<<Sorry! This is transcribed by AI. I didn’t have time to edit it!>>

 What is up my friends? Welcome to another episode of Speak Easy English, the number one podcast on all of the internet. If you only ask my dog. Alright, so we are back with another episode. I will not be using any notes, uh, or script or anything of the sort this episode. Um, that means the entire episode will be off the top of my head. That is an expression that means I am just saying what I am thinking. I have no plan and no notes to guide me. You may have noticed I mentioned my dog in the opener. Uh, my dog is a Doberman named Koda and he recently turned nine months old. It has been a very intense nine months. He is a good boy, but a puppy really. Any type of puppy, but especially a Doberman puppy or a puppy of a. similarly energetic and large breed. Uh, any puppy of this sort is difficult because they require a lot of training and attention in order to be happy. The good news is that he has a very high drive to please his owners. That means he really wants to make me happy. He wants to make my wife happy, but sometimes he just does not know how to do that. And so it requires a lot of time to train him to behave in a way that makes us happy. And when we are happy, he becomes happy. So it is a symbiotic relationship. That’s that is a good word for you right there. Symbiotic. Uh, see, Biology’s trying to spell this s. Why? Bio. Symbiotic. Symbiotic, symbiotic. There you go. Um, that means mutually beneficial. It means both parties, both people are benefiting from the relationship. For example, if you have ever seen. On a television show about sharks and fish. In the ocean. You will see little fish, little tiny fish that eat all of the stuff on the skin of big fish. So they clean big fish. The little fish eat all of the dead skin and the algae and stuff growing on the outside of the big fish. These little fish hang around. They spend time next to the big fish and they clean it. That is a symbiotic relationship. The big fish benefits because it gets clean and the little fish benefits because it gets free food. Anyway, I like to think that our relationship with Koda, our dog, is symbiotic. He makes us happy, and when we are happy, that makes him happy. And so everybody is happy. Okay, that is enough with the update about the dog. Let me remind everyone that the transcripts are available for free on our website. Speak Easy English Dot club and you can always send me an email if you have suggestions or comments. My email is Brandon at Speak Easy English Dot club. Okay, so initially that means in the beginning I was not sure if I even wanted to start discussing politics on this podcast. Politics used to be very boring and unfortunately it seems that now it is much more intense. Everyone has very strong opinions and very extreme points of view, and in some cases that means the different sides. The people that have different opinions actually demonize each other. That means they imagine that the other side are actually evil. That means horrible and worthless, and that helps them to rationalize and and to accept their own extreme point of view. Now, last episode, I discussed the changing meaning of the American flag, and that was a little bit political. Although I did not take any sort of political stance, I did not share any political opinions. Um, just the nature of that conversation is inherently political. That means there’s no way to talk about the changing meaning and the changing implications of the American flag without that conversation being at least a little bit political and a little bit controversial, we’ll say, and then, oh my God, look at everything that happened after I published that episode. So just to summarize. For those that do not follow American politics. Shortly after I published that episode, there was an assassination attempt on former President Trump’s life. That means someone tried to kill him at one of his campaign events. That means one of his rallies, where supporters gather to hear him talk. A young man who was clearly mentally ill somehow was able to access the roof. That means, like the top of the building, the rooftop of a very close by building, very near to where the president was talking, and he almost killed him. He was able to shoot him in the ear, which is horrifying and obviously a huge lapse in security. That means a a hole in the security for the president. Former President Trump, like, obviously, nobody should be able to be on a rooftop that was like 100 yards away. So like 100m, it might have even been less. Like that is not very far to shoot with a rifle. I am an avid hunter. Uh, mostly I hunt whitetail deer, which are overpopulated in my area, and they need to be hunted in order to manage the population. So they do not, uh, die from disease and starvation. Uh, we have to kill the deer. Um, and I really enjoy the meat. We love venison. Uh, venison is deer meat. So if you if you hunt and kill a deer, um, we process the deer. That means turning the meat into food. You know, steaks and ground meat and different cuts of meat like you would buy at the grocery store. Except I am lucky enough to be able to hunt and kill a lot of our own meat. And I find this much, much more healthy and preferable than buying meat at the grocery store that comes from giant cattle farms, that is, giant farms of cows. Um, and besides venison again, that’s deer meat. Venison is very lean. That means it does not have very much fat. So it is very healthy protein. Um, very good for you. Compared to beef or lamb that has much higher fat content. Anyway, I am an avid hunter and so I am very familiar with how easy it is to shoot 100m away with a rifle. President Trump is extremely lucky, and we are all extremely lucky that this disturbed young adult was a bad shot. That means he did not have very much skill with using a rifle. So thankfully President Trump was not seriously hurt and he was able to leave the event without any major injuries. And that is all very good news. Now, let me pause here to say that I personally do not support President Trump. Politically, I do lean right. That means I tend to be conservative on a lot of issues now. Certainly not all issues. For example, health care here in the United States is horribly broken, and I believe the government needs to play a role in providing health care to the public. So that is a opinion that is rather liberal. That means liberal means to the left in politics and conservative means to the right. So that particular view of mine is liberal as well. I believe that women should have the right to choose what happens with their reproductive organs. So I believe women should have the choice in whether or not they wish to continue a pregnancy during at least the first two trimesters. After that, I don’t think I deserve an opinion because I am a man, and I don’t know what it is like to carry a fetus inside of my body. And so I think the decision, uh, in the third trimester. Should be some combination of the woman and their doctors, but I don’t deserve an opinion on that because I am a stupid man that has no idea what it must be like to carry a fetus inside of me. Anyway, you don’t have to agree with me, but I’m only saying this to tell you that in general I am conservative. That means I lean right not. Not super far, right, but a little bit. Right? Right. I’m center right. So I’m like toward the middle, but a little bit conservative on most things when it comes to a small government, rule of law, immigration, all of these things. I lean right. But I do have several topics like health care and women’s reproductive rights where I am liberal. Okay, anyway, back to the topic. So Donald Trump was almost assassinated and thank God the shooter missed. And then shortly after that, Joe Biden, who is quite old, honestly decided to abandon his pursuit of another term. That means he decided to stop. Trying to be elected again, he decided that he would retire at the end of his current presidency later this year. These were two absolutely huge pieces of news here in the United States. So what impact did these two huge events have on the dynamic of the upcoming election here in the US? Well, before these two events, Donald Trump was leading, that means he was ahead in most of the polling, uh, polling, our surveys. So they ask a bunch of people who they plan to vote for, and the people answer and they add up all of the answers to tell which candidate Trump or Biden, uh, which one is most likely to win. Now, our system here in the US is a bit complicated, and I will not dig into the nuances and details of our system. But basically, before these events, Donald Trump was leading, he was ahead in the polls, in the surveys, by a little bit after the assassination attempts, he started to get ahead by a lot. He was already winning and then started to be winning even more. Then Joe Biden stepped down. Well, he’s still president. He did not step down from the presidency, but he discontinued. That means he stopped his attempt to be reelected shortly after he announced this decision. The vice president, his number two in command, Kamala Harris, became the clear choice to run against Donald Trump. So Biden stepped aside and his number two picked up where he left off, more or less. There were questions about whether or not a bunch, you know, a group of different Democrats would try to take Biden’s place to become the Democratic nominee. But what actually happened is that all of those potential people that includes the governor of Michigan and the governor of California and the governor of Pennsylvania, all these Democratic politicians that we thought maybe would want to be the Democratic presidential nominee. All of these candidates endorsed Kamala Harris. That means they announced that they would not try to be Biden’s replacement and instead they would support Kamala. And so this all happened very fast, and she became the Democratic nominee. That means they nominated her. They chose her. To nominate somebody means to choose somebody. So they chose her to become the candidate for the upcoming election. That means they chose her to run against Donald Trump for the next presidency of the United States. The polls, that is, the surveys immediately started to get more competitive. That means that the lead, the advantage that Donald Trump had in these surveys started to get smaller and smaller and smaller. And as of today, Kamala Harris actually is leading by a small margin in the states that will decide the election. Now, that does not mean she will win. The surveys can be wrong and they were wrong before. They were wrong. In 2016 when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton and they were wrong again in 2020. In 2020, it looked like Joe Biden was in the lead by a lot in these states. And in fact, he barely won. That means he almost lost. It was much, much closer than the polls suggested. So it has been wild here in the US. For those of us that follow politics. Donald Trump was winning and then he survived the assassination attempt, and that even consolidated his support even more. And so he started to be winning by an even bigger margin. And then Joe Biden stepped aside, allowing Kamala Harris to become. The the choice for the Democrat Party. And the polls changed again. Uh, so that now Harris is actually leading and all of this has happened in a matter of weeks. In fact, since I published the last episode, all of this has happened. Who knows what’s going to happen in the general election in November, but whatever happens will definitely be interesting and worth your attention now. I am out of time for today, but I think I will record another episode, uh, perhaps for the next episode. Talking about why Donald Trump has so much support here in the US, and why I don’t personally support him, even though I agree with many of his policy positions and I disagree with many of the policy positions of the Democratic Party. Hmm. Well, that seems weird, right? If I agree with the policies, why would I not support the candidate? Well, next episode I will talk about that in more detail. But for now, we will leave it here and end this episode. Thank you so much for joining us and listening to this entire episode. If you enjoy these conversations, please leave me a five star review that helps immensely with reaching other people who are trying to learn English just like you. And if you have not already, please listen to the first ten episodes. Those are going to teach you how to use this podcast to become completely fluent in English, without studying any boring grammar. All right, that’s all for now. Feel free to check out the transcripts on our website. Speak Easy English Dot club. Enjoy your week and we will be back soon. Cheers!