Behind Democrats’ Historic Midterm Win and What It Means for Congress

0:03Yasmin Vossoughian: Hi, everybody, and welcome to Here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Vossoughian. So today on the show, voters delivered a resounding rebuke of President Trump's policies in Tuesday's midterms, handing Democrats clear majorities in the House and the Senate, flipping seats in Maine and Iowa and the Carolinas, even in Texas. So what we have now seen, and this is really important, is a generational remake of the Senate map

0:28Garrett Haake: that is going to change America, not only now, but on into the future.

0:32Yasmin Vossoughian: By the way, it was also this huge night of first, right? You got Keisha Lance Bottoms being elected in Georgia as the first black woman governor, Gina Hina Hossa, the first Latina governor, Peggy Flanagan, the first Native American woman elected to the Senate, and Abdul El-Sayed, the first Muslim senator. My name is Abdul Rahman Mohammed Sayyid.

0:58Yasmin Vossoughian: And I am so proud and honored to stand here as your senator-elect from the great state of Michigan. But the Democratic coalition is large, it's diverse, and it's not very popular, I should say, as a party. So what happens next? Will there be a check on President Trump? And as Republicans point fingers at Trump, who's going to help the party recover?

1:23Yasmin Vossoughian: To talk about what happened and where we go from here, I want to bring in our politics dream team. I got Ryan Nobles, chief Capitol Hill correspondent, Hallie Jackson, NBC News anchor and senior Washington correspondent, and Garrett Haake, chief White House correspondent coming to us from the White House. Sadly, Garrett is not here with us in person, although Hallie and Ryan are.

1:39Ryan Nobles: Hi, guys. Hi. It's so nice to be here with you. It's good to have you. This is so exciting.

1:44Hallie Jackson: Hi, everybody. Hello, hello.

1:46Ryan Nobles: How are you guys feeling? I mean, I could use some sleep if I'm going to be 100 % honest.

1:51Garrett Haake: A little punchy. If I fall asleep, we'll just have to roll with that.

1:54Yasmin Vossoughian: As the results were coming in last night, and this is to all you guys one by one. Ryan, I'll start with you. Like, as the results were coming in, what was your OMG moment? What was the moment that you were like, this is going to be a night for Democrats?

2:07Garrett Haake: So we were on set during our coverage with a former South Carolina governor and former ambassador of the United Nations, Nikki Haley. and she had joined our coverage and was talking about the situation in South Carolina. And at this point, the returns were just starting to roll in. But it was starting to tilt and look like there was a shot that Democrats could win in South Carolina. And listening to just kind of what she was saying on television, I was like, boy, it really seems like Nikki Haley thinks that Annie Andrews could win. And we finished the segment and I leaned over to her and I said, Ambassador, do you really think that Darlene Graham's gonna lose?

2:43Garrett Haake: And she looked up at me and she goes, Ryan, she's going to lose. That was eye-popping to me because, and I think, and I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, but I had been— Do it.

2:50Yasmin Vossoughian: Do it. Garrett knows this. Hallie knows this.

2:52Garrett Haake: I had been increasingly bullish on the Democrats' chances leading closer and closer to Election Day. I kept—my feeling was that their gains were going to be much greater than what we were even anticipating. And everybody was very nervous that there was some sort of pulling error with Republicans. I was nervous about that, too. But I was getting increasingly confident in the idea that this was going to be a big night for Democrats. And when she said she thought they were going to lose South Carolina, that's when I thought this is going to be tsunami type night. We're going to see places that have never voted for Democrats vote for Democrats before.

3:25Garrett Haake: And as we wake up and see the results, that's exactly what happened.

3:29Yasmin Vossoughian: Oh, well, also because like these people didn't just win. They won one. Like there was a there was a spread in a lot of these states, for instance, like Texas. What was your how OMG moment? I know you talked a lot about Kansas going into. Thank you. Oh, Garrett and

3:41Ryan Nobles: Ryan are going to roll their eyes. I'm so sorry. I've been annoying about Kansas for a while. You love the Kansas race. No, thank you. Because I was out there. I just found that to be such an interesting race, Yasmin. So I'm so glad you asked. And that for me, you know, I had gotten some in touch with folks about that race, had gotten some indications earlier in the day that maybe it was like tightening up a bit. I was really curious about it. And then I got a source reached out about a county called Sedgwick County in Kansas. And this was sort of early, you know, earlier in the night we were on set.

4:08Ryan Nobles: So it must have been after like 637, I guess. Looking at the vote count there, very pessimistic about Roger Marshall's chances in that county. And then Kornacki, as if on cue, started talking about that county in Kansas. And when Adam Hamilton went lean dem, not the full projection, but that was part of it. But I think what was, for me, the OMG moment, all of us spend so much time preparing for an election night, any election night. And you talk about various scenarios. And you talk about, OK, you know, what if X happens but not Y? You look, can we draw certain patterns? Can we not infer certain things?

4:40Ryan Nobles: That actually was very easy on election night because it was so clear that this was a monster wave for Democrats. Yeah.

4:50Yasmin Vossoughian: Garrett, what about you? You were out front the White House. Was it like a light flicker inside the White House that made you say, OMG, something's going on? Like, what was your moment?

4:57Hallie Jackson: Well, I would say no. The White House was like creepily quiet for several hours. So as the returns started coming in, just before the polls closed, the president posted a social media post blasting Fox News for how many Democrats they had had on in their coverage. And we did not hear another word, not a peep out of the White House for two hours. And that kind of silence from not just the White House sources, but from the president himself in any context, but especially around an election, is just incredibly rare. So that was a tell for me. But I guess my aha moment, if there was one, I'd had a conversation with a source earlier in the day who'd worked on a bunch of different races as a Republican operative.

5:36Hallie Jackson: And when I called him, he had picked up the phone complaining about another Republican group saying, these guys are already going after me. They said, I didn't spend enough money on economic ads. I was too focused on transgender issues and these social issues. Well, what am I supposed to do? The economy stinks. You know, I can't be out here talking about an economy that's no good. And that was like his way of saying hello. Wow. I was like, so what you're saying is you don't think things are going very well. And this guy had been a big player in a lot of different races. But obviously, I've been watching Texas really closely.

6:04Hallie Jackson: So I had sort of that in my mind when the early Texas numbers started to come in from those like North Texas counties, basically between Dallas and Oklahoma. And those are like very traditionally Republican places. And the numbers looked like there was a mistake, like somebody had moved a decimal point or something. I mean, the numbers for Tallarico were such blowout numbers in places that have been Republican strongholds. Like, I could make an argument to you about like MAGA sort of came from North Texas, like some of the most conservative territory in the country. And all of a sudden Democrats were winning there.

6:33Hallie Jackson: And it was like, OK, all right, these things in combination, like this is going to be a crazy night for Democrats.

6:38Yasmin Vossoughian: We heard from Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer earlier today, the presumptive leaders of the House and the Senate. What did you make, Ryan, of what we heard from them?

6:46Garrett Haake: They're rightfully beating their chests. They want to make sure that everybody gives them all the credit for these massive wins and these massive gains. I mean, heading into these midterms, I would say that both Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer's positions in leadership were not, I wouldn't say in danger, but, you know, they were on the verge of being a problem, especially. Tenuous. Tenuous might be a good way to put it. Thank you, Garrett. And a lot of it was going to depend on the crop of candidates that came in. And so if Chuck Schumer, if it ended up at a 50-50 Senate or if Republicans were ahead, you know, 51-49, I think there would have been a real threat to his leadership.

7:22Garrett Haake: The fact that they blew everybody out of the water and it was largely his hand-picked candidates outside of Michigan that pushed them over the top. Now, all of a sudden, he's sitting in a very strong leadership position. And on the other side, Hakeem Jeffries, there was a real struggle, particularly in a lot of these House races, among the more progressive wing of the party and the more moderate wing of the party. I saw a stat this morning. My friend Daniela Diaz, who works for The Washington Sun, pointed this stat out. The Democratic Blue Dog Caucus, which if you're not familiar with that, that's the conservative wing of the Democratic Party.

7:57Garrett Haake: That was like non-existent in the last two election cycles. It's tripled in size after what happened last night. This incoming crop is not going to be, I mean, there's certainly going to be socialists in this crop, but it's also going to be a very diverse crop of candidates. You rightfully pointed out the type of people that won last night, but also people that come from more moderate and conservative areas. And it's going to make Hakeem Jeffries, I think, to a certain extent, more powerful because all these folks are going to have to row in the same direction in order for Democrats to have success.

8:28Yasmin Vossoughian: Garrett, you know what I thought was interesting, though, about what Chuck Schumer said is, like, I equated it to the way I talk to my kids during their soccer games. Like last weekend, my kid was up like, you know, 2-0 in a soccer game. And they started being like, OK, you know, like high five, like whatever, like Mbappe, Mbappe, like the whole time. And I was like, bro, don't sleep on this. Don't sleep on this because they're coming for you, you know. And like Chuck Schumer kind of made that statement today and saying, essentially, like we now have a test ahead of us over the next two years.

8:54Yasmin Vossoughian: Like we got to prove right to the American people, it seems, that they did this for a reason. Because it's not like they elected Democrats. They actually just made sure this was more of a repudiation of President Trump.

9:08Hallie Jackson: Yeah, I mean, I could make the argument either way on this, because on the one hand, yeah, there are tons of Democratic voters who expect the Democrats they elected to do Democratic stuff. Right. I mean, that's why you vote for the people you vote for. But the reality of Congress is Democrats, despite the gangbusters night they have, do not have 60 votes in the Senate. And they have a Republican president that would have to sign any legislation that they would pass. The second part of your question, I think, really hits it. I mean, to me, this is just a massive rebuke of President Trump and of the MAGA movement.

9:36Hallie Jackson: And I think, you know, I don't know what the long tail of that looks like in Washington, sort of like for what this Congress is going to do. But to me, voters weren't saying like Democrats come to Washington and remake things. They were saying we are throwing the bums out who had anything to do with, you know, making Washington this way. They can make a different argument about some of these state races like Gina Hinojosa in Texas. It's going to have to do some stuff. Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania with his super majorities is going to have to do some stuff. Those are the Democrats who I think are actually going to be most accountable to their voters for, you know, delivering on the stuff that they promised because they're going to have the tools.

10:13Yasmin Vossoughian: I like that Garrett, though, brought up kind of this repudiation of the president as well because I think how, like, you guys were having this conversation last night and I was yelling from my couch. But also because the president said, you know, we had some bad candidates. Like he said that at one point last night in an interview. That he picked. That he picked, right? Okay, fine. But considering what the spread was in the state of Texas, considering who the governor now is, who the governor-elect, I should say, is in the state of Texas, like, I'm not sure John Cornyn actually would have beat a Tallarico in Texas.

10:48Garrett Haake: Susan Collins is the answer to your question. Now, Maine and Texas are not the same thing. But Susan Collins is a traditional Republican, has a direct personal connection with the voters in Maine, much like John Cornyn has with the voters in Texas. And Texas is a lot bigger state, a lot more money spent there. But I think that had Cornyn been in the race, maybe Democrats don't invest in the same level as they do. There's a bunch of questions you can't answer there. But I think, you know, your instincts might be right on this. I, you know, I don't, if you had asked me three days ago, would Texas have been competitive if John Cornyn was in the race?

11:21Garrett Haake: My answer would have been absolutely not. But seeing the results last night, I do think Ken Paxton was a uniquely bad candidate. And that's maybe why it was a, I don't know what it ended up being, a 10 or 8 or 9 point win. Maybe with Cornyn it's tighter. But I wonder, given just how big of a repudiation we saw of Republicans and Donald Trump last night, if even someone like John Cornyn.

11:43Yasmin Vossoughian: It was a 12-point win. 12-point, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

11:45Garrett Haake: If even someone like John Cornyn could have survived.

11:47Yasmin Vossoughian: Yeah, go ahead, Garrett.

11:48Hallie Jackson: I'll take a swing on that, too, because, yeah, I mean, I think Ryan's making the point. The White House is trying very hard to keep the president's fingerprints off these losses. They point to this idea of candidate equality. But even the widely agreed-upon best Republican candidates got beat last night. By what? Ashley Hinson. Ran a great campaign. In everyone's estimation, she got beat. Greg Abbott ran a better campaign than Ken Paxton. He got beat. Susan Collins is never not in cycle. To Ryan's point, she's basically always in a competitive race and she got beat. The White House says candidate quality and environment.

12:21Hallie Jackson: But environment is not like some thing that just sort of floats around that nobody has any responsibility for. And I went rounded around with a White House official today about this. It's like that meme of the guy in the hot dog suit saying, like, we got to find out who did this. Like, it's a product of the president's actions. And so by trying to blame candidate quality, and yeah, some of these people raised like no money. They were bad candidates. That's true. But the environment is clearly the factor that was sort of pressed across all of these different states. And that is the president's responsibility in so many different ways.

12:53Ryan Nobles: Can I just yes, Anne, to both of these points, too? Because just stepping back for a second, I think the way you can think of this, and I'm thinking of some House districts in my home state of Pennsylvania, for example, is that the blue wave was so big that it washed out candidates who might have otherwise hung on, Republican candidates in some of these tough districts, if the wave was smaller. 200, our projection at this moment when we're taping this podcast is like around 258 seats in the House. Dude, I have to tell you, like, you ask Democrats, like, what do you think of the House? Like, 242 would have been a dream, right?

13:28Ryan Nobles: The most ambitious Democrats were saying, maybe we'll get 230, maybe. Yeah, yeah. And like that is so beyond the scope of like the dream that Democrats would have had.

13:37Yasmin Vossoughian: Can I just – so I was thinking about Darlene Graham and as she saw the results come in, I thought, is she breathing a sigh of relief tonight?

13:44Hallie Jackson: Yeah, I mean I never covered her on the Hill, but I did cover her a little bit on the trail. And watching her alongside President Trump at his rally in South Carolina that I covered, I did not get the sense that this was somebody who was living their dream life. You know, like she was not – she's not exactly lighting the world on fire. And in fact, her biggest applause line was one where she brought up her brother's legacy as being sort of to the left of most Republicans on immigration and said, I'm not like him on that. I think we should go much further. We got to throw them all out. That was her biggest applause line, having to basically stab her brother over a part of his political legacy.

14:19Hallie Jackson: And I think the other thing that we heard from the president last night that was kind of a tell, as he was throwing a lot of other Republicans under the bus in some of these phone interviews he did, he mentioned Darlene Graham as someone that he personally felt bad for, that she was trying to run while she was still grieving the loss of her brother. So I don't know. I look at her, again, like I'm not privy to all of her innermost thoughts, obviously, and what she really wanted here as a bit more of a tragic figure, as someone who I think maybe got pulled into this, flew a little too close to the sun, thought this was going to be easy, and then ended up in kind of this disastrous position where she's going to be like a Jeopardy question for, you know.

14:56Ryan Nobles: Let's also remember, though, that race, you know, got kind of nasty, right? I mean, the president deploying, you know, a slur against Annie Andrews on the campaign trail. The culture war issues were big in that race, even though, as Garrett and Ryan know, this was not a culture war election.

15:11Yasmin Vossoughian: No, it was. And it was funny because I wanted to bring that up. Like kind of this idea of identity politics, it didn't play a big role in this election unless it had to, i.e. for defense purposes, for instance, with Abdullah al-Sayed in Michigan, right? But you had a lot of firsts here. You had Keisha Lance Bottoms, right? First black woman governor in America, Byron Donald, Westmore, David Crowley, first black governors of their state, Gina Inahosa, first Latina governor of Texas, Abdul El-Sayed, what? And Chris Pappas. We'll finish, and then I have one more to add. First Muslim senator, Chris Pappas.

15:39Yasmin Vossoughian: I was getting there. Okay, I'm sorry. Hallie Jackson, first openly gay senator. Let the woman work, Hallie.

15:44Garrett Haake: Chris Pappas is a first openly gay male senator.

15:46Yasmin Vossoughian: Male senator.

15:47Garrett Haake: Yes.

15:48Yasmin Vossoughian: Deb Haaland. Like, all these firsts with these identities, yet they didn't lead with those identities necessarily. They were about many of them, like the economy. Look what's happening to your gas prices. Look what's happening to your bills, your electric bills. We're going to change. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. Like, what do you make of that moment? Like, it's not necessarily about identity politics, but yet all of these folks with very distinctive identities making it.

16:09Ryan Nobles: That it comes back to the other thing that this election was a referendum on. Yes, it was absolutely a repudiation of President Trump. And to Garrett's point and the point that was made last night around the table and elsewhere, the affordability issues didn't, you know, come from a unicorn fairy in the sky. You know what I mean? Like, it came from actual concrete policies, the president's tariff policies, the war against Iran. That's what drove up prices. And so what I make of it is affordability is and was king. People care. People feel it. People don't feel good. Like, yes, the stock market is doing better, sure, but like not when you're paying so much for gas every week, so much for groceries.

16:46Ryan Nobles: By the way, car repossessions are like ticking up again. This is stuff that people feel.

16:51Yasmin Vossoughian: But also, those people are like logging into their 401k every day. Yeah, 100%. It's just not like on their radar.

16:54Ryan Nobles: And so Democrats made a really conscious effort to tap into that again and again. And meantime, you know, the leader of the Republican Party, the day before the midterms was talking about the reflecting pool. Yeah. We're going to take a quick break, guys.

17:06Yasmin Vossoughian: Garrett, we have more. Listen. I'm like 1 ,000 miles away from the conversation. Okay, it's like 400 or how many hundred miles? It's 250 miles. Let's be clear.

17:16Garrett Haake: You act like we've gone back and forth 7 ,000 times in the past three weeks. How would we know the exact opposite?

17:22Yasmin Vossoughian: All right. We're going to take a very quick break. When we are back, how Democrats are going to wield their power in Congress. Stay with us.

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18:03Garrett Haake: Get The Daily Show's ongoing coverage in Decision 2026. Coverage you shouldn't miss because there will be a test.

18:10Hallie Jackson: I don't make the rules.

18:12Ryan Nobles: It's the most trusted fake news in America. Comedy Central's The Daily Show. New weeknights at 11.

18:21Yasmin Vossoughian: And we're back with Here's the Scoop from NBC News. So we just broke down the most significant results from last night. Now the question is, what will Dems do with their control of Congress? We talked about kind of the ideological diversity amidst some of the winners last night. What are we expecting from this group, this like coalition now, that is a spectrum of Democratic socialists all the way to moderate Democrats? Yeah.

18:49Garrett Haake: What you heard from Democrats last night, and not everyone used this exact verbiage, but I think it's a good kind of a jumping point. They said they're not looking for retribution. They're looking for results. And so, you know, there is a very significant part of the Democratic base in this country that wants them to investigate and impeach and convict Donald Trump and send him to prison. We would be naive if we didn't recognize that reality. But I think that's not the group of people that got most of these Democrats elected yesterday. The vast majority of people that voted for the Democrats that got elected yesterday were voting for a new economic message, a new economic philosophy, and changing policies in a way that tangibly helps each one of them.

19:32Garrett Haake: And so what I think you're going to see both Democratic leadership and both the House and Senate do is try and find some sort of balance there where they certainly give Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia, the chairs of the Judiciary and Oversight Committee in the House, all the subpoena power they want to bring in Jared Kushner, to bring in other members of the Trump family, to bring in people that they think could be caught up in the Epstein files and ask them tough questions and hold hearings and do everything along those lines. but it has to be alongside a suite of legislative and economic issues that they can present to the American people and say, this is our plan moving forward.

20:08Garrett Haake: And Garrett was very smartly pointed out that they can't do any of this without Donald Trump. And so some of the Democratic sources that I talked to said, the idea would be that you come up with a list of legislative priorities that you pass, right? So you pass a bill that deals with healthcare. You pass a bill that does something like raise the minimum wage. Don't tie it in with 17 other things. Because you have majorities in the House and Senate. And here's the thing, that's not a veto-proof majority. So it would be all on Donald Trump if he didn't say yes to that. I mean, he claims he's the dealmaker.

20:38Garrett Haake: So is this finally his opportunity to be the dealmaker?

20:41Yasmin Vossoughian: He wrote the book.

20:41Hallie Jackson: Yeah. I mean, look, I think this is a president who's never been particularly bound by rigid ideological rules. He wants to do stuff that's popular and he wants to do stuff that he's going to get credit for. So I think if Democrats are willing to work with him in a manner in which he can get the credit, I think there's almost anything he could conceivably sign. I don't think he's – you know, he's not running for reelection again. I don't think he feels any particular loyalty to the Republican Party or to even his possible successors. So I think basically everything is on the table. But with the caveat that that could change dramatically if he feels like the investigations that will be going on are too close to him or too personal.

21:20Hallie Jackson: and it sort of gets his his backup. I mean, I covered his 2024 campaign when he was asked about retribution. Yeah. And he's talking about my retribution will be success. I'm not equating Donald Trump to these incoming Democrats, but I think it's easy to say now that they're not going to go after him. But I think there will be a clamor for that, especially if there's not much success on the legislative front. And that could poison the well still further.

21:43Yasmin Vossoughian: I'm curious about leadership because Senator-elect El-Sayed was on Today Show this morning.

21:47Ryan Nobles: You know, a vote is a choice between two or more options.

21:50Hallie Jackson: And I'm going to vote for the option that gives me the best chance of getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets, and passing Medicare for All. So essentially, he was asked if he was going to vote in favor of Chuck Schumer, a set-up majority leader.

22:02Yasmin Vossoughian: And he responded, options. Yeah.

22:04Ryan Nobles: I need options. But here's the thing, though. And yes, Chuck Schumer backed Haley Stevens in that primary, but then, you know, got on board. That's exactly right. You know, and he came out against Haley Stevens, like, last-minute reverse. That's exactly right. And so, you know, I do think and you've heard this from from those course close to Leader Schumer, of course, like he put a lot into recruiting some of these candidates who ended up winning in these battleground states. He's the one who had his eye on some of these red states like he's invested and interested in Mississippi, for example, which may or may not flip.

22:35Ryan Nobles: But regardless, I think a good example of some of these Trump double digit states that Democrats want to and frankly need to play in if they want to keep this generational realignment going longer than two years. There's the money factor behind some of these Democrats, too. So I think, you know, Ryan, I defer to Ron on this. He wants to be leader.

22:51Garrett Haake: So here's what else I had met when he said, I want options, because he's likely not going to get options. The only way that you can vote for someone other than Chuck Schumer is if there's someone available to run against Chuck Schumer. And everything my sources are telling me is that there isn't another Democratic senator with the type of seniority that would be able to challenge Chuck Schumer. And so I think what's going to end up happening, and they do all of this behind closed doors, You know, so maybe will there be quiet conversations among a small group of Democrats to say, hey, do we put up somebody like Chris Van Hollen or is there a Chris Murphy or somebody along those lines who could stand as a legitimate challenger to Chuck Schumer?

23:29Garrett Haake: And I think the vast majority of the conference is going to look at the results of the election and look at what Chuck Schumer was able to pull off and say, we'd be insane to change course right now when things are going so well.

23:41Yasmin Vossoughian: So, Garrett, off of what Ryan said a little bit earlier, I want to talk about what can actually get done here with the way in which this government is now made up. And that is like, listen, ending the war on Iran, affordability being a big issue, tying into the war with Iran. You had Chuck Schumer trying to address some of those earlier today. I mean, what can they actually get done here with the president having ultimate veto power? Like, could this Congress end the war with Iran?

24:03Hallie Jackson: Probably not. I mean, if they wanted to, they could refuse to fund the Department of Defense. You know, Congress controls the purse strings. They control appropriations. And they could say we're not going to give another dime to the Pentagon until this war ends and try to force the issue with the president. I mean, that would be a major showdown, the idea of sort of defunding the military. The attack ads kind of write themselves. And, you know, God forbid that puts people in danger around the world. It's sort of a politically perilous stance. So, you know, this is related to the question about leader.

24:34Hallie Jackson: It's like how much brinksmanship do you want to get into with the president? Because that's the kind of tactic it would probably take if you wanted to force the issue. Or do you want to find off ramps for the president and find ways to let him out of some of the traps that he's made for himself? Do you try to legislate around the tariffs, for example? I think that's going to be harder because there is no tool in his toolkit that the president loves more than his tariffs. And he believes and has some legal authority that he can use a lot of them without Congress's interference. I think if there's stuff that's going to pass, it's going to be at the margins.

25:09Hallie Jackson: It's going to be on some of these other issues or stuff that gets kind of like snuck into appropriations bills, must-pass legislation, debt ceiling, things like that to keep the lights on. because I don't think there's going to be like a big sort of kumbaya effort to move things. What the president says he wants to focus on, what he's been asked about what he wants to do in the second half of his term, is to pass the SAVE Act, his election reform bill. That's clearly not happening. Your$5 ,000 checks are not going to be in your mailbox. So, you know, they're pretty well spent here when it comes to areas of agreement, I think.

25:44Yasmin Vossoughian: You know how we talked a little bit about like the possibility of what Democrats' agendas are actually going to be when it comes to some of the issues? Are they going to also lean towards like possibility of investigation into this president, lean towards impeachment proceedings, that kind of thing? Do you feel like members of the president's cabinet are right now like, you know, Some of them. Looking over their shoulders, talking about Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Yeah. Especially when you see the exit polls talking about Americans and how they feel about the war with Iran.

26:14Ryan Nobles: Deeply unpopular. Yeah. For a lot of reasons that we talked about. and, you know, I think you mentioned Hegseth because Democrats have mentioned Hegseth. This goes to what Garrett and Riot are talking about. How much political capital do you expend on those kinds of things? Democrats will expend some political capital on oversight and investigations because that also is what voters have suggested that they want with the concerns about corruption, the state of democracy, etc. And so you've heard already in the Democrats that we've heard from today, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, as much as they talk about the economy and affordability and trying to tackle those issues, who's also in the same breath, they say, and taking a look at, you know, checking what they see as the corruption stemming from the Trump administration, the president's, you know, allies.

26:55Ryan Nobles: Think about Elon Musk, who's already bracing for the possibility of House Oversight Committee members having subpoena power to pull documents, perhaps members of the president's family, some of these crypto ties, et cetera. There's a lot there. So what do they do in the next two months, Republicans?

27:09Garrett Haake: So there's a bunch of must-have things that they have to do. They've got to pass the NDAA. They They have to pass a spending bill. So, you know, government shutdown. I don't know if anybody wants to talk about that. That's something that has to be done. I know that they feel very passionately about a whole suite of judicial nominations that they want to get done as quickly as possible leading into the lame duck. But man, none of these are guarantees. And the Trump agenda, even in this short lame duck window, is going to be dramatically altered because in addition to losing the Brown seat on December 15th.

27:43Garrett Haake: You also have Susan Collins, who no longer total YOLO. We already have Tom Tillis. That's total YOLO. John Cornyn, obviously total YOLO. And then Lisa Murkowski, who beats to her own drum to begin with. So Trump's not just going to - I love total YOLO. Yeah. I mean, Trump's not just going to get rubber stamps here in the last, especially after the results of this election in the last couple of weeks. So, you know, the kind of thing that we've been tabletop exercising is if does a Supreme Court justice resign here in the next couple of days and what that could look like. That doesn't, all my sources are telling me they don't think that's likely, but that's an example of something that they might try and push through before Trump basically loses any effort or any ability really to get anybody that's super loyal to him confirmed.

28:28Yasmin Vossoughian: So after the election is before the election, and we're already starting to talk about 2028. What could the GOP look like in a post-Trump, post-MAGA era? And how are Democrats already trying to stand out for 2028. That's next after one more quick break.

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30:22Yasmin Vossoughian: And we're back with Here's a Scoop from NBC News. So as we've been saying, Tuesday's results were a major defeat for President Trump and his hold on the GOP. And that sets up some interesting dynamics as we head into 2028. We've got Ryan, Halle, and Garrett back with us. Hal, start us off because I want to talk a little bit about Vice President J.D. Vance. who positioned the loss yesterday and saying, the reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night. How would you say the vice president is positioning himself looking at 2028 with that statement?

30:54Ryan Nobles: Positioning himself, I would say, already, right, with that statement, putting distance between himself and the president. Now, the president said today he largely agrees with his vice president on that, but wouldn't do it any differently, right? And I think that J.D. Vance is at least confronting the reality of what Republicans are facing now over the course of the next couple of years in Washington. I just want to pull back and say, as Garrett and Ryan, and this is why I was thinking about this in the last segment, talking about all the things that are going to happen in the next couple of years of Washington, I will tell you what I've been thinking about.

31:26Ryan Nobles: And that is Ted Cruz, because I'm old enough to remember when the Texas senator declared his run for the White House back in March of 2015. So that's three months after the, you know, three and a half months roughly after the previous year's midterms, which think about that. We're going to hit the holidays, maybe this shutdown, whatever, all these things that are going to happen in the course of this next couple of months here. And then like if past is precedent, we are in 2028. You know, maybe less. I've had, you know, folks suggest maybe less on the Democratic side because they're going to want to ride the honeymoon a little bit, like ride the wave of this for a bit.

31:57Ryan Nobles: Also, they've got to figure out who they're going to invest in. Got to figure it out. But I just think it's going to be here so early before we know it.

32:03Garrett Haake: And there's got to be a jackrabbit, right? Like there's going to be somebody that's going to try and get out ahead of the field. Elizabeth Warren announced on New Year's Eve 2018. Right. Wow. New Year's Eve 2018. That's when that race started in 2020. And so, you know, does Ro Khanna or somebody like that, you know, who might be more of a long shot candidate, try and get out ahead of the field and be the first officially declared presidential candidate? Because as soon as you do that, that puts you on a whole suite of media that you wouldn't necessarily get access to. It gives you a level of attention that you wouldn't normally get.

32:34Garrett Haake: But I think, you know, a lot of the pundits think people are going to wait. They're going to wait. They're going to wait. I tend to think we, because both sides are going to be such incredibly wide open fields, I tend to think we should take sooner rather than later, at least for a crop of these candidates. But that's the one thing. And then the other thing that I find most interesting on the Republican side is just how significant is Donald Trump's influence, especially after tonight? Is he still a kingmaker? Is he going to anoint his successor? That's always been our conventional wisdom. We've always written.

33:06Garrett Haake: We've written his obituary several times. But man, after last night, you have to wonder if there's a path for somebody that's not directly aligned with him.

33:13Yasmin Vossoughian: So Garrett, like speak to that if you can for a moment. Is J.D. Vance still the heir apparent to the Vagabovement at this point? What about Marco Rubio? Like Florida still went red last night. Yes, Democrats got a lot closer than they had been before. But nonetheless, like Republicans prevailed in Florida. Obviously, Marco Rubio being a former senator from that state. So what are you seeing as kind of being the emerging leader in this party as Donald Trump lives out his last two years of presidency?

33:40Hallie Jackson: Yes, I think J.D. Vance is still the heir apparent of the MAGA movement. But I also think there's much less value in that title than there was 24 hours ago. My theory of the case on the Republican side is that there are probably four lanes for people who want to run for president. There's the MAGA blessed by Trump lane. There's the I tried to help, but they didn't listen to me sort of MAGA adjacent lane. That's where you have somebody like a Ted Cruz who's been out there saying all the right things but is on the outside. I think you have a Maha lane. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who's won for president once already, probably wants to do so again.

34:12Hallie Jackson: And you have the hell with these guys. This isn't my Republican Party lane. That's your like Don Bacon, Nikki Haley. You know, we've broken from the party already. That lane just probably got more people in it last night because of the results. and the relative value of being Trump's successor went down. That said, the way elections are won and lost in Republican primaries, if you've got five or six candidates on the ballot, 20 percent of the vote and you win. And I think the president's endorsement, even if he continues his slide in popularity, is probably still good for 20 percent in most of these early nominating states.

34:49Hallie Jackson: And so if J.D. Vance decides that that's the way he wants to play it and the president decides he wants to stay with his vice president, that person's going to have an enormous advantage in a multi-candidate field. The Rubio kind of bank shot of it all, I do think it's a bank shot. He said many, many times publicly, my sources have told me many, many times privately, he will not go through J.D. Vance if J.D. Vance wants to run is a whole separate question. But I think you're still looking at Vance as probably the prohibitive frontrunner among Republicans who might want to run, but much, much less prohibitive than he was this time yesterday.

35:23Yasmin Vossoughian: And then we're talking about Democratic hopefuls because we're looking at Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, potentially, right? Georgia Sedner, John Ossoff? Well, maybe.

35:33Ryan Nobles: I think there's a growing sense that if Raphael Warnock decides to get in that race, maybe Ossoff sits that one out. I don't know.

35:41Yasmin Vossoughian: I got to tell you, I was watching the comments on the Kornacki cam last night. And as they announced Ossoff as the winner, there was like all these folks like Ossoff for president. I mean, sure, he's got a big fan base.

35:52Garrett Haake: I've said this a million times. People probably have heard me say it before. The start of the campaign for Democrats in 2028 begins in the state of Georgia. That is the crucial state for them. They win Georgia. They win the presidency. You now have three candidates that are proven vote-getters in Georgia, in Keisha Lance Bottoms, Raphael Warnock, and John Ossoff. at least one of those candidates. If you were going to make one bet, and I don't bet politics, but if you were going to make one bet, it's that one of those three ends up on someone's ticket, either on the top of the ticket or as their vice president in the upcoming election.

36:30Garrett Haake: And then Garrett and I had a fever dream about this the other day when we were talking about, like, what if Texas, if Texas goes blue in 26, is Texas on the map now as a state in 28? If it is, Republicans are in big trouble.

36:44Hallie Jackson: You don't think it was just a one-off? No, I don't. Here's why. The numbers with Latinos were so insane last night with Hispanic voters that Democrats would be foolish to let that lie fallow. And by the way, all those races, those House races are going to be up again in 2028. So all the same people are going to be on the ballots and that's going to be competitive. If you want to blow up the map and make it impossible for Republicans to win the White House, you need to win. you could win Texas or Florida and you could take like three other swing states off the board, they'd be irrelevant. The one where Democrats have a far better chance right now is Texas.

37:17Hallie Jackson: They will have a Democratic governor. They'll have Democratic House members. They've got Democratic stars there already. And they've already built some of the infrastructure. Florida will be the firewall for Republicans. And so if I were, you know, the sort of Dem rainmakers trying to figure out where I'm going to spend my money, I would absolutely throw at least some of it in Texas and make Republicans defend it, if nothing else. That's absolutely going to be a presidential battleground in 2020.

37:42Ryan Nobles: And as this process plays out, too, you're going to—Democrats are going to have to get through this fight, basically, and it is going to be a battle that plays out vis-a-vis the 2028 Democratic primary. This whole soul of the party thing, the progressives, the more moderates, you've now got a coalition where you—to Ryan's point, you have these Democratic socialists, you have these far-left candidates, these progressive candidates who have proven they can win in a general election. And you have these Democrats that are saying, well, wait a second, I can pick up these, you know, huge, you know, red districts and states like that's where we can play ball.

38:14Ryan Nobles: And so that is going to be like I'm thinking ahead to the primary debates and the, you know, everything else that's going to come around to all of this. That's going to be such, I think, a big part of that narrative and that storyline moving forward. Ryan Halley-Garrett, thank you guys.

38:28Yasmin Vossoughian: Get some sleep. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks, guys. All right. That's going to do it for us. Here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Vestugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe. We're going to get your podcasts. And you can also subscribe to our daily newsletter, The Inside Scoop. It's a deeper dive on the main stories of the day that comes out every weeknight straight to your inbox. You can sign up for The Inside Scoop as part of our paid subscription at NBCNews.com. We'll see you tomorrow.

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