Trump Won't Try to Steal the Midterms...Right? With Chris Cillizza

0:00Is President Trump planning to mess with the midterm elections? Today, my conversation with Chris Saliza. This country was stone cold dead. Okay, before we get to my conversation with Chris, a quick reminder, if you're watching us on YouTube, please hit that like button. Please hit subscribe. It really does help. And if you're listening on the podcast platforms, you can do the same thing. Rate us five stars. Give us a like and a subscribe. Once again, all the engagement, all the help really does matter if you want to keep hearing these sorts of conversations. Good day from Newsweek headquarters at the top of the World Trade Center in freezing cold New York City.

0:34I am Carlo Versano, and this is the 1600. And man, it really is cold out there. I cannot remember the last time the Northeast has been this cold. I was just looking out the window here in the World Trade Center. Both the East River and the Hudson River are frozen over. It's pretty crazy. I've never really seen anything like it. And the streets are just sort of this like moonscape of frozen litter and fossilized dog poop. It's disgusting out there. But anyway, Today, I have a great guest with me, Chris Saliza. Chris is a longtime political commentator. You probably remember him, remember his face, know his name from when he was at CNN for most of the first Trump administration.

1:15And like many others in this industry, he has since gone independent. He writes a great substack called So What, which we'll link to in the description in a YouTube show as well. But Chris, much, much appreciated. Thanks again for joining us. Oh, gosh, happy to do it. And I will say that D.C. was in the deep freeze, but it is supposed to be 50, which makes today. Oh, wow. Which makes me think potentially I should my guilt is up that I need to go out and shovel our side like our sidewalk, because I mean, it is just been absolutely miserable for like 10 days straight. Yeah. And I've heard I've heard stories.

1:55I mean, I know I went to school in Virginia, so I'm familiar with sort of the region. And not really snow is not what you guys do. We don't do it well. Let's just leave it at that. Right. Yeah. Well, hopefully it gets warmer down there. It's supposed to touch freezing here today, which means, of course, it will melt and then freeze again. So it'll be another great win. But Chris, thanks again for joining us. I want to start, you know, you're a political maven. You've been around the block longer than me. You sort of know what's going on. You have a great piece in your on your sub stack today where you have gone through all of President Trump's media interactions, all the times that he has interfaced with the press in his first year, which I think by your account, something like five hundred four.

2:38Yes. So it's actually, Carlo, the numbers are from a woman named Martha Joint Kumar, who runs this thing that people should check out called the White House Transition Project, just like a lot of good, interesting data on there. 493 so this basically dates from inauguration day 2025 january 2020 january 20th 2025 to january 20th 2026 so it doesn't include the last you know two and a half weeks or whatever but he an interaction is defined as anything where he's answering questions of you know a formal interview where he's sitting for that obviously that counts a press conference it's i mean it's Even for Trump, it's a pretty remarkable number because she kept the same numbers for his first year in office in 2017, early 2018.

3:28And it was 246 interactions, so less than half. And even that was seen as a lot back then. I mean, that's a ton. He is averaging in his first year in his second term, he is averaging two major media events or interactions every single day. I mean, it's a it's a stunning amount, especially I mean, the thing that I think is interesting beyond the just the raw numbers is this is a guy who's made his bones, at least on some level with the whole fake news thing. And I always I've always insisted to people like the fake news thing is total BS. Like he says it because it works. You know what I mean? Like the audience reacts to it.

4:07But Donald Trump has always cared. Go back to the 80s. He has always understood and cared deeply about what the media thinks of him, what they're writing and saying about him. So, of course, he's talking to them. He loves banter with the media. I just think it's funny. I mean, it is. I knew he was doing a ton of press stuff because I try to keep up on all that. And even by my standards, I mean, 500 separate events basically is stunning. What did you learn from just combing through all of it? Yeah. Well, so I have gone through a ton of transcripts, interviews. Even I, honestly, I struggle with two things.

4:49One is just purely time, like logistics. Like he talks more than I have the time to go through. And then the other thing is not everything he says is easily available in a transcription. Like I have a transcription service I use. There's some AI ones out there, but you don't get everything. But I've gone through probably 80 % of what he said line by line over his first year in office. He really, I think the biggest takeaway is like, he really only has one speech. Like it's not, I was thinking of this recently when he was speaking to the National Prayer Breakfast. He just gives the same speech that he would give to like a rally in Iowa.

5:30Do you know what I mean? Like there's just no, he's got one speed. He's going to talk about how other countries were sending people from insane asylums here. He's going to talk about how there's 18 trillion dollars being invested. By the way, neither of those things are true. But he's going to say those things. He's going to talk about somewhere in there about how the 2020 election was stolen and rigged and he should have won and everything. And he's going to talk about how the country was going to basically be over had he not won this most recent time around. So it's like I always compare him to like this is a dated reference because I'm old.

6:05But like when the Eagles go on their greatest hits tour, they're playing Hotel California because that's what people want to hear. Or like when a like Borscht Belt comedian, they're doing their bits. Billy Joel is is is playing Piano Man. Do you know what I mean? Like they're doing their. Of course, that's him. He's got a kind of patter. And even though he doesn't read it right, it's in his head. And he kind of so there's a sameness no matter where he's speaking and to who he's speaking to. Or if he's just answering questions from the media, he basically kind of gets to his bits no matter what.

6:37Which is why you get these bizarre things like the National Prayer Breakfast, where he's theoretically there with, you know, all of the all of these Christian conservatives and evangelicals. And he's talking about election fraud or something. And it's just it's just this. And I mean, we're so used to it now, but it does remain just strange and something that no other president could. or probably ever will be able to get away with because they just don't have his, you know, whatever his ex-factor is. Exactly. His force of personality. I wonder about. It's really interesting because one of the things I think just in general with Trump that's interesting to contemplate is like, is he sui generis in that?

7:15Like, this is a one off like he is because of his fame slash infamy in sort of culture and then coming into politics, like there is not another one of him. And therefore, like we kind of go back to where we were 10 years ago, 15 years ago, once he leaves. Or is it like fundamentally changed what people want, sort of how they view a president, what they want in a president, who they choose? Like, I think that's actually a really interesting question as it relates to 2028. I think that's one of the big questions going forward, right? I was in the I was in the former camp that, you know, Trump was an aberration.

7:55His first term, like, you know, sort of ended how it ended. And that was going to sort of be the end of him. Obviously, that was completely wrong. So maybe right. Maybe this is the beginning of something. And, you know, the next 2028 is not going to be between Newsom and Kamala. It's going to be between, you know, The Rock and, you know, Tom Hanks or something. I mean, I don't think it's John Stewart. Exactly. Exactly. But so so we're nine months, roughly, I guess, a little less than nine months out from the from the midterms. Trump is he's certainly at the nadir of his polling, at least for this term.

8:28I saw you were talking to Chuck Todd, my old buddy from from NBC News the other day. And Chuck said that he's Trump is in his worst political position of both of his terms. Right. Not just in terms of polling, but at the actual low politically. I mean, it certainly feels that way in some ways. But then again, it's like how many of us in the media over the years have been like, this is the thing. This is the moment that Trump loses the middle that, you know, he's he's done for. The guy's got insane resilience and his political fortunes have just been written off so many times. That said, he does seem very unpopular right now.

9:05And I just saw this poll this morning. This is a Rasmussen poll, right? Rasmussen is a conservative pollster. Yep. They had they asked who was the better president, Donald Trump or Joe Biden? It had Biden plus eight. That's amazing. That is crazy. That's amazing. Yeah. I think you are very savvy to point out that Donald Trump has been counted out countless times since 2016. I mean, I still I think of this all the time. I still remember. So he gets in the race in June of 2015. And in July 2015, I think he's in Iowa. He's doing some like event in Iowa, like a social conservative event. And he very famously says, they ask about John McCain, who is still alive at that point.

9:53And he says, you know, I prefer my heroes not captured. And I remember thinking, and I believe that was it. I believe for the Washington Post, I wrote this like, well, Donald Trump's one month campaign is now over. Do you know what I mean? And so I think we have to be careful in writing his political obituary. I would say. If you look at all the groups where he put together a winning coalition in 2024 that were unique to him, young men especially, but young voters, more broadly, 18 and 29 year olds, Hispanic, Latino voters. His numbers among those groups have just fallen off a cliff. he's giving it all away it's incredible and and i i would in the thing that i think the the most worrisome thing if i'm a republic if i'm mike lawler new york you know republican i sit in a district that kamala harris won one of only three districts a republican represents that that harris yeah if i if i'm him i'm like not only are we in this place where donald trump's in the low 40s at best in terms of approval.

10:59I'm not sure Donald Trump cares all that much about the sort of broader Republican Party. Like he cares about himself and his legacy. Now, to the extent that helping the Republican Party helps him help his legacy and those dovetail that can work. But like, that's the thing. It's not only that he's unpopular. It's that, you know, we're spending another we got the Obamas as apes in the in the in the video he puts out. We're talking about bad bunny. We're talking about all these things. You know what we're not talking about? Donald Trump got elected in 2024 to make things cheaper. And people do not think things are cheaper and they're not optimistic things are going to get cheaper.

11:39And if I'm like a Mike Lawler, Susan Collins in Maine, I'd be like, what the hell is going on here? But you made you made the important point about all of this, which is that he doesn't care. No. Right. So there's a story in the Washington Post. We'll talk more about the Post, which is important in its own. Yes, I worked there for 10 years. Longest I ever did in legacy media. OK, so perfect. You're the perfect guest for what I want to ask about. But before we get there, so I want to bring up this Post story. So the headline is Republicans secretly fuming with Trump as midterm disaster looms. So first of all, I always love the secretly fuming.

12:14Right. It's like the anonymous post to the paper. Yeah. It's like you can't be publicly fuming that he's about to destroy your political legacy. So this is hold Hold on. Where is it? This is the this is the Post story. Here's a quote. Republicans are secretly angry. This is the lead. Republicans are secretly angry with President Donald Trump because he sounds, quote, detached and noncommittal ahead of a potential midterm election disaster. According to White House insiders who spoke to The Washington Post, the sources said this has not yet translated to public condemnation. Of course not. But some on Trump's team are privately bristling.

12:46The reported angst comes from the fact that Trump, 79, has a$300 million plus war chest, but has yet to approve a spending plan, nor has he endorsed GOP challengers in some key battleground states. End quote. OK, so what? I mean, of course, like it's the most obvious thing. He doesn't care about the Republicans. No, he never has. Right. I always remind people this guy was not a Republican. He's been basically everything. Right. He's been a Democrat. He's been independent. He's a Republican. is a Republican largely, I think, by opportunity in that he saw like, OK, I can get into this primary. The other thing is, it's like, go.

13:25I always tell people, look, 2012 was not 100 years ago. It was 14 years ago. Go back to 2012. Go back. Go back and look at what Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, the presidential and vice presidential nominee, go look at what they campaigned on. smaller government uh less debt you know to the extent you know abortion and stuff like social issues i didn't care about any of those things i mean none of those things i guess lower taxes right that's in the one big beautiful bill but like he's not a conservative by any definition of conservative up until he got elected president right i always say like he's his own he and his movement exists within the Republican Party.

14:09But the idea that like I was talking to Chuck about John Cornyn, just one example in Texas, like John Cornyn is very conservative. He always has. This is what I don't understand. But he doesn't totally fit the party. Like he's not any less conservative than Ken Paxton, the guy who's running against him. It's just Ken Paxton vibes wise. In fact, he's probably more conservative. Ken Paxton vibes wise just fits Trump more. And that's one of the most fascinating things to me. It's like he he remade the Republican Party in ways that it doesn't even resemble itself anymore, with the exception, I guess, of of sort of lower taxes and conservative federal judges.

14:54Those are like the two things that have carried forward. So, Cornyn, that was my question because say what you will about the guy, Donald Trump, that is. He's got incredible political instincts, right? He always has, obviously. He had the greatest electoral comeback probably of all time two years ago. Why not just endorse John Cornyn? Cornyn is the obvious pick if you want to keep that seat in Texas. by far the best option i get that paxton is more maga but but again trump is is smart enough to know like it's not like he doesn't know that cornyn is the better he sees the same polls we do yeah right so i don't understand why not it goes back to what we were talking about he doesn't he doesn't ultimately if it's a fight between is this good for me or is this good for the republican party he's always going to choose himself and i think what he doesn't want to do is endorse cornyn cornyn loses to the guy who's more maga ken paxton so now you get trump looks weak and he hasn't backed the maga guy and you know i think i think it's he just he's always going to choose himself and the republican party threw their lot in with this guy a decade ago and have longer than a decade ago now and they've i always say it's the sunk cost theory right you go to disney world with your kids when they're little if you're in line for five minutes and you get out of line for the thunder mountain or space mountain who cares you know if you're in line for two and a half three hours you are going on that ride whether your kid wants to or not do you know what i mean and it's just they've been in line for a really really long time with them and they're you know and the chickens are coming home to roost yes another bad idiom because exactly trump's out he knows he can't run again so what does he care i guess is that but the other the counter argument to that That is what you said earlier, which is that it will still look bad for him and for his legacy and for any mandate that he has left after November if the GOP just gets wrecked.

17:00And that's that's if I'm a Republican in a swing district or swing state, that's what I have to hope that his self-interest is aligned with with helping. The problem, though, Carlo, is like. What's he going to do? I mean, that's the issue, right? Like, let's say Trump decides in his mind, like, I cannot lose a ton of House seats. We definitely can't lose the House and the Senate majority. Not only will I not be able to get anything done in my last years, it will reflect poorly on me. So he gets motivated. They have a bunch of money in the super PACs line with them,$300 plus million. So he can spend that money.

17:35But can he lower prices? I mean, this is always the problem that you have when you're the president. You get way too much blame for stuff that you don't have control of. And you get way too much credit for stuff you don't necessarily have control of. You know, he talks about I was going through his speech, not his speech, the interview he did with Tom Yamas for the Super Bowl. I just was going through his speech. You know, he does this all the time. He talks about how gas is$1.99 now. And I just always point out to people like I go to the triple, I mean, AAA, pretty reputable, not exactly like some woke leftist organization, right?

18:09It's just a just the place you call when your car breaks down. They keep gas prices every week, weekly average, state by state. there's not one state where gas on average is one 99. The closest is Oklahoma this week. And it's, I think it's like two 42 35, whatever. It's just, you, you can say things are getting better, but if this is the Joe Biden problem, you can say things are getting better. If people don't feel like they are getting better, it doesn't matter what you say. And that's even if he decides, all right, I gotta, I gotta kick ass and like go on the campaign trail. Does it? I don't know if that, makes it better well the gas prices i was actually thinking about this the other day because i was filling out my car in brooklyn um and for the first time later right well actually so the so for the first time i can remember there was a two handle on unleaded 87 you know regular gas 299 yeah it's amazing i thought to myself that i mean right so so i mean you know you can uh global global oil prices are you know not always connected to it's a big no it's a complex issue that the president has very limited ability to control.

19:19Right. But you could certainly and other presidents would have take credit for it. And instead of saying gas is one ninety nine, which is just a lie and it's just going to have the media fact check you. Why not? You know, why not go to that gas station in New York City and say, hey, look, gas prices are down. These New Yorkers, these New Yorkers who hate my guts, who think I'm the Antichrist, are getting cheaper gas than they've gotten, you know, put aside covid in 10 years or whatever. He doesn't do stuff like that. Well, you know what? So I wrote a book and it came out in 2023 called Power Players, Sports Politics in the American Presidency.

19:52And I just basically looked at like the sports presidents played, the sports they spectated, how sports mattered in their lives. And everybody got a chapter from Eisenhower to Biden. And in there, I did a bunch of reporting on Trump as an athlete. Now, he was actually like a not bad high school baseball player. Now, some of the stuff is so on the nose, it feels made up. But his teammates, his high school teammates said, he cared about hitting home runs. He was a big guy. He could hit home runs, but he didn't really care about any other aspects of the game. But he was like a solid baseball player.

20:25Not an amazing baseball player, not a terrible baseball player. He was on his high school team. But he can't just be like, he talks about this sometimes. He can't ever say like, I was a pretty good high school baseball player. I could really hit that ball. He has to say, I was the best high school player, baseball player in the state of New York, and I would have been drafted if I didn't go to college, which is like patently false. A little bit on the Yankees. He just can't, like he can't let the good get in the way of the perfect. Like it has to be the best in everything. Even when I always say he lies about the stupidest things like gas prices.

21:02Gas prices are down. But when you say, oh, you can go anywhere you want, get gas price for a nickel and people go and it's three dollars, it doesn't it doesn't feel the same. I've never understood that about it's obviously like a personality quirk, like you just can't. Good enough is not good enough, you know, and it's been true. I tell the story not only to promote my book, but I tell the story of when he was in college in high school, rather, because it's it's it's in him. Do you know what I mean? It's always been him. He's never been able to just take the win. It has to be the great, the perfect MRI, the best phone call with Vladimir Zelensky.

21:44It's a personality quirk. It's a tech. And, you know, I have this because we have a lot of liberal watchers and viewers, I should say, and liberal readers of our newsletter. And they're always sending me, you know, some some insane thing that Trump says. Like, why are we covering this? Why is the media ignoring this? And what I always say is like, look, this guy, the point to the point that you just made, like he talks nonstop constantly. Right. So it's like you can if anybody was talking that much, you could anybody could in defense of Trump, you could. Us included. I always say I've talked a lot in public and I've said some dumb I won't swear but I've said some dumb things we'll leave it at that totally and absolutely the same for me so it's it's tough because he says so many things and he says some things that are obviously a lot of things are obviously lies some things that are like dangerous lies obviously racist and misogynistic things so it's like what do you how do you you know how do you separate the we from the chef and here's here's the example I want to give you right so he was talking to Trump was talking to Dan Bone what is how do you Dan Bongino.

22:46Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan Bongino. Yeah. Right. Who was the deputy director of the FBI. Couldn't even make it a year. And now he's back to being like a podcaster. He's back to the job to which he was born, the role to which he was born to play. Conservative podcaster. Yeah, exactly. So so he told Mr. Bongino, quote, they're talking about the midterms. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places. And he said he goes on to say Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. You know, amazing that the Republicans aren't tougher on it. The Republicans should say we want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many 15 places.

23:25The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. So obviously you hear that, you read that, you're like, well, that's a little bit concerning, right? That's not how elections work in America, right? It's run by the states. It's in the Constitution. It's not like just something that came out of nowhere. So it's like you read something like that and you're like, okay, well, on the one hand, that's an insane thing to say. On the other hand, Trump can't actually do that. He can't just write an executive order and nationalize federal elections. And you actually – you did a video on this sort of debunking the midterms.

23:56Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about why people shouldn't worry so much. I will I will share in your struggle because it's a daily struggle. The way I think about it is what are mountains and what are molehills to to use a bad cliche. But I do think about it in those terms, like what really matters and is and he can do versus what is he just saying? If everything is a mountain. It's you lose perspective immediately. If the Gulf of America renaming is the same thing as, well, let me think of something I think is the incredible corruption that I believe to be the crypto influence buying of the Trump family in the White House.

24:42If those are the same, it's a boy who cried wolf situation, right? It's like if everything is the end of democracy, then nothing is the end of democracy. Right. On that, the nationalizing elections thing. So here's how I approached it. Number one, having read a lot and watched a lot of what he says, he says all sorts of stuff that he doesn't mean and that he's put zero forethought into. Right. There's not like I think I think liberals especially assume he's always operating under this like detailed blueprint of authoritarianism. When in fact, like his entire life has been a testament to the fact that he just kind of says stuff and then he reacts to the reaction.

25:20So that's fact one. Fact two is exactly, Carlo, what you said. Look, it's in the Constitution that states run elections. If you want to change that, Congress has to pass a law. There is a 0.0 % chance that seven Democrats are going to cross party lines in the Senate and vote for something that nationalizes elections in any meaningful way. They can't get 60 votes on this SAVE Act, this Voter ID Act. They're not getting it on an overhaul, the hand control to Donald Trump. So I think you have to say those things. I will note, can he make, you know, Steve Bannon has floated putting ICE officials around polling places.

26:01Right before he made the nationalizing the elections comments, Trump, you know, oversaw the search warrant of the Fulton County Georgia ballots from 2020. Are there things he can do? Can he lean on the House or the Senate to not validate the results after the election? Sure. There are things he can do. Do I think they will work? I do not. So I think mountain and molehill, right? Wheat from chaff is a little bit subjective. But all I would say to our liberal friends is not everything can be a mountain. I think it is incredibly stupid that he named it the Donald J. Trump, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Center.

26:39OK, but I also don't think that that materially affects our world. Other than if you're on the left, you're like, I can't believe he did fine. Fine. But pick the things you get outraged about to that really, really matter. And to me, the left gets very distracted by all this noise over here. And they don't talk about just for example, they don't talk about the fact that this crypto stuff is really, really bad. Stuff tells perfectly with something I wanted to ask you about. Eric Levitz writing in Vox this week, Trump has a plan to steal the midterms. It will probably fail. So I'm just going to quote from the story.

27:19if concerns that Trump might unduly influence the 2026 midterms aren't new. However, they've grown markedly more plausible over the past two weeks. And he goes on to make the point that you made about this, this raid that they made in Fulton County, Georgia, over the 2020 election where Tulsi Gabbard was there for some reason. Yes. A lot of shady stuff. So weird. Weird stuff happening there. He also makes a point about Bondi telling, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, telling Tim Walz that they would implicitly pull back ICE if he gave the DOJ access to the state's voter rolls. So Levitz goes on to write, quote, The nightmare scenario for this year's elections has long gone something like this.

27:56Control of the House comes down to a small number of close races. Republicans lead on Election Day in many of those contests, but their advantage steadily erodes as mail-in ballots arrive. The White House attributes those adverse trends to mass voter fraud and demands a halt to the vote counting. And he goes on to basically, you know, hypothesize that states refuse to comply, White House orders the military to seize ballots and voting machines from certain precincts. The chain of custody of these ballots gets all messed up. You don't know what's going on. And then the GOP majority in the House, theoretically, again, still asserts that the authority to seat the Republican candidates in the contested races and American democracy.