Speaker 1: And with that, let's bring in our leadoff panel, Kat Zakresky,
Speaker 1: White House correspondent for The Washington Post, Jake Sherman ms NOW,
Speaker 1: political contributor and co founder of punch Bowl News, and
Speaker 1: Mark Leviovich, staff writer for The Atlantic. Jake, you've had
Speaker 1: quite a twenty four hour stretch here. I do want
Speaker 1: to get to your great interview with the President, but
Speaker 1: first let's talk about this huge news overnight that Senator
Speaker 1: Murkowski is now saying she's a no on Todd Blanche. Now,
Speaker 1: all of this rest with Bill Cassidy. We've seen this
Speaker 1: is what I was alluding to before. We've seen this
Speaker 1: movie when it came to the RFK nomination and confirmation hearings.
Speaker 1: Where does it look like he's headed right now? What's
Speaker 1: the math?
Speaker 2: Good question, But remember Bill Cassidy's political career is over
Speaker 2: because of Donald Trump, plainly right. Trump endorsed against him,
Speaker 2: and now he has to suffer the consequence and that
Speaker 2: Bill Cassidy owes him nothing zero And that's a tough
Speaker 2: position for the White House to be in.
Speaker 3: Here. I don't know where he's going to end up.
Speaker 2: He's been having endless conversations and all these all these holdouts,
Speaker 2: now two of them have gone.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: Collins and Murkowski have had.
Speaker 2: Kind of endless conversations with Cassidy and and and sorry
Speaker 2: with Blanche.
Speaker 3: I don't know where he's going to end up.
Speaker 2: But unless Mitch McConnell, who has been out now for
Speaker 2: a couple months with you know, I'm not exactly sure
Speaker 2: how they're how they're classifying it, but how to fall
Speaker 2: and is not well unless.
Speaker 3: He somehow comes back.
Speaker 2: Todd Lanche is done if Bill Cassidy votes, know and
Speaker 2: he could stay in his acting age.
Speaker 3: And I talked to Trump about that.
Speaker 2: Trump said, you know, he'll be happy to have him
Speaker 2: as acting, but he should be confirmed.
Speaker 3: But listen, this is the world that the White House.
Speaker 2: Has to live with because they have antagonized so many
Speaker 2: Senate Republicans and and when you do so, you don't
Speaker 2: it's much more difficult to get your agenda through a
Speaker 2: Senate when people are are against you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the field he starts to dissipate slight when you
Speaker 1: target an unseat incumbents in your own party. So you
Speaker 1: mentioned that Blanche can hang in as acting ag How
Speaker 1: long can he do that for? Could it be for
Speaker 1: the duration of the Trump administration, and then does he
Speaker 1: have sort of carte blanche to carry out the president's
Speaker 1: agenda with the DOJ.
Speaker 2: Well, those are two questions. I think yes, yes, he
Speaker 2: could stay is acting for the rest of the administration
Speaker 2: because as long as he is a technicality, but as
Speaker 2: long as his nomination is active, meaning at the end
Speaker 2: of this Congress, he would probably have to the President
Speaker 2: would probably have to resubmit his nomination.
Speaker 3: But yes, I mean Biden.
Speaker 2: Did this with Julie Sue, who was the acting Labor
Speaker 2: Secretary for quite some time. The question about whether he
Speaker 2: has any diminished authority as acting AG is not something
Speaker 2: that's really been tested, I mean from a presidential level,
Speaker 2: meaning the president that it's said it's not great, but
Speaker 2: I do think that he could carry out from what
Speaker 2: I've been told, he can carry out all the duties
Speaker 2: of the Attorney General.
Speaker 3: While being acting AG.
Speaker 1: Tell us more about your interview with the President, Jake.
Speaker 3: It was fascinating.
Speaker 2: I mean, we talked to him about Congress, which is
Speaker 2: what we cover, and something an institution that he.
Speaker 3: Has a complicated relationship with.
Speaker 2: And I thought one of the clips that you played
Speaker 2: was very interesting because he doesn't really have any grip
Speaker 2: or he's confused, and it is a confusing topic about
Speaker 2: why presidents always lose in the midterm election.
Speaker 3: I explained to him that I think it's because people
Speaker 3: want to check on.
Speaker 2: Power, and Trump thinks that he's done so well that
Speaker 2: he doesn't there that no one should want to check
Speaker 2: on his power. And he said also on top of that,
Speaker 2: he can't guarantee that Republicans will come out, the Republicans
Speaker 2: that voted for him, the voters that put him in
Speaker 2: the White House twice now will come out and support
Speaker 2: congressional Republicans for House and Senate seats.
Speaker 3: And that is a very fascinating.
Speaker 2: Insight into his thinking at this moment in time, as
Speaker 2: we sit, as you said, eighty something days, eighty eight
Speaker 2: days before the midterm elections.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a bleak assessment. Like I said at the top,
Speaker 1: there for a man who's generally pretty confident, even if
Speaker 1: it's smoking mirrors. Mark Senator Tellus and Cornyn bent themselves
Speaker 1: into a proverbial pretzel to send blanches nomination out of
Speaker 1: the committee. Now you see a rebuke was not just
Speaker 1: Susan Collins. Now it's Murkowski. And you may see Cassidy
Speaker 1: based on what Jake was just illuminating the fact that
Speaker 1: he was unseated by a Trump backed candidate. So what
Speaker 1: does all of this say about the President's leverage on
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it says a few things.
Speaker 5: I mean, first of all, I mean, yes, I mean,
Speaker 5: this is the Yolo Caucus, meaning you know, they don't
Speaker 5: have anything to really, uh, you know, think about re
Speaker 5: election wise, because Trump has already in his own way
Speaker 5: kind of undermined all of them. But as we've learned
Speaker 5: from John Cornet and Tom Taylis, there are ways to
Speaker 5: get these folks on the team and get them back
Speaker 5: on board. I mean, in some ways, Murkowski and Collins
Speaker 5: were certainly there's nothing safe about them, but I think
Speaker 5: Democrats would have probably pointed to them as being the
Speaker 5: two most likely no votes. And then it all comes
Speaker 5: down to Cassidy unless, as Jake mentioned, McConnell somehow becomes
Speaker 5: ambulatory enough to come to the floor and vote for Blanche.
Speaker 5: But you know, it's unclear what mcconnor would even do
Speaker 5: if he got that far. Either way, I mean, Cassidy
Speaker 5: is a wild card. You know, there are two ways
Speaker 5: of looking at this one he owes the president nothing,
Speaker 5: as you mentioned. But on the other hand, I mean,
Speaker 5: do you really want to ride into retirement with this
Speaker 5: whole load of hassle on the way out and just
Speaker 5: getting hated left and right? You know, there is a
Speaker 5: do I really need this headache? You know mindset that
Speaker 5: I think can set in also, so I'll be fascinating.
Speaker 5: We'll see what happens. And I also think, yeah, sorry, no,
Speaker 5: I was just go ahead now. The idea of whether
Speaker 5: you know, he can sort of not be confirmed and
Speaker 5: serve anyway is kind of another wild card here. It
Speaker 5: does seem like he can get a lot done and
Speaker 5: do a lot of bidding for the president if he
Speaker 5: stays on for a long time, whether he's.
Speaker 3: Confirmed or not.
Speaker 1: That really is an interesting dynamic. We need to keep
Speaker 1: a close eye on how long can he just be
Speaker 1: acting and carry out the president's agenda. Kat Trump is
Speaker 1: adamant about pushing through his legislative agenda before Congress goes
Speaker 1: on its very long recess. In August, he told Jake
Speaker 1: that he likes John Thune and he's not looking to
Speaker 1: push him out. But what happens if thuone falls short?
Speaker 4: Certainly we've seen the President willing to go on the
Speaker 4: attack when he feels that he does not have the
Speaker 4: support of his allies. And we've seen just over the
Speaker 4: last few weeks he's put pressure on Thune in public remarks,
Speaker 4: telling his constituents to call the Senator. And so there
Speaker 4: is a lot of pressure on Thune today as Trump
Speaker 4: tells him he needs to bring this to the floor,
Speaker 4: even though it doesn't seem like the votes are there.
Speaker 4: And it just speaks to this bigger challenge I think
Speaker 4: for Republicans in Congress, where Trump really is trying to
Speaker 4: cast a lot of blame on them in this midterm cycle.
Speaker 4: One of the most fascinating parts of Jake's interview to
Speaker 4: me was when the President talked about how voters are
Speaker 4: angry with Republicans but not him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, Kat, they may be mad at Republicans and
Speaker 1: not him, but that is certainly not what is bearing
Speaker 1: out in the polling that we're looking at. You know,
Speaker 1: Trump's polling numbers from several different polls in the last
Speaker 1: few weeks have shown him at record lows against himself
Speaker 1: in his first term and now record lows in the
Speaker 1: second term. How does all of that factor into the
Speaker 1: treatment that he's going to get on the hill. Are
Speaker 1: Republicans slowly but and belatedly untethering themselves from the president.
Speaker 3: It seems like.
Speaker 4: As we get closer to the general elections in this
Speaker 4: midterm cycle, they're going to have to do that. If
Speaker 4: you look at the pulling just this morning, we got
Speaker 4: job numbers that are bad for the White House. You
Speaker 4: see what's going on with persistently sticky high gas prices,
Speaker 4: And as you get to this new phase of the election,
Speaker 4: there's going to have to be an attempt from Republicans
Speaker 4: to create some distance between themselves and these policies.
Speaker 1: Jake, it's been a very tumultuous twenty four hours for
Speaker 1: President Trump. Having nothing to do with your interview, a
Speaker 1: candidate that he endorsed, Andy Ogles, lost his primary in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: Ogles has been one of the presidents let's just say,
Speaker 1: staunchest or most loyal soldiers. What is that signal? Is
Speaker 1: his grip on the party slipping or is it just
Speaker 1: a one off example.
Speaker 2: Well, well, also, we'd also be remissed not to mention
Speaker 2: that one of his endorsed candidates in Michigan lost to
Speaker 2: somebody who had stopped campaigning months before and wasn't even
Speaker 2: effectively in the race and was writing handwritten notes to
Speaker 2: the FEC saying I'm not going to be running anymore
Speaker 2: because he couldn't find out how to log onto the
Speaker 2: FEC system. So really quite the string there of political
Speaker 2: events for the president that said. Listen, I mean the
Speaker 2: president likes to say he has a ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: or something like that track record in endorsing people, It's
Speaker 2: not that high. I mean, he endorses a lot of
Speaker 2: people who don't even have races. But I mean still,
Speaker 2: he has an incredible grip on the party.
Speaker 3: Is it loosening, Yes, it probably is. It probably is.
Speaker 2: I mean Andy Ogles was a loyal foot soldier for
Speaker 2: President Trump and against it many times the House Republican
Speaker 2: Leadership member of the Freedom Caucus and lost quite resoundingly.
Speaker 2: But still the vast majority of people who who are
Speaker 2: endorsed by Trump will get Trump's endorsement do win their primaries.
Speaker 1: Mark, While voters have made it very clear that their
Speaker 1: big issue here in this election is the economy the
Speaker 1: cost of living, Trump is still focused, as we mentioned
Speaker 1: off the top, on birthright citizenship voting restrictions, and here
Speaker 1: we go again with vaccines. How will all of that
Speaker 1: go over with his base? But more importantly, how will
Speaker 1: it go over with the coalition that was so critical
Speaker 1: to getting him elected in twenty four? Is that coalition disintegrating?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, certainly there's no indication whatsoever that any
Speaker 5: of this is a political winner for Republicans. I mean,
Speaker 5: to say nothing of the ballroom and the reflecting pool
Speaker 5: and things that he seems to be occupying a great
Speaker 5: deal of his time with. I mean, this is not
Speaker 5: something that was a big campaign issue, to say the
Speaker 5: least in twenty twenty four. Look, I mean, I think
Speaker 5: to some degree it doesn't matter because Trump's appeal and
Speaker 5: his hold on the party has been so personal to
Speaker 5: begin with. I think it gets to a sort of
Speaker 5: a larger existential problem that Republicans are beginning to deal with.
Speaker 5: They're going to have to deal with more and more,
Speaker 5: which is that when Trump's not on the ballot, their
Speaker 5: voters haven't turned out. They certainly haven't turned out in midterms.
Speaker 5: They didn't turn out in twenty two, they didn't turn
Speaker 5: out in eighteen. And that's a big problem for them.
Speaker 5: And obviously Trump's not going to be on the ballot
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty eight, and they're going to figure out
Speaker 5: a way to solve that. But there's nothing that indicates
Speaker 5: that Trump's appeal and his hold on the party is
Speaker 5: transferable to any one figure, whether it's a down ballot
Speaker 5: candidate or someone running to replace him.