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Chuck’s Commentary - Trump Might Be The Democrats’ Best Midterm Asset + It’s Been A Strange Campaign Season… · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
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  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
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• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Chuck Todd. I'm coming to you on the road on
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the West Coast for this episode in the extraordinarily too
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: hot to handle Los Angeles. Quick trip in and out,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: but it's always good to get on the road, and
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  Speaker 1: so that's why you are seeing the wonderful generic backdrop
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: for those of you watching on video. And I want
• 2:41
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  Speaker 1: Please tell a friend. But we've had tremendous support. Everything
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  Speaker 1: is growing. And it's all thanks to the nice word
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: of mouth coming from everybody here. I think I've put
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: together a fun little episode. This is a Wednesday episode,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: so it means I have a new top five list.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: And guess what? Because the Senate battleground is truly expanded,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: a top five list doesn't cut it anymore. We are
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: going to a top 10, and it's my current order
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: of most likely to flip of the 10 races. And
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: every race in my 10 is one that if you
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: were to put it on your scale of lean, likely,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: toss up, to me, all of these are at least leaners.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Although I could argue that number one on the list
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: is a likely, but what's interesting is what's not on
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the list anymore. And there's one state not even in
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  Speaker 1: the top 10 that I think tells you exactly the
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: trajectory of this race. I'll of course answer a few
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: of your questions. And get back, I did the double
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: red eye. How many of you pulled this off? I
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: think for those of you, this is one of my
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: great east to west and back east hacks, which is
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: if you're going to, if you know you have to
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: do a quick trip and you know you have to
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: red eye back, we'll take the latest east coast flight
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: you can get. Essentially, it's the double red eye. It's
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: the one that lands at one o'clock in the morning
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: west coast time. You get your five hours in. I
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: think it's a way to at least... postpone the jet lag.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: It'll accumulate over time, but I have found it that
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: in campaign season, this is it. That's one of my remedy.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: For those of you that are big travelers, I'm curious
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: if you have a favorite east to west and back
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: east hack when it comes to traveling. What is your
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: favorite time to leave? What is your favorite way to
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: get the rest? Or if you know you have to
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: limit your rest, I'd love to hear some of your
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: stories on that. But with that, let me get into
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: sort of what's animating me over the last 24 hours.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: We are, of course, hey, we are now less than
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: four weeks away, right? This is the Wednesday episode, less
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: than four weeks from the midterms. And so I wanna
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: spend a little time on something that's frankly the subject
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: of my column that some of you subscribe to on Substack,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: some of you see it on Newsphere. And it's about
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: a phenomenon about this campaign that I think we've become
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: a little too numb to notice. I think this is
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: an incredibly strange campaign season and that the way certain
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: candidates are running are running or it's just it's just
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: a sort of bizarre decision making, particularly by Republican candidates. Now,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: of course, I'm not saying it's strange because Donald Trump
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: is saying crazy things or strange things. That isn't news anymore. Right.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: You know, that's sort of like another day ending. And why?
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: But what I'm saying is, I think it's strange the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: way the two parties are reacting to this political environment.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: And frankly, it's unlike any reaction. How Republicans are behaving
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: in this political environment is unlike any other party in
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: this situation that I have seen in my professional lifetime.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: You have one party's candidates that are behaving pretty much
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: the way candidates would behave when the political environment is
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: bad for their national party. Well, the other party's candidates
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: mostly aren't, right? Take the Democratic candidates, particularly in a
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: lot of these longtime red states, right? They're trying to
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: convince voters that they're not a cookie-cutter Democrat, that they're
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: a different kind of Democrat, right? And they kind of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: have to. Polls have shown us this. These candidates, whether
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you're Adam Hamilton in Kansas, Josh Turek in Iowa, Gina
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Inosa in Texas, they know the national Democratic brand has
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: problems with a lot of voters. They know there are
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: voters who hear the word Democrat and immediately think, oh,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: too far left, too culturally liberal, whatever that means to them.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: So they're trying to separate themselves from the national brand stereotype.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, one of the most fascinating findings in the
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Times-Siena poll over the weekend where we had results in
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: five Republican-leaning states is that it appears these Democratic candidates
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: are succeeding in convincing voters in those red states that
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: they're not conventional Democrats, right? That voters can simultaneously believe
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the National Democratic Party has moved too far to the left,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and they believe that the Democrat that is running in
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: their Senate race or their governor's race, who they're considering
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: voting for, they don't believe that Democrat is as far
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: to the left as the stereotype of the party. It's
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: a pretty important distinction. It's why Everybody has now joined
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the Todd cast in realizing, oh, Kansas is a swing
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: state this election cycle, right? Now, this doesn't mean voters
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: have suddenly decided they love the Democratic Party in Kansas.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: The candidates have separated themselves from the national brand. Adam
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Hamilton is a different kind of Democrat, right? He's a
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Methodist pastor. Tallarico is saying I'm a different type of Democrat.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: You know, Sherrod Brown, in some ways, he's more of
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the old school Democrat that Ohio populists miss, right? But
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: either way, they're all sending a similar, I'm not what
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: you don't like about the current Democratic Party. And you
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: know what? That's just politics 101, folks. What's weird is
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: not what's happening on the Democratic side of the aisle.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: What's weird is what's happening on the Republican side. Here
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: you have an unpopular Republican president an economy voters are
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: completely unhappy with, a war they don't particularly like, an
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: affordability problem that everybody can see, and relatively few Republican
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: candidates are doing what you would normally expect them to
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: do in a situation like this. Seek some distance from
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the unpopular leader of their party. Now, there's a handful
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: of examples, but I'm going to bring them up because
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: There's so few of them that when they do it,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: it's news in and of itself. I'm sure you've seen
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: this Arizona Republican Congressman, Juan Siscomani. He's doing it. He's
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: literally running a TV ad that declares his independence from Trump.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson, who's the Republican nominee for Senate in Iowa.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: She made sure she was somewhere else in the state
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: when JD Vance came to campaign for the entire ticket,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: including her campaign. Susan Collins, of course, She's been running
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: against Trump and running against that wing of the party
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: and has her own identity. And she's done that for years.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: So she kind of has pretty good muscle memory on this.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And shoot, you know, if Greg Abbott, right, who's seeking
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: a fourth term, four-year term as governor of Texas, he's
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: decided that when Trump comes to Texas next, he's not
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: going to be there. You know, Abbott's explanation for not
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: being there was fantastic, right? It was sort of He said,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: he sort of said it, the quiet part out loud.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: He says, Trump coming to Texas is great. It gets
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the base excited. It helps organize the base, helps turn
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: them out. But Greg Abbott decided he doesn't need to
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: be there when it happens. Now I'm going to get
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: to Abbott in a minute. Now, what's interesting about Siskamani,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Hinson and Collins is that the three of them, are
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: politicians who have all had to deal with swing voters
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: in multiple election cycles. And if you have to always
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: deal with swing voters, Ashley Hinson in that eastern Iowa
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: congressional district, that is a 50-50 district, always has been
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: a 50-50 district. So they have some muscle memory. They
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: know how to say to somebody, look, you may not
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: like my party, you may not like my president, but
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: judge me, right? A lot of Republicans on the ballot
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: this year don't have that muscle memory anymore. For years,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Take Texas, take Abbott, right? For years, because frankly, he's
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: separating himself a bit too late, I think. But for
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: years in some of these red states, if you were
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: running statewide, the formula wasn't terribly complicated. Consolidate Republicans, both
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the moderate chamber of commerce types and the working class
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: base and the Trump fans, and disqualify the Democrat by
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: tying them to the national stereotype of the party. You
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: never really needed to even appeal to swing voters. And
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: that's been pretty true to varying degrees over the last
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: three or four cycles in Iowa, Alabama, Kansas, even Florida
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and Ohio. We almost now have a we're pretty close
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: to a generation of Republican politicians in some of these
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: states that have gotten very good at running against the
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: idea of a Democrat. But now they're facing something they
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: have not faced before. What happens when the Democrat doesn't
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: get disqualified by the voters for simply being a Democrat? Right.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Because many in many of these states. Voters are looking
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: at the actual candidate and saying, well, that's not the
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Democrat I've been hearing about on television. So guess what?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Republicans have to figure out how to persuade people again.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: And they don't know how to do that in some
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: of these red states, right? And many of these Republicans
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: look quite rusty doing this, right? Abbott. Abbott's the interesting
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: example to me here because He's in a position where
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: if voters are unhappy, who does he have left to blame, right?
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: This is Texas. A Democrat hasn't won statewide in Texas
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: since the 20th century. Let me repeat. We're in 2026.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: A Democrat hasn't won statewide in Texas since the last century.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: There's no sitting Democratic president to run against, right? Abbott
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: had that in 10, had that in 14, right? And
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: he had it again in 22. He doesn't have it there.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: So no Democratic president. There's no Democratic legislature to run again. Right.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: If voters don't like the direction of Texas, at some
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: point you have to defend what you've done. And this
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: gets to Trump's problem nationally. He's never been particularly good
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: at defending the product he's implemented or he's sold. Trump's
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: very good at telling you somebody else screwed things up.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: That's what he did quite well in 2016. And 2018
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: came along and he had to kind of defend his record.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Things didn't go so well, right? Lost 40 house seats.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: He lost in 2020. Again, he was the incumbent. He
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: was defending policy decisions that were quite unpopular. But he
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: won in 2024 when he got to run against something,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: run against the people in charge. Well, now he's the man, right?
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: And he likes running against the man. Well, he's the
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: man and he's the guy in charge again. These are
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: his economic policies, particularly this trade policy is all him.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: This Iran war was all his decision. And in fact,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the last few days have been quite revealing because you
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: can see the White House realizing it has an affordability problem.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: They know they have a problem, but they have no
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: idea how to get Trump to deal with it. And so.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: You know, they're tossing stuff against the wall. Diesel prices
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: are killing people. All right, let's try to do something
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: with the diesel tax. And Trump signed this order allowing
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: broader highway use of the died diesel normally reserved for
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: tax advantaged off-road uses. It's kind of arcane and it
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: will like, you know, maybe save a couple of bucks
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: here or there. And now he's talking about maybe he's
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: looking at suspending the federal gas tax. He's floated a
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: few other ideas. Try this, try that. because they're looking
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: for anything, any headline saying Trump lowers prices and hope
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: that voters notice. And maybe some of these things will
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: provide a tiny bit of relief. So you don't want
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: to dismiss every idea simply because Trump proposed it. But politically,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I think the problem is much bigger than that right now.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: He's running against lived experience. And right now, lived experience
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: is beating his rhetoric. People know what they're paying, and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: they know why they're paying. They know how much it
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: costs to fill their tank, how much it did cost
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: to fill their tank, and they know why it costs
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: more now. They're well aware of why ground beef is
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: costing more now. They know why their electricity bill is up, right?
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: They know all of these things. And they were promised
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: by him that these prices would be lowered immediately. And
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: you got JD Vance out there going, hey, they need
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: more time. That's not what Donald Trump promised. And here's
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: what we know about the American voter They're not going,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: they never have patience. Every president runs into this impatience problem.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: And every president tries some form of, I just need
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: more time. You know, but I think in this one,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: this is where the credibility, we're now in, what are
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: we in the, Trump sort of became relevant in 2015.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: We are now in what, year 11 of his relevancy.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: And it's sort of, you know, what was season 11
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: of The Apprentice like, right? And so now when the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: president comes along four weeks before an election and says, hey,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I've got this idea, we'll suspend this tax, voters are
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: capable of asking a pretty obvious question, which is, well,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: why are we in this position in the first place?
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: And that's the problem Trump has. It's not simply that
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: people are skeptical of his ideas to fix it. They
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: know he's the reason that we're in this problem in
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: the first place. Diesel didn't become this political problem in
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: a vacuum. The war with Iran has contributed to this
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: fuel price shock. Even Republicans in farm states have been
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: publicly complaining about the impact of the war and diesel
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: costs on their constituents. So, yeah, try a temporary tax maneuver,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: alleviate costs for a few voters. But it's something they
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: already know. You're essentially trying to give them some relief
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: from a bad policy decision you made. It's a much
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: harder sell. And frankly, voters are kind of gotten used
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to Trump promising that the next thing is going to
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: fix the last thing. Oh, the tariff. When I implement
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: this tariff, we're going to have this golden age. The
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: tariff will fix this and then I'll get them to
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the table and we'll cut this great trade deal and
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: then we'll get rid of that tariff and the deal
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: will fix that. Oh, and the war. That's going to
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: be short. It's going to be quick. And boy, when
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: it's over, we're going to we're not going to be
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: idiots like the previous. But we're going to keep the oil.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: We're going to take the oil. We're going to control
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the oil. The straight of Trump. Right. Prices will come down.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: The next announcement is always going to solve it in
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the world of Trump's brain. Well, at some point, people
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: stop grading the announcement and they start grading the result. Again,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: lived experience. Donald Trump's, you know, when I was growing
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: up and there was a men's clothing store, some of
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: you on the East Coast will know what I'm referring to.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: It was called Sims. And the owner of Sims, Cy Sims,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: he had a mantra. He said, the educated consumer is
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: our best customer. Well, lived experience is the educated consumer here, right?
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And they're very educated on Trump at this point in
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: year 11 of this traveling circus. And I think that
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: may be why none of this seems to be sticking politically. Hey,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: this episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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• 19:53
  Speaker 1: rating was as of August of 2026. It's not necessarily
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: that voters have studied the mechanics of federal diesel excise
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: tax and concluded Trump's policies insufficient. Never mind that. It's
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: like a typical Trump always thinks I could just borrow
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: money somewhere else and fill the gap here. And he
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: never cares about the deficits he leaves behind. Right. When
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: you suspend these gas taxes, that's just more money down
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the road that we won't have to repair roads and
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: use the things that are necessary of why we collect
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: these taxes in the first place. But that isn't what
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: voters are hearing. They just know their lives. And if
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: your life feels more expensive, more uncertain, and more difficult
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: than it did before, somebody standing behind a podium telling
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: you he just made it cheaper doesn't necessarily persuade you anymore.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: In fact, after a while, it might have the opposite
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: effect because it's a reminder how things got so expensive
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: in the first place. And I think this is where
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the Republican candidate's behavior, as far as I'm concerned, becomes
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: even stranger. Because normally, in the world of politics I learned,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you'd be looking at all of this and saying, I
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: need some separation from the guy who owns all this. Instead,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: most of them are standing there with him. Maybe they
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: don't want to, but they are. Now, I understand the rationale.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: They're afraid of him. Or they're afraid of drawing his ire.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: They're afraid of his erratic behavior. And they've also all
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: convinced themselves they cannot win without the Trump voter. I
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: get this, but I feel like the amount of people
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: on the Republican side of the aisle that seem to
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: misremember 2024, as effective as Trump was in winning battleground states,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: he couldn't even win Senate seats when he got people
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: to come out for him. When he was at the
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: peak of his powers, he couldn't flip Wisconsin. while he
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: won Wisconsin. He couldn't flip Michigan while he won Michigan.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: He couldn't flip Nevada while he won Nevada. He couldn't
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: flip Arizona. So if he couldn't do it when he
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: was on the ballot, when he got his people to
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: show up, who decided they either weren't gonna vote for
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the Senate candidates of his choice, or what they likely
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: did is they were shotgun voters, they voted for Trump
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: and that's it. Well, if he couldn't persuade him to
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: vote for Republican Senate candidates when he was on the ballot,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: why did they think he's gonna help now? So this
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: is where I think there's just a lot of just morons,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: moron political strategists out there who are just buying into bullshit.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: But there is something to the ire issue, right? You know,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: you poke Trump the wrong way and suddenly he could
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: implode your candidacy, right? It's what Tom Tillis, it's interesting,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: you know, this, you want to, the great Rorschach test
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: of all the never Trumpers, right, is a Tom Tillis interview.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: And he was interviewed on 60 Minutes by Ross Daudet,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: a former New York Times columnist turned 60 Minutes correspondent.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And he sort of admitted that it is fear that
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: governs Republican behavior in the Senate. And it's been doing
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: it for quite a while. You know, in his new book,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: he says voting to confirm Pete Hegseth was the biggest
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: regret of his career. But the really revealing part is
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: his explanation of why he did it. He didn't want
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: to be, he said, the lone voice in the wilderness.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And you just sit there and say, Jesus Christ, you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, you guys know I've gone deep on
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: this story with Tillis. Tillis had promised Pete's ex-wife that
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: if she spoke out about his bad character and his
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: basically his personal behavior that made him unqualified to lead,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: that Tillis would vote to reject his nomination. And he
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: ended up not. Now, part of it was. It's my
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: understanding Tillis' family was threatened in different ways. And yeah,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: perhaps he thought he would get other senators to rally
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: around him and they didn't, right? There's so many Republican
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: senators hoping somebody else will do it, right? And look,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: he said it himself. He said there are at least
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: 30 Republican senators. And that's about, I accept that number, right?
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: There's 53, right? It's a 53-47. I think there are
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: 30 Republican senators who in a blind vote would get
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: rid of Trump tomorrow if they knew it was a
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: secret ballot. So I accept Tillis' math here, right? That
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: they've just exhausted from this. But when the cameras show up,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: they're afraid. They're afraid of Trump and we know, and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: they're still afraid of Trump. And I guess the question is,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I think it's safe to go back in this ocean
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: but they don't think it's safe yet. But think about that.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: It explains the Republican Party right now. I know this
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: isn't working. I know this could end badly. I know
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: somebody ought to do something or say something, but I'm
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: not going to be the one who says it. That's leadership, huh? Unbelievable.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: But this is where I go to the metaphor I've
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: been using. The American people We've been led by, I
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: think the best metaphor is a drunk driver. And frankly,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: it's felt this way for most of the last dozen years, right?
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Everybody in the car knows the driver has been drinking.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: We're riding along and he's swerving. Somebody ought to take
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: away the keys. But everybody's more afraid of what the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: driver will do if they reach for the keys than
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: they are of where the car is headed. So they
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: stay in the car and Donald Trump keeps driving. And
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: now he wants to drive all over the country, swerving
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: all over the place. He says, yeah, I'm going to
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Maine and Michigan. Sure, sure you are. I'm sure, Susan,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: the minute he uttered the words Maine out of their mouth,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins texted Susie Wallace and says, NFW. No frickin' way.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I'm sure if you're Troy Jackson, you're like, please, we'll
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: pay for it. And that's been Trump's response, right? Trump's
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: response to things not working is basically the response of
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: an aging politician or an aging rock star. Let's just
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: do what used to work. Play the hits, right? If
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the rallies worked before, let's do more rallies. If insults
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: worked before, let's do more insults. If attacking the free
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: press worked, let's do that. Own the libs, right? He's
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: almost grasping around for any sort of own the libs strategy.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: He thinks if he can get the crowd going, if
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: he can recreate that feeling, right, that's the aging rock star. Oh,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: if they only– except you're like hearing a thin voice
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and it's just not the same. You're like, eh, I'd
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: rather hear Steve Perry. What happened to him, right? But
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: he's not running against Joe Biden this time. He's defending himself.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: And think about– there was a 24-hour period earlier this week.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: He used a derogatory anti-trans nickname against Annie Andrews in
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. She's the Democratic nominee. Apparently because– probably because
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: he thought the alliteration worked or the rhyming worked with
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Annie Andrews and the derogatory word that he chose to use.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Then he casually talked about potentially maybe the Iranians just
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: bomb Los Angeles or San Diego, right? It's a small
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: price to pay for stopping the Iranians. And sadly, the
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: crowd seemed to cheer that when he said that somewhere
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: in Nebraska– And, you know, it's funny how something like
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: that 10 years ago would have been met with a
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: huge headline. Now, it's not quite a shrug, but it's like, oh, man,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: is anybody going to take the keys away from this
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: drunk driver? Because what does any of that accomplish? And
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: this is where I'm like, where the hell is the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: rest of the Republican Party here? Because literally Donald Trump
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: is just causing all sorts of damage. You know, forget Trump.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Forget being offended by what he's doing for a second.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Ask yourself what the political purpose of this is. How
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: does that insult help his preferred Republican Senate candidate, Darlene Graham,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: in South Carolina? And how does joking about the Iranians
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: blowing up an American city on the West Coast help
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: any Republican, let alone one running in Southern California? San
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Diego's home to quite a few Republicans. L.A. has more,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump got more votes in Los Angeles than he
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: got in the state of Iowa. And none of that
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: rhetoric helps anybody running in Michigan or Iowa who desperately
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: wants voters talking about something other than Donald Trump and Iran.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: None of it helps. It's terrible politics. And it creates
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: another question that Republican candidates have to answer. Another Democratic candidate, Trump,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: potentially turns into a sympathetic figure. Like, he made Annie
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Andrews more sympathetic. Former Republican Governor David Beasley condemned Trump's
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: attack on her. And what does this do? It means
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: another suburban vote who likely says, I'm tired of this.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Another Republican voter says, you know what? Maybe I'll just
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: stay home. I'm just exhausted from having to defend his crazy.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And we're four weeks left, which is why I think
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Republicans ought to be asking a question I'm not sure
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: they're asking. What if Trump doesn't solve their turnout problem?
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: But what if he makes everything worse? What if he
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: turns a blue wave into a blue tsunami or this
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: red undertow into a red riptide of sorts? It appears
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the entire strategy this fall has been built around the
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: idea that they need Trump because they need his voters.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: And again, I don't understand where this mindset came from
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: when he didn't do shit when he was on the
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: ballot in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan. He won the
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: states and lost the Senate races. Where does that math
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: ever show up? So I don't know where this came
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: from other than people around Trump trying to make the
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: case that he does matter here. Every time he shows up,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: there's another chance he's going to remind a swing voter
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: why they're unhappy. Every time he defends the Iran war,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: he reminds people why fuel costs are more. That doesn't
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: exactly excite the base. Every time he announces another quick
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: fix for affordability, he reminds people that affordability became a
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: problem on his watch. And every time he says something
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: gratuitously offensive or bizarre, just gives another exhausted voter another
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: permission slip to just check out. So maybe Trump turns
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: out some of his voters. The question is, what else
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: does he do while he's doing that? And I increasingly
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: think that this red undertow and all credit to my buddy, Charlie,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Charlie Cook on that one, because I agree. I think
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: when you look at especially when you look at these times,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Sienna poll, I mean, just it is clear voters are
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: rejecting Republican governance more than they're embracing Democratic ideas. So
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: red undertow is definitely the much better description. Yeah. But
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: he is, I don't see how, I think this strategy
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: is really risking a huge backfire here. The fascinating question
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: now is whether his behavior over the last four weeks
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: here is going to determine if this repudiation, this red
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: undertow gets worse. There's one of my favorite Haley Barber lines,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: and I've used it before, right? Good gets better, bad
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: gets worse. We've now been six weeks of the Republicans
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: outspending the Democrats in most of these major battlegrounds. And
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: not only has the Republican candidate's position not improved, in
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: some cases it's gotten worse. The Democrat looks more solid
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: than ever. And in some cases the Democrats improved, right?
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Tallarico is over 50 in one high quality poll. That's
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: not insignificant. There's only one race that I would argue
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: has gotten better for Republicans in the last six weeks,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: and it's Maine. And it's really more because Troy Jackson's
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: just a bad candidate. I think he had a chance.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they've done. It's one of those.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. The leaked Ken Paxton audio implies that Paxton's
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: upset that it's allowing Washington to He feels like he's
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: lost control of his campaign. Well, you know, if he
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: wanted control of his campaign, he should have done the work, right?
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: When you don't do any work, when you sit on
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: your ass, when you're lazy and just want everything done
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: for you, don't be surprised that the people that are
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: doing all the hard work decide they get to make
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the decision. And, you know, we've seen a similar story
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: written about Troy Jackson's campaign that indicates he's been, you know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: essentially a let the D.C. crowd and he's been disappointed
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: that somehow he doesn't run his race. Look, I don't
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: quite know what it is, but I think they've misused.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: It's likely Jackson still wins. I'd still rather be him
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: than her in this, but I'm going to get to
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: my top 10 list later in this program. But it's
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the only race where you can look at it and say, huh,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: it's the one place where over the last six weeks,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the Republican looks at least as strong or a bit
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: stronger than they were six weeks ago. I still think
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: she's got a pretty high mountain to climb. It's interesting.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: I think the Jackson campaign is not using the ProPublica
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: story the right way. They're trying to allege corruption. You're
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: not going to be able to prove she's corrupt. You
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: are going to be able to prove she's gone Washington.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: And I think they have totally sort of, I think,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: you know, this is one of those where you don't
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: have to, you're not trying to put her in jail.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: And if you emphasize that, a lot of voters are
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: going to say, well, that's not credible. What they would
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: believe is that she's more worried about Washington than anything else.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: And it seemed like when I, that's why when the
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: story came out, I was a, well, this is a
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: killer because you now can just say, look at her,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: she's gone to Washington. But for some reason, they keep–
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: and I think– I don't know whether this is being
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: in the wrong bubble, if they live too much on
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: social media where you want to just accuse your opponent
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the aisle of being a
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: crook or corrupt. It may help with email fundraising, but
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I don't think– you're trying to win over somebody who
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: regularly votes for Susan Collins, who has voted for Susan
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Collins and Joe Biden in the past, right? That's the
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: swing voter here. It's the Biden-Collins voter of 2020. And
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: you've got to figure out it's the Jared Golden Trump
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: voter of 2024. So you've got to realize that they've,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and so this is why I think they've, how they've
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: gone about this. You know, it's funny for all of
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the ways that Hamilton in Kansas, Tallarico and, and, you know,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Osa and Turek and Sherrod Brown and Amy Acton have
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: all tried to run campaigns that fit their state. Troy
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Jackson hasn't. And yet he could still win. Right. Just
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: like Abdul El-Sayed arguably hasn't been, you know, he's been
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: running more of a national campaign and in this political environment,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: it may work. Um, And Abdul El-Sayed is benefiting from
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: the fact Mike Rogers is not running the race that
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: I think you could run and be more competitive. But
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: he's another one. Why he hasn't figured out how to
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: separate from Trump and why he's not made the effort
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: to do it is– there are plenty of– there was
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: a constituency out there for Rogers who was a little
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: unsure and uncertain of Abdul El-Sayed. But Rogers had to
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: meet them where they were. These aren't pro-Trump people. And
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: he didn't do that. So it's sort of where things are.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: So to sort of end where I began here, good
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: gets better, bad gets worse. And Donald Trump may be
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party's single best asset in these last four
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: weeks because Republicans are already dealing with bad. And the
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: guy that they're afraid to take the keys away from
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: keeps driving more erratically. And he's put his foot on
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: the gas. And he's about to drive them over a cliff.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: And that would mean bad gets worse. All right, let's
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: go to the top 10 list. It's my Senate flips. Look,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: we're getting that close. I don't want to. mess around
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: and get too creative, too complicated here. But I did
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: want to go to a top 10 list. So again,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: this is most likely to flip parties. That's what the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: number one race is. So that's why number one, it's
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: not a secret. It's North Carolina. This isn't a big reveal.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: This isn't trying to figure out. I think what will
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: be more interesting is what I put in my 10
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: slot and who when we go over the races that
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: didn't make the top 10 list, which I think is
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: as revealing as any. So look, number one, North Carolina.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Guess who else thinks this race is pretty much over?
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: The National Republican Party. We've seen, as was projected and
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: predicted here a couple of months ago, this would likely
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: be the first or second race they'd pull money out
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: of between North Carolina and Georgia. And we've seen already
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: a retreat of investment in both states. But now North Carolina,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: for sure, that money literally was moved from North Carolina
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: to Kansas. So number one and probably still with some space,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Roy Cooper. You know, nothing's a lock in our politics.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: I don't think anybody should. But this is he's as
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: big of a favorite as there is out there right
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: now for somebody trying to flip a seat. Number two
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: I put on there is Alaska. When you I go
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: back to Mary Patello's standing before she got awfully close
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: to 50 The Alaska governor's race is going in her direction.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: She is, you know, she is able to run, you know,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Alaska very much is an, is independent first, right? She's
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: another one of these Democrats who's done a good job
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: of rejecting the national party label, right? She made it
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: clear that she was a hard no on any even
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: fundraising help from Kamala Harris. She didn't want, you know,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: and it was, you know, I think some people in
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Harris world took it personally, but this was her trying
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: to make sure she sent a message to Alaskans that
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: she was going to be an independent before she was
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: going to be a Democrat. And Dan Sullivan is stuck
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: with a Trump rally. Trump's going to Alaska and he's
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: going to try to announce a big, investment by the
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Koreans in Alaska. I mean, it's if you had a
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: slightly more popular president, maybe that would work. But I
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: can't imagine Dan Sullivan wants to be standing next to
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump with less than a month ago before Election Day.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: And yet he couldn't say no. Well, he could have. Right.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: But he didn't want to risk. This goes to this risk.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: It today to my, um, to my podcast, this, this
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: fear that I think in hindsight is going to look,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: it's just going to look weak. Um, so yeah, uh,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: number two on the list for me is Alaska. Number three, Ohio, uh,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Sherrod Brown. I'm trying to remember the last time I
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: saw a poll that Sherrod Brown wasn't leading and it's
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: gotta be since June or July. Uh, and he's, you know, it's,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: and he's awfully close to 50. As you guys know,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: for a long time, I was a skeptic that Brown
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: could win this race. I knew he would make it
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: very competitive and very close. I was a skeptic that
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: he could win it because of just how easily, in theory,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: the Republicans could turn Brown into the incumbent. Well, Brown's
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the one. He keeps running. He's been here forever. He's
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: in some ways been in the Senate longer than John Husted.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: But Husted is sort of– he gets all the negatives
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: of incumbency He's not getting any benefits of incumbency. And
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: yet he's getting no upside of being a challenger of
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: sort either. He's another one that's caught in that trap
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: of having can't say no to Trump. And it's an
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: awkward position for him to be in. But Trump's economy
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: has been really hard in Ohio. He has tried to
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: do little things to separate himself, but You know, it's
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Houston's been one of those that's done it, you know,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: but he's also got a double whammy. The gubernatorial nominee,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Vivek Ramaswamy, is also a drag on the Republican ticket.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: So Houston's getting just, you know, he's dragging two 10
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: pound weights behind him, not just one. You know, one
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: is Trump and run as Ramaswamy. I think that that
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: really does harm the entire Republican ticket. And it's why
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I have Ohio number three. Number four, I have Texas.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: I think I think there was a time I had
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Texas slightly ahead of Ohio at one point. But either way,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I if frankly, the first four on my list,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: it means I expect Democrats to win those races. Now,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I would I I have them as the favorite. It
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: would be I you know, I'm not going to be
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: shocked if Tallarico loses. I'm not going to be shocked
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: if Brown loses, but I'll be surprised. Ditto with Paltola.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: The only one that I would be completely shocked if
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: he lost is Roy Cooper at this point. But the
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: next three here, Texas, Alaska, Ohio, Texas. In all three cases,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: as far as my list is concerned, I view the
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Democrats as the favorite. And if you wanted to put
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: little point spreads on it, about two point favorites. I
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: wouldn't put them any higher than that. You know, I
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: think if Tallarico, you know, I think I think 52,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: 52 percent is his ceiling. And I think that's a
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: that's probably high. I think in Ohio, again, 52 is
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: probably the ceiling. And with the rank choice voting, probably 51.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: So these are very low ceilings. But in this case,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: you really see Houston's got all sorts of drags on him.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Ken Paxton is the drag, right, in Texas. And Dan
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Sullivan is dragging around. He's in a weird way dragging
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: around two pieces of baggage. One is he's not Lisa Murkowski, right?
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: And so you have swing voters who know that you
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: could be tougher on Trump if you chose to and
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: still survive politically. And he's chosen not to. I think
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: the comparison with Murkowski really hurts Sullivan in this case, too.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: And he's having to drag Trump around. Number five on
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: the list, and you heard a longer explanation about how
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: I feel about Maine, is Maine. I still think the
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: national environment favors Jackson over Collins. But let's be realistic.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: The Jackson campaign has not been a great campaign. Is
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: it the candidate issue? Is it a campaign issue? Is
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: it the shirt? We can have a lot of debates
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: about that. But, you know, he didn't win a primary
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: for governor for a reason, right? So you already knew
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: he was, you know, He's the backup quarterback. You know,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: he wasn't what now maybe he's Sam Darnold and you
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: can get to the Superbowl with him, but he is
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: the backup quarterback. And you know, there are limitations with
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: your backup quarterback because if he weren't a backup, he'd
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: already be a starter somewhere. So you have to put
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: main and five, but again, you know, it, for me, it's,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: It's a dead even. And in fact, these next three
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: are dead even races to me, if you're looking. So
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: number one is sort of North Carolina, and it's in
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: the likely category. Alaska, Ohio, Texas, I have as sort
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: of in my own version of lean D. These next three,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: pure toss-ups as far as I'm concerned. So Maine, pure toss-up.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Next one, Kansas. As you know, I've been on Kansas
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: for a while. I was just out in Kansas City.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Kansas in particular, that's in many ways the Hamilton base,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: but that is where Democrats have really built up a
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: constituency in the Kansas City, Missouri suburbs, in the Kansas
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: side of the Kansas City suburbs. And it's only growing
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: in population. And again, this is a case where I
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: think I do think Kansas is moving, but I don't
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: think Hamilton would be in this position if Marshall were
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: a better candidate. Marshall's just not a very good candidate, right?
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Kind of Roger Marshall is kind of on the incumbent
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: side is kind of the Troy Jackson. It's kind of,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: I'd put him in that category of Troy Jackson, just
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: not very good at this. And first time he's ever
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: really been in a tough race. And, you know, I've
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: used my boxing metaphor of a glass jaw, right? The
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: first punch he took, knocked him, knocked him to the ground, right? His,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: that billing issue that he had with his patients. And
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: he's been sort of on the defensive ever since. And
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: he's not been quite sure what to do. He's been,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: does he run a base campaign and just hope he
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: can just win a numbers game in Kansas? Well, that
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to work. I think he's the one that
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: would make the mistake of bringing Trump. And I'll be
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: very curious to see if they bring Trump to Western Kansas.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: You'd bring him to Western Kansas if you brought him anywhere.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I'll be curious to see if we see him. And
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: the third of my list of, of this top 10
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: that I put in the pure toss up categories, Iowa. Um,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: I've made mention of Ashley Hinson. I think her experience
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: running in a swing congressional district has made her a
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: better candidate. Her instincts have been slightly better. Now, as
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: she provide put the question is, has she created enough
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: distance between her and Trump? I'm not sure. She's created
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Um, But is there more to create
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: that she's going to wish she had? It's possible. But
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: she has. I think Josh Turek is a good candidate.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: I just, I don't know. The question I have in
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Kansas is the party registration split. It's huge. And it
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: really got out of hand over the last eight years.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Can Rob Sand win by a big enough number to
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: bring Turek over the finish line? He could. I'm, you know,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I think you got to hope Sand gets to 55
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: and Boy, that's not something that's happened since the 1960s
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: in Iowa. But, you know, again, you know, Hinson can't
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: pull away. This race has been basically a dead heat
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: now for two months, and it's still there. The reason
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: I have Kansas more likely to flip than Iowa is
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: simply I think Hinson is a better Republican candidate than
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Marshall is at this point. All right, in the eight, nine,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: and ten slots, these are all lean, basically lean incumbent,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: if you will, because one of them's a D-held seat
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: and two of them are R-held seats. In number eight,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: I have Michigan. I'm pretty convinced Abdul El-Sayed's going to win.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's out of the woods yet. I
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: think I think he's benefiting from the fact that Rogers–
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: this goes back– I have no idea why Rogers hasn't
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: found more distance from Trump, whether it's on the trade
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: war with Canada, which has really been economically harmful to
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: Michigan to the issue of fuel costs he's just to
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: the war I don't you know Rogers has just had
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: a he's just been flat footed with all this and
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: I think he missed a window right after Abdul El-Sayed
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: won that primary where there was a there were there
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: was some. There were some Democrats that felt homeless and
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: Rogers didn't really make the appeal. Instead, he ended up
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: going to the Trump's midterm convention. That's no way to win.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: You know, look, did I expect Dana Nussel, the Democratic AG,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: to endorse Mike Rogers? I did not. But it. If
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Rogers had been more effective and had quickly been ready
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: with Democrats for Rogers that were on TV, that were
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: credible Democrats, maybe you would have had Dana Nussel decide
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: not to sit this one out. Maybe others would have
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: sat it out. But in some ways, the worse the
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Roger campaign has been, the longer Abdul El-Sayed has gone
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: staying ahead, the more you've had Democrats coming around to
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: him because I think they've decided, well, He's going to win,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: so I'm better off having a relationship with him if
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: he's going to win than to risk alienating him now
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: if he wins and I'm on the wrong side of this.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: So you've seen the skeptical members of the party start
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: to show up. It's notable to me that Obama has
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: agreed to do this, but only as joint events with Benson.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: And make no mistake, Abdul El-Sayed needs some reinforcement in
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the African-American community. And Obama should provide that reinforcement. But
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: I think this is a case where Rogers, this has
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: been a. Abdul El-Sayed is a great communicator. And he's
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: he's he's he is basically overperforming his positions. Right. Right.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: What would he is. The words he's saying would not
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: be nearly as popular if somebody else were saying it,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: but he is better at communicating this than the average bear.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: But he's as much in this position because of the
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: ineptness of the Rogers campaign as it is by the
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: effectiveness of his. Number nine on my list is Nebraska.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: You know, this is sort of the race we keep–
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of us– I don't want to say we
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: forget about it, but we kind of overlook. And I
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: will confess that I've assumed that Dan Osborne is going
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: to run a very close race and assumed that Pete
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Ricketts is going to win by three or four points,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: that there is a hard ceiling for Osborne, that it's
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: tough to do this twice, and that the now four
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: years of making the case that he's really a Democrat
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: in independent cheap clothing is– Effective, effective enough, except this,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: except Donald Trump went to Nebraska and made a fool
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: of himself. Right. Except Donald Trump's policies are becoming more unpopular,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: except Donald Trump's policies have really hurt the Nebraska economy
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: more so, you know, than than many other states in
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: the union. So and Osborne keeps doubling down that he's
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: not going to caucus with either party. By the way,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: speaking of that, it was notable to me that Cory Booker,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: during a Sunday show appearance, did not emphatically get behind
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer as Senate Democratic leader after the election. Booker's
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: been an ally with his for quite some time. That
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: to me, I've assumed that if Democrats win the Senate,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: that Schumer would get them. would stay in. I'm not
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: so sure anymore after that Booker comment for what it's worth.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: And that will be, I wonder what that means for
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: an Osborne if he does win, right? But right now,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: of all the independent candidates, Brian Banks, South Dakota, Todd Achilles, Idaho,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Seth Bodnar, Montana, and Osborne, Nebraska, Osborne's the only one
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: in my top 10 list. And again, right? I mean,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: It is– I feel like every poll out of Nebraska
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: is always a one-point race. Either one-point Ricketts is ahead
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: or one-point Osborne is ahead. So we'll see. And number 10,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: making a debut on my competitive list, it's South Carolina.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I think Trump's attack on Annie Andrews was a huge mistake.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: I think it has a boomerang effect. I think– The
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: longer Darlene Graham is out on the trail, the weaker
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: she comes across. She's not good at this. This is
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: a tough year not to be good at this. She's running.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: She's hugging Trump. I get it. It worked in the primary.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: You can't really do anything else. This may be the
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: wrong year to hug him. And I know it's South Carolina.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: This isn't Virginia or North Carolina. But this might not
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: be the best year to hug him. And his casual,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: it's just sort of the It's the casual cruelty of
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Trump that wears voters down. And that hit on Andy
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Andrews was just sort of like, really? You know, we're all–
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: you know, and this is sort of a part of
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: my opening monologue today that I cut. I decided not
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: to include. And that's the whole– because I know we
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: all roll our eyes and roll up, but whether the–
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: we have this debate, is the president, should the president,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: is the president, do we have role models anymore? And
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: my feeling is, hey, you never know who you're a
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: role model for. I fear Donald Trump's a role model
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: for the wrong type of politics. And the more successful
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: his style of politics is, the worse off we're going
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: to be as a country and as a democracy. I
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: think there are a lot of good people in America
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: who look at this and say, I just, you know,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is where I go, where I think
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: the Angela Paxton ads have the possibility of doing the
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: exact opposite of their intent. You know, her message basically
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: is you can't afford to let the other team win.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: But they don't really give a reason why her team
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: should still govern. She made no case for it. She
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: just simply said, you can't let the other team win.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: And I kind of think it's like, is the price,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: do we really want to pay that price? Do we
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: like how awful and how unstable he makes us all feel?
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: When you're riding with a drunk driver, you fear for
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: your life and you get sick to your stomach. And
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the problem with the Trump With Trump driving, or another
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: metaphor I like to use is the roller coaster, is
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: the other problem with the Trump roller coaster, if you
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: want to use that metaphor, is just like a roller coaster,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: you get off and get on at the same place.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: But the ride makes you sick. And you get off
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: and you just feel like you got to throw up.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: And then you look around and go, Jesus, we didn't
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: even make any progress. That's really the Trump presidency in
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: a nutshell. And I think you're seeing a growing number
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: of just exhausted Americans, which, again, I don't get. I
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: don't get why more Republicans who are on the ballot
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: aren't trying to meet voters where they are in this one.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: So there it is. There's my top 10 this week.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Like I said, the battlefield has expanded. Look, what didn't
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: make the list but came close. Mississippi Senate. I think
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: if if I I think that's the race you will
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: see some last minute. national dollars flow in and we'll
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: see what happens. Georgia not on it because Georgia ain't
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: that competitive anymore. New Hampshire not on it simply because
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: I just think the political environment is a little too much,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: but it's close. You know, New Hampshire and Mississippi are
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: 11 and 12. Minnesota is not on it because, again,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: it's just the wrong year for Michelle Tafoya. But I
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: am keeping an eye. I think she's going to be
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: the Republican nominee for the next for the for the
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: the replacement for the to replace uh to finish klobuchar's
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: term after she appoints a replacement there keep an eye
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: on angie craig on that one as i've said so
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: um it's an expanded field it's a big here's here's
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: a possibility that i don't think is going to happen
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: but it's not the craziest scenario given all of the
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: redistricting there isn't a zero percent chance that the democrats
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: pick up more senate seats and house seats it's unlikely
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: but we should remind ourselves that the house map can
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: feel that narrow at times. All right, first question comes
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: from David. New York's 25th district. Yes, he's a returner.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: He says, greetings. He believes he's a possible five-timer. By
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the way, going to have some merchandising news for everybody soon.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: The merchandising, we've been working this. We want to find
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: the most affordable option. So, you know, possibilities of t-shirts, mugs.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: It's all happening, folks. We're close. We're working on it. Anyway,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: David's question is, we've heard a lot about career officials
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: across the DOJ and other agencies being replaced during the
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Trump administration. How could a future administration go about removing
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: political loyalists or unqualified appointees? And should a 2028 candidate
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: be upfront about their plans to do so? Also, as
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: a college football fan, I was surprised the program didn't
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: make a movie list, though I may be biased since
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: it came out the year I started playing college football.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: I remember the program. I didn't include it. I remember
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: at the time, not loving it. It ages. Okay. I
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: think my initial bias on the program is I thought
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: it was trying too hard to, to be Florida state.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: It felt like it was a unofficially a Florida state movie.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: And I don't know why I always, maybe because that
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: if I remember the colors were kind of garnet and
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: gold on the program, but you're right. It was, it,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: I'm not as big of a pro. I think North
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Dallas 40 is a better sort of, you know, movie
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: about the, the dark side of football more so than,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: than the program did, uh, that, but, uh, it's a fair, it,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: I watched it recently and it was, I, I, I
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: probably judged it too harshly at the time, but I
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: did have a, I think my, my initial bias against
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: being that excited about it is I, I kind of thought, Oh,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: is Hollywood trying to make college football look worse than
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: it is? So I may have had that attitude at
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: the time. But let's get to your other question about the–
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: I think the question is, look, all political appointees, right,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: they walk– their term expires when Trump's term expires, January 20, 2029.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: So you'll have that. Now, there is some civil service–
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: folks that they sort of gutted and they want to
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: try to replace. You know, that's going to probably be
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: an agency by agency case. Yes, I think they need
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: to be up front. There is a effort by the
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: Center for American Progress to do what they refer to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: as Project 2029. I assume that whoever the Dem nominee
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: is will try to lean into that. because I think
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: they're going to want... I actually think Project 2025, even
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: though Trump both claimed he rejected it but had it,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: I think it gave swing voters the illusion that he
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: had a plan. So I think it was a net
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: positive overall. I think the substance of it may have
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: been unpopular, but the fact that it existed actually gives
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: comfort to some voters. So I think that You will see–
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: I think it's smart to look like you have a
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: plan and that you're ready to hit the ground running,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: that you're not going to be caught flat-footed. So I
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: expect that we will see that. But what does that
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: look like? How transparent are they about it? I think
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: you should be uber-transparent. And if you're going to– this
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: is where we– I'm in the midst of working on
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: a longer project of sort of– I call it a
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: citizen's guide to reform post-Trump because Trump revealed a lot
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: of weaknesses in our system. He's tried to weaken the
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: civil service. That's something that can get strengthened, but it
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: probably needs to be some congressional action on that rather
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: than using executive orders to do it. So I think
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: you need some improvements there to try to keep the
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: non-political side of these agencies from being infiltrated by political partisans.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's something, in theory, both left and right
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: would like. The question is, how do you secure that?
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: How do you guarantee that? But I definitely think that
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: that's But to go to your larger point about having
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: a plan, I suspect that the Democratic nominee will and
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: will probably lean into something like Project 2029. Next question
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: comes from Sarah, Massachusetts 2nd District. She goes, hey, I've
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: been a fan of the podcast since I called it 1947.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: I love it. Appreciate your recent Todd talk about the
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Center. For 25 years, the Kennedy Center has also
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: hosted the LEAD Conference, focused on making museums, theaters, and
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: other cultural institutions accessible. more accessible to people with disabilities.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: And the current turmoil makes me wonder whether programs like
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: this will continue. What other important work at the Kennedy
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Center could be overlooked or lost amid everything happening there? Thanks,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: Sarah in Massachusetts, so too. Look, I just, I lament
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: the National Symphony because that's just my familiarity. When I
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: was a, some of you know, I went to college
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: on a French horn. really a music scholarship, but my
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: talent that I had was playing the French horn. And
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: my private GW professor for that was a French horn
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: player with the National Symphony. And if you guys know
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: the geographic location of GW, it's literally walking distance from
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: the Kennedy Center. As somebody, you know, so... our music department, everybody,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just me. If you had any instrumental, if
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: you were an instrumentalist and you took, and you had a,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: and you were basically taking lessons, you know, getting credit for, for,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: for doing music performance, you were working with a member
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: of the national symphony. We had a GW didn't have
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: enough music students to have its own symphony. So it
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: was a community. It was the GW community orchestra. So
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: it was, GW students plus basically adults in the community
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: who were, you know, who frankly are like me today,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: still like their instrument. Maybe they keep up with it,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: probably keep up with it more than I do, you know,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: but would like to keep playing and just enjoy it, right?
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: And it's, you know, no different than being a member
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: of a book club. And it was really kind of cool,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: you know, you had this different, for me at GW,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: it gave me an opportunity You know, I got to
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: do a solo with a, instead of a piano accompaniness,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: I got an orchestral accompaniment. You know, those are the
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: little things. Anyway, look, I'm making this a little self-centered,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: but the point was, is that the Kennedy Center was
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: like a classroom for me at GW. And I wasn't alone.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: Anybody who was minoring in music at GW or frankly
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: at AU or whatever, The Kennedy Center is a resource.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: It's how you it was a lot of free tickets
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: for us, you know, poor college students to see the arts,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: to see a musical, to see a play. So that's
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: it's it's just. It's you know, so look, it's obviously
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: for many of us, this is super personal. We all
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: have our own personal memory of the Kennedy Center. I
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: worked right next door to that place for a long
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: time when I worked out of the Watergate. I went
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: to school four blocks from it. I mean, the Kennedy
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Center has been like just physically in my life for
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: 30 years. So, yeah, that's what hotels where I want
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: to say, man, F you, man. Get your dirty hands
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: off of our Kennedy Center. Stop ruining it. And it's
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: a bummer because there's, you know. I like that Trump
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: likes the opera. I'm not a huge opera guy, but
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: I like that he likes some of these things because,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe it brings more attention and interest in it.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: And yet he takes something where he could be a
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: net positive and he turns it all into a negative
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: and ruins the very thing he claims to be helping.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: For me, the Kennedy Center is a metaphor on everything
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: he's touched. He is the anti-Midas touch. I mean, if
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: you think about it, whatever he touches gets worse. Whoever
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: gets close to him regrets it. Every one of them.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Because he doesn't get in trouble. You will. He makes
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: you do the dirty work when you get close to him.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: He could talk his way out of it, and you can't.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: And he's done it with the Kennedy Center, too. Anyway,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: thanks for the question, sir. David P., Arizona's 1st Congressional District,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: North Scottsdale. If you listen to the TK show, we
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: all think North Scottsdale is the rich part of Scots,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: wherever Wilbon lives, right? Anyway, David writes, I continue to
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: worry that Trump could pull out all the stops to
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: challenge the certification of newly elected candidates. And I imagine
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: any post-election turmoil would dominate Thanksgiving conversations just a few
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: weeks later. How much can that kind of dinner table
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: discussion actually shape public opinion or galvanize people into action?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: And can you think of another moment in history when
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: an urgent national issue spread that way? For example, the
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: conversations and conspiracy theories surrounding JFK's assassination gained momentum in
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: the weeks that followed David P. Actually, I remember quite
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: vividly Thanksgiving in Florida in 2000. We were in the
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: middle of the recount, if you recall, in the 2000s.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: So I wasn't alive for the JFK thing. That was
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: all a week later. And I think it was almost
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: so close. It didn't have it was more of a
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: almost like a living. You know, the country was just
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: collectively mourning then. And I don't think there was a
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: you know, the conspiracy theories didn't really take hold until later. Right.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: On that front. But. I vividly remember, you know, for me,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: I was covering that election from Washington, went down to
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: decided to go spend Thanksgiving with my mother in Florida
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: and her husband and their family. And it was because
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: I was going to I figured I'd do a little
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: side hustle reporting on the side. They lived in North
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: Miami at the time, so I wasn't very far from
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: the epicenter of all this, right? Miami-Dade, Palm Beach County,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: Broward were among the centers of attention down during all
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: of that. I don't know whether you could say, though,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: that Thanksgiving shaped that, but it wasn't– I think the
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: certification deadlines sort of created the urgency there. We had
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: December 15th and all of that. But– The question you're
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: asking is what kind of– if Trump tries to deny
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: the election. I will go back to say what I've
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: said before. I think we're vulnerable in very close elections.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: If this isn't very close, then his rhetoric is going
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: to land quite differently. If it's close, who knows? It
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: can land one way. But if it's not very close–
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: this land's completely different. Even 2020, had the presidency been
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: called and had, frankly, Biden won in a landslide, right?
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: Had he carried Ohio and Iowa in addition to the
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: battleground states, and that thing is called an election night,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: I don't think his challenge is land. But because it
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: took a week to call it, right? We didn't call Pennsylvania,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: which put Biden over the top, I think, till the
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: Saturday after the election. Well, so certainly everybody got the
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: impression it was a close election. So challenging the result
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: of it to a big chunk of the country didn't
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: seem crazy, which is why, right, it all depends on
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: the size of the result. And again, in a close...
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: A lot of shenanigans can take place. You know, too
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: big to rig is a whole different ballgame. Next question,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: Sherry checks in. And I have, and I love this description.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: I doubt, I think if this were my cousin, I
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: have a cousin, Sherry. I have a mother with a
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: similar name. But I have a cousin from Wisconsin. that
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen in an ice age, but I think
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: she would have self-ID'd if this were the case. Anyway,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: Sherry from Wisconsin says she's an independent and a Packers fan.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: And having to sit through the Ken Paxton commercials and
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: the taxpayer-funded Trump macho video during the Tampa game was
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: incredibly irritating. Do Republicans really think this is a winning
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: strategy and why target a Packers game rather than something
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: like Cowboys versus Texans where the audience seems more relevant? Seriously,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: what were they thinking and why did I have to
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: suffer through these ads? So let me explain the weird
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: nature of the TV ad market. So the reason why
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: every football fan in America got those Angela Paxton ads, which, yes,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: I think the messaging of it just landed super flat.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: I don't think it worked. And it probably did a
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: lot of harm in its other states. But there's a reason.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: So This was clearly a super PAC. Super PACs do
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: not get the lowest rate available when you buy by market.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: If you're a candidate, you have to get the lowest
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: market rate. It's basically you get a discount if you're
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: the actual candidate. If you're a big old PAC, a
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: super PAC, an independent expenditure, you don't get that lowest
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: rate available. You get charged essentially commercial rate. Well, Texas
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: is saturated. by market with all sorts of TV ads, right?
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: Because if you're running for the state Senate, if you're
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: running for Congress, you only need to buy in one market,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: maybe two markets if your district's big enough, but you
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: only need to buy in one market. And so anyway,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: the demand for the buy market ad time in Texas
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: is through the roof. So it actually becomes more cost-effective
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: For the super PAC behind that Angela Paxton ad, to
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: get to everybody in Texas, it's cheaper to buy the
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: national spot across all the Fox TV ads than it
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: was to just target the Cowboys-Texans game. because of just
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: how saturated the individual markets are in the state of Texas.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: It's why you're seeing, so if you watch, because you're
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: a Packers fan, you saw this, if you watch any
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: Ohio State game, Texas game involving Texas in college football,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: if you watch a Miami game, if you watch whatever,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: you're going to see a whole bunch of ads from
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: one of the two leading statewide candidates saying, because it's
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: cheaper to buy the national spots than it is to
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: buy market spots in those individual states. Because remember, in
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: those individual markets, you're competing with a whole bunch of
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: other local campaigns who also only want to target that market.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: So it's just driven up, right? This is good old-fashioned economics, right?
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: The demand for those time slots are through the roof,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: but the national time slots aren't taken up, right? And
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: so that's why you see this. But yeah, I think
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: the Angela Paxton ad, let me give you a little
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: insight on how an ad like that came into existence.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: So it's no doubt who they're targeting. They're targeting Republican
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: women who don't like Ken Paxton, right? So these are
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: Trump voting women who don't like Ken Paxton. So they figured,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: so I'm sure they had a focus group. I'm sure
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: they did a focus group of Republican women who are
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: undecided in the Senate race. And they probably have a
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: negative view of Ken Paxton. And they probably played a
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: few different commercials to try to see what moved those
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: voters in that room. And I'm sure to somebody who
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: already is inclined to vote straight ticket Republican, hearing from
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: Ken Paxton's ex-wife, her giving the permission slip, I don't
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: like the guy either, but I'm voting for the entire
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Republican ticket. It probably, in a controlled setting, in front
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: of a moderator... front of other people in there they
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: said okay yeah it makes me does this make you
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: more likely or less likely to support i guess it
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: makes me more likely it didn't make me less likely
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: she comes across quite likable in the ad right she's
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: very charming in the ad i i i didn't know
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: what to expect from her and haven't really seen her
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: as uh out in the uh out in the wild
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: as a candidate um But she doesn't really say anything
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: and doesn't really tell you why you should support the
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: Republican ticket beyond essentially over libs. And I think that's
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: the flaw in that messaging. But this is one of
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: those where just because it worked in the focus group
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's an effective ad. But it tells you
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: it tells you everything about what's wrong, what they know
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: they're losing. And at this point, they're panicked that just
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people are either not going to
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: show up or are going to sit this one out.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: But I hope I explained pretty well why we were
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: all subject to that Angela Paxton hat on NFL Sunday.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: All right, last question for this episode. It's Cameron from
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: Washington's 3rd District, Vancouver. Vancouver, Washington, which is actually on
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: the southern part of the state. And he notes that
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: he's originally from Phoenix. Long-time listener, first-time questioner. Latest time,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: Sienna Polling. Shows Gina Yiannosa ahead of Greg Abbott. It
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: caught my attention. But as someone rooting for her, I'm
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: also skeptical. How do you separate a meaningful shift from
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: an outlier, especially when other Senate races in a traditionally
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: Republican state also appear increasingly competitive? Closer to home, what's
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: your read on Marie Glusenkamp-Perez in Washington III? Is her
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: moderate independent positioning still an electoral asset or could frustration
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: from the Democratic base eventually outweigh its appeal to swing voters?
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks for all the work you do. It's exciting to
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: finally get a question in. It's like you anticipated that
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: we would. All right. Look, I think if every poll
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: we had seen with Abbott and Ohosa had always shown
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: Abbott with a five to 10 point lead, then yeah,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: I'd be skeptical of this. And I certainly am like...
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: you know, but the fact is this is not an outlier.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: There have been quite a few polls and there's a
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: few things going on. One is the Latino flight from
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: Republicans is real. Right. What should be more alarming to
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: Greg Abbott is that Tallarico is still doing better with
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: Latino voters than Hinojosa is. Tallarico is not Latino. He
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: knows he is. Now, I think there is a disbelief
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: in the Latino community that a Latino can win the governorship.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: But the stronger her candidacy gets, the more traction she's getting. So,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: you know, I certainly am bullish. I'm not quite as
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: bullish as some of the markets are. Abbott has a
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: ton of money and he has, you know, But he
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: is behaving like a candidate on the run, right? I mean,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: if you, you know how I always say, how do
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: you know a poll is true? Well, sometimes just watch
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: the behavior of a campaign. Greg Abbott is afraid to
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: stand next to Donald Trump when Trump comes to Texas.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: I think you can, you know, maybe she's not ahead
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: by three, maybe it's tied. But I promise you, he's
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: running for a fourth term. Here's something else that gets
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: under looked on this gubernatorial race in particular. Go look
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: at the track record of candidates that have tried to
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: get a fourth term, right? We've seen it in New York.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: Mario Cuomo lost a bit for a fourth term to
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: a guy named– to a state senator who people wrote
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: off at the start of that cycle named George Pataki.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: Gene Anos strikes me. It's a very similar trajectory. A
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: lot of people, myself included, didn't buy it. I thought
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: it was better if Tallarico ran for governor. I thought
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: he'd be a– I really did think Abbott was vulnerable.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: I was skeptical an Austin progressive could do it, but
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: she's not run as an Austin progressive. She's run a candidate.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: She's met voters where they are. She's run a really
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: good race, really smart race. I thought Tallarico Allred with
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: Tallarico governor, Allred Senate, I thought that was– you could
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: have switched it either way. But I thought Tallarico being
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: a state legislator would have been a stronger gubernatorial candidate.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: But hey, you know, it's– who am I to say
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: now at this point because it all– I think you
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: see how weak this Republican ticket is. And frankly, I
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: underestimated Gina, you know. So she is a terrific candidate.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: She's had her finger on the pulse on the issue
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: that I think matters most in that race, which is education.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: And she has done what a good candidate does, which
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: is she went looking, where's the 50% fulcrum in the state?
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: She didn't try to convince people to agree with her.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: She went and found out where the voters were. It's
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: smart democracy. It's the way I want our democracy to work,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: where our candidates try to meet the voters where they're
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: at and not make voters have to pick between a
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: As our friends at South Park once put it, a
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: shit sandwich and a douchebag. If that's how you feel
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: like the choices are, that's no good. And, you know,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: when you have when those feel like the choices, it's
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: because you you have two candidates who refuse to meet
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: voters where they're at. That's not what Jeannie House was doing.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: She's actually trying to meet candidates where they're at. So
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: I think it's real and I think it's the. It's
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: the double whammy, right? There's no more Democrats to blame
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: in Texas if you're unhappy, right? So that message– and
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: this voucher thing is unpopular, and it's unpopular. So it's
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: a double whammy for rural Texans. Rural Texans already have
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: a crappy economy thanks to Trump's policies, and now they
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: don't like this education policy that the Republican governor has
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: been championing. So it's a double whammy in the– and so–
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: in the part of the electorate that Republicans normally were
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: counting on as guaranteed votes. As for MGP, I think
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: she's certainly, look, I think she's fine this cycle, but
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: you're right to be wondering, and I wonder if this
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: is her last cycle. I don't think she's going to
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: enjoy being in the majority. But we'll see, right? Is
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: she an outlier or is there a real sort of
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: center left caucus that she's the champion of, you know,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: is she the new blue dog leader or does she
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: continue to be a bit more independent? I have to
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: tell you, I find her very compelling. I'd like to
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: see her run statewide. Um, it may be, she's not
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: liberal enough for Washington. Um, I don't know. I think, uh,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: I think she's a really compelling potential running mate for somebody.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: I think she's a really compelling independent candidate if she
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: ever chose to run nationally as an independent. I think
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: she could be a really compelling independent Senate candidate in Washington.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: And Washington is just the type of state that might
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: do that, right? It's a basically, you know, Washington to
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: me is the mirror image of what Texas was, but
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: may not be anymore, which is they're sort of Washington
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: is a three-party state, right? Progressive, mainstream Democrat, Republican. Republicans
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: aren't a big enough chunk to win statewide. You know,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: Democrats win big if they get somebody that sort of
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: bridges the, the two wing, the two Democratic parties, right?
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: Just like in Texas, there used to be, there's basically
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: been two Republican parties and a Democratic party. Um, I
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: do wonder if you see a setup for her, if
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: the House leadership and sort of House Democrats end up
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: pushing the party to the left, she may feel like
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: a fish out of water. But I am curious to
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: see whether, or will there be a whole bunch of, right?
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: This all depends on how many seats do Democrats win.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: The more seats they win, the bigger the MGP-led caucus
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: might look like, right? You get R plus 8, 9,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: 10 districts flipping to the Democrats. Well, those Democrats might
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: look to MGP as their sort of North Star on
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: how to navigate districts like that. But then again, I
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: kind of look at those districts. Boy, you're an R 9, 10, 11.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: If you win in a midterm, you're probably renting. You're
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: not owning. a seat there for a while. And the
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: presidential year could snap back in quite the hurry. But
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: I do think socialists, progressives, excuse my, somebody's going to
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: use that as some sort of Freudian slip. I was
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: not trying to do that. I do think the progressive
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: wing of the, even in that district, which is a
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: right-leaning district collectively, You can see that the objections keep
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: piling up and she's not afraid to poke Democratic leadership
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: in the eye. But it's been good politics for her
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: so far. And I'm like I said, I'm I'm very
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: intrigued if she's going to catch a bug that takes
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: her into political campaigns beyond Washington's third congressional district. Cameron,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: appreciated the question. And thank you all. Hope you enjoy.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: Your hump day, by the way, I'm so glad that
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: hump day came back, even for a day. I think
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: our friends at Geico brought the ad back simply so
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: NBC could promote the fact that their opening NFL game
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: was on a Wednesday. But that dumb camel ad might
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: be one of my favorites. There's a lot of fun
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: Geico ads that might be at the top of my list.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: So anyway, enjoy your hump day, and I'll see you tomorrow.