Latest / The Fourcast / Do Democrats need to move right to take on Trump?

Transcript

Do Democrats need to move right to take on Trump? · The Fourcast

0:00
The brand of the party as as left and super progressive is a
0:06
stone cold loser in American politics.
0:09
It's an asymmetric war, though, isn't it?
0:11
Because the right can go more and more radical, more and more
0:13
crazy come out, you know, with, with unsayable things.
0:16
But but the, you know, people like you are saying, well, the
0:18
left has got to stay sane and it's got to stay centrist.
0:21
You cannot be, you know, as outlandish as the right.
0:24
So what? Why does the right get to have
0:26
fun and the left has to has to be boring, you know?
0:29
Cuts to schools, cuts to farmers.
0:32
Once all that starts hitting the show, that's that.
0:36
That you saying is fun isn't as fun anymore.
0:40
We have to have a centre left economic agenda for those
0:45
working class people. Which is what?
0:51
Hello and welcome to the forecast in America.
0:53
The Democrats are in crisis, leaderless, divided and drifting
0:57
after Trump's return to power. On the left, AOC, Bernie Sanders
1:01
and the Democrats New York mayoral candidate Zoran Mandani
1:05
are seizing the moment. But is their radicalism the way
1:08
to beat Trump's MAGA bandwagon or will they end up alienating
1:12
the majority of working class America?
1:14
Tim Ryan is the former Ohio congressman who stood for the
1:18
Senate but lost to JD Vance. He also threw his hat in the
1:21
ring for the Democrats presidential nomination when Joe
1:24
Biden won it. He's on what you might call the
1:26
centre or perhaps the centre right of his party and wants to
1:29
haul it back to what he sees as the central concerns of working
1:33
class voters, their cost of living and the fairness of the
1:36
system as well as working with business, not against it.
1:39
What he sometimes calls more of a Bill Clinton style.
1:43
Is that the answer to a Democrat resurrection?
1:46
Tim Ryan, welcome. Thank you.
1:47
I mean, first of all, how sure are you that the American
1:51
Constitution and democracy is safe so that there's going to be
1:56
an election for you to win? Yeah, I, I think the system is
2:01
very resilient. This is by all accounts is a
2:06
stress test for our democracy. But I think it's strong.
2:10
I think it will withhold. There have been court rulings
2:13
that push back on some of the things that the president wants
2:16
to do with really expanding executive power and and going
2:20
against Congress and going against laws.
2:23
So he has some wins. There's no doubt that the
2:26
executive branch is becoming more powerful, but I think this
2:30
is system will survive. Do you think he's fundamentally
2:32
changed the way the American America will be governed now?
2:36
His use of executive orders? Basic.
2:38
Sort of. Yeah, I think so.
2:40
I think so. I think there's been more of a
2:41
consolidation of power. But he's a very, very unique
2:45
character in our political system in a lot of different
2:48
ways. The way he's been able to
2:50
assemble a coalition within the Republican Party of, of
2:54
moderates, of defense Hawks, of, you know, budget cutters and
2:59
deficit Hawks, even though they're blowing up the deficit,
3:02
he's still able to keep that coalition together.
3:05
I don't think it will stay together when he's gone.
3:08
I think it will fracture. I mean what?
3:10
Why are people who disagree with him supporting him?
3:12
Is it fear? Yeah, it's fear.
3:14
They're they're afraid that he will support somebody in a
3:18
Republican primary and they will lose.
3:22
But because the. He's that powerful.
3:24
He's that powerful within the Republican Party now.
3:26
It's important for people to remember 57% of the American
3:30
people still think the country's on the wrong track.
3:33
So it's not like the entire country's enamoured with him.
3:37
He's able to control the Republican Party.
3:41
Why do you think he is able to sort of buck the political
3:44
trend, if you like in, in the, in this country, you know, the
3:47
cost of living is, is still so central that this Labour
3:51
government that was elected on a massive majority, a huge wave,
3:55
is already in trouble, is behind in the polls, is being blamed
3:58
for the fact that things haven't changed, even though they've
4:00
only been in power for a year. Yet Trump, who is also facing
4:04
rising inflation, he's not transforming people's lives.
4:07
Yet it doesn't seem to be being blamed for not delivering.
4:13
Yeah, I don't, I don't think yet.
4:15
But like I said, 57% of the country still thinks we're going
4:19
in the wrong direction. They're, they're still, we got
4:22
the report out just today on inflation, on appliances, on
4:27
HomeGoods. So his tariff practices are
4:31
starting to just starting to take hold now he's, he will pay
4:35
a price for that over time. He's so good at distraction and
4:40
being on TV and, and getting people to look away from, you
4:46
know, any criticism of, of him or his administration, which is
4:50
a real talent in this fractured media environment.
4:54
But eventually, his policies will take hold, his tax cut will
5:00
take hold. The impact on the debt and
5:02
deficits will impact the market. Generally speaking, it will
5:06
impact people's ability to buy cars, buy homes, all of that.
5:11
He will be in charge. And Republicans control the
5:13
House and the Senate as well. So at some point, it's hard to
5:16
tell when that will be. But at some point, that will hit
5:19
home. And so, so do you think there
5:20
will be a normal pendulum swing that this is normal politics for
5:25
how the Democrats come back or, or are these extraordinary times
5:29
that require an extraordinary shift?
5:32
I think in. Democrat Politics.
5:33
Somewhere in between. I think it's much different than
5:36
it normally is. But I think there will be a
5:41
blowback. Will it be in time for the
5:44
midterms? Hard to tell.
5:46
You know, we do have a tax cut that will have some effect in
5:50
the economy. And, and I think some people
5:54
like how he's handling immigration.
5:57
You know, there's obviously egregious examples, but
6:00
generally speaking, I think they like the fact that he's getting
6:05
rid of people who shouldn't be in the country.
6:08
But at the same time, that's going to affect the workforce,
6:10
that's going to affect price of goods, especially around
6:13
agriculture. So when does that happen?
6:16
I don't know. Does it happen before the
6:17
midterms? Maybe?
6:20
So they may be able to hang on. Not sure.
6:23
But it will come home to roost because the laws of gravity, you
6:27
know, around economics are still real.
6:30
So let let's talk about some of the options the Democrats have.
6:32
I mean, if if radicalism is working for Trump on the right,
6:36
there is radicalism on the left that some Democrats are offering
6:39
now in AOC and Mamdani in New York.
6:42
What? Why do people like you think
6:44
that is so misguided? Well, one, I think their
6:47
solutions are wrong. Let me let me just say I think
6:49
Mandami's campaign was brilliant.
6:52
You know, I, I think finally somebody in the Democratic Party
6:56
really focused on the economic issues.
6:59
He talked a lot about affordability.
7:02
That clearly is where we need to be as a party.
7:06
Problem is his solutions of the government run grocery stores
7:10
and free this and free that when in a world where nothing's free.
7:16
I don't think that plays much outside of New York City.
7:19
And that's the problem Democrats have run into.
7:21
We're a very coastal party. It's been San Francisco and New
7:24
York and places like Ohio have been hurt by that brand for us.
7:29
What? Why?
7:30
What do? What do your voters think about
7:31
that kind of thing? What do they say?
7:33
Well, they, they're, they don't think it's true.
7:35
Like nothing's free. So if you're a construction
7:38
worker in a union in Ohio and you get up 6:00 in the morning
7:41
and drive to your work site and work all day long and come home
7:45
and barely see your kids because you don't get home till 7:00 at
7:47
night. And you do that years and years
7:49
and years, decades and decades, you know nothing's free.
7:53
So to say you're. Paying for it.
7:54
You're paying. They're paying for it.
7:56
And that's where the Democratic brand has really hurt us.
8:01
I mean, we lost Pennsylvania as in the presidential race, which
8:05
is a Midwestern state basically, and the senator there lost.
8:09
We lost Ohio and the Democratic senator there lost.
8:12
We lost Jon Tester out in Montana, kind of a working class
8:15
Democrat. The brand of the party as as
8:19
left and super progressive is a stone cold loser in American
8:25
politics. We've seen that before, haven't
8:27
we, with Reagan? Yeah, I mean, you just can't.
8:30
That's why Bill Clinton even emerged after 12 years of us
8:33
being super liberal and focused on culture issues.
8:39
We lost working class people. And, and when it first started
8:43
in 16, a lot of people said, well, the Democrats lost white
8:48
working class people. But then in 1620 and then 24,
8:53
Trump did better with Latinos, and he did better with black
8:57
voters. Now imagine the way he talks
8:59
about immigration and yet his numbers among Latino voters go
9:03
up. Why?
9:05
Because it's not a monolithic group.
9:07
It's a group that votes economics.
9:09
They see Democrats as cultural and not in touch with working
9:14
people, regardless of their color.
9:16
And they didn't necessarily love Trump.
9:20
Again, he's 57%. People still disapprove, but
9:24
they thought he was a better economic alternative because of
9:27
inflation and cost of goods and all of that.
9:29
So go. So going left will be a gift to
9:32
the to the Republicans. You know, Trump's pretty good at
9:34
this. And so when he saw Mondami 1,
9:37
the Republicans went crazy happily, like, OK, this is great
9:42
because Chuck Schumer's from New York.
9:44
Our leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, he's from New York.
9:48
So now our entire national leadership is now caught in a
9:52
mayoral race in which there was turn out wasn't huge.
9:56
And so it was a small sliver of New York City voted for
10:01
democratic socialist and now it's become part of the national
10:03
brand. And the Republicans love that,
10:05
which is why I'm doing the work I'm doing with Progressive
10:08
Policy Institute and others. We have to have a center left
10:12
economic agenda for those working class people.
10:15
Which is what? Well, which?
10:17
Is not just redistribution, it's about trying to actually grow
10:22
the pie, you know, invest into skills development.
10:26
I think that, you know, Biden's big plan was to forgive student
10:29
loans and everyone should go to college basically.
10:33
And that again, a lot of working class people reject that
10:36
premise. How do we invest in the skills,
10:38
invest into apprenticeships, embrace AI, embrace the
10:42
blockchain and the kind of things coming out of the
10:45
technologies coming out of the crypto industry, Embrace those,
10:49
embrace the ideas around healthcare and healthy living
10:53
and preventative medicine, reforming government.
10:56
You know, it's not a chainsaw on a stage with Elon Musk saying
11:00
we're going to just cut this thing.
11:02
It's about how do we modernize? How do we develop America 2
11:05
point O with these technologies around healthcare, education,
11:09
all the rest. That to me, I think is where the
11:12
American people are. And that's how you get growth
11:14
that kind of lifts everybody else up.
11:16
Again, investments in the infrastructure into our schools
11:19
and new ways of teaching our kids those kind of things.
11:22
And I think when if you put that up against Trump, that's a more
11:25
thoughtful, realistic. And then don't forget balance
11:29
the budget, what you really never hear about on the left and
11:35
being responsible now you start to have some appeal to those
11:39
independent voters that pay attention and are concerned
11:43
about the debt and deficits as. Well, isn't that what Biden did
11:46
in 2020? He offered calm.
11:48
He offered intelligence. He offered, you know, some
11:50
thoughts about, you know, working class Americans, the
11:53
cost of living, all the things that people cared about.
11:56
Yeah, in 2020. And it didn't work.
11:58
No, it worked. It worked in 2020.
12:02
The problem was he gave the keys to the car to Elizabeth Warren
12:06
and the left on a variety of issues and, you know, more
12:12
spending, no balanced budgets. We were running deficits too,
12:16
bigger than we should have been. That was part of the problem,
12:21
You know, wading into a lot of the culture wars.
12:24
The student loan thing was really a big thing of of like
12:28
kind of disenfranchising working people by saying we're going to
12:31
take your tax dollars. The construction worker I was
12:33
talking about or the retail, you know, mom that's out there
12:36
working a second job, we're going to take your tax dollars
12:39
and we're going to pay it for some kid who went to college.
12:43
Those kind of decisions really hurt Biden.
12:47
What else heard Biden was his health, his inability to
12:50
articulate what I thought were some really good things that he
12:53
did, like the the CHIPS Act where we are incentivizing chip
12:58
manufacturing, really advanced high end manufacturing that we
13:01
should be doing in the United States.
13:03
The infrastructure bill. Trump had infrastructure week
13:07
200 weeks in a row in his first presidency, never got it done.
13:10
We were able to get that done. The Inflation Reduction Act,
13:13
investments in wind and solar, next generation of of energy.
13:18
Those are good things, but he could never because you.
13:21
Didn't get the credit for it well.
13:22
He couldn't go out and campaign on it like he he could not go to
13:26
a rally. He could not go do press events
13:30
and articulate the significance of actually having an industrial
13:34
policy in the United States. And so the Joe Biden of 2020,
13:39
who we were lucky he won that brand, was gone.
13:43
But do you think anyone can really win on complex economic
13:48
answers when you've got the other side waging culture war?
13:52
Yeah, I do. I mean, I don't think it's that
13:54
complicated to say, you know, we should ask the wealthiest to pay
13:57
a little bit more, not because we hate them, but because
14:00
they've been doing really, really well.
14:02
I mean, there's a huge concentration of wealth and that
14:05
we should reform these broken systems that are driving people
14:08
crazy, you know, around, you know, credit card fees and
14:12
banking fees and the way the inability of the government
14:16
actually to provide services to people, whether it's healthcare,
14:20
education or getting a driver's license makes people mad, like
14:26
crazy mad. And and so I think wading into
14:29
that and saying we can do better.
14:31
And here are some some ideas that we have.
14:34
I think people don't give the American people enough credit.
14:37
Well, because the question is do long term ideas win elections
14:40
now, you know, or or or does everything have to be tomorrow
14:43
an immediate and disruption now, because things like the chips
14:47
act very, very big structural changes, but you don't see the
14:51
the results straight away, do you?
14:53
You don't. No, you don't.
14:55
Well, you see the construction jobs happening, but again,
14:58
leaders have to lead and, and not having Biden able to go out
15:02
and make that case really hurt us, like really hurt the
15:05
Democrats because he could have went out and said, I know we're
15:08
not there yet, you know, but but we're we're we're
15:11
reindustrializing. It took 40 years for us to get
15:14
to this point of, you know, globalization and automation.
15:18
And finally we got a policy. I need you to hang with me a
15:21
little bit. We're getting there.
15:22
We're going to rebuild the country, infrastructure, wind,
15:25
solar chips, you know, and, and, you know, that to me could have
15:31
Bill Clinton could have sold that.
15:32
Barack Obama could have sold that.
15:34
Trump could have sold that. I mean, there's a lot Ronald
15:36
Reagan could have sold that. Joe Biden was not capable.
15:39
So, so you are you are saying it's not so much about the
15:41
substance of what Democrats were doing in power, It's about the
15:44
candidates. It's about the charisma of the
15:46
candidate. And that hurt us because we had
15:48
a void. And when you have a void and no
15:52
message and you gave the keys to, you know, the left and the
15:56
progressives, we became defined that way.
16:00
And that brand took down Sherrod Brown as a senator in Ohio and
16:05
Bob Casey, you know, who was in Pennsylvania and Jon Tester and
16:10
didn't allow us to win the House back because of that national
16:13
brand. And if we could get back to a
16:16
reasonable economic, pragmatic strategy, we'll be back in the
16:21
game. I.
16:21
Mean isn't there a tendency in politics wherever it is to look
16:24
back and go, well, Bill Clinton would have won, Obama would have
16:28
won, Tony Blair would have won, you know, in, in in Britain, you
16:32
know, from a progressive left perspective.
16:34
And the truth is politics has always shifted.
16:36
You know, you're in a different contest.
16:37
The electors are in a different place economically.
16:41
So I mean, what what kind of Bill Clinton do you need now to
16:45
win? Because Bill Clinton on it, you
16:47
know, as he was, doesn't do it does.
16:49
He well, I mean, when I say Obama, Clinton, Reagan, I'm
16:53
talking talent. I'm talking someone willing to
16:56
knowing how to communicate. We didn't have that in the last
17:00
election. And so if we have someone who's
17:02
willing to now, you can't communicate democratic socialism
17:07
in any way, shape or form in the United States.
17:09
And when Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, North
17:13
Carolina, like that's not going to happen, You can't win voters
17:16
saying we're going to take from you and you know, everything's
17:20
free, not going to happen. And so someone who can
17:24
articulate the kind of pragmatic economic strategies that have
17:29
been shown to work, you know, I mean, when, when, when Bill
17:32
Clinton came in, everybody's income was going up.
17:35
The poor, the middle class, the wealthy made more money.
17:38
There's a way to do this. I, I sense an exhaustion in
17:43
America. There's an exhausted majority.
17:45
And a lot of that exhausted majority was so repelled by what
17:49
the Democrats are offering that they just went with Trump.
17:53
And now look, they're still 57% aren't satisfied.
17:56
So there's a there's a number of people in there who if you offer
17:59
them that take the temperature down.
18:02
You know, James Carville, who was Bill Clinton's guy used to
18:05
say front, he was from Louisiana.
18:07
He used to say you need to to splain it to him.
18:10
You know, you got to explain to people what you're doing.
18:12
And I think I've watched Bill Clinton do this in a room full
18:15
of 1500 working class people. And they're hanging on every
18:20
word he says as he's like explaining interest rates in how
18:24
the hikes are affecting your ability to buy a freezer, you
18:28
know, on low interest. That's the kind of breakdown I
18:32
think the people are looking for.
18:34
Teach them what's going on. Tell them what's what's
18:35
happening. So how do you find that person?
18:39
Well, Democratic, the, the primary process usually is a
18:43
pretty good way of doing that. I mean, again, the problem that
18:46
we had is that we had people who wanted to run against Biden in a
18:51
primary and they basically rigged the primary.
18:54
I mean, they got, you know, New Hampshire was always the first
18:57
state in America and then it was New Hampshire, then South
19:00
Carolina. And but the Biden team switched
19:03
it to go right to South Carolina and then they wouldn't let
19:06
anybody debate. Now, RFK Junior, you could say
19:09
whatever you want about them. OK, this is Bobby Kennedy's son,
19:14
right? This is American royalty.
19:16
Son couldn't get a debate with the president in the Democratic
19:19
primary because they cancel all the debates.
19:22
So you switch the primary and no debates.
19:24
So that process that would have produced, you know, other people
19:28
would have gotten in. I mean, everybody saw it was
19:30
getting rigged. A lot of people would have got
19:33
in. That process for us usually
19:36
produces some pretty good candidates.
19:37
So you think the same process would again?
19:40
Yeah, I do. I do.
19:42
I think if you if you go back to New Hampshire, South Carolina,
19:45
you know, you get working class kind of whites in New Hampshire,
19:49
you get working class blacks in South Carolina, you go out to
19:52
Nevada, you get working class Latinos.
19:54
I think that process. And then you go to Michigan,
19:57
which is industrial Midwest kind of, you know multicultural.
20:01
I think that process right there is a pretty good one to kind of
20:04
vet any candidate to come out of that.
20:07
And I think the candidate that can survive that and come out of
20:09
that would be a pretty doggone good candidate for.
20:12
Us. I mean, isn't there a danger
20:13
that primary process will will become a competition for who can
20:17
condemn Trump the most? Who can be the most radical?
20:20
It could push all the candidates into into more left.
20:24
We had positions. Potentially we were worried
20:27
about that with Biden in the last and and Biden was kind of
20:31
the moderate in that group. He ended up winning Bill Clinton
20:36
same way took on a lot, a lot of the, you know, more progressive
20:39
people and came out of it the same way.
20:42
And so I think I think the Democrats rank and file
20:45
Democrats are pretty level headed.
20:48
They're they're pretty the rank and file.
20:49
They're pretty good at figuring out.
20:53
We like we like this person to go and take on whatever Mega
20:59
looks like at that point. And does it have to be somebody
21:01
from the middle of America? You know, it can't be a New
21:04
Yorker or a California. Forget it.
21:06
Gavin Newsom, you may look good, but you know, I don't think
21:08
you're not going to win America. It's not going to be Gavin
21:10
Newsom. You know, does it have to be
21:12
from middle America? I think I think middle America
21:16
will have an advantage in this one.
21:18
I think maybe, maybe from the South, you know some.
21:21
Another Bill Clinton. Yeah, I mean some, Yeah.
21:23
I mean, the Bill Clinton's, you know, there were a lot more
21:25
Democrats in the South. And does it have to be a man?
21:28
Why? I don't, I don't think it has to
21:30
be a man. I, I think if it's a, we have
21:32
two really good female candidates running for governor
21:35
right now. Both of them have national
21:37
security backgrounds, you know, So I think that, you know, for a
21:41
woman to run now with that kind of background, I think, I think
21:46
that's very doable. And and race, I mean, you know,
21:49
could it, could it be a black candidate again?
21:51
Ain't hard to tell. It really is hard to tell.
21:53
I think, I think your position on the economics are going to
21:57
mean a lot more. You know, we had voters, they
22:00
voted for Obama twice and then they voted for Trump.
22:04
You know, it's not the not all of mega is racist, you know,
22:08
like they're they're they're just vote for what they think is
22:12
best for them, you know, and I don't think they wade into the
22:15
race thing like a lot of. Other and do you think all the
22:17
runners are out there and identified or rather?
22:20
No, I don't think so. It's too early.
22:21
I mean, Trump just got sworn in in January.
22:24
So like we got 3 1/2 years till the election, you know, another
22:28
year, year and a half until people really start kind of
22:31
jumping in. I mean, it's such an alien
22:33
process looking at it from over here.
22:35
Yeah. You know, how, how do leaders
22:37
emerge in your system? Is, is, is pretty strange
22:41
because it seems to be about sort of TV coverage and, you
22:44
know, it's not necessarily about party machines and not anymore,
22:48
you know. Yeah, not anymore.
22:51
I think the the attention now and Trump obviously mastered
22:56
that. How do you get attention?
22:58
I think Mondami, you know, was able to generate attention.
23:02
Yeah. And that means more now with
23:05
social media. You're going to get clips.
23:07
It's going to go on TikTok. It's going to go on Instagram.
23:10
People are going to see it even though they don't watch the
23:12
news, and they're going to know about.
23:14
You, I mean, it's an asymmetric war, though, isn't it?
23:16
Because the right can go more and more radical, more and more
23:18
crazy come out, you know, with, with unsayable things, you know,
23:21
things that nobody would imagine a government would do.
23:24
But but the, you know, people like you are saying, well, the
23:26
left has got to stay sane and it's got to stay centrist.
23:30
You cannot be, you know, as outlandish as the right.
23:33
So why does the right get to have fun and the left has has to
23:36
be boring, you know? Well, it's like, yeah, I think
23:40
like on is is insane. Some of the policies look and
23:45
sound like and may not work and violate laws and human rights
23:51
and due process and all the things we care about.
23:54
There is. I think there's a sensibility
23:58
among most Americans of like, look, but I think Trump gets
24:02
away with it because people do want the immigration issue to be
24:05
dealt with now. They don't want you deporting
24:08
people to countries that they don't come from, and they don't
24:11
want you deporting American citizens.
24:12
And they do want you to have due process.
24:15
But generally speaking, if you aren't legally and documented in
24:19
the country, you shouldn't be there, you know, if you're not
24:22
going through the process. So at the top line level, Trump
24:26
is they agree with what Trump's trying to do.
24:28
So the Democrats should essentially adopt that
24:30
positions. I think the same position is we
24:33
want to keep the laws, we want to know who's coming into the
24:36
country. We want there to be a process,
24:38
we want there to be a pathway to citizenship.
24:40
Immigrants are good for the economy, generally speaking,
24:43
with GDP and everything else. And so there's a way to do it,
24:48
but you got to get in line. It's really a values issue more
24:51
than anything else because that's why Trump did better
24:53
among Latinos in 2024 than he did in 2020.
24:58
Because even the Latinos who got in line, now we're saying, wait,
25:01
I had to get in line. And you're just walking into the
25:03
country. And then the blowback of, you
25:06
know, they, they shipped a lot of these immigrants to New York
25:10
City and they were getting put up in a hotel and they were
25:14
getting $1000 food card. And this is the same issue here,
25:17
right? The average workers going with,
25:20
wait a minute, I I want $1000 food card.
25:23
I'm going to work every day. And so for Democrats to espouse
25:27
that position, but yet protect the sanctity of due process,
25:31
protect people from, you know, being deported to a prison in El
25:34
Salvador, You know, they're just trying to make a better life for
25:37
themselves. You don't need to send them to
25:38
a, you know, a gulag. You just send them back to their
25:41
country. And if they're a refugee or
25:44
there's a humanitarian issue, I think America's big hearted
25:47
enough to say we want you to come here and be safe.
25:50
If you're living in, you know, Guatemala or some of these else,
25:53
you know, some of these countries that are having real
25:55
problems with gangs, we're big enough hearted of a country to
25:58
accept people like that. I mean, I'm so I'm not entirely
26:01
joking about the whole thing about sort of boring and fun,
26:04
you know, and that's it. It is a fact that in America it,
26:07
it is the outlandishness of the right that gets an attention on
26:11
social media and on television. Yeah.
26:13
And competence and decency just doesn't play as high, you know,
26:20
when it comes to entertainment value on social media and and
26:24
television. So Are you sure you can get the
26:26
attention for your candidates? Well, that you you need in order
26:30
to get people to like and know your people.
26:32
At some point. At some point, your policies do
26:36
matter, you know, And so the tariffs.
26:39
Are they for Trump? I mean they.
26:40
Didn't really did that. They they they've not hit home.
26:44
You know, the tariffs like I said are just starting to affect
26:49
costs back home. That's going to be a problem for
26:52
him in the tax bill primarily to the top 1%.
26:57
OK, I don't think his folks are going to like that all that
27:00
much. You're also going to have
27:04
hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, which is
27:07
our healthcare for poor and senior citizens.
27:13
Huge cuts. They don't come in till right
27:15
after the midterm so they delayed them.
27:18
Probably smart politically for them when those all start
27:22
hitting cuts to schools, cuts to farmers, you know, deporting so
27:28
many people that agriculture is going to be affected.
27:31
So Agri businesses will be affected.
27:33
Once all that starts hitting the show, that's that that you
27:38
saying is fun isn't as fun anymore.
27:42
You know, it's not just entertainment.
27:43
It's actually hitting my pocketbook.
27:45
And that's when we better be. This is kind of the work I'm
27:48
doing now. It's like we better be ready
27:51
when that moment happens and have the groundwork laid, have
27:54
the policies ready, the ideas ready, and then all of a sudden
27:58
it gets a little bit more serious than just pure
28:02
entertainment value. I mean, you, you might be up
28:04
against Jadie Vance, man, who you ran against and ultimately
28:07
lost. But.
28:07
But only closely, Yeah. I mean, what is he going to be
28:12
like as a presidential candidate if it's him?
28:15
I mean, is this the real JD Vance that we now see?
28:18
I mean, he's changed a lot over the years.
28:20
It's. Hard to it's hard to tell.
28:23
I, I don't think that there is anybody in the MAGA movement
28:29
right now that is anywhere near as good at politics and branding
28:36
and showmanship as Donald Trump is nowhere close.
28:40
Not JD Vance, you know, not Ramaswamy, not any of the
28:45
senators, no governors, no one can hold a candle.
28:49
This, this guy is a very unique political figure.
28:54
And, and again, that's another, he'll be stuck with all those
28:58
policies. He'll be stuck with the Medicaid
29:00
cuts like Trump will be gone. He'll be there and the inflation
29:06
and the tariffs and the debt and deficits and all the effects
29:09
that's going to have on the economy.
29:10
He's going to have to hold that bag.
29:12
And I don't, I don't think he's going to be able to do it like
29:16
Trump. 'S I mean, I heard you say you
29:17
didn't really get on with him. I did not as as rivals.
29:20
It wasn't a friendly rivalry. No, not really.
29:22
I mean, do you think he's a decent man?
29:24
You know, I mean, like when you think back to sort of, you know,
29:27
how McCain spoke about Obama and said, you know, you may disagree
29:30
with him, but he's a decent man. He's a patriot, you know, Can
29:32
you say that about Eddie Vance, or do you think he's a.
29:34
Different I mean, I'm, you know, I'm not here to trash the vice
29:37
president personally. You know, I completely disagree
29:41
with how he's handled himself. And I think he he's he's very
29:45
talented in the sense that he tries to provide some kind of
29:48
intellectual framework to Trumpism when again, Trump is
29:52
out there just kind of doing his thing.
29:55
And so in that regard, he he tries to make it OK with some of
30:01
the stuff that is not OK. And so I just really disagree
30:04
with that. I don't think it's good for the
30:06
American people for us to call each other names.
30:09
I think that's going to be another thing that we're all
30:11
exhausted with. Like, OK, you know, I played a
30:14
lot of sports growing up. I didn't necessarily like the
30:17
people I played against. You know, I had disagreements
30:20
with them for whatever reason. And you, you shake their hand
30:23
before the game and you shake their hand after the game, and
30:25
you play by the rules during the game and go about your life.
30:29
I feel like that's kind of how people want politics to, you
30:32
know, operate again. I mean, when when you look now
30:35
at what's happening to the right and MAGA, I mean, do do you
30:38
think they are starting to fall apart?
30:41
Well, you see the Epstein stuff. I mean, that's really an
30:45
interesting thing. You, you saw a little bit of it
30:47
come out with the bombing in Iran.
30:50
You saw Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson and these guys really
30:55
start to kind of chip away a little bit and say what's going
30:57
on here. But then it died down and now
31:03
you've got the whole conspiracy around the the Epstein's file
31:06
like the Trump kind of got. You know he pumped it.
31:10
He pumped it, right? So now you're getting hoisted by
31:13
your own petard, I guess they say.
31:15
And so this is going to be interesting to watch because it
31:18
doesn't seem like the base of his party really wants to let
31:24
this go. So it'll be interesting to see
31:25
how it plays out. And that could be like a
31:27
beginning. And then I think the debt and
31:30
deficit guys, there are some sincere guys.
31:32
I served in Congress for 20 years with them, very concerned
31:35
about the national debt, very concerned about the deficits
31:38
that we're running. And what Trump calls the big
31:41
beautiful bill. Right.
31:42
And that's just going to make it worse.
31:43
They got they got put in the line, the vote for that because
31:46
again, they didn't want a primary.
31:48
But there are some sincere guys. So when Trump's gone, that's
31:52
going to be a faction. The defense Hawks will be a
31:54
faction. The moderate Republicans who
31:56
are, you know, pro women's rights, pro gay rights, that'll
31:59
be a faction. I think this thing all just
32:01
fractures out. What?
32:02
Do you think the Epstein Rao tells us about the MAGA base?
32:08
That they may be mustering the courage to call the president
32:13
out if they think he's been insincere because a lot of these
32:17
folks really believe what he says.
32:20
You know, I mean, it's, I don't, I mean, I clearly don't.
32:23
I think there's a lot of people who don't even people who voted
32:26
for him, like he's just being Trump.
32:27
You know, I think there are a lot of people who really believe
32:30
that he like with the Epstein thing, he was going to be the
32:33
guy who was going to, you know, unleash this and, and let
32:37
everybody see it and provide transparency.
32:39
He was, he was the guy who's going to go into the deep state,
32:42
you know, and we're going to know about Kennedy and we're
32:44
going to know about Martin Luther King and we're going to
32:46
know about all these things and the CIA and all the all the kind
32:50
of history that we have in our country.
32:51
He was supposed to be the guy that was going to unveil all
32:54
that, so. Is it the first example, I
32:56
suppose, of if you promise change, you've got to deliver it
32:59
or you will be turned on by your own supporters?
33:01
Yeah, I mean, especially if you get conspiracy theorists like
33:04
believing you, they'll be quick to turn on you because now you
33:07
may be part of the conspiracy, you know that I think they may
33:10
be quicker to to say it's it's interesting that this conspiracy
33:15
theory, if it is a theory, who knows?
33:16
I mean, I don't even I don't know what's going on, but that
33:20
those are the first people to say you're lying about this.
33:23
I. Mean do you think the Democrats
33:24
should attack Trump more for his own relationship with Epstein?
33:26
I mean, if any politician had a long running relationship with
33:28
Epstein, it was Trump. I, I don't because I think those
33:32
folks will like, let leave it to them, leave it to them.
33:35
We, we have to get back on an economic message.
33:38
We've tried being 100% anti Trump.
33:41
We can have an opinion about it. Of course it's disgusting.
33:43
If he has anything to do with it, you know, we need to take
33:46
action. Of course that's going to be our
33:47
position. But we spent 1620 and 24, all we
33:51
did was talk about Trump. You know, Biden was barely able
33:55
to slide by in 20 because of the pandemic and he wasn't able to
33:59
be out campaigning either. Like so this he really benefited
34:02
from that as well. Barely beat him in 20.
34:06
And each time we just talked about him, American people want
34:09
to know what we're for. And so I, I think going down
34:12
that rabbit hole like that will take care of itself.
34:15
The media will take care of that.
34:17
You know, we could maybe do a couple things here or there to
34:20
to, you know, state our position, but that can't
34:23
dominate. So again.
34:23
Culture world, culture. War works for them, but it
34:26
doesn't work for Democrats. Well, it works for them because
34:29
a lot of the size of the culture war, like, you know, when you
34:34
talk about trans rights or something, they're in the
34:36
majority of opinion. But here's the thing that's
34:39
really interesting about, you know, we, we don't have to
34:44
change our positions on things. So I'm not advocating that we
34:49
should be anti women's rights or we should turn on the gay rights
34:52
community. I don't I don't say that at all.
34:55
We can keep our positions. The problem is we've prioritized
34:59
those. So those become the lead
35:01
positions. Like the national brand of
35:03
Democrats is what that's all we want to talk about.
35:06
And so we've got to front load the economic stuff.
35:09
Because when you walk into a room in Youngstown, OH, if
35:11
there's 100 people there, 100 of them, their first 7 to 10 issues
35:16
are all economic. Their mortgage, their rent,
35:18
their prescription drug cost, their local taxes, whatever.
35:23
You know, those are mostly economic issues.
35:26
And if we show up and start talking culture, they think you
35:31
don't identify with me at all and and you don't understand me.
35:35
And then they vote for for Trump.
35:36
The the fact. And let me let me just say real
35:38
quick too, because Republicans bring up the culture wars.
35:42
The problem is we engage them and go down the rabbit hole with
35:45
them and then we look like that's what we want to talk
35:48
about. We should say don't take the
35:50
bait. Don't take the bait and get
35:52
back. We want to talk about economics.
35:53
You guys want to talk about that, fine.
35:56
And I think Labour's learning that too here is with the reform
35:59
movement, like you guys talk about that.
36:01
We're talking, we're staying on our message.
36:03
And I think from what I heard this week, I think that's what
36:06
they plan on doing too. I.
36:08
Mean that's true to an extent of the Labour's been pulled down,
36:10
the immigration, you know, rabbit hole to some degree and
36:15
it's sort of moving on to that, that turf.
36:18
So it's a difficult one to sort of hold your position on, isn't
36:20
it? I mean, your confidence about
36:24
sort of how winnable the next election is seems to depend on
36:28
it not being Donald Trump you're facing.
36:31
Are you 100% certain it won't be?
36:33
That he won't find some way of running again?
36:36
I don't, I don't think so. I don't think it'll be him.
36:39
And I, I do think a candidate like the one we're talking about
36:42
would have beat Trump in 24. You know, if you were talking
36:47
about the kind of things we're talking about, He was not.
36:49
The country didn't want Trump or Biden, you know, And so again,
36:54
the brand of our party had a lot of people go, I don't want to
36:58
vote for either of these guys, but you know, I'm going to vote
37:00
for Trump. If we would have had some other
37:02
candidate, we would have beat Trump 5545.
37:05
So again, it's not like the entire country is enamored with
37:08
them. It's just that compared to what
37:10
he was running against. And I think the big problem was
37:13
when Kamala Harris was on The View and they asked her popular
37:20
daily morning TV show, they asked her, what would you do
37:24
differently than Joe Biden? And it's right after she got in
37:27
and she said, I can't think of anything I would do differently.
37:30
That was it. Like now you're Joe Biden and
37:34
in. That it was an impossible
37:35
position there, wasn't it? Because she was his vice
37:36
president should have had to turn on him.
37:39
Yeah, but and. She should have done.
37:41
I mean, I I would say turn on me like it's more important my
37:44
feelings, I'll get over. It he should have licensed.
37:46
It he should have blessed it, of course, you know, and I don't
37:51
know why he didn't because of the stakes for the country I.
37:55
Mean you. You threw your hat in the ring
37:57
some years ago, are you? Are you considering it again?
38:00
I may, I mean, I'm, I'm enjoying being out.
38:04
I'm, I'm in London and hanging out with you.
38:07
You know, there's a, this is a great town.
38:09
You know, I told my wife I may have one more election in me.
38:14
I don't know when that will be, but I'm enjoying kind of being
38:17
out. I'm, I'm coaching my son this
38:19
football team, American football, because.
38:21
People have been wondering if you'll go for governor as well,
38:23
haven't they? Yeah, you're thinking about.
38:25
That yeah, I'm thinking about it.
38:26
I'm thinking about it. Yeah, it's it's I, you know, I
38:28
spent 20 years in, I missed a lot of my kids stuff and now I'm
38:31
like coaching and really getting time with the family.
38:34
They're here with me in London and it's been a lot of fun.
38:37
So I got, you know, if I do jump back in, that's like, you know,
38:41
I got to get a few votes in the House before I even make an
38:44
announcement. So we'll see how that goes.
38:45
Well, if you do stay in touch tomorrow.
38:47
Thank you very much indeed. Appreciate it.
38:48
And that's it for this episode of the Forecast.
38:50
Until next time, bye bye.