A BLUE TSUNAMI - with Mark Halperin

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0:15You are listening to an ARK Media podcast. Look, it's a repudiation of the president and the way he's governed on a range of issues. And I think the one that's most under discussed so far is if you look at most of the issues with one big exception that put the president and his party on the wrong side of the electorate, it wasn't because he went too far to the right. It's because he wasn't populist enough. The very same issues that angered Democrats and independents also angered a lot of MAGA. What are those issues? They don't like the war. They don't like the high prices that come from the war.

0:46They don't like the way he handled Epstein. They don't like the way he's made a lot of money and his family has made a lot of money while he's in office. It was just a big anti-establishment. And the irony, of course, is Trump is president because of populism. And last night he was fully repudiated because of populism.

1:15it's 7 a.m on Wednesday November 4th here in New York City it's 2 p.m on Wednesday November 4th in Israel before we get started one quick housekeeping note on Wednesday November 11th call me back we'll record a live episode at the Israel Hayom Summit at the Intercontinental Hotel in Times Square here in New York. Israel Hayyom is one of Israel's leading newspapers. It's a source I rely on quite regularly. And it's also where our media contributor, Amit Segel, serves as chief political analyst. Amit will be on stage with us. The timing is hard to beat. It will be two weeks after Israel's election and one week after our midterms here in the US.

1:56And of course, all of this against the backdrop of anticipated escalation in tensions with Iran. The summit is a full-day event focused on the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship with speakers including former Mossad director Dadi Barnea, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, and Ambassador Yehuda Kaplan, who is U.S. Special Envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. Dr. Miriam Adelson will also be in the audience and on stage. If you're in New York, come join us. Follow the link in the episode description and use promo code ISH50. That's for Israel Hayom. That's ISH50 for 50 % off the registration. And if you can't make it, we'll be airing this as an episode of Call Me Back in the coming weeks.

2:42Now on to today's episode. Last night wasn't just a blue wave. It was a blue tsunami. Democrats didn't just take back the House and Senate. As of this morning, they've secured at least 228 seats in the House of Representatives, well past what's necessary to win a majority, and are on track to a shocking 240 and possibly even 250 seats, and 54, which could become 55 or 56 seats in the U.S. Senate. They won in places Republicans considered untouchable for Democrats from Texas to Kansas to South Carolina. Two years after Donald Trump's extraordinary political comeback, American voters seem to have delivered an equally extraordinary rejection of his presidency.

3:31In Michigan, Abdul Al-Sayed, a fierce critic of Israel, in fact, he doesn't even recognize Israel's right to exist, won his Senate race. We've never had someone with these views on the U.S.-Israel relationship in the U.S. Senate before. And candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America scored victories across the country, including several congressional seats here in New York. But what exactly did American voters reject last night? And what did they actually express support for? And what does this mean for Israel? as the Democratic Party's progressive wing will certainly gain influence.

4:07And looking ahead to 2028, what does this mean for the Democratic and GOP presidential primaries? To make sense of this political earthquake and try to get an understanding of where things may go from here, we're joined by longtime political journalist and analyst Mark Halpern. Mark is the editor-in-chief of Two-Way and the Worldwide News Premium newsletter. I'm a consumer of both products. He's also the host of his own podcast. He's also, as I said, longtime political journalist at ABC News and Bloomberg News and Time Magazine and the co-author of bestselling books about presidential elections.

4:45Usually our Wednesday episode, the one you're listening to now, is only released to ARK Plus subscribers. And then we release it on Friday to the main Call Me Back feed. But we are releasing today's episode to everybody as a public service. If you like this early access experience, we encourage you to subscribe to ARC Plus so you can always get these episodes two days before they go out on the main feed. My conversation with Mark right after this short message. Hi, I'm Daniel Hartman, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. And I'm Yossi Klein-Halevi, senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute.

5:23What's more important, to be feared by your enemies or morally true to yourself? Should Israel strive to be a nation among nations, or should it accept the fact that it is now a fortress apart? What do Israelis and diaspora Jews owe each other? If you're Jewish. Or a friend, an ally. These questions have been gnawing at you these past few years. For some of you, like for us, these questions have been keeping you up at night. And for some, they've been simmering in the background, waiting for answers. But dilemmas don't always have clear answers. What they do deserve are honest and respectful debates.

6:00And as it happens, Yossi and I love to challenge each other to get to the bottom of things. We look at current events through a lens that speaks to us most deeply, a Jewish lens. So if today's Jewish dilemmas are on your mind, tune in to our conversation on For Heaven's Sake, a partnership between ARC Media and the Sholem Hartman Institute. You can find For Heaven's Sake on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you there. And we're back with Mark Halpern. Okay, Mark, quite a night. Since you and I are sleep deprived, I'm going to let you navigate me through what actually happened.

6:42So Americans voted yesterday. Democrats took the House and the Senate. They flipped many red states. They won in places that I thought, while they were likely to win, I thought it was going to be a lot closer. What's your overall impression of the election results? It's honestly, it's too big to describe it. I would compare it to what's going on with AI. We all know there's 100 extraordinary stories there, and it takes a while for the human brain to get their arms around it. I think you got to include in your litany of what happened to governor's races, where now it's not of the 10 most populous states will have Democratic governors, And all the presidential battleground states will have Democratic governors.

7:19In addition, the down ballot races, every statewide office in Texas where they haven't had a statewide officer in 30 years is now will now be a Democrat. The state legislators, the political cultures that were so red in places like Ohio, Texas, Georgia will now all be Democratic dominated. Look, it's a repudiation of the president and the way he's governed on a range of issues. And I think the one that's most under discussed so far, but I'll be talking about it a lot today, is if you look at most of the issues with one big exception that put the president and his party on the wrong side of the electric, it wasn't because he went too far to the right.

7:55It's because he wasn't populist enough. The very same issues that angered Democrats and independents also angered a lot of MAGA. What are those issues? They don't like the war. They don't like the high prices that come from the war. They don't like the way he handled Epstein. They don't like the way he's made a lot of money and his family has made a lot of money while he's in office. They don't like the data centers and the kowtowing to billionaires. These are all populist MAGA issues that I hear about from MAGA people on two way every day. And they're also the issue. A lot of issues the left doesn't like and independence don't like.

8:24So the Republican Party and the Democratic Party and all these governors, as they as they make a lot of policy and the new Congress, they're going to have to decide is the lesson for them that everybody should be a Sanders Trump, old Trump populist or not, because that's what carried the day. Those issues. So one exceptions, tariffs, where populists like the tariffs on both the left and the right and the establishment doesn't. But otherwise, it was just a big anti-establishment. And the irony, of course, is Trump is president because of populism. And last night he was he was fully repudiated because of populism.

9:00Were you surprised by the results? No, not in the least. I've been reporting it for almost a month, talking to Republicans. What I'm actually surprised at is almost no one besides me, I'll just say with as much modesty as I can muster, almost no one was touting this. And I said, this is likely to happen, not a prediction, not something I was rooting for, but just talking to my sources in both parties. This is not a hard one to explain. The president was unpopular and seen as not doing a good job on the issues voters cared most about, primarily the economy. So I'm not surprised by a single outcome.

9:34I'm sort of surprised by the fact, as always happens in a tsunami, political tsunami. There were some survivors like the governor, the new governor of Florida, the reelected senator in Florida. But no. But you got to wonder, Mark, had the Democrats decided to really invest in Florida, which they didn't. Who knows what would have happened? Invest at all. Invest at all. One of the crazy stories of this cycle is the Republican billionaires and one trillionaire came in big and kept the party from being blown out even more. Most of the Democratic money stayed on the sidelines. And if they had put a little money into Louisiana, they almost won the Senate seat in Louisiana.

10:10If they had put a little money in for David Jolly, who was outspent by tens of millions of dollars, they would now control all 10 of the biggest governorships. And and they'd have at least one more Senate seat, maybe two. okay michigan was a race that you and i talked about back in august i during that conversation i and i was struck by the reaction i got to it because a number of folks i guess were not as dialed into the following point you and i made together which which was that if el sayed wins in michigan the implications for 2028 are extraordinary the implications for the future of u.s policy in the middle east are far bigger than anything you know mom donnie as mayor of New York City yells and screams about.

10:50I mean, we're in a whole new world. So let me just say we are in a whole new world. It was a race that I was watching closely, you were watching closely, and many of our listeners of this podcast are watching closely. It was seen as a test of, you know, whether Democrats were taking a huge gamble by backing candidates like Al-Sayed. He won. He didn't win by as wide a margin as his peers did in states that have similar demographics to Michigan. And he didn't win probably by the same margin that someone like Haley Stevens would have won by. She would have won by 10 or 15 points likely. But I don't think anyone will remember that.

11:33They'll say they threw everything at Al Sayed. Al-Sayed ran on an agenda that many on the right and even on the center and even the center left said could never get elected, A, and B, especially not in the heartland, not in a swing state, a swing presidential state, not in a state that Donald Trump won twice. That's all people will be talking about. What's your read of that race and its outcome? I'll say something reassuring to your audience, which last time I know I got a lovely reception for my appearance, but I know a lot of people were troubled by the realities I was sharing. I think the totality of the results and the fact that there'll be so many new Democratic senators who may share some of his issue positions, but not his style, really dilutes the impact of his victory.

12:18I don't think he's going to be nearly as powerful. I don't think he'll be as nearly as big a threat, in part because there are so many other Democratic senators, new senators coming in who don't share his views in their totality. And because they're all conciliators. They're all people who want to get along with the other party. Last night, Abdel El-Said in his victory speech attacked and mocked Mike Rogers. He attacked and mocked the vice president. And I think he's going to have trouble being as influential as he would have been had he been one of a handful of winners. and I think stylistically, I just don't think that's going to be an effective way to be influential.

12:58Now, he could still run for president if Sanders and AOC don't. He'll still get a lot of attention from the press. He'll still have a megaphone, but I don't think he's going to be the center of gravity of the new class as he would have under other circumstances. But I say that with a little bit of humility because I could be wrong. His positions turn out to draw the base support that would sway others. But my current view is that's not going to be the case. So just to just to explain this, because we have, as Alana often reminds me, we have an audience, a large audience outside the US. I just want to put this in context.

13:33Yes, sir. For folks, what you and I, Mark, talked about in August was that if Elsie had won, he would be like an N of one in national politics and democratic politics. And that would contribute to this kind of rocket that his career would begin to really advance, the path to advance on. And I think what you're saying now is there are a lot of LCAEs that won LCAEs. Now, not LCAE in the way that the people listening to this podcast, I think, are worried about, but there are a lot of interesting, unexpected Democrats who won in places they shouldn't have won. So to give an example, the Democrat won in Texas.

14:10I can't remember. Who's the last Democratic senator from Texas? Lloyd Benson? Lloyd Benson. Lloyd Benson, right? who was Mike Dukakis' running mate for president, who was vice presidential running mate in 1988, just to give people a sense. So that's the last time a Democrat has won a Senate seat in Texas. So I think, Mark, what you're saying is like someone like Tellurico who won that Senate seat, he will be very interesting. Yeah, let me go down the list. But in addition to a lot of them winning in red states, let me tell you just the thumbnail biographies of the people Al Sayed will be competing with for attention.

14:41Two ministers, one from a state that hadn't had a Democratic senator in 30 years, One from a state that hadn't had a Democratic senator in 90 years. Two very telegenic ministers, very smart ministers. Kansas and? Kansas and Texas. A para-athlete, two-time gold medalist, a basketball player in a wheelchair from Iowa. A logger from the Canadian, Maine, right on the Canadian border. A female pediatrician, okay? These are going to it could it could be if he wins in Mississippi, a black prosecutor from a deep red state. So he's going to he's not going to dominate. And again, he does not play nicely with the press.

15:23A freshman senator who doesn't play nicely with his colleagues and given his temperament, I don't know that he will. They tend not to be rewarded with access and influence and prime speaking slots, etc. So he showed during the general election that he wasn't willing or didn't want to calibrate his behavior to try to expand his appeal to others. And so, again, those folks are all folks who want to get along with with Republicans, want to get things done for their constituents. I don't know that he's going to have nearly the influence, I thought, last time you and I talked about it. And Mark, when you say he doesn't play well, he's a hothead.

16:03So can you say a little bit? Because, again, I can assume people here haven't been following him like you and I are describing. I've been struck by this throughout the election, and I thought he was going to change his style after the primary. And he didn't. So can you explain a little bit, describe a little bit? He's every day the way Dan Sinor is on his worst day. No, just kidding. You're never you're not like that. You know, when reporters ask him fair, tough, but fair questions in a respectful way, he just lies and he filibusters and he tries to change the subject in a way that's cartoonish.

16:29I mean, it's akin to Donald Trump, but in some ways it's I find it even more cartoonish. He's peevish with people. And again, I don't remember. It's not unprecedented. But to be the greatest night of your professional life, you're a senator elect, first Muslim American senator, and you you mock Mike Rogers. I think he said literally, I hope we never see you in this state again. He mocked J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance is the president of the Senate. And so, again, this is a temperament. We all know people like this. I don't know too many people in elective office like this. It's just not the style usually of people who are trying to get whose jobs depend on other people liking them.

17:08So we'll see how he does. But but and like I said, I don't I don't want folks to who are concerned about his role on the national town square. I don't want people to think he might he might run for president. He might he might be able to whip up anti-Israel sentiment in the Congress. He might. But like I said, in looking at how he's conducted himself and looking at the circumstances of his victory, which was more narrow than some, I'm just not as sure that he's going to be influential. And some of it might be based on Senator Sanders, who supported him, and how much Senator Sanders takes him under his wing and works in coalition with him.

17:43I think that'll be a critical factor. In terms of demographics that delivered for these candidates, obviously there was a surge in Democratic turnout and independents everywhere. Independent voters broke heavily, you know, strongly for the Democrats. What are you seeing so far? And I know it's hard because we're all kind of trying to make sense of these exit polls. But in terms of Republican voters, did we see Republicans in meaningful numbers either just not turn out or actually in some cases break for the Democrat? Yeah, this is all very simple. And again, I talked about this at length before the election.

18:18I just I'm not going to hurt myself patting myself on the back, but I have to. It's all right. You deserve it. I said I said along there are four dials that have to be turned for Democrats to win in red states. And the four dials are more Democrats have to vote as a percentage of the electorate in politics. I call the contributions to vote. So need to be more Democratic votes as an overall percentage of the vote than than say in 2024. for. Second dial that has to turn, it's the one that has to turn dramatically, is many more independents have to vote Democrat than Republican. Then the share of the electorate that comes from the Democrat from the Republicans has to go down, which, of course, happens as the share from the Democrats go up by math.

18:58And then some number, not a big number, but some number of Republicans have to vote Democratic. I'll give you an example, if you'd like. This is in South Carolina, where everybody told me there was a zero percent chance that Annie Andrews, the Democrat, would win. OK, and so here are the comparisons. We're comparing what Kamala Harris got two years ago in South Carolina to what Annie Andrews got. First dial, Democratic share of the electorate went from 36 percent to 40 percent plus four. Not a big change, not a big change, but significant. the Republican share of the electorate of course went down by four mathematically that's going to happen right Republicans who voted Democrat went from five percent to fourteen percent that's pretty significant but this is the big one and this is what I told people this is the one dial that needs to turn a lot and it would require an historic shift in a two-year period independents voted Democrat for Kamala Harris Kamala Harris got 53 percent of the independent vote Annie Andrews got 71 % of independence.

19:54Wow. And that's how she won. All four dials turned, and I'm sure I haven't run the numbers yet, but that's going to be the pattern in all these other states. And I say to people, you go in a place like Iowa, Ohio, Texas, South Carolina, very red states, very Republican states, in some cases forever. All you need to do is turn those four dials, three a little, one a lot, and you go from the Democrat can't win to the Democrat can't lose. This is wild. Mark, to what extent, you mentioned the issues that mattered in this race, and it's an interesting frame that Trump wasn't populist enough. Where does Israel stand on your list of issues, and how much should we read into whether or not Israel, the U.S.

20:36is a relationship, U.S. policy in the Middle East, you can take that wherever you want. There was a referendum on that last night. I don't really see it as a big issue except in the Michigan race. It obviously came up in the main Senate race as well. I think it's up for grabs in the new Congress, in the lame duck session that will begin next week and go to some towards the end of the year. In the new Congress, I think a lot of a lot of decisions related to Israel will be predicated on what the two new majority leader, you know, the speaker, the new speaker of the House and the House, Hakeem Jeffries from Brooklyn, New York.

21:10Fair amount of Jews there. And Chuck Schumer, the new Senate majority leader, Brooklyn, New York. Fair amount of Jews there, both longtime supporters of Israel, but both on that issue, as on so many others in the last couple of years, acted as if the base of the party called the shots and the base of the party is not pro-Israel. The president on Tuesday said no more foreign aid to Israel because that's what Bibi asked for in an interview. Let's see. And obviously it's caught up in two big questions that will impact how much of a front burner issue Israel is and how the American people and therefore the Congress react.

21:44One is the new government. When do we get a new government? What does it look like? What are its policies? And two is the disposition, if there is one anytime soon, of the Iran war, the Iran conflict. I don't I think that the the interplay between those three factors, not just what the president does, but what Schumer and Jeffries do on the sort of the sense of the new Democratic caucuses in the House and the Senate on Israel, how much of a priority they make it Netanyahu or not. And they run conflict. That'll tell the tale. And you could have you could have DB and Trump and Schumer and Jeffries on here as your guests with me, and they wouldn't be able to answer the question either.

22:25Mark, I want to read you in response to that. I want to read you one tweet that Daryl Iza, the member-elect, congressional member-elect from New York, posted. So this is in response to Trump saying he's going to cut off aid to Israel at Netanyahu's request. Ending military aid is not enough. We need to end U.S. taxpayer funding for Israel's war crimes, a full arms embargo, and the Palestinian right of return. Not getting into the merits of all those issues, But let's just say those are those are issues way out. That means Palestinian right of return means not only should there be a Palestinian state.

22:59That's that's table stakes. It's that the Palestinians anywhere in the world are descendants of Palestinians should be able to move into Israel. So you basically can like, you know, swarm Israel's population. My question is, so that's a very extreme position. I shared that with a number of friends of mine, Democratic friends in office, elected officials. they of course were alarmed but the the only comfort they took is that unlike because i you know i i've been concerned democrats were in the house and hakeem jeffries who would be the new speaker of the house you know many would regard him as more moderate he would be squeezed by those on the extreme in his democratic caucus the way kevin mccarthy went through when he was speaker of the house where he was squeezed by some republicans in his caucus and he he had too small of a majority, so he didn't have any cushion, and he had to be overly responsive to those more extreme pressure points.

23:54And I was concerned that people like Daryl Liza would be able to exert the same kind of pressure under Speaker Jeffries. How concerned are you by that? I'm not concerned. Do you think that's a real threat, or do you think the majority is so big in the House that Hakeem Jeffries has so much cushion that he's not going to have to be as responsive to people like Daryl Liza? Right. Let me say a couple of things that go into the factors I listed before. First of all, both Schumer and Jeff and Jeffries will have larger majorities than some thought they would. And and I think that gives them some flexibility.

24:28They don't they can't be. I'll use the shorthand blackmailed or extorted by the new member you cited from New York and others who have those kinds of positions on Israel. They can't say to the leadership, you must give us what we want on Israel. We won't vote for you on other stuff. So that's for those who don't want her to carry the day. That's big. Number two, really, it's and truly and you can see this, your audience can see this as an upside or a downside. The vast majority of members of the House and Senate who are Democrats, vast majority who kowtow to the far left on issues related to Israel don't really feel that way.

25:04They do it because they're afraid of the base. And so if they're given an opportunity such as to say, well, BB is not there anymore, for instance, I think a lot of them will revert back to the decades long, you know, bipartisan consensus of support for Israel. I think that's a real possibility because that's really where they want to be. And because we're past the midterms, they'll be less afraid of the base. But the other big factor that I should have listed before is the fight for their Democratic nomination. You know, I've talked about this. There are seven or eight serious potential candidates who are Jewish Americans, almost all of whom are pretty supportive of Israel.

25:39I continue to be told by many Democratic strategists and analysts and politicians that a Jewish American cannot win the nomination, need not apply. And you're told that by non-Jewish Democratic strategists. Both. Well, Jewish and non-Jewish, both. Yeah. Governor Shapiro weighed in yesterday on El Syed in a way that I think people should find discouraging. It was worse than discouraging, Mark. And I like Governor Shapiro. It was chilling to me. Yeah. OK, so just for our listeners, Governor Shapiro. Yeah. In the last couple of days, Governor Shapiro, for those again, for our listeners who don't know, he's Jewish Democrat, governor of Pennsylvania, reelected overwhelmingly.

26:17always talked about, you know, usually talked about, I think more so after yesterday as a possible Democratic candidate for president in 2028. He was on Kamala Harris's shortlist for vice president 2024. He was asked in the last couple of days, does he support Al-Sayed for the Senate in Michigan? And he, in so many words, I mean, I don't have to go through all the, you know, the throat clearing, but he said yes. I was sad to see that because I know where he stands on these issues. And the fact that even he felt it necessary to check the box and say, I'm with Al-Sayed, was to me an interesting data point in terms of where the conversation is in the Democratic Party.

26:59100%. But once Barack Obama went and campaigned with the guy, the permission structure was there for all Democrats to get on board with him. Not all, but most. Look, even Rahm Israel Emanuel has not been a profile on courage on this. Right. Governor Governor Newsom has not. So I think a big factor will be and I think I think that now the Democratic field will be big. I didn't think it was going to be so big before, but now I think it will be big because they'll see the nomination is worth having. When you say that the nomination is worth having, meaning meaning a Democrat really can get elected in 2028.

27:31It's worth going through it and it's and it's and it's not worth missing the private missing the process for worry that you missed your chance to be president. And if you're someone with that ambition, I really do believe that there is no one, not Pete Buttigieg, a previous candidate who's going to run again, not Governor Shapiro, not Governor Newsom. And those, I think, are the three most likely nominees today, not the other potential candidates who are also Jewish. I don't see a one of them who I could tell you with any confidence would enter this process and say, I'm going to tell the young people in my party who have turned hostile to Israel and others, but particularly young people.

28:06No, that's not right. This is our ally in the region. This is an important strategic ally. It's a democracy. There are many reasons why we've had a long-standing alliance with the country. I want to restore that, and I'm going to fight for that in the heart and soul of this party. I can't tell you with any confidence that a single candidate will do that, and maybe even to the contrary, which is why a big part of why people tell me a Jewish American can't be the nominee. I think the contrary, they'll all be rushing to the left. They'll all be rushing to the anti-Israel left. Now, and this is where those of your listeners and your audience and you have many people in your audience who would fit this, I think people need to pressure them.

28:45If they want them to do this, they need to be told if you want to earn our votes and our financial support and our public support for you, you need to adopt this. This is about the heart and soul, not just for Israel, not just for the Democratic Party, but for the world and for future generations. But as I said, left into its own current political physics, I don't see anybody having that fight. And that's in some ways a lot more important, I think, in terms of settling this in a positive way than is what's going to happen in Congress. We'll be right back after this short message. How people come to understand Israel and Jewish life right now depends on who is telling our story.

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30:35I hope to see you tomorrow.

30:42And we're back with Mark Halpert. Okay, I want to come back to the different candidates for 2028 and what the field will look like and the size of the field has changed. I want to come back to that. But in terms of Trump and the next two years, he will obviously be constrained as any president who loses Congress during the last two years, especially of their second term. Yeah. Gets, you know, gets constrained on domestic policy to some degree on economic policy. But as we've seen historically, what happens in these environments is the presidents where they have much more leeways on foreign policy.

31:17They wind up engaging much more and getting much more ambitious about foreign policy in the last two years of their administration. Interestingly, Trump got very ambitious about foreign policy in the first two years of his term. But what do you think he does now? Do you think – because last night there was some commentary out of Israel, which I thought was – I personally thought was preposterous. Oh, now there's no way Trump will deal with Iran any further. There's no way he'll try to get expansion of Abraham cords or possibly normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. There's no way he'll – he's just going to dial everything back because he's going to be so distracted with all the investigations and everything happening in Washington.

31:58I'm saying because of the investigations or in spite of the investigations and because of everything happening in Washington or in spite of everything happening in Washington, he's actually going to he's actually going to get more engaged in foreign policy. Before last night, the central challenge of the Trump presidency, foreign and domestic, was how to get leverage over Tehran, Beijing and Moscow, with China being absolutely a number one. But leverage over Putin, Xi and the Ayatollah, a number one, most important thing. It's been the most important thing for the entire presidency, actually. And it's still the most important thing.

32:32And yesterday's results do nothing in any significant way to either help or hurt Trump with that project. it maybe will hurt him on the margins because congress will will be chipping away at his authority as best they can but i i think i think as you said he's been this is what his focus has been except for the ballroom in the kennedy center this is what his focus has been for the entire two years or nearly two years so i think he'll keep focusing on it but he doesn't have any solutions they don't have a solution for the straight he doesn't have a solution for for the regime he doesn't have a solution for china and russia's leverage over him just as they had leverage over his and over his predecessors.

33:10So those three projects are still paramount. But I don't know that yesterday helps him in any way. It probably hurts him on the margin. So he's got a big challenge. But yeah, he'll still can spend a lot of time on those because the economy of the United States can't take off until he solves Iran. And to his credit, he also believes in the original mission, which has got to keep Iran from being a nuclear power. He also believes he's got end Russia-Ukraine war conflict, and he's willing to suck up to Putin for that. And then again, the ultimate goal of the entire four years in every respect was beating China in the existential struggle for supremacy by beating them at points in the term and then negotiating a settlement where the world gets carved up and the United States does not need to constantly be trying to check China diplomatically in terms of intelligence, in terms of espionage, in terms of military, diplomatic, etc.

34:01Those projects are done and made a lot of progress on those projects and time's running out. Just to underline this point, there were many pointing out, critics pointing out last night, actually quite disappointingly, even some critics from inside Israel who said, oh, this means, you know, Trump is going to resent being pushed into the Iran war by Netanyahu. And this is going to be more damaging for Israel. The fact that he experienced such an electoral a bloodbath in part because of the Iran war and Israel's going to get blamed. This is Trump on Fox News last night, Mark. He said, people may blame it on Iran, but it was very important to do.

34:37I'm paraphrasing here. It was very important to do fully. And he was fully defending his decision that this should have been done a long time ago. And here I'm quoting, I was given the task and I had no choice because they were two weeks away from a nuclear weapon. Others messaged, I reposted that last night. People messaged me this morning saying, that's ridiculous. this, Iran wasn't two weeks away. I'm like, you're missing the point. The point is Trump believed they were two weeks away. And this is a reminder that Trump has been talking about the Iran issue for decades. And the idea that this is something he was manipulated into, if there's ever a moment for him to like say, boy, I took a swing here at the encouragement of our ally Israel, and I'm now suffering politically, he seems to not going anywhere near that.

35:20But yeah, all his predecessors knew that the Iran nuclear threat was an existential problem that had to be solved, not just for Israel and the United States, but for the world. Unless you're a big believer in the Obama agreement, no president got close to solving it. The Obama agreement was a partial solution, but it certainly wasn't a complete solution. And it left Iran in power, the regime in power. And to his credit, President Trump took on the political risk. Now, he thought it would be easier, but for a guy who often does not tell the truth in public, I believe he's telling the absolute truth when he says, I don't regret doing it, even with the political costs, even with the drag it's causing in the economy.

35:57I don't think he regrets doing it because he said, I am not going to be like my predecessors and like I was in my first term and leave office with Iran still possessing a nuclear weapon. OK, Mark, just generally speaking, what do you what do you imagine the Trump presidency to look like over the next two years? No idea. Yeah, I've answered. I've answered all your other questions. You really have. Yeah, but I can't. I have no idea. I think he's going to try to work with Schumer and Jeffries. And I think the base, the Democratic Party is going to say, absolutely not. Embarrass him politically as much as possible to elect a Democratic president, keep a Democratic House and Senate, have the trifecta and get stuff done.

36:32So I assume that's what's going to happen. But I don't know how Trump's going to react to that. He could start offering the bizarre could be open. He could start offering them Obamacare subsidies and restore the Medicaid cuts and, you know, whatever. defund ICE. I mean, who knows? But but it's it's right now. It's again, I say on this topic is to you could book Schumer, Jeffries and Trump and Thune and Johnson as your guests and say and ask that question, Mr. President, in conjunction with these four leaders, what will your presidency be like? He doesn't know idea. He's got no idea because he doesn't know what he wants to do.

37:05He doesn't know what the traffic will bear within his own party, what the traffic will bear with the Democratic Party. It's unknowable. OK, I want to talk to you a little bit about 2028. And I I know it's early days and there'll be names over the next two years that we'll be talking about on the Democratic side that we weren't even thinking about before last night. But generally speaking, how would you sum up the field? I love your eight for 28. Mark, for our listeners, we can link to it in the show notes. He does these regular updates where he does his eight top candidates. What he assesses is the top eight contestants for the Democratic nomination in 2028.

37:38And he's constantly revising it. Maybe, Mark, why don't you summarize for us the most recent eight for 28? that you that you presented, I think, in recent weeks and whether or not you think any of that's going to change as a result of last night. Yeah, I think I alluded to this earlier. I think the three top contenders are and will be, regardless of who runs, assuming they run, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, Pete Buttigieg, the former transportation secretary and Indiana mayor and Josh Shapiro. Now, Buttigieg will run. I don't know that the other two will, but if they do, I think that will be the top tier.

38:09That is my top tier now. I think those will be the finalists. There's three big questions that have to be answered before we really understand the contours of the field. One is, who will the socialist candidate be? I don't think Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are inclined to be the socialist candidate, but I suspect they'll talk now that the midterms are over and say, we must have a strong socialist candidate. Can it be one of us? Do either of us really want to do it? And if one of them wants to do it, I think that will be the socialist candidate. But if they don't have to find one, then that's that's how we could end up with Abdul El-Sad.

38:40And I think the socialist candidate will have a very if it's a strong socialist candidate, we'll have a very good chance to be the nominee. Number two, will Kamala Harris run? My sources are mixed on whether if she does run, she'll be a strong candidate or not. Some say she's the front runner. Some say no. But I think we have to see what happens there. And then I think we have to have the Jewish question answered is it can can a Jew be nominated? Because if you do can't be nominated, I've had I've had months where I think I've had six of the eight slots of the most likely Democratic nominees filled by Jews.

39:08Just you're going to have to answer those three questions before we can truly understand the contours of this field. You know, when Obama, when President Obama was in Michigan 10 days ago campaigning for for Al-Sayed, he had this line. I'm not going to get it exactly right, but the gist of it was just imagine Michigan. You could have in Alyssa Slokin, who's the other senator from Michigan, you could have in Senator Slokin, a Jewish senator and in Senator Abdul Al-Sayed. You can have a Muslim senator. Michigan will be the only state with a Jewish senator and a Muslim senator working side by side, you know, on behalf of the state.

39:44And after last night, I was just thinking, you know, could you see like an John Ossoff, Al-Sayed ticket for the Democrats in 2028? Right. I mean, you can just start imagining the way this could go. I don't think Ossoff's going to run. So, no, really, unless I'm wrong. Yeah, I think family I think his family's kids are too young, I think, in his youth to run. He could change his mind, but I don't think he will based on my reporting. Look, if you took if you took this guy's bio and you took out his his his his temper and you took out his positions on Israel and Jews, he'd be an extraordinarily beloved and fascinating figure by many, including a lot of Democrats who don't like him now.

40:26You know, pluralistically, to have a Muslim senator, fantastic. His bio is quite incredible. His American story is quite incredible. But you can't take away the biographical stuff and the statements and the issue positions and the associations with Hassan Piker. You just can't take those away. And as you and I just discussed earlier, there's no indication that he's trying to sort of remediate those things through changed conduct. So I don't I doubt he'd be on anybody's ticket. But I also know that Michigan is going to play a key role both in the nominating process and the general election. And and he you know, he's a skilled guy with the following.

41:00He may be a kingmaker in both the general election, in both the nomination fight in the general if he doesn't run himself. It's super early days. But in your view, just your media reaction, how this could could shape the 2028 race on the Republican side? I think it's one of the most profound effects of last night. I had thought that J.D. Vance would be with Trump's endorsement, President Trump's endorsement, be the nominee. I think this raises a lot of questions about how he had his path to the nomination. His his his team has been saying for a while is as as I've talked to them and they've talked to others about the prospects of a tsunami.

41:38This is good for us because this gives us a foil. You know, we can now run against, you know, the liberal Democrats in Congress. I think this really complicates thing things for him. And I think now you'll see people like Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis really have an argument to be made about why they should be the nominee ahead of J.D. Vance. And and I think he's going to have to figure out how he talks about what happened. You know, he's not going to be the nominee of the Republican Party. We don't have another election national election before he will if he runs. He stands for denomination. So he's going to have to tell Republicans and the country.

42:15Here's what here's here's what happened. You know, this is what happened. This is where I stand on some of these things, particularly those populist issues where we have strong reason to believe, at least on some of those issues. He's not he doesn't actually stand with the president as a loyal vice president. He has to toe the line of the of the of the Oval Office. But he's not with the president on the war. He's not with the president on on Epstein, how Epstein was handled. He's not with the president, I think, on exploiting the office for for personal financial gain. I don't really know where he is on data centers.

42:48I think he's maybe more in line with the president there, but he's going to have to navigate that. And he may decide navigating that is too complicated. And he doesn't run. I've reported repeatedly that he and he said to me in an interview a few days ago that he may not run. But I think now running is a lot more complicated. And I believe his vulnerabilities if within a Republican nominating contest are put in much sharper relief by what happened yesterday. And do you imagine there being names start popping up that people just weren't focused on, say, like a Glenn Youngkin or just folks that were viewed as kind of out of out of fashion?

43:20Yeah, it's possible. It's possible. It's hard to be an incumbent vice president with the president's endorsement for somebody like Glenn Youngkin. In other words, are they running? It's hard to be it's hard to run against someone. It's hard to run and run and have a reasonable chance to win. Right. Right. So, sure, I could see a world where the Glenn Youngkins of the world look at this. I'm sure they'll look at it. Chris Christie's talking about running. So, yeah, we could go from a field that I thought would basically be Vance and one or two others with very little chance to a more robust field.

43:49I've never done eight for twenty eight for the Republicans because I couldn't get to eight. It's possible that within a couple of weeks I'll start doing it because I'll be able to get to eight. Yeah. And then before we wrap, Mark, so you mentioned that Vance or the people around Vance want to think they have a useful foil, which are these Democrats who, by their calculation, I assume, will overreach and therefore there's a response. so our mutual friend Ron Fournier who's a who was a longtime uh White House uh correspondent for for the AP I think that's where you know him from that's where I know him from and he's from Michigan so he lives in Michigan he moved back to Michigan once he left journalism but he's he writes this substack that I that I read regularly I don't agree with everything he writes but he's done a lot of on the ground reporting in Michigan and he has a keen um incisive political uh reporting eye and i know you've been relying on his on and he's and he was clearly a champion for al say ed i don't think he would um he oh come on he admires he admires his political gifts but i don't know that he's a champion for him to me at least it was hard to not read between the lines and see him rooting for him but whatever we that's that's not the point point of my question i want to read i want to pull up what he wrote late last night okay so he says four things so he wrote this piece in And in Substack, maybe we can link to it in the show notes.

45:10Four things the Democratic Party must do to make tonight's shellacking stick. Okay? So this was his, and I'm not going to read his whole Substack. We won't read it. First, they must accept and address the fact that their party's brand is in the toilet, even as voters hand the major victory. Second, they must avoid overreaching. Third, every Democratic governor and lawmaker elected tonight must deliver on their promises to lower the cost of living while governing competently and cleanly. Fourth, they need a leader in the 2028 presidential race who can repair the party's damaged brand and reform the U.S.

45:44political system. That is a pretty tall order. And I think it raises a point that, you know, despite the shellacking, to use his, to Ron's word, you know, just last night, it's hard to, it's sometimes hard to remember that we, how hard it is to reconcile the fact that the Democrats so overperformed last night. And as Ron says, the Democratic brand, to quote him, is in the toilet. How is that? How do you reconcile those two? And what do you think of his checklist here? They won with a brand in the toilet and no ideas because of the weakness of what they were running against. Because midterms tend to be left to their own devices, referendums on the incumbent party.

46:24I think the opportunity is there for Schumer, Jeffries, the presidential candidates and the donors of the party to create organizations and projects to try to rehabilitate the image of the party, develop policy ideas and to consolidate these political gains. And there's already conversations going on about that. Let's see if they do that. Let's see if they execute on that. The Republican Party and these organizations are fragile in large part because they're so Trump dependent. And and you're going to see a lot of donors, maybe even Elon say we put in hundreds of millions of dollars and we got shellacked.

46:59And it's going to be the opposite for the Democratic billionaires who are going to say we sat this out for the most part and we won, but we left seats on the table. And now we have an obvious route to electing a Democratic president and maybe locking in some of these gains. So let's see if the president, the Democrat elders and leaders read what Ron wrote or think of it themselves and try to consolidate this stuff. I think if they do at a time of vulnerability for the Republican Party and the MAGA movement, they could they could make some real inroads and have a huge impact, not just on 2028, but beyond.

47:34OK, Mark, we will leave it there. Thank you, as always, for this. I know you barely slept, as did I. So next time we have you on, I promise it'll be not at 7 a.m. after you've been up all night. Honored to be on. I know how engaged and intensity your audience is. So I'm always honored to be on your program. And as I head to Zabar's, I'm sure people will tell me, ah, I heard you on Dan's show. My people. Your people. Dan, thank you. Good to see you. All right, Mark. You can do a live podcast there at Zabar's. You'll get a real crowd. All right, thanks. Thanks, Mark. Take care. Thank you.

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