Speaker 2: Justice.
Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Jim Acosta Show. And it's
Speaker 1: roughly eighty days or so until the midterms. The election's
Speaker 1: coming up this fall in November. Perfect guest to talk
Speaker 1: about this. Where the polls stand, where Democrats stand. Are
Speaker 1: they in a better position than perhaps they were a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago?
Speaker 2: What about Donald Trump?
Speaker 1: Of course, our friend Larry Sabado, the director of the
Speaker 1: UVA Center of Politics.
Speaker 2: Is with us. And Larry great to see as always,
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3: Always glad to be with you, Jim, one of our
Speaker 3: Center for Politics scholars at the University of Virginia. See it.
Speaker 3: That's a plug.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Does that mean I am still a scholar?
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 3: That's your darn right you are until you're notified. You're not,
Speaker 3: so it can go on for a century.
Speaker 2: Very good.
Speaker 1: Hey, I'll take it, you know what. It's something I'll
Speaker 1: put on the resume and have it there with pride.
Speaker 2: So appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I always love getting down to Charlottesville, and I will
Speaker 1: say the new center is terrific it congrats to you
Speaker 1: on that. But there's not a lot of congratulations going on,
Speaker 1: I suppose on the Republican side for Donald Trump. With
Speaker 1: these midterms coming up and the way these polls are
Speaker 1: shaping up, it's looking like a wipeout.
Speaker 2: I was just looking at some of the polling.
Speaker 1: I mean just this week, just the past week, an
Speaker 1: economist you gov poll found that Trump is at a
Speaker 1: thirty three percent approval rating. That is lower, I think,
Speaker 1: than just about anywhere he was during his first administration,
Speaker 1: and that is right around the area he was hovering
Speaker 1: after January sixth. This is devastating and I was pointing
Speaker 1: this out to another guest the other day. This is
Speaker 1: worse than where he was in twenty eighteen, and that
Speaker 1: was a disastrous bid term cycle.
Speaker 2: How do you see this shaping up?
Speaker 3: Larry, Well, as you know, things have changed since twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: and the Republicans have run a successful ploy with redistricting
Speaker 3: that they won the game as far as that's concerned,
Speaker 3: not control of the House, but they have reduced inevitably
Speaker 3: whatever gains the Democrats have. In fact, when you look
Speaker 3: to see whatever the Democrats gain, add ten or twelve
Speaker 3: to it. That's what it would have been without the
Speaker 3: Republican redistricting. Let's not forget the Supreme Court's helpful decision
Speaker 3: about Section two of the Voting Rights Act. The two
Speaker 3: work in concert, the Republicans who run the States and
Speaker 3: the Republicans who run the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no question about it. They did soften the
Speaker 1: blow of these terms. But even despite that, we're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of Senate seats in play that perhaps were
Speaker 1: not going to be in play. Obviously, the House is
Speaker 1: still looking like it's going to go to the Democrats.
Speaker 1: How are the folks at your crystal Ball. You guys
Speaker 1: put out that terrific crystal Ball forecast a lot of
Speaker 1: seats trending in the Democratic direction.
Speaker 3: Yes, it seems like every time we changed the ratings,
Speaker 3: the rating has become more favorable for Democrats. I would
Speaker 3: say at this point, you're looking at Democrats being somewhere
Speaker 3: in the two twenties. And if the more optimistic polls
Speaker 3: are correct, and we've all gotten lessons very recently Soda
Speaker 3: and Michigan not to believe in Wisconsin, not to believe
Speaker 3: necessarily what they report, But if they're indicating anything close
Speaker 3: to what is actually going to happen, then Democrats will
Speaker 3: have a good and possibly great night. The key is
Speaker 3: whether Democrats stick together if they actually take over one
Speaker 3: or both houses, can they do what the Republicans have
Speaker 3: done with the majority of next to nothing? And I
Speaker 3: hope they can. But you know, Democrats wouldn't be Democrats
Speaker 3: if they weren't fighting among themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and you mentioned a couple of things to
Speaker 2: that point.
Speaker 1: I mean, we saw the race in Wisconsin where a
Speaker 1: pretty far left I guess self described socialist was on
Speaker 1: the ballot at Francesca Hang. She was running for governor
Speaker 1: against Crowley, the more establishment choice. She lost, even though
Speaker 1: the polls had shown she was far ahead of Crowley.
Speaker 1: And here's the New York Times headline, how the polls
Speaker 1: got it so wrong in Wisconsin. And you know, not
Speaker 1: to go after a political scientist, Larry, because you're kind
Speaker 1: of a political scientist.
Speaker 2: But what the heck's going on with political scientists these days?
Speaker 3: Well, the one I know is doing very well. I
Speaker 3: hope you got that. Yeah, the one, the one I know,
Speaker 3: the one, ye see, I had to explain it to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 3: Through that in class. They don't laugh either, So I understand. Look,
Speaker 3: I would say the pollsters didn't necessarily get it as
Speaker 3: wrong as it looks on the surface in that primaries
Speaker 3: have always been tough to survey. Why is that because
Speaker 3: people say they're going to vote and they're not. They're
Speaker 3: not used to voting on whatever day it turns out
Speaker 3: to be. Second, of all, the vast majority of people
Speaker 3: who vote in a primary are indeed identifiers with that party. Now,
Speaker 3: open primaries like we've had recently are a little bit different,
Speaker 3: but not really. There aren't that many Republicans that vote
Speaker 3: in Democratic primaries and vice versa. And so the people
Speaker 3: who are, say Democrats voting in a Democratic primary, well
Speaker 3: that means they're looking at the candidates, all of whom
Speaker 3: are fellow Democrats. So it's much easier to switch from
Speaker 3: one to another to another based on whatever the headlines
Speaker 3: are that particular day, and they don't know much about
Speaker 3: many of these candidates. That's always true in primaries, which
Speaker 3: are used to introduce introduce candidates to voters. So I'm
Speaker 3: not willing to say that they were completely wrong or
Speaker 3: that they were terribly wrong, but they certainly exaggerated hongs total.
Speaker 3: They exaggerated El sai Ed's total in Michigan. They made
Speaker 3: the men Soda Senate race on the Democratic side look
Speaker 3: virtually tied when it turned out to be a landslide margin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you planning it.
Speaker 3: So, you know, there are lots of examples of this.
Speaker 3: I always tell people, read the polls and it's fun
Speaker 3: to do it, you know, then go to Calshi and
Speaker 3: waste your money and bet whatever you need to do,
Speaker 3: But don't take them seriously because they're not votes. Polls
Speaker 3: are not votes. Money is not a vote. You know.
Speaker 3: They're critical parts of the process, but don't take them
Speaker 3: so seriously.
Speaker 1: They're snapshots, and they can be a snapshot in time.
Speaker 1: I mean, you and I've witnessed this first, you know, firsthand,
Speaker 1: watching a lot of these races over the last what twenty,
Speaker 1: you know, thirty years. But I think something else could
Speaker 1: be going on in addition to the polling being off it.
Speaker 1: It may just be that Democrats that once they get
Speaker 1: you know, a full whiff of some of these candidates,
Speaker 1: as it gets close to election time, they change their
Speaker 1: mind and they you know, and I think in the
Speaker 1: case of Wisconsin, maybe the voters decided to make a
Speaker 1: more pragmatic choice.
Speaker 2: Maybe in Michigan, all of.
Speaker 1: That money that was dumped on behalf of Haley Stevens
Speaker 1: against Abdul al Sayed had a negative effect against Lsied.
Speaker 2: Do you think that could be.
Speaker 1: Part of it too, that there just were other dynamic
Speaker 1: forces at play and the Democratic Party just hasn't figured
Speaker 1: out which way they want to go here, and they're
Speaker 1: sort of doing this case by Kate. You know, in
Speaker 1: New York, of course it's going to be much more
Speaker 1: progressive in some cases socialists, but Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan not
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 3: Basically, I think a core of Democrats, big core, because
Speaker 3: of what Trump has done and because of their emotional
Speaker 3: reaction to him, and I would say even hatred for
Speaker 3: the vast majority. They want to pick a winner. They're
Speaker 3: trying to pick a winner. They're trying to be pragmatic,
Speaker 3: even if in fact they are more liberal than the
Speaker 3: candidate they're voting for. And of course that was done
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty. They picked Joe Biden. By no means
Speaker 3: was he anything close to the most liberal candidate up
Speaker 3: on the stage. But they knew they had to get
Speaker 3: rid of Donald Trump, if only they'd known what was coming.
Speaker 3: But still you have to work with what you've got.
Speaker 3: So that's a good thing that Democrats are being pragmatic.
Speaker 3: In the case of hom My God. In the last
Speaker 3: several weeks, she got negative headline after negative headline. That's
Speaker 3: where the polls hurt her, because the polls kind of
Speaker 3: gave a green light to the press and others to
Speaker 3: go hard after her. Even the ones who were for her,
Speaker 3: deep down they were going to vote for They said, well,
Speaker 3: she could still win. She's ahead by twenty points. No,
Speaker 3: not necessarily, and opposing Thanksgiving and Halloween and Valentine's Day,
Speaker 3: and I think National Potato Week was out on there.
Speaker 1: I think so as No, all I know is Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: is my favorite holiday. You know, my mom makes a
Speaker 1: great Thanksgiving and it's a holiday dedicated to stuffing your
Speaker 1: face and watching football. What I mean, how could? It's
Speaker 1: the perfect holiday in my book? So, I mean it's
Speaker 1: sort of like being against my I'm America America and
Speaker 1: apple Pie, baseball and apple Pie. When you say that
Speaker 1: you have a problem, thanksg. I just some of these
Speaker 1: things got a little goofy.
Speaker 3: No, it is absolutely goofy. And yeah, I'm sure she
Speaker 3: regrets it. I bet if I went into your background
Speaker 3: when you were young, Jim, you did an outrageous things
Speaker 3: and what I hope you'll dedicate a show telling us
Speaker 3: what they are at some point.
Speaker 2: Please don't no, but it's true.
Speaker 1: And you know, an AOC said the other day woke
Speaker 1: one was crazy or something like that. So there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of recalibrating on the left that's going on
Speaker 1: right now in AOC who was very smart.
Speaker 2: It's good, yes, absolutely, but.
Speaker 1: Some of this, you know, is going to be tough
Speaker 1: to overcome, uh, you know, in the long run. But
Speaker 1: I think you're right that Democrats are being pragmatic in
Speaker 1: a lot of these races. And I do think the
Speaker 1: Senate is looking very interesting, Larry, because I mean, if
Speaker 1: you and I had a year ago had said, you know,
Speaker 1: I think Ohio might be in play.
Speaker 2: I think Iowa might be in play. I think Alaska
Speaker 2: might be in play.
Speaker 3: I think what might be in play. I think Kansas
Speaker 3: might be. We all get the same emails from people
Speaker 3: and tweets and so on. Now, look, a majority of
Speaker 3: the ones you just mentioned are not going to vote Democratic,
Speaker 3: but noos. But if you get a decent slice, you know,
Speaker 3: forty percent of them, that should be enough as long
Speaker 3: as they can hold Michigan and Maine. Who thought that
Speaker 3: would end up being the question at the beginning of
Speaker 3: this cycle. But you know, people do strange things in politics,
Speaker 3: and I think even with everything that's happened in Maine
Speaker 3: and Michigan, the Democrats still have a very decent chance
Speaker 3: of carrying one or both. So this could work out
Speaker 3: well for the Democrats. But they have to continue to
Speaker 3: work at it. They have to continue to do smart,
Speaker 3: pragmatic things, and Donald Trump and the Republicans have to
Speaker 3: continue to do really stupid things that upset people, that
Speaker 3: seem crazy and nutty. And you know what, I bet
Speaker 3: on that happening. That's what every day in the Trump
Speaker 3: era seems like a year. Yeah, not that, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's I can't get it all in my head, which
Speaker 3: is their theory of things. Just keep pumping out the
Speaker 3: horrible news day after day, ten times a day, ten corruptions,
Speaker 3: ten examples of greed a day, and then nobody can
Speaker 3: remember any of them.
Speaker 2: It's just a blur, that's right.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, it was a fire hose of lies
Speaker 1: during the first term. This term, I think it's the
Speaker 1: fire hose of corruption, and I think that the public
Speaker 1: is pretty nauseated by it. I think to some extent, yes,
Speaker 1: it is a blur. It's mind numbing for people. But Larry,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of wondering what you think, because I think
Speaker 1: the Democrats could run on corruption. I think they could
Speaker 1: run on Trump enriching himself off the presidency with crypto
Speaker 1: and everything else, and that these are salient issues. These
Speaker 1: are issues that people can understand. They can understand that
Speaker 1: they're paying a lot of money at the gas pump
Speaker 1: while he's, you know, laughing all the way to the bank.
Speaker 3: It's the perfect combination for Democrats, and I think they're
Speaker 3: going to use it because it doesn't make any sense
Speaker 3: not to use it. The combination is this is enriching
Speaker 3: this greedy, corrupt family and their friends at the very
Speaker 3: same time as Americans can't cough up the extra pennies.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right, they abolish the penny, extra nickels and
Speaker 3: dimes to pay for gas, to get the kind of
Speaker 3: bread they like. Really, the things people are going through
Speaker 3: and there's the conflict between these two images is so
Speaker 3: sharp and so nauseating. As you properly suggested that, I
Speaker 3: think it will have an impact. It ought to have
Speaker 3: a bigger impact than it is, but people are numb
Speaker 3: to it. God knows, if Nixon had had a tenth
Speaker 3: of this he would have been out. He still would
Speaker 3: have been out. It's what Nixon did was in a
Speaker 3: completely different realm, violating the law in people's civil liberties,
Speaker 3: which Trump is doing plenty of too. But the greed
Speaker 3: part of it, there was some of that with Nixon,
Speaker 3: with this, you know, the tax deduction for his vice
Speaker 3: presidential papers and that kind of thing. But Nixon really
Speaker 3: was almost not completely a choir boy compared to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: There's no one ever who's been like him and his corrupt,
Speaker 3: greedy family.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I mean Nixon said, I'm not a crooked. Trump says,
Speaker 1: essentially he is a crook. But there's nothing you can
Speaker 1: do about it.
Speaker 3: Ye. That's right. You made your mistake and you're going
Speaker 3: to live with it.
Speaker 2: That's it exactly.
Speaker 1: And I do think the Iran war is deeply unpopular
Speaker 1: and he has apparently no ability to end this war.
Speaker 1: He thinks he can do it, you know, in a
Speaker 1: you know, by sending his son in law off to
Speaker 1: the Middle East. But his son in law goes off
Speaker 1: to the Middle East and then cuts his own side
Speaker 1: deals to try to buy an out Banian Island and
Speaker 1: all sorts of So, you know, good luck with that.
Speaker 1: And that shows to that seems to be a problem
Speaker 1: that can't be solved anytime soon.
Speaker 3: Well, it's not going to be solved at all unless
Speaker 3: Trump is out of office and there's an honest attorney
Speaker 3: general and honest prosecutors federal and others across the country,
Speaker 3: and that will only happen with the Democratic president. Then
Speaker 3: you can do some things, but you can't reel in
Speaker 3: most things. They're done unless you want to tear down
Speaker 3: and maybe we should. You know, the things that he's
Speaker 3: built around Washington, in a way, I'd like to see
Speaker 3: some of them stay up to remind people of the
Speaker 3: outrages of the Trump administration. You know, maybe have one
Speaker 3: of those those moving billboards that you take from monument
Speaker 3: to monument that he's named after himself through corruption, paid
Speaker 3: for them with the taxpayers money. People need to remember,
Speaker 3: I would like to say for all the time, but
Speaker 3: I know the public doesn't operate that way. Maybe a
Speaker 3: year or two. Is that possible for the public to
Speaker 3: remember something that long?
Speaker 1: I know, And you know, Trump has tried to do
Speaker 1: the reflecting pool.
Speaker 2: He has torn down part of the White House.
Speaker 1: One of the latest things is that the Kennedy Center
Speaker 1: board is now saying that, you know, he can inscribe
Speaker 1: his name into the Kennedy Center. That's something that the
Speaker 1: New York Times has reported. And this is after a
Speaker 1: judge told him to take his name off of the
Speaker 1: Kennedy Center and Larry, this is a this is a president,
Speaker 1: this administration that is out and out thumbing its nose
Speaker 1: at the courts, at the judicial branch of government. And
Speaker 1: going back to the Nixon comparison, you know, eventually Nixon
Speaker 1: gave up the tapes. Nixon listened to the courts. Nixon
Speaker 1: listened to Congress when his own party was coming over
Speaker 1: and telling him to resign. That's not that's not Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: He does not listen to the other branches of government,
Speaker 1: and he almost wants to be at war with the
Speaker 1: other branches of government. It seems maybe it's at the
Speaker 1: screen so we.
Speaker 3: Can blame them when it is appropriate to do so.
Speaker 3: But no, there's no comparison. Historically, you go through the presidents,
Speaker 3: they are examples of corruption. They're pennyanty compared to Trump's
Speaker 3: billions of dollars. Again, people are just so overwhelmed by
Speaker 3: the magnitude of it. They can't even focus on it
Speaker 3: day after day after day. And I wish people would obviously,
Speaker 3: then maybe it would hit home that they've done the
Speaker 3: wrong thing and that they better try and correct it
Speaker 3: a bit in twenty twenty six and then again in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty eight. But I see very little of that now.
Speaker 3: Some of that will change in the campaign when you have,
Speaker 3: you know, a million ads focusing on corruption, but there
Speaker 3: are so many other things, like the war in Iran,
Speaker 3: a complete waste of money, a complete waste of lives
Speaker 3: about nothing that had no real purpose. When you think
Speaker 3: about it, you get even madder than you do about
Speaker 3: the corruption, because at least that isn't about lives and
Speaker 3: so many other things you can't focus on it all.
Speaker 1: No, it's true, and the war with Iran is the
Speaker 1: reason why they had to do this elaborate switcheroo on
Speaker 1: Air Force one, you know, because they thought there was
Speaker 1: some security threat that the Israelis I guess had passed
Speaker 1: on to the US Intelligence Comunity and said there's thisecurity threat,
Speaker 1: and the Secret Service took it seriously enough where they said, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to do this thing where We're not only
Speaker 1: going to put you on the old Air Force one.
Speaker 1: We're going to find another plane to put you on,
Speaker 1: and then the Old Air Force one is going to
Speaker 1: be the decoy plane that the press and the staff
Speaker 1: are loaded onto. I mean, it's kind of an extraordinary,
Speaker 1: you know, statement and illustration as to how messed up
Speaker 1: the Iran war has gotten for him. It's because of
Speaker 1: that war that they had to go through all of
Speaker 1: that and have such an embarrassing fiasco on their hands.
Speaker 3: Every now and then something leaks out. Apparently he yelled
Speaker 3: and screamed a great link that hegseth for example, for
Speaker 3: the war in Iran. He's done the same thing to
Speaker 3: that Yahoo. I'm sure he's done it to others, and
Speaker 3: eventually we'll learn it, may be unfortunately in the post
Speaker 3: presidential books, not his book, but others will write about
Speaker 3: some of it. And he knows, at one level of
Speaker 3: his consciousness, he knows how screwed up things are and
Speaker 3: how his supposedly brilliant, best cabinet ever his advisors have
Speaker 3: sent him down these dead ends, and they're all going
Speaker 3: to be attributed to Trump. History doesn't really remember the
Speaker 3: cabinet members or the key advisors. You know, historians will remember,
Speaker 3: but not average people. No, it's going to be attributed
Speaker 3: to Donald Trump. And I am convinced, absolutely convinced, for
Speaker 3: as long as we have the kinds of historian polls
Speaker 3: that we have now, after each presidency, measuring that president
Speaker 3: against all the others, you're going to have Donald Trump
Speaker 3: in last place, not second to last, not third to last,
Speaker 3: last place for all time.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And that gives what James Buchanan to break Who gets
Speaker 1: a breakout of that?
Speaker 2: I guess that's.
Speaker 3: Warren Harding, Warren Harding and Nixon. You know, Grant wasn't
Speaker 3: really corrupt himself, but he ran a corrupt administration. And
Speaker 3: there were stupid presidents like Franklin Pierce, but that's different.
Speaker 3: He inherited bad geenes you know, hard to hold that
Speaker 3: against somebody personally, But this isn't a class by itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I guess that leads us to the other
Speaker 1: part of this, which is and I mentioned AOC earlier
Speaker 1: and it's way too early to talk about this stuff,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure you get this question all the time.
Speaker 1: I get this question all the time, So I ask
Speaker 1: the question to annoy you one more time. Who out
Speaker 1: there right now is looking like a promising Democratic candidate
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty eight do you think?
Speaker 3: Well, I've got an answer for you. Because the Crystal Ball,
Speaker 3: part of the UVA Center for Politics, for which you
Speaker 3: are a Center for Politics scholar, we found thirty eight
Speaker 3: people who are either running outright or very close to running,
Speaker 3: or they're dipping their toes into the water, or they're
Speaker 3: making statements that make us think they might be running.
Speaker 3: Thirty eight of them on the Democratic side. Now, look,
Speaker 3: most of them will run. They're going to confront the
Speaker 3: reality of the tens or hundreds of millions that you
Speaker 3: need to for the nomination. But you know we're going
Speaker 3: to have a good fifteen to twenty candidates, you know that.
Speaker 3: So anyway, I pick a different one each day. I
Speaker 3: want to give equal attention to each of the thirty eight.
Speaker 3: You need to call me thirty eight days in a row, Jim,
Speaker 3: because but mine today is John Ossoff. It's John Osoff
Speaker 3: because I sent out a little email to one of
Speaker 3: my classes and said, and who do you think of
Speaker 3: the ones you've seen so far you most impressed with
Speaker 3: to run for president? And as solid majority out of
Speaker 3: thirty eight candidate. It's a solid majority of the students,
Speaker 3: said John ossof young. He's young, they can identify with him.
Speaker 3: But he is very good. He's a terrific speaker. He's tough,
Speaker 3: and that's what Democrats want to see. None of this
Speaker 3: namby pamby stuff, not with this guy. This guy only
Speaker 3: responds to toughness. The people around him only respond to toughness.
Speaker 2: That's so true.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think I saw that the Crystal
Speaker 1: Ball had also taken a look at Kamala Harris because
Speaker 1: the former vice and it has looked at coming back.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's been reported that she's you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if she's dipping her toe in the water,
Speaker 1: but she's looking at the She's looking at the body
Speaker 1: of water as it exists, maybe off on the horizon.
Speaker 2: But that's gonna be tough.
Speaker 3: Well, Jim, I knew Adlei Stevenson Adlai Stephens, a friend
Speaker 3: of mine. Adele Stevenson told me in a dream, tell
Speaker 3: Kamal it not to run again, Yeah, because it only
Speaker 3: gets worse. You know, he lost by a bigger landslide
Speaker 3: eisen har the second time. And I could have given
Speaker 3: you ten other examples. It didn't work out the first
Speaker 3: time unless it was extremely close. You know, Gore might
Speaker 3: have been able to do it against Bush had he
Speaker 3: run again, but it's extremely rare. People have made a
Speaker 3: judgment on that candidate. It may have been unfair, it
Speaker 3: may have been a dumb move. They may regret it,
Speaker 3: but that didn't mean they're going to lect that person
Speaker 3: because that person is identified with the past. We always
Speaker 3: want to move on to the future, even if we're
Speaker 3: not capable of dealing with.
Speaker 2: The future, right.
Speaker 1: And what we typically see in these presidential elections is
Speaker 1: that when the public is ready to move on, voters
Speaker 1: are ready to move on to a new era in politics,
Speaker 1: they sort of choose the opposite of the person that
Speaker 1: was there before. So, you know, it may have been
Speaker 1: a colossal, historic, self inflicted wound on the part of
Speaker 1: the American people when they chose Donald Trump to be
Speaker 1: that reaction to Barack Obama, and my goodness, has that
Speaker 1: been stinging for a while. But the voters may do
Speaker 1: something like that as an antidote to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Well, that's another reason why Asov is at the top
Speaker 3: of many people's lists, because if you look at him
Speaker 3: and his record, and his CV and all the rest
Speaker 3: of it. He is kind of the polar opposite of
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, just an a. I'm talking about mental characteristics
Speaker 3: and personal attributes and all the rest of it, and
Speaker 3: so are a number of the other ones. You know,
Speaker 3: I think Mark Kelly and Shapiro, Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: senator from Arizona, they should have been one of them
Speaker 3: the pick for VP. He right, or for Harris at
Speaker 3: least she would have won that additional cache of electoral
Speaker 3: votes right, either Arizona or Pennsylvania. Not to be critical
Speaker 3: of Tim Wallas, but he added nothing. You know, if
Speaker 3: you're a Democrat for president, you're not going to win Minnesota,
Speaker 3: give up, do everybody a favor, and resign the nomination. So,
Speaker 3: you know, I think it's it's people have got to
Speaker 3: start thinking in that way. It's about electoral votes, for
Speaker 3: God's sakes. Don't you remember Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton
Speaker 3: and other Democratic presidents who won because they brought a
Speaker 3: whole region with them, you know, in the middle of
Speaker 3: the whole middle of the country with Clinton, the whole
Speaker 3: region except for Virginia with Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 2: These things matter that's right.
Speaker 1: And Joe Biden, you know, I mean, you know, it
Speaker 1: did end in a spectacularly bad way for him. I mean,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, he did that, you know, he did
Speaker 1: that with Georgia, He did that with a lot of
Speaker 1: these states. The Blue Wall was reconstituted and so on,
Speaker 1: and you just have to wonder who is going to
Speaker 1: be able to assemble that coalition again. It's it's going
Speaker 1: to probably come down to those seven swing states one
Speaker 1: more time, and and and who knows, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: and it could be an election where it's it's very,
Speaker 1: very close. And I think the Republicans don't know what
Speaker 1: to do on the other side other than to run
Speaker 1: Donald Trump again. And he keeps talking about that as
Speaker 1: if it's a joke, but we all know it's.
Speaker 2: Not really a joke. I think if he could do it,
Speaker 2: he would do it.
Speaker 3: Oh he would absolutely do it. And he may do
Speaker 3: it even if you can't do it. The reason why
Speaker 3: he keeps mentioning it, and his keep mentioning it, that's
Speaker 3: an option on the table for them. Since when did
Speaker 3: they care about the constitution?
Speaker 2: That's right, Look at the.
Speaker 3: Parts of the constitution. He's already had contempt for or violated.
Speaker 3: You know, most of the gifts he's he's accepted violate
Speaker 3: the Constitution. So I am worried about it, and people
Speaker 3: ought to be worried about it, and they ought to
Speaker 3: be worried about what he is likely to do before, during,
Speaker 3: and after the mid term elections this year. Forget about
Speaker 3: twenty twenty eight. For the moment, the dry run is
Speaker 3: this November.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: No, I totally agree with you, and I think that's
Speaker 1: why it's, you know, so critically important that you know
Speaker 1: that the public keep its eye on what Todd Blanche
Speaker 1: is doing as the attorney general. Is I've been saying,
Speaker 1: you know, the Democrats can win the House, they can
Speaker 1: win the Senate, they can they can control the Congress.
Speaker 1: But if Todd Blanche, who is basically Donald trump personal attorney,
Speaker 1: is the attorney general, not the acting attorney jump, but
Speaker 1: the permanent attorney general, I mean they will try to
Speaker 1: do all sorts of things. It seems to me between
Speaker 1: now and early twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 3: It's absolutely he'll be more than willing to do it.
Speaker 3: He is just his personal attorney and more he's he's
Speaker 3: somebody who is an acolyte. The last thing you need
Speaker 3: as attorney general. Even John Mitchell wasn't this bad. Mitchell
Speaker 3: rebuild against some of Nixon's orders or suggestions. He really did.
Speaker 3: He did some terrible things too, and that's why he
Speaker 3: went to prison. And we don't do that anymore. You know,
Speaker 3: if you're powerful enough, you'll get a pardon. And if
Speaker 3: you don't get a pardon, you just get a new
Speaker 3: president who's going to treat you like gold. And look
Speaker 3: at what look at what Todd Blanche is now saying
Speaker 3: along with Trump about the the fund that was going
Speaker 3: to take care all these terribly discriminated against January sixth criminals.
Speaker 3: They were heroes, they were patriots, Jim, and they need
Speaker 3: to be paid off. And now it turns out there
Speaker 3: are other ways to deliver the other ways. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean this, this is beyond belief. It is sickening. It
Speaker 3: is disgusting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: And and to paraphrase Donald Trump, who once said when
Speaker 1: you're a celebrity, you get away with it, he thinks
Speaker 1: when you're president, you get away with it.
Speaker 3: Uh even more so, yeah, even more so.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, Larry uh with the terrific UVA Center for Politics,
Speaker 1: and and yes I am paid to say that as
Speaker 1: a scholar of the program. I appreciate it very much.
Speaker 1: Always great to talk to Larry. We covered the waterfront,
Speaker 1: as they say, it was.
Speaker 3: Fun, Jim as always, take care and joy and we
Speaker 3: look forward to seeing you back in Charlottesville.
Speaker 2: Sounds good. Can't wait to get back down there. Thanks, Larry.
Speaker 2: Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And you know, he's absolutely right, and Larry's given us
Speaker 1: a lot to chew on. I mean, I do think
Speaker 1: that you know, it is not a stretch to say
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump will end up at the bottom of
Speaker 1: all presidents from a historical standpoint, that historians will agree
Speaker 1: from here on that Donald Trump was the worst president
Speaker 1: of all time. And it's hard to imagine anything really
Speaker 1: changing that scenario. And I was saying, I was saying
Speaker 1: this on the show the other day, and I will
Speaker 1: continue to say this. I was saying some of this
Speaker 1: when I was on MS Now the other day that
Speaker 1: his second term has been an absolute spectacular failure. It
Speaker 1: has been an absolute spectacular failure, and in a failure
Speaker 1: so many senses in that it obviously has hurt the
Speaker 1: American people. The economy has gone south during his administration
Speaker 1: during a second administration. But the way he is profited
Speaker 1: off the presidency, there is no precedent for it. There
Speaker 1: is no historical example for it. When you look at
Speaker 1: American history, no president has tried to profit off the
Speaker 1: presidency in the way that Donald Trump has. And I
Speaker 1: have to think that that is going to that is
Speaker 1: going to stick in the craw of a lot of
Speaker 1: voters from here on out until November, and they're going
Speaker 1: to be thinking about that when they go to the polls,
Speaker 1: when they think about how much they paid at the
Speaker 1: pump to drive themselves over to their polling station, when
Speaker 1: it's ten, fifteen, twenty dollars more than what they paid
Speaker 1: before Donald Trump came into the Oval office and started
Speaker 1: this second, this Iran war during a second administration. It
Speaker 1: obviously is stinging with a lot of people, and people
Speaker 1: are looking at their pocketbooks and they're saying they're going
Speaker 1: to blame him. And it has been said many times
Speaker 1: that people vote on the economy, and I think that
Speaker 1: is absolutely going to be the case this time around.
Speaker 1: But more to the point, they're going to be thinking
Speaker 1: about how Trump's economy has done so really well during
Speaker 1: his presidency and everybody else has gotten the shaft, there's
Speaker 1: no question about it. Really appreciate Larry Sabita joining us today.
Speaker 1: Going to do a shorter show today, but thanks everybody
Speaker 1: for tuning in. Gave us a lot to think about.
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you think. Put some stuff in the
Speaker 1: comments for us. Put your thoughts in the comments. Let
Speaker 1: us know what you think about what might be happening
Speaker 1: in the House, the Senate, maybe twenty twenty eight. Who
Speaker 1: you're preferred candidate is. Larry thinks we should keep our
Speaker 1: eyes on John as Off. We'll be hearing a lot
Speaker 1: about John as Off lately. We're trying to get him
Speaker 1: on the show. Yes, we are working on that, and
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it'll be very interesting to see
Speaker 1: how all of this plays out. As I said at
Speaker 1: the beginning of all of this, we're less than we're
Speaker 1: around eighty or so days until the midterms.
Speaker 2: This is going to go very quickly, folks. Taking from it.
Speaker 1: I covered a lot of these elections, covered a lot
Speaker 1: of these presidential elections and midterm cycles.
Speaker 2: We're almost in the.
Speaker 1: Full sprint to the finish, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: a very interesting sing fascinating to watch and I hope
Speaker 1: you'll be with us as we watch it each and
Speaker 1: every day. But in the meantime, still reporting from Washington,
Speaker 1: I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you next time.