The Signorile Report

A quick take on what’s happening as the election comes closer and we start out this week, 28 days before the crucial mid-terms. Republicans are seeing their numbers crashing while Democrats surge. And Trump can’t fill his arenas while rallying.

Thanks everyone who tuned in to the live video. Will see many of you on the radio, on SiriusXM Progres, today and throughout the week.

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Ron (or Rick, which I called him at first, but somehow he became Ron as callers responded him) in South Carolina called my SiriusXM program to tell us all how he left the supposed hellhole of Southern California—northern San Diego—and moved to the supposedly safe, clean and homeless-free Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

When I told him that South Carolina ranks among the states with the highest violent-crime rates, and that its murder rate is significantly higher than California’s, he refused to believe it—even though the numbers come from Kash Patel’s FBI crime data.

And when I told him that where I was sitting, New York City, is one of the safest large cities in America, with crime—including violent crime and murder—much lower than in South Carolina, he was in complete disbelief. Because, you see, his “local television news”—Myrtle Beach includes a station owned by the right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting, known for pushing disinformation—had told him otherwise.

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Where are your numbers? I asked. He didn’t have any and tried to change the subject to immigration—which is their go-to when they’re losing—and I didn’t let him. I shut him down.

What was even more interesting, however, were the calls for the next hour from many people in South Carolina and others all across the country. They told their experiences and crunched the numbers. Some South Carolinians called Myrtle Beach a MAGA hellhole, with people telling me about drug crime and homelessness in the heart of a city of roughly 40,000 people—which you really can’t compare to a large city anyway.

But I was happy to compare because it turns out New York City has a significantly lower crime rate—including violent crime, which is at the lowest in recorded history—than Myrtle Beach.

And Myrtle Beach has had a reputation for high crime for years. Back in 2017, one report listed it as the third most dangerous city in America:

The Safewise Report listed popular vacation destination Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, as the third most dangerous city in America. Lumberton, North Carolina was right behind at fourth on the list.

These people live in a fantasy.

Watch and let me know your thoughts!

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A great conversation with Heather Parton of Salon.com and Digbysblog.net, who comes on my SiriusXM program often. This is a Substack Live in collaboration with Lincoln Square Media (this discussion aired there and here on The Signorile Report this morning) which you all should subscribe to for news and interviews.

Heather and I discussed the news of the of the week, from Trump scrambling dangerously over Iran and North Korea and Tucker Carlson’s goal of creating a new political party to the Natalie Harp scandal and RFK Jr. trying to kill us all.

Thank you Skutt Hope, Tamie Swain 🌊✌🏻🖇️, kathiallyson, June and July, Penelope West, and many others for tuning into my live video with Lincoln Square!

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This is one of those calls to my SiriusXM program in which the caller poses as one thing but is really another.

Bill in Indiana called my show and tried to appear as if he was a centrist Democrat, arguing that democratic socialism only works on the coasts.

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He then tried to deflect to other stories that were actually fabrications—“conjecture,” as he put it—and I had to bring him back to the discussion. Then I had to explain Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Social Security, Lyndon Johnson, Medicare and Medicaid, and how those were democratic socialist programs.

Bill then asked, “Are you comparing the situation we’re in now to the Great Depression?” seeming to admit those programs are good but that we don’t need them now. I had to laugh because the point is that we don’t want another depression.

He then tried to change the subject again, of course.

Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

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As many listeners know, MAGA callers to my SiriusXM program have been few and far between since the beginning of the Iran war, the upswing in inflation, and the overall plunging of Trump’s poll numbers. What used to be a Trump defense or two a day has turned into a trickle—and that’s deprived us of some much-needed laugther.

Rob in Oregon, who called in yesterday, certainly betrays the reason why: They can’t defend Trump when given what are simple facts that everyone knows and realize how pitiful they look.

At one point Rob became speechless, unable to respond to my swatting away his claims. But he did eventually go back into the grab bag and take out yet another empty defense.

I just had the end the pain, as he was just repeating his feeble talking points.

Take a watch and let me know your thoughts!

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As we head into the November elections, Donald Trump’s numbers continue to plunge, and New York Republicans in the U.S. House are sweating. One of them is Nick LaLota, a MAGA Republican who has been all in for Trump. He’s the congressman in New York’s first congressional district, in Suffolk County on Eastern Long Island.

And he will face Chris Gallant, who won the Democratic primary last month and is gearing up for the battle in November. A poll from earlier in the year had Gallant within three points of LaLota—and that was before Gallant won the primary in June.

Gallant joined the New York Army National Guard at 17 and deployed several times to Kuwait. He’s been a union leader and a volunteer firefighter, serving his community for years.

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Gallant is also gay—he and his fiancé both serve in the military—and has been vocal on civil rights for LGBTQ people at a time when the GOP has been passing horrendous bills. LaLota likes to speak as a moderate Republican on queer issues, but his scorecard with the Human Rights Campaign is typically zero, and he’s voted to strip LGBTQ people of healthcare funding.

He also opposed New York’s Proposition 1, a ballot measure that passed in 2024 and enshrined abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and other rights in the state constitution. LaLota sided with the “Coalition to Protect Kids,” specifically targeting transgender people.

Gallant spoke with me on my SiriusXM program about his campaign, the issues facing folks in his district, and why he believes he can beat LaLota. You can check out his campaign here.

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Joe Sudbay, host of “State of the States” on SiriusXM Progress and someone who knows Maine politics inside out, joined to talk about the terrible mess that is now the Maine Senate race—an important race that could decide if Democrats take control of the Senate this fall.

After a bombshell report yesterday alleging sexual assault, Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is facing calls to drop out of the race to take on Susan Collins. Prominent Democratic supporters—from Congressman Ro Khanna to Senator Elizabeth Warren—have pulled their endorsements, and the DSCC has said it would not provide any funding for his campaign. Platner has put his campaign events on hold while he “reflects.”

This came about after a Maine woman, Jenny Racicot, told Politico and CNN that she had dated Platner on and off and that he entered her home one night in 2021 and sexually assaulted her while she was in bed. She said he was intoxicated and would not leave as she tried to push him off and told him to stop. She complied—which is not consent—for her safety.

This comes after many other allegations had surfaced in recent months, from the Nazi tattoo and the toxic, bigoted posts against gays and women on Reddit to reports from other girlfriends of abusive behavior, including one that said he locked her in a room. Supporters dismissed most of them as Platner, an Iraq war veteran, admitted he was struggling with PTSD and apologized. But this is the first actual rape allegation—and it is credible, with documentation from the time including Racicot telling friends and her therapist, and including emails—and it came after Platner had promised supporters nothing else was out there.

Platner denies the allegations outright but said in a video he understands the realities of the allegation’s impact and thus is pausing and reflecting on what to do. It’s hard to see how he continues, with all funding sources and endorsements drying up. What will happen now?

Joe Sudbay, who has been quietly predicting this outcome for some time, spoke with me about it and about how Democrats can still beat Susan Collins.

Thank you Jools, kathiallyson, Natalie Hunter, Susan Von Tobel, Sharon Pettit, and many others for tuning into my live video with Joe Sudbay! Join me for my next live video in the app.

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Well, for weeks I’ve wondered why no MAGA were calling into my SiriusXM show to defend Trump, since for years we’d usually get at least one or two calling every day to try to take me on regarding their Stable Genius. I’ve even trolled them to call recently.

But except for Mark in Texas in early May (who defended Trump on immigration) and Lisa in Michigan in mid-April (who praised Trump on Iran and defended him on the Jesus meme), they’ve pretty much disappeared.

But now here comes John in Arizona, and you have to watch this to get the full sense of the fantasyland he is living in.

He wondered if I’ll be praising Trump when inflation comes down, defending Trump on his comments this week in which he astoundingly said, “I love the inflation,” giving a huge gift to the Democrats. I said that’s likely not going to be happening—certainly with gas prices—for at least a couple of years, and Trump will be on his way out. And people will still have suffered and lost a lot of money.

But why, I asked, are we talking about some hypothetical situation in the future and not the here and now? Trump could launch a bomb or might die in the future. Anything could happen. What do you think about what Trump has done so far and right now?

Did John give Joe Biden that kind of leeway, wondering about the future when inflation eventually comes down rather than focusing on the present? He didn’t want to answer those questions, of course, and then, when I finally, just for the sake of it, gave him his hypothetical—and focused on all the horrible actions Trump has engaged in other than causing a surge in inflation—he veered into other stuff.

By the way, John actually claims he didn’t vote for Trump—I’ll let you be the decider of that—and that he listens to my show “every day.”

But he couldn’t give me any details what I talk about every day, just spouting out a word salad of kookiness. Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

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Thrilled to collaborate with Lincoln Square on this live video, with Joe Sudbay. Great conversation and some bells and whistles. Sorry to say that shortly after we taped this live—which some of you might have seen—Virginia Democrats decided not to go with the most aggressive approach we discussed to throw out the Virginia Supreme Court decision.

The fact that it was in the discussion at all, however, means we’re at least getting them to consider just what this fight means. But we have to keep pushing. Joe and I talked about all that and much more.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe

“I never listen to you, but I do pass in from time to time.”

That was how Mark from Texas began in a call to my SiriusXM program as I was discussing the so-called “Save Act” and the GOP’s bogus claim of “voter fraud. “

It’s the usual passive-aggressive MAGA approach. They don’t want you to think they care what you have to say—but they care about what you have to say.

This one, unlike most, was polite enough, though he did accuse me of “cherry picking” facts when it came to Trump’s brutality. Even just one act of brutally is bad enough, of course. But if we were cherry-picking all the terrible things Donald Trump has done, we’d have over 1000 bushels of cherries!

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First Mark tried to imply that Democrats want undocumented people to come into the country so that they would vote for Democrats. This, of course, is a variation of the racist Great Replacement Theory. But you can’t vote unless you’re a citizen—by law—yet Mark seemed to be implying these people were, when there’s no evidence, and wanted a law against it (though one exists) and then wanted people to promise not to vote for 20 years. It made no sense!

I believe I gently wiped the floor with him in my response, and he then said he just had one thing to add and would get off the phone and “let” me “go.” In fact, he said this more than once, yet just stayed and kept asking questions, all of which I hit back at with truth in my answers.

Twice he called me “intellectually dishonest.” I’ll let you be the judge of which of us met the definition of that. Watch and let me know your thoughts!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe