Speaker 1: President Trump is staring down brutal predictions ahead of the
Speaker 1: midterm elections. His Golden Age economy pitch fizzling, with voters
Speaker 1: worried about an endless war and high prices. If you
Speaker 1: look at truth social it might appear Trump is pivoted
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty eight and whether he might somehow be
Speaker 1: allowed to run for a third term. But at least
Speaker 1: one conservative commentator is urging him to take extreme measures
Speaker 1: to save the GOP this November.
Speaker 2: If you declare a national security mergency as the president
Speaker 2: of the United States, they can't challenge it. It can
Speaker 2: only be overturned by a two thirds vote of both
Speaker 2: Houses of Congress. So if you do this in the
Speaker 2: next month, we will get photo ID proof of citizenship
Speaker 2: and a limit to mail in ballots. And I leave
Speaker 2: it a bit.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Mallijong Fast Ms now political analyst, New
Speaker 1: York Times contributing opinion writer and host of the Fast
Speaker 1: Politics podcast, and Stuart Stevens, former Mitt Romney twenty twelve
Speaker 1: chief campaign strategist, now senior advisor to the Lincoln Project
Speaker 1: and author of the twenty twenty book It Was All
Speaker 1: a Lie. How the Republican party became Donald Trump. Welcome guys,
Speaker 1: good to see you. So to Trump's words, there Molly,
Speaker 1: have stranger things happened?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean, look, there are small armies of very smart
Speaker 4: lawyers who are setting up to prevent stuff like this,
Speaker 4: and if Trump tries to do something like this, it
Speaker 4: will go through the courts and he will lose. But
Speaker 4: that does not stop Wayne Allen Root from suggesting it.
Speaker 4: I think what's notable about this is that Donald Trump
Speaker 4: is polling so poorly the poors polling in modern political history,
Speaker 4: and so he is trying to think creatively about winning
Speaker 4: the midterms, and winning should go on quotes.
Speaker 1: So, Stuart, is the Trump effect ruining GOP chances for November?
Speaker 1: And has he maybe moved on to maybe envisioning himself
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty eight or is that just trolling?
Speaker 3: Uh, that's trolling.
Speaker 5: I often think of myself as getting drafted in the
Speaker 5: first round of the NFL.
Speaker 3: It's not going to happen either.
Speaker 5: Look, these numbers, like out of the latest Marquette poll
Speaker 5: are just staggering for Trump. His very favorable which is
Speaker 5: really the only number that motivates voters, is fifteen percent.
Speaker 5: His very unfavorable is forty five percent.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 3: Now look, I'm a product.
Speaker 5: The Pacific public schools, but I think that's three times
Speaker 5: as bad. And those are really, really terrible numbers. And
Speaker 5: what's fascinating is the faith unfaith of the Democratic Party
Speaker 5: and the Republican Party are pretty much the same. And
Speaker 5: that's why if I was in the Democratic Party, I
Speaker 5: would just shut up about the Democratic Party. Donald Trump
Speaker 5: is own the ballot. This is a referendum on Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: This is the simplest race I've ever seen. If you
Speaker 5: like the way things are going, vote for Republicans. If
Speaker 5: you don't give the other people a chance, you don't
Speaker 5: like it, vote them mouth that's what should be the Democrat.
Speaker 3: Keep it that simple and you'll win big numbers.
Speaker 1: So Mollie Trump is taking his fight over ballroom construction
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court after a DC appeals court ruled
Speaker 1: Congress has exclusive authority over that and Democratic Senator Sheldon
Speaker 1: Whitehouse said Trump actually joined the Kennedy Center virtual meeting
Speaker 1: and voted to reattach his own name to that property.
Speaker 1: Here is what Regime Change co author Maggie Haberman told me,
Speaker 1: Let's watch this.
Speaker 7: This is what he is interested in He is interested
Speaker 7: in construction projects broadly, he is interested in reshaping the culture,
Speaker 7: and he is interested in leaving his name in a
Speaker 7: way that cannot be stripped down and off of buildings
Speaker 7: and out of sight the way it was after twenty
Speaker 7: sixteen when he became president in Manhattan and then after
Speaker 7: he left Washington in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: Is this why Maga reelected him to bulldoze his way
Speaker 1: to ballrooms? I mean, can he convince his supporters this
Speaker 1: is in their interest?
Speaker 4: So what are eighty days from the midterms, right? And
Speaker 4: you think what Republicans want him to do is they
Speaker 4: want him to be laser focused on affordability. We heard
Speaker 4: Cuseye Wiles's team talk about this idea that he was
Speaker 4: going to be laser focused on affordability. So what do
Speaker 4: we see him doing? Laser focused on his legacy, his
Speaker 4: building projects, the ballroom, going to the Supreme Court for
Speaker 4: the ballroom. I mean, this is Marie Antoinette style stuff.
Speaker 4: And when you have Americans saying, why is gas a
Speaker 4: dollar more gallon than it was before? Why are you know,
Speaker 4: why is there still this lettuce, this diarrhea lettuce sweeping
Speaker 4: through the country right?
Speaker 3: People not.
Speaker 4: You know, it's not this lettuce problem. You have all
Speaker 4: sorts of different problems, and you have a Trump who
Speaker 4: is just focused on building projects. And I have to
Speaker 4: tell you, I just don't see a world where this
Speaker 4: is a winning midterm message.
Speaker 1: Stuart Trump was also sued over his scheme to sell
Speaker 1: early access to White House and presidential social media posts
Speaker 1: to anyone who wants to pay his true Social company
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars a month. Here's what his former
Speaker 1: White House Council Ty Cobb said about.
Speaker 6: That this is a wholesale violation of the securities laws,
Speaker 6: selling presidential intentions and information in advance of the public
Speaker 6: of receiving that information. That's at the heart of what
Speaker 6: the securities laws were designed to prevent. And the founders,
Speaker 6: if they thought this was ever going to happen, they
Speaker 6: would have said something to prevent it. I'm sure they
Speaker 6: never imagined that the country would be in the hands
Speaker 6: of someone as evil as this president, whose corruption is
Speaker 6: unprecedented not just in America but in history.
Speaker 1: I mean, with the barrage of reported deals and government
Speaker 1: contracts tied to companies co owned by the Trumps, will
Speaker 1: Republicans ever be able to recover from corruption questions.
Speaker 5: Look, this is about Republican Party. It's not just about
Speaker 5: Donald Trump. I wrote a book How the Republican Party
Speaker 5: became Donald Trump. I haven't seen a lot of senators
Speaker 5: holding press conferences, Republicans holding press conferences and saying this
Speaker 5: is outrageous. You're selling information that belongs to the United
Speaker 5: States people for personal gain, which is what it is.
Speaker 5: You just look at the sick face value and it's
Speaker 5: like mister Cobbs says, it just reeks of corruption, but
Speaker 5: they go along with it. So when you go along
Speaker 5: with it, you're complicit, and that's what you've become. And
Speaker 5: that really will stick with the Republican Party. This stuff
Speaker 5: becomes generational and impact. Just as the image that Democratic Party,
Speaker 5: which weak on foreign policy, has stayed with the Democratic
Speaker 5: Party for generations. I think now that's changing. It's a
Speaker 5: huge opportunity for it to change. But this stuff doesn't
Speaker 5: go away when it's this egregious, and you just change leaders,
Speaker 5: but you keep the people who supported them, which is
Speaker 5: why a lot of these people are going to lose
Speaker 5: their seats when they're up for re election.
Speaker 1: Speaking of elections, Molly the Hills, she put me today
Speaker 1: that New York Congress froman Alexandria Kasia Cortez leads the
Speaker 1: field for the Democratic presidential nomination on the two best
Speaker 1: known betting markets, Calcia and Polymarket. So, while these are
Speaker 1: not official indicators by any means, how realistic are her
Speaker 1: prospects at this stage?
Speaker 4: So what I would say about AOC is that she
Speaker 4: is a star and she is taking up more and
Speaker 4: more oxygen in the American political universe, and that is
Speaker 4: good news. And what she's doing with freezing her eggs
Speaker 4: is something that a lot of women in their thirties
Speaker 4: are struggling with fertility, and she's raising awareness for it,
Speaker 4: and she's talking about it in an honest way, and
Speaker 4: she's sharing what the experience is like, and she's destigmatizing
Speaker 4: fertility treatments and that is incredibly cool. So is she
Speaker 4: good for America? I think she's quite good for America.
Speaker 4: And is she good for democracy? I think having electeds
Speaker 4: who give this kind of feminist message and do these
Speaker 4: kind of things in a very transparent way is extremely cool.
Speaker 4: So that and I think since we're so many years
Speaker 4: from twenty twenty eight, I think then that is the
Speaker 4: best any of us can do at this moment.
Speaker 1: Hik Stuart can acta Cortez when anti Trump Republicans like yourself.
Speaker 5: Yes, I mean in a world in which Donald Trump
Speaker 5: can win Republicans, why not her? When Annie Trump Republicans,
Speaker 5: you know, Republicans ended up supporting somebody talked in public
Speaker 5: about Dadian's daughter. Never thought that would happen, but it did.
Speaker 5: Do I think she's going to be the next president
Speaker 5: or the nominee? No, I don't, but I agree with Molly.
Speaker 5: You know, the advantages that Democrats have that they have
Speaker 5: a lot of good candidates and they have a watch
Speaker 5: spectrum of opinions, and that's really what a party's supposed
Speaker 5: to be. Does that make offering a unique, a unified
Speaker 5: message more difficult?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: We always got credit and Republican Party for being good
Speaker 5: at message. We sort of were, But it also was
Speaker 5: a lot easier to be own message when you had
Speaker 5: a very homogeneous party. So like putting on a concert
Speaker 5: for people who like sing kind of music not that hard.
Speaker 5: So I think Democrats are advantaged by this and having
Speaker 5: these kind of debates and having images like her.
Speaker 3: Are people like her out there and that's why you
Speaker 3: have a primary weird stuff happens. Whatever we think is
Speaker 3: going to happen now is not going to happen. And
Speaker 3: it's just always the case.
Speaker 1: Okay, Stuart and Molly, thank you so much. Stuart, real
Speaker 1: quick with the NFL team do you dream about playing for?
Speaker 1: I'm just curious which you want to say.
Speaker 3: I am open, I am available if you want to
Speaker 3: call good to.
Speaker 1: Now we'll pass that on. Okay, guys, thank you,