Special Session with Bryan Schott

Rep. Celeste Maloy and Democrat Kent Udell met at Utah Tech University in St. George for the only televised debate in Utah's new 3rd Congressional District, and Bryan Schott watched along live with commentary, fact-checks and viewer reactions.

The verdict? Boring.

Maloy, the incumbent, only needed to avoid stumbling, and she did. She leaned on her voting record and some well-worn talking points. Udell landed a few zingers, including "billionaires playing Minecraft" with data centers and a sharp comeback on forest management. But he passed up clear chances to make his case against her, most notably on her role in the public lands sale provision.

Utah finally has a competitive congressional race, and Tuesday night the two candidates met on the debate stage.

Democrat Ben McAdams and Republican Riley Owen faced off at Salt Lake Community College in the Utah Debate Commission's 1st Congressional District debate. It was the first debate for the new Democratic-leaning seat created after a court threw out the Legislature's gerrymandered map. We watched it live, and this episode is the recording of that livestream.

The debate was mostly polite. The two agreed on more than you'd expect from a Democrat and a Republican in 2026. But they split on tariffs, the national debt and the maps that created the district.

In this episode:

In this episode:

Drew Ballard is a classically trained pianist with a 6,500-song repertoire who spent over a decade performing in piano bars and has recently turned that same instinct for what makes a crowd sing along toward political parody.

Known online as Druby.tunes, Drew produces biting takes on well-known songs aimed at corporate exploitation and government malfeasance in Utah.

We talk about the leap from concert competitions to bar requests, the data center fight that pushed him into activism, his songwriting process, and what it's like being a leftist vegan atheist from a Mormon farm family in central Utah.

Follow Drew on social media: @drewbie.tunes

On this episode:

One year after Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University, host Bryan Schott sits down with journalist Jared Holt to unpack the battle over Kirk's legacy — and how it's been playing out very differently depending on who's telling the story. On one side: a sanitized, martyr-like version of Kirk pushed by Turning Point USA and Fox News. On the other: a mocking, AI-generated "Kirkification" meme culture that has spread across the internet, and a conspiracy-fueled counter-narrative led by Candace Owens that has put Turning Point on the defensive for most of the past year.

Holt traces Kirk's evolution from a "watered-down," establishment-friendly college-campus conservative in the 2016 era to the harder-edged, immigration-focused figure—and MAGA "kingmaker"—he'd become by the time of his death, arguing that turning his assassination into a political weapon against the left was, in a sense, the most faithful tribute to what Kirk actually stood for. The two also discuss whether anyone (Jack Posobiec? Nick Fuentes?) can fill the vacuum Kirk left in a MAGA movement Holt describes as increasingly disjointed and without a clear center of gravity; how right-wing and conspiracy-minded audiences are approaching the Tyler Robinson murder trial differently; and what to watch for at this week's UVU memorial event, emceed by Glenn Beck.

Jared Holt on Bluesky

Posting Through It Podcast

Open Measures

On this episode of "Special Session":

On this episode of Special Session:

(This is a recording of a livestream that aired on 9/25/2026)

In this episode:

(This is a recording of a livestream that aired on 8/19/2026)

Bryan Schott sits down with G. Elliott Morris—former lead data editor at 538, now running the election-data newsletter Strength in Numbers and the forecasting site 50 Plus One—to dig into a trend reshaping red-state politics: Democrats stepping aside so an independent can take on the GOP one-on-one.

They start with Morris's recent analysis of Montana's three-way Senate race, where independent Seth Bodnar is outpolling Democrat Alani Bankhead against Republican Kurt Alme—and only pulls ahead of the Republican once the Democrat exits the equation. Bryan draws the direct line to Utah's 2022 Senate race, when Democrats cleared the field for independent Evan McMullin against Mike Lee, and the two trace the same dynamic playing out in Nebraska with independent Dan Osborne.

From there, the conversation widens into the numbers driving the 2026 midterms: Trump's state-by-state approval collapse (including in Utah), the "affordability problem" dragging down his presidency, and why Morris's forecast gives Democrats an 85% chance of retaking the House and a 55% chance of flipping the Senate—plus how mid-decade redistricting has already cost Democrats roughly six House seats.

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