Grounded with Jon Tester & Maritsa Georgiou

With less than four weeks until the midterms, officials across the country are preparing as the federal pressure on our election administrators ramps up.

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, who also chairs the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, joins us to discuss the Trump administration’s decision to shut international election observers out, the new push to seize voting machines through the Commerce Department, and what voters should do if they see any kind of meddling or intimidation at the polls.

Aguilar’s primary message?

“We just need people to make a plan to vote and we just need them to actually f*$&ing show up to vote.”

27 days. Let’s go.

This week, the USS Abraham Lincoln is scheduled to return to San Diego after a near-record 10+ month deployment during which we heard reports of suicide attempts, food shortages, plumbing problems, deteriorating mental health and overall abysmal conditions.

“First and foremost, it's absolutely not normal,” former Secretary of the U.S. Navy Carlos Del Toro said. “And it's a disaster over there at the Pentagon, or as you may put it, Senator, it's a shit show, quite frankly. And it's very, very tragic.”

Del Toro joined us to do a deep dive on the war in Iran, from deployments to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz—or Strait of Trump if you go with Jon Tester’s preference. Del Toro discusses what he sees as missing strategy and where our operational readiness stands after a newly announced plan to cut 20% of U.S. military generals and admirals, a depletion of munitions, and damage to our bases in the Middle East.

We also talk about potential military action in Cuba, concerns about the South China Sea, and the recent call from President Trump for Iran to attack Los Angeles or San Diego.

“I wonder how the Republicans in Orange County, California are feeling right now. About their president, commander-in-chief saying basically let him drop a nuke on Los Angeles and San Diego,” Del Toro questioned. “It's not a good feeling. I don't think we've ever seen anything like this.”

“This is incredible bullshit that this guy is presenting, and people are buying it,” Tester added. “People are cheering when he says we should bomb fucking Los Angeles. Are you kidding me? This is just total insanity. Total insanity.”

We had a little communication snafu this morning and our scheduled guest never made it to the live show. We’re working with her team to reschedule!

That didn’t stop us from devoting almost an hour to headlines, including the bizarre turn of events at Jack Smith’s testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We also discuss Congress ceding more of its power as the administration continues to shift appropriated money elsewhere. Plus, new lawsuits over Renee Good’s killing, the Cornell frat assault investigation, and the scrapped plan to play a Major League Baseball game in a national park. And are we really talking about whether Richard Nixon got a raw deal? Lots to cover in this one.

As we start a new work week, major TV news networks suspended their pooled coverage of President Donald Trump after he banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists from the White House over the weekend. The three outlets filed a lawsuit against the president and three top advisers Monday, saying the ban violates the First Amendment.

We welcome our friend Jim Acosta, whose own White House credentials were famously removed in 2018, to break down Donald Trump’s latest assault on the free press. Jim walks us through how the pool coverage works, what the press collectively needs to do next, and why he thinks this is really a distraction from gas prices and the war in Iran.

“[Trump] doesn’t want to be held accountable,” Acosta said. “And so I think this is a harbinger of bad things to come because I don’t think he’s going to honor the election results. I could be wrong about that, but I think he’s going to try to avoid the seating of a new Congress, which will plunge the country into, I think, a constitutional crisis. And this assault on the press, I think, is to some extent sort of lay the groundwork for Really, you know, full frontal assault on the Constitution.”

In The New York Times this morning, a top headline reads, “Republicans Reel on the Midterm Map as Deep-Red Areas Come Into Play.” The article discusses the battleground of Georgia, but also vulnerabilities for Republicans in Kansas and Nebraska. The story doesn’t include Montana’s House race in the western district, where new polling shows Democrat Sam Forstag in a dead heat with Republican Aaron Flint. It also doesn’t mention Michigan’s first Congressional district, where Callie Barr is waging a rematch of her 2024 race against Republican incumbent Jack Bergman.

Barr is a lawyer, former high school English teacher and a military spouse who took care of her husband when he returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD and a brain injury.

Barr lost by more than 20 points in 2024, but she tells us why she thinks voter sentiment will work in her favor this time around, with her own internal polling showing a close race.

“Folks can’t even go to work because gas is too high. You know, they’re having problems buying groceries. This is real stuff,” Barr said. “And it’s just kind of the basic necessities of life that folks can’t afford. And it’s rising costs because of corruption.”

Barr says voters in her district care deeply about those rising prices, but also rural hospital closures, and veterans issues. And with all of that in play, you won’t believe what most people write to her complaining about.

Plus, JT gets pretty spicy over the headlines. 47 days to go.