Trump Defeated on Epstein, DOJ Prosecutor, and 2025 Elections

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1:11And usually presidents face this kind of hell month later in the term. So it's bad news coming earlier than usual, which is also bad news as there are cries of a lame duck presidency. Consider within the last day, Trump's revenge cases completely blowing up. And remember, this is not like they made it to trial and James Comey found sympathetic jurors. This is not like they made it to jury selection and something changed. This, by any legal timeline, was a fast failure. And if you're counting, I've mentioned this in our coverage, there have now been three losses for Trump, three cases against foes, his perceived foes, that have completely fallen apart, and zero wins.

1:58New polls show anger over prices. Americans more upset than the end of Biden's term. Trump's job approval crashing to record lows. As you see, it stacks up on the screen. But we're not done. We are in the middle of this month. Trump also faced that humiliating defeat with both parties telling him to stop hiding the sex traffickers' files. Some people in politics allege maybe Trump was involved in early emails, have him at least mentioned. Others say maybe he's not involved. But in this rare polarized, in this polarized moment, we had this rare unity where they all came together in Congress and said, enough, release the sex traffickers files.

2:41Some people say they don't even want to know why Trump seems so intent on hiding them. And that means a deadline is now looming, stretching through this month into next for Donald Trump's terrible November to comply. More Republicans defecting, some threatening to leave Congress. And if you go back three weeks, Trump lost when the Democrats had that election sweep. And that's how this hell month began for the president. You stack it all up, and even in these busy times with a million phone alerts. And what you see on your screen is overwhelming. Imagine if you were the politician at the center of all that.

3:16And those election wins or losses for Trump and his party, that was three weeks ago tonight. Though honestly, I don't know about you, could feel like a lot longer. And for Trump and his White House and the Republican Party, we know they think it's been a lot longer because they have been bruised every week since then. When you're dealt with bad news like that in politics, we all know the drill. They try to rebound, move on to something else. But all they moved on to are defeats that in some ways were more robust, or at least involved more states, more representatives of more people in the Congress going after him on Epstein than the multi-state loss they suffered three weeks ago tonight.

3:57MAGA voices are not all denying this reality at this point. There are plenty of Trump defenders. We hear a lot about the loyalists, but a varied group of voices, including in our evolving digital media, right? You've got the live TV news. You got stuff on YouTube that includes traditional and new media. You got podcasts. You got social media. And so across this wider media audience, maybe in distinction from a place like Fox News, some voices with large audiences who are largely MAGA or MAGA curious, they see what's happening. They are facing the music even if Trump isn't. That includes the comedians, the podcasts, and even FoxVet.

4:36Tucker. And the Republican Party, which is almost to the point where it's just useless, and I'm going to have to oppose it because they're just, I hate them too much, but because they're such betrayers. It certainly seems that he doesn't want these documents to come out because he himself will suffer some fallout. Nothing I voted for happened. What about you? Are you happy with anything? I mean, it sounds like a political wake. And because their audiences, especially Tucker, still include plenty of people who are conservative or Republican adjacent or MAGA, and labels can be simplistic, but you'll notice there's a tone there.

5:21They don't necessarily go directly at Trump and say, boy, he messed this all up. He had a good hand a year ago, and it seems like he blew it, spent the political capital quickly, and is still messed up on Epstein. They don't necessarily word it all that way, but that's not positive messaging, what you just heard, obviously, for Trump's Republican Party going into a midterms where Tucker's audience either is going to pull the lever for Republicans or hand the Congress over to Trump's opponents, the Democrats. Take another example, Michael Savage, conservative radio host. He was OG MAGA. He endorsed Trump early in 16.

5:57In the first term, you could find him in the Oval Office. Here's Savage now. I think the American worker right now is hurting badly. I think the economy is in the no matter what the Trump administration might want to be selling or telling us. The prices are too high. Inflation is too high. Jobs are not here for the people who work for them. And they're being shafted primarily in the tech industry. Straight up. And he mentions tech. While Trump, who campaigned on a so-called populism and lowering prices, has done very little on that agenda, but is cozying up to the tech elites as they all get richer and do crypto, etc.

6:41Tech's doing well. Here's the top line. When you look at a stock market graph, what you see there, first is the blue line, huge growth for the top 500 companies when you include tech. But if you take out what they call those seven tech companies, Zuckerberg's meta, Bezos's Amazon. If you exclude those, you get this. A lot lower. Now you might say, gosh, Ari, you don't usually make us do this much math. What Michael Savage just said, what people are feeling out in the real economy is that red line, which is pretty flat. That's the 400 largest companies in the U.S. absent Trump's tech friends. It's a different picture.

7:25It's a different reality. It's economic risk. It's concern about the economy, let alone potentially a souring economy, which we know changes people's patience for a president, any president or any stumbles.

7:42Now, when you think, I found Marjorie to be... Think about that. I found Marjorie to be very effective, but she's almost like a canary in a coal mine. And this is something inside Congress they better wake up because they're going to get a lot of people retiring and they got to focus. I think keeping members out of Congress, you only get two years to be in the majority. And if the Democrats get you not to work every day for two months, that's losing two months of the majority. That's a warning there from another House Speaker who has faced his own Republican problems, Kevin McCarthy, wanted you to see that.

8:19But you could ask Jimmy Carter. You can ask Joe Biden at the end of his term. When people are upset about the economy, the chart I just showed you, the real economy flat and a lot of risk out there, we don't know what's going to happen. They have less patience for these games. Then take this quote. Congress has been, quote, sidelined by the current GOP speaker with obedience from the Trump White House and betraying the American people. That's from the right. Another Republican says the White House team has treated members like garbage. The arrogance of this Trump White House team is, quote, off-putting to members who are run roughshod and threatened.

8:57More explosive early resignations are coming. The source tells Punchbowl's newsletter, it's a tinderbox. Morale never lower. Johnson will be stripped of his gavel. They will lose the majority before this term is out. Now, that is what they call a blind quote or warning. Doesn't mean it's going to happen, but there are at least some people in the Congress who feel that way. And remember, they can only lose two votes among the Republicans. So if that's a real quote, right, Punchbowl says that's a real one. You add another one or two. And before you know it, you could have a Matt Gaetz style rebellion, which remember, is what displaced Mr.

9:31McCarthy, who I just showed you trying to remind people how tenuous their power is. Trump entering lame duck territory. At this point in his second term, Obama was still net positive six. Trump 19 points underwater. The right-leaning economist says once Trump's honeymoon is over, presidents tend to lose popularity quickly. But no president has fallen so low as quickly as Trump. The narrative has changed quickly, driven by all this evidence. I have two special guests when we return in 90 seconds.

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11:26As Trump reels with his first basically full-blown Republican crisis of this term, we want to bring in Alicia Menendez, co-host of The Weeknight, of course, our colleague and longtime Republican White House veteran Bill Kristol, now a Trump critic, editor at large of The Bulwark. Welcome to both of you. Alicia, the vibes, the narrative, if you will, seems to match the evidence. There's some real problems. Yeah, he's got some real problems. Listen, he campaigned sort of on this central idea that Americans were so discontent with the economy and he was going to be the one who was going to come into power and he was going to reckon with it.

12:00He told voters incomes will skyrocket. Inflation will vanish completely. Jobs will come roaring back. None of that has happened. Right. So there's both the substance of it, the fact that he's been focused on his tariffs, which have injected a huge amount of uncertainty into the economy. They have forced a number of consumer good costs to rise. He's rolled back ACA subsidies. So everything's more expensive, whether it is your health care or your coffee. And then there's the rhetoric. He's so far afield, Ari, that just last week he was saying that he had never heard about the term affordability and that he was learning about the term affordability.

12:35Trump on the stump understood or at least pretended to understand that cost of living was supposed to be his bread and butter. So there's that. But then there's something between the substance and the rhetoric, which is that he's so focused on prosecuting his most outspoken critics and not on the economy. That it's clear to voters that he does not have his eye on the prize. I think that's what you saw in New Jersey and Virginia. The voters sort of were like, wait a second, you promised me one thing. You have not delivered it, and you don't even seem focused on the thing that you promised. Now, if I can push back a little, he did say there's a new word.

13:15Groceries. Groceries. Groceries. Groceries. It's a new word. It's a new word. I had personally never heard of it. Okay. But now that I know about it, I do understand that most Americans are going to the grocery store, and they're saying, I can't afford the beef I used to be able to afford. I can't afford the bananas I was able to afford. You told me you were going to bring prices down and you have actually only succeeded in bringing prices up. And if it was just a Biden problem, why didn't it go away with Biden? Right. And why were we supposed to have why are we being told to have patience with you, but not patience?

13:46But I really love your frame here about how this has been terrible week, month for Trump. I think the conceit of your frame, if I may, is that it has been a worse nine or 10 months for Americans. Whether you're that person who's going to the grocery store and can't afford things, whether you are an American who lives in a city that now has ICE invasions and your neighbors being snatched up off the street, whether you're a person who relied on SNAP and had weeks where you weren't sure if you're going to be able to feed your family because this administration could release funds and chosen not to.

14:14Whatever is happening to him in this last month pales in comparison to what he has put Americans through. Bill, as you know, Alicia clearly spitting hot fire. And that's what that is. Clear, strong, and bringing in, of course, the stakes, which is the public, aren't just doing some political math here about what a month he's had. They're living it. So I think all that's fair. I want to show the chart again for you, Bill. You remember W.I. Thomas, the sociologist? If people believe things to be real, they are real in their consequences. The blue chart is this idea that we chat. Everyone's heard of this, you know, S &P 500, whether you're in or out of the markets, you heard it, the top companies.

14:57But most of the companies, 490 of them are that flat red line. And so while people sometimes look up and they look at their retirement account or wherever they look and they hear about things up, there's a lot more economic pain and risk in the real economy. How does that fit in to the diminishing patience people have with the Trump show? Yeah, and big companies have announced layoffs, unemployment's ticked up a bit, inflation hasn't gone down, actually ticking back up a little. So I think people are very nervous. I think you've said it before, there are a lot of risks ahead. If one just analytically looks at it, what are we more likely to have over the next three months, upside surprises in the markets and in the economy or downside surprises?

15:36And I think, honestly, most economists would say probably more risk on the downside. So you put that in, factor that in with what you and Alicia have been talking about. It's really striking. I would put it, you put it very well in the last week, but let's just go back a second. September 30th, the big shutdown. At the time, remember Democrats, people thought Democrats were taking a great risk. Presidents usually win shutdown fights against Congress. Democrats are in the minority. What's their, they didn't, you know, they don't have the greatest spokespeople in the world. They clearly won it politically, right?

16:03I mean, we're now, what, September 30th, it's almost two months later. and Trump is much weaker than he was then. October 18th, no kings. I think that's something we've forgotten too quickly. Remember, Trump and his people just tried to demonize it for the week before. It's a hate America rally. It's kind of like terrorists and stuff like that. Seven million people show up, totally peaceful, patriotic demonstrations. November 4th, the election we mentioned, 10 million plus people vote, pretty resounding defeat for the Republicans. And then the Epstein files, an actual legislative defeat. So I think what's important about all those things is they were, you know, Trump could make mistakes and people can, the media, we can all say it's terrible.

16:40Some voters notice, some don't. But these were all kind of confrontations, showdowns, you know, the shutdown, no kings, the elections, and then Epstein. And on each of those, Trump suddenly started to lose. And I think that's very important. Momentum matters so much in politics. Trump had that weird kind of anything he does, he's got this mystical connection with the American public. There's nothing Democrats could ever do to discredit him. The right-wing media ecosystem is so powerful. And suddenly, one, two, three, four, a bunch of defeats. I think it really matters. Alicia, this is polling.

17:16Majorities of Latinos disapprove of Trump and his policies on the economy and immigration. As with all groups, it's not a monolith. And there were Americans in the Latino community who were warming to Trump in last cycle. Four in five say Trump's policies now harm Hispanics or Latinos larger than the first term share. And there were people who believed him when he said, I'm going to focus on the economy. And now they're looking up and saying, as you've said, in this community as well, I guess that wasn't true. Well, there was a conversation post his win about whether or not what we were watching was a realignment.

17:51Whether there were voters like Latino voters who had disproportionately voted for Democrats who are now going to align themselves with Democrats. or with Republicans, or whether it was just a de-alignment from Democrats. I think there's a window of opportunity for Democrats here to begin to answer that question. And part of that, yes, is about the rejection of Trump and saying you were promised things that are not coming to fruition. He said that his focus, even on a question of immigration, was going to be at the U.S.-Mexico border, not at the interior. And here is the vision we can offer you in exchange.

18:23Here is what America can look like. But I think part of what we learned from New Jersey and Virginia is that takes sustained organizing, right? That's not just people showing up two weeks before an election and suddenly making a pitch. That is, right now, organizers on the ground beginning to develop those relationships. And it's not sexy, but it is the work. And it's happening. You talked about Latinos. It's happening more generally with non-white voters. It's happening with younger voters. And what that means in an America that is increasingly younger and not white is that what happens in this moment will also determine the political future for generations to come.

19:03Bill, your view on why there are more cracks in the public discourse, even putting aside the congressional vote, some of the MAGA folks saying, wait a minute, they don't necessarily want to carry water for all of this. Yeah, I think a couple of things. I think Epstein was just awfully, awfully important. I mean, you need, you know, there can be a lot of little cracks, it's sort of like, you know, and they don't quite become big cracks. And when one of them becomes a big crack, other people think, oh, you know what, I'm allowed to break with him and people who broke with him. And it turned out Trump ended up signing the bill and we'll see what happens.

19:36One of the things looming ahead in December for him is the release of the Epstein files or a cover up of the Epstein files, neither of which I think will be very good for him. So, but I think that was very important. And then I do think that what you mentioned earlier, Ari, the one thing Trump was good at, remember Hillary Clinton in 2016, we're with her and Trump said at the convention, I'm with you. And I remember thinking at that time, Trump's probably not going to win, but I don't know, that's a pretty powerful counter message, you know? And I'm for you. Trump carried that out. I mean, he didn't carry it out, but he said it.

20:08Are you centering the candidate or the people? Yeah. He said it for the last 10 years, basically. And I do think now people don't think he's watching out for the American public. Some of it's also the self-centered stuff. You know, the white, the East Wing. It's all about him, the ballroom. You know, it's not, he and his family are doing great. But what about you? What about the people? Yeah. We're approaching the holidays, Bill. Did you want to wish Fat Joe a happy Thanksgiving or anything like that tonight? Happy Thanksgiving, Fat Joe. Yeah, we're in touch. You know, I mean, we don't, it's nice to do it to you, Harry.

20:41But, you know, we're constant. The texting, you know, all that stuff. It's just it's nonstop, frankly. Yeah. Does he ask you what the hot restaurants are, where to go out? Hot restaurants, musical music recommendations, obviously a lot of hip hop stuff. You know, that's just me. It's kind of right. Yeah. Alicia and I will fact check that after the holidays in the holiday spirit. Great to see you both on matters of import. A little fun at the end. I want to remind everyone if you want more Alicia. She's on next weeknight in the next hour. We'll see you soon. I know you got to run and stay busy.

21:12Coming up, the incompetence of the Trump DOJ is ricocheting and fears about MAGA undercutting American democracy. I'm really excited to bring on the acclaimed historian and biographer Walter Isaacson. He is a news icon. He's next.

21:36Donald Trump is testing the guardrails of our constitutional democracy in ways we haven't seen since Nixon or McCarthyism. Americans are polarized, a political divide that seems to get deeper. Our founders were concerned about factions, which we now call parties. They gathered to sign the first founding document, the Declaration of Independence, and tried to create a baseline that we could all draw from over the years. It's an opening sentence that just about every American knows. It transcends any daily politics and, of course, echoes from our school rooms to our culture.

22:25We made it equal. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We fought for these ideals. We shouldn't settle for less. These are wise words. Enterprising men. Quote them. Don't act surprised, you guys, because I wrote them. Jefferson with the mic drop. We thought that was a nice way to bring in someone we have a lot of great journalistic admiration for. Walter Isaacson is a well-known biographer, historian, author. The new book about this very topic, when we talk about goats, the greatest of all time, Mr. Isaacson makes the case that sentence you just heard is the greatest ever written. The second line of the Declaration of Independence, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

23:16Walter, welcome. Hey, thank you. It's good to be with you. What does the sentence and its principles teach us today? They're our mission statement. Clearly, they weren't exactly true at the time, but they've been used as a forcing mechanism throughout our history to become more and more true that all men are created equal. Whether it's four score and seven years after they wrote it, Lincoln invoking that sentence when he's burying more than a thousand people in Gettysburg who pushed that sentence forward, or the suffragettes in the 1920s using that sentence when they make their case, or Dr. King doing it.

23:57And as you said, too, it transcends politics. And I know we've all got our hair on fire about politics, but we have our 250th birthday coming up next year. And I wrote this book so that for some moments, at least, we might transcend politics and realize what unites us. sounds nice walter yeah well we'll see if we can do it a lot of a lot of us are in the history trade writing trade and of course ken burns john meacham so many others i hope we're going to have a celebration next year where we reflect on the common values we share that sounds like a nice dinner party or or scotch session the three of you uh you know you talked about the bicentennial We came through, you know, Watergate.