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GOP left to sink under the burden of a profoundly unpopular president · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: I can tell you, folks, Republicans are bracing for the
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  Speaker 1: iceberg that may sink their chances of controlling Congress after November.
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  Speaker 1: The guy who's supposed to be steering their ship, well,
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  Speaker 1: he may have already abandoned ship. And a Quinelipiac poll
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  Speaker 1: just last week, more than two thirds of voters say
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  Speaker 1: Trump is not focused enough on the problems most Americans face.
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  Speaker 1: So what is he focusing on? Well, according to Axios,
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  Speaker 1: a Trump insider told us, he concentrates on the hobbies
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  Speaker 1: that distract from his terrible polling numbers, about which he
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  Speaker 1: is in denial. Rather than face the issues, Trump often
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  Speaker 1: pivots to showing visitors renderings of the new White House
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  Speaker 1: ballroom or model of the planned triumphal Large. He showcases
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  Speaker 1: his new Air Force One, tous his plans for dulles,
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  Speaker 1: and obsesses about the helipad being built on the South Lawn.
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  Speaker 1: But if you ask Trump, and this may shock you,
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  Speaker 1: he is not the problem.
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  Speaker 2: If I don't run, will those people go out and vote?
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  Speaker 2: And that's the one thing I can tell I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to ask him to the question is will they vote?
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  Speaker 2: Because a lot of them are very angry and Republicans.
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  Speaker 2: To be honest with you, I don't know. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: they're angry Republicans, but they're not They're not angry at me,
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  Speaker 2: but they are angry at Republicans.
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  Speaker 1: First off, if I don't run, okay, we'll set that
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  Speaker 1: aside for the moment, because I hate to break it
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  Speaker 1: to your Republicans, but that is not the guy you
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  Speaker 1: want as captain of your light vote too late. Joining
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  Speaker 1: me now is Ben Wickler, the former chairman of the
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  Speaker 1: Democratic Party of Wisconsin and the author of a very
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  Speaker 1: timely new book, This is the Plan How to end
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  Speaker 1: America's meltdown and Save Democracy? Dude, I love that. It's good,
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  Speaker 1: good read. I've been catching a lot of you talking
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  Speaker 1: about it and laying it out, and that's and that's good.
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  Speaker 1: The sort of frame this upcoming battle, the battle that
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  Speaker 1: we're really already in. The President obviously believes he's done
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  Speaker 1: no wrong, at least according to himself, and now, of
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  Speaker 1: course he's got Republicans he wants to blame for this.
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  Speaker 1: How do you see this? Do you think voters are
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  Speaker 1: going to buy this? Uh, it's them, not me? Argument
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  Speaker 1: from Trump.
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  Speaker 3: You know, there's a reason why I put a fire
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  Speaker 3: extinguisher on the cover of my book. I think there's
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  Speaker 3: a sense among just about everyone the country's are on fire,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, we're all trying to figure out who
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  Speaker 3: did this. Donald Trump is the one lighting lighting the fire.
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  Speaker 3: Now here's a lot of assistants. You ask why guests
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  Speaker 3: is so expensive. It's not just that Trump has taken
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  Speaker 3: this into this disastrous war. It's that every single Republican
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  Speaker 3: member of the House cast the deciding vote to allow
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  Speaker 3: this war to continue. So there's there's blame to go around.
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  Speaker 3: But what people want is for this like ridiculous economy
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  Speaker 3: to actually deliver for them rather than just for Donald
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  Speaker 3: Trump and his billionaire megabuddies. And it's very clear that
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump wants those billionaires in his ballroom and he
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  Speaker 3: doesn't want to do anything that addresses the cost of
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  Speaker 3: living for Americans that are crying out for help. That
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  Speaker 3: is the actual problem that people are mad about, and
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump and every Republican in the House and Senate
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  Speaker 3: are to blame for it. You know.
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  Speaker 1: It's what intrigued me so much about your book. It
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  Speaker 1: reminded me of when I, you know, came into the RNC.
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  Speaker 1: I began to set out you know what direction I
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  Speaker 1: thought the party needed to go in after you know,
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  Speaker 1: being blown up in two thousand and six and blown
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  Speaker 1: up in two thousand and eight against Barack Obama and
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  Speaker 1: the party beginning to fracture. Tea party seeds were there
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  Speaker 1: but hadn't really crystallized just yet. So there was a
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  Speaker 1: lot of stuff roiling around. We are in this cycle,
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  Speaker 1: and you look at a state like yours, Wisconsin and
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  Speaker 1: others that are right there in that bubble. There's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of discourse on where the Democratic Party is headed,
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  Speaker 1: and so this idea of what the plan should be matters.
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  Speaker 1: What the plan looks like matters. We were just talking
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  Speaker 1: about what's going on in Michigan, just a bit of
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  Speaker 1: go for example, are you at all worried about a
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  Speaker 1: contentious Democratic primary spilling over into November in this cycle
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  Speaker 1: where where voters for whatever reason decide to stay home
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  Speaker 1: and not play very much as we saw in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty four.
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  Speaker 3: You know what's interesting about what we saw in Michigan
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  Speaker 3: maybe what we'll see in Wisconsin next Tuesday. It's not
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  Speaker 3: just that there are different candidates with different ideas and
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  Speaker 3: different platforms. It's also that there's a very high level
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  Speaker 3: of engagement and interest. You saw a vastly larger number
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  Speaker 3: of Democrats voting in the primaries in Michigan than Republicans.
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  Speaker 3: You've seen that across the country, and that translates into
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  Speaker 3: the same kind of energy into the general election. There's
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  Speaker 3: much more that unites Democrats than divides them, and Democrats
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  Speaker 3: are on the same side as the vast majority of
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  Speaker 3: Americans in wanting an economy that delivers for working people,
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  Speaker 3: not just those at the very top. Wanting a country
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  Speaker 3: that doesn't plunge recklessly into unnecessary wars that not only
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  Speaker 3: cost lives, but make everyone's lives more expensive. That stuff
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  Speaker 3: where Democrats across the board are right there with the
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  Speaker 3: vast majority of the public. And the level of energy
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  Speaker 3: people bring to these primaries, they're going to roll right
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  Speaker 3: into the general election volunteering, talking to folks, and turning
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  Speaker 3: out votes at a level we've never seen in the
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  Speaker 3: mid term before. I think the energy people are putting
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  Speaker 3: in to the primary battles carries right into a blue
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  Speaker 3: wave this fall.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, I see your challenge, and I wanna raise you
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  Speaker 1: down ballot elections because a lot of focus happens on
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  Speaker 1: the big name congressional rates. Is the US Senate race.
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  Speaker 1: For example, when you're looking at your state and you're
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  Speaker 1: looking and this is true, folks, you know, even though
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  Speaker 1: you may be the chairman of a state, you're looking
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  Speaker 1: around at what's happening in the states, in your region
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  Speaker 1: and even across the country. How are you assessing the
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  Speaker 1: value of down ballot races and what does that say
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  Speaker 1: to you or what can they tell you about the
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  Speaker 1: direction of things.
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  Speaker 3: Well, this is something that is at the core of
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  Speaker 3: the plan for this election cycle in my book, and
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  Speaker 3: was at the core of the extraordinary results Republicans had
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  Speaker 3: when you were the RNC chair. As much as people
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  Speaker 3: focus on the House and Senate and they are so important,
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  Speaker 3: it's actually state legislative chambers that are going to have
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  Speaker 3: this gigantic effect going forward, especially now that we're in
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  Speaker 3: this season where Trump has tried to initiate a jerrymandering
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  Speaker 3: war to seize control of the House for the future.
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  Speaker 3: So in a state like Wisconsin, there's a chance for
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  Speaker 3: Democrats to win a majority in both the state Assembly
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  Speaker 3: and state Senate. And the same is true in mis
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  Speaker 3: in Pennsylvania, in Arizona, New Hampshire, in Nevada, there could
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  Speaker 3: be a democratic trifecta. Look at Iowa, which looked like
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  Speaker 3: a red state for a while. Democrats could flip three
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  Speaker 3: House seats, the governorship, attorney generalship, US Senate seat, and
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  Speaker 3: a ton of state legislative seats. Those things play a
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  Speaker 3: gigantic rule in setting the rules of the road for
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  Speaker 3: the elections in twenty twenty eight and beyond. And if
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  Speaker 3: you want to protect democracy right now, work on a
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  Speaker 3: down ballot race that no one's paying attention to, but
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  Speaker 3: where an overperformance could change who writes the rules of
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  Speaker 3: how American elections work. You got to protect them and
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  Speaker 3: not rig them the way that the GOP is trying
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  Speaker 3: to do at a national level with the Save Act.
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  Speaker 1: It is the one thing about elections a lot of
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  Speaker 1: supposedly smart people don't know. Elections are not one top down,
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  Speaker 1: They're one bottom up. I love it, Ben Wickler, He's
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  Speaker 1: got a plan. Y'all check them out. Thank you very much,
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  Speaker 1: appreciate you.