124. Why Trump Is Secretly Rooting for Mamdani

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1:57Welcome to The Rest is Politics US with me, Katty K, on Halloween Eve. And I'm very disappointed, Anthony Scaramucci, that you have not come in a costume. What is your costume? What is this costume? Why don't you describe it to people that are not on YouTube? I've got this great red hat which says Mooch 2028 and this T-shirt which says I'm with Stupid and an arrow pointing it that I have to say before anyone thinks I'm really mean, the arrow is pointing to Anthony. I have to say that too. Because of the Randy definition from last week. Yeah. Your wife bought me this and sent it to me because you kept digging a hole around the Randy definition and she thought that was hysterical.

2:41This is Deirdre's t-shirt and instigation, but I think it's a pretty good costume. I think it's a sort of mooch, MAGA women look, right? Yeah, you're mocking you. It's a blonde conspiracy against me and it's mocking me. It's fine. I'm just going to read a text from my wife before we get the show started. Caddy, I bought Anthony a similar t-shirt that had the arrow pointing straight up to his face, but it didn't get here on time. Okay, I made a mistake on the definition of Randy. It's unbelievable the amount of, it's unbelievable. It is the only thing that people mentioned to me about that podcast.

3:18Anyway, for those of you on YouTube, you could probably see that. It says I'm with stupid and there's an arrow pointing straight up. So just imagine me wearing that as I'm describing the word Randy to people. I think the next time we do a show in the UK or in the US, we go on stage with this, these two t-shirts, you with I'm with stupid pointing your face and I'll go on with this one. You guys are winning in the immortal words of Charlie Sheen, winning. What do you want to talk about today? So we are going to talk today about the upcoming elections. It's election day in America next Tuesday. It's always that exciting time of year when it's the first Tuesday in November and you've got to have elections somewhere.

3:58So there's very important elections in New York for the mayor. We've all spoken about that. Mamdani, Zoran Mamdani. There's also elections we think you should watch in New Jersey and Virginia for the gubernatorial seats for the governor's mansions. I'm interested to see what you think about what those elections and the results of them are going to tell us about the 2028 race, because I think that's really what these elections are all about. And then we will talk about Donald Trump's trip to Asia and his amazing 12 out of 10 meeting with Xi Jinping. And as he lands back in Washington, D.C., we'll have a quick look at what that trip may or may not have yielded.

4:32So let's start, Anthony. You're in New York City right now. Your city, your fair city is going to the polls next Tuesday. Give us a quick sort of overview of the state of the race four or five days out. So early polling has started, Caddy, and the early polling numbers are up. And so you typically get about a million people. There's probably three and a half million eligible voters, maybe a little more than that, but that's roughly what it is. You get a million people to vote in a mayoral election. in 1989 we had almost two million people show up and mayor rudolph giuliani won by two points so just to give you a sense for how democratic the city is you had to have a massive turnout and then giuliani was only able to win by two percent and so uh if early polling is an indication it's going to be a very big turnout and then the question is will the older voters pull andrew Cuomo to victory.

5:33And, you know, I'm an Andrew Cuomo supporter, but I want to be objective here. The poly markets have him at a 14 % chance, up from four. So they look at the early voting, and it's sort of swung slightly towards him. But if you look at the Emerson poll, and historically, the Emerson poll has been sort of this blended poll, been very hard to get too far away from it. Andrew Cuomo is eight to 13 points, depending on which sleeve and category of that poll. And usually you fall inside of that poll. So it seems an unlikely victory for Andrew. This would have to be one of those Harry Truman beating Dewey back in 1948.

6:15It would have to be that sort of election. So what say you about that election? What's your guess? My guess is that Mamdani wins. He's run this campaign, which has been very effective on social media. He's been very on message about affordability. He has promised things to New Yorkers that are very populist, but from the left, kind of rent control for New Yorkers, free buses for New Yorkers, free childcare for New Yorkers, all of those things kind of popular. They are the sort of populist left equivalent. Whether he can deliver on them, I think is another question. I think it's going to be really interesting to watch to see how he actually governs over the next year.

6:53Cuomo has not run an exciting campaign. I've watched the debates and watched some of his ads. It feels old and feels a bit stale, to be honest. It feels very traditional compared to this next generation. He's got charisma, Mamdani, and I don't think Cuomo has an awful lot of that. And then, of course, you've got this wild card of Curtis Sliwa, who is the 71-year-old founder of the Guardian Angels, who's running in the race, and that probably hurts Andrew Cuomo's chances as well. I think that New York race is very interesting to see what happens, how much Mamdani wins by. But I think it's also worth thinking New York is not the rest of the country.

7:29And that's why I also want to talk about these other races in Virginia and New Jersey, which are more like the rest of the country. Mamdani can't win in Ohio, or probably Michigan, or eastern Pennsylvania. He can't. He's a candidate that's representative of New York City. So how much do you think we learn about 2028 from the first of all, from the New York race? I think it's bad. What do you mean by bad? Well, I think it's bad. I think that this is, you know, the signal versus the noise. I think this will be a signal to the left. This will be a signal to the Democratic Party. AOC will get out there and champion the narrative that we're just not left enough.

8:09In our search for a more perfect form of socialism or in our search for a perfect form of harder left-leaning attitudes in the United States, we haven't gone left enough. And so Mondami going left like this is a sign that the rest of us would go hard left. And we need a hard left presidential candidate. I think that's what they'll say. Now, Europeans listening in or australians will say no you know mandami sort of a center left person as it relates to the way europeans may think or even australians but i'll just point out in our country uh it's too far to the left you know this is still a religious country i try to point that out to people that have are more secular now although church attendance is declining in america as it is every church Church is declining, but there's a very still strong religious orthodoxy in the center of the country.

9:03As you and I have talked about, we have America, then we have America, and America is still very Christian, Caddy. And so I think this will be a mistake. Remember, this is an electoral college situation for the presidency. You're not battling just in the coastal cities. You've got to go into the center of the country, and you've got to beat the other candidate through the electoral college system. And so a hard left move here by the Democrats is, frankly, exactly what Trump would want. He has said that from the Oval Office. This would be great for us. We could use this as a punching bag situation.

9:38Of course, hard left mayors have crippled urban centers in the United States. I could point to Detroit and San Francisco, etc. I mean, that's interesting because I think in a way for the Democrats, the fact that Mamdani could become mayor, does he get sworn in immediately or he has to wait till January, I assume? January 1st. He's sworn in on January 1st. Yep. So he comes in in January, he would have a year and a half as mayor, more than a year and a half, almost two years as mayor before the 2028 elections. By which time, and this is why I think you're right to mention AOC, because I think she has a ton riding on this race, by which time voters will have a chance to see whether he can deliver.

10:21Right? Can he actually govern? Because if he can't govern, I think that actually potentially damages the left of the party. It makes AOC's bid for the nomination harder if she has aligned herself with somebody like Mamdani and he can't deliver. If he delivers and New Yorkers are happy with him and his poll ratings are high, then I think you're right. There's a push to get a – and it's interesting how populist he is. I mean, he is populist in the way that Donald Trump is populist, but there'll be a push to get somebody more from the – Okay, I can't actually talk with this on because it's just – I can't take myself seriously.

10:56Well, I was going to say, if you left the Mooch 2028 hat on longer, I'm going to actually run for president to punish Deirdre. And I'm going to put you in the cabinet. I'm going to put you in the cabinet. This way you could really suffer alongside of all these other bozos in Washington. The Mooch 2028 hat has to go away because it's just, you know, I'm trying to be serious here. Okay, you're trying to be serious with the I'm with stupid Halloween costume. I know you like it. I'm okay. My ego is recovering. It's recovering. You know, in the last 18 months, you've done significant damage to my ego, but I'm fine.

11:31You know what I mean? Therapists will like that. But back to this topic, okay? Yes. Is this a signal that the Democrats will take with them to 2028 and they will be presenting to you a hard left presidential candidate? Yes or no? I think no, because I think the Democrats in the end realize you have to win elections. and a Mamdani character would find it, figure with his policies, would find it very difficult to win in some of those more purple states. I do think I had a conversation with a Democrat who had been pretty senior on the Harris campaign recently and had worked on the 2016 campaign as well.

12:07And she was saying to me, look, in 2016 and 2020 and even 2024, Democrats basically brushed populism and the left of the party kind of under the rug. They sort of put a bandaid on the problem. When Bernie ran in 2016, they did what they could to make sure he didn't become the candidate. And they thought that a centrist like Hillary Clinton was going to be the answer. And I think there is now a recognition in the party that you can't just ignore the voices of younger Americans and more progressive Americans. So the question then is, who is the candidate who could have some crossover appeal, who doesn't make younger Americans, who, by the way, tipped Joe Biden into the White House in 2020 and helped Donald Trump win in 2024, doesn't make those people think this is same old, same old.

12:56We're going to get another politician who says all these things and actually doesn't deliver. And there's no energy about them and they don't understand social media. And I think there will be some of that in whoever is the candidate for 2028. Let me ask another question. Okay, the mayor's race here in New York, Andrew Cuomo has raised 4x what Zoran Mandani has raised. So what is that telling you now about money and campaigns? Well, Hillary Clinton raised more than Donald Trump in 2016. And we don't have President Hillary Clinton. So money is important, but it's not the game changer in a world of social media where you and I can do television with a kind of iPhone, right?

13:39It's the great equalizer of social media. So just think of the, he's gone to print, he's gone to TV, which is old-fashioned style campaigning. And Mr. Bondani has gone to Instagram and TikTok. Very successfully. Which is young fashion, not old-fashioned, young fashion. And it's working. And it's a way cheaper delivery system. And so this is also going to be a big factor. Trump gets this better than anybody. He ran in 16 on Twitter. He ran on 24 on podcasting. He gets it better than anybody. But let's switch over to the gubernatorial race, which is up here, too, because there's a fight between a MAGA person.

14:19This is John Citarelli and a sort of mainstream Democrat, Mikey Sherrill. Who do you think is going to win that? You're talking about the New Jersey race because there's also the Virginia race, which is between a MAGA type person and a moderate as well. And what's interesting about these two races together, Virginia and New Jersey, is that you have the opposite. You have the alternative path, right, for the Democratic Party. You've got in New York, you've got the Mamdani, the progressive populist. And in New Jersey and Virginia, both of those more purple states now, you have candidates who represent the center of the Democratic Party.

14:54I think in both states, the Democrat wins, certainly in Virginia. Maybe New Jersey is a little tighter. I think the polls have tightened in the last few days. But the question for me will be, what are the margins in Virginia? If Abigail Spanberger, who is running in Virginia, outperforms Kamala Harris's performance in 2024, that will, again, give Democrats an argument for saying, you see, if we want to win purple states, this is the kind of candidate. She's a former CIA analyst like Mikey Sherrill Wright, former national security background as well. Let me push back on Virginia to get you to react.

15:31But Virginia is different. Virginia, Northern Virginia is loaded with civil servants, governmental officials, governmental employees, some of which got stung badly by the actions of Elon Musk and Donald Trump through Doge. And the government shut down. And the government shut down. So do you think that that's overly tipping the scales? That's not the country. That's not reflective of the country. Or do you think it is reflective of the country? I think it's more reflective of the country of the New York City. Spanberger has made a big play to go out into farming areas. You're right that there is a big federal worker, liberal bias population in northern Virginia in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

16:12But I spend a lot of time in Virginia. I go every weekend. You only have to go an hour outside of Washington and you are in much more rural, much more conservative America of farmers who are also being hit, by the way, at the moment by things like imports of Argentine beef that they don't like because it's big beef. farming. She has made a play to go out in those areas. I think what she has done is she has relentlessly tied her campaign. It hasn't been a particularly exciting campaign, I'm going to be honest, I've watched some of it. She's relentlessly tied it to the issue of affordability and economics and kitchen table issues.

16:45She has tried very hard to steer away from any issues around identity. Her opponent is trying to slam her with ads at the moment saying, Abigail Spanberger is for they, them, I'm for us and you. And also to slam her with kind of transgender and boys competing in women's sports. But she is pushed back against that by pivoting constantly to economics. You have a home in Virginia, right? Yeah, we rent a place out in Virginia. Okay. Okay. So Glenn Youngkin, who is the conservative Republican, can't run for re-election. Has he helped or hurt the Republicans' chances in Virginia? That's a good question.

17:23I think actually Glenn Youngkin has not been a bad governor for Virginians. I mean, he ran much more on cultural issues, on free choice for parents in schools, on parents to be allowed to get more involved and to stop, you know, leftward drift in the schooling system. And I think that was popular in that election cycle. But he hasn't been that much of a figure. I mean, I think Earl Sears, who Abigail Spanberg is running about, is a forceful MAGA type And Youngkin is much more of a centrist, presents as a more centrist Republican, which is probably where Virginia is. OK, so who's who's who's going to win that?

18:00I think Abigail Spanberger wins that. OK, and who wins in New Jersey? I also think Mikey Sherrill wins in New Jersey. What do you think? Where are you? Well, I think Mikey Sherrill is going to win as well, because I just think at the end it always tips towards the Democrat of New Jersey. But but is this now a signal to Trump and to MAGA? Oh, wait a minute. We won handily in 2024. These are two pretty big states. One is considered a swing state, I would say Virginia is still. Is that a signal? I think it's more of a signal to the Democratic Party. I don't see Donald Trump really responding in terms of policy to what happens in Virginia and New Jersey.

18:45He is pushing ahead, and we'll talk about it in the second half, with a very aggressive agenda, both domestically and at home. I don't see him suddenly thinking, oh, I'm going to row back on kind of ICE or National Guard in Washington, DC and Chicago and other cities, or I'm going to suddenly cede some of my control back to Congress because of these Democrats winning in New Jersey and Virginia. I don't see that happening. I mean, I think it is more of a signal to Democrats and I think they'll be looking closely at numbers like, you know, what's the Hispanic turnout? How do Hispanic votes? The groups that got Donald Trump elected, Hispanics and young people, have seen the single biggest drop in support for Donald Trump since January.

19:30I mean, the poll numbers in those two groups are quite noticeable. So, Democratic strategists are going to be looking at, wow, if Hispanics really have decided they don't like MAGA anymore and they don't like MAGA, but Donald Trump because of the economy and because of immigration issues, then I think that gives whoever runs as a Republican some pause for thought. I mean, it's not going to be Donald Trump, I don't think, whatever Steve Bannon likes to say. So I agree with all that. I think I'll answer this first and then see if you agree with me. I think that Trump wants Mondani to win, even though he said he would prefer the Democrat, because I think he doesn't care at this point.

20:10He thinks he'll use that as a battering ram going into the midterms. But I do think he wants the two Republicans to win in Virginia and in New Jersey because he has golf courses in both states. And he would like to have that Republican connection in those two states, although he's gotten along pretty well with Phil Murphy. But that's what I think. What are your thoughts there? I mean, that was an interesting question you asked me because I see these in terms of the impact on the Democratic Party. What do you think the impact is on MAGA if Democrats to do well in those two states? Well, you know, listen, I'm of the opinion that MAGA is fading.

20:48And I'll give you some more examples of this. You brought this up to me via text that J.D. Vance is getting browbeaten by some of the senators, something that they would never do to Donald Trump. Right. There are four senators have now broken from the ranks and they voted against the tariffs. And this is to point out to people, this is a symbolic vote because it would have to be voted on in the House as well as the Senate. But the Senate now 5248 has voted against the Brazilian tariffs, which are crippling our food prices, and has voted against the Canadian tariffs. Now, just to point out to everybody procedurally, the House would have to then vote against those as well, which they say they won't vote on any of this stuff until March of 2026.

21:37And then, And of course, the president would veto this all the while the court is about to make a decision on the tower. So so to me, that's that's a weakness. There's a sign here that a lame duck presidency is incoming. And there's a sign here that the whole group of people is weakening. One other point, and this is from an insider that I had breakfast with this morning, that these guys in the in the White House are making a lot of enemies. Just hear me out for a second, Caddy. This was a traditional Republican. Not just you. No, not just me. But this is a traditional Republican that's backed Pence and back Romney has asked for some help or favors from the White House.

22:17And they have basically been very binary. You're with Donald Trump and you've passed the purity test will help you. You're not with Donald Trump and you've failed the purity test. NFW to you. Okay. And that is very bad. That's very bad politics because that's how the long knives come out. And I think the long knives are out for MAGA right now. And I'll say this on our program and let's see if it unfolds as we get to next November, irrespective of the outcome, Trump will be over the speed bump into lame duck status. And JD, I think one thing we learned from those Republican senators giving Vance an earful is that JD is not DJ.

23:02He does not have Donald Trump's clout and he does not incite fear in Republican senators in the way that Donald Trump does, which I think is a super interesting indication for what happens in the 2028 election and what happens to the Republican Party going forward. because I think you see a fracturing of this hold that the leader has on the party because Vance just is not going to have that same kind of clout. We'll take a break and then come back and talk about the president's trip to Asia.

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24:53Welcome back. President Trump is also being welcomed back to Washington, D.C. He's landed by this Thursday afternoon. After a six-day tour of Asia, he sat down with President Xi Jinping at an air base in South Korea. He was joined by all the senior members of the cabinet. And this came against the backdrop, of course, of the Chinese threatening to cut exports of rare earth minerals that America needs for everything from washing machines to missiles. And then the Americans responding, the White House responding with a threat of 100 % tariffs on China. The president said this was an amazing meeting and he gave it a 12 out of 10.

25:33That's a bit like I gave this t-shirt a 12 out of 10. And my reading is that both sides kind of looked over the abyss and decided that they didn't want a full scale trade war between them. So there's now going to be a series of summits. There was a bunch of things noticeably that was kind of left out of the readouts, particularly from the American side. It looks like they didn't talk about TikTok, which I think is significant and interesting. You said on the program a few weeks ago that you didn't think the TikTok deal was going to happen. I think you're probably right. Yeah, they'll never give up TikTok.

26:05But Katty, if you're going from 57 % tariffs to 47 % tariffs. It's still a lot, right? Yeah. So what is that all about, Katty? I mean, I think that's still going to be a devastating thing for US-China trade. That's why I want to see more details. And it's quite interesting that the Chinese readout didn't mention any of the specifics. Donald Trump said they were going to buy a whole load of the Chinese going to buy a bunch of soybeans, which has been a big domestic issue because American soybean farmers haven't been able to export to China. He said that they'd done this deal on tariffs and on rare earth minerals.