Does Trump Want to Lose the Midterms?

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26:20Let's zoom out a little bit here just to the midterm broadly. You've been involved in Senate elections on the Republican side. I want to talk about some of the individual elections that are coming. But first is, how do you understand the environment itself, the macro environment for Republicans right now? Best barometer we have is presidential approval, generic ballot, and those indicators are rough. I mean, it's, you know, Donald Trump has 58 percent disapproval, I think, in RCP average. It was higher on November in November of 2025, and that was bad enough. And so certainly like that's a that's a dipstick.

26:57I also think that the thing that's difficult to read about the elections that have happened in the meantime, they've obviously been very favorable for Democrats. It's like there's a built in asymmetry based on the makeup of the coalitions now where every Democrat is crawling over broken glass to go vote for Democrats for dog catcher if it means sticking it to Donald Trump. You know, generic ballots, another one where I think maybe that's that might be the interesting delta there is Democrats only get 48 percent on the generic ballot, which is, of course, a good number. that's significantly higher than what Republicans have.

27:33But there's a delta there of about 10 % of voters who say they disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing, but they're not yet willing to say, I would prefer a generic Democrat in the vote for Congress. And so I think that's the big question over the next six months is, what's more likely? Does Donald Trump's approval rebound such that those people go and vote Republican? Do they stay home altogether? or do they just say, this is, I'm not voting for this. I want to check and end up saying, yes, I will vote for that. Well, you could also think about the 2022 scenario here, which is, you know, Joe Biden's approval rating was not quite as bad as Donald Trump's is, but it was bad.

28:15And Democrats were pretty freaked out about a red wave going into the midterm election. And it didn't really end up coming to pass that Biden's approval rating was not that correlated with Democratic performance. Do you think there's a possibility that happens here? That's the best case scenario. I mean, I think the factor that 2022 kind of rhymes with is that was the first time we were in this particular map. And of course, there have been changes to margins with this mid-decade redistricting. But what we found in 2022, 2024, and we'll see about 2026, is this is a really resilient map. There's not as much, you know, pool of competitive seats.

28:57And so even on a really good night, I mean, 2022 is instructive. Republicans won the popular House vote by a significant margin and yet only netted something like 10 seats. Because we redistricted districts out of competition. That's right. What a wonderful way to run a democracy. And I think the other piece is what Democrats were successful in doing and Republicans failed in doing was putting up the sorts of candidates that could win. And you ended up with messy primaries that produced suboptimal candidates that came out of those primaries with a party that was divided and, you know, expending a lot of resources.

29:33And in the meantime, Democrats were able to otherize these candidates, make them weird. I mean, right? Like Blake Masters. Some of them were pretty weird, man. Well, but I guess, but I say that because you're going to be watching this. Like, this is precisely what's going to happen. And whether successful is an open question. We're already seeing this with Tal Rico. Tal Rico and Paxton are going to try to otherize each other. Something's a little off. Grant Plattner, look, that guy's weird. That's going to be, and whether it's effective, I think that's an open question. Let's walk through the Senate elections sort of one by one here.

30:02If you're sitting there, you know, you're wargaming this out with, you know, Republicans. Like, what are the states you understand to be competitive? Yeah. And how would you rate the way the races are shaping up in them? Yep. The first one's pretty obvious. North Carolina is a seat that's been just right on the cusp for so many seats. Barack Obama was able to break through in 2008. That, in fact, was the last time that Democrats won a Senate seat there. It's been a very expensive, very close seat in the Senate since then. But Democrats haven't been able to get over the over the hump. In this case, it's their single best candidate in the former governor, Roy Cooper.

30:43They got him straight away. He's raising gobs of money. And just in an environment that stands to be quite good for Democrats, that's a place where the open seat created by the retirement of Tom Tillis, who at some level was kind of run out by the president and his relationship with the president. That is a prime pickup opportunity. Open seat, good candidate, big resource advantage, which isn't the case all over the map. To my view, another example where Donald Trump was not trying to protect and make life easier for a plausibly vulnerable Senate Republican, which is one reason Tillis seems to have decided to retire.

31:16I think that's right. I could I could argue with a straight face that it's all things equal. You'd rather have an incumbent than an open open seat. The way things were like the dynamics with Tillis, he probably would have gotten a primary. It would have gotten ugly. So I actually think coalescing behind Michael Watley, the then RNC chair, somebody that has access to national fundraising possibilities. I mean, it has gone as well as it could go, but it's still a lopsided situation. All things equal on a Democratic night. That's the first one to flip. I don't think it's gone. You know, I think there hasn't been, you know, too much polling on this and we're certainly not into the endgame.

31:59But that's the obvious first pickup. If you're Democrats, that's the one that has to fall. I think it gets interesting after that because there is a significant drop off. There's only one state on this map that does not match the the the lean of the state at the presidential level. And that's Maine with Susan Collins. She is a survivor. I think she confounded expectations in 2020 with Donald Trump on the ballot when she was given no chance of winning. Way behind in the polls. Way behind in the polls. That is the one where I think, irrespective of who Democrats had put up there, there's just this unknowable binary.

32:41Either Maine is still the kind of state that rewards independent known quantities like Susan Collins or it's not and we just don't know. Six years later, has that changed? I do think they've done her a favor at some level. And you can more obviously see the permission structure for why would a Harris voting Democrat vote for Republican for Senate? Well, because Graham Plattner is a different kind of Democrat. They might have voted for Janet Mills, but they wouldn't vote for Graham Plattner. So I think that's one. I wouldn't say it's number two, but it's the most obvious. What do you make of the polling has kind of consistently shown?

33:22Plattner as or more competitive against Collins compared to Mills? Yeah, I mean, I think this is, I don't have a good answer on the point. I think the value of Plattner is he's the high variance candidate at a time when having lost with a Syria Gideon type, variance is your friend. So that's the logic of a Plattner pick. I'm not quite sure what's happening to the point, except that Janet Mills ran kind of a somnambulant campaign. It was just she didn't. She's 77. And by the way, I think this is relevant on Collins, too. Collins is a lot older and seems it in a way that I think is more difficult for her as a campaigner.

34:03I would argue as a Susan Collins, I've been around her for 20 years. Like, I think she's sharper than as sharp as ever. I don't want to over I don't want to turn into Joe Biden stuff. But like, no, I actually think that she's she's strong and sharp. And whether her brand is still what the people of Maine want. I mean, I hope they do. But but we'll see. It's a stark contrast there. But I think the dynamic of Plattner versus Mills, one of these guys has energy, one of you guys out there, you know, doing things that's at least interesting. You might not like him, but at least it's interesting. She seemed to have to be pulled into the race.

34:39She got in late. So, like, that differential, I guess, at some level makes sense to me. I don't think that's the same question as when we go through a general campaign, do they perform the same way on election night? And, you know, we'll have to see. But this is really this becomes a strong question of like, is it just shirts and skins? Is it just D versus R? And are people willing to say, OK, an independent minded Republican that that, you know, took big stands against Donald Trump, but has enough respect from this White House that she's not getting torpedoed for it. Do people still want that?

35:16And I think it remains. And I think the hope among certainly Platinum's fans is that he brings in voters who don't normally like Democrats. And I think Democrats continuously have this question of if we ran people more in the Bernie Sanders mold, if you ran people who did not seem like they came out of the same institutions, can you pick up some of these people who liked Trump because he's an outsider, not people who, you know, will naturally always vote for Democrats? Well, I'd say a couple of things. Number one, I think there's something to that in that you want to serve up something that's differentiated.

35:50But I think the flavor that makes the most sense to me, I don't need to be giving advice to the Democratic Party of Maine, but to me, that looks like a Jared Golden, right? Who's instead, who's the House member who represents the reddest district of any Democrat. And for a bunch of reasons, but also he's getting primaried by another Democrat. He's now retiring, which I think is a real loss for Democrats. Right. And I think he succeeds potentially in cutting a different image. He manages to check some. He's a combat vet Marine, you know, but he's not a he's not associate himself with with Bernie.

36:26Right. Like I raise that only to say I think that the problem for Plattner may not prove to be a problem, but the risk for Plattner is. Oh, I mean, it's a fascinating interview with your New York Times colleague. I mean, I found that very interesting as they probed some of like how much of this is superficial, how much of that, you know, that blue collar affect is real and legitimate. And I mean, there's there's some holes that can be poked in here that are that do not hold up to scrutiny. This is still a fascinating state with two districts, one of which is the conservative sort of, you know, up in Arustuk and Presque Isle.

37:06And then there's the coast. And I think for whatever, however many voters that Plattner can can get from, you know, the Golden District, how many is he turning off on the coast, notwithstanding his Oysterman background? Is that going to, you know, hold up with some of the people that actually know and have liked Susan Collins in the past? So I hear all that. But if a Democrats have any chance here, they're going to need North Carolina. They're going to need Maine. Then what? I think Maine's the easiest kind of threshold. Like, I think there is a path. There is a path independent in Maine, but that just tells you, OK, there's the one state where she's still got it.

37:46Right. But after those first two, it gets really difficult. And there is a leap to. I mean, you can take your pick, but I think the Ohio race is probably where Democrats have the best shot. You know, Sherrod Brown is somebody who lost in the previous election to Bernie Moreno, who I don't think Democrats expected to lose for Sherrod Brown to lose to. He'd been in elective office for the previous 50 years or so. He's coming back. He's able to raise a lot of money. But I think it's hard to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. When you are an incumbent and your strength is predicated on being the guy who can win and then you're trying to pull yourself off the mat, it's a little bit tougher.

38:35You have an incumbent but an appointed incumbent in John Husted. You know, the ticket there with him and Vivek has been – the polling has been okay. Vivek Ramaswamy is running for governor there. Vivek Ramaswamy. Husted's not done anything particularly offensive. He's going to have the resources there. on a night where Sherrod Brown beats John Husted and withstands the, I mean, the amount of money that's going to come into that race from the outside, particularly from like the crypto-minded groups and that kind of thing, it's going to be astonishing. If that happens, it was a really, really good night for Democrats.

39:15So let's put actually numbers on that. So if I am remembering this right, I think that Brown, who was a very strong candidate, lost that election by three and a half points. I think that's right. So in, you know, you're saying about Bernie Moreno, who I think was in many ways a weak candidate, a sort of car dealer who would settle all his wage theft lawsuits. And people talk about populism, but was not obviously a great icon of populism. But Sherrod Brown lost to Donald Trump and he lost to the Democratic Party's reputation in Ohio, right? He could not over, he overperformed Kamala Harris by quite a bit.

39:49I think it's the last part that matters. I mean, yes, Donald Trump was on the ticket, But when we keep doing this, right, I think we had the same argument when it was Tim Ryan against J.D. Vance. Like at a certain point when you're saying like there's like special pleading of like, oh, these are bad candidates. Well, like when the bag when you say these are bad, I would argue. I'm not saying Sherrod Brown's a bad candidate. No, no, no, not Sherrod Brown. Oh, no, no, no. I'm saying Bernie Moreno. Yeah, I'm just saying. Right. I think that in a yes, I'm saying I think that candidate quality wise and you can disagree with me if you want.

40:16But I think Sherrod Brown is a better candidate quality wise than Bernie Moreno is. But the Democratic Party's brand in Ohio is such trash that he could not overcome that, as Tim Ryan couldn't overcome it, as basically no Democrats in Ohio can now overcome it. So the question with Sherrod Brown, it seems to me, is, you know, let's say 2024 is an environment where, you know, Democrats are minus two or three, right? It's a little bit of a better environment for Republicans. If this is a plus six or plus seven Democratic environment, maybe that overwhelms the problems of the Democratic Party. Brandon and Brown can win.

40:53If it's not, if it's plus two, if it's plus three, then probably Brown can't win. It really seems to me there you're looking at like a pretty straightforward. How big is the Democratic wave? Like what is like how much has Trumpism cost Republicans in this year? I totally agree with that. On the Ohio front, I do think there's been a tendency to underrate the Republican candidate in this case. Again, like, however you thought of Vance or Moreno, Husted is completely in offense. He was lieutenant governor. I just think that matchup is worse for Brown. But if you're trying to count to three, like, that probably should be the third.

41:34And it's not going to get any easier in terms of the different states. Like the pool of states that we're talking about, we talked enough about Texas, but like I put that in that tier where to your point about like how good is the environment for Democrats, it needs to be Dem plus six or seven to even be in the conversation. Because what, Beto lost by three, three and a half there. In 2018 when it was a very good. In 2018. And then Allred lost by I think it was six. Yeah. Something like that in 2024. Yep. So, again, you're looking at a you need something where the year looks like, you know, Democrat plus six, plus eight, like that they've gotten that lift.

42:13That's right. And then maybe you have a Tallarico. I mean, but do you want to talk about that race for a minute? Because on the one hand, Democrats are very, very excited about James Tallarico. Republicans, I think, see him as having more attack surface than Democrats quite realize. Now, it'll be Paxton, who also has a lot of attack surface. Just like as somebody who actually knows Texas politics fairly well, like how do you think about that race individually? I would just say Texas is so expensive. There are so many markets that it is going to be just an absolute resource suck. And I think because of that, I think smart Democratic strategists like they will they will play that one out.

42:56And I think they have high hopes. But if you're really looking to move the needle and make something happen, you're probably more apt to look at Alaska. You're probably more apt to look at Iowa. I don't know unless they have more success. And in similar ways, like you still need to have that D plus 7, D plus 8 night to break through in those states. But it's much easier to move the needle and to differentiate your race from the other things going on in the ballot in those states, those smaller markets and smaller electorates where just in terms of raw vote totals, you know, a relatively minor shift in Alaska or Iowa is going to go so much farther than in Texas where you're just trying to boil the ocean.

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44:45well let's talk about those two races so alaska they got mary patola former um house members there yep how do you see that one so i think alaska has been another one where like i've seen this movie before i mean uh that was there was a bit on on twitter and whatever's 2022 like don't sleep don't sleep on alaska it's always the one that it's a it's a different state it's a differentiated state where, you know, it's a relatively small electorate, interesting demographics. There's a there's a blue collar, you know, piece to it. And they've shown a propensity to, you know, support Democrats, whether that's Mark Bagich and go back to Tony Knowles, Peltola herself in that in that House race.

45:28So there's enough variance there that there's opportunity. I'd argue Dan Sullivan is a squeaky clean incumbent Marine vet, you know, to the extent that he had any challenges. It was probably met at the original threshold when he beat Mark Begich in 14. It's hard to beat an incumbent, period. I think the hopes that Democrats have are based on the fact that, well, Peltoll won in whatever was in the special election. and then she won again in 22. So that she's got this edge in ranked choice voting. I think that's another thing that Democrats need to think about. There's this notion that ranked choice voting inherently benefits Democrats.

46:11And there might be cases where that's the case. It certainly was the case with Peltol in the first place. But why was that? It's because Republicans were divided. You had two flavors of Republicanism in literally Sarah Palin against... What do you say the name of the person it's against? But we should just mention as a background here, Alaska is a weird system where four people advance. Yep. And so then you have ranked choice voting in the general against four candidates. It's not the way people normally think these elections where there's really just two candidates. That's right. And there's a Bagich Sion.

46:46So just like these names kind of weave in and out of Alaska politics. But the first time he ran, it was against Sarah Palin. And in the immediate context of ranked choice voting and those preferences, there were enough divisions on the Republican side that Peltol was able to sort of triangulate and become the moderate middle of two Republicans, ends up winning that and then holding it in that next general election. When it was a straight up race against Begich, when he came back, she lost. So I don't want to say she's not the absolute strongest candidate Democrats could have put up. She absolutely is.

47:24I just don't think the conditions are there from the standpoint of Republican divisions or there's not really blood in the water in the way there might have been. Like the reason Texas is attractive is, well, you've got some issues with the candidate. You've got some divisions within the party that doesn't exist in Alaska. Yeah, the situation there is the Democratic hope is partially just that demoralized Republicans just don't come out. Donald Trump's not on the ballot. They're not happy with how things are going under Donald Trump. They stay home and Paltola wins because Democrats, she's both a strong candidate and Democrats are highly motivated in this environment to come out.

47:57That's right. And I also think in terms like the Anchorage market, you just go buy it out for cheaper than you could coming into, you know, San Antonio or something. So I think that in terms of the kind of alpha there, in terms of resource allocation, it makes a lot of sense. And similarly, Iowa, where you have, again, going back to this question of incumbent versus open seat, if it was Joni Ernst, it would be a different proposition. But an open seat is more expensive for the party in power to hold and, you know, creates opportunity. Rowling's a great candidate there, Ashley Hinson, sitting house member, very dynamic, telegenic.

48:38So I think they'll be OK there. But this is a time when the Midwest is not loving life. You know, the ag community is getting hit hard by the tariffs. there is enough going on there on that ticket. I mean, there's a competitive governor's race. Yeah, Rob Sand, the Democratic candidate for governor, that was very strong. That's right. And I'd be more scared if Rob Sand was running for Senate. But it does tell you that there are things happening at the state level that you can't take for granted. And if I'm a Republican, I'm leaning into that one and making sure that we don't get caught. What do you think about Michigan?

49:13So I know Republicans who seem to be getting more excited about the possibility of a pickup in Michigan where Gary Peters is retiring because they think Democrats will nominate Abil al-Sayed, who's like the more Bernie candidate, who campaigned with Hassan Piker and is now sort of leading the Democratic primary there. And Democrats have not really been thinking about what happens if they lose a seat. But do you think that's becoming a pickup opportunity or not really in this environment? Well, look, it should be a pickup opportunity anyway. This is a state that Donald Trump won. He's won it twice.

49:43Mike Rogers was a strong candidate who came up just shy last time. So just all things equal, it should be top of the list. As you say, environment makes it more of a challenge. But to your point, the fascinating stuff going on in the Democratic primary there, it's uncanny. You know, as somebody that's worked in Republican politics, particularly Senate politics long enough, it's the first time in a while I've seen just an eerily similar situation to what Republicans have lived for, you know, a decade and a half. This experience of Democrats putting up candidates that are probably objectively weaker and more susceptible to lose.

50:23I don't know that it will come back to bite them, but it's so clear that if you put up somebody that's not fit for the state, that you, and remember, this is something that Democrats have used their benefit in Arizona. I think back to Arizona, where like both Kyrsten Sinema in one instance and then Mark Kelly in the other, They just got to wait around, had to field themselves stockpiling cash while Republicans, you know, spent money and beat each other up and, you know, divided the party. Like the longer this goes in Michigan, the more divided they are. It's an August primary. It's not happening for a little while.

50:59Exactly. So just for people who don't know, there's a primary there in the Democratic side between Abdullah Syed, who's a more progressive candidate, then Mallory McMorrow and Haley Stevens, who are sort of both more, you know, McMorrow a little bit between the two. Stephen's definitely more the establishment Democratic candidate, and they seem to be splitting a vote between them. And also, El Ced has, like, wrapped them around the axle of Gaza, which has become a pretty potent issue in Democratic Party politics, and neither of them have been able to navigate in an effective way. So I think that's one is a fascinating race.

51:34I absolutely think this is and this is another case in point where the White House actually did a really good job of rallying behind Mike Rogers early, cleared that field in a way that I think there's an opportunity to sneak a seat right there. On a night where all these things that we're talking about are in play, Republicans have no business winning in Michigan, but we're actually looking at a situation where this race will be on the board unless something changes. Because even if Haley Stevens ekes it out, this is not the kind of primary that yields a candidate with the resources and unity that puts the race away.

52:17I think it'll be competitive heading into election night. So something you see in Michigan, and I think you also just saw in the Kentucky House primary where Thomas Massey lost, is a way that views about Israel, views about Palestinians, views about the war in Iran are actually splitting both parties in complicated ways. So Massey, of course, is a big Trump critic, although it didn't used to be, you know, but was key in the Epstein files coming out. And he got he was defeated, but he was a favorite of Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson in his concession speech. He said, I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede.

52:56And it took a while to find Ed Galrain, who beat him in Tel Aviv. AIPAC spent a lot of money against Massey. Massey said that he thinks he would have won if not for the sort of fights over Israel. And Massey, by the way, did much, much, much better among young Republicans than among older ones. There's a huge generational divide in that primary. So something is happening here that I think is going to really flower in or fracture, I should say, maybe more precisely in 2028 for both sides, which is that I think that Israel, Iran, Gaza have become very, very difficult for both parties to navigate, that their bases are internally split on these issues.

53:35Yeah, I think the Massey one is really interesting because he's been a gadfly throughout his career. That's been his old brand all along. And I actually it reminded me on on primary night. He had one of the best quotes I've heard of the Trump era. I think it was a 2017 interview that he had with the Washington Examiner. I think his line was, you know, for the longest time, I thought they were voting for me and for Ron Paul and for Rand Paul because we were the most conservative or maybe he said libertarian. And he said, and then Donald Trump comes along and I realize they're just voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race.

54:07And Donald Trump was first in class. It's just a great kind of summation of all these things. But it gives you a sensitive flavor for like who Massey is. and I do think he was a a thorn in the side of this White House and of the party for the longest time um but I think to your point he was able to take issues that get a um particular premium online if you can if you can take some of these polemical issues that get a lot of you know engagement and make that your issue like that's not really what we were talking about but he was able to wrap himself in it in a way that I think got a lot of attention and was able to, in some ways, benefit him.

54:50He was able to fight a pretty close race. And I think that is a valuable way of getting attention. If you were a candidate, particularly an insurgent candidate, if you try to make races about these issues, you can find an audience for it. And whether or not it pays electoral dividends, I think that's something to watch for. One thing we're seeing in a bunch of What I would think of as the Fox News Republicans and the YouTube Republicans. He sees in the Florida gubernatorial primaries on the right, where you have a very, very radical and I would say quite anti-Semitic candidate, but who's been very popular among young Republicans in that state.

55:27And there's Trump has kind of been on both sides of this line. He's sort of united, at least in the 2024 election, like the podcast Republican world and the Fox News Republican world. But those feel to me like they're splitting apart. I mean, you could call it like the Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro split, right? You see it over and over and over again. Obviously, Democrats have their own, you know, fractures around these issues. But I'm curious in a broad way how you see the, you know, it seemed to be very different politics among young Republicans than among old Republicans right now. I think that's right.

56:03I mean, I think it's much easier to synthesize. Who knows where it goes? But I think Republicans have an easier time containing this and sorting it out. I'm watching Vice President Vance as the one who is kind of the—he has spoken up on this and I think is trying to sort that out because there is a generational divide. There are certain politics that have been imprinted on— What makes it easier to sort it out on the Republican side? I don't think that as a— Like, how are you going to hold Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson together in one party? I don't think Tucker Carlson wants to be involved in any party right now.

56:36I mean, he endorses Republicans. He spoke at the RNC in 2024. And less than until Tucker Carlson runs in 2028. Like, he has deliberately marginalized himself in a way that has, I think, been very successful in, you know, getting a grip around a certain audience. Let me push you on this, because I'm really curious to hear you say this, because what it looks to me like is happening is that Carlson is making a bet. I'm not saying it's not sincere. It might be sincere for him. but that the Republican Party is moving. That in the same way that, you know, Donald Trump once was a strange, eccentric, vanity candidate, but is now the dominant figure in Republican Party politics, you know, what Carlson sees and is maybe also helping to shape is that young Republicans have very, very different views on a bunch of these issues.

57:29We live in a very, very attentionally thick society now. And yes, him, Candace Owens, I'm not saying that they are, you know, donating to the Republican Senate campaign committee. But they're on the right. I mean, I don't think that is arguable. They're endorsing candidates in Republican primaries. They both endorse Massey, for instance. And yeah, maybe they're losing some of the fights now. But I think their view is that the only thing holding this together is Donald Trump himself and that J.D. Vance can't hold it together. Marco Rubio can't hold it together. And so they're betting that after Donald Trump, like, doesn't have an iron grip around Republican Party that what's going to be growing is their side of it.

58:11And in fact, picking some of these losing battles is good for them right now. Well, I think what's good for Donald, what's good for Tucker, this is the attention economy, right? What's good for Tucker is getting attention to however he can, including right now picking fights with Donald Trump, because there is an appetite for that in a way that there wasn't a couple of years ago. But I don't know that that's his project. I don't know that his is an electoral proposition. I think he's trying to build his own platform. He's trying to build his own audience. And I think he genuinely has a lot of these positions that he's sorting out in real time.

58:39But I think the layers to this, I mean, the question of why do I think it's easier for Republicans? Well, I think for Democrats, this is like literally like a litmus test issue in a way that is going to be on full display in 2028 to the point where like literally like the most obviously talented politician in the race, like I don't even know I mean, I'd love to know, like, Josh Shapiro, does he have any chance of, I mean, it just seems like the kind of issue, just proximity to it, that would be the sort of thing that will color his, the market for a Josh Shapiro candidate. And they boxed him out on this issue even in the Veepstakes in 2024.

59:21So I just think it's so facially front and center that that makes it difficult. Whereas this is underneath a lot of things in the Republican Party. And I think a lot of it relates to generationally. You have a generation, a Fox News generation, kind of a boomer generation that's imprinted with the sort of more idealistic politics of the shared affinity of the state of Israel, the sort of Christian imperative, the sort of Huckabee approach toward these things. versus a younger Republican party and a party that shifted over time to be the low trust party that is skeptical of institutions that doesn't want to hear in the same way that like Trump exploited skepticism of the neoconservative project and the idealism of it to something much more kind of skeptical and perhaps cynical.

1:00:18I think you have to sell the Republican alignment with the cause and state of Israel on its own terms, in terms like an America first, like, why does this benefit America? And I think that's what Vance is exploring in terms of explaining support for Israel in all its forms in a way that is much more of like a transactional, like this is good for. But Kenny, I'm actually, I wonder if you can hold that together because I think I maybe see this one differently than you do. It seems to me that Democrats have, I don't want to say consensus forming, because I think there's going to be a lot of debate.

1:00:59But Chris Van Hollen, who's a very establishment Democratic senator from Maryland, but has been, I think, a leader on some of these issues around Israel, he basically says, look, we need a new, we the Democrats need a new consensus on this. and you see it forming around, for instance, Rahm Emanuel and Chris Van Hollen and AOC, I think that's going to be, when you say there's going to be a litmus test, I think the kind of straightforward one is going to be something like that. And you see the even more moderate or at least normie figures in the Democratic Party embracing that. Meanwhile, the schism on the Republican side, it seems like it's going to be harder because you really do have this kind of Christian Zionism side, this war in Iran side versus, you know, the Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens said, I mean, you mentioned Huckabee, but the Tucker Huckabee interview, I think is a very good example of how far those things are.

1:01:55You're not going to have like a pro-war in Iran faction in the Democratic primary. That's just not going to happen. And Shapiro's view, which is anyhow, is a disaster, is also going to be Newsom's view, is also going to be Pete Buttigieg's view, is also going to be AOC's view. And then they're going to kind of have to figure out how they instantiate that into proposed policies. the Republican Party feels to me, like when you look at the young versus you look at the, again, Fox News versus YouTube, what's popular in one and what's popular in another, they feel kind of irreconcilable. They actually have, like, not the question Democrats are going to have to ask of, like, how far do you start moving in pressuring Israel to not be an apartheid state?

1:02:34But on the Republican side, do you think Israel is great? Or do you think it has led us into a disastrous war in Iran and is, like, distorting our foreign policy? I'm very worried about the ways that will shade into anti-Semitism and other things, but it feels very hard for Republicans to reconcile. And in some ways, Massey, with that final line, like, I had trouble reaching my opponent because he was in Tel Aviv, it struck me as a signal of things possibly going in pretty ugly directions over there. Oh, I mean, the ugliness is going to happen. But I think that's also as you're looking at what Massey's doing, Marjorie Taylor Greene's doing, even what Tucker's doing, like these aren't necessarily electoral plays.

1:03:12I think the political economy that exists now is you can have your career as a as a podcaster, as just a general media gadfly on YouTube or otherwise. And I think that in a weird way, whereas your backbench House Gadfly might have aspired to higher office or other things, you know, in cycles past now, you're off ramp is probably just keeping a hold on this audience. But we used to say attentional plays were an electoral plays. Is that still true? Because if I look at the big lessons right now, one thing I just see happening is you can win through dominating attention. And Trump was probably the first figure who did this in a way you couldn't before.

1:03:50But you look at Mamdani defeating Cuomo and Lander in a full field of Democrats. You look at Graham Plattner. He destroyed Janet Mills through dominating attention. Does Spencer Pratt have a chance in Los Angeles? It doesn't seem entirely impossible to me that he does. James Tallarico came out of nowhere because he became a huge figure on TikTok and ended up on Joe Rogan's show. I mean, one of the things to me that is significant about this era is it attention, like the attention economy is eating the political economy. And incumbents who were tuned for this older form of more institutionally gate-kept attention, you know, went over the newspaper editorial board in your state or in your city, are getting defeated by candidates who know how to win attention online.

1:04:40I think we totally agree on that. But I would say if you look at the individual personalities and habits of these folks in particular, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, when she broke with Donald Trump, that was not a bid for, you know, like, because she thought that was going to benefit her. That was, that's, there's an oppositional element to that. There's a, you know, there are personal circumstances around that. Massey, if you know Thomas Massey, and I do, and like him at some level, like, he wants to stir up trouble. Like, he's not, he does not want to turn this into a movement. I think there's, this goes back to the Tucker thing.

1:05:12Like, I'm sure Tucker has lots of interesting ambitions and wants to have max optionality, but I don't know that this is about like a broader, you know, I think he'd be formidable and would - Do you think he'll run for president? I don't expect him to, and I don't know what would happen. Like that would be chaos. And I don't know, the train wreck would be interesting. I don't get the sense that that's what he's doing. I think he's playing with a lot of things that could build that speculation. And I think that benefits him and it benefits his enterprise right now. But I don't I don't know that that's what's I think I genuinely think he is in real time toying with all kinds of things that have been, you know, floating around in his head for a long time.

1:05:56I mean, that's basically my gut on him, too. But but I guess the the point you make of Margie Taylor Greene and some of these others, Massey, I think the question may be that that opens up is the thing that is standing between the kinds of politics that they seem to think are more authentic and more viable, you know, certainly what is happening in a tension right now on the right. The thing standing in the way of that is Donald Trump himself, like a quite elderly second term president. And so I agree that right now, if you in the Republican Party decide to pivot towards the more chaotic Carlson, Owens, populist, online, Epstein files, et cetera, energy that, you know, Trump harnessed a fair amount of in 2024 and now is doing a bunch of things people from that part of the, you know, coalition didn't expect him to do.

1:06:58You still can't beat Trump. When he says, I am MAGA, he is right. But Donald Trump won't be there forever. And so can J.D. Vance put these things back in the bottle? Can he resist them? Or is Massey just early? Are these the people who are telling you where the ball is going? And once it's not Donald Trump and he is the single dimensional litmus test of the entire Republican Party, it's all going to fracture into chaos. And these things that seem to have the energy right now, but that he can put a stop to, So, well, there's going to be nobody to put a stop to them. Yeah, I think he's been able to, through sheer force of nature, kind of hold together some of these contradictions within the party.

1:07:45But I think so much of it is, you know, attitudinal, right? Like, it's not even necessarily about what the issue is. It's not necessarily about what the policies are. And his gift was being able to, like, be all things to all people and have being a walking contradiction in ways that kind of worked. I think that's really tough for anyone to do in either party. But just like anything else, and the Democrats are running this too, like at the end of the day, you can have these conversations, but you need a vehicle and a vessel to harness all these things and resolve them in a way that at least gets you over the hump to 48, 49 percent of the vote that is able to overcome the other side.

1:08:28So I think, Ken, whether it's J.D. or whether it's somebody else, I think a lot of that will be this ramp toward 2028. What does the president choose to do? He obviously has a ton of power institutionally. And to me, it obviously seems like the orderly path is to hand it off to his vice president and successor. You know, I do think that whatever happens next, it's going to be based on how to how Republicans deal with the fact that the the old version of the party is not what the voters wanted. it's not coming back and it may not be in the form that we currently see it but you need to find something that appeals to your voters and that um that that does not get stuck trying to solve the problems of the 80s and 90s because that seems to be the tendency like we've we've had the tug of war between donald trump or like nikki haley like that that it just can't be that there There has to be something different and there has to be something that acknowledges Trump's appeal and what he's figured out while also, you know, making it less personality based.

1:09:44And I think that's that's going to be the challenge for anybody, whether it's J.D. or anybody else. Are there Republicans, and I don't mean here just people who might compete in 2028, but just Republicans who are, you know, elected and are coming up in the party who you think represent or trying to fashion interesting versions of that future? You know, I think Democrats have an idea of who their sort of young, like, bench is. But Trump is such a huge figure. And then you have obviously the sort of Rubio, J.D. Vance expected succession race. Yeah. But but if somebody watches the Republican Party more closely, who do you watch in it as as bellwethers or, you know, signals of where it's going?

1:10:25It's a great question. I mean, I worry about being generals fighting the last war. You know, I think people have been trying to figure out what Trump is and without Trump looks like for the past, you know, really the past decade, because there was there was an expectation that he'd he'd be a flash in the pan. And so you'd have to figure out how to take the good and jettison the rest. You know, I think the different flavors have certainly been—I mean, Rubio's—I think Rubio's transformation has been fascinating and quite effective in a lot of ways. I think—I mean, that's too easy. You know, J.D.

1:11:03came by this. I mean, this has kind of been his vision of things since he entered politics. but the ones that have been playing with the congressional level, like Josh Hawley, I don't think he's necessarily the guy, but watching him, Jim Banks, similarly, like these guys are all like the entrepreneurship happening, trying to feel out, like, let me see what I can do that can, whether it's harness attention or whether that's something that the White House picks up in ways that are, don't fit the orthodoxy of the old party. I think those guys have been really interesting. But I think at the end of the day, the insight of Trump is like so much of this isn't about policy.

1:11:46It's about it's about attitude. It's about how you position yourself against the left. and I've yet to see somebody that has figured that aspect of it out. I think there's a tendency to over-index to interesting political ideas that excite you or me. And that's not necessarily what excites a primary electorate in 2027 and 2028. If you're advising Republican candidates in some of these states we've talked about, there's obviously the specific qualities of the Democratic candidate they're running against. But broadly speaking, how would you tell them to run against the Democratic Party right now?

1:12:25I think you do need to tie your candidate, whatever their eccentricities are, to the National Party, which is seen even by Democrats as weak and feckless and in some ways, you know, tied to unpopular positions. I do think there is a body of evidence for anyone that was in politics in the 2020 to 2022 moment there's a deep trove of hits that are in there we're starting to see that with Tallarico but I think that exists for most people put them on the defensive and make them account for the things that they said and did way back when because I think under the light of day six years later it looks and sounds like a dispatch from another planet.

1:13:14And I think seeing where they were on Harris, seeing where they were on Biden, trying to tie them back to, you know, places where there's already been a verdict rendered. But I mean, it's just like good old fashioned opposition research, good old fashioned message and ad making. And going back to that point about attention, like finding ways for this to break through and to almost mumify them and otherize them. Like going back to Blake Masters being a weirdo, like figure you got to figure that out and crack that because some people maybe they'll grok it just because it's so obvious but like you need to you need to paint a picture that's compelling i mean i don't know maybe spencer pratt's the future i don't know maybe we're going to get some some good ai video content um but i think uh that that's the sort of thing that needs to break through in this kind of attention economy so that's our final question what are three books you'd recommend to the audience three books to your audience i'm thinking of one that probably hasn't been read by most of your audience, but I think should be.

1:14:10Matt Cotton and he wrote a history of the right called The Right. He's been here for the show, Matt. Well, he didn't recommend his own book. But I really think it did the best job that I've seen of reminding us that not only did history not start in 2016, it didn't start in 1980 either. The iterations and evolutions of the Republican Party over 100 years, I think, are important and instructive in terms of the current moment and how it maps on to the point that there's always been this populist anti-establishment absolutely more conspiratorial way interesting ways kind of full circle um uh but but yes i think it's the fact of how fluid some of these things are um i think is just it's worth for the perspective of where this all came from and and obviously there's other layers that that are complicated but i think it's a really good really good book and a good read.

1:15:05Another one that I think, especially in this moment, you know, has a new significance now that we're talking about AI and all data centers and all these things. Patrick McGee's Apple in China. I found just very interesting from an industrial policy standpoint, from a foreign policy standpoint, from a national security standpoint. Really, really good and worth reading for your audience. I'll go abundance. I think the frackers is really interesting for understanding our energy dominance, you know, evolution and revolution. I think the watching us go from a scarcity mindset in the 2000s when I started my career to being the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.

1:15:55It's not something that the elite saw coming. It's not something that really smart people saw coming. I mean, it's not what we indexed our policy and our politics to. And I think it still hasn't fully set in how revolutionary that it was. I think it's an important one for your folks to read. Liam Donovan, thank you very much. Thanks, Ezra.

1:16:27This episode of The Azar Clancho is produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Julie Beer, and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior audio engineer is Jeff Geld. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show's production team also includes Marie Cassione, Annie Galvin, Roland Hu, Kristen Lynn, Emma Kelbeck, Marina King, and Jan Kobel. Original music by Amun Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Pending Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.

1:17:11Thank you.