Republicans get bad news ahead of Trump-themed midterm convention

0:01Brian Tyler Cohen:Republicans get some rough news about this week's upcoming midterm convention. And I've got three interviews, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, the bulwark Sarah Longwell, and the Democrat running to unseat embattled Republican Congressman Max Miller, Brian Poindexter. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. If you've got your big first ever midterm convention this week, as Republicans do, this is probably not the news that you want shared when it comes to ticket sales. The NRCC did confirm to Fox more than 2 ,000 tickets have been distributed ahead of the convention. So tell us more about the convention and also about this cash advantage for you and the RNC.

0:40Brian Tyler Cohen:The big question here, where are you going to deploy the money? Well, listen, I think that people are giving us money because they believe in the agenda that we're selling to the American people. And I think they believe in the president. They believe in what Speaker Johnson doing and Leader Thune is doing. And we're ready to go. 2 ,000 tickets. This thing is days away and Republicans have barely broken triple digits when it comes to ticket sales, which actually makes sense for three reasons. First, let's start with the price tag. House Republicans are being asked to pony up a minimum$25 ,000 suggested donation to attend.

1:14Brian Tyler Cohen:And this isn't to speak or to headline. This is just for the distinct privilege of being able to walk in the door. And for an idea as to how that's landing, out of 70 Republican candidates and sitting members who were asked whether they were going, 45 of them said no or that they were still, quote, considering. That's nearly two thirds of the people that were actually asked hedging or outright declining for their party's marquee midterm event. Tim Burchett said, quote, I just got a bill. I'm not sure. He called the$25 ,000 ask, quote, pretty steep. Former New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu said that Trump is supposed to be raising money for the candidates, not the other way around.

1:50Brian Tyler Cohen:Jake Elsie said, quote, not everybody's a fundraising juggernaut. And some of these folks feel it's better spent on themselves. And he's right that everybody is not a fundraising juggernaut. And one would think that the leader of a major political party would recognize that too and would consider not charging$25 ,000 to your own members during their reelection campaigns, while he himself has$450 million. But Trump isn't most leaders. And these Republicans have to remember that at the end of the day, it is not about them. It's about Trump. When you swear allegiance to the world's biggest narcissist, that means you got to pay the narcissism tax, too.

2:28Brian Tyler Cohen:Reason number two, this thing pulls Republicans who are in genuinely tough races off the campaign trail at the exact moment they can least afford it. Like we are fewer than 60 days out from the midterms. And thanks to Trump, Republicans are running in the least favorable environment in decades, Maybe leaving their states and districts to go rub elbows with big donors is not the best use of their time. Perhaps talking to the people whose votes they're actually trying to win might be a little bit more productive. Then again, this isn't exactly a Republican Party known for their allegiance to regular people.

2:58Brian Tyler Cohen:Which leads to reason number three, which really is the whole ballgame. This convention is basically shaping up to be one big Trump celebration. It's literally being billed as Trumpapalooza. And it's all happening as Trump's rock bottom approval rating drags the rest of his party down. So if you are a vulnerable House Republican trying to convince swing voters back home that you're your own person, you're independent minded, you're focused on their kitchen table issues, maybe the last thing you want is a viral photo of yourself on the convention floor in Dallas with your cowboy hat included courtesy of the$20 ,000 honorary delegate package cheering for a president whose numbers are cratering and who the voters are showing up to vote against.

3:38Brian Tyler Cohen:you would be voluntarily nationalizing your own race around the most unpopular figure in it. And let's be honest, this is going to be a Trump worship fest. Trump's RNC is not going to put on an event where it is anything other than that. So anybody who goes is basically telling their voters, this is where my allegiance lies. I am in Dallas, genuflecting at the altar of Trump instead of talking to you. Like the reality is you don't show up at Trump a palooza and then get to go to your own district and distance yourself from that very guy. You can't have it both ways. And that tension explains basically everything else weird about how this event's been organized.

4:16Brian Tyler Cohen:Like, for example, how Republicans haven't disclosed basic attendance projections or state-by-state participation numbers for what is supposed to be the largest Republican gathering since 2016. Like, when you're proud of your turnout, you want people to know what that turnout actually looks like. When you're worried about the turnout, that's when you go quiet and vague. It's also telling that Texas Republicans had to slash their premium ticket prices mid-sale. They cut their top tier from$20 ,000 down to$10 ,000. The next tier got cut from$15 ,000 to$7 ,500. Not something you do when fundraising is going well.

4:48Brian Tyler Cohen:You cut prices when the demand isn't matching the hype. So here's where that leaves us. Republicans built an event explicitly designed to be a show of strength heading into a brutal midterm environment, and instead, it is exposing exactly the vulnerability that they were hoping to paper over. The price tag is scaring off rank and file members. The politics of appearing on a Trump branded stage is scaring off anybody in a competitive district. And the people who most need to be home doing the actual work of winning their races are choosing to do that instead of going to Dallas. So you can slap, you know, convention on a two day Trump rally.

5:22Brian Tyler Cohen:You can print up cowboy hats. You can book the American Airlines arena. But you can't fundraise your way out of the basic problem that the man you're building the whole event around is dragging down everybody standing with him. Next up are my interviews with Wes Moore, Sarah Longwell, and Brian Poindexter. No Lie is brought to you by Factor. It is genuinely tough to stick to any semblance of a diet when the weather gets nice and friends start getting together and a box of cookies is just a few taps away on the phone. But as we head into fall, it is definitely time to lock in, and Factor makes it easier than ever, even when I'm on the go.

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6:34Brian Tyler Cohen:97 % of users agree that Factor Meals help them live a healthier lifestyle, so you can feel confident that you're doing something good for yourself with every single meal. I'm picky when it comes to food, but Factor is legitimately delicious, healthy, and I could not recommend it highly enough. So let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com slash BTC50OFF and use code BTC50OFF to get 50 % off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until 10-31-26. That's code BTC50OFF at Factormeals.com. BTC50OFF at Factormeals.com. We have some major news at the Maryland Supreme Court.

7:13Brian Tyler Cohen:I'm joined by the governor of Maryland, Wes Moore. Governor Moore, can you explain what just happened at the state Supreme Court? This is something that you and I have been speaking about for years at this point. So can you tell us what the big news is? And I've been fighting for for years. And yesterday's decision was just massive, where the Maryland Supreme Court, and again, by an overwhelming 5-2 decision, really gave a victory to the people of our state. And what they did was they said that we can have on the ballot, and now we will have on the ballot, where people have a chance to defend their own democracy and decide whether or not we can redistrict our congressional lines.

7:55You know, the thing that we have continually said is that I believe in national redistricting reform. But what I also know is this, I'm not blind. And what is happening right now, in absence of national redistricting reform, you're having the president of the United States who's deciding to go through his own process. And where Donald Trump is then saying he wants to do things like nationalize elections and And he wants to do things like put federal agents around voting booths. And he wants to do things like eliminate mail-in balloting. And he wants to tell Republican states that they should do mid-decade redistricting.

8:27And so what has now happened in the state of Maryland, we've been pushing for over a year now that Maryland cannot sit on our hands while getting punched in the face and while watching all this happening all across the country. And now we're just very, very grateful that after a lot of work, the Maryland Supreme Court has ruled with us. And this will now be on the ballot in November.

8:50Brian Tyler Cohen:OK, so talk us through the procedural aspects of this. What's the timeline here? You just mentioned that this question is going to be on the ballot in November. So walk us through between now and the general election in 2028. Yeah. So what is going to happen now is come come November 3rd, there'll be a question on the ballot about about for Marylanders to be able to decide whether or not the whether or not we can have this freedom and flexibility to be able to make these adjustments on our congressional lines. I will be going around prior to November 3rd. And, you know, and as I've said, I'm I'm also on the ballot for reelection come November 3rd.

9:24And we're going to urging urging our people to to vote yes and vote west come November 3rd. If we are successful come November 3rd, what then will happen is we will have the ability to go back in front of our General Assembly and say that now we have this authority that's been given to us by the people of Maryland. We now must act. And so we will be able to turn around quickly. And we've already been having conversations with members of the General Assembly, already been having conversations with our legislature. So so we know that if the people of the state give us the authority to be able to do this, we will be able to make these adjustments.

9:57And I do want to highlight why this is important, too, because for anyone who thinks that this debate is over, they are deeply mistaken. because let's be clear, next year, we know that Mississippi, we know the potential of Georgia, we know that Indiana, we know that other states are now going to go through and they're going to follow through on Donald Trump's will, which is go and rig a system, weaken voting rights, and make this pain permanent through this aggressive mid-decade redistricting. So the state of Maryland, if the voters give us the opportunity come November 3rd, the state of Maryland will have an opportunity to respond.

10:34Brian Tyler Cohen:Can you talk about the difference from where we are right now versus just a few months ago? I mean, you and I had spoken at length about the prospect of Bill Ferguson, the state Senate president, blocking this effort. And so how did we get from that point where there was kind of a refusal to acknowledge the broader political environment to right now where, you know, now we are in a place where Maryland Democrats are willing to see the broader environment and fight fire with fire? Well, I think, unfortunately, what happened was people saw that what we had been predicting for the past, you know, over a year was happening.

11:09Brian Tyler Cohen:Right. It wasn't just alarmism. It was not alarmism that we were watching an election being stolen in front of our faces. That when we're talking about things like the, you know, him trying to eliminate mail-in balloting, which, by the way, we sued him over and beat him in court. When he was talking about things like telling us to turn over our voter rolls, which he knows is unconstitutional. And there's no reason for us to do that because it's a violation of the 10th Amendment. And then when he's turning around and then you saw the fall of the Voting Rights Act, which was the crown jewel of the civil rights movement.

11:41Yeah. And so we've been talking about this for a year and a half. This was not just just some, you know, this was not just some some overreaction. We were literally watching an election being the attempt of an election being stolen from us in broad daylight. And so we're thankful now that we have, you know, have a party that is ready to move, that is ready to respond, that we were able to work very hard to go get both the House and the Senate on board. and then post-November 3rd, if the people of Maryland vote to be able to make these adjustments, we will continue working with both the House and the Senate to ensure that we can present maps.

12:16Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, I think, you know, before we move on, I think you and the other Maryland Democrats deserve a lot of credit for moving this issue forward because, you know, as we've seen, it's easy to say the right things. It's a little bit more difficult to expend some political capital and do the right thing. And that's exactly what's happening, what's happening right now in Maryland. So again, a lot of credit to the work that you and the rest of the team have done in your state. To that end, you did just mention what Donald Trump is trying to do, which necessitated this kind of response. Right now, he is engaged in this effort to appeal his illegal executive order, basically ending mail-in ballots, except for a narrow set of circumstances, in all of the states ahead of midterms.

12:56Brian Tyler Cohen:Even though he's had, you know, been blocked by temporary restraining orders in lower courts, he's now seeking to appeal this up to the U.S. Supreme Court. What is your job right now? What are you looking to do to protect mail-in voting in your state as he, you know, pulls out every stop he can to try and block basically an enterprise that is disproportionately used by Democratic voters? I mean, let's just call it what it is. he's doing this because he knows he cannot win on the issues he's doing this because he knows he cannot win when you're watching inflation at three-year highs he's doing this because he knows what you know that you cannot win when you're starting you know starting uh trade wars with canada and putting illegal tariffs on other countries he's doing it because he knows we're in the middle of a war that none of us asked for that none of us understand another forever war that he wants to get out of as fast as possible, but he's realizing that one side can start a war, but one side cannot finish it.

13:57Other people will have an opinion as to when the war ends. And so what does he do? He then tries to rig the system and he tries to cheat. What we're doing here in the state of Maryland and what I've also been doing is, the other governors selected me to be the chair of the National Governors Association. So we're working with governors across the country, both Democrat and Republicans, to basically say, remember your rights and remember your powers. Because the truth is, is that this is a by if he by doing this, this is actually taking away from state rights. Elections were given to the states, not to the federal government.

14:34And that was done by the Constitution. And so what we're urging all of our governors to do, all of our attorneys general, all of our secretaries of state to do is do not give up your power, because the only way that Donald Trump can do this is if we forfeit it. And so we're hopeful that as other courts have shown, that regardless of what judge or what jurist that he puts this in front of, they will go back to their legal training and the legal foundation, which knows that him trying to do this is a direct violation of the 10th Amendment and it's a direct violation of state rights.

15:11Brian Tyler Cohen:I'm joined now by The Bulwarks' Sarah Longwell, also the author of the new book, How to Eat an Elephant, One Voter at a Time. Sarah, thanks for joining me. Hey, man, thanks for having me. So I want to get into the book in a moment. But first, I have to ask 30 ,000 foot view, as we are now two months out from midterms, what is your outlook on midterms, the Senate specifically, as we've seen Republicans continue to scramble a little bit more? There is obviously money problems with people like Ken Paxton. Mike Johnson just adjourned the House as he tries to scramble and figure out how to contend with the prospect of a new Epstein discharge petition.

15:46Brian Tyler Cohen:So a little bit Republicans in disarray moment right now. As we look at midterms, what is your top line here? Yeah, they're not showing a lot of confidence, are they? Look, this is all about the enthusiasm gap right now. And if you had told me, if I had told you 18 months ago, a year ago, hey, BTC, guess what? Iowa's in play. Texas is in play. We would have been like beside ourselves with joy and optimism. We wouldn't have believed it. And here we are. And look, am I going to put am I going to bet the farm on Texas? Never, ever. But if everything that has to go right for to win a federal election in Texas is going right at the moment for Democrats, they got a good candidate on on the downside.

16:32They got a terrible candidate on the on the Republican side and they got an environment in which enthusiasm among Republicans. And look, I do the focus groups all the time. And I can tell you the main thing I'm hearing is the depressed enthusiasm from Republicans who are mad about a war, mad about high costs, feeling betrayed. They never got their Epstein files. They think Trump spending all his time on the ballroom in the arch or whatever, and he's not paying attention to their affordability, their material economic concerns. And so we got big races in places we haven't had Democrats with the potential to win in so long.

17:08So look, I'm bullish, but always with the cautiousness that comes with saying, could a Democrat really win Iowa? Could a Democrat really win Texas? Like it's got to be a big blue wave for that to happen, but all the markers are there. Right.

17:22Brian Tyler Cohen:I feel like at the end of the day, all you really need as that caveat is it's still Texas. It's still Iowa. And so you can't you know, you can't just assume that anything is in the bag. You had mentioned enthusiasm. And I want you to drill on that one point here. To what extent does enthusiasm correlate to people coming out to vote? Well, look, right now in midterm elections, Democrats, because they've sort of traded voters with Republicans and they now have a lot of these college educated suburban voters, they structurally do better in off year elections than Republicans do. Because Republicans now really need Trump to kind of juice those low information voters.

18:00And Trump brings them out in the general election. But in midterms, Dems still have a structural advantage. Their people want to crawl across broken glass to get out there to vote. You tell them ICE is going to be at the polls. They say, well, we'll see ICE there, right? While as Republicans, when I listen to Republicans focus groups, man, I just did one in Florida a couple weeks ago. And this was really stunning to me because sometimes I screen for Trump disapprovers. So we were already asking them, hey, how do you rate Trump? You know, for people who say somewhat bad or very bad, you know, we bring them into a group to hear, are they persuadable?

18:32Are they staying home? What are they doing? This was just a straight up group of Trump, Florida voters. And we asked them to give him a letter grade that he couldn't get above a C from anybody like and it was mostly D's. And a couple of people were like, I can give him an F. Right. And it's the war. It's the war. When the Iran war has multiple implications for voters, but obviously high gas prices is one of them that has a negative personal consequence for people. But also it's like another lie that Trump told them, one that was very we weren't supposed to be doing this. This was literally you said you weren't going to be doing this.

19:06This is how you were supposed to be different. And so it's a betrayal. And so that when people are like, what agenda am I protecting? What am I turning out to defend? And that diminishes the enthusiasm.

19:16Brian Tyler Cohen:What about something like Tarrant County, Texas, the third biggest county in Texas, where the commissioners in Tarrant County, three to two along party lines, voted to close down 92 polling places in that county? To what extent does these like you had mentioned before, there are voters who are going to come out and say that they're going to crawl through glass. This is kind of the equivalent to that. When you when you shut down a third of all polling places in the entire county, you kind of do need to, in a way, crawl through glass to actually be able to cast a ballot. And so to what extent do you think that something like that is going to be effective versus that's going to be, you know, something that that almost backfires in the sense that now you have these voters who are going to see that their votes are being suppressed and they're going to be kind of even more inspired.

20:04Brian Tyler Cohen:They're going to redouble their efforts to make sure that they can get their ballot cast even in the face of such blatant voter suppression. Yeah, I mean, look, I don't know if you listen to black voters right now, black voters are very aware that their voting rights have been under threat by this administration. Like there is more and like the the black community has done a lot. People who are leaders in that community have done a lot to make sure their voters understand that these guys are coming for their voting rights in ways and stripping people of their rights. And so I do think it backfires in that it creates more enthusiasm.

20:40I think the problem becomes just like a real logistical problem is like, do they have to wait eight hours to vote? And any time you do that, you know, you are putting a friction and a real barrier between people and their ability to vote. And so it's hard to game out exactly how that works. The only thing I can say, and you know this, right? We both have lots of friends who are in the voting rights community who are out there doing this work. And they are prepared. Like there is money. There is there's lots of scenario planning. Like they are trying to make sure that they can figure out how to make it possible for everybody to vote.

21:15Like there's people on this.

21:17Brian Tyler Cohen:So the book is called How to Eat an Elephant, One Voter at a Time. In writing this book, which which you basically lay out a playbook for building a coalition big enough to permanently defeat this kind of MAGA style authoritarian, you know, fake populism, whatever it may be. What was the most surprising thing that you came across while you were writing this book? Well, this is, you know, eight years of focus group data. And I started the focus groups when we were trying to primary Trump in the early days. And I was trying to figure out if that was something we could do. Answer was no, by the way.

21:51And it's in the early days, I really realized how deep Trump's relationship was with voters, how much they had watched The Apprentice, how much that had contributed to the carefully curated image of this businessman. You know, he was firing Gilbert Gottfried on a soundstage and American voters said, that guy's a good businessman. And that good businessman thing. And it also like Oprah, he spent a million years with. Larry King, he spent a million years with like, you know, Howard Stern. Like he was so much a part of the firmament that the thing that I would say is at the center of this book as a thesis is that Donald Trump really is a unique individual with a unique communications talent and a unique parasocial relationship with voters.

22:38He broke a bunch of things that are now permanent parts of the communications infrastructure. Number one being, I'm going to talk directly to the voters. I'm not going to be mediated through the media or through anything else, like my tweets, my bleats over on Truth Social. I'm going to talk directly two people. And so at that core, though, is I, as a former Republican, have watched as Trump has basically not just taken over the Republican Party, but like it's a cult of personality and there's nothing after him. And so the point is, is that if you look two years, everybody's so like, will he leave?