Iowa’s Josh Turek reveals advice Obama shared after Senate endorsement

One of Iowa’s U.S. Senate candidates, Josh Turek, sat down with MS NOW’s Jen Psaki for his first interview since receiving an endorsement from President Barack Obama, the last Democratic presidential candidate to win the state, which he carried in 2008 and 2012 before it swung to Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, Turek released a video in which the former professional wheelchair basketball player went head-to-head with Obama in a game of I-O-W-A, a variation of the popular shooting game H-O-R-S-E.

On “The Briefing,” Psaki asked Turek how he managed to score the endorsement, one of the former president’s first this election season. The state representative said he believed a former Obama adviser may have played a role.

“I had sat down with David Axelrod, chatted with him in Chicago,” he said. “I believe he reached out to President Obama, said we’ve got an unbelievable candidate here from Iowa, that we can win this thing, we can flip the Senate — and it came about.”

Psaki asked the two-time Paralympic gold medalist about his shootout with the former president. “I spent both campaign cycles traveling with Barack Obama,” she said. “He used to play basketball on Election Day for good luck. The man loves basketball more than most things.”

“I’ll give him credit. He was not giving that game away. He was a great shooter. He missed his first shot, and after that, he rolled off about 15 to 20 in a row,” Turke told Psaki. “At the end, I was genuinely impressed. As somebody that has spent a lot of my adult life in there shooting, he’s a good shooter.”

Polls show a close race between the Iowa native and the Trump-backed Rep. Ashley Hinson, who are competing for the open seat after Sen. Joni Ernst announced she would retire at the end of her term. 

Turek also shared some of the advice the former president gave him during their meeting, telling Psaki that Obama advised him to keep his focus on the voters and make himself available to Iowans across the state.

“He said, ‘Listen, actively listen,’” he recalled. “The other thing that he said to me was ‘Make sure that you’re going out to all 99 counties, every single rural community, small community, midsized community.’ And that’s what we’re doing.”

“All across Iowa, urban areas, rural areas, we’re hearing the same things: Iowans are hurting. They’re struggling. They’re struggling just to keep food on the table, a roof above their head. They’re ready to have somebody that’s actually going to be there to represent them, to represent the workers. And the middle class is being hollowed out because Iowans are suffering,” he said. 

You can watch Psaki’s interview with Turek in the clip at the top of the page.

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