Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 10/22/26: MAGA Pollster Spells Doomsday, GOP Loses It On Vivek, Housing Market Chaos

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10/22/26: MAGA Pollster Spells Doomsday, GOP Loses It On Vivek, Housing Market Chaos · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

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0:21
Speaker 2: All right, guys, time to dig into the state of
0:23
Speaker 2: the midterms. And I'm very excited to be joined by
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Speaker 2: our next guest, Rich Barris. He is known as the
0:27
Speaker 2: people's pundit. He is a MAGA-friendly pollster who has called
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Speaker 2: a number of the past election cycles correct when others
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Speaker 2: were getting it wrong. So we are very happy to
0:37
Speaker 2: have Rich here today.
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Speaker 3: And it's great to be here. Thanks for having me, guys.
0:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, our pleasure. So let's put this Axios report up
0:44
Speaker 2: on the screen just as a way to kick off
0:46
Speaker 2: the conversation here. So you now have senators who are
0:49
Speaker 2: telling people Axios that they are worried Mississippi is in play.
0:54
Speaker 2: You've got millions that are flowing into states like Mississippi,
0:57
Speaker 2: South Carolina and Kansas. I think there are very few
0:59
Speaker 2: people who would have predicted these states would be in
1:02
Speaker 2: doubt at all going into this cycle. So, Rich, what
1:07
Speaker 2: is your assessment of where things stand and how bad
1:09
Speaker 2: things could get for Republicans?
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Speaker 3: Mississippi is a great example because and people have been
1:16
Speaker 3: following my work for years would know that Mississippi is
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Speaker 3: almost it's not Georgia yet, but it is very similar
1:23
Speaker 3: in the sense that there are states and even in
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Speaker 3: the deep south where the demographic clock has been running
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Speaker 3: out on Republicans and they needed to build a broader coalition,
1:32
Speaker 3: much the way Donald Trump did in 24, by the way, Crystal,
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Speaker 3: and then keep that coalition because on a bad election
1:39
Speaker 3: cycle such as this one. Maybe Democrats won't take a
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Speaker 3: state like Mississippi, but it will show the warning signs
1:45
Speaker 3: flashing that in the wrong environment, in a bad swing election,
1:49
Speaker 3: you could lose these states. And we've seen with Georgia
1:52
Speaker 3: that once you do, it's incredibly difficult to get back.
1:55
Speaker 3: South Carolina, this is something they were warned about. You
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Speaker 3: can't just grab another Graham and throw them up on
2:01
Speaker 3: the ticket. Even Lindsey himself had a huge base problem. 30%
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Speaker 3: of the electorate was telling us they would not vote
2:06
Speaker 3: for Lindsey Graham. That is a major issue. So they,
2:10
Speaker 3: you know, they didn't, as so many other things this cycle,
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Speaker 3: they didn't listen, they didn't heed the warnings. And now
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Speaker 3: even if they keep them, they will keep them at
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Speaker 3: great cost that they really needed in states like Texas, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa.
2:24
Speaker 1: Rich, you've been warning about this for literally months, especially
2:27
Speaker 1: since the Iran war broke out. Let's put this one
2:30
Speaker 1: up here on the screen, D2, from the New York
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Speaker 1: Times last, you know, poll. that finds a D plus
2:38
Speaker 1: 11 advantage for the ballot. They also have very important
2:43
Speaker 1: demographic breakouts right there, which underscores the coalitional point that
2:47
Speaker 1: I know that you've made from the 2024 election onward.
2:51
Speaker 1: Kind of take us through that. How does it match
2:53
Speaker 1: through your own data and especially with the support of
2:57
Speaker 1: Trump having changed? Which are the critical demographics where he's suffering?
3:02
Speaker 3: The New York Times poll mirrors our own data. What's
3:06
Speaker 3: amazing to me is that we were the first ones
3:08
Speaker 3: to come out with a generic ballot that had a
3:11
Speaker 3: double-digit lead for Democrats. And what was fueling it was
3:15
Speaker 3: what we're seeing right here in the New York Times
3:17
Speaker 3: poll when we're calling it all the winning parts. Where
3:19
Speaker 3: has Trump slid? Where have Republicans slid? In all the
3:22
Speaker 3: winning parts of his coalition. Younger voters who never vote
3:26
Speaker 3: Republican until they did in 2024. Hispanic voters. I mean,
3:29
Speaker 3: we can go down the list, um, of course, independence,
3:32
Speaker 3: but that's more of a party registration. I'm talking about
3:34
Speaker 3: when you looked at Trump's coalition, the first thing anybody
3:37
Speaker 3: who knows anything should know is that what other Republican
3:40
Speaker 3: would have put this together. And that should have told
3:43
Speaker 3: them a warning sign right away. You have to nurture
3:45
Speaker 3: these voters. This has to be a coalition. You really
3:47
Speaker 3: need to look for what you really need to keep
3:50
Speaker 3: your promises. The Iran war was basically the big overhand
3:54
Speaker 3: right in a one-two punch that put MAGA on the ground.
3:57
Speaker 3: And the first one was how they handled the Epstein files,
3:59
Speaker 3: and that started to break apart younger voters, especially younger
4:03
Speaker 3: women who gave them a chance. The Iran war, just
4:06
Speaker 3: to give everybody the overall theme of this election, the
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Speaker 3: Epstein stuff was more like a proxy election. you know,
4:13
Speaker 3: for this ruling class that they were supposed to confront
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Speaker 3: and hold accountable. And when they didn't do that and
4:19
Speaker 3: then pivoted to a war, which Donald Trump promised over
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Speaker 3: 10 years never to start, you cannot be serious. You
4:27
Speaker 3: just cannot be intellectually honest with yourself and say that
4:29
Speaker 3: was not going to have consequences. The only reason these voters,
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Speaker 3: all the winning parts that we were just talking about,
4:35
Speaker 3: the only reason these voters ever gave Donald Trump and
4:37
Speaker 3: Republicans a chance is because Donald Trump had a different
4:40
Speaker 3: brand of republicanism.
4:42
Speaker 4: Well, this.
4:43
Speaker 3: administration is looking a lot like George W. Bush's administration.
4:46
Speaker 3: That is not what they voted for. I mean, it's
4:48
Speaker 3: just being honest. So we would absolutely expect these demographics
4:52
Speaker 3: to do the last time we had an administration like
4:55
Speaker 3: this in office. And Barack Obama just did massive damage
4:59
Speaker 3: to George W. Bush's coalition. I think we're going to
5:01
Speaker 3: see that this time.
5:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting you bring up Obama because
5:04
Speaker 2: we've actually made some parallels. Not that it's exactly the same,
5:07
Speaker 2: but there was an assumption on the Democratic side that
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Speaker 2: the Obama coalition was just a Democratic coalition. And as
5:13
Speaker 2: someone who ran in 2010 as a Democrat during the
5:15
Speaker 2: Tea Party wave, I found out the hard way that
5:18
Speaker 2: was very much not the case. But I want you
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Speaker 2: to break down for us, Rich, because I think for
5:23
Speaker 2: your average person, myself included, I see D plus 11
5:26
Speaker 2: on a generic ballot. I'm like, that sounds bad, but
5:28
Speaker 2: I don't really sort of intellectually know what that means
5:32
Speaker 2: in terms of what it will look like. I will
5:35
Speaker 2: say for people just to begin to wrap their heads
5:37
Speaker 2: around it, the last time you had that, if that
5:40
Speaker 2: ends up being the case, the last time you had
5:42
Speaker 2: that level of a popular vote win in the House
5:45
Speaker 2: for a party, we're talking back in the Watergate era.
5:47
Speaker 2: This would mean that the waves of 2018, forget about it,
5:51
Speaker 2: blown out of the water. The wave of even 2010
5:53
Speaker 2: on the Republican side, gone. 2008, 2006, you have to
5:55
Speaker 2: go all the way back to the 70s. To see
5:59
Speaker 2: that large of a partisan victory. So help us understand
6:03
Speaker 2: what that would look like on election night if that
6:06
Speaker 2: is actually what comes to pass.
6:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the good news for Republicans is that they
6:11
Speaker 3: did come out ahead in redistricting because otherwise it would
6:16
Speaker 3: have been an absolute bloodbath. Proportions that, like you said,
6:21
Speaker 3: we actually wouldn't have to go back to the 70s
6:23
Speaker 3: because Democrats were still doing, you know, Nancy Pelosi swept
6:26
Speaker 3: in with the liberal revolution and everything. we wouldn't have
6:30
Speaker 3: seen if they didn't redistrict, we would have a very
6:32
Speaker 3: difficult time finding a map to compare it to. But
6:35
Speaker 3: because they did, you know, we're looking at like 29
6:38
Speaker 3: seats right now, if it was D plus 11, which
6:40
Speaker 3: doesn't sound like a lot. But here's what I would
6:41
Speaker 3: tell people. Once you get past the eight point mark,
6:45
Speaker 3: even redistricting for election forecasters, it's we don't want to
6:49
Speaker 3: wade into that territory because it is so you're really
6:52
Speaker 3: walking the plank. And if it doesn't happen, you'll be
6:54
Speaker 3: held to account for it later. I think people should
6:56
Speaker 3: take that into consideration when they're thinking about When they're
6:59
Speaker 3: listening to people like me talk, I'm over here saying
7:02
Speaker 3: 29 seats. But the truth is the levy breaks after
7:05
Speaker 3: eight points. And people like me really don't know what
7:08
Speaker 3: it means. It could. I'm in North Carolina right now.
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Speaker 3: North Carolina one should not be competitive, but it is.
7:14
Speaker 3: And probably Lori Buck out is going to lose it.
7:16
Speaker 3: But what is it? Eleven points mean it means Greg
7:20
Speaker 3: Murphy is in trouble in North Carolina three. And by
7:22
Speaker 3: the way, he is and he's terrified right now. It
7:25
Speaker 3: means North Carolina 4 is in trouble.
7:27
Speaker 1: One sec, Rich. Could you just break that out for
7:28
Speaker 1: people who don't know North Carolina? Give us the Trump
7:31
Speaker 1: victory number in 2024. Compare it now to today.
7:34
Speaker 3: We're looking– I mean the number across all of these
7:37
Speaker 3: districts is like a 16-point swing. That's insane, but we
7:41
Speaker 3: are seeing it in Virginia and North Carolina, and here's
7:43
Speaker 3: why Republicans should be nervous. Those two states, they may
7:47
Speaker 3: not be predictive overall by margin, but they are predictive directionally.
7:52
Speaker 3: And it's hard for me, and should be for others,
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Speaker 3: to imagine that both Virginia and North Carolina are seeing
7:58
Speaker 3: comparable swings, yet it's going to be isolated to just
8:01
Speaker 3: these two states. I just can't believe that. I think
8:06
Speaker 3: what's more likely is that we have a much better...
8:09
Speaker 3: view of the entire picture in these states and early
8:12
Speaker 3: voting makes it easier to do, compare, you know, year
8:15
Speaker 3: over year. And that's probably what we're going to see
8:18
Speaker 3: in the rest, you know, 13 to 16 point swings
8:20
Speaker 3: in the rest of the country, which by the way,
8:23
Speaker 3: makes sense. That's why Ohio is so close. That's why
8:26
Speaker 3: Iowa is so close. Donald Trump won those by 13
8:29
Speaker 3: and a half points, but Gerard Brown himself was running
8:31
Speaker 3: in Ohio, for instance. He, he, he only lost that
8:35
Speaker 3: by three and a half. Bernie Moreno ran 10 points
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Speaker 3: behind Donald Trump. So everyone who looks at that and
8:40
Speaker 3: says it's a red state, I just don't believe it. Well,
8:42
Speaker 3: you better believe it because it's not a 10 point
8:45
Speaker 3: or a 15 or a 16 point swing that Democrats
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Speaker 3: need in that state. They need the three and a
8:49
Speaker 3: half point swing. And Sherrod Brown could easily do that. So, yeah,
8:52
Speaker 3: I mean, some of these incumbents, one I just mentioned,
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Speaker 3: Greg Murphy, even two months ago, guys, he was not
8:58
Speaker 3: sweating bullets the way he's sweating bullets now. And he
9:00
Speaker 3: is for good reason. And he may end up eking
9:02
Speaker 3: it out. But these are Trump 15, 16, 17, 18
9:06
Speaker 3: point districts. We shouldn't be talking about them. This is crazy.
9:10
Speaker 1: One point that you had made previously, Rich, which is
9:13
Speaker 1: very insightful, is you warned around these redistricting. You're like, guys,
9:17
Speaker 1: we can only redistrict if you accept that the coalition
9:21
Speaker 1: stays together. Now, obviously, that's not happening. Talk us through
9:26
Speaker 1: that about how it might actually backfire on the Republicans nationally.
9:30
Speaker 3: Let's look at Texas, where 100 percent This is the
9:34
Speaker 3: state where I tried to, because I thought it was
9:36
Speaker 3: the clearest example where I could explain this. That was
9:39
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's performance with Hispanics. That was not your performance, Republicans.
9:43
Speaker 3: You never win Hispanics by margins like that or even
9:47
Speaker 3: get levels of Hispanic vote share like that. And in
9:50
Speaker 3: several of these states, Donald Trump did win them outright.
9:54
Speaker 3: Republicans didn't earn those votes. So to redistrict using Trump's
9:58
Speaker 3: vote as a benchmark was extraordinary. foolish. That's what they did.
10:01
Speaker 3: And now you have somebody like Dela Cruz in deep trouble,
10:04
Speaker 3: deep trouble. The internals show it, the early vote in
10:07
Speaker 3: that area, it should be terrifying to Republicans. I know
10:10
Speaker 3: I hear people glazing all day, every day online, but
10:14
Speaker 3: we're going to be here soon. Like reality is going
10:16
Speaker 3: to hit them soon, guys. And the only way that
10:18
Speaker 3: redistricting ever made sense in not just Texas but elsewhere
10:22
Speaker 3: is if you were going to recognize that you are
10:25
Speaker 3: now the lower propensity coalition. You win a lot more
10:28
Speaker 3: nonwhite votes than you did. You win a lot more
10:30
Speaker 3: younger votes than you did. But you need to keep
10:32
Speaker 3: the coalition together, and that should be your number one
10:35
Speaker 3: priority if you're not going to do that. If you're
10:38
Speaker 3: going to go back and govern like the old Republican Party,
10:40
Speaker 3: you might as well leave the map alone. Just leave
10:42
Speaker 3: it alone. And they didn't, and now it will backfire.
10:45
Speaker 3: It will. It's going to backfire.
10:47
Speaker 2: Rich, thinking about those demographics, if you look at, you know,
10:51
Speaker 2: Latino voters you're mentioning here seem to be a group
10:54
Speaker 2: that have shifted the hardest away from the Republican Party.
10:58
Speaker 2: Does that mean that certain regions will be more vulnerable? Like,
11:01
Speaker 2: could we see an uneven effect depending on the demographic
11:04
Speaker 2: makeup of particular districts or states?
11:07
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's the most likely outcome, even
11:09
Speaker 3: in Florida, which is, you know, definitely a red state
11:12
Speaker 3: at this point. I think that's fair. Even in Florida,
11:15
Speaker 3: where every Hispanic group is not the same. Right. So
11:18
Speaker 3: we tend to do that. We lump them all together.
11:20
Speaker 3: But Mexicans vote differently than Puerto Ricans. They vote differently
11:23
Speaker 3: than Cubans and Venezuelans. The reason Florida leans more to
11:27
Speaker 3: the right and with Hispanic vote itself is because they
11:30
Speaker 3: have more right leaning Hispanics. And even in Michigan, for instance,
11:33
Speaker 3: there are just certain subgroups of Hispanics that that Michigan
11:36
Speaker 3: Hispanics lean more to the right than the nation overall.
11:39
Speaker 3: So I think that is the most likely outcome because
11:41
Speaker 3: even in Florida, and it's not just the polling, it's not.
11:44
Speaker 3: We had special elections in 25. We had off-cycle elections
11:47
Speaker 3: in 25. And we saw these massive swings in these areas.
11:50
Speaker 3: Donald Trump lost his own legislative district in Florida. That
11:54
Speaker 3: can only happen if Hispanics swung back significantly, which they did.
11:59
Speaker 3: And it was a small sample. So everyone made excuses
12:02
Speaker 3: and moved on to the next special election until it
12:05
Speaker 3: happened again. You take a state like Texas where James
12:07
Speaker 3: Tallarico was winning 80% of Kamala Harris's general election vote
12:12
Speaker 3: share in some of these counties along the border counties,
12:15
Speaker 3: heavily Hispanic border counties. That's not possible, guys. It's just
12:19
Speaker 3: simply not possible unless some of Donald Trump's Hispanic voters
12:23
Speaker 3: then just switched and voted for James Tallarico in a
12:26
Speaker 3: Democratic primary. It's the only way it made mathematical sense.
12:30
Speaker 3: And now I think everybody probably realizes that it's just
12:33
Speaker 3: too late.
12:34
Speaker 1: What's your number, Rich? I don't want to put you
12:37
Speaker 1: too much on the spot here. Where do your models
12:39
Speaker 1: and things show in terms of the balance in the
12:42
Speaker 1: Senate and the House?
12:44
Speaker 3: I just don't see how Democrats get any less than 235,
12:47
Speaker 3: 39 seats. I really don't. And again, it could be
12:51
Speaker 3: a lot worse than people think. Could Republicans overperform, guys?
12:55
Speaker 3: Of course they could. Are they going to save the House?
12:58
Speaker 3: I would be stunned. I really, I mean, it's not,
13:01
Speaker 3: I'm going to, I don't want to say it's not possible,
13:03
Speaker 3: but I don't want to even entertain it. That's how
13:06
Speaker 3: ridiculous it is as a prospect to me in the Senate.
13:11
Speaker 3: I don't, I don't like what I see with Ken
13:13
Speaker 3: Paxton's chances at this point. And if Texas goes, then
13:16
Speaker 3: the Senate's going, it's gone. I think Ashley Hinson is
13:20
Speaker 3: going to hold on. We'll have a pullout in Iowa
13:22
Speaker 3: very soon. I think she's going to hold on. It
13:24
Speaker 3: is razor thin. I think Sherrod Brown at this point,
13:27
Speaker 3: and we're going to go back into the field this weekend,
13:29
Speaker 3: I think he's going to beat John Usted. I do.
13:31
Speaker 3: And the problem for me is they're all across the country.
13:36
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter what Senate race we're even looking at
13:38
Speaker 3: or what state we're looking at. There are these disaffected
13:41
Speaker 3: Republican voters. If they would get out, they would save
13:44
Speaker 3: Republicans from Ohio to Alaska. The problem is you can't
13:49
Speaker 3: just count on these people to get out. This was
13:51
Speaker 3: the problem they had, only it's in reverse now. The
13:54
Speaker 3: problem they had in 22, why they underperformed against expectations
13:59
Speaker 3: and Democrats held the Senate and did better than expected
14:01
Speaker 3: in the House, even though, of course, they didn't have
14:03
Speaker 3: control of it, is because they have a higher propensity coalition.
14:06
Speaker 3: You can count on these voters to vote in the midterm.
14:09
Speaker 3: You can count on them to vote in special elections.
14:12
Speaker 3: They are higher propensity. They're more reliable, to put it
14:15
Speaker 3: more simply. This is working in reverse against Republicans right now.
14:19
Speaker 3: So when I see this, And they don't have vote
14:22
Speaker 3: history or they don't have robust vote history. And they're
14:25
Speaker 3: telling me I'm not at all enthusiastic. I'm upset with
14:28
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. I'm upset with the war. Gas is too high.
14:31
Speaker 3: You can't just assume because you want to assume that
14:34
Speaker 3: they're going to come out in the midterm. They're probably not,
14:37
Speaker 3: which means that's the Senate. That will be the Senate.
14:41
Speaker 3: Susan Collins I thought was going to hold on, but
14:43
Speaker 3: the early vote looks disgusting for her. So– And if
14:48
Speaker 3: she goes, it's a wrap, guys. It's a wrap.
14:51
Speaker 2: Rich, if you had to, again, I'll put you on
14:54
Speaker 2: the spot here a little bit. But, you know, the
14:56
Speaker 2: hope on the right is that the polls are wrong again.
14:59
Speaker 2: And they could be, right?
15:01
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
15:01
Speaker 2: Wrong in 2016, wrong in 2020. They could be wrong here.
15:04
Speaker 2: I mean, one thing that you immediately notice is, OK,
15:06
Speaker 2: but those are all elections where Trump is on the ballot.
15:09
Speaker 2: Trump is not on the ballot here. So there have been,
15:12
Speaker 2: you know, the polls have been better. And actually, they've
15:13
Speaker 2: underestimated Democrats in certain instances.
15:15
Speaker 3: That's right.
15:16
Speaker 2: If you had to bet on which way the polls
15:20
Speaker 2: will be wrong this time, what are the things you're
15:23
Speaker 2: looking at? Which direction are you more concerned about pollsters undercounting?
15:28
Speaker 3: You just said it. The polls have not understated Republicans
15:32
Speaker 3: unless there were two conditions, two circumstances. One, Trump was
15:36
Speaker 3: on the ballot. Two, Trump was still popular. The safe
15:40
Speaker 3: bet Is that it probably it, the polls are more
15:44
Speaker 3: likely to understate Democrats. Donald Trump is a level at
15:48
Speaker 3: a level of unpopular right now that we have never measured.
15:51
Speaker 3: The New York times poll has him at 34. The
15:53
Speaker 3: lowest we've had him is 36. I'm curious to see
15:55
Speaker 3: what we'll get. We'll get in, uh, over the weekend
15:59
Speaker 3: because we normally get a very clear picture this weekend
16:01
Speaker 3: before an election. He's going out there and doing these rallies.
16:06
Speaker 1: Crystal.
16:06
Speaker 3: The problem is you're rallying and trying to juice a
16:08
Speaker 3: much smaller base. And when we look at likelihood to
16:12
Speaker 3: vote and enthusiasm, it all points to the much, much
16:17
Speaker 3: more likely scenario that Democrats will actually be slightly understated
16:22
Speaker 3: in some of these states. And I hate to say it.
16:23
Speaker 3: Look at Alaska, for instance. Dan Sullivan, when he won
16:27
Speaker 3: in 2014, the polls, the average, the RCP average was 2.4.
16:30
Speaker 3: Dan Sullivan won by 2.2. And we always say the
16:33
Speaker 3: same thing in Maine. Well, Susan Collins always outperforms the polls. No,
16:36
Speaker 3: she doesn't. She only outperformed it one time with Donald
16:39
Speaker 3: Trump on the ballot in 2020. it's coat. I'm sorry.
16:42
Speaker 3: It's coat. And I hate to tell everybody, but I
16:45
Speaker 3: heard the same thing before, you know, Abigail Spanberger absolutely
16:48
Speaker 3: romped you in Virginia. So, and Jackson or Ellie, I
16:52
Speaker 3: thought he was only down three points. Mickey shower went
16:54
Speaker 3: on to stomp him into the ground. So me too, rich.
16:58
Speaker 1: I believed in that one. I was like, ah, it's
16:59
Speaker 1: going to be an upset.
17:00
Speaker 3: And I was like, I did too. I did too.
17:02
Speaker 3: Until Mark Mitchell from then at Rasmussen. Still, I was
17:06
Speaker 3: doing Virginia. He was doing New Jersey and, And I'm
17:09
Speaker 3: watching Virginia just blow wide open. We're at Spanberger plus
17:12
Speaker 3: 13 and a half and people are still putting out
17:14
Speaker 3: plus fours and I'm scratching my head. And then he
17:17
Speaker 3: brings me New Jersey and same thing. He's like, look,
17:20
Speaker 3: Jack isn't even close here. What are they talking about? Well,
17:23
Speaker 3: election night comes and what happened, guys? I mean, what happened?
17:26
Speaker 3: Enthusiasm matters. I've never seen Donald Trump this unpopular. I've never,
17:31
Speaker 3: he's also never had to deal with disaffection. I think
17:34
Speaker 3: people are vastly underestimating the power of disaffection. He never
17:39
Speaker 3: sat for an election where he had to get people
17:42
Speaker 3: who were disaffected to go and vote. Not only did
17:45
Speaker 3: he not have that, he had the absolute reverse of that.
17:48
Speaker 3: We're in unchartered territory, and there is honestly a lot
17:51
Speaker 3: more evidence to make an argument. The case is stronger
17:55
Speaker 3: that Democrats can actually do better than expected than not. Guys,
17:59
Speaker 3: let me give you one stat. Unpopular war leads to
18:02
Speaker 3: defeat 100% of the time.
18:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
18:05
Speaker 3: It's just not a question. That's right. Gas is high.
18:09
Speaker 3: War is unpopular. A war they never wanted. What would
18:12
Speaker 3: you expect if you weren't a partisan at all? And
18:14
Speaker 3: I would tell people to do this. You don't have
18:16
Speaker 3: to be a statistician. Just take off your partisan hat
18:19
Speaker 3: no matter which way you want this election to go.
18:21
Speaker 3: Look at the environment and say to yourself, if you
18:23
Speaker 3: were just blindly– if you were looking at this from
18:26
Speaker 3: the outside, how do you think this would go?
18:31
Speaker 2: Let me turn to Ohio. And then after that, the
18:34
Speaker 2: last thing I want to get your reaction to is
18:36
Speaker 2: this Wedgwood polls insanity. So I'm sure people know at
18:40
Speaker 2: this point that Vivek Ramaswamy has now put $ 4 million
18:44
Speaker 2: behind this ad with Amy Acton's estranged mother, who apparently
18:49
Speaker 2: fled the state with her husband when Amy was 12
18:52
Speaker 2: years old after her husband raped, according to the evidence
18:56
Speaker 2: that was found that led Amy to be taken from
18:59
Speaker 2: that home. raped her daughter and abused both her daughter
19:02
Speaker 2: and her son. So he's going forward with this ad.
19:06
Speaker 2: He's facing a lot of mounting backlash here. However, J.D.
19:09
Speaker 2: Vance is standing by him. Let me go ahead and
19:11
Speaker 2: play his comments and we'll get to the backlash. Then
19:13
Speaker 2: I'll get your political analysis here. Let's go ahead and
19:16
Speaker 2: take a listen to J.D. Vance on this ad yesterday.
19:19
Speaker 4: Do you think that that ad was appropriate? Well, I'll
19:22
Speaker 4: be honest with you. Whether the ad was appropriate or
19:24
Speaker 4: not is not really my concern. What is my concern
19:28
Speaker 4: is who is going to govern the next generation of
19:31
Speaker 4: American government. And I've got to be honest that when
19:35
Speaker 4: I see Republicans, people in my party, reacting so strongly,
19:40
Speaker 4: especially elected officials, look, have the opinion you want to
19:42
Speaker 4: have on that ad. If you think it was too tough,
19:44
Speaker 4: say it was too tough. If you think it wasn't
19:46
Speaker 4: tough enough, say that. But I have to admit that
19:48
Speaker 4: I'm a little bit disgusted. when I see Republicans across
19:52
Speaker 4: the country who are whining more about that advertisement than
19:56
Speaker 4: they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats
19:59
Speaker 4: want to do to the United States of America. So
20:01
Speaker 4: I would say to Ohio Republicans, do you actually think
20:04
Speaker 4: that Amy Acton is unfit to serve as governor of
20:07
Speaker 4: the state of Ohio?
20:08
Speaker 1: I do.
20:09
Speaker 4: Remember some of the ads that have been run against me?
20:11
Speaker 4: I've run in, I guess, two races now in my
20:13
Speaker 4: entire life. People have called Vivek Ramaswamy a murderer in
20:18
Speaker 4: some of the advertisements ran against him. People have called,
20:21
Speaker 4: you know, use the president of the United States. How
20:23
Speaker 4: many times have we seen advertisements using his family members,
20:27
Speaker 4: estranged family members, to go out for the president of
20:30
Speaker 4: the United States? Politics is a tough business. And my
20:33
Speaker 4: message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually
20:37
Speaker 4: believe in the things you say you believe in, stop
20:39
Speaker 4: whining about an advertisement and go win the race in
20:42
Speaker 4: 13 days.
20:42
Speaker 3: Next question.
20:44
Speaker 5: And now the media and the Democrats in the state
20:47
Speaker 5: of Ohio are obsessed because guess what? Vivek Ramaswamy had
20:51
Speaker 5: the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it
20:55
Speaker 5: out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar.
20:58
Speaker 5: My message, ladies and gentlemen, is very simple. Whatever you
21:02
Speaker 5: think about any of the TV advertisements, focus on the
21:06
Speaker 5: substance and focus on the facts.
21:09
Speaker 2: So the vice president standing by him saying the ad
21:11
Speaker 2: is calling it like it is. Other Republicans, however, Rich,
21:15
Speaker 2: taking a different approach. Let's put the next piece up
21:17
Speaker 2: on the screen. Republican Senator John Husted, who is, of course,
21:21
Speaker 2: in that very tough reelect against Sherrod Brown, says, I
21:24
Speaker 2: would not have run that ad. Other Republican officials in
21:28
Speaker 2: the state have also echoed that sentiment. So turning to
21:32
Speaker 2: the political analysis here. Clearly, the Ramaswamy team thought that
21:36
Speaker 2: this was going to work. To me, it also reeks
21:39
Speaker 2: of desperation. I don't know that you would do something.
21:43
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think you should do something like
21:44
Speaker 2: this anyway, but certainly not if you were in a
21:47
Speaker 2: commanding position in the polls. What is your sense of
21:51
Speaker 2: this as a political play? Is this going to work
21:54
Speaker 2: out for them?
21:56
Speaker 3: Well, one, let me just say I love the vice president.
21:59
Speaker 3: Save your capital, brother. Save your capital. Yeah. It does
22:03
Speaker 3: reek of desperation. And the saddest part about this crystal
22:07
Speaker 3: is that these Republican pollsters who, uh, do this work
22:12
Speaker 3: that lead to these very foolish decisions, um, do this
22:16
Speaker 3: every year. They over their own polls, typically overstate democratic
22:21
Speaker 3: support in these states. Uh, the vice president himself thought
22:24
Speaker 3: he was in a very close race in 2022. Um,
22:27
Speaker 3: and it was not, we polled it. It was seven points.
22:31
Speaker 3: He won by seven. But his team thought it was closer.
22:34
Speaker 3: They believe the media polls and then go out and
22:38
Speaker 3: call them fake and run and then make bad decisions
22:41
Speaker 3: based on their that information. So, again, another self-inflicted wound.
22:47
Speaker 3: Would I run this ad?
22:48
Speaker 1: No.
22:49
Speaker 3: The impact, I think, from this ad is is going
22:51
Speaker 3: to be negative. And I I know people who are
22:54
Speaker 3: in the field in Ohio and it had an impact.
22:57
Speaker 3: And here's the irony about this. We actually had Vivek
23:00
Speaker 3: Ramaswamy doing better than John Ustedt. And a lot of
23:03
Speaker 3: polls did not, but we did, and we have no
23:06
Speaker 3: problem being the outlier in Ohio. We've been doing it
23:08
Speaker 3: for 10 years, and we end up right, and everyone
23:10
Speaker 3: else ends up wrong. And by the way, this happened
23:13
Speaker 3: with Mike DeWine, who's now the governor. It made sense
23:17
Speaker 3: to me that Vivek would actually outperform Usted. Usted's running
23:20
Speaker 3: against Gerard Brown. It's an incredibly, incredibly difficult, talented candidate.
23:25
Speaker 3: And then they did this. So we're going to find
23:27
Speaker 3: out over the weekend because we're going back in Ohio.
23:30
Speaker 3: Now I have to. He's costing me more money to
23:33
Speaker 3: go back in to make sure I'm right because I
23:36
Speaker 3: can't leave that last poll we did on the table.
23:39
Speaker 3: That's how strongly I feel about how this ad will
23:42
Speaker 3: impact this race. If you're going to run something like that,
23:45
Speaker 3: you better make sure your facts are right. And by
23:49
Speaker 3: the way, I wouldn't anyway. But you better make sure
23:52
Speaker 3: your facts are right. And they didn't. And it was
23:55
Speaker 3: a dirty trick gone wrong, you know? Yeah, let's put D9.
23:58
Speaker 1: My friend Ryan Groduski, he says, private polling, this is
24:02
Speaker 1: a supposition behind the scenes that there may be something
24:05
Speaker 1: to publish. The poll's actually showing Acton better position than
24:09
Speaker 1: Sherrod Brown. And he goes, I wonder if today's blowup
24:12
Speaker 1: would only exacerbate that. Rich, I was told, just like you,
24:16
Speaker 1: that the ad has half of Ohio GOP absolutely furious.
24:22
Speaker 1: And that basically- Vivek himself knew some of the circumstances
24:26
Speaker 1: and said, you know what, I'm doing this anyways. And
24:28
Speaker 1: a lot of people told him, hey, this is a
24:30
Speaker 1: bad idea. And now the rest of Ohio GOP, including
24:35
Speaker 1: the Husted campaign, they are not happy because they think
24:38
Speaker 1: he just screwed them across statewide on the ticket. I'm
24:41
Speaker 1: curious if that fits what you referred to.
24:43
Speaker 3: That is, I heard yesterday the same thing, that not
24:46
Speaker 3: only will this hurt him, but they're very angry because
24:49
Speaker 3: it could hurt. They thought Husted was mounting a comeback.
24:52
Speaker 3: And that's another reason why I wanted to go and
24:54
Speaker 3: poll the state anyway. We did have Brown up, never
24:56
Speaker 3: by the margin some of the other polls had, but
24:58
Speaker 3: he's winning Mahoning. He's winning Trumbull. He's taking back parts
25:01
Speaker 3: of the Ohio River Valley and is dismantling the Trump
25:04
Speaker 3: coalition and putting back together his coalition that won Ohio
25:07
Speaker 3: in the first place. So again, I have to go
25:10
Speaker 3: back in now and see if that's really the case.
25:12
Speaker 3: I will just say this to Republicans out there. Instead
25:15
Speaker 3: of running tricks like this, do you know what would
25:18
Speaker 3: work a lot better if you're in trouble and you're
25:20
Speaker 3: in a race that you think you're going to lose?
25:22
Speaker 3: We're sorry. We'll do better. It's that this is where
25:26
Speaker 3: I'm serious. I am so serious. This is where Republicans
25:29
Speaker 3: have just every in every wound is a self-inflicted wound.
25:33
Speaker 3: Just admit you promised never to start a war. And
25:36
Speaker 3: you did just admit that you're going to write the ship.
25:39
Speaker 3: Just admit you didn't listen to the voters when they
25:41
Speaker 3: were screaming at the top of their lungs for a year.
25:44
Speaker 3: Just pull a Bill Clinton sister soldier, this thing and
25:47
Speaker 3: move on and they won't do it. It's this mentality
25:50
Speaker 3: that they have. And I think we all know where
25:52
Speaker 3: it comes from, where you never admit that you did
25:54
Speaker 3: anything wrong and you just fight, fight, fight, fight. Even
25:56
Speaker 3: then when you lose, you declare victory or you say
25:59
Speaker 3: something else, which is even worse. Like somebody took it
26:01
Speaker 3: from you. Just go to the voter and tell them
26:05
Speaker 3: we'll do better next time. Don't give it back to
26:07
Speaker 3: the Democrats. That argument would have worked far more, but
26:10
Speaker 3: they didn't. And by the way, it's too late now.
26:12
Speaker 3: It's October 22nd. I'm talking about in this, in the spring,
26:16
Speaker 3: in the summer, even in the turn of the fall,
26:19
Speaker 3: If you would have just said, I understand you're unhappy
26:21
Speaker 3: with us and we understand why. I have congressmen, they
26:26
Speaker 3: survived for years. And one of them the other day,
26:28
Speaker 3: who's in a very tight race, and I think he's
26:30
Speaker 3: going to pull it out. But that's because he's a
26:33
Speaker 3: superhero when it comes to defying national swings. I don't
26:36
Speaker 3: know how he does it. But he said, you know, actually,
26:38
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you what he said. This is
26:40
Speaker 3: how he does it. I just, I'm just honest. I
26:42
Speaker 3: just go back and say, you're right. I could do
26:45
Speaker 3: better next time. I'll do better. It really is that simple.
26:48
Speaker 3: And he does it. It's amazing.
26:50
Speaker 2: I think part of the problem, Rich, I think for
26:53
Speaker 2: some of these people, maybe Houston, although I have to
26:56
Speaker 2: think he thought going back up against Sherrod Brown was
26:58
Speaker 2: going to be tough, but they took votes in favor
27:02
Speaker 2: of the Iran war. They took votes to block the
27:04
Speaker 2: release of the Epstein files so they could come. And
27:07
Speaker 2: we've seen some of them try to do this now
27:09
Speaker 2: and be like, I'm going to be different, you know,
27:11
Speaker 2: and it's hard to sell that. When your record indicates something,
27:16
Speaker 2: you know, extraordinarily different. And for a bunch of these senators,
27:20
Speaker 2: you know, Roger Marshall, he didn't think he was going
27:21
Speaker 2: to have a race on his hands. So he wasn't
27:24
Speaker 2: he didn't you know, he wasn't prepared. And he's still
27:26
Speaker 2: apparently not prepared, not fundraising, not apparently working hard, you know,
27:30
Speaker 2: very flat footed, saying all kinds of, oh, there's more
27:33
Speaker 2: important things than gas prices to people in Kansas has
27:36
Speaker 2: taken all of these horrible votes that come back to
27:38
Speaker 2: bite you. So I think that's part of the story here, too,
27:41
Speaker 2: is because you have so many other seats in play,
27:44
Speaker 2: these people were not expecting to have to run real races.
27:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're 100% correct. Even the races in
27:51
Speaker 3: North Carolina that I mentioned before, they're stunned. These are
27:54
Speaker 3: not guys who are good retail politicians. They don't go
27:57
Speaker 3: and show up to every event. You're not going to
27:59
Speaker 3: see the other one over at Mumfest, which is a
28:01
Speaker 3: huge thing here where a lot of politicians will come
28:04
Speaker 3: and shake hands. He never does it. He just thinks
28:06
Speaker 3: he's going to be reelected. Then, of course, the president
28:08
Speaker 3: comes to town. He pops up, even though it's not
28:10
Speaker 3: his own district. He pops up and he's sweating bullets.
28:13
Speaker 3: He's in trouble because he's never had to do this before.
28:16
Speaker 3: A lot of these guys actually have been sitting in
28:19
Speaker 3: normal or reliably Republican districts because of redistricting. Republicans were
28:24
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, feeding from the trough a little bit.
28:26
Speaker 3: They put some of their stronger incumbents into less Republican
28:30
Speaker 3: districts to make other ones more solidly Republican thinking. The
28:34
Speaker 3: incumbent has the power of incumbency and the hold on.
28:37
Speaker 3: And they just didn't count on, again, you know, we
28:41
Speaker 3: were talking about this cycle. You would have to go
28:43
Speaker 3: back to the 70s in order to see a Democratic
28:45
Speaker 3: margin like this. Well, guys, when is the last time
28:48
Speaker 3: we saw an environment like this, right? A president, even
28:52
Speaker 3: Barack Obama, who I would argue very much let down
28:55
Speaker 3: his coalition, which is why he lost a lot of them.
28:58
Speaker 3: He didn't. break a massive campaign promise, one that cuts
29:03
Speaker 3: right to the core of the point of the entire coalition,
29:08
Speaker 3: which is to put America first. The last time we
29:12
Speaker 3: saw a promise broken like this, I think, would probably
29:15
Speaker 3: have to go back to read my lips. No new taxes.
29:17
Speaker 3: That ended up with the Ross Perot fracture, eight years
29:20
Speaker 3: of an independent party. The only reason George W. Bush
29:23
Speaker 3: put back the Republican Party was because he recognized it.
29:27
Speaker 3: And I know we look back at Bush now and
29:28
Speaker 3: he's the quintessential neocon, but he was not in 2000.
29:32
Speaker 3: He stole a lot of very different we can't be
29:36
Speaker 3: the world's police we can't tax uh you know the
29:39
Speaker 3: we can't tax the working man and and give corporations
29:41
Speaker 3: a tax cut if we're going to give tax cuts
29:43
Speaker 3: it's got to be to everybody this is worse than
29:46
Speaker 3: that i i don't know how you can't see other
29:49
Speaker 3: people can't see or everyone can't see that donald trump
29:53
Speaker 3: spent 10 years telling everybody that it is dumb to
29:57
Speaker 3: squander our wealth and our talent abroad And that, especially
30:00
Speaker 3: in the Middle East, which is, you know, this hole
30:03
Speaker 3: or that hole, and we shouldn't spend treasure or blood
30:07
Speaker 3: in that region anymore. starting new wars abroad is stupid, right?
30:12
Speaker 3: No new wars, no new forever wars. And now we're
30:14
Speaker 3: in a war with Iran. I just don't, I don't
30:17
Speaker 3: know how, this is at all a mystery to people.
30:22
Speaker 3: The only reason he put together the coalition that we've
30:24
Speaker 3: been talking about is because of that, because of so
30:27
Speaker 3: many of these other issues where he doesn't look like
30:29
Speaker 3: John Usted. John Usted was probably the worst kind of
30:32
Speaker 3: a candidate you could have picked for a state like Ohio,
30:35
Speaker 3: which is a state people think is just deep red.
30:37
Speaker 3: It's really not deep red. It's Trump red. There's a difference.
30:41
Speaker 3: Even Iowa, if you go back to Iowa in 2018,
30:44
Speaker 3: they lost three out of four congressional districts in that
30:46
Speaker 3: swing alone. So how do you think Iowa's going to look?
30:48
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:49
Speaker 3: How do you think it's going to look this time?
30:50
Speaker 3: Why is Ashley Hinson even in a fight? They just
30:54
Speaker 3: seem to not learn. They have not learned any of
30:57
Speaker 3: these lessons, and they just move forward. And the worst
31:01
Speaker 3: part for the Republicans is that Donald Trump's term is
31:03
Speaker 3: eventually going to end. He will not get a third one.
31:06
Speaker 3: He's not coming back to save you. You need to
31:10
Speaker 3: learn how to fend for yourselves. And the fact that
31:13
Speaker 3: 10 years into this movement, Republicans are in this position
31:18
Speaker 3: in 2026 is not a good sign for them. It
31:21
Speaker 3: means they've learned absolutely nothing.
31:24
Speaker 2: Last thing quickly, Rich, on this, because we definitely want
31:26
Speaker 2: to get you to weigh in on this Wedgwood polls situation.
31:30
Speaker 2: We can put this element up on the screen. So
31:32
Speaker 2: this is their statement. So an outlet called 50 Plus
31:35
Speaker 2: One was apparently about to blow the lid off of
31:39
Speaker 2: this fake polling scheme where they'd been putting out all
31:42
Speaker 2: of these numbers, some of them very consequential, like in
31:44
Speaker 2: the Michigan Senate primary race on the Democratic side, purporting
31:48
Speaker 2: they were online bullies. grassroots fundraising so that they could
31:52
Speaker 2: fund more polling operations. And now they're saying, oh, this
31:56
Speaker 2: was an experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities and lack
32:00
Speaker 2: of oversight and barrier to entry to political polling. No,
32:04
Speaker 2: the truth is you are about to get caught. So
32:06
Speaker 2: now you're pretending this was some sort of a social
32:08
Speaker 2: experiment rather than just complete fraud. Talk to us about
32:12
Speaker 2: how this happened and whether this you see this as
32:16
Speaker 2: a one off isolated incident or whether you think there
32:19
Speaker 2: is a broader problem here.
32:21
Speaker 3: Well, let me just let me just preface the first
32:24
Speaker 3: answer by saying that there is a broader problem. This
32:26
Speaker 3: is the tip of an iceberg. But here's how it happened.
32:30
Speaker 3: And this is more concerning. It only happened, the tip
32:33
Speaker 3: to Elliott Morris only came because of a gripe between
32:37
Speaker 3: another pollster and them, all right? And I'm just going
32:41
Speaker 3: to go ahead and lay that out there. Why wasn't
32:44
Speaker 3: this brought to anybody's attention? Because it was wrong. Because
32:49
Speaker 3: there was deception going on here. So that is another
32:54
Speaker 3: damning testimony about the state of this industry. And it's
32:59
Speaker 3: sad to me, someone who's been doing what I've been
33:01
Speaker 3: doing for over a decade now, trying to, you know,
33:06
Speaker 3: when I first came on the scene, it was the
33:07
Speaker 3: media and university polls that were constantly favoring one party
33:11
Speaker 3: over the other. So regardless of whether it was an
33:13
Speaker 3: ethical or methodological issue or both, it didn't really matter.
33:17
Speaker 3: It was really causing distrust in the industry and fighting
33:20
Speaker 3: all these years to get to a place where there
33:22
Speaker 3: were more voices allowed in the industry. I never thought
33:26
Speaker 3: that it would lead to an environment that isn't more
33:29
Speaker 3: open but one that– because the industry is built on trust,
33:33
Speaker 3: it was easy to exploit. And it is. I mean
33:36
Speaker 3: the foundation of this industry is trust. So when you're
33:39
Speaker 3: Morris or when you're DDHQ, the decision desk, right? You
33:43
Speaker 3: don't want to pry too much into a pollster. You're
33:46
Speaker 3: supposed to take– if they're claiming something, you're supposed to
33:49
Speaker 3: take them at their word. So it is widespread, and
33:52
Speaker 3: this is what I'm going to say about it. RCP,
33:54
Speaker 3: Real Clear Politics, so far, is the only one who
33:58
Speaker 3: has not been duped by fake pollsters and putting them
34:01
Speaker 3: in their average. I have been through all of their
34:03
Speaker 3: processes and can tell you that Real Clear Politics is
34:06
Speaker 3: the most rigorous process out there, the most rigorous vetting
34:11
Speaker 3: that you could get, that you could face as a pollster.
34:14
Speaker 3: Maybe it's time for RealClearPolitics to sit down and say, okay,
34:17
Speaker 3: we're going to develop a set of standards. Because, guys,
34:19
Speaker 3: the truth is APOR, which is the American Association of
34:22
Speaker 3: Public Opinion Research, doesn't have the respect for a lot
34:26
Speaker 3: from everyone. They have respect from left-wing pollsters. They have
34:30
Speaker 3: respect from university pollsters. And some of them only give
34:32
Speaker 3: it to them because they feel like they need to.
34:34
Speaker 3: There needs to be somebody that we all trust to–
34:39
Speaker 3: and that's RealClearPolitics– We all trust whether you're right-leaning or
34:43
Speaker 3: left-leaning because all pollsters have their own views. Of course,
34:46
Speaker 3: we say they're impartial. It only means they're not sponsored
34:49
Speaker 3: by somebody in a party or a committee. Real clear
34:52
Speaker 3: politics could be that arbiter and put together a set
34:56
Speaker 3: of standards that APOR really has tried to put together,
34:59
Speaker 3: but nobody's abiding by anyway. Even after 2016, they developed
35:03
Speaker 3: something called the Transparency Initiative, which I cheerlead for. I
35:06
Speaker 3: thought it was fantastic. And I think maybe me and
35:09
Speaker 3: Spencer Kimball– Spencer Kimball and I from– and Spencer is
35:13
Speaker 3: from Emerson College. I think we're the only ones who
35:16
Speaker 3: followed it. And the industry just kept going. There has
35:19
Speaker 3: to be somebody who comes in and puts their foot
35:20
Speaker 3: down and says no because Morrow's campaign was destroyed by
35:23
Speaker 3: that poll. And that– I mean that should be prosecuted
35:27
Speaker 3: if you really want my– I agree. It's fraud. To me,
35:29
Speaker 3: this is fraud. To me, this is straight-up fraud. And
35:30
Speaker 3: election interference.
35:32
Speaker 1: Yes.
35:32
Speaker 3: And this is real interference and fraud. And you're going
35:35
Speaker 3: to love this one. He traded on it. So this
35:39
Speaker 3: is a bigger, guys, I'm telling you, it's the tip
35:41
Speaker 3: of the iceberg. We're going to find out there are
35:43
Speaker 3: a lot of people, even if it's not 100% fake,
35:46
Speaker 3: they're probably being paid. Not probably, I know they are.
35:49
Speaker 3: They're being paid by committees, by entities, and then they're
35:52
Speaker 3: trading off of numbers they know are going to come out.
35:54
Speaker 3: And you can literally go into the volume and see
35:57
Speaker 3: that people went in before some of those polls from Wedgwood.
36:00
Speaker 3: They bought shares of yes or no or margins or whatever.
36:05
Speaker 3: And then the polls come out, the markets swing. And
36:07
Speaker 3: they do usually level off. But I think we're going
36:11
Speaker 3: to find out that a lot of the reason for
36:13
Speaker 3: that leveling off is that the people who knew about
36:16
Speaker 3: these polls ahead of time are profit-taking, and then the
36:19
Speaker 3: market is leveling off again. Disgusting.
36:22
Speaker 1: Makes sense.
36:23
Speaker 2: We got ahead, Rich.
36:24
Speaker 1: But seriously, thank you so much for your insight. Genuinely
36:28
Speaker 1: incredible work, and we appreciate your time.
36:30
Speaker 3: Thank you. All the best, guys. It was a little
36:32
Speaker 3: under the weather, so I'm sorry about that, but all
36:34
Speaker 3: the best.
36:34
Speaker 1: Couldn't tell.
36:35
Speaker 3: Don't worry about it.
36:39
Speaker 1: Turning now to housing, I want to keep an eye
36:40
Speaker 1: on this. Obviously, there's structural economic problems, which belie a
36:44
Speaker 1: lot of the dissatisfaction outside of just oil. Let's put
36:47
Speaker 1: this up here on the screen. America's housing market is
36:50
Speaker 1: absolutely in the dumps right now. Home sellers currently outnumber
36:55
Speaker 1: buyers by 63%. That is the biggest gap since the
36:59
Speaker 1: housing crash of 2008. There are 62% more home sellers
37:02
Speaker 1: than buyers. nationwide, which is the largest gap in Redfin records.
37:09
Speaker 1: Put E2 up there on the screen. This is actually
37:13
Speaker 1: even more of an interesting statistic.
37:16
Speaker 4: U.S.
37:16
Speaker 1: Pending home sales have fallen to a record low as
37:21
Speaker 1: mortgage rates surge. And it just shows this is all
37:23
Speaker 1: about mortgages. The leading indicator of U.S. housing has fallen
37:27
Speaker 1: to its lowest record, underscoring the adverse impact of these
37:30
Speaker 1: very high mortgage rates on the real estate sector. Index
37:33
Speaker 1: tracking pending home sales has actually tumbled to its lowest
37:36
Speaker 1: level back to 2001, according to the National Association of Realtors.
37:42
Speaker 1: And those are sales where a property is under contract.
37:45
Speaker 1: September data has actually marked a 7.3% drop just from August,
37:50
Speaker 1: which is one of the largest monthly decreases since the
37:53
Speaker 1: pandemic and exceeds the 0.5% fall forecasted by economists, if
37:58
Speaker 1: you want to see that one. So they expected 0.5.
38:00
Speaker 1: It ended up dropping by 7.3%. I think basically mortgages
38:05
Speaker 1: are now at a point where it's just completely nuts
38:08
Speaker 1: because it's not the rate itself, it's the price, obviously.
38:11
Speaker 1: So those two things together, you have prices still near
38:14
Speaker 1: all-time high levels and you have mortgage rates around 7.3%.
38:18
Speaker 1: People are like, I'm sorry, I just can't afford it.
38:21
Speaker 1: It's more than double the mortgage payment that you would
38:23
Speaker 1: have had to make five years ago in addition to
38:25
Speaker 1: a higher price because of where things currently stand in
38:28
Speaker 1: the market. The other thing that you really have to
38:31
Speaker 1: pay attention to is how much of this is actually
38:34
Speaker 1: the government's fault. A significant portion of these rise in
38:37
Speaker 1: mortgage rates is both by the Federal Reserve and the
38:39
Speaker 1: 10-year bond. And it's implicitly because of the Iran war.
38:43
Speaker 1: And so this is a foreign conflict, which is breaking
38:47
Speaker 1: the back of the American consumer who is trying to
38:50
Speaker 1: or potentially wants to be able to buy a new home.
38:53
Speaker 1: And I mean, all of this, you know, you might
38:55
Speaker 1: feel some schadenfreude or whatever for rich property owners. But
38:59
Speaker 1: the truth is, which we'll get to, rich property owners
39:02
Speaker 1: are all doing just fine. It's everybody else in the
39:04
Speaker 1: middle class. They're the people who can't sell their house.
39:06
Speaker 1: They're the people who can't buy a house. The top
39:08
Speaker 1: of the market is all conducting in all cash. They're
39:13
Speaker 1: actually building luxury homes. They're doing better than ever before.
39:16
Speaker 1: It's a totally bifurcated economy. And the worst part is,
39:21
Speaker 1: you have to remember, is when people are locked in
39:23
Speaker 1: their houses, locked out of buying a house, that means
39:26
Speaker 1: they're going to rent. We don't have any more new
39:28
Speaker 1: rental stock, which is coming online. unless you live in
39:31
Speaker 1: Austin or a few other very select places. So what
39:33
Speaker 1: does that mean? Your rent is going sky high. And
39:36
Speaker 1: that's basically what we're seeing across the board.
39:38
Speaker 3: It's really bad.
39:39
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is devastating because it's been
39:42
Speaker 1: years now of a broken housing market.
39:44
Speaker 2: Let's put E3 up on the screen because this adds
39:46
Speaker 2: to the picture that you're painting because basically, I mean,
39:50
Speaker 2: it's ugly no matter which way you look at it.
39:53
Speaker 2: Because not only do you have the high mortgage rates,
39:55
Speaker 2: price is still quite high, making it very difficult for
39:59
Speaker 2: people to get their foot in the market unless they're
40:02
Speaker 2: wealthy and have all cash that they can just plunk
40:04
Speaker 2: down a million dollars for a house. Also, home builders
40:08
Speaker 2: are really struggling as well. And there you've got a
40:12
Speaker 2: multifaceted dynamic. First of all, the materials have been more
40:15
Speaker 2: expensive because of tariffs. Second of all, you have high
40:18
Speaker 2: interest rates.
40:18
Speaker 3: Guess what?
40:19
Speaker 2: They also have to finance a lot of times construction
40:21
Speaker 2: in advance. Third of all, you have because of immigration enforcement,
40:26
Speaker 2: you have a struggle with the workforce there. And then fourth,
40:28
Speaker 2: you have a crowd out factor because all of the
40:31
Speaker 2: construction financing is going to AI data centers. So in
40:35
Speaker 2: spite of the fact, you really had this kind of
40:37
Speaker 2: bipartisan sentiment coming into the Trump administration. You've got the
40:41
Speaker 2: abundance-pilled Democratic folks. You've got, obviously, the Trump people who
40:46
Speaker 2: want to succeed economically, or at least they theoretically did.
40:49
Speaker 2: They sure don't act like it. But there was the
40:51
Speaker 2: sentiment of, OK, we've got to build more houses. We've
40:53
Speaker 2: got to roll back the regulation. We've got to do
40:55
Speaker 2: what we can to spark change. spark housing development so
40:58
Speaker 2: that we have a larger supply. So that'll bring prices
41:01
Speaker 2: down and make things more affordable. We are going in
41:03
Speaker 2: the polar opposite direction where the number of new housing
41:08
Speaker 2: starts is plummeting, putting additional pressure on this market. So
41:13
Speaker 2: it is a really, unless you are a wealthy individual,
41:16
Speaker 2: as per usual, it is a very dire situation for
41:19
Speaker 2: the homeowners who can't sell, for the buyers who can't
41:23
Speaker 2: afford to buy, and for the builders who are unable
41:27
Speaker 2: to get the labor and get the financing and get
41:30
Speaker 2: the materials at a cost where they can move forward
41:32
Speaker 2: as well.
41:33
Speaker 3: Exactly.
41:34
Speaker 1: And let's continue on just to the point that I
41:37
Speaker 1: was making about E5. The luxury housing market, it's doing fine.
41:41
Speaker 1: It's all about luxury and it runs on cash. The
41:44
Speaker 1: surging mortgage rates are sending many buyers to the sidelines while, quote,
41:48
Speaker 1: affluent shoppers are driving overall prices high because of large
41:52
Speaker 1: cash purchases. So this is what we mean by completely
41:56
Speaker 1: broken is if you are middle class, upper middle class,
42:00
Speaker 1: you are still competing with mortgages. If you are in
42:04
Speaker 1: the actually rich territory, mortgage mortgages is really not part
42:10
Speaker 1: of your concern because the stock market portfolio has exploded
42:14
Speaker 1: post COVID and you have more wealth than literally ever before.
42:18
Speaker 1: You have the option to sell some of your assets.
42:20
Speaker 1: You can take margin loan against your assets and put
42:23
Speaker 1: down all cash and do some sort of back time financing.
42:26
Speaker 1: If you need to, you're sitting on more money than
42:28
Speaker 1: you ever have in your entire life. And by the way,
42:30
Speaker 1: of course, most of these people are old. And so
42:33
Speaker 1: what does that mean is you're The entire market is
42:36
Speaker 1: now catered towards those people. So you just were talking
42:39
Speaker 1: about homeowner starts and all of that. I mean, it
42:42
Speaker 1: only matters if you can't sell it, but the people
42:44
Speaker 1: who are building multi-level luxury homes, they know that they're
42:48
Speaker 1: gonna be able to sell it. They know that that
42:51
Speaker 1: type of customer exists. It just happens to be 5%
42:54
Speaker 1: or whatever of the US population. That's what's also dramatically
42:59
Speaker 1: skewing the housing market. So you just put all this
43:02
Speaker 1: stuff together, the downward overall pressure, which is basically creeping from,
43:08
Speaker 1: if you make 300, this sounds insane to say, if
43:11
Speaker 1: you make a household income of about 300K or less,
43:14
Speaker 1: you are doing much worse. If you make above that,
43:17
Speaker 1: or if you already have substantial stock assets, then you're
43:20
Speaker 1: actually doing just fine. That number used to be like 100K. Inflation,
43:25
Speaker 1: I guess, coming for everybody, including the literal upper middle class.
43:29
Speaker 1: I'm talking about doctors and lawyers in high-priced major cities
43:33
Speaker 1: who are now out here probably having to make serious
43:36
Speaker 1: trade-off decisions and not being able to buy a home.
43:39
Speaker 1: That is not the way things usually work when 95%
43:42
Speaker 1: of the population feels financial pressure.
43:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it is wild. Put E4 up on
43:48
Speaker 2: the screen. It's the last piece here. We've mentioned this before,
43:50
Speaker 2: but this is such an important dynamic. Look at the
43:53
Speaker 2: size of the AI build-out. So this is average annual
43:57
Speaker 2: infrastructure spending as a percent of GDP, and they've got
44:01
Speaker 2: AI here tracked at 3.6%. comparing it to previous boom
44:07
Speaker 2: infrastructure cycles, which almost all of which ended up with
44:11
Speaker 2: some sort of a market collapse, even the ones that
44:13
Speaker 2: ended up providing some sort of useful technology. The closest
44:17
Speaker 2: competitor is the railroad build-out, which came in at 2.2%
44:22
Speaker 2: of GDP. And we've showed you the charts before. As
44:26
Speaker 2: AI data center build has increased, spending on all other
44:31
Speaker 2: types of construction, including home building, has fallen off a cliff.
44:36
Speaker 2: So not only do you have AI eating all the
44:40
Speaker 2: gains in the stock market and the stock market being
44:42
Speaker 2: increasingly dependent on AI-linked companies, but also in the physical
44:48
Speaker 2: infrastructure space, our entire economy is also being bet on
44:53
Speaker 2: the AI build-out. So the very thing that Americans do
44:57
Speaker 2: not want built in their towns, that's what's getting built.
45:00
Speaker 2: More housing for you to live in? Not so much.
45:03
Speaker 2: So amazing priorities we've got here as a country.
45:06
Speaker 1: Yep, exactly right. All right, thank you guys so much
45:09
Speaker 1: for watching. We appreciate it. There'll be a Friday show
45:11
Speaker 1: for everybody tomorrow.
45:12
Speaker 3: We'll see you then.