Trump Squirms as Rupert Murdoch Predicts MAGA Senate Bloodbath Before Phony Convention

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2:09Michael Popok:Oh, what a difference a summer makes to the Democrats' chances of taking the Senate. Where once there was just three Republican seats that were in jeopardy, there are now six in serious doubt, meaning the Democrats are one step closer to gaining the Senate. If you had told me that six months ago, I would say I would like that to happen. I think it needs to happen, but I'm not sure it's going to happen. But after a summer of Donald Trump ignoring the Senate race, no, more to the point, campaigning against Republicans who are trying to win their seats, this is where we are. You can add three more seats that are not only in jeopardy for the Republicans, but are now likely Democrats, including Democratic seats, including Texas, Iowa, and Alaska.

2:58It's gotten so bad that Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox through his Wall Street Journal, has come out to attack Donald Trump, his lack of strategy, his caring more about his legacy and vanity projects than in getting Republicans elected to the Senate. The House, based on the current data, is a foregone conclusion. As long as people vote and vote in their interests, independent and Democrats and disaffected Republicans, the Democrats are going to take the House by more than 20 seats, by 30 seats. They're going to be in their 230s and 240s. They only need 218 to control the House. But it's the Senate I want to focus on while I'm traveling on this particular video.

3:46And what does Donald Trump do? Does he spend any of his$400 million that he's sitting on? No. Does he listen to the Republican National Committee and spend the money in districts like, hey, we need$10 million to help Ken Paxton, the ethically challenged attorney general for Texas, try to beat James Tallarico? No. What does he do? More vanity. More vanity project. Let's have the first ever national midterm convention in Dallas, of all places, today and tomorrow. And let's see who shows up. It's like the field of dreams, except it's the field of nightmares. If we build it, will anybody come? No.

4:26I already saw the roster announced by the Republican National Committee. Who's going to be there? Donald Trump speaking twice. Well, that'll take up a lot of time. J.D. Vance is showing up. Todd Blanche, Todd Blanche, the Attorney General of the United States, is going to show up along with Scott Best at the Treasury Secretary to give some sort of speech. Don Jr. is going to be there. Carolyn Levitt, fresh off of being fired or resigning as press secretary. She's going to be there. You know who's not going to be there? Mainstream media. Fox is the only one that's going to try to carry this because they're the propaganda platform for the Trump administration.

5:03Fox and C-SPAN. Well, you can't blame C-SPAN. They'll show anything at length for content. CNN, no. CBS, which is effectively owned by a friend of Donald Trump's, no. ABC, NBC, and the rest, despite all of the acquisition of these assets or these attempted assets by friends of Donald Trump, they're taking a look at this fake midterm convention and they're saying, not newsworthy. I know this is going to get the Federal Communications Commission and Brendan Carr, Donald Trump's buddy, all hot and bothered about why these things aren't being followed. But I think they should spend less time shooting off confetti cannons at some phony convention and more time trying to figure out how to salvage the Senate.

5:45I mean, I started this hot take by saying at the very beginning, by the way, I'm Michael Popok. You're on Legal AF. I'm traveling. I'm going to be at the Democratic Attorneys General Association Conference with about a dozen attorneys general, oh, in about a half an hour. But I wanted to get this video up and running in the meantime, because the convention has started everybody, the convention that nobody cares about. If a convention falls in the woods and nobody's there to hear it, did it really happen? When we started this summer, you know, I don't like to blow smoke or sunshine. So I was like tamping down expectations.

6:16House yes goes blue. Sea change election. Senate is hard, not because people like Donald Trump, but because in a race by race battle, given candidates that the Democrats had, you know, all politics is local. The polling wasn't looking so great that we that the Democrats would be able to take three seats. And that's how many they need. That's of the six seats that are now up for grabs. The Republicans can only afford to lose three of them. And when we started in May, it was North Carolina, Maine, and Ohio were all in play. North Carolina, Roy Cooper, popular governor, Democrat running way ahead, by the way.

6:54Ohio, Sharon Brown trying to get his old job back, ahead. And in Maine, because people are pissed off on both sides of the aisle by Susan Collins, whoever the Democrats put up, even somebody who was accused of domestic violence, apparently, was better than Susan Collins in the polls. So those were the three going in. But now you have to add Texas, James Tallarico, sitting on a pile of cash, money flooding in. But more importantly, he's popular. He's popular. And he's plain spoken. And he's salt of the earth. When Donald Trump, in one of his 47 crazed postings on Labor Day, went after Tallarico and called him Tala Frico.

7:37And he looks like Alfred E. Newman. How old are you, by the way? Mad Magazine and all that. You know what Tala Rico said? He said two things. One, if you want to buy a Tala Frico t-shirt, it's our most popular seller in our store. Love that. He also looked the Texas people in the eye and he said, all these attacks on me, all the name calling, not one person's been helped by the name calling, not one gas price has gone down, Not one affordability has been improved. Not one healthcare crisis has been averted by him calling. I'm not going to get down into the mud. I'm going to sell the t-shirts. I'm going to sell the merch.

8:15I'm not going to get down into the mud. This is why Tallarico is way up in Texas against an ethically challenged guy who was indicted former attorney general in Ken Paxton. But that's not the only places.

8:29Michael Popok:Let me go over where we are right now, according to the Cook Report, in the polls. And this shows you how many are in play and why this is looking very dire for the Republicans. North Carolina, Roy Cooper is up by nine points in polling. Georgia, John Ossoff is up by almost nine points. Minnesota, Flanagan, up by five points. Maine, Jackson, up by four points. Ohio, Sherrod Brown up by three points. New Hampshire, Pappas up by three points. Michigan, El Saeed is up by two points. Texas, Tallarico up by two points. Alaska, Peltola, former interior secretary, up by a point. And then even in Iowa, the Republican is only up by a point.

9:21Michael Popok:And in Kansas, the Republican is within, the Democrat is within the margin of error. That's turning in with 50 more days. Does anybody think Donald Trump becomes and MAGA become more popular in the next 50 days? Does anybody think the Republican capitalism against Democratic socialism message is going to resonate anymore and make any new Republicans and Republican votes between now and then in these states? I certainly don't. You know who else does it? The Wall Street Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch. Here's what the Wall Street Journal had to say about these Senate races. This again, Rupert Murdoch speaking directly to Donald Trump.

10:06Trump and the Senate stakes. This is the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal late yesterday. The president often sounds as if he's campaigning against the Republican Senate. After the 2020 election, Republicans were poised to hold the Senate majority if they won merely one of two January runoff races in Georgia. President Trump proceeded to make the races a referendum on his claim that the November election had been stolen. this is back in 2020, GOP turnout slumped and the Democrats won both seats. That's Senator Warnock, Senator Reverend Warnock, who I've interviewed, and Senator Ossoff.

10:45Michael Popok:That's the way the midterm races are trending now as the fall campaigners enter its final sprint. Trump about to cost the GOP the Senate again. GOP seats, the Wall Street Journal says, in at least six races are in serious jeopardy, including in Alaska, Ohio, Texas, and Iowa, that had been comfortably Republican. Even Kansas and Nebraska aren't safe, and Michigan and New Hampshire seem to be the only places where they're going to pick up a vote. How did what months ago seem like a safe GOP Senate turn this way? Start with Trump's approval rating. He's down in the low 30s approval rating, even lower if you're talking about the economy, even lower if you're talking about immigration.

11:29And you know where this is affecting the races? OK, his tariffs on 200 countries besides Canada, so unpopular in the farm belt, he's going to lose the farm belt, you know, our agricultural base because of the tariffs.

11:46Michael Popok:His fight with Canada and today, day of the midterm election, is the day that Canada imposes billions of dollars of tariffs and hits Michigan where it lives, in Ohio where it lives, in Kentucky and Indiana, where it lives, all of the Midwest, which trades regularly with Canada. So you've got the Canada. You've got the Trump moving his party so far MAGA and to the right in the primaries that those candidates that he endorsed are so unpopular in the general election. See, Donald Trump celebrates primary victories, which are not the general election. It's as if somebody was celebrating winning a practice game and taking the game ball home with them.

12:33Michael Popok:That's not the game. The game's the next day. So he celebrates these, I'm very good at picking primary opponents, but they are so unliked by the general population. And they are more unlike than the person they replaced. I mean, Tom Tillis was forced to retire in North Carolina. He probably would have taken that seat back, but now Roy Cooper, the Democrat, is going to get it instead because Donald Trump has pulled his party so far to the right. So when you put all that together, Donald Trump's sitting on$400 million, and when he's not working on his legacy with his arch and his Kennedy Center renaming and his ballroom and using, I am not making this up, using super glue to put up gold medallions all over the White House, talk about somebody distracted and posting social media AI memes of himself partying with George Washington or blowing up the earth, there's a legitimate fear that he's not focused as the titular head of the Republican Party on getting Republicans elected to the Senate.

13:43Michael Popok:And if you thought that Donald Trump was going to be powerless and have his wings clipped, if the House went to the Democrats. Wait till you see what happens if the American people vote out effectively Donald Trump at the midterm and give the Democrats the House and the Senate. Impeachment and conviction, anyone? So I wanted to catch you up with the backdrop of this ridiculous charade of a convention with Donald Trump doing most of the talking or people named Trump doing most of the talking as the Senate races, which are real, are going down the tubes for the Democrats. And with your support, with your voting, with your registering people to vote, with you working at the polls and working on election day and working in advance of election day and voting in your interest, along with the independents and the dissatisfied Republicans who are not MAGA and are not Trump, if all those people go to the polls and the hundreds of millions of people that we know will go to the polls, this is going to be no contest.

14:49Michael Popok:This is going to be a sea change election with the return of accountability. The only way to bring Donald Trump to his knees and make his administration accountable is to take away his toys, the Senate and the House. Let's do it together. I'm Michael Popak. Hit that free subscribe button as we continue to grow our pro-democracy channel. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, Morning AF.

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