9/24/26: Trump Backs Diesel Export Ban, Latinos Flee GOP, Iran Lashes Out At Israel

20:39What about, so what about Nebraska? Why are we only lean at this point? Like Dan Osborne in the polls that have been out seems to be actually ahead of Ricketts. Yeah. So what is it? Is it just the fundamentals and people being like, they're just, it's just impossible? Well, polling is not the only signal we're looking at here. It is a huge sign that this race is competitive. but like it shouldn't be um because this is a state that i think trump won by like close to 30 percent now in the same year osborne only lost by seven percent and in theory this political environment should be more than seven points worse for republicans that would only be like a 5.5 edge in the national popular vote for house races for democrats for that to happen so uh he certainly got a chance but it is really hard to overperform the rest of your party by those types of numbers It becomes a little more possible when you look at the fact that throughout the Midwest and this time around, we're not talking about just the Midwest of Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which isn't Midwest, but gets thrown around like it is.

21:38Yeah, we're actually talking about the greater Midwest in places like Kansas and Nebraska. There seems like a genuine big movement for Democrats this cycle, at least from what we're seeing in the polls. And whether it's as strong as the polls are showing, no way to know until Election Day. But I think it makes some sense because these are places that have a lot of farmland that are getting hit particularly hard by the tariffs and the rise in price in diesel prices and gas prices.

22:01Ryan Grim:Let's go and stick with the Midwest, put B5 up on the screen because this raised a lot of eyebrows yesterday. So Steve Deese is a conservative radio radio host. Is that right? He said yesterday, Iowa House Republicans were informed by their own pollsters that if you are in a plus 15 district, you're in the margin of error. If you're in a plus 10 district, you are underwater. And this might end up being an even worse midterm environment than 2006 when Democrats just went on a tear. And that really set up for the Obama era. What do you make of this? Are we getting Ann Selzer'd here again in Iowa?

22:39Ryan Grim:Or are there reasons to believe that districts that are plus 15 Republican may actually be in play in the state? Well, part of this is that there is a bigger lead for Democrats in the national polling if the polls are actually right than any year since 1986. Wow. You know, we're talking about 40 years here. So on paper, it would be bigger than 2006. And again, these things are localized, right? Like Iowans are the state in the state that has been hit the single hardest by tariffs. And so the Iran war is a big part of this. But I think there's like a particular frustration for states like that.

23:14That is like we thought the tariffs were over. They don't know necessarily the average voter if it were Trump making a change in decision versus the court. But now it comes back again with Canada, our friend and ally. And if you're a farmer who knows other farmers that might have committed suicide because this is happening sometimes.

23:30Ryan Grim:Yeah, that's true. Because people can't afford to keep their family farm going anymore and they wanted to pass it on to their kids and they just feel hopeless. That type of thing is going to move you. It's going to move everyone. And so it is clear that the president's made this problem a lot worse for them. Even if for voters that really like Trump, they're not stupid. They can see this wouldn't necessarily be happening if he didn't go down this path. And so for a lot of people, even if they're not swung in the Democratic Party, they're looking for ways to check Republicans. Yeah. So what about Mississippi?

23:58Yeah, Scott Colum, extremely talented politician who was – it seemed – I'm not even paying attention to the race and I can tell how hard he's working. Like he wants to win this and he thinks he has a shot. What would have to happen in Mississippi for us to, on election night, be looking at each other and be like, wait a minute, Mississippi? That would be the mother of blue waves. It would mean the Democrats are being underrated. Is it possible? This year, yes, but it is certainly not likely. It's sort of in the range of you have like a 10 percent chance of this type of win, right? Could you ever imagine yourself saying there was a 10 percent chance of a Democrat winning in Mississippi post-1960s?

24:41Oh, it was 1990s or whatever. I would have expected a lot more signs before this year. Now, we did run competitive last time, but it's just such a hard state to win that, you know, the reality is that when you win by this much, there's always going to be something crazy that happens. Right. There was like that seat in Oklahoma in 2018. The Democrats picked up in deep, deep red territory there. And you had one for Democrats with Washington, third for Maria, including Con Perez, that I think I had a 7 % chance. Most people had a 2 % chance. Not very often I claim 7 % chance as a win when I get it right.

25:18But there's always going to be one every cycle. And so this is now big enough for Dems that it's – I mean, like he should be fighting for it. If you're ever going to win Mississippi, this is the year. But still, I wouldn't count on it.

25:28Ryan Grim:My understanding of why Mississippi is so hard, it's not because Trump or the Republicans win Mississippi by the largest margin because they don't. But the partisanship is so racialized in the South and in Mississippi in particular. So you have close to 40 percent of the state who are either black or Latino. And so you get a large, you know, fairly large percentage that are Democratic voting. But then the white majority population is just so hard Republican that it's very hard to penetrate. So the question will be whether the Democratic candidate can make any inroads there. I do want to turn to some of these numbers with Latinos, which, you know, one of the big stories of the Trump era has been at the beginning.

26:12Ryan Grim:You had all these predictions that Latinos were going to en masse begin voting for Democrats because Trump's rhetoric around immigration was so aggressive, so harsh, so cruel. So, you know, so just sort of vindictive and racialized that they would all vote en masse for Democrats the way that black voters tend to. And that has not panned out. You've seen Trump perform quite well with Latinos, better than expected in 2016, way better than expected in 2024. However, put B1 up on the screen. This appears to be a part of the coalition that is really collapsing. Now, every group has collapsed for Trump except for white evangelicals.

26:48Ryan Grim:However, this strength that he had in 2024 with Latinos, and not to essentialize because this is a very diverse population in and of itself, but that seems to really be falling apart. New York Times took a look at, based on their polling, they dug into the individual districts in Florida and Texas to see what their polling indicated about this shift. And it's quite extraordinary. You know, in Texas, you have a district that is moving up to 31 points Democratic in part based on the Latino population. Florida, you've got districts that are moving 25, 20, 13 points towards Democrats because of this shift as well.

27:29Ryan Grim:And, Logan, a lot of these House districts were drawn by Republicans with an assumption that they would at least hold on to a little bit of those gains with Latinos. And that may have turned out to be a foolhardy assumption. Yeah, you're right, Crystal. They might have made a huge mistake on their timing on this because they made a game plan in 2022 when they were redrawing the maps, I guess in 21, that they were going to play it safe. It's not that Texans decided now we want to play hardball and start to gerrymander this cycle. It's that they thought they were at risk and that their majority was falling apart in Texas.

28:04And so the whole point was to build a firewall of extra voters. So if Democrats made extra gains, they wouldn't be able to dive deeper into the state. Right. So rather than maximize their chance year to year. And that didn't work out. I mean, they did fine in 2022 in Texas and 24. Don't get me wrong, but they didn't maximize their gains. Right. So now they got a little more confident because they did well with Latinos in 22. They did amazing with them in 24, barely lost them nationally. And so they made an assumption that this was an enduring gain. But the problem is Republicans haven't really treated these voters with respect, something they accuse, and I think justifiably so, Democrats of doing.

28:41They got cocky, they stopped listening, and they took things for granted. And so, A, a lot of these voters are because they're a newer immigrant group on earth. There's a lot of newer immigrant groups among them, as often happens in American history. They're disproportionately working class. They're affected a lot more by cuts to health care. They're affected a lot more by rising prices. And then in addition, especially in places like Texas and Florida, they feel like they're being racially discriminated. Yes. And they wanted a secure border. That's what moved a lot of voters in southern Texas.

29:07They didn't want to have ICE going after everyone, not following due process, seizing people that have documentation. And even people that aren't, they didn't want them to be treated this badly or, you know, someone that they viewed as not a threat, depending on the person, to be detained. All right. So going back to Crystal's point about Steve Deese talking about how R plus 15 districts are now competitive, R plus 10 in Iowa, you're underwater. So to your point, what did Texas Republicans do for districts across Texas? R plus what? Like what did they basically go for when they redrew the districts?

29:46Yeah, they were trying to gain like five seats. So each district, like what was their target for a partisan lean in a district to make it safe? I don't know that off the cuff, guys. I'm sorry to say. But I think it was less than 10. Yes. In other words, if Iowa holds in Texas, if that same trend that Steve Deese observed, because what you were saying is that Republicans lulled themselves into a trap. Yes. Where they got overconfident. Well, potentially. We're going to see what happens on election day. They're just red flags that the scenario where this would fall apart would be not just that they lost ground with Latinos, not just they lost ground with voters.

30:21These guys aren't stupid. They assumed that it was not going to be a great year because almost every year in midterm history, outside of literally right after 9-11. But they didn't know about the war and they didn't think it would be this bad. No, what you're saying is they drew the districts into play for Democrats. And I think they would have been fine if it were just bad. Right. It's the laws of Latinos in particular. They were planning for bad, not this.

30:45Ryan Grim:Not catastrophic. But I'm saying it's not just that. It's who they're losing the ground with, specifically the Latino voters, that would make this a disproportionate problem. I mean, it would like I think they're thinking along the lines of like, let's not focus just on this year. They're also thinking for 28, let's say, or if we lose the House by like three or four, the popular vote by three or four percent, what could potentially get us a win nationally? Right. Not what could. So so you're right on that part. But I think they were willing to say, OK, at this point, we would have lost the House anyway.

31:12So this is about maximizing the chance in good years. So maybe for 26, it ends up hurting them and they do better in 28. Right. Especially if they make up ground with Latinos again. But for this year, there's a possibility they lose seats, which is crazy given how much advantage they have. In my forecast, they're on track to lose a seat right now, which I did not realize it was that dramatic. And in Florida, they're on track to just hold ground, which was also really surprising for me.

31:38Ryan Grim:Ryan, I'm actually kind of curious your insights into Florida because you have a lot of people in your life, personally and professionally, with connectivity down there. I've been talking to this candidate, Nicole Laughlin, who's actually in the district that they show the 25-point shift based on the New York Times polling there. And it's represented a long time by Mario Diaz-Bellart. This is the type of district that you would think, no way, you know? And when I started speaking with her, I was like, you're gonna have to show me some possibility that you have a chance of this seat before I start taking this seriously.

32:08Ryan Grim:And this poll made me really pay a lot of attention, the one from the New York Times showing this shift. And when I talked to her, because her district is something like 70 % Latino, and there's a lot of Venezuelans in her district. She said that they're very upset with what has happened in Venezuela because these are the type of people who want to see the regime overthrown. Right. But they did not want Delce Rodriguez to still be in charge. So that has kind of taken the bloom off the rose of Trump's hawkish approach both to Venezuela and to Cuba. And then you layer on top of that, Venezuelans and Cubans in particular have long received sort of deferential treatment, even from Republicans, when it comes to immigration.

32:48Ryan Grim:And that has not been the case under the Trump regime either. So I think that has also changed some of the orientation towards Trump and his immigration policies where it's like, oh, you were talking about us, too. Didn't get that before. Yes, they were very convinced. And for legitimate reason. they supported Trump. Like they donated to him. They voted for him. They wore the red hats. Trump loved that he got the support from the Cuban, the right wing Cubans and the Venezuelans. And so they thought that the ice crackdown was going to go against other people. And they have been, they have felt shocked and betrayed that it is coming after them as well.

33:32And there is a level of racism among a lot of kind of right wing Cubans and Venezuelans toward other Latino groups that creates this situation where you're like wait a minute oh you see us as just like them how dare you how dare you treat us like them who they treat with total contempt

33:57Ryan Grim:or like Afro Caribbean groups or Haitians oh my god beyond beyond like so yes they they did not think that the crackdown would hit them it's hitting them and they are right and exactly they they're not even getting the liberation of venezuela yeah out of it all the chato is not there it's just getting looted and then delsey gets becomes the president who they don't like either right and then they're glad that rubio is choking cuba but no cuba's still the cuban government's still there yeah and And I'm wondering, too, Logan, if there's a kind of a—I mean, it's a very different dynamic in southern Texas where, like you said, a lot of working-class people.

34:40Ryan Grim:But it's, you know, a lot of families that have been here for generations and generations. And so there isn't—it's a different group than, you know, Latino, like, newly arrived immigrants. And there are a lot of people who work for Border Patrol and are actually quite, you know, relatively hawkish on the border. But I think there is a similar dynamic of just the level of racism and cruelty that's coming. It's like, oh, this is also about us. Like, we're also being targeted here, even though there had been a lot of support for a sort of strong enforced border and the mass deportation policies, etc.

35:17Ryan Grim:And then really, I think the big mover is the economic factors that you were pointing to there. Yeah, you know, I'll be honest, Crystal. Sometimes I'm surprised by how much folks in like Maine or Michigan will be talking about how much the chaos of the border affects them. I think it's fair for people in southern Texas to say that because it does there. And that's a big reason they prioritize it so much. But they weren't asking for the other extreme with all of this cruelty. And it's not shocking, even though it seems to be surprising some on the president's team, that if you persecute a community, if you make them feel unsafe in their own homes, they're not going to be happy about it.

36:00Mont, let's talk real quickly about this new poll from The New York Times. They have Abdul El-Sayed up, I think, four. They have Pappas up by like five in New Hampshire. So Democrats happy about that. But they have Susan Collins up 49, 46 in Maine. Maine suffering from heating oil crisis. Maine suffering from the trade war with Canada. Yet Susan Collins maintaining a lead. What's your assessment there? Boy, I would never, my mom don't know how this is the Democrats favorite in the Senate. I don't know where it's going to be after I add this Maine race. It's already, I think, in Toss of Terror.

36:39We're going to go back into it if it isn't right now. You have 67 percent. Yeah, it's going back to toss up to under 65 for sure. And I think that I never thought a year ago that I would say that Democrats would be favored to win the Senate with Susan Collins having a really good chance to win anyway. But the reality is she is Democrat, Republican's Joe Manchin. She's outstanding at winning races and overperforming. She has a long record of breaking with her party in a way that you can point to plenty of votes where she hasn't, especially this term of confirmations. But she has a lot that she can say.

37:15And she's very good at finding the right argument at the right moment to say, like, that library over there, it's because of the funds that I brought in or this vote I did to save parts of Obamacare, et cetera. Right. And we kind of have now a reverse grant grant platner in the Democratic nominee. He doesn't have any scandals. He's kind of more of a normal politician and he's progressive. So I think a lot of folks thought in the rush of things he'd be a good replacement. But he also is the anti grant planner and they didn't necessarily have the charisma either. They're the ability to move people.

37:42And so I don't think he's turning people away, like running and screaming or anything. But he doesn't, you know, it might not be enough to beat Collins. Now, he absolutely can win. I still think you've got to choose his side. I would choose his. But she's good at this.

37:59Ryan Grim:Yeah. Yeah. And on the Democratic side, it's so messy and the campaign is so lackluster and a major financial advantage for Susan Collins. I do wonder if after this latest corruption scandal factors, because very likely this polling was done before that hit, I wonder if that moves voters as well. We'll have to see because it's so contrary to their image of her and their associations with her. So we'll see. Last thing I'll say is this was interesting. And I think, you know, as I'm looking at the polls, because, look, we've had crazy Iowa polls before. We've had midterm cycles before where you're like, oh, my God, this Kentucky is in play.

38:35Ryan Grim:Look at this poll. and then it turns out to be a 30-point blowout for Republicans or whatever. What is really making me feel like this could be different is the way the Republicans are behaving. And this is the latest example of this. So Roger Marshall, who is the senator in Kansas, said this week and I, this in post, he put this out yesterday on Twitter. He said, when ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement. Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone. Working together keeps officers and residents safe. I'm closely following what's happening.

39:04Ryan Grim:In southwestern Kansas have been direct contact with Secretary Mullen, local law enforcement, as ICE executes warrants in order to keep Kansans safe. So kind of pushing back on ICE enforcement in Kansas, this comes as you've got candidates who are suddenly, you know, who have been in favor. Mike Rogers has been in favor of the Iran war for 20 years. Suddenly, I don't like this war at all. We need to stop it. We've got to do something about gas prices. Ashley Hinson voted for the war multiple times. Last week. Suddenly, all of a sudden. Including last week. I oppose this. This is terrible. I don't support this at all.

39:35Ryan Grim:The way that Republicans are behaving in this sort of panicked fashion and even going so far as to push back on ice in Kansas, that is to me an indication that they at least believe that the polling is real and that they are in that kind of trouble. Yeah, absolutely. I would say two things to that, right? One, that will help them to do those types of separations but only help them so much because voters aren't stupid. It's the same thing people were saying about Democrats or Latino voters. If you're only checking in like three months before the election, they're kind of like, where were you? Well, if you're starting to disagree with Donald Trump on ICE or on the Iran war, but you've been there all the time, they're going to be thinking, you know, it's only a Google search away, a quick question on chat GPT away.

40:17Like, why are you doing it in late September? It's not going to seem like a coincidence if they're paying some attention. No, not everyone is. And that's why it can work to some degree. The second thing I would say is there is a huge difference between this and 2018, and it's about the map. 2018, 2024, those are the maps from hell for Democrats because somehow they kept winning these deep red states in ways that were just impossible as the country was getting more polarized to keep up in a blue wave. And eventually the magic was going to wear off. It started in 2006, one of their best cycles ever, kept it in 2012 as these guys narrowly just barely survived.

40:50And then they lost most of those seats in 18 and 24. This is the map that they want this cycle on. They finally might have the timing right because there is a lot of soft red territory. Right. I don't mean soft as in like just barely over the edge. I mean like places that are like somewhere between six to like 15 points more Republican. Like Alaska. Like Alaska. And that's new. Alaska and Kansas are the two states that have moved the most towards Democrats. Kansas has been trekking along at a slow rate towards Democrats year after year after year. And so it was like not enough for them to be able to win normally.

41:25If this continues, Kansas could be a swing state. Just because it's moving doesn't mean a world of perpetuity. But if you're talking about 12 years from now, it could become a swing state. But this might be the cycle where it happens, where now it used to be a state that was like 25 points to the right. I think it's now like 14 or so.

41:38Ryan Grim:Yeah. So I think Republicans are still favored there, but they have a really good candidate. Democrats that are religious really do seem to overperform with being able to win some conservatives over. And I mean, they have the preacher of the largest Methodist church in America who has done, he's kind of like Tallarico in a way in that he has a belief in a type of Christianity that emphasizes a lot more about helping the poor. That's what his church has done. They have these huge programs to help children when they can't afford books, when they need beds, et cetera. And so for folks that are looking for that type of Christianity that are naturally conservative, it's probably part of the reason they're naturally conservative.

42:13This is something they're not seeing often from some of their Republican leaders, especially in this term as they cut food stamps and Medicaid. And what about Alaska? Mary Peltola, New York Times out with a ridiculous story trying to make her look like a bad boss. Yeah, I mean, I do. Don't get me started. I do have friends on the Hill who have been treated poorly and I do have empathy for that. But I also think that all of us know someone that has lost their mother or their spouse. Have some grace. Have some humanity. It's hard to be on your A game mentally and to not lose it at people sometimes when you're going through the single toughest moment of your life.

42:46Ryan Grim:Who am I ?ness has not lost it at people sometimes. Yeah. And these campaigns are very consequential. They're high stakes. Yeah, her husband died in a plane crash. And then her mother died within weeks. I can't even imagine what that would feel like. And in a plane crash, like losing someone to cancer is a horrible thing. But at least you have time to repair. A plane crash, the randomness of that. I think that makes it hurt twice as much. And then to wait until September of a Senate election year to air your grievances about how she treated you and the depth of her grief. I don't know what they're doing.

43:15I always get yelled at for not having more sympathy for the kids.

43:19Ryan Grim:They're not kids. They're adults. Yes. Very true. Very true. Anyway, do you think Mary Peltola, like, I feel like this is her year. Yeah, I think it isn't helpful for her, obviously. This? I don't know. I don't know how much it hurts, though. You read it, you're like, she seems like a real person. Yeah. This was not Amy Klobuchar stuff. This was just like kind of normal person. This just came out. So the thing of my barometer in D.C. is I have to be careful how much I listen to my friends here because it does lean left. I have to hear what people that don't like Democrats say that are like put open to voting for them because everyone I've talked to feels the same way you do.

43:55I just need like an extra day or two before I can have those conversations that just came out. My instinct is that you're right.

44:01Ryan Grim:Our conservative voters are going to be really like, she said the R word. That's it. I was about to vote for her. It's really if you're looking for excuses to not to marry. That's hard for me to imagine. I don't know. Yeah. The reason I think I have some caution is I do think that people are more freaked out by women being abusive or angry bosses than they are about men. I don't think they like it when men are like that. But the consequence is a lot higher. Yeah. Although, to be fair, Klobuchar is extremely popular. That's a very good point. I mean, I don't think she was, I don't think her presidential campaign was ever going anywhere.

44:35Ryan Grim:I don't think that that was like the death blow to it. But people freaking love that lady in Minnesota. In Alaska, the only like timid, courteous women like Sarah Palin. Right. No, you guys make a good point. And maybe the people that really care are Democratic primary voters, more so than the general electorate. Yeah, true. And I saw people, liberals online being like, you know, gay men who were like, she can call me that for it. I don't care. Just win. So I think that's where a lot of Democrats are at this point. Logan, we could talk to you forever. Thank you so much. We'll have you back next week.

45:03Ryan Grim:So we'll continue to talk to you. A conversation will continue. Always appreciate your insights. Always appreciate being on, guys. Thanks.

45:11Chinese Premier Xi Jinping arrived at Joint Air Base Andrews last night, gifting us with just an absolutely incredible meme. Did you see this, Crystal? So he's standing out the tarmac with our glorious leader, our fearless leader. and here we go plane flies over top he's we're the the humiliation that continues to be laid up at the feet of the american people just knows no end uh chairman she who as many people know grew up in a cave literally like he lived in a cave after the cultural revolution for a long period of time. Not wincing at the airplane flying over top. I almost, first I saw it, I was like, this has to be AI.

46:05Somebody just being a little bit mean to Trump here.

46:09Ryan Grim:Trump's face is ridiculous there too. But no, indeed. So they will be meeting this afternoon. They have then a ball without the ballroom, right? At the White House. They'll have a state dinner where there will be a whole host of big tech titans and AI people trying, I guess, trying to schmooze with Chairman Xi. Meanwhile, Masoud Przeskian, the Iranian president, spoke at the UN rather in passion speech. Let's roll a little bit of that. Atomic and nuclear bombs are in the hands of the Israeli regime, but the inspectors are requested to come to Iran. Israel has murdered savagely over 70 ,000 innocents in Gaza, but Iran, while behind the table of negotiation, was bombed.

47:02Israel has the bombs, has weapons of mass destruction, not a member of the non-proliferation treaty during her shameful life has not allowed a single inspection, but they are rewarded by all the means necessary for them to be able to bomb any capital in the region at will. You know, Crystal, last year when Pazeshkin was in New York for the same week of UN meetings, I was in a press briefing with him.

47:27Ryan Grim:Yeah. And he was talking about the recent books that he'd read. He's big. He's big into literature. And he was. That's what Trump discusses in his meetings as well. Yeah. And he was waxing very poetic about life. And he really gave off this sense. And I remember this kind of an eerie feeling of feeling, feeling like I was in the room with a walking dead man. Like that somebody, it was somebody who knew he was going to be assassinated at some point soon. And he didn't know when. Wow. And he didn't want it. He said, I don't want this to happen. Like, this is not what I want. but there's all he also i think saw no like i suppose he could run to russia or something and try to like live out his life that way but he didn't want to do that and he was just a literature loving politician who happened to win the iranian presidential election at the time when all of a sudden the u.s is deciding it's going to assassinate everybody who's involved with the Iranian government.

48:33It was such an eerie feeling. It's just like, this is so crazy. And yet, here he is a year later back in Iran. And I remember we kept thinking, okay, Trump is meeting with Xi September 24th. This has been on the books for months. We're like, surely he has to have this war wrapped up by then. Right. It would be too embarrassing and too weird and get in the way of his agenda that he has with Xi for this still to be going on. I don't know why we thought that because clearly he still can be doing it. And he is.

49:14Ryan Grim:Yeah. And Pazeshkian still alive. Now they murdered most of the government, but he survived. And here he is again. Yeah. And I think at the time of the MOU, there was this sense of this is probably this is basically a surrender document, as John Mearsheimer calls it. However, this is the best possible option. And can Trump sublimate his ego enough to hold the L? And that was always the question. And I was pretty skeptical that he would be able to. But on the other hand, you look at it, well, the other option is also impossible. So now we're in this in-between zone where the economic pressure continues to ratchet up.

49:59Ryan Grim:You know, Trump, for all of his talk about, oh, I don't care about the midterms, who cares, and even said something to that effect in his U.N. speech, clearly does. If he's thinking of doing some, well, damn it, we've got to do something insanity with a diesel export ban. And, you know, also floating all sorts of like election rigging schemes and all these sorts of things and doing his RNC down in Texas. Like, clearly he does care. So I think, you know, the sense that now the midterms are this very consequential date has become quite prominent, whereas previously we're thinking about this deadline of meeting with Xi as a very prominent date.

50:34Ryan Grim:I'll say also this morning the markets are reacting to the fact that there was apparently some sideline meeting with the Iranian president that appears to have resulted in absolutely nothing, no surprise there. So whatever hopium was floating around out there that, oh, maybe this will be the beginning of some restarted talks, I think has been already pretty crushed. Right. And so that's a good point that people who are looking at the midterms as some reason that is going to force him to end this should reflect on how we were looking at the meeting with Xi as a reason that he would end this. and yeah the the iranians seem to have baked in an assumption that he's not going to end it and they're just going to have to last for two years yeah well little more than two years until he's out of office due to term limits and presumably replaced by somebody who ends the war that's that seems to be their best thinking at this time well at least as far as i can tell and you can And correct me if I'm wrong, but their analysis of what America is likely to do has been pretty prescient.

51:42Ryan Grim:Yeah, I mean, going back to what you were saying about last year, the Iranian president, I'm probably going to get murdered. Not saying that outright, but that being the vibe. And while he was not personally assassinated, there was certainly a desire to assassinate him and much of the top leadership was. We're also getting a greater look now at some of the horrific impacts of this war on our own service members. We've got more details, but C3 up on the screen about the U.S. carrier group, the Lincoln that we did. You know, we covered so much reporting on the horrific conditions, how long they were, you know, they were out and just the suffering on board.

52:19Ryan Grim:Now we know that there were eight sailors as part of the carrier group who attempted suicide during this deployment, which is wild. And this is not, you know, this is not inside reporting. this was told to Congress by the acting Navy Secretary Hong Kao based on questioning from a member of Congress. So just horrific to imagine. And also, obviously, in terms of our capacity to sustain this conflict, you know, it's not only the USS Lincoln that was that the crew members were suffering. This speaks to the fact that, number one, our bases were obliterated. And so our plan for provisioning and supplying these ships was also obliterated.

53:00Ryan Grim:And the fact that we are stretched so incredibly thin here that we are requiring service members to have this length, extraordinary, unprecedented length of deployment and what that does to them, what that does to our equipment, et cetera. So it's a sign of how poorly planned this was and also how this did not go according to whatever plan existed to begin with. Yeah. And the bond market continuing to just blow up and put up C4 up to 5.125 % on the 10-year yield, highest in an extremely long time. I can put up C5, New York Times is a big, biggest jump, biggest one-day jump. And you can just look at the chart there, like absolutely brutal.

53:47And what, if you may or may not know this about the bond market, when interest rates go up, the price of bonds goes down. That's because if you hold a bond with a lower yield, it's now worth less because you can go out in the market and get the same type of bond with a better interest rate. So the one that you're holding is worth less. So in other words, if two weeks ago, when interest rates went to 5%, you went out and bought some 10-year bonds. You have taken a bath on those bonds. Like what you bought is worth a lot less, which means people are getting burned buying U.S. government debt. And the more people get burned buying U.S.

54:33government debt, the less people want to buy it.

54:34Ryan Grim:Yeah. We already have a situation where gold has overtaken U.S. treasuries as being held by central banks around the world. This obviously ties in also to mortgage rates as well. So, you know, I saw, I think it was a Fox Business host who was questioning a Republican and was saying, look, you got mortgage rates of 7 percent. You got gas at these high prices. You know, you got inflation going up. How can you possibly present to the American people that this is all fine and these are the golden years. America's back. And I don't think that person had a very good answer to that because these are the things that, look, you can look at the stock market.

55:14Ryan Grim:Stock market's doing great. But the things that people are actually dealing with in their day-to-day life, can I afford a house? Can I afford to fill up the gas tank on my car? Can I afford beef at the grocery store? Or am I reduced to beans and eggs or whatever the secretary is pushing this week. Those are the sorts of things that people have a daily experience with and you can't gaslight them on. Even if, let's say that some miracle occurred and there was some massive breakthrough and things started to get better, there's also going to be an overhang economically and an overhang politically because what we saw with Kamala Harris when she lost is inflation was getting, was much better and it was headed in the right direction.

55:51Ryan Grim:But because people had been so dissatisfied with what had gone on for the years of the Biden presidency, not just here, but around the world, incumbents really face this massive backlash and punishment for their stewardship of the economy. It is so painful to look at charts and data from February of 2026, right before Trump launched the war. Yeah. Everything getting better, everything moving in the right direction, mortgage rates coming down, inflation coming down, unemployment, jobs broke. He just needed to do nothing. Yes. Just like don't do the ballroom. Don't do the. Yeah, just do your ballroom, do the Trump, you know, whatever the arch and the Kennedy Center.

56:31Ryan Grim:Like, just do that bullshit. But if you're doing that bullshit and I actually think that is an undersold part of how much his ratings have cratered and why there is some erosion even among his base is you have on the one hand him obsessing over the gilded ballroom while gas prices are going up. And he is saying, go eat eggs. Good luck. Yeah.

57:07This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.