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Speaker 2: I'm Jon Favreau and I'm Alex Wagner.
Speaker 1: Two weeks in a row.
Speaker 2: Baby. You know, I'm really glad when you said I
Speaker 2: want to do a special NIXT focused episode.
Speaker 1: Of todd that is what I said.
Speaker 2: I was like, who will even know where we're going
Speaker 2: to be, But it turns out very fortuitous. Happy to
Speaker 2: just talk about the NIXT on this podcast. Thanks for
Speaker 2: inviting me, John, Congratulations. That was something to do.
Speaker 1: I had. I had some excellent timing because I put
Speaker 1: the boys to bed, and then I went downstairs and
Speaker 1: I turned the game on at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter.
Speaker 2: When the runt pussy with your Pacific Standard time.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's watching sports West Coast time. Not that I
Speaker 1: ever do, because I have two young children.
Speaker 2: I know, but is the best it is the It's
Speaker 2: You're so lucky. I had put my I let them
Speaker 2: stay up a little bit late. And we saw the
Speaker 2: first quarter and it was like, we can turn this
Speaker 2: off now. They were like My eight year old started
Speaker 2: like kind of crying and he was like, I hate
Speaker 2: the next and I said, you need to manifest positivity
Speaker 2: and put them to bed, and then they he woke
Speaker 2: me up at seven o'clock. I know, I slept in
Speaker 2: and he was like, momy one and then we watched Hylight.
Speaker 1: I was slightly concerned that Trump had cursed them for
Speaker 1: the rest of the series, but it turns out it's
Speaker 1: just about him actually physically being there.
Speaker 2: True. And also, smart Knicks fans burned a bunch of
Speaker 2: stage in front of the garden yesterday because we know
Speaker 2: how to clear bad collaborations.
Speaker 1: Clear the Trump stink out of vent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it hangs in the air, especially in this weather.
Speaker 1: But listen, well, there we go, there we go.
Speaker 2: That's it. Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe
Speaker 2: to Plaze America.
Speaker 1: We got lots to talk about on today's show. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about Trump saying we're on the verge
Speaker 1: of a deal with Iran for the thirty ninth time
Speaker 1: since the war began a little over one hundred days ago.
Speaker 1: Who knows this could be the big one. We'll also
Speaker 1: cover the president's latest inflation gaff spoiler he loves it,
Speaker 1: and his attempt to quiet Republican fure over Bill Poulty
Speaker 1: by announcing his long term pick for DNI. There's also
Speaker 1: a new reporting that the knives are out in trump Land,
Speaker 1: which is perfectly illustrated by an explosive news story from
Speaker 1: Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan about how these morons bumble
Speaker 1: their way through the Epstein crisis. And finally you will
Speaker 1: hear my conversation with our pal Ron Brownstein, one of
Speaker 1: the best political analysts out there, about the mid term
Speaker 1: state of play, his take on the gram Platner saga,
Speaker 1: the House map, the Senate map, and much more. But
Speaker 1: before we start, please consider subscribing to Cricket and become
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Speaker 2: Friends, tell five friends, what's that? Tell five friends?
Speaker 1: Tell five friends. I like that. Thank you, Alex, wh
Speaker 1: I go for one.
Speaker 2: Don't clip your own wings?
Speaker 1: All right? I want five friends from everyone here we go?
Speaker 1: All right, Alex, stop me if you've heard this one
Speaker 1: before the ceasefire with iron broke down, missiles started flying again.
Speaker 1: Trump threatened to bomb the shit out of the entire country,
Speaker 1: and then at the last minute announced with great fanfare
Speaker 1: that he's calling off the strikes because a deal is
Speaker 1: finally at hand. Is this an episode from six we
Speaker 1: weeks ago, three weeks ago, last week, next week, ten
Speaker 1: weeks from now, all of the above?
Speaker 2: You know, John, I've come to the Chris Nolan theory
Speaker 2: of time that it's a dimension and so it's always happening.
Speaker 2: We're always at war and a deal is always imminent.
Speaker 2: We're always at war with its omnipresent. We live in
Speaker 2: the dimension of it. Yeah, we're never not about it
Speaker 2: will go on forever it has been happens.
Speaker 1: I guess it is just it's we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about this for eternity, Like it's like, all right,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the latest almost deal with Iran, and
Speaker 1: then we'll talk about the inflation gaff and then we're off.
Speaker 2: I I think I've been thinking a lot about this,
Speaker 2: and I wonder if it's time for the press to
Speaker 2: stop asking him anything about the war, because it's so
Speaker 2: it's like asking like perhaps a mentally ill person about
Speaker 2: stock tips, Like there's no use in doing that. They'll
Speaker 2: tell you some things.
Speaker 1: Now, I will. I will say he's pretty good at
Speaker 1: that because of all the insider information which he trades
Speaker 1: off of one. Yeah, that's he's quite quite adept at
Speaker 1: doing that. So that the latest US strikes hit targets
Speaker 1: across Iran, including apparently drinking water infrastructure, which would likely
Speaker 1: be a war crime. And after Trump threatened to take
Speaker 1: carg Island and assume quote total control of Iran's oil,
Speaker 1: he backed down with the post claiming quote final points
Speaker 1: have been in both concept and great detail approved by
Speaker 1: all parties involved, and then listed ten countries. Iran was
Speaker 1: not one of them. As I mentioned CNN has tallied
Speaker 1: this up for US. It's the at least the thirty
Speaker 1: ninth time that Trump has claimed the deal is imminent.
Speaker 1: And you know, he did take some questions on the
Speaker 1: deal in the oval, but like you said, it was
Speaker 1: all the same questions and all the same crazy answers.
Speaker 1: We thought it was much more interesting to play a
Speaker 1: super cut from his his colent to Fox and Friends
Speaker 1: this morning, between when he threatened to destroy the country
Speaker 1: and he announced an almost deal. He was he was
Speaker 1: there to ostensibly discuss Iran, but that only barely happened.
Speaker 1: Here are some of the highlights.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'd like to get a deal now, less
Speaker 3: than three or four weeks ago, because you know, once
Speaker 3: you do this, it's I just you could just go
Speaker 3: a step further. But I don't know that America has
Speaker 3: the appetite to do what I would really much prefer doing.
Speaker 3: But we were in Vietnam nineteen years. If it were me,
Speaker 3: I would have had that war done in three months.
Speaker 3: But we did great. In twenty twenty, I was a
Speaker 3: rigged election and you saw it in California. Very interesting.
Speaker 3: If I could just havevert he said, all of a sudden, this, oh,
Speaker 3: we have a surprise. Steve Hilton won. But it's a
Speaker 3: rigged election. But just go back, you know, but let's
Speaker 3: get back. Let's get back. I was. I just want
Speaker 3: to say to the public, it's a rigged election. We
Speaker 3: need to save America Act, period, got it. Okay, let's
Speaker 3: get back to Iran much simpler. Iron is very good
Speaker 3: at publicity, but they're not good at fighting. So I
Speaker 3: took a look, and I must tell you, if they
Speaker 3: can't believe the press, they get it, they can't even
Speaker 3: believe it. And they told me, they said, it's amazing
Speaker 3: how well we're doing in the papers. We're not doing
Speaker 3: so well. They're negotiating with us to make a deal.
Speaker 3: It's like they did an editorial today about we're not
Speaker 3: hitting them hard enough. I mean, it's just not hitting
Speaker 3: them hard enough. We dropped two hundred and fifty million
Speaker 3: dollars worth of bombs on them last night. You know,
Speaker 3: the whole thing is crazy. Part of the problem is
Speaker 3: that they read the fake news. I mean, because Fox
Speaker 3: is greater. But all the anchors on Fox have been fantastic,
Speaker 3: from Sean to Jesse Laura. I mean, they've all been great. Everybody,
Speaker 3: every single anchor it's been great. You guys have been amazing.
Speaker 2: Excellent.
Speaker 1: It seems like he's locked in.
Speaker 2: Huh dude, okay, I mean, like, where do we even
Speaker 2: begin with us? First of all, there's so many things
Speaker 2: to call attention to the fact that he had to
Speaker 2: in the middle of all of this go off on
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty election, and Brian kill Meat is like,
Speaker 2: I shouldn't have brought that up. I shouldn't have brought
Speaker 2: that up.
Speaker 1: And he says, Iran, it's my fault. Though, it's my
Speaker 1: fault I took us off topic, and then Trump says.
Speaker 2: Let's get back to Iran, a much simpler situation. He
Speaker 2: sounds like an old, angry person who's not yet even
Speaker 2: stood up from bed.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: He has that kind of the throaty congestion of someone
Speaker 2: who's just ranting from bed, like and it's just obviously
Speaker 2: it's just association at this point, just word salads. None
Speaker 2: of it makes sense. The fact that he keeps bringing
Speaker 2: up Vietnam as like a comparison should not make any
Speaker 2: member of the American public feel assured that they have
Speaker 2: their hands on the wheel here, that they got their
Speaker 2: arms around this thing. Well, look at Vietnam that took
Speaker 2: so long. You know, dude, we don't want to do
Speaker 2: that again.
Speaker 1: Also his whole thing about you know, I do what
Speaker 1: I want to do, but the American people might not
Speaker 1: have the stomach for it. Like he's like, he wants
Speaker 1: to do this big war. He wants to keep going
Speaker 1: with the war. He wants to just he wants he
Speaker 1: wants more war, harder war.
Speaker 2: His message. At one point, he's pressed to give his
Speaker 2: message to the Iranian people, and Trump says, and this
Speaker 2: is a quote. My message to the Iranian people is
Speaker 2: they're afraid because they have no guns and the other
Speaker 2: side has guns. That's not a message to the Iranian people.
Speaker 2: I don't think is that.
Speaker 1: Is not a message to the Every time somebody's asked
Speaker 1: about this whole war, though, he confuses it feels like
Speaker 1: intentionally now the Iranian people with the regime, and so
Speaker 1: everyone's like, what about the Iranian people, And he's like,
Speaker 1: they're running scared, that's what they're doing. And it's like
Speaker 1: they some people are specifically mentioning the Iranian people, and
Speaker 1: he of course does not give a shit about them,
Speaker 1: even though that was, uh, you know, that was one
Speaker 1: excuse for why we were doing this in the first place.
Speaker 2: I also love the new that the Iranian regime that
Speaker 2: Moshtaba Aremini, who has not been seen in public since
Speaker 2: this began, is calling Trump to be like, it's amazing,
Speaker 2: how well we're doing in the papers.
Speaker 1: The papers.
Speaker 2: That's I grabbed the New York Times here the other
Speaker 2: I grabbed the.
Speaker 1: Post this morning. You should have seen the wood on
Speaker 1: the post. Amazing. I'm getting amazing press. They put the
Speaker 1: knicks on the back page that I was right there
Speaker 1: in the front, and.
Speaker 2: That was a great game, mister president. He also starts
Speaker 2: talking at some point about Tianaman Square and how it
Speaker 2: takes a It starts the drivers of the tanks and
Speaker 2: Tienaman Square who mowed down citizens, at which point he's
Speaker 2: cut off and they're like, we only have a minute,
Speaker 2: mister president. They literally cut him off on Fox and
Speaker 2: Fronts because he's so out of Can I say, though, seriously, John,
Speaker 2: I mean because you mentioned and I think very importantly,
Speaker 2: and he certainly wasn't being asked about this on the
Speaker 2: Fox and Fronts broadcast. They may have bombed water infrastructure,
Speaker 2: which would be a war crime, and the story of
Speaker 2: whenever this ends or maybe it never ends because time
Speaker 2: is a dimension, but when it theoretically comes to a conclusion,
Speaker 2: the story of American war crimes in Iran will live
Speaker 2: with us as our legacy for decades. And we on
Speaker 2: Runaway Country had talked to a retired Master sergeant at
Speaker 2: the what is it called the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence,
Speaker 2: which was a department in the DoD which was set
Speaker 2: up to mitigate and prevent civilian deaths like, for example,
Speaker 2: bombing a girls' school or bombing water infrastructure, and Pete
Speaker 2: Hegseth wrote in and dismantled it effectively like civilian deaths
Speaker 2: are not beside the point. I mean, I think terrorizing people,
Speaker 2: especially brown people the world over is the point. And we,
Speaker 2: I mean, this administration owns these civilian deaths, and we
Speaker 2: don't have a good tally of them because there's so
Speaker 2: much opacity with regards to this roar, even as it
Speaker 2: concerns American deaths, and we have a free press. But
Speaker 2: at some point the numbers are going to come out
Speaker 2: and Donald Trump will own every single one of those
Speaker 2: deaths for a deal that looks like it will be
Speaker 2: nothing on par with the JCPOI.
Speaker 1: Also one thing he said there, And the clip that
Speaker 1: we played is, you know, he's talking about the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal editorial board, saying that he's not bombing hard enough,
Speaker 1: he's not doing enough right because they're hawks over there.
Speaker 1: He also calls them, He's like, I know that you
Speaker 1: guys own them, but they're trash, he said to the
Speaker 1: Fox people, referring to Murdoch, and he's like, you, what
Speaker 1: do they want from me? We just dropped two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty million dollars worth of bombs on them last night.
Speaker 1: So now he is bragging to the American people about
Speaker 1: using their tax dollars to drop bombs on Iran that
Speaker 1: hit water infrastructure that could potentially cause civilian death. So
Speaker 1: now he's telling people's like, hey, you want for me?
Speaker 1: I spent your money killing people in Iran for no
Speaker 1: reason last night.
Speaker 2: It's the first time we've also gotten any kind of
Speaker 2: price tag from him. I mean, it's so embarrassing that
Speaker 2: this is like the braggadocio about killing civilians is the
Speaker 2: only way we get some transparency about the from this
Speaker 2: White House, about what the damage and the sort of
Speaker 2: collateral on the table is. It's it's like horrifying you know.
Speaker 1: The question is you know, we'll we'll will Lucy yank
Speaker 1: the football away yet again, or is this finally Charlie
Speaker 1: Brown's moment. It seems like the it's still just a
Speaker 1: memorandum of understanding. So that's Trump said that in the oval,
Speaker 1: which means it's the sort of the same deal as
Speaker 1: before deal. The Israelis are apparently surprised and they said
Speaker 1: they're not part of this deal at all. So no
Speaker 1: matter what the deal is, it's not it's not solving
Speaker 1: the conflict between Israel and Lebanon. Trump said that the
Speaker 1: Ayatola has agreed already, Aron is not saying that there's
Speaker 1: an Arounia News agency said there's a high chancement the
Speaker 1: agreement will be approved, so like, you know, maybe we're
Speaker 1: going to get there, but it feels like we're right
Speaker 1: back to if it does get approved. What it is
Speaker 1: is uh the end of the naval blockade, uh reopening
Speaker 1: of the straight and then kicking all the nuclear issues
Speaker 1: down the road for more negotiations that I'm sure will
Speaker 1: not go anywhere else, but.
Speaker 2: I don't And there's there's definitely going to be some
Speaker 2: sweetening to the tune of I mean Marco Rubio on
Speaker 2: the Hill said they were not going to trade sanctions
Speaker 2: relief for reopening the Straight. But and Nahaltuzi has like
Speaker 2: a breakdown of this in Politico today. There's definitely ways
Speaker 2: that they can make sure money flows to Iran basically
Speaker 2: to fill back up the coffers and pay them for
Speaker 2: reopening pay them to reopen the Straight. We are going
Speaker 2: to buy any kind of resolution that happens here. We
Speaker 2: may not know about it as American taxpayers, but it
Speaker 2: is certainly there is going to be a shell game
Speaker 2: going on, uh inside the the bowels of the federal
Speaker 2: government to ensure that money goes to the Iranian regime,
Speaker 2: because otherwise why would they do any of this?
Speaker 1: No, of course, and what happens, what will happen is
Speaker 1: some intrepid reporters will find out what the shell game
Speaker 1: is and report it in a in a great story,
Speaker 1: and then someone asked the White House ablo out it,
Speaker 1: and they'll basically say, fuck you, fake news, and then
Speaker 1: everyone will go on to the next thing.
Speaker 2: But but don't don't take it from us, take it
Speaker 2: from Brian Kilmead who said, mister President, you're like an
Speaker 2: anaconda squeezing the life that was out of the enemy,
Speaker 2: slowly squeezing them to death. He said it like four times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was really happy with his analogy, and he
Speaker 1: just came He was like, but did.
Speaker 2: You hear the anaconda trying to make it work? Shopping it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Before we move on, what did you make of
Speaker 1: his rant about the California election? Did you did you
Speaker 1: realize that Steve Hilton won because Donald Trump complained about
Speaker 1: Spencer Pratt losing?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What do you say about Spencer Brad? He was like,
Speaker 2: the kid got shafted.
Speaker 1: He got shafted. But then I said something. I said something,
Speaker 1: and now now we got Steve Hilton. Now he made
Speaker 1: it through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was happening to Steve Hilton too, but now
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's good that someone's got their eyes
Speaker 2: on California. Guys. We know how you operate, and it's
Speaker 2: a complicated you know. Con Right, you think, oh, well,
Speaker 2: the gubernatorial race matters more, But no, what this is
Speaker 2: is about singular and discreete races that are stolen for
Speaker 2: no apparent reason but just to throw you off the scent.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's about It's about the LA mayor, the incumbent
Speaker 1: who much wanted to face Spencer Pratt much more than
Speaker 1: she wanted to face a progressive challenger, and yet did
Speaker 1: her best to rig the election so that she could
Speaker 1: get that progressive challenger and not Spencer Pratt.
Speaker 2: That is, yeah, a double cross of a double cross,
Speaker 2: John Untangle, that cat's cradle, buddy, Man, these people, but Lake,
Speaker 2: can I just say, yeah, the election fraud and going
Speaker 2: back to twenty twenty is like so much more animates
Speaker 2: this dude than actually Iran. I mean, he's both incompetent
Speaker 2: and incoherent on Iran, but he's also bored of it,
Speaker 2: Like he doesn't really have like he would much rather,
Speaker 2: he wants to talk about the Same America Act. He
Speaker 2: wants to talk about raw power and the stealing of
Speaker 2: elections and getting his election deniers, you know, having them
Speaker 2: act with the full force of the federal government. That's
Speaker 2: what really gets this guy.
Speaker 4: Up in the morning.
Speaker 1: Yes, as you can tell from the tone in his voice.
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Speaker 1: to cookunity dot com slash Crooked. Well dealer no deal
Speaker 1: with Iran. It's looking like it may be too late
Speaker 1: for Trump to turn the economy around before the midterms,
Speaker 1: and per usual, he's making it abundantly clear that he
Speaker 1: doesn't care. New inflation data from Trump's own Department of
Speaker 1: Labor shows that prices rose in May to a three
Speaker 1: year high for the third straight month, with energy prices
Speaker 1: up twenty four percent from a year ago. Data on
Speaker 1: wholesale inflation released Thursday morning put that measure at its
Speaker 1: high since late twenty twenty two. Trump, of course, has
Speaker 1: delivered an epic run of gafs on the topic of
Speaker 1: how much people's financial struggles are weighing on him. Here's
Speaker 1: a few highlights to jog your memory.
Speaker 4: Do you believe the price of oil and gas will
Speaker 4: be lower before the midterm elections?
Speaker 3: I hope so. I mean I think shelly could be.
Speaker 3: It could be the same or maybe a little bit higher.
Speaker 3: I've thought that uprising.
Speaker 1: We don't much higher.
Speaker 5: I look today, it's like at one hundred and two,
Speaker 5: and that's a very small price to pay for getting
Speaker 5: rid of a nuclear weapon from people that are really
Speaker 5: mentally deranged affordabilities, a hoax that was started by Democrats.
Speaker 2: Longa wile America continue to see the high gap tight, well,
Speaker 2: they're not very high.
Speaker 3: But I don't think about American financial situation. I don't
Speaker 3: think about anybody. I think about one thing. We could
Speaker 3: not let Iran have a nuclear aprodential.
Speaker 5: I don't care about the midtime. So what happened last
Speaker 5: night that was the prelude to the midtim s.
Speaker 1: Well, good news, we have a new contender for the crown.
Speaker 1: Here's what Trump said on Wednesday in response to a
Speaker 1: question about the latest inflation data.
Speaker 4: Service to President about the latest inflation number which came out.
Speaker 6: This morning, could that be a no? I love it?
Speaker 6: You know what, I really love.
Speaker 5: I love the inflation.
Speaker 6: You know why?
Speaker 1: Because I love the inflation. He loves the inflation. God.
Speaker 2: I wish ta goold pan to other faces in the room.
Speaker 1: You know that's good? Yeah, I just can't.
Speaker 2: Someone in the pool just go to Susie Wiles's face
Speaker 2: when this is being said, Scott Vessant, where I love
Speaker 2: the inflation. I mean, this is the downside John, of
Speaker 2: having a malignant narcissist in office, Like they can't summon
Speaker 2: empathy when empathy is the prerequisite from staving off the
Speaker 2: political fallout, from stopping the bleeding. Here, like the war
Speaker 2: is so catastrophically out of Trump's hands to a certain
Speaker 2: degree because he refuses to engage in diplomacy and doesn't
Speaker 2: really give a shit, and he's also an idiot. But like,
Speaker 2: if he's going to try and manage the political reality
Speaker 2: that he and his party are facing, you got to
Speaker 2: start the sentence with empathy. And I feel your pain,
Speaker 2: and I know this economy is bad and it's tough
Speaker 2: to be a working class American. But X Y and
Speaker 2: Z about Iran and the stability of the globe or whatever.
Speaker 2: But he is constitutionally unable to summon to even pretend.
Speaker 2: Not only as he constitutionally unable to pretend to be empathy,
Speaker 2: he's the opposite. He's digging the knife in further.
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton's message was I feel your pain. Donald Trump's messages,
Speaker 1: I cause your pain.
Speaker 2: And I'm fucking glad I did it.
Speaker 1: And tough shit, that's me. I cause your pain.
Speaker 2: You and your dumb cars, you and your dumb desire
Speaker 2: to put food on the table. Don't talk to me
Speaker 2: about health care. I need another million from my ballroom.
Speaker 1: Now for my money. I still think the reigning champ
Speaker 1: is I don't care, but I don't think about americans
Speaker 1: financial situation at all. It's I don know.
Speaker 2: I love the inflation.
Speaker 1: Is it's funny because he uses the article in front
Speaker 1: of it, right, I love the inflation, so that makes
Speaker 1: it a little funnier.
Speaker 2: But well, no, he says, it's actually the full quote
Speaker 2: is so good. You know what I really love. I
Speaker 2: love the inflation you could argue right like he's like, wait,
Speaker 2: hold it, He's tease it up. He's like, I'm about
Speaker 2: to you know what, I really love the inflation like
Speaker 2: it's so sedist. It honestly, I don't think about American's
Speaker 2: financial situations is part of a bigger question. And I'm
Speaker 2: not excusing it at all. I think it like it
Speaker 2: was a disastrous quote. But this is psychotic. This is
Speaker 2: someone who's like, you like the pain, how about a
Speaker 2: little bit more?
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 2: I really like fucking over the American public.
Speaker 1: It's always dangerous to do this, But I was trying
Speaker 1: to think of like what what was he actually trying
Speaker 1: to do there? And I think what he in his
Speaker 1: in his adult, very old mind, he was thinking, you
Speaker 1: know what, this data it's going to be great because
Speaker 1: as soon as the war's over, this inflation is going
Speaker 1: to come right down and then I'm going to take
Speaker 1: all this credit for inflation falling. So I love the inflation, like.
Speaker 2: I think it's a little bit like still doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: It doesn't no, of course not of course.
Speaker 2: Not because he's talking about ongoing inflation.
Speaker 1: It still just doesn't Wait, he doesn't know. He also
Speaker 1: doesn't know what inflation is really, Yes, that's it.
Speaker 2: Can I just say also, I don't moonlight as a
Speaker 2: petroleum engineer, but I will for this podcast. Yes, you know,
Speaker 2: I try and come. I try and come prepared. Like
Speaker 2: the gas praises are not going down, even if the
Speaker 2: Strait of Hormones opens back up tomorrow.
Speaker 1: No, like this is baked. This is where we're I
Speaker 1: don't even know.
Speaker 2: The Washington Post is talking about the reality of these
Speaker 2: like ships getting through back through the street. They're like
Speaker 2: even the hundreds of fully loaded tankers that have idled
Speaker 2: in the strait since last February will not be able
Speaker 2: to quickly move their cargo. Vessels are now so coated
Speaker 2: with barnacles that teams of divers will need to be
Speaker 2: dispatched to clean them. I didn't know that this.
Speaker 1: Is not just going to be an issue the issue
Speaker 1: in the midterms. This is going to be an issue
Speaker 1: for jd Vance in the Republican primary and whoever decides
Speaker 1: to run against him from outside the administration. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like by by act by twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 1: it won't maybe it won't be hopefully it won't be
Speaker 1: as much of an issue. But like twenty twenty seven,
Speaker 1: when the primaries are happening. Yeah, one hundred.
Speaker 2: Percent, You're so right to say that. That is like
Speaker 2: such a you're so smart about this, but that is
Speaker 2: so true, like because the I mean again, I'm not
Speaker 2: a trolley engineer, but the refineries and the production facilities
Speaker 2: can take an offline and it takes months to get
Speaker 2: them back up and running. And like if the oil
Speaker 2: supplies I also didn't know this, if oil supplies dropped
Speaker 2: low enough, then it breaks down. If there's not actually
Speaker 2: oil running through the pipeline, it can break down the
Speaker 2: production systems. So like, if they don't resolve this in
Speaker 2: the next several weeks, there's like a catastrophic supply side
Speaker 2: issue where the infrastructure starts breaking down. And that's well,
Speaker 2: like fixing all that is going to take. Forget about
Speaker 2: the fucking travel season. We're talking about holiday plans, Thanksgiving, Christmas.
Speaker 2: Like again, I'm not rooting for any of this. I
Speaker 2: didn't say that. I don't why I'm saying again, I'm
Speaker 2: not a politician, but this is a fucked up situation.
Speaker 2: And yet I well and not and yet the incompetence
Speaker 2: and the refusal to acknowledge reality here is makes you
Speaker 2: think they really want to lose, that there's something again
Speaker 2: they're just it's it's self flagellation. Politically speaking, here's the
Speaker 2: other challenge.
Speaker 1: And I'm no geopolitical expert, but if they come to
Speaker 1: a deal where it's just about opening the straight for
Speaker 1: money and for ending the naval blockade, and then they
Speaker 1: go on to negotiate the nuclear issue, which is going
Speaker 1: to be tricky to say the least, and they don't
Speaker 1: include Israel and the deal, then as we get into
Speaker 1: the fall and Trump has his elections and we have
Speaker 1: our elections here net Yahoo has his elections in Israel, Like,
Speaker 1: as long as Israel continues to be at war with
Speaker 1: Lebanon and firing, you know, firing at Hesbela and Hesblo
Speaker 1: is firing rockets in Israel, and Iran doesn't want to
Speaker 1: let those rockets go unanswered, and then Iran gets involved
Speaker 1: like that, we're not bringing peace to the Middle East
Speaker 1: with a with a memo of understand. So I think
Speaker 1: that and there's a risk there, both for in the
Speaker 1: midterms and in the presidential primaries, that the Middle East
Speaker 1: is now like permanently in this state of you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's always been a lot of conflict in
Speaker 1: the Middle East, but like this latest conflict continues as
Speaker 1: a sort of like a low boil I guess in
Speaker 1: the best case scenario, low boil, but like and they're
Speaker 1: going to have to deal with it. They're gonna have
Speaker 1: to deal with the fallout of this war for years.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: This is what I mean by time as a dimension.
Speaker 2: The war is ongoing, The war never ends. We are
Speaker 2: constantly on the brink of a peace deal. Call me
Speaker 2: in twenty fifty nine.
Speaker 1: So also on this note, the Washington Post reports that
Speaker 1: oil and gas executives have been warning the White House that,
Speaker 1: as you said, that gas prices are likely to spike.
Speaker 1: So they're hearing this from the oil executives themselves. This
Speaker 1: is not like, this is not just some just us
Speaker 1: talking about it. And then Politico has a story on
Speaker 1: Wednesday with the headline the die has been cast. Trump
Speaker 1: allies fear it's too late to reverse economic woes. I
Speaker 1: also think there was a funny quote that I just
Speaker 1: saw from John Cornyn, who is liberated now. He spoke
Speaker 1: to the New York Times and he said he said
Speaker 1: this about Donald Trump, He's going to have the most
Speaker 1: miserable two years of his life, in the last two
Speaker 1: years of his term. I think, because I think November
Speaker 1: is going to be a disaster, you know.
Speaker 2: What I mean?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 2: Fuck, like, what's going to be miserable? I mean miserable
Speaker 2: things to Democrats who have backbones, and certainly not to
Speaker 2: Republicans who might actually stand up to him. I mean,
Speaker 2: John Cornyn has no reason to continue to enable the
Speaker 2: agenda of this mad man, and yet given the opportunity
Speaker 2: to break with him, hasn't. I mean, it's just such
Speaker 2: cold comfort when you hear the guys that are on
Speaker 2: their way out the door suddenly sort of develop a
Speaker 2: moral compass. It's such bullshit. And by the way, they
Speaker 2: haven't delivered on anything. There have been some pretty big
Speaker 2: ticket issues that they could have done something about in
Speaker 2: the last week and they've chosen not to. So like,
Speaker 2: call me when your backbones made of action will like
Speaker 2: bone matter? And not? What am I even saying, John Cornyn?
Speaker 2: What the fuck ever? What the fuck ever? Is what
Speaker 2: I say?
Speaker 1: I know I agree with everything you said, and then
Speaker 1: I also love hearing quotes like that, so it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's a get a little bit of both I get
Speaker 1: mad because I'm like, why where have you been? But also, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think what he said is right. I
Speaker 1: hope so well.
Speaker 2: And I think that there's a you know, you should
Speaker 2: be dragging all of these every time an administration official
Speaker 2: goes in goes up to the hill, a fairy gets
Speaker 2: her wings. Every time an American administration official goes to
Speaker 2: the the Hill and has to testify under real questioning,
Speaker 2: they prove themselves to be absolute clowns, and someone ends
Speaker 2: up losing their job. Like just look at the you know,
Speaker 2: look at look at the track record of Pam Bondi
Speaker 2: and Christy Nome and you know, Tulsey Gabbert. Like so
Speaker 2: the once Democrats control Congress, and I think there's a
Speaker 2: likelihood that's both houses. Like there's gonna be some real
Speaker 2: investigation into the absolute I'm not going to say, I
Speaker 2: mean the amorality, the potential criming, and the deep corruption
Speaker 2: in this administration, and they're gonna have to answer for it,
Speaker 2: all of.
Speaker 1: It, and then they're going to continue fighting with each other,
Speaker 1: which we hear is happening right now. Apparently trum Trump
Speaker 1: is not happy about any of this, and it's putting
Speaker 1: a real strain on the supportive workplace culture that he
Speaker 1: has tried so hard to build. Here's a MAGA operative
Speaker 1: close to the White House talking to Playbook this morning.
Speaker 1: Trump is quote increasingly frustrated with everyone from his own
Speaker 1: team to the Senate. He's pissed and people are not
Speaker 1: recognizing the level of pisted that he is. And here's
Speaker 1: another White House ally talking about Trump's staff. Quote knives
Speaker 1: are out in some capacity. This person said, I mean
Speaker 1: people are stabbing people like. It's chaos. The chaos is
Speaker 1: like creeping back. Sounds like a fun place to work,
Speaker 1: no good benefits.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm great, great, real The ladder is steep,
Speaker 2: but you can climb, I don't. I mean the knives
Speaker 2: are out, Like if you thought, what should we be
Speaker 2: surprised that the most incompetent and corrupt White House in
Speaker 2: American history is beset by infighting and backstabbing? Absolutely not.
Speaker 2: I guess what's marginally interesting to me about that is
Speaker 2: those quotes are choice, but that it hasn't spilled out
Speaker 2: as much. I'm setting aside, like Bongino Gait and all,
Speaker 2: that that infighting hasn't spilled out in the sort of
Speaker 2: real chrimlinology of this White House the way that it
Speaker 2: did in Trump one point zero, given that things are
Speaker 2: going so much worse for Trump and he's so much
Speaker 2: more addled and obviously less I mean, maybe he's a
Speaker 2: sleep more. So that offers a reprieve and people can,
Speaker 2: you know, unruffle their feathers. But it's interesting to me
Speaker 2: that there hasn't been as much of a revolving door
Speaker 2: and sort of leaked backstabbing sort of anecdotes coming out
Speaker 2: of this White House the way there was and Trump won.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that owes to, maybe at Susie Wilds,
Speaker 2: but it sure still doesn't sound like a good place
Speaker 2: to work. I mean, nothing is. Once you've been to
Speaker 2: the crooked media headquarters, the bar is very high.
Speaker 1: Very high. My guess on this is that the percentage
Speaker 1: of like, die hard loyalists is much higher in the
Speaker 1: second term, and so all the people who might have
Speaker 1: had a conscience or wanted to speak out or thought
Speaker 1: the things were going too far, they're all gone now,
Speaker 1: and so it's just the hardcore true believers. And so
Speaker 1: if you're starting to get knives out among those people,
Speaker 1: that's the good stuff right there. That's when you know
Speaker 1: things are combustible.
Speaker 2: And I would say, you know, and I'm sure we'll
Speaker 2: talk about this later when we talk about the slush fund.
Speaker 2: There is the carrot on the stick of personal enrichment
Speaker 2: in a way that is like it's an almost an
Speaker 2: explicit promise. Like if you're in this White House and
Speaker 2: you know Pam Bondi was doing stock trades, they all
Speaker 2: have sort of various honeypots that they're dipping into that
Speaker 2: will keep you there, your seat maybe a little bit
Speaker 2: longer because you're making you have side hustles in a
Speaker 2: way that that was not an option or that they
Speaker 2: hadn't discovered that maybe in Trump one point, Oh, there
Speaker 2: is a reason to stay longer perhaps than you would.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, personal personal, what is it? Personalized?
Speaker 2: Bourbon doesn't just grow on trees, John, And if your
Speaker 2: cash bettel being FBI director, you know, membership has its perks.
Speaker 1: Sure does. So. Trump was off the course pissed that
Speaker 1: Republicans keep defying him, and that's like one of the
Speaker 1: things he's really mad about. And it looks like Republican
Speaker 1: sort of displeasure with him picking Bill Poulty for acting
Speaker 1: DNI as you and I talked about last week. Has
Speaker 1: led to Trump announcing his long term pick for d
Speaker 1: n I, and it's that's US attorney and former SEC
Speaker 1: Chair Jay Clayton. So that got announced today on Thursday,
Speaker 1: presumably because enough republic and said fuck no, we're not
Speaker 1: dealing with the Bill Poulty is a bridge too far.
Speaker 1: And also if you go ahead with Bill Poulty as
Speaker 1: a permanent DNI director or even a temporary DNI which
Speaker 1: some of them said absolutely not about that. Even if
Speaker 1: they do that, then what they were going to do
Speaker 1: is hold up seven oh two or the reauthorization of
Speaker 1: seven oh two, which is what gives the federal government
Speaker 1: warrantless spy powers. Got to make sure the government has
Speaker 1: warrantless by powers. Right, That is a again that is
Speaker 1: a bipartisan push. But anyway, so now the question is
Speaker 1: does this do it for Congress now that they've got
Speaker 1: And also, what do you think about Jay Clayton?
Speaker 2: Okay, so two things. One as I understand it, and
Speaker 2: our Crackerjack fact checking team can probably disabuse me of
Speaker 2: this if it's incorrect, but Poulty remains. I think the
Speaker 2: Times is reporting the current plan is for Polty to
Speaker 2: continue to serve as acting director until Clayton is confirmed
Speaker 2: by the Senate.
Speaker 1: Yes, and and and Bill and he once again. There
Speaker 1: there was another story about apparently he called Tulsey Gabbard
Speaker 1: Bill Polti and was like, I know you said you're
Speaker 1: leaving next month or whatever, but you're out now I'm starting.
Speaker 1: And she's like what the fuck. She's like, the president
Speaker 1: should tell me that. And then she called the President
Speaker 1: and he was like, well, I get what do you
Speaker 1: want your last day to be? And so now it's
Speaker 1: going to be I think in a week week and
Speaker 1: a half.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's because he knows he has you know,
Speaker 2: the clock is running. And these, you know, Tish James
Speaker 2: mortgage fraud documents don't just find themselves John.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's in there to be faffing around in
Speaker 2: classified material to try and drum up reasons why elections
Speaker 2: have been stolen or Democrats or corrupt or whatever the
Speaker 2: fuck it is. But I don't like the idea of
Speaker 2: Bill Pulty being anywhere near the Office of National Intelligence,
Speaker 2: Like that is setting aside Jay Clayton, like that is alarming,
Speaker 2: And that is every reason why Democrat they should first
Speaker 2: of all Senate Republican like John Cornyan, who are you know,
Speaker 2: intent on giving the president keeping him in line. They
Speaker 2: got the wool pulled over their eyes on the slush fund.
Speaker 2: I know we're talking about that coming up, but they
Speaker 2: shouldn't get their will the wool pulled over their eyes
Speaker 2: on Bill Pulty, Like that man needs to be locked
Speaker 2: out of the intelligence infrastructure and get a restraining order
Speaker 2: basically because even two weeks on the job for him
Speaker 2: is too many. And if that means holding up vice
Speaker 2: A reauthorization until and unless that happens, then that's what
Speaker 2: should happen. Like he is a danger to democracy.
Speaker 1: Now, this is basically what that's basically what. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen other Democrats yet, but Mark Warner, who's ranking member
Speaker 1: on Intel, said that. Warner was like, this is fine.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I wish we could have got here earlier,
Speaker 1: but there's no way where we're no way we're reauthorizing
Speaker 1: FAIZA unless we get assurances that there's no Bill Poulte
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: Like Bill Poulty needs to be extradited to a different
Speaker 2: country and get nowhere near like a passport office. I
Speaker 2: will say, I mean Clayton Oversaw a lot of the
Speaker 2: review of the Epstein documents. He was the one, I
Speaker 2: think his off his prosecutors brought the case against Nicholas Maduro,
Speaker 2: which was, you know, nominally the reason that Trump went
Speaker 2: in and seized Maduro. He's very capable of doing the
Speaker 2: president's bidding, and I think that's probably what won him favor.
Speaker 2: He also, in recent days has been raising alarms about
Speaker 2: fraud in California and the vote count.
Speaker 1: So, like, I noticed that, Yeah, he said, he said,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying there's fraud, but the laws, the way
Speaker 1: they're written in California present the opportunity for fraud. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we know why Jake Clayton.
Speaker 2: Was just totally I mean, that's and that's a prerequisite
Speaker 2: for any But like, I don't know, there's a part
Speaker 2: of me that thinks, Okay, maybe Clayton gets in there
Speaker 2: and he proves himself to be more of a bulwark
Speaker 2: against Trump's most lawless impulses, or maybe he becomes more
Speaker 2: of a student Like Todd Blanche was a kind of respected,
Speaker 2: like white you know, white shoe law firm kind of
Speaker 2: guy and has turned out to be like the architect
Speaker 2: of our national nightmare. So I'm a little worried. I'm
Speaker 2: worried about anybody that meets Trump's standards or substandards for
Speaker 2: any of these positions. I like the jim Heims, someone
Speaker 2: I you know, and and Mark Warner of people Democrats
Speaker 2: who have like very good reputations on this are signing
Speaker 2: off on him and saying he's good. That's reassuring. But
Speaker 2: you know, I worry something happens to you when you
Speaker 2: walk into the Trump administration. You have to check your
Speaker 2: morals and your brain at.
Speaker 1: The door, especially if you're someone who wants the job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a that's a red flag you.
Speaker 2: No one in their right mind should want this. Also,
Speaker 2: idiot ass administration understand there's a legislative branch that like
Speaker 2: needs to confirm this, but like, why did he nominate
Speaker 2: this guy? As the House is out and the Senate's out, Like,
Speaker 2: this is nothing, Nothing's going to happen till I think
Speaker 2: June twenty third. So FAISA authorization is going to expire
Speaker 2: almost no matter what, even if the candidate is more
Speaker 2: to the liking of the Upper Chamber.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, is it some kind of a scheme
Speaker 1: or is it just typical incompetence. It could be either
Speaker 1: probably probably a comple probably a competence. Podsave America is
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Speaker 1: crooked fifty at checkout on the slush fund that you mentioned.
Speaker 1: The Atlantic Sera Fitzpatrick, who broke those stories about cash
Speaker 1: hotel drinking on the job, has new reporting that administration
Speaker 1: officials are quietly telling allies that quote plans for some
Speaker 1: form of payout remain on track, so we've talked about
Speaker 1: this too, everyone that you know. Blanche said it's we're
Speaker 1: not moving forward with it. But then Republicans in Congress
Speaker 1: blocked any provision in the ice funding bill that would
Speaker 1: have killed it for good. And then Trump talks about
Speaker 1: how much he loves it still and he loves the
Speaker 1: slush fund, And sure enough, it sounds like from this reporting,
Speaker 1: and Sarah talked to quite a few officials, current and
Speaker 1: former in the Justice Department in Congress and the Trump
Speaker 1: administration elsewhere who said that basically there the plan could
Speaker 1: be that anyone who wants to pay out from the
Speaker 1: slush fund or from what used to be the slush
Speaker 1: fund would just sue the government, because that's who you'd
Speaker 1: sue for that, and then the federal government, the dj
Speaker 1: will just settle and settle for an amount of money,
Speaker 1: some amount of money. It is a payout, and that's that.
Speaker 1: Even if the courts are like because they wouldn't take
Speaker 1: their case to court because the court would be like, well,
Speaker 1: that's fucking crazy. You're on you're on video almost murdering
Speaker 1: a cop. So no, we're not going to pay you
Speaker 1: any money or or find in favor of you, and
Speaker 1: they'll say, well, we don't have to go to court
Speaker 1: because the DOJ will settle with us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's not an adversarial lawsuit. Therefore it
Speaker 2: would be thrown out in court. But with this true
Speaker 2: story of this administration, as obviously corrupt as the ballrooms
Speaker 2: and the reflecting pool contracts and all that shit, is
Speaker 2: the true story of corruption is what they're doing behind
Speaker 2: closed doors, inside the guts of the federal government. And
Speaker 2: I will just plug Runaway Country one more time because
Speaker 2: this week we talked to Pro Publica reporter Robert Fechteracci,
Speaker 2: who's been breaking amazing stories, including the way in which
Speaker 2: the Trump kids are dipping their hands in the deep
Speaker 2: coffers of the Department of Defense and you know, making
Speaker 2: ten x investments on venture capital funds or rire earth
Speaker 2: mineral startups or drone contractors. There is a lot of
Speaker 2: cash floating around in the American federal government, and they
Speaker 2: have figured out a way to tap that maple tree,
Speaker 2: if you will. And the slush fund is exemplary of
Speaker 2: the opacity once people stop, once these kind of issues
Speaker 2: stop being adjudicated publicly in courts or you know, politically,
Speaker 2: and it's just a kind of behind the scenes process,
Speaker 2: a settlement fund at the DJ that hush hush, you
Speaker 2: can tap if you have friends at the DOJ. That's
Speaker 2: where the most brazen corruption happens. And I have every
Speaker 2: reason to believe that they intend on I mean Sarah's reporting, Yes,
Speaker 2: but it's also Todd Blanche refused to write down like
Speaker 2: he wouldn't submit a written statement saying the slush fund
Speaker 2: is outlawed. Like their behavior in and around the cancelation
Speaker 2: of the slush fund was so transparent, it was clear
Speaker 2: that they were going to try and resurrect it in
Speaker 2: some fashion. And the statements in the piece I think
Speaker 2: she quotes Tom Tillis, who's like he has grown vocal
Speaker 2: in his criticism of the administration as he heads towards
Speaker 2: retirement and indicated he may not vote to confirm Blanche
Speaker 2: unless the fund is truly dead. Gee, you fucking think Tom,
Speaker 2: Why are you even alive? What are you doing? BILDI Cassidy?
Speaker 2: What is the point of you? I think I said
Speaker 2: this last time we were on the podcast Lesson What
Speaker 2: is the point of you? Bill Cassidy? Like, how cuck
Speaker 2: can you be to this madman and his stooges. When
Speaker 2: is enough enough?
Speaker 1: Apparently there there is no limit. And I do think
Speaker 1: that what you just mentioned about Blanche, that is one
Speaker 1: leverage point here is don't confirm Blanche unless you know
Speaker 1: they put it in a court filing, right, you got to.
Speaker 1: You can't just say it anymore if they're like well,
Speaker 1: and also, don't confirm Blanche because he helped with the Epstein
Speaker 1: cover up. And I just saw there was breaking news
Speaker 1: that a group of Epstein survivors, you know, announced public
Speaker 1: opposition to Blanche's attorney general nomination. Like, I do think
Speaker 1: that's the kind of fight you can pick that actually
Speaker 1: is you know, gets more attention than just we don't
Speaker 1: want Todd Blanche because Todd Blanch sucks, right, like we
Speaker 1: have like you have some good examples. I think on
Speaker 1: the slush fund too, I would make like this is
Speaker 1: an extreme example that tells the whole story of the
Speaker 1: Trump administration. And if I were Democrats, I would hammer
Speaker 1: it every single day from now into the mid terms.
Speaker 1: If they win, they have a secret plan to take
Speaker 1: your money and give it to criminals who beat cops
Speaker 1: and abuse children. Yeah, that's because those are a lot
Speaker 1: of the Jain sells itself somehow, somehow. So many of
Speaker 1: the January sixth convicts also have either gone on to
Speaker 1: commit child abuse or had in the past, So that's
Speaker 1: just that's interesting. But yeah, these are the people that
Speaker 1: they want to give your money to if they win.
Speaker 1: And this is one area too where there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that Trump's doing where if Democrats take Congress, Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we're not going to be able to do anything until
Speaker 1: we have a democratic president. So everyone's going to have to,
Speaker 1: you know, keep fighting and we're not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to pass legislation because Trump's still president. But everything where
Speaker 1: you were just talking about happening behind closed doors, happening
Speaker 1: in secret, with the slush fund, with the other stuff.
Speaker 1: Democrats take Congress, they're going to be able to like
Speaker 1: shine a light on all of that and make sure
Speaker 1: that it doesn't happen a lot of.
Speaker 2: It at least, and to make sure it doesn't happen of.
Speaker 1: Slush fund is a perfect example of that. And so
Speaker 1: I would be saying that all through the fall, like you,
Speaker 1: you elect Republicans and they are going to Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is going to take your money and use it to
Speaker 1: pay out criminals, criminals who beat cops.
Speaker 2: John, They're such jabbronis though, Like they probably can't even
Speaker 2: pull it off in secret, like they have the quote
Speaker 2: Chadley Woodward Junior, who's an associate Attorney General who signed
Speaker 2: off on the slush fund, and he responds, we're on
Speaker 2: it to a post by Lindsey Graham that suggested victims
Speaker 2: of the weaponization fund could still be compensated through other means.
Speaker 2: It's like, you're not supposed to say that, dude. He
Speaker 2: then deleted the post. They're so dumb.
Speaker 1: They are so dumb. And the and the criminals who
Speaker 1: were going to try to get the payouts, they're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to stop themselves from bragging about
Speaker 1: it because they're all total Yeah.
Speaker 2: Videos of themselves rolling around on heads of money, like
Speaker 2: Demi Moorn in decent proposal.
Speaker 1: Yes, like videos that they took of themselves breaking into
Speaker 1: the Capitol and trying to you know, exactly. So, speaking
Speaker 1: of knives out in Trump world, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: explosive story in the Times about just how badly the
Speaker 1: administration fucked up the entire Epstein saga. The story is
Speaker 1: actually an excerpt for Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's forthcoming
Speaker 1: new book, Regime Change, and it includes some pretty incredible
Speaker 1: details and anecdotes that involved Trump officials screaming at each
Speaker 1: other and just generally acting like morons. What were some
Speaker 1: of your favorite bits?
Speaker 2: Oh god, I mean, do I have to talk about
Speaker 2: abused nipples or will you talk about that? I really
Speaker 2: don't have to talk I had We're going to have
Speaker 2: to tackle it.
Speaker 1: Tommy and I did a lot of nipple talk responding
Speaker 1: to this on YouTube, went to America YouTube. Why don't
Speaker 1: you sorry, we don't do a lot of public nipple talk, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: but yeah we did. We did. We did lead off
Speaker 1: with this yesterday on the pods of America YouTube. But
Speaker 1: that's that's why, that's why I want to hear.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why you should be a subscriber.
Speaker 1: Huh exactly. That's a that's a great.
Speaker 2: Place to Okay, where to begin, let's table abuse nipples.
Speaker 2: Maybe we won't even get to it, and we'll drive
Speaker 2: people to the subscription only YouTube rapid response. I think
Speaker 2: they're just One of the things that grabbed me initially
Speaker 2: was the idea that they're sitting in the sit room.
Speaker 2: Trump isn't there and it's like the Crackerjack a team
Speaker 2: to figure out what to do about the Epstein scandal,
Speaker 2: And it's like Susie Wild's David Warrington find Caroline Levitt,
Speaker 2: Stephen Chung, Pam Bondi, Cash Betel. This is like I'm
Speaker 2: trying to think, is it like a gang of like
Speaker 2: resputants or Yago? Like what's the appropriate character delineation for
Speaker 2: this group of malicious idiots? But anyway, then I of
Speaker 2: course I focus a lot on the JD. Vans of
Speaker 2: it all because in these inside Maggie and Jonathan have
Speaker 2: done great reporting and they did another similar sort of
Speaker 2: piece about how America decided to go to war, which
Speaker 2: also involves a group of malicious idiots. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 2: clear that Jade Vance is a source for some of this.
Speaker 2: Like in some parts of this he comes across as
Speaker 2: like the only clear thinker and understands that Epstein is
Speaker 2: a major problem for Trump and he needs to do
Speaker 2: something about it, and they need to be aggressive, and
Speaker 2: you know, he needs to. He presses for the administration
Speaker 2: to release all the files and even the unsubstantiated allegations
Speaker 2: and anecdotes. But then he also has like the most
Speaker 2: dumb fuck ideas ever, like having suggesting that that Tucker
Speaker 2: Carlson go and interview Gallayne Maxwell like somehow that's going
Speaker 2: to solve their problems, which would only spin it into
Speaker 2: the stratosphere and is like asking a six year old
Speaker 2: to go eat a whole bunch of cotton candy and
Speaker 2: then take the teacups ride like it's all sensory overload.
Speaker 2: Can you even imagine what that conversation would be? Like,
Speaker 2: I can't, I don't know what did you think?
Speaker 1: Also, well, so I had a couple of like big
Speaker 1: odds on the whole thing. Big picture thoughts. One is
Speaker 1: that the people in the administration who most understand like
Speaker 1: what really drives and angers the magabase, your jd Vance
Speaker 1: is your Dan Bongino's, they may be sources for this
Speaker 1: story like that could be likely, but clearly like they
Speaker 1: what's awesome about this is that they, you know, spoke
Speaker 1: up and and are trying to stop this and trying
Speaker 1: to fix it, and yet they are going to be
Speaker 1: tarnished forever by not having achieved any of what they
Speaker 1: set out to achieve. So it's not like like no,
Speaker 1: no one in the magabase is going to be like
Speaker 1: reading this and thinking like, oh, you know jd Vance,
Speaker 1: our guy on the inside, he tried his best.
Speaker 2: Did you meet Maggie? And Jonathan's TikTok come.
Speaker 1: On like no one, no one's gonna think that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So jd Vance is like, I have a great idea,
Speaker 1: will have Tucker interview Gallayne masks Well. And then there
Speaker 1: was like that's kind of crazy. Then Todd Blanche is like,
Speaker 1: I'll interview Gallaine Maxwell, and then the White House counsole
Speaker 1: floats give her a pardon, and then the rest of
Speaker 1: the room strongly disagrees. And then Stephen Chung says, quote,
Speaker 1: pardoning Maxwell a trafficker of young girls would create a
Speaker 1: huge pr problem. No fucking shit, huh wow. Also a
Speaker 1: good thing you're in this job. You're a you're a
Speaker 1: bright guye well.
Speaker 2: But also not even a gesture.
Speaker 1: I know, towards the morality.
Speaker 2: More the morality here, not a word they understand. The
Speaker 2: ethics never ever come into debate. It is just about spin.
Speaker 2: It is just about minimizing the drama for the Trump administration.
Speaker 2: It is nothing about the victims and survivors who went
Speaker 2: through this hell like it's so naked, not that it
Speaker 2: should surprise anybody, but really it's astounding.
Speaker 1: And then JD Vance is like, then they thought when
Speaker 1: they were coming out with that that wonderful memo that
Speaker 1: did nothing but cause them more trouble. Uh. They had
Speaker 1: this original plan to have Todd Blank go on Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan to talk about this, and then JD's like, well,
Speaker 1: how about I go instead of Todd Blanche and I
Speaker 1: can take a few questions about this, but because it's
Speaker 1: me the Vice President and not Todd Blanche, he'll have
Speaker 1: to ask about other stuff like the administration's progress on
Speaker 1: helping working people and the tax cuts and the building
Speaker 1: if you listened to Joe Rogan. And then of course
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan was like, I'm only taking JD. Vansa, not
Speaker 1: Todd Blanche because who the fuck is Todd Blanche and
Speaker 1: so and then it never goes anywhere. But I did
Speaker 1: like that little anecdote, just because JD clearly has some
Speaker 1: really the mind of a communication strategist.
Speaker 2: You definitely want to hear about how we're helping working
Speaker 2: families and how we're cutting the social safety net to
Speaker 2: help those working families. Also, Pam BONDI like released her
Speaker 2: fake dummy Epstein files without any consultation with the White House.
Speaker 1: Right, and this is a small, small thing, small thing,
Speaker 1: But she was left out on some of the emails
Speaker 1: about the memo. And the reason is is because it
Speaker 1: said Bondi rarely used her Justice Department email and was
Speaker 1: not on the chain where the group worked on the memo.
Speaker 1: The Attorney General rarely uses, rarely used her Justice Department email.
Speaker 1: Remember twenty six.
Speaker 2: Why is there some irony in that that I'm missing?
Speaker 1: No, No, it's we've always we've always cared a lot
Speaker 1: about It's not like.
Speaker 2: She's dealing with classified information.
Speaker 1: Ipsack here and so and then Dan Bongino screams at Pambondy,
Speaker 1: yells at Susie Wiles, storms out of meetings. He said
Speaker 1: to Pambondy, you fucked this thing up from the start,
Speaker 1: the way you've been talking about this, the dumb fucking
Speaker 1: charade with the Epstein files that they're on my desk, nonsense,
Speaker 1: all the promises to the folks out there. So that
Speaker 1: was fun.
Speaker 2: That threatened to quick bong Gino definitely a source. Also
Speaker 2: this I like this part of it. Privately, Bongino seethed
Speaker 2: in conversations with confidants. He lamented what the job had
Speaker 2: cost him millions of dollars in podcast revenue, family time
Speaker 2: his audience.
Speaker 1: Just sandwiched in between the millions in podcasts. Yeah I left.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry millions. Yeah no, I've left to spend more
Speaker 1: time with my audience, just like Okay, No.
Speaker 2: It's good to know where your kids stand now. They
Speaker 2: now they know for sure we should between your your like,
Speaker 2: your downloads, and your YouTube subscribers. Cool.
Speaker 1: Before we move on to from the from this, we
Speaker 1: should at least talk about nipplegate because otherwise people are
Speaker 1: going to think that we're weird that we didn't. We
Speaker 1: just threw it out there and then and then didn't
Speaker 1: actually explain that.
Speaker 2: We don't want them to think we're perverts.
Speaker 1: No, right, So what the president?
Speaker 2: That would be the president.
Speaker 1: So when they looked through all the emails and all
Speaker 1: the files, they found h allegations from a woman named
Speaker 1: Sarah Ransom, and she claimed that she knew a girl
Speaker 1: in Epstein's sex trafficking ring named Jen, who said she
Speaker 1: had sex with Trump. Ransom also claimed that Jen had
Speaker 1: told her that Trump had a predilection for nipples and
Speaker 1: that he had aggressively flicked and sucked hers. She wrote
Speaker 1: that she had seen evidence when she shared a bathroom
Speaker 1: with Jen quote they looked incredibly painful as they were
Speaker 1: read and swollen, and I remember wincing when I looked
Speaker 1: at them.
Speaker 2: She wrote, thank you for taking that one for the team.
Speaker 1: Dude.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I was like, I'm going to have to
Speaker 2: do this because I'm a woman, but you really thank
Speaker 2: you for doing me that solid.
Speaker 1: So of course, you know, unsubstantiated, but there was we heard.
Speaker 1: We didn't hear this exact story, but like this story
Speaker 1: had been out there, and then the White Houses tried
Speaker 1: to say that because she had basically rescinded other allegations
Speaker 1: because she said she was afraid for her life, that
Speaker 1: maybe she's not a reliable source, and so that oh,
Speaker 1: she she said the other things weren't true. She took
Speaker 1: it back, and so this is so there's still like
Speaker 1: some confusion around there. But anyway, the point is this
Speaker 1: story is why they didn't make the searchable database for
Speaker 1: all the files and left some out of there, which
Speaker 1: also ended up fucking them because obviously people knew they're
Speaker 1: worthholding some of the files.
Speaker 2: Damned if you do, damned if you don't. There's like
Speaker 2: the fact that we now live in the universe where
Speaker 2: these kind of stories are ones about the president of
Speaker 2: the United States, where we're talking about the document that
Speaker 2: connected Trump to the claim about abused nipples was among
Speaker 2: the material that came out. I also like, that's what
Speaker 2: we're we now have to talk about abused nipples in
Speaker 2: the context of the president of the United States. And
Speaker 2: then I also like the JD vance is like, Trump
Speaker 2: would be okay, if you released the nipple related documents, it's.
Speaker 1: Going to be better, going to be better to get
Speaker 1: it all out there.
Speaker 2: Abusing nipples, it's nothing to the it's nothing compared to
Speaker 2: the other abuse. And then Susie Wells is like hard, no, hard,
Speaker 2: no JD not letting nipplegate get out there.
Speaker 1: Obviously like the lurid nature of that story and the
Speaker 1: description makes it like that that is what sort of
Speaker 1: attracts your attention. But just stepping back from it all
Speaker 1: if like that is an allegation the Donald Trump was
Speaker 1: involved with Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking of underage girls, right,
Speaker 1: and so now we have like and we're just all like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's that's a wild story. It's like, no, no, no, it's.
Speaker 2: But the only allegation right that was it's it's and
Speaker 2: and it's like the one person in the White House
Speaker 2: who did not want to deal with the Epstein files,
Speaker 2: did not want to deal with the strategy around transparency
Speaker 2: and what was released and what wasn't was Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: And it's like, hmmm, and.
Speaker 1: I need that be And he says privately to Marjorie
Speaker 1: Taylor Green in the piece, Oh, it's because I don't
Speaker 1: want it really, because it could really hurt some of
Speaker 1: my friends, like, yeah, including his best friend.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, his very closest friend. And then we yes,
Speaker 2: I mean there are a lot of Listen, we're just
Speaker 2: asking questions, John, yeahs.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, it's all out there. It's all out there.
Speaker 1: One other data point on why Trump might not be
Speaker 1: in a great mood. I know you saw the Post
Speaker 1: story saying that the Washington Post story is saying that
Speaker 1: his last medical checkup, Trump was by twenty two different
Speaker 1: medical specialists. I did not read this whole story, but
Speaker 1: I know you wanted to.
Speaker 2: That's all there is. Have you ever seen twenty two doctors?
Speaker 2: The last time he was at the at Walter Reed,
Speaker 2: he was seen by fourteen specialists, eleven before twenty two doctors.
Speaker 2: Seems like a lot. Now you could say, oh, Biden
Speaker 2: saw twenty I think according to Kree John Pierre at
Speaker 2: his last year in office. But Biden also wasn't covering
Speaker 2: his hands in like Mabeline concealer on the daily, didn't
Speaker 2: have a rash creeping up his neck, wasn't falling asleep
Speaker 2: all the time at any hour, and as you know,
Speaker 2: addled as Biden seemed, I don't think he approached the
Speaker 2: incoherence of Trump, and certainly not with the same stakes.
Speaker 2: Like we're in the middle of a war and the
Speaker 2: global economy is in a tailspin. There's like food shortages
Speaker 2: happening around the world. People in the Philippines can't go
Speaker 2: to work five days a week because there's not enough fuel.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like, anyway, I think we should all
Speaker 2: be talking thank you for including this in the rundown, John,
Speaker 2: because I do think we should all be talking a
Speaker 2: lot more about his fitness for office. Like it's kind
Speaker 2: of crazy to me that the the the Jabbroni who
Speaker 2: fell asleep at the Knicks game gets a pass for
Speaker 2: any of it. Like it is he increasingly shows no
Speaker 2: signs of competence in office, and the American public deserved
Speaker 2: to have more transparency about his health.
Speaker 1: I do agree. I will also say, though, if if
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was turned out to be in one hundred
Speaker 1: percent tip top shape not fit for office, don't think
Speaker 1: it would have Don't think it would be improving his
Speaker 1: performance no percent. I think that he I think if
Speaker 1: he had if he is, if he was like a
Speaker 1: physical specimen at whatever his age is, to be eighty
Speaker 1: years old this weekend, If he's a physical specimen, if
Speaker 1: he had the the if he had the constitution of
Speaker 1: a forty year old, he would still be as bad
Speaker 1: of a president as he is right now.
Speaker 2: Respect I agree.
Speaker 1: But it is. It is fucking weird.
Speaker 2: It'd be good to know if he's dying.
Speaker 1: Speaking of this weekend, we'd be remiss if we didn't
Speaker 1: discuss the massive sporting event bringing Americans together in a
Speaker 1: celebration of our shared purpose and values, the UFC sponsored
Speaker 1: cage match that Donald Trump is staging on the White
Speaker 1: House lawn for his eightieth birthday on Sunday. A group
Speaker 1: called Public Integrity Project is suing to try to stop
Speaker 1: the event. I'm not sure they'll succeed. According to the AP,
Speaker 1: the government attorneys revealed in legal filings that the UFC
Speaker 1: and other private groups have already spent sixty million dollars
Speaker 1: on the event that is a government saying that they
Speaker 1: did not say how much the federal government has shelled out,
Speaker 1: but wrote that seven different agencies are involved and have
Speaker 1: quote allocated significant resources and manpower. Most of this is
Speaker 1: you know, UFC is footing the bill for most of
Speaker 1: this and various sponsors, but I don't know. You have
Speaker 1: seven different government agencies and that's going to be that's
Speaker 1: going to be directing some time and energy and resources
Speaker 1: that could be going to the business of the people.
Speaker 2: I suppose again I point you to the real grift
Speaker 2: that's happening is inside the guts of the federal government.
Speaker 2: Like there will be an accounting for it at some point,
Speaker 2: but this we should assume the very worst about what
Speaker 2: they're doing and the way they are reappropriating resources to
Speaker 2: serve Donald Trump's massive ego. The only thing I can
Speaker 2: hold out hope for John is, first of all, I
Speaker 2: believe the cage matches on Sunday. Is that right way
Speaker 2: ins are on Saturday. I'm looking at the forecast for Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. Ninety two degrees and thunderstorms.
Speaker 1: I know I saw that. I saw that because when
Speaker 1: I thought I was going, I was saying it was
Speaker 1: going to be that hot. It was a chance of thunderstorms.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the chances increased, but it's a.
Speaker 2: Fifty five percent chance of scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon
Speaker 2: and evening.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to I don't notice anything
Speaker 1: that's gonna trigger any kind of karma. Because forecasts for
Speaker 1: Chicago on Thursday at the Obama Library opening one day Chicago,
Speaker 1: it's supposed to rain heavily.
Speaker 2: Yes, But is there an outdoor cage match happening at
Speaker 2: the celebrary that I'm unaware of? David axel Rod versus
Speaker 2: Jack Blue.
Speaker 1: Have you seen the pictures of the of the Octagon.
Speaker 2: Yes, dude, it looks like six flags. It's so bad.
Speaker 2: They like that's ai you got tricked and wasn't.
Speaker 1: If it wasn't on the White House line, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: that looks pretty cool. And I'm not like a UFC fan,
Speaker 1: but like, that looks pretty cool. But I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is on the south line of the White House. It's
Speaker 1: also extremely funny. And just talk about the symbolism. Uh,
Speaker 1: they built a like an eight hundred foot octagon cage
Speaker 1: right next to the rubble of the east wing.
Speaker 2: Exactly, John, the ways happening at the Wayans are happening
Speaker 2: at the Lincoln Memorial.
Speaker 1: No, I looked into this is it? You canceled the Wayans.
Speaker 1: So this was the organization that was filing the lawsuit.
Speaker 1: Got in trouble for this because they put it in
Speaker 1: the filing too. But the press conference is being held
Speaker 1: of the Lincoln Memorial and the Wayans are happening at
Speaker 1: the Ellipse.
Speaker 2: Oh, very fantastic. He loves the Ellipse for all important things.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I am not a fan of this,
Speaker 2: but it is the country I wanted this president, and
Speaker 2: some people in this country will be served by this
Speaker 2: gruesome spectacle, and perhaps they will enjoy it, or perhaps
Speaker 2: Mother Nature will have the last laugh and shoot down
Speaker 2: bolts of lightning to the south lawne of the White House,
Speaker 2: preventing the cage match from happening on Donald Trump's birthday.
Speaker 1: The thing that, honestly, the only thing that the story
Speaker 1: that has bothered me the most about this is the
Speaker 1: hot troops only story that for all the the for
Speaker 1: all the service members that are getting invited that have
Speaker 1: to pay first all they have to pay their own
Speaker 1: way to get there, and then they have to meet
Speaker 1: a certain weight requirement. And one defense official told that
Speaker 1: they wanted to make sure they pick people who are
Speaker 1: going to look good on television.
Speaker 2: This is so fun what you go when you install
Speaker 2: a men's grooming expert as the secretary of Defense. This
Speaker 2: is the kind of stuff that you get. I wish
Speaker 2: he was just doing TikTok videos about how to keep
Speaker 2: salt and pepper hair looking dignified.
Speaker 1: Instead, but less he's running a war in Iran. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good stuff. When we come back, you'll hear my conversation
Speaker 1: with CNN's Ron Brownstein. We will talk about the Senate map,
Speaker 1: the House map, and all kinds of other good stuff.
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Speaker 1: Ron Brownstein, welcome back to plat Save America.
Speaker 6: Hey, good to be with John.
Speaker 1: So, since you're one of the smartest political analysts out there,
Speaker 1: wanted to check in get your thoughts on the primaries
Speaker 1: we've had and the midterms ahead of us. Maybe we
Speaker 1: can start big picture. Where are we right now, little
Speaker 1: less than five months till the midterms. How does this
Speaker 1: political environment compare to where we were in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: which was the last midterm when Democrats faced an unpopular
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and did quite well.
Speaker 4: That is a really good place to I think the
Speaker 4: right point of comparison. And I think this election to
Speaker 4: me is just shaping up as the classic collision between
Speaker 4: the irresistible force and the immovable object, and both of them,
Speaker 4: both the irresistible force and the immovable objects, are getting
Speaker 4: stronger as we go.
Speaker 6: The irresistible force is the.
Speaker 4: Widespread disapproval of Trump and dissatisfaction with the economy. You know,
Speaker 4: if you go back to twenty eighteen and the Exit Pole,
Speaker 4: Trump's approved writing was forty five percent. It is not
Speaker 4: going to be forty five percent in all likelihood on
Speaker 4: election day this year. I mean, it may not be
Speaker 4: as low as it is now in the high thirties,
Speaker 4: but you know, I think at best it's going to
Speaker 4: be in the low forties.
Speaker 6: So Trump is probably going.
Speaker 4: To be more unpopular today than he was on election
Speaker 4: day in twenty eighteen. Second, you know, in the twenty
Speaker 4: eighteen EXI Pole, two thirds of voters described the economy
Speaker 4: in positive terms. You know, even as Democrats who are
Speaker 4: winning forty plus House seats, It's probably going to be
Speaker 4: two thirds describing it in negative terms this time. So
Speaker 4: I think, you know, if you think of those kind
Speaker 4: of attitudes as the motor that drives the wave, there's
Speaker 4: every reason believe the democratic now, the democratic overall democratic
Speaker 4: performance will be even better, I think than the wave
Speaker 4: behind them is even stronger than it was in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: I will put one caveat on that in a minute,
Speaker 4: But so like the wave looks to me like it
Speaker 4: could be very high. Democrats won the popular vote by
Speaker 4: eight and a half points in twenty eighteen when Trump
Speaker 4: was at forty five. Could they win the popular vote
Speaker 4: by more if he's at forty one or forty two
Speaker 4: and two thirds of the country is dissatisfied with the economy.
Speaker 6: I think that's possible. Now.
Speaker 4: The other side of the equation is the immovable object,
Speaker 4: which is that to a greater extent than in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: this election is being fought out on Republican terrain. Right
Speaker 4: in twenty eighteen, you had what about two dozen House
Speaker 4: Republicans and districts that voted for Clinton two years earlier. Now,
Speaker 4: before the redistricting, you only had three, and even kind
Speaker 4: of more broadly, in twenty eighteen, you still had the
Speaker 4: remnants of all of these House Republicans who who were
Speaker 4: holding on in suburban way collar districts outside of the South.
Speaker 4: Even in the South, I guess a couple mostly outside
Speaker 4: of the South that had been voting Democratic at the
Speaker 4: presidential level since Bill Clinton and Democrats really cleaned them
Speaker 4: out in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 6: Three quarters of the House seats that.
Speaker 4: Democrats won in twenty eighteen had more white college graduates
Speaker 4: than the national average.
Speaker 6: It was kind of the bookend.
Speaker 4: I look at twenty eighteen as the book end to
Speaker 4: twenty ten and twenty ten. The Republicans cleaned out the
Speaker 4: last blue dog Democrats who were surviving in heavily blue
Speaker 4: collar rural districts that have been voting Republican for twenty
Speaker 4: thirty years, and they kind of wiped all of them out.
Speaker 4: And then Democrats in twenty eighteen did the same with
Speaker 4: the kind of suburban in the nineties they used to
Speaker 4: call gypsy moth Republicans. So as a result, there really
Speaker 4: aren't that many more of those white collar seats left
Speaker 4: to win in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 6: There are a few.
Speaker 4: There's Mike Lawler, there's Tom Kaine Junior, there's Don Bacon's seat,
Speaker 4: there's Brian Fitzpatrick. But most of the seats that Democrats
Speaker 4: are targeting this year in the House in very encounterpoint
Speaker 4: to twenty eighteen have more non college whites than the
Speaker 4: national average, And of course that is a real challenge.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, you look at districts in Ohio
Speaker 4: and Iowa and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That is
Speaker 4: a big chunk of what Democrats are trying to win back,
Speaker 4: and most of those seats are more heavily white, blue
Speaker 4: collar than the national average. Same story in the Senate.
Speaker 4: By the way, eight of the ten seats that both
Speaker 4: sides considered the most competitive in the Senate I wrote
Speaker 4: about this a few months ago, have more blue collar
Speaker 4: whites in the national average. And you know, if you
Speaker 4: kind of look at it by presidential vote, you have Maine,
Speaker 4: and as we've talked about before, let me just take
Speaker 4: one step back. You know, Senate results and presidential vote
Speaker 4: are just much more correlated than when even you got
Speaker 4: started in this much less meat. You know, there are
Speaker 4: twenty five states that voted three times for Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: Republicans now have all fifty of their Senate seats, which
Speaker 4: obviously makes it tough. I mean, you're kind of seating
Speaker 4: fifthfty seats at the start. You know, he's a pretty
Speaker 4: narrow pathway. There are nineteen states that voted three times
Speaker 4: against Trump. Democrats have thirty seven of their thirty eight,
Speaker 4: with Susan Collins as the last exception. And then there
Speaker 4: are six states that have flipped back and forth at
Speaker 4: any time in the three Trump races, and Democrats now
Speaker 4: have ten of their twelve Senate seats, and that is very.
Speaker 6: Much the way I look at the Senate.
Speaker 4: The job for the Democrats is, first of all, to
Speaker 4: beat Susan Collins, to get rid of the last Republican
Speaker 4: left in the thirty among the thirty eight in the
Speaker 4: states that voted three times against Trump. They've got to
Speaker 4: defend two seats in the flip states, which is Georgia
Speaker 4: and Michigan.
Speaker 6: But ultimately they have to break.
Speaker 4: Into not only in the near term, but in the
Speaker 4: long term, because it's obviously not you know, it's not
Speaker 4: a not a plausible strategy to give fifty seats away
Speaker 4: at the start. They have to break back into the
Speaker 4: Trump three times states.
Speaker 6: So what do you got.
Speaker 4: You have North Carolina, which he only won narrowly. But
Speaker 4: after that, every other state they have to win in
Speaker 4: the Senate. Trump win by double digits two years ago,
Speaker 4: which is not easy. That's probably in order, you know,
Speaker 4: North Carolina, Alaska, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, right, and if you
Speaker 4: don't win Maine, if you don't convert Maine, and you
Speaker 4: and I are in different places about Maine, we should
Speaker 4: probably talk about it at some point. If you don't
Speaker 4: convert Maine. You got to win three senences in states
Speaker 4: Trump won by double digits two years ago, and that's
Speaker 4: asking a lot. So overall, I would say Democrats that
Speaker 4: the conditions are more favorable to Democrats than in twenty two,
Speaker 4: with the exception that you've had the Biden presidency in
Speaker 4: the middle and that definitely took, you know, put a
Speaker 4: dent in the Democratic image that matters. I think that
Speaker 4: the party outside of the White House, their image matters
Speaker 4: less than the performance of the president in the midterm.
Speaker 4: But nonetheless it's there. Conditions should be overall better for Democrats,
Speaker 4: but the Republicans have built stronger defenses, both in terms
Speaker 4: of the inherent nature of the of the playing field
Speaker 4: and also the Jerryman during that's happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's that's a very good summary of where we
Speaker 1: are right now. So thank you. Let's let's dive into Maine.
Speaker 1: That was my next question anyway, because you know, we
Speaker 1: had the primary this week. Also, as you mentioned, like
Speaker 1: you've been sounding the alarm about the electoral risk Democrats
Speaker 1: are taken. With Graham Plattner, and since everyone's heard enough
Speaker 1: of my not quite as worried view, want to I
Speaker 1: want folks to hear a good, smart counter, but give it.
Speaker 6: You want to give them the full worried view.
Speaker 4: Look Susan Collins, as I say, is an anomaly or
Speaker 4: a unicorn, whatever you want to call her. As I said,
Speaker 4: she is the only Republican left in the nineteen states
Speaker 4: that voted three times against Trump thirty seven to one.
Speaker 4: She's the one. In Trump's first term, she was the
Speaker 4: only Republican senator or challenger, according to the exit polls,
Speaker 4: who won in a state when more people disapproved than
Speaker 4: approved of his performance as president. She was also the
Speaker 4: only Republican Senate incumbent or challenger to hold their Democratic
Speaker 4: opponent to less than eighty nine percent of the people
Speaker 4: who disapproved of Trump. Sarah Gideon in twenty twenty only
Speaker 4: won seventy one.
Speaker 6: Percent of Trump disapprovers.
Speaker 4: Every other Democratic Senate candidate during the first Trump term
Speaker 4: one at least eighty nine percent of Trump disapprovers. You know,
Speaker 4: and that relationship is not getting weaker generally. Jay Jones
Speaker 4: in Virginia one eighty nine percent of Trump disapprovers. Cheryl
Speaker 4: and Spanberger won ninety three to ninety four percent of
Speaker 4: Trump disapprovers there was a poll from the University of
Speaker 4: Massachusetts at Lowell, even before the latest rounds of revelations
Speaker 4: about sexting and the New York Times story about his
Speaker 4: relationships with former partners, that found Platner winning seventy four
Speaker 4: percent of Trump disapprovers In me. That is Susan Collins's superpower.
Speaker 4: She is able to get to a greater extent than
Speaker 4: any Republican anywhere. She is able to get any other
Speaker 4: Republican anywhere. She's able to get voters to disapprove of
Speaker 4: Trump to vote for her, especially older women. And the
Speaker 4: key to her Why did she win in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: in a state where Trump's disapproval in the exit pole
Speaker 4: was fifty eight percent and obviously Biden won the state
Speaker 4: by I think nine nine points. The reason is because
Speaker 4: she ran really far ahead of Trump among older white women.
Speaker 4: Both in the exitpol and the APVO cast are two
Speaker 4: major sources of you know, voter behavior at the state level.
Speaker 6: Collins A.
Speaker 4: Gideon ran fifteen points behind Biden among women forty five plus. Now,
Speaker 4: when I started doing that doing this in the eighties,
Speaker 4: things like that happened. They don't happen anymore. You do
Speaker 4: not have a major demographic group that veers off by
Speaker 4: fifteen points between how they view the president and how
Speaker 4: they view other candidates. You know, that's why Republicans have
Speaker 4: all fifty Senate seats in the twenty five states, Trump
Speaker 4: one three times, not because they're all great candidates. It's
Speaker 4: because those attitudes really shape things. So Platner seems to me.
Speaker 4: I would not say you cannot say Platiner can't win
Speaker 4: that in this environment, Trump is weaker than he was
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty, is disapproval is now over sixty in Maine.
Speaker 4: And Collins is weaker than she was in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: because you know, she Brett Kavanaugh in the interim between
Speaker 4: twenty twenty and now voted to overturn Roe v. Wade
Speaker 4: after she's stood on the Centi Forum promised she would
Speaker 4: she would not, he would not. So I would not
Speaker 4: say Platner can't win. I will say that Platiner makes
Speaker 4: it a lot harder than it has to be because
Speaker 4: his vulnerabilities I think map ominously over her strengths. I mean,
Speaker 4: I look at older white women as a prime audience
Speaker 4: to be worried about all of the things that have
Speaker 4: come out about it. And I also think, and I
Speaker 4: haven't talked about this as much, I think his strengths
Speaker 4: are less relevant and Maine than they might be elsewhere.
Speaker 4: I mean, if the guy's strength is that he you know,
Speaker 4: and it does seem legit that he can mobilize a
Speaker 4: lot of younger non voters, kind of a Trump thing
Speaker 4: in reverse.
Speaker 2: I mean main.
Speaker 4: I mean, this isn't Georgia or Texas or you know,
Speaker 4: even Wisconsin, where you have a huge pool of on
Speaker 4: voting young people. You have like the second or third
Speaker 4: oldest electorate in the country. I mean, your job, the
Speaker 4: job of a Democrat in Maine in twenty twenty six
Speaker 4: is not to mobilize new voters. It's not even to
Speaker 4: persuade a majority that Trump and the Republicans are taking
Speaker 4: the country in the wrong direction, because a majority, a
Speaker 4: big majority, already believed that in Maine. The job of
Speaker 4: the Democratic Senny candidate in Maine is to reassure the
Speaker 4: majority who already think Trump and the Republicans are taking
Speaker 4: the state in the wrong direction that it's okay to
Speaker 4: vote against Collins and that you are a reasonable alternative.
Speaker 4: And I think Platner again, he could win, but he
Speaker 4: introduces a tremendous amount of risk in that equation that
Speaker 4: doesn't need to be there. He has until July thirteen.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you've talked about this. Under main law,
Speaker 4: they can't push him out at this point, but he
Speaker 4: has until July thirteenth to step aside. And as I
Speaker 4: pointed out in a column this week, they've had they
Speaker 4: have really good candidates in the gubernatorial primary for candid
Speaker 4: It's got over twenty percent of the vote in the
Speaker 4: first round, including.
Speaker 6: Three who have very broad support on the left.
Speaker 4: And I do think that if there are more negative
Speaker 4: stories that come out, or if simply there are a
Speaker 4: lot of polls that raise you worrying direction between now
Speaker 4: and then, it would it would be in the interest
Speaker 4: of Democrats to kind of look at some of those alternatives,
Speaker 4: because I do think, and this will really get the mailbag,
Speaker 4: I do think that the forces that are the national
Speaker 4: forces behind Platiner, particularly the Sanders Warren orbit, are so
Speaker 4: determined to prove that their model is the right model
Speaker 4: for how Democrats come back, that they have lost sight
Speaker 4: of the actual human being that they are betting on
Speaker 4: and the place that they are testing it. And they
Speaker 4: seem to be more interested in beating Schumern in the
Speaker 4: primary than in beating Collins in the general.
Speaker 1: It's funny, I wouldn't say my bullishness. Maybe not. I
Speaker 1: wild say I'm not as barish as you. And the
Speaker 1: reason is actually has nothing to do with thinking that
Speaker 1: the Sanders model is the is the model or this
Speaker 1: is the proven ground for that. I actually think that
Speaker 1: just to talk about Collins, right, she has so she's
Speaker 1: never been this unpopular, right, She's never run a competitive
Speaker 1: race with a midterm electorate, which is like a whole
Speaker 1: new thing, as you know, right, And so we keep
Speaker 1: talking about the Saragideon example. But the Saragidion example is
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, when you've got a whole presidential electorate, which,
Speaker 1: as we know and we've talked about and the audience
Speaker 1: probably knows by now, is is just in this era
Speaker 1: better for Republicans, right, because you bring out more of
Speaker 1: the non college less engaged voters.
Speaker 4: Generally speaking, midterm elections, the electorate is two three, even
Speaker 4: four points more college educated than the presidential the probably
Speaker 4: is presidential.
Speaker 1: And then you have and then you have a midterm electorate.
Speaker 1: So now she's running in her first competitive mid term
Speaker 1: electorate and one that is this favorable to Democrats, and
Speaker 1: the state has moved left since twenty twenty, and I
Speaker 1: think in there in twenty twenty four main swing right
Speaker 1: was maybe the one of the smallest, if not the
Speaker 1: smallest in the in the country.
Speaker 4: So those are all the reasons, as I say, he
Speaker 4: can win. There's no question he can win. There's any
Speaker 4: given the overall climate, given the specific as you say,
Speaker 4: Collins is weaker than she was in twenty twenty, Trump
Speaker 4: is more unpopular than he was in twenty twenty in Maine.
Speaker 4: So you can't say that any Democrat can't win. It's
Speaker 4: just that this is much more of a jump ball
Speaker 4: than it should be because of his unique ball on Bills,
Speaker 4: I kind of like.
Speaker 1: Are you surprised at how weak Mills was and still
Speaker 1: is in all these I mean even that pole. There's
Speaker 1: a poll out right before the primary where I think
Speaker 1: that Mills was like the first pole where Mills did
Speaker 1: slightly better than Platner against Collins, but still by only
Speaker 1: like one point two points. Like, I don't get how
Speaker 1: that Mills doing poorly and Gideon doing that poorly also
Speaker 1: makes me think, like what is it about those candidates
Speaker 1: who seem like they should fit the older women in
Speaker 1: main sort of voter model that you were talking about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I'm not an
Speaker 4: expert on Mills' relationships in the state, but there's no
Speaker 4: question she's conflicted pretty consistently with a lot of the
Speaker 4: same liberal groups in the state that are that are
Speaker 4: promoting Platiner. And you know, would one of the other
Speaker 4: alternatives in the governor race have done better against him
Speaker 4: in the end than Mills did. I think I think
Speaker 4: that's you know, I mean Hannah Pingree, former Speaker of
Speaker 4: the House, Troy Jackson, Bernie Drst and the governor race,
Speaker 4: former Senate president, and then Shinabellos, who was now the
Speaker 4: Secretary of State, who was kind of the sacrificial lamb
Speaker 4: against Collins in twenty fourteen when she was much younger
Speaker 4: and at that point I think had only been.
Speaker 6: The head of the state ac you uh, you know.
Speaker 4: The thing the thing about the thing about Mills is
Speaker 4: the thing I felt about Mills was that if she
Speaker 4: got to the general election, it wasn't clear to me
Speaker 4: what Collins would run against her on, Like if she
Speaker 4: was one point ahead now The thing about the thing
Speaker 4: about Platner is he gives them a lot to work
Speaker 4: with and it may not prove this positive. It may
Speaker 4: be that everything else is sufficient. But it introduced, you know,
Speaker 4: to to put him over the top. But it introduced
Speaker 4: a level of risk that I think is just unnecessary.
Speaker 4: And I think just like I said, I feel like
Speaker 4: many of the national forces in particular that are pushing
Speaker 4: Platter are just so determined to show that this is
Speaker 4: the right way for Democrats to win that they are
Speaker 4: not willing to acknowledge a this may not be the
Speaker 4: right place to test the theory, and I'm not sure
Speaker 4: it is. But b you know, like the candidates are
Speaker 4: not just like on It's like baseball. You could be
Speaker 4: the greatest prospect in the world. You actually got to
Speaker 4: go out and do it. And the realities that he
Speaker 4: is presenting them with, they are just powering through. And
Speaker 4: people say, well, you know, switching to Kamala Harris didn't
Speaker 4: work that well late in twenty four, I would say
Speaker 4: it worked out better than trying to stay the course.
Speaker 4: Like I'm not sure that Alyssa Slotckin and Reuben Diego
Speaker 4: and Jackie Rosen wouldn't say it worked out pretty.
Speaker 1: Well, But this is I was thinking about that. Like
Speaker 1: to me between now in July thirteenth, the easier scenario
Speaker 1: in some ways is if there are if like a
Speaker 1: ton of really damaging stories, or even one story that
Speaker 1: it's much more damaging, comes out and suddenly you see
Speaker 1: poles where he's down five, six, seven, eight, right, then
Speaker 1: it becomes like fairly easy, not easy, but easier for
Speaker 1: Democrats in Maine, which would would have to be to
Speaker 1: like go to the campaign and try to convince them
Speaker 1: to drop out. I think if there's like a few
Speaker 1: polls showing it tied or he's a point or two behind,
Speaker 1: and then there's no big storyries or maybe just one
Speaker 1: kind of in the middle story acture, then it's really
Speaker 1: hard to go to someone who did better in the
Speaker 1: primary than Sarah Gideon did when she was facing two
Speaker 1: kind of no names in twenty twenty and say, okay,
Speaker 1: you got more votes than the last nominee against Husan Collins,
Speaker 1: but now we're gonna make now we should push you
Speaker 1: aside because we're worried like that to me is the
Speaker 1: tougher that that introduces another that introduces risk that I
Speaker 1: think is greater, maybe than the risk we have right now.
Speaker 4: To the extent it is Republicans and not the media
Speaker 4: who has access to more damaging information. They're not gonna
Speaker 4: put it out before July.
Speaker 1: Thhich certainly not. But it feels like the media would
Speaker 1: get there.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but on their own, you know. Look
Speaker 4: like I like, we keep saying he can win. There's
Speaker 4: no guarantee he's gonna win, and he gives he gives her,
Speaker 4: he gives her an opportunity to play the cards she's
Speaker 4: played before. I mean, it's it's you know. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's it's it's you know. And and I like, like
Speaker 4: we're saying, you know, the if you don't if you
Speaker 4: don't win Maine, you got to win three out of
Speaker 4: four in Alaska or Ohio, Texas and Iowa. I mean
Speaker 4: that's asking a lot. I mean, in the long run,
Speaker 4: Democrats have to start competing again in these heavily blue
Speaker 4: collar Trump three time states. But you know, flipping and
Speaker 4: maybe the war goes on. Gas prices stay high, Trump
Speaker 4: stays under forty, Like, if Trump stays under forty, yeah,
Speaker 4: I could see them flipping three of those four conceivably.
Speaker 4: But if he gets back to the low forties, which
Speaker 4: I still would bet on on election day. Then you
Speaker 4: know that's asking a lot to win three of those
Speaker 4: four states.
Speaker 1: Well, let's leave Maine and talk about those four states.
Speaker 1: Like what, I think you sort of ordered them earlier quickly,
Speaker 1: but I would just love like you know, you have
Speaker 1: financial decisions if you're the Democrats, Like Texas is a
Speaker 1: very expensive, very big state to compete in Alaska, Iowa
Speaker 1: not as much. Ohio's obviously they're going to go on
Speaker 1: in in Ohio. How do you look at those four
Speaker 1: states in terms of feasibility for in flipping them?
Speaker 4: And so you got North Carolina, which which looks pretty
Speaker 4: good for Democrats. Now, I mean I think Republicans could
Speaker 4: end up pulling the plug there. So like to me,
Speaker 4: like you as I said to you before, Like and
Speaker 4: Trump's first term, Susan Collins is the only Republican who
Speaker 4: won an estate where according to the exit poem, more
Speaker 4: people disapproved than approved of his performance. So if you're
Speaker 4: thinking about Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, and Texas, they're all probably
Speaker 4: going to be right at the tipping point. Either he's
Speaker 4: either going to be slightly above fifty or maybe more
Speaker 4: likely below fifty. I mean, you know, I saw was
Speaker 4: it the argument that knew that? You know, la Kesha
Speaker 4: Jane and my former colleague at The Atlantic Jerusalem, they
Speaker 4: tried to use their polling to project Trump's approval in
Speaker 4: all of in all fifty states, and they had him
Speaker 4: seven points or more negative in all four of those states.
Speaker 4: And if that's the case, Democrats have a shot in
Speaker 4: any of them. Now, if you're going to rank them,
Speaker 4: I think Peltola is an unusually good candidate. Alaska has
Speaker 4: kind of unusual population dynamics.
Speaker 6: It really doesn't have a huge white blue collar population.
Speaker 4: So I think Alaska is the strongest by conventional measures.
Speaker 4: You'd have to say Ohio is the second. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, Ohio is a big blue collar population. It's
Speaker 4: like fifty to fifty one percent of the electorate will
Speaker 4: be whites without a college degree even in a midterm year. Now,
Speaker 4: maybe that will go down to forty nine this time.
Speaker 4: And if you look at shared Brown when he won
Speaker 4: in twenty eighteen, he won forty five percent of non
Speaker 4: college whites, penty the ex of Poe. When he lost
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty four, he won thirty five percent of
Speaker 4: them so he doesn't have to get all the way
Speaker 4: back to forty five, but he does have to get
Speaker 4: somewhere north of forty probably to win.
Speaker 6: That is possible.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know one thing we should have said
Speaker 4: before when I was talking about the Irresistible Force. Not
Speaker 4: only is Trump's overall approval rating down, it is well
Speaker 4: below where it has been among those non college whites,
Speaker 4: so like even in twenty eight so you know, he
Speaker 4: won two thirds of whites without a college degree in
Speaker 4: all three of his races. Even in twenty eighteen, again
Speaker 4: according to the Exit Pole, his approverriating among non college
Speaker 4: whites was sixty one percent. Now in every national poll
Speaker 4: it is right at fifty to fifty either and usually
Speaker 4: slightly below fifty to fifty at best fifty one forty
Speaker 4: eight something like, that's like the best. And then there
Speaker 4: have been polls where he's been as low as forty
Speaker 4: six among non college whites. If that's if he stays
Speaker 4: there till November, shared Brown can win. I mean, you
Speaker 4: can win. And people should take into account that when
Speaker 4: I say Trump is basically at fifty to fifty among
Speaker 4: non college whites nationwide, well, that includes evangelical Christians most
Speaker 4: of whom are non college whites and are heavily concentrated
Speaker 4: in the South. There aren't as many of them in Ohio.
Speaker 4: So if Trump is at fifty to fifty among non
Speaker 4: college whites nationally, he's probably going to be below fifty
Speaker 4: to fifty in Ohio, which makes it possible for Sharon
Speaker 4: Brown right now.
Speaker 1: I still and this is like what I was saying
Speaker 1: about Maine. Shared lost in a presidential turnout year where
Speaker 1: you have a greater share of non college whites coming
Speaker 1: into the electorate than you do in twenty eighteen when
Speaker 1: he won, which was, you know, a midterm year, and
Speaker 1: then you have fewer non college whites as a share,
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 4: Think Trump's approval will be lower today than it was
Speaker 4: in twenty eighteen in Ohio.
Speaker 6: You know, the difference is shared.
Speaker 4: It's been around the block a little, so there may
Speaker 4: be a little tread off the tire in terms of
Speaker 4: how voters are looking at him. I kind of feel
Speaker 4: like that's going to be the tipping point. I mean,
Speaker 4: if Democrats don't mess up Maine, if either Platner steps
Speaker 4: aside for someone more electable, or they kind of stabilize
Speaker 4: things and are able to just pound, do you really
Speaker 4: want to get Donald Trump another vote to put another
Speaker 4: Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, which seems to me
Speaker 4: their best argument. Then you look at Ohio and I'm
Speaker 4: sorry Iowa and Texas. Iowa is Ohio, but even tougher
Speaker 4: because in Ohio roughly twenty percent of the voters are
Speaker 4: non white, and Ohio and in Iowa it's only like
Speaker 4: eight or nine. College whites are more like fifty six
Speaker 4: fifty seven percent of the vote in Iowa compared to
Speaker 4: like fifty fifty.
Speaker 6: One in Ohio.
Speaker 4: And more of those non college whites in Iowa are
Speaker 4: Evangelical Christians than they are in ohi So, like, by
Speaker 4: every measure, I can't see Turrek winning before Brown wins. Like,
Speaker 4: if Turrek wins, the wave is big enough that Brown
Speaker 4: is going to win. Texas is intriguing, right, I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, if you if you look at again, like
Speaker 4: I love how you started with twenty eighteen, Beto is
Speaker 4: in twenty eighteen versus Ted Cruz. Betto a Rourke is
Speaker 4: kind of the template for any kind of competitive state
Speaker 4: wide race for Democrats in Texas. Since then, the state
Speaker 4: has added three and a half million I think is
Speaker 4: the number of new voters, and almost all of them
Speaker 4: are people of color. It's like ninety percent of the
Speaker 4: new voters. And they're Metro, right, I mean they're they're
Speaker 4: like they're in those four big metros. Beta won the
Speaker 4: four big metros, didn't win them by quite enough. Now,
Speaker 4: So you know, Richard Murray, who I love, professor Emeritith
Speaker 4: at the University of Houston, been new in Texas politics since,
Speaker 4: you know, before any.
Speaker 6: Either of us. He says that if all the groups,
Speaker 6: all the major groups.
Speaker 4: In the electorate, non college whites, college whites, Latino's, black
Speaker 4: Asian all vote the same way they did in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: but vote in the numbers they are present at today,
Speaker 4: Beto would win, right. So but the problem is the
Speaker 4: problem is, can you really get back to where Beto
Speaker 4: was among Latino voters, which was the low sixties. You're
Speaker 4: probably you're going to Trump. Trump won Texas Latinos and
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four just kind of remarkably one like probably
Speaker 4: fifty five percent of them. That's not going to happen.
Speaker 4: Tell Rico is going to win them. But is he
Speaker 4: going to get back over sixty? You know, I mean,
Speaker 4: there's another poll out yesterday that Siena pol only had
Speaker 4: him at like fifty two.
Speaker 6: I don't think it's going to be that low. But
Speaker 6: is he going to get back to sixty?
Speaker 4: I kind of feel like the ballgame in Tech Texas
Speaker 4: and in Texas, you know, a very large share of
Speaker 4: the non college whites or evangelicals.
Speaker 6: The fact that tall Rico.
Speaker 4: You know, is a seminary and is not really going
Speaker 4: to help because he's a different kind of seminary.
Speaker 6: And I mean the the you know.
Speaker 4: Texas blue collar evangelicals do not want to hear that
Speaker 4: God is non binary, although it seems like as a
Speaker 4: you know, it seems like a perfectly defensible argument. I
Speaker 4: think the key is going to be, can you get
Speaker 4: a few points more out of the suburban college educated
Speaker 4: voters around Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. Beto got
Speaker 4: like forty four or forty five percent of college whites
Speaker 4: in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 6: Can he can tell Rico push that up to forty
Speaker 6: seven forty eight against Paxton?
Speaker 4: You know? The other the other dynamic about Paxton is
Speaker 4: I mean, I forget which ones you probably might remember,
Speaker 4: but out of Slotkin, Rosen, Baldwin, and.
Speaker 6: Diego.
Speaker 4: The four Democrats who won in states were Biden lost,
Speaker 4: several of them did not get more votes than Harris right,
Speaker 4: it was just Republicans skipped the Senate race, and that
Speaker 4: you know, it's hard to see a lot of Texas
Speaker 4: Republicans voting for pall Rico.
Speaker 6: It's not hard to see a.
Speaker 4: Few of them voting for Abbot and skipping Paston or
Speaker 4: skipping Paxton coming down to Abbot.
Speaker 1: You can squint and see how this works. Where like
Speaker 1: some of them leave the Senate race blank, he gets up,
Speaker 1: he bumps up his numbers in the suburbs by a
Speaker 1: little few more after it than Ben Beto did. And
Speaker 1: then he gets that Latino number maybe, if not all
Speaker 1: the way at sixty in the Yeah, fifty eight, and
Speaker 1: then that's enough.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: By the way, as people point out all the time,
Speaker 4: if they are a larger share of the vote than
Speaker 4: they weren't twenty eighteen Latinos, you can get a bigger
Speaker 4: net vote out of that community even with a smaller share.
Speaker 4: You don't have to match the share, but matching the
Speaker 4: share would help. I don't think that's going to happen.
Speaker 4: I don't think Democrats can get back to sixty two,
Speaker 4: sixty three maybe among Texas. I was down in South
Speaker 4: Texas a few weeks ago, and you know, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of economic discontent, there's a lot of ice discontent,
Speaker 4: and I think, you know, my CNN column for later
Speaker 4: this week, tomorrow's news today, I think subtraction is going
Speaker 4: to be a bigger issue in this election than addition.
Speaker 4: I don't think you're going to add a lot of
Speaker 4: new Democratic votes.
Speaker 6: Either with new voters.
Speaker 4: Coming out or with Republicans who voted for Trump in
Speaker 4: twenty four switching to vote for Democrats. But you could
Speaker 4: subtract a lot of Republican votes. I mean Trump's according
Speaker 4: to one of the stats I'm I'm kind of unveiling
Speaker 4: in this column later this week, among Hispanics who voted
Speaker 4: for Trump, his approval writing now is sixty six percent. Right,
Speaker 4: that is not so good among all I remember all
Speaker 4: of the focus on the non college non wide voters
Speaker 4: and how this was kind of the you know, the
Speaker 4: the augurs of the of the realignment. His approval writing
Speaker 4: among non college non whites who voted for him is
Speaker 4: sixty eight percent. Among non college non whites who didn't
Speaker 4: vote in twenty four his approval rating is twenty percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw that in the New York Times cenopol
Speaker 1: It was those numbers were the worst.
Speaker 4: Yeah, among non voters in the New York Times CNPOL
Speaker 4: among non voters in twenty four people who either skipped
Speaker 4: it or who have become eligible. Since he's a twenty
Speaker 4: one seventy one in job approval, so you know, I'm
Speaker 4: not sure you know this is twenty eighteen. Was another
Speaker 4: thing that was unique about twenty eighteen is you did
Speaker 4: have this enormous surge of new voters. Catalyst says thirteen
Speaker 4: percent of all the voters in twenty eighteen had not
Speaker 4: voted before. Census says turnout in twenty eighteen was ten
Speaker 4: points higher than in either of the Obama midterms. It
Speaker 4: was fifty percent as opposed to forty percent in the
Speaker 4: Obama interms. So there was this surge of new voters.
Speaker 4: That's where I think the Biden experience is going to
Speaker 4: really hurt. I mean, because you know, if you were
Speaker 4: you were a twenty one year old in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: you had Obama as your counterpoint to Trump, and it
Speaker 4: was like, yeah, we passed universal health care, or we
Speaker 4: did this or we did that, Now you got Biden,
Speaker 4: and you know whatever, rightly or wrongly, most Americans think
Speaker 4: that was not a successful presidency. So at a point
Speaker 4: where young people in particular are very negative on Trump,
Speaker 4: are also pretty negative on what they remember out of Biden,
Speaker 4: I don't see that big surge that Democrats had in
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen repeating itself.
Speaker 6: What I do think is a.
Speaker 4: Very clear and present danger to Republicans is that the
Speaker 4: voters in their coalition who are disappointed with Trump, some
Speaker 4: of them are going to switch to voting for Democrats.
Speaker 4: But I don't think even many Democrats are expecting too
Speaker 4: many of them. Like you know, only six percent of
Speaker 4: voters in twenty two, according to Pew, voted for a
Speaker 4: House candidate from the party opposite that they voted for
Speaker 4: president in twenty It's not that big anymore. The real
Speaker 4: swing voters are the people who cycle in and out
Speaker 4: of the electorate and they express their discontent by staying home.
Speaker 4: And I think that is a real risk for Publicans everywhere.
Speaker 4: But Texas is a very good place where you could
Speaker 4: have a lot. I could see a lot of those
Speaker 4: Latino first time Trump voters in South Texas, just like.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, sitting out now. All right, Well we'll
Speaker 1: leave it there, all right, thank you for thank you
Speaker 1: for joining and making us smarter. And everyone check out
Speaker 1: runs column at CNN. And you know you've got to
Speaker 1: call him at Bloomberg as well, so you're all a.
Speaker 6: Little bit a little bit about brain Plattner at Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great, take it. It'll be great. So everyone
Speaker 1: take a look at that, and thanks again for coming by. Uh,
Speaker 1: we'll do it again before we get closer to November.
Speaker 6: Absolutely good to be with John.
Speaker 1: That's our show for today, Alex. Lovely as always to
Speaker 1: do the pod with.
Speaker 2: You in a row man, I know, but I gotta
Speaker 2: say this shows a lot of work. Dan Feiffer needs
Speaker 2: to get his butt back into the chair. Huh.
Speaker 1: This is like the longest Dand's been away from politics.
Speaker 1: I wonder for you somewhere, just like getting the shape
Speaker 1: or hives or something.
Speaker 2: Dan, Dan, send up two flares and you can still
Speaker 2: hear us. We love you, Dan, We miss you, Dan.
Speaker 2: Thank you for letting me warm the mic.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for warming the mic. You have been an.
Speaker 2: Honor and a pleasure, my friend, to help us navigate
Speaker 2: these choppy insane waters of our American democracy.
Speaker 1: Have a good weekend. Everyone love it. We'll be back
Speaker 1: with an episode of Podsave America Sunday. He's talking to
Speaker 1: David Sedaris.
Speaker 2: How about that Nixon five?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, and then Tommy Love and I will be
Speaker 1: back with a new show on Tuesday. Bye everyone, Nixon five.
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