JD Vance puts Republicans' desperation on full display

0:01J.D.

0:01Brian Tyler Cohen:Vance puts Republicans' desperation ahead of midterms on full display, and I've got two interviews, Pots of America's Dan Pfeiffer and Norm Eisen. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. No matter how desperate you think the Republicans are, you are not prepared for the actual level of desperation, as evidenced by J.D. Vance here. Give us another chance, or give us another couple years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years. So we have reached the give us another chance, please phase of politics. Remind me, when a girl dumps a guy and he gets on his knees and starts begging, give me another chance.

0:36Brian Tyler Cohen:Is that a recipe for success or no? But here's the thing about Vance's plea. Republicans have had their chance and look what they did with it. They promised a lower cost in the campaign. Then when they got into office, they rallied behind Trump's trade war that sent cost surging. They promised low gas prices. Gas is now$4.37 a gallon up from$3.19 a year ago. Diesel's at its highest point in history at$6.23 a gallon. They promised to release the Epstein files. That's obviously not happening. Promised to eliminate this second tier of justice that the elites use to enrich themselves and avoid accountability.

1:08Brian Tyler Cohen:That is the basis of Trump's entire presidency. Dude has tripled his net worth while everybody else is left out in the cold. But that was all by design. None of this is an accident. Trump didn't, like, trip and fall into giving his son a$6 billion military defense contract. They didn't accidentally fall into cutting health care and food assistance. All of this was on purpose. This is unbridled Republican governance. There are no Democrats in power, not in the House, Senate or White House. So no, there are no accidents here. Frankly, the time to have recognized that things were going south was six months ago, a year ago, 18 months ago, but not seven weeks before the election, only because now you're realizing that you have to go in front of voters.

1:51Brian Tyler Cohen:The Republicans have ignored voters to an extent that I've quite literally never seen before, and they've been doing it for months. Instead, they've contracted every ounce of autonomy to Trump on tariffs, on war, on Epstein, on health care, on inflation. So guess what? You all own this just as much as he does. So you can get on your knees and you can beg now that you remember political gravity exists, but it's all too little too late. The time to show that you care about Americans is not just five minutes before voters go to the polls. But I got to say, it sure is pathetic that once Trump's election rigging scheme falls flat because the Supreme Court refuses to ban mail-in ballots, once the Save America Act falls flat, where Republicans tried to institute a federal takeover of elections, once the DOJ's efforts to take the voter rolls from the states falls flat in 30 different cases, the next tactic being employed by the GOP is J.D.

2:41Brian Tyler Cohen:Vance just begging like a little bitch to give him another chance. Guys, you've had your chance and you blew it sucking up to a president who only cares about himself. If only there was some clue, JD, that the guy who you called America's Hitler would be an anchor around your necks. Next up are my interviews with Dan Pfeiffer and Norm Eisen. No Lie is brought to you by ZocDoc. So I've always avoided making doctor's appointments because it is just never easy. I know that it's going to be a game of endless phone tag, only to finally call and find out that the next opening is months away. It is a fact of life that certain doctors are not available for a really long time.

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4:11Brian Tyler Cohen:I'm not sure I've seen a more desperate plea from a Republican than we saw from J.D. Vance right here. Give us another chance or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years. So I'm joined now by former Obama communications director and co-host of Pod Save America, Dan Pfeiffer. Dan, you also host a show on Pod Save America's YouTube channel called Political Experts React. And so if this was an ad, how do you think that this would fare in the grand scheme of things? having the vice president of the United States basically resorting to the part in a broken relationship where one guy gets down on his knees and says, please just, you know, give me another chance.

4:49Brian Tyler Cohen:Just take me back. I don't think it would play very well, Brian. I'll tell you that right now. It's like, think about what he's saying, which is we did not accomplish what we told you we would accomplish. So give us more time after broken promise, after broken promise, after broken promise. And that is going to fall very flat because it's not that people thought Vance and Trump and the Republicans tried really hard to do the things they said they were going to do and just failed. It's that they absolutely did the opposite of what they said. They said they were going to lower costs. They raised costs.

5:21They said, you know, forever wars. They started a war with Iran. They said they released the Epstein-Final so they didn't do it. And so you're not going to get any grace from the voters if the voters feel like you've lied to them. That's what's going on here.

5:33Brian Tyler Cohen:What are Republicans leaning on then If they know that there are no Democrats In a way, unified control of government Is yes, a curse But it's also a gift in the sense that Right now there are no Democrats To point the blame at Republicans can't say Oh, if only Democrats weren't in charge of the House We could have passed our agenda They have full control of government House, Senate, White House And so what can they point to? Not to put you in a position where you have to do the Republicans work for them. But what in the world can they point to to help themselves in these last seven weeks? They can't point to anything they've done, right?

6:10The quote unquote big, beautiful bill is incredibly unpopular. It brings up a conversation about tax cuts for the rich, cuts to Medicaid, cuts to food assistance, closing rural hospitals. It's a very, very, it's historically unpopular bill. In fact, it says so much about how unpopular the Republican agenda is. It's not even the top of the list of the most unpopular things they've done because the war of the run and tariffs are even more popular than that. They only have one card to play. We saw it during the midterm convention. That is to try to scare the living daylights out of voters about Democrats, right?

6:39That they're radical, socialist, communist, hate America, and just try to make Democrats seem too extreme to be a vessel for people's anger at Trump and the Republicans.

6:50Brian Tyler Cohen:Okay, so here is where you are well positioned to answer this next question, which is what should the Democrats' response to that be? Is that something that Democrats should respond to directly, thereby in a way validating that attack, but also potentially assuaging the voters' fears? Or just ignore it because that's not a top issue for voters in this country. And there are so many other detrimental things that people should be focusing on and that do actually impact their lives. The way to handle this is not to run a bunch of ads saying, no, I'm not extreme. Like too many Democrats tell don't show.

7:25So what you have to do is show people through your policy positions, through your attitude, through your demeanor to how you campaign, that you are someone who is consistent, who is not extreme, who is consistent with the values of the state district you're running. It is how Rob Sam campaigns in Iowa. It's how Josh Trichman is in Iowa. It is, you know, you see this from James Tallarico. The best way for James Tallarico to show people that he is not this fringe, you know, overly woke lunatic that Ken Paxson talks about is to be James Tallarico, talk about his faith, you know, have this, you know, he is a moderate temperament.

8:00So those are the things you have to do. We got a lot of great candidates doing that. That's what Mary Peltola does. That's what Sherrod Brown does. And so it's like, don't respond too late. And then like, you're going to have a bunch of ads run against you. And we should remind people that those ads are being funded by billionaires who got tax cuts from Trump and billionaires who are profiting off data centers and AI billionaires who are price gouging you. And that it's like, what we're going to do is we're going to focus on you, right? We're going to try to lower your price. We're going to try to make your life easier.

8:28to try to make your dollars go further in your life.

8:31Brian Tyler Cohen:And to that point, I mean, the reality is that the polls are bearing exactly what you said out. We have a new New York Times Siena poll, one of the highest rated pollsters. But one of the crosstabs that I thought was especially interesting was Trump's approval with young people. This is 18 to 29, a huge, a huge swing in the 2024 election that really led to Trump's Trump and Republicans election. Right now he's sitting at 18 % approval and 78 % disapproval. That net approval back in September was negative 36. Then in January of this year, it was negative 42. Right now it's negative 60. So pretty disastrous result.

9:11Brian Tyler Cohen:What was your reaction to seeing those numbers among 18 to 29 year olds? It's very clear that for the Trump coalition, it was last in first out. So the The voters who have been most skeptical of Trump since he came down the escalator a decade ago are young voters and Latino voters. And for a whole host of reasons involving Joe Biden and inflation and immigration, everything else, many of them reluctantly sided with Trump because they thought, you know, these are people feeling tremendous economic pressure because of inflation and high costs. And they said, I don't love them. I don't agree with a lot of things.

9:46But I think of these candidates, he's the one I believe is most likely to lower my costs. Then Trump came into office and raised their costs. Right. He didn't just fail to lower that. He specifically took two actions in tariffs and going to war with Iran that raised people's costs. And these voters are pissed and they have left the Trump train.

10:01Brian Tyler Cohen:Similarly, Latino voters are are signaling a major shift to the left as well. On the generic ballot, Democrats have a 46 point advantage with voters under 30. That's a 35 point advantage. Trump's approval among Latino voters is negative 43 points. The baseline in 2024 is that he won 46 percent of Latinos in 2024. That's up from 32 percent in 2020. So he was actually quite popular. I believe he was, for a Republican, had the largest vote share of Latino voters. Now he's sitting at negative 43 percent approval. So what are the implications for that as we head toward this midterm election cycle, especially with certain maps that have been redrawn by Republicans thinking that the Latino coalition from 2024 was going to be permanent?

10:53Yeah, this problem for Republicans is most manifest in Texas where they did this very aggressive redistricting, trying to lock in seats, their seats, and put a lot of Democrats at risk. And their bet was even if they didn't get Trump-like numbers of Latinos, Latinos had moved towards Republicans. They had snapped back dramatically, particularly in Texas. We saw this in a special election in Texas a few months ago. It is like – it's very concerning for them. And a bunch of districts they thought would be safe for public districts, particularly along the Rio Grande Valley, now are very competitive for Democrats and possible pickups for Democrats.

11:29So, yeah, they miscalculated. And this was they were Trump rented these voters. He didn't own them.

11:36Brian Tyler Cohen:Right. In terms of the Senate math right now, how do you feel seven months out from Election Day as far as look, I think a few months ago we would have been looking at a state like North Carolina as as a reach state, you know, for Democrats. Now, of course, the map has shifted so much that we're even looking at places like Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Alaska, and even in some cases, Nevada. as possible pickup opportunities. But from your vantage, how does that Senate math look? Yeah, I think the Senate, as you say, we have to win the Senate. We have to hold all of our seats, which I'll get to in a second.

12:10We have to win in Maine and North Carolina. And then we have to win two of Iowa, Alaska, Ohio, and Texas, all states that Trump won by at least 11 points.

12:20Brian Tyler Cohen:Yeah. A year ago, that seemed impossible. Now it seems plausible and very possible so that we can get done. Now, we got some work to do to get there because you never would have guessed that we'd be more nervous about Michigan than maybe Texas at this point. And, you know, there are some warning signs in New Hampshire. But the path is there. The political environment is there. And we have very, very good candidates in these races who can win. And we are blessed by the idiocy of our opponents who have nominated people like Ken Paxton in Texas or even in Ohio, where it's John Husted, who happens to be like America's data center champion at the exact time when there's a giant bipartisan revolt against data centers.

13:01So I think you look at the modeling from the Nate Silvers of the world, Democrats have like a 56, 57, 58 percent chance of winning the Senate. That is like Nate used the term to me the other day, a weighted coin flip. so it's like you win more than half the times but you still lose a little bit less than half the times but we're very well positioned to at least have a real shot to do this

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14:37Brian Tyler Cohen:They make well-designed pieces for everyday living. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash BTC. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. That's quince.com slash BTC. So something that I've been thinking about as it relates to the Senate is having enough of a buffer, obviously, to overcome J.D. Vance's tiebreaker. but at the same time, John Fetterman poses a little bit of an interesting scenario. And I know that he's come out and said that he wouldn't switch parties.

15:15Brian Tyler Cohen:Still, at the same time, I watched the discourse online. John Fetterman is so unpopular. He's so cozy with Republicans. He's such an institution on Fox News that I don't think it would be smart to rule out the possibility that John Fetterman could be flirting with that idea. Republicans are certainly trying to draw him in. And they're engaged in this charm offensive to do exactly that. Do you think that it is misguided for as gross as John Fetterman's positions on virtually everything are? Do you think that it is misguided to bully him to the extent that the left does, knowing that there is a world in which that could mean that if Democrats did have a majority in the Senate, that could go away?

15:59I understand why people are mad at John Fetterman. I particularly understand why the people of Pennsylvania who put him in office are mad at him. Yeah. But I think we have to play a little bit of the long game here, which is we need John Fetterman in the Senate until he is up in 2028. And he probably loses it almost certainly loses a Democratic primary challenge.

16:16Brian Tyler Cohen:Yeah. And so like we should like he is he is not the person who ran. He's not doing the things he said he would do when he ran. Either, you know, some of these stories about how he's doing the job are very disturbing. But right now, we would rather have someone who caucuses with Democrats, who votes with Democrats almost all the time, particularly on judicial nominees, than have lose that seat and have him caucus with Republicans and make it one seat harder to actually get the majority. And look, this has happened in the past. In 2001, the Republicans in a tied Senate, Republicans bullied Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords because he voted against Bush on the tax cuts.

16:56And he left the party, became an independent caucus with Democrats and made the Democrats the majority, you know, less than a year after Bush was elected. And so we do not want to have the same thing happen to us. So, like, I'm not telling anyone who lives in Pennsylvania not to be mad at John F. I mean, I actually should. But the people in positions of power in this, in our party, of influence of the platforms, just we don't want them to switch parties. We don't want them to do it. And look, channel your anger into, like we did with Kirsten Sinema, channel your anger into someone supporting someone who wants the primary settlement, whether that's Conor Lamb or Summer Lee or a whole bunch of other people in the state of Pennsylvania who I know are thinking about it.

17:34Brian Tyler Cohen:Let me let me ask you a let me play devil's advocate on that point. You know, there are people who say, you know, is it not our job to hold our elected officials to account? And if he, as you said, promised ABC, D and E on the campaign trail and he's governing in a way that's completely antithetical to what he promised, why should we give him a free pass if he is if he's not abiding by what he promised us? our way to hold John Fetterman accountable as Democrats is to, is in the primary in 2028. And that is how we will do it. We're not like, there's not some constitutional mechanism for holding people accountable by tweeting at them.

18:12Yeah. Like if you want like average everyday people, particularly the Pennsylvania constituents who want to be mad at John Fetterman, they want to write him angry letters, send him angry emails. That is their right. They deserve that. And I think the, the leaders of the party, and I think Chuck Schumer has been pretty savvy about this. Other elected officials, people you know with platforms do need to think about you know as mad as you are we want him in this party you know we had you know joe mansion we wanted him in our party we wanted that you know we wouldn't have the we wouldn't have passed bill back better without joe mansion right and so you know it's not pleasant it's not always joyful but like this this is the deal and if like the way if you're pissed at him and everyone has their right to be pissed him the way you express that is in a primary in two years.

18:58Brian Tyler Cohen:So speaking of bullying, and we'll finish off with this, your team is the Washington Commanders, I think by all pundit accounts, ranked last in the NFC East. I've got my Giants who are coming off a beautiful win. I don't often throw around the word perfect, but I think the way that they played against the Dallas Cowboys was for all intents and purposes, perfect. How are you feeling about the NFC East this season? Well, I'm very conflicted here because I have Jackson Dart and Malik Neighbors on my fantasy team. So there's a part of me that roots for the Giants in all the two games of the year. Look, Washington, it's been a cursed season already.

19:39You sign your left tackle for like$30 million a year, then you lose them for the season like two weeks later. Really a rough game. They almost beat the Eagles, which would be quite joyous. It would have been very fun. But not expecting big things. but it is like everyone's up for the divisions effort grabs primarily I think between the Cowboys the Giants and Eagles and not so much Washington but good luck to you guys I guess I'll take it

20:06Brian Tyler Cohen:I'll take any luck we can have give me your definitive ranking if if we're if we're making this prediction now you're ranking for the NFC East this is hard I would say because I would normally do this based on odds which is then I would pick the Giants because that's the highest upside yeah um but i think if you were to ask me what i think is most likely or i'd say eagles giants cowboys all right that's i think the giants are going to get a do you need jackson dart to stay healthy so he's got to stay out of the blue tent and stay on the field um but the giants i think they're going to get a sort of uh that's that new coach bump uh no help them this year new coach bump the fact that isaiah likely is a great receiver for jackson Dart came out of nowhere.