and he shot himself in the arm, hoar he didnt really shoot himself in the arm by dropping a gun in the parking lot at Glacier National park, but he t nevertheless went to the hospital anyway and while he did tell a u. S. Park ranger that he dropped a gun in that parking lot and shot himself that day, he was actually lying about that to the ranger because really he was trying to conceal the secret truth that he had an unreported war wound that he didnt want anybody to know about. But whatever happened it was definitely near farmland. There was very near, you could smell it nearby in the vicinity. Can i tell you, theres another one. Michigan, Michigan Republicans are thrilled that democratic t u. S. Senator Debbie Stabenow isd retiring in that state. They would love to take that senate seat in michigan. And so cue the headlines out of michigan. Quote, Michigan Republican candidate caught living in florida. This is about republican michigan Senate Candidate mike rogers. His name is mike rogers. This confluence of where he lives and his name led the michigan advance to build the perfect headline for this storyv which is, quote, where is mr. Rogers neighborhood . Mike rogers, again, wants to be the senator from michigan, but he does appear to be registered to vote in florida at his very nice house in cape coral, florida. Where he is registered with the Republican Party of florida, Re Voter Status active. Where is mr. Rogers neighborhood indeed. And in arizona, the senate seat there is another one that republicans would absolutely love to pick up with Kyrsten Sinema retiring. P The RepublicansSenate Candidate in arizona, kari lake, she does appear to live in arizona, which is a big plus for this crop of Republican Senate candidates. Kind of a notable distinction, but in the case of arizona, you need more than that because this, for example, is the new ad that the Democratic SenateCampaign Committee just put out on kari lake as a Senate Candidate in arizona. And the issue of Abortion Righta in that state. Im incredibly thrilled that were going to have a great law thats already on the books. I believe its arf133603. It will prohibit abortion in arizona, paving the way and It Setting Course for other states to follow. This law passed the Arizona Supreme Court said this is the law of arizona, but unfortunately, the people running our state have said were not going to enforce it, so its really political theater. P we dont have that law as much as many of us wish we did. Shes not enforcing the law. We dont have that. The only people who can enforce that law are sheriffs. And we need to start asking the sheriffs. S i havent changed, actually, no. Kari lake is the Republican Partys best idea of who they should run for the United Statee senate seat that they really want to take this year in arizona. Hi but i mean, clock the context, the specifics that she was offering there in that clip. She wants individual sheriffs in arizona to start enforcing the n states 1864 abortion ban. Sheriffs and Sheriff Deputies get out there, get to it. Get out on the streets. Find out whos pregnant. S we want the sheriffs enforcing this. Watch when you cross county lines. Theres a lot going on in the Republican Party right now. And i know that the partys president ial nominee, their mosa recent former president , donald trump, i know he sucks up all the oxygen in the room and for obvious reason he gets all the coverage, all the commentary, but note what is going on in the Republican Party in the trump era apart from him. I mean, just look at arizona for a second. Arizona, theyre not only T Running Kari Lake for senate. This weekend, Arizona Republicans just chose their states representatives to the national Republican Party. You know how its called the li rnc, the Republican National t committee. It is actually a committee. Every state sends two people to be part of the committee that se makes up the rnc, that makes up the national Republican Party. Every state gets two choices. On this weekend, Arizona Republicans picked their two choices. They decided their two choices would be this person, who was literally expelled from the State Legislature recently after only being there for about three months. Heres how that was described in the Arizona Republic. Quote, she was expelled from the republican controlled house just three months into her term. This after she staged an all day live streamed legislative hearing at which her witnesses talked about the many ways in which our elections were supposedly stolen. R the highlight was a scottsdale insurance salesman Making Preponderance free accusations they all accepted bribes from the sinaloa drug cartel. The House Ethics Committee unanimou