The Blue State Solution

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0:48Luke Winkie: Hey everyone, it's Mary. What you're about to hear is actually a rebroadcast of a conversation I had live on YouTube yesterday with Slate's Jim Newell. We also had a couple of guest stars, but no spoilers about that. If things sound a little different, I just wanted you to know why. And if you want to get an invite to these kinds of conversations, maybe even participate in them, the way to do that is to sign up for Slate Plus. It's how Slate affords to keep me up at one in the morning looking at election returns. All right, on to the show.

1:22Luke Winkie: hey everyone welcome to a very special post midterms live edition of slate's daily news podcast what next i'm mary harris is great to be with you all i'm here with jim newell jim what is up wow what a night we're gonna be here for the next hour we're gonna be taking questions from the audience about what the hell just happened, a historic rebuke of a sitting president. Before we do that, like, let's just take a little moment to sit with how overwhelming the news is. Like, even the experts seemed shocked. Here's the big board guy, Steve Kornacki. Okay, there it is. Wow. How many times am I going to say wow tonight?

2:05Because I'm seeing things I've never seen in this board before. Here's an example. Collin County.

2:11Luke Winkie: Kornacki is looking at a vote chair in Collin County, Texas, a county that's been read forever. And James Tallarico, the Democrat, seems to have just won it by a lot. And last night, this scene just kept repeating again and again. In Texas alone, there's about to be not just a Democratic senator, but a Democratic governor, a Democratic attorney general. This is a big deal. And we know how Donald Trump is feeling about this, because he was answering his phone. Hey, Mr. President, I'm doing well. You're on with me and my colleagues here at Politico. I'm just wondering, what's your message? What do you think happened with your party tonight?

2:49I wasn't on the ballot, and we didn't get the people out, but I wasn't on the ballot. If I was on the ballot, we would have won. We would have won it all very easily. But, you know, Mr. President, you told voters that you were on the ballot to go vote as though you were on the ballot. Yeah, I said, say you're on the ballot. Think about me being on the ballot. But they didn't agree, and they didn't like the candidates in most cases. is one of those things.

3:13Luke Winkie: Okay, this is crazy. Like this phone call, you can hear in the background. He's like listening to cable news loudly. He's answering his cell phone when a random person calls and is on live television. He goes on to say the Democrats have already called him, quote unquote, and they want to work with him, which frankly, I think this is a hot take that the Democrats want to work with him. Jim, do you think the Democrats want to work with Donald J. Trump in this moment? Well, I do think Democrats, you know, they won on the cost of living, gas prices. I think they want to actually try and show, attempt to do something on that.

3:53So, yeah, you know, I don't know if any Democrat actually called him, but I'm skeptical. but yeah i think they both you know would like to see if they can do something on that but they also just want to investigate the crap out of him we'll see how that goes let me just introduce you jim

4:16Luke Winkie: newell um you write our weekly newsletter the surge it's fantastic if you do not subscribe you should subscribe jim is our man in washington your article about last night posted a few hours back It is titled The Great Democratic Catharsis is Upon Us. I mean, I think I saw you or someone else in Slack last night saying something to the effect of like, Democrats have been kind of like waiting for this moment for 10 years, like since 2016, like a comeback moment. What is the language you use to describe what just happened? Like blue tsunami, blue apocalypse. The New York Times went with red wipeout.

4:53I'm going with the tsunami, the blue tsunami. Because that's how we were thinking about, you know, we knew it was going to be a bad night for Republicans. Would it be kind of the blue trickle, you know? Would it be your standard blue wave? Or would it be the tsunami where basically Dems outperformed the polls, even though the polls had them way ahead? And that's exactly what happened. I mean, it was.

5:18Luke Winkie: When I was a young person, I was like very terrified of tsunamis because of a picture in a textbook I had with like a giant wave with like a train inside it. I mean, tsunamis are very frightening. Tsunamis are very scary. You know, they're bad news. But I mean, just to put it into perspective, I mean, it was the biggest, like, ass kicking since Watergate. I mean, it was, it was. Without a Watergate vote. The House Pop. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was the House popular vote's going to land right around D plus 13. I mean, if you think of the biggest margins of the century, it would have been 2008 when Obama won.

5:58Then it was 10.6 points, the House popular vote. I mean, it's going to be three points bluer than that. I mean, it's really like, I don't think it's quite sunk in. I mean, it's the most lopsided midterm result of my life. It's crazy.

6:14Luke Winkie: Can I start by doing something slightly mean? Please. Which is, we did a live stream last week. where I was like, okay, I need you to make predictions, which Jim Newell hates making predictions. I need everyone to make that. We're going to understand why I hate making predictions right now. I will fully cop to the fact that I didn't want to make predictions. And Jim was like, what's your prediction? I was like, okay, got to go. Bye. And I did not, because honestly, I understand myself. I am a person who is filled with optimism about the state of our country. And so my predictions go along those lines.

6:49Luke Winkie: Others are more practical. Anyway, you said gun to my head. Michigan, you thought outside. Got it right. Check. Maine, you thought Collins would win.

7:02Luke Winkie: Texas, you thought Tallarico would win, which great job. Ohio, Sherrod Brown, he did win. And then you also were like Kansas. That's not going to happen for Democrats. And you know what? It did. Adam Hamilton pulled it out. So I feel like you had a pretty good run there, but a couple misses that show how far we've come. Let's go through the other misses I had. Iowa I missed. South Carolina I missed. Mississippi potentially going to miss. Yeah. Do you really think Mississippi might happen? Yeah, I do. I mean, he's leading by 43 votes now. What else could happen, you know?

7:39I thought when I was making those predictions afterwards, I thought, Mary, you should have called me a wuss for those predictions. They were so hedged, you know, I was going like for straight middle ground. Like, let's let's leave it just right. They're the result of years of experience. I just I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've seen Democrats be like, oh, there's the polls are tied in Iowa or like, oh, look at South Carolina. I don't know, something might be happening. And it was just, it was fake.

8:10Luke Winkie: Today on the show, your questions about the blue wave and where we go from here. I'm Mary Harris. You're listening to What Next. Stick around.

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11:20Luke Winkie: the New York Times like this weekend did a Tallarico piece. We're like, yeah, it's a coin flip for Tallarico. And then you look at the results and you're like, huh, that's not actually, that's not a coin flip that just happened there. That's a lot of people voting for this person. Like I want to go through, you went to a few states ahead of this to basically be like, what is happening with these Senate races in particular? I'm talking about Texas. I'm talking about Maine. I'm talking about Michigan. And I just want to dig in on Texas. When you wrote about Texas pre-race, the title of your article was Why This Texas Senate Race is Different.

11:53Luke Winkie: So you kind of sensed something different going on. You talked about what had changed since Beto O 'Rourke surprised people in 2018, how the Democrats had really built up a system, an organization, a process. They had a strong gubernatorial candidate this time around, which they didn't have back then. And that really paid off for them because she won. um yeah i mean a pollster last night g elliott morris was writing at this rate tallorico would have won even if he really were a trans vegan communist yeah like the numbers were just that good i mean it makes it look so silly too because all the stuff about like well they should have dominated cornyn over paxton i mean tallorico won by 12 like i think cornyn would have lost too i mean it's just like the the breadth of the victory for democrats was so big that just makes a lot of the analysis over the course of the year looks silly.

12:44Like a lot of stuff just wasn't in question.

12:46Luke Winkie: Yeah. I mean, like one of our listeners is David is like, I think a normal GOP candidate would have made it a lot closer in Texas. And you're saying yes, but still would have lost. I mean, I think so. If he won, like, I don't know, say, say Cornyn does five or six points better than Paxton, then he would have lost by five or six points. So, I mean, who knows? It's all hypothetical, but like never in my wildest dreams, I think that a Democrat would win a Texas Senesi by 12 points this year. Yeah. I mean, also the proof, I mean, like, because I think there are a lot of questions about this, right?

13:18Luke Winkie: There are questions about whether, well, Ken Paxton was a particularly bad GOP candidate. This is true. People in the Republican Party didn't like him. But then you have to look at the fact that you have Gina Yonhosa winning for the gubernatorial race. You have the AG seat. So it's like you are really kind of seeing something different happen. You might even call it a kind of like rebirth of the Democratic brand in Texas. But I don't know what that brand is. Do you? I'm not sure. Is it different than the Democratic brand in Washington, I guess? Yeah, I think so. How? You know, Tallarico, he separated himself from National Democrats pretty well.

13:58You know, on some of the cultural issues, especially. He certainly, you know, unlike, you know, some some trans issues like sports issues, you know, he kind of separated himself on that. And so they, you know, put one hundred fifty million dollars or whatever against him the same way they did in 2024. And there just wasn't much to it. Also, I mean, just the swing among Hispanic voters.

14:25Luke Winkie: Yes. I mean, it was like 50 point swings in like in some Rio Grande Valley areas. Yeah, Bobby Polito, the quinceanera singer who came on our show, who is a delightful guest. And just he came on a lot of people's shows. Yeah, I know. He was he was available to talk. Yeah, he I mean, that was a district he was running against Monica de la Cruz, who I think, you know, is a Trump plus 15 district or something like that. Plus 17, I think. Yeah. 17. Polito's winning by 23. That's many points. You know, Henry Cuellar, whose district was, you know, gerrymandered, is winning by 37 points last I looked.

15:05Like, it was just, it's just the mirror image of, if not more, of what happened in the last couple cycles with Hispanic voters moving red.

15:14Luke Winkie: Can we talk about a place where Democrats fell short, which is Florida, and like what to make of that? Like, a listener, Leah, asked, like, how do we process Angie Nixon falling short when we saw a lot of flips in the South. Like, what does that mean to you? Because I think some people will rush in and be like, too progressive. I'm not sure that's what it means. But I'm curious what you think, because you definitely looked at this midterm and were like, we may see our kind of rebirth of moderates. So you may see it differently than I do. I don't, you know, I don't know that Angie Nixon's ideology played, had much of an effect either way.

15:50I think it's just Florida is a state that like keeps getting redder and redder. I mean, you have more it's become a destination for for Republicans who are pissed off about life in their own blue state, you know, and it just keeps getting redder and redder and redder every cycle. You know, it gets a few points redder. So it doesn't surprise me that Florida is now like to the right of Kansas, apparently, or Iowa or Texas. I think Angie Nixon I mean I didn't pay a ton of close attention to her but it sounds like she really did do a pretty good job of firing up the base with very little resources I think she'll be back I think she'll be back I mean I don't know if Florida is going to be back for Democrats anytime soon but

16:41Luke Winkie: she'll be back but I mean the main thing was like I saw Ashley Moody won by three points something like that And I was like, yeah, the GOP is toast. The GOP is toast. Yeah. Yeah. So Bean Sun Rice in the chat asked something about gerrymandering. Like, when are we going to know if the gerrymanders completely backfired? I've seen speculation online that like all of the gerrymanders, oops, didn't work. But like, when will we know what was a full dummymander and what wasn't? So I think there's a difference between a gerrymander that doesn't get the result that Republicans want and a dummymander. Like in Texas, you know, you had Republicans try to give themselves another five seats.

17:26I think they got zero of those additional five seats. I'm not entirely sure on that. It was either zero or one. damn but a dummy mander is when the map that you draw is worse than the map that you had before that so i think in north carolina it looks pretty clear like they have a dummy mander like it was you know the current delegation i think had four democrats they tried to draw it so democrats would only have three seats democrats might get 10 seats out of north carolina because they stretched it so thin. Wow. And like, you know, I mean, some pretty big seats like Richard Hudson, who's the head of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.

18:06I mean, he lost a seat. He's gone. Yeah. Yeah. Virginia Fox, who is very similar to what happened with Sean Patrick

18:13Luke Winkie: Maloney in New York. Yeah. Who was a Democrat. So but I mean, they stretch it thin. And then like Roy Cooper won by almost 20 points. I mean, that's North Carolina has got to be the worst state for Republicans out of all of them. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, the one thing I would also keep in mind, though, is like these things are going to look a lot different in 2028. What do you mean when you say that? When you have like, I mean, just this was such a lopsided Democratic result that like a lot of these gerrymanders just didn't work. But when you get to presidential level turnout where it's a bit more evenly matched, like, you know, a lot of these these pickups that Republicans drew for themselves will are more likely to come back in their column.

18:55Luke Winkie: Yeah, I think that's a really important thing to point out, because I think there will be, I mean, I was asking this last night with David Ferris, there will be a question of like, oh, well, we got all this turnout, maybe the whole gerrymandering thing didn't matter. But what you're saying is like, this is a midterm year. There's first of all, like a huge salience of these elections for certain people who have just watched whatever happened happen. And then second of all, like, you're just going to have more people coming out for a presidential year. And so the impact will be more clearly felt.

19:24Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, Democrats are still, they're going to have their work cut out for them in the next couple of years to try and match that advantage that Republicans will get back in 2028. I mean, like, Colorado, where Democrats are having a great night with their map there, like Lauren Boebert looks like she's going to lose. You know, they're going to have to try and gerrymander that district too to preserve those gains, gerrymander that state more to preserve those gains, which is like not a great path that we're going down as a country. But, you know, that that that war is going to continue well into 2028.

20:00Luke Winkie: Okay, but is there any chance that like, what's happening now creates the incentive to get rid of the gerrymandering once and for all? I would love that. I think that would be fantastic. But barring congressional action, I don't know. I mean, I was wondering if Democrats could pick up a trifecta in Texas and they could redo that map. That might be a good way to reset the balance of power, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. They're not going to take the state Senate, I don't think. but maybe I mean if Democrats have some some new trifectas in some states where they can undo this then maybe they could you know cut deals with other states or something because the states do watch what each other do before deciding whether to pursue it on their own yeah yeah okay I want to bring up Mississippi we're just like waiting for some kind of results you know last time I checked.

21:03Luke Winkie: Scott Colombe, the Democrat, was up by just 43 votes. And this is a state where he just he did fun things with his advertising. He did an ad that was like based on sinners, where there were like two Scott Colombs, like trying to keep someone out from getting into the roadhouse. And then of course, he did the famous like pick another protein, pick another senator thing. And I'm like, wow, I really just don't think this was on anyone's map before now. And then I'll bring up this to Georgia, because, yes, John Ossoff won and was one of the earliest ones to win and one of the most expected ones. But also Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first black woman governor of the state.

21:45Luke Winkie: That is a big deal. It's a big deal for a lot of reasons, for representation, but also because you and I are now going to have to start thinking about John Ossoff as a presidential candidate in 2028. because you're fanning yourself because Kijia Lance Bottoms would be the person who would appoint someone to replace him. So buckle up, y 'all. A result that came later in the night was Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. I think we got to move on and talk about that, especially because I believe we have Eamon Ismail joining us here. Eamon, what's up? Eamon, hi. Eamon was in Michigan with Abdul El-Sayed last night.

22:26Luke Winkie: Am I getting that right? You are correct. I just got back. I'm tired. Oh my gosh. Okay. So Eamon just landed and I just want you to set the scene of what happened in Michigan because the clips are fantastic. Abdul El-Sayed seemed perfectly happy to just give J.D. Vance a noogie. Do you want to play that clip, Madeline? J.D.

22:54Luke Winkie: Habibi. There is this delicious irony in the fact that you're constitutionally obligated to swear me in in January.

23:09Luke Winkie: The Habibi heard around the world. That was like.

23:15Mary, Habibti, let me just put you in that place. Yeah. So it was really, really late. Many people in the press, myself included, weren't sure that we were going to get anything. By the time that he was about to come out, I think a lot of the press had already left. But his supporters were all there. The room was jam-packed. Eamon had stayed behind, y 'all. I was checking my phone. Eamon's like, I got a job to do. Oh, my God. I mean, we're all so excited to go. So I was checking my phone and trying to see where the results were. And they were still trickling in. Wayne County, notoriously, extremely slow to count all the ballots.

23:52That's Detroit, right? Yeah, that's where Detroit is. Yeah, so this is what happened. He comes out and then he just claims victory. And there's a little bit of confusion at the beginning. We're all like, wait, did he win? Did he get called? We're not even sure. And then he talks about how He turned this inshallah into an alhamdulillah And for somebody like me Who's like a Muslim Arab person Who grew up like this This is just like an everyday language That we just use all the time And it's so surreal and out of body To hear somebody in a race That the whole nation is paying attention to Deployed in a way that felt real and human In a way that we often feel like Our Arabic language is not Deployed in a human way So off the bat I was like Like, wow.

24:38Luke Winkie: Well, especially because the race had become so Islamophobic that it's like to even to come out that way is to like not crouch. Right. After everything you've been through. And that's the other thing. I think, you know, I'll see the ads online. I'll see people write about how bad the ads are, how bad they're getting. Mary, when you get there, they're on TV all the time, three, four, five back to back. And more often than not, they're anti-Abdul ads. And more often than not, those ads are just starkly Islamophobic. There was one ad that didn't really even say anything politically. It just showed a woman wearing a coat covering her face.

25:15And it said, this is the Sharia way. Abdul is for Sharia law. Vote for Ra. Like, that's it.

25:21Luke Winkie: Wow. And, you know, as somebody who's like Muslim watching that, who has people who veil like that in their family, you almost have to wonder, like, are people even getting this? Are people taking this to heart? And when the question goes there, you almost can't help yourself but think of this race as a referendum on Islamophobia. And you're asking yourself, is this working or not? And as the results are coming in, I'm trying to decide for myself, how Islamophobic are we as a nation where something like this could actually sway a vote? Yeah. I mean, Jim, I'm kind of curious. Did you have a chance to check out any of Abdul's speech last night or how he's processing his win?

26:00I did not. I didn't really have time to watch a lot of people's speeches last night because I was just like checking out the needles on the New York Times website and writing, yeah.

26:10Luke Winkie: I guess the thing I wanted to talk to you about is like he really sounds like a different kind of senator. Like you've spent a lot of time covering people in the upper chamber. How different is his approach to the approach of other folks there? Or is this just politicking? Because like he didn't sound conciliatory in his speech to me. Like he was happy to be like bye to his opponent and like, you know, obviously call J.D. out too. Yeah. It just seems a little opposed to how Washington has historically worked. Is that fair of me? Yeah, he's I mean, for Senate Democrats. Like they're so cautious, you know, especially those who are in kind of swingy.

26:58states. El-Sahid is not cautious. Like, I mean, he tells you how he's feeling. Yes, for sure. He's confident to the point of cocky sometimes, you know, and he's a brawler. Like, I think a lot of Senate Democrats, you know, when that whole incident with Haley Stevens last week was

27:20Luke Winkie: going on and he was like - His primary opponent who then came out and was like, yeah. Yeah, like, don't bother showing up at my events anymore. You're trying to relitigate the primary. Like that's not a move I would have seen from a lot of Senate Democrats. You know, they would have been like, OK, what does Haley want? How do we get it to her? And I think he was just like, this person's getting my nerves. She can't tell me what to do. I won the primary. Like it was just such a kind of a different move. So, yeah, I think it will be like, I mean, a really interesting addition to the to the culture of the Senate Democrats.

27:50Luke Winkie: Yeah, it's interesting because Jonathan Cohn over the Bulwark has actually like talked. He lives in Michigan and he covers health care. So he's talked a lot to Abdul. And it's interesting to me to hear what he has to say, because he basically says like, oh, no, he is a really good like compromiser when he's in the room with a bunch of people. But he's also very good at like projecting strength. And you just have to like hold these two things together. But, you know, I think it will be a very, very different approach. and it is i mean it is amazing too that he that he called his shot they said i'm gonna win by seven months ago he won by yes he literally sent out a social very like roundabout way to seven there but yes yes okay so i don't think we can talk about abdul el-sayed without talking about someone else and we're gonna bring in another guest to talk about that person so um el-sayed's campaign really took off after he campaigned with Hassan Piker back in the spring.

28:48Luke Winkie: And then Hassan Piker kind of became like his own character in this midterms. Like we have this clip from Fox that shows you just how much Hassan Piker, this leftist streamer, not on the ballot anywhere, became like living rent free in folks heads. Madeline, can you play it? The election is going to be between who's going to run the Senate, John Thune or Hassan Piker? The Democrats have become the party of Hassan Piker. Haley Stevens versus Hassan Piker. The Democrat Party has said they don't want moderates. They don't want centrists. Do not force your children to grow up in a country ruled and governed by people like Hassan Piker.

29:31My vote for Senate is going to be.

29:32Luke Winkie: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was on Hassan's stream. Like, he was clearly loving all the energy. Anyway, we had our Slate staff writer, Luke Winkie, actually with us on last night, where I imagine the vibes were exquisite. Luke, how's it going with you? It's great. The vibes are great. Woke 3 is back. I hope you guys can hear me. I'm running on a mobile hotspot in a questionable hotel room. You sound great. Well, it was a bulliance. It was an interesting day. I think he really sort of, the whole time I was with him, I think the whole kind of reality that he just endured this entire year where he became this main character of sort of Republican strategy was sort of crashing down on him.

30:17And obviously, he's pretty happy to see the night of the midterm does not end up being a repudiation of Hassan Piker or a reference. There's a word I'm looking for. I've had a long night. You're forgiven. He got through it without without having to answer any questions about, you know, all the stuff that people like Steve Miller are raising.

30:38Luke Winkie: But he did not like give up on his Hassan Pikerness. Like we have another clip from last night, which is like, Hassan, do you want to play it? he's like i'm gonna show meat on the screen but if we get to 56 senators which i was like huh way to just like stay hassan the whole time i'll whip it out if we hit 56 uh victories in the senate okay i'll just fucking show meat i'll just show meat right on the timeline right on the stream fuck it i'll get banned who cares 30 25 point democrat saying this in a full suit yep okay was there yes you know what's funny about that is like like you know 56 senators that would mean that like that that requires josh turek or some other not very hasani or dsa senators to get there so in some ways you can say that sim supported the big tent of being like i don't like if we if we get some i'll show me even if that requires some moderates to uh i mean it's definitely true there's this is like kind of a huge tent i mean i guess this is a question for you, Jim, which is like, yes, the vibes were exquisite with Hassan Piker.

31:44Luke Winkie: But like, is this is not a Hassan Piker Senate and Congress? Is it? It's like really much broader than that. It's going to get real interesting when there's some really difficult bill or vote coming up in the Senate and you have these sudden Democratic senators from Texas and Kansas and Iowa, who are gonna all be Joe Manchins. They're gonna all, you know. Or could choose to be Joe Manchins. We don't know who they're gonna, they have to pick the color of their parachute. Yeah, like Hassan Fiker's gonna be complaining so much about like how Adam Hamilton votes for the next six years. So yeah, I mean, it's a big tent.

32:25It's a big, big majority, but big majorities come with a lot of tension that's gonna be kind of explosive to watch as the years go on.

32:36Luke Winkie: Yeah, I mean, okay, I'm going to play one more clip here because this morning, the thing that I noticed, speaking of this Big Ten thing, was MS Now had Hakeem Jeffries on Morning Joe. And it was like this weird chorus of folks being like, everybody calm down. We're not going to do anything. Can we just play the tape here? The American people don't want us to get even. They want us to get things done on their behalf because life is way too expensive. We ran on affordability. We won on affordability. And now it's our job to govern on affordability. What was before that was the host of Morning Joe being like, well, Donald Trump had this campaign of retribution.

33:19Luke Winkie: Are you going to do that? Isn't that scary what you're going to do? And he's like, no, I'm going to do affordability, which I found really interesting because Because the thing that actually Congress can do is investigate Donald Trump. The thing they cannot do is lower prices. I mean, they can do things around the edges, right? I think they can try to, you know, get involved with the health care cuts that have been made. And we're about to see Medicaid cuts and they can do that. But like, it was wild to me. Like the difference between Hassan Fiker and Hakeem Jeffries is wide, wide. Maddie in the chat is asking, what can Democrats actually do to address affordability, even with Trump's veto threats, which he has made?

34:05Like, probably not a lot. You have to see what he's willing to sign or what can get through Senate Republicans. I mean, there are lots of things you can do. Like you talked about, yeah, they will very quickly in the House pass like a bill reversing the Medicaid cuts, reversing the snap cuts, extending Obamacare subsidies. They'll vote like every day to end the Iran war. They will. I mean, they'll vote every day to end these tariffs. And then they'll, you know, a lot of them will just die in the Senate. But I think we talked about this a little bit in the last one, like they're not going to get a lot of practical stuff across the finish line, but they're kind of setting the table for 2028 and showing that they they tried.

34:59but like I don't know I think it is like Democrats got rejected in 2024 over the cost of living Republicans got rejected in 2026 over the cost of living like I think the instinct to like in your message say yeah this is our first priority this is what we're going to try to work on to kind of keep the trust of all these voters that you got who you really have no right having um i like it's it's important yeah i mean they're going to investigate but they're not going to come out like the day after the election say jokes on you we're not doing any affordability stuff we're just going to impeach trump every day you know what i kind of really want to talk to in

35:41Luke Winkie: this moment is rashida talib who was like known for going to congress in 2018 and being like we're gonna impeach the motherfucker and i'm like that energy i'm not i don't know where that's gonna to come from now anyway what were you gonna say luke oh i just like i guess the one thing that makes maybe a little bit different compared to 24 is that um you know like you think like like there's there's a direct correlation between the high prices and the iran war which is a little bit more there's there's more of like a button to push there compared to you know eggs being expensive in 2024 um i wonder if maybe you can kind of centralize a lot of the pressures around around the war and make that sort of what the party is about going forward that, I don't know, provides some sort of a path forward that maybe Democrats didn't have two years ago or three years ago.

36:27Yeah. I mean, the Iran war and the tariffs were extremely optional things that Trump chose to do that can be reversed. And yeah, you can focus on this. Well, and notably,

36:38Luke Winkie: Hakeem Jeffries does seem to want to do something about Pete Hegseth. I can't tell if that is actually something that would stop the Iran war, but it would do something. It would signal taking the prices potentially seriously, taking the war seriously. So I don't know. It sounds that maybe Trump and J.D. Vance might also want to be doing something about Pete Hegst the way that, I don't know if you saw J.D. Vance's tweet this morning where he just said the reason we lost is the war and just kind of laid it out in kind of like a pretty shocking way. Yeah. That was incredible. And Trump Jr. retweeted it.

37:11And I just wonder if if Pete Hagsad might end up being the fall guy for Republicans, too, and not just not just Democrats.

37:17Luke Winkie: Yeah. You know, for what it's worth, I spent a lot of my day just going from poll station to poll station talking to voters. And I was kind of surprised that affordability was not the top of mind for so many people that I spoke to. More often than not, they were just really upset at the lack of civility and the lack of empathy that's sort of come out of the Trump MAGA movement. And I was hearing this from Republican voters, too, in more affluent suburban neighborhoods in the really, really deep suburbs of Detroit. There's this desire, I think, for just them to try to put Trump in their place. And I think if they can just do that at the very beginning or show that they can be fighters or show that they can actually, you know, put some resistance to Trump as he goes through and like does all this stuff through executive order that they won't really be able to stop anyways.

38:06I think that might be enough for now.

38:07Luke Winkie: You know, Luke, the biggest shift we saw, or one of them, was young men. Like, even like right before the election, there were articles coming out looking at Times-Siena polls showing seven in 10 men ages 18 to 29 disapprove of Donald Trump. This is going into the election, and we kind of saw that swing. I wonder if that surprised you, and given that you were with Piker, like how he was processing that. yeah I think like I don't know the last two years have just been this like period of this cycle of being like just feeling feeling like I I feel like I'm normal and all these people are crazy like maybe but maybe I don't understand maybe I don't understand anything anymore maybe I'm I'm actually the crazy one and this is the new normal and I feel like last night was sort of a um a correction of that record I guess like I this I've been thinking a lot about how I feel like a lot of like men's media, I feel like the conservative realignment in men's media and in sort of like the campaign the Trump administration launched to capture young men has just sort of, I found it personally alienating.

39:21When I look at like a halo meme of ICE people like brutalizing somebody or like an anime edit of Trump on social media, I found that like kind of personally, like I was always sort of grossed out by that. And I found it spiriting. And I think maybe like the one thing I found myself thinking about last night, seeing the returns where young men swung to the Democrats by I think like 67 points or something like that, or 67 to 33, was this feeling that like, oh, yeah, maybe you guys just in general are pretty gross and antisocial. and hard to relate with and that we actually were normal the whole time.

40:04That normalcy kind of reigns. I don't know if I'm making a ton of sense here, but that's sort of what I found myself thinking about. Watching what you said, Eamon, how civility seemed to be a top issue for a lot of people. I feel like that trickled all the way down to young men that felt sort of exhausted by being courted in the way that Trump intended to court them. I don't know if that quite makes sense, but that's what I found myself thinking about.

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42:53Luke Winkie: I think we're going to shift to be talking about like what Congress can actually do in this moment. Luke, Amen, please stick around. Or I understand if you've got to bounce and write stuff, do it. But either way, roll with us or go do your thing. Um, so I guess I'm wondering, Jim, we have so many listener questions that are like, how can people who have voted this way now organize themselves to influence legislators about what they get up to now? I see this moment as the beginning of something. And if folks want to actually set an agenda for, say, 2028 or even just for what the next two years look like, they have a strong reason to lean in in this moment because there has been this big sea change at the ballot box.

43:44Luke Winkie: But what are their avenues for doing that? This is a question from Priscilla, who's like, how do we make this happen? How do we get folks to pass laws? Like, I can't bear two years worth of Democrats milling around and getting little done. Can she set a fire beneath them? What do we think, Jim?

44:05Luke Winkie: You just says, size looks to the side. I mean, if if if you want to get things done, you have to find a way to get it like I don't I don't I'm sorry, I don't understand exactly what we're talking about here. Like if you want to, you know, light a fire under them, I mean, just keep the pressure on and keep the pressure to on like Republican senators who are going to be the impediment in, you know, with the filibuster or keep the pressure under Trump. I mean, I think it's kind of an interesting question whether Trump, obviously, he's not going to take personal blame for this, but maybe he's going to think like, I'll mix it up and maybe I'll endorse this like Democratic bill to like, you know, restore Obamacare subsidies or just something along the edge.

44:56Just try to take like a little win here or there. Like he doesn't actually have like any like, you know, principles that, you know, are going to prevent him from signing something. So, I mean, maybe he'll be like, wow, maybe in those first two years I should have taken like a couple of wins there in front of me rather than just like just like stepping on rakes everywhere I could have. Well, I feel like there has been this like looming specter of like if the GOP lost big time at the ballot box, whether that would actually make folks in the White House so enraged that they act more erratically versus like compromising.

45:34Luke Winkie: And I wonder if you have a take on that as someone who has covered the last 10 years. I think the assumption is more erraticness, not less. But what you're implying is maybe there are places where Donald Trump might want to salvage his reputation. Yeah, I think if the election had been closer, we might be seeing more. More more punch from Trump, more, you know, oh, there was fraud in this state and that state and that's the only difference or, you know, more of a dispute. But it was such a total repudiation that I don't think they really have any sort of. They don't have anything. Can I make the case for Trump going lib in the last two years?

46:24Trump going on a live stream with Hassan Piker.

46:27Luke Winkie: Make it happen. He clearly misses New York. That's why he went to the Knicks game. I think he kind of misses the New York days. He's in his 80s now. It's going to be knives out for him from all the Republicans. He's so clearly in the lame duck period, only really cares about the algae and the reflecting pool. Well, he's never cared about Republicans. That's the thing. He's like, he's like liked owning the party. And now Republicans are going to hate him for like the Republicans are going to be maneuvering around him. Like this is our return to like 1993 lib Trump. The last two years. This is my, I'm not saying it's going to happen, but I think it's like on the board.

47:04You saw it. You saw it in his concession speech. Do you think it's going to be like a new tea party within the party? Maybe. But even when he, when he called up Fox news and just sort of like sleepily said like, oh, you know, that's like them's the breaks. I don't know. either like really checked out Trump or like lib Trump, I think is absolutely possible. It's just all the talk about like, what if he's not going to like recognize the results and there's going to be a million troops at every polling station. And yeah. And then he just loses. He's like, yeah, well, you know, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

47:36It was amazing. I think someone else did this other podcast, but at the end of the phone call, the Fox news guys was like, all right, well like good night, sir. Like they're sending him off to bed. Like it's, I don't know. The next two years, it's so funny that he has to govern for two years after this. I cannot wait to see what happens.

47:52Luke Winkie: Yeah. I mean, OK, real question for each of you, like, what is a what is a Republican right now? I do not really know because like the Republican has been defined by being a Trumpist for the last two years. As you're saying, like, what is a Trumpist is kind of like a jump ball at this moment. So which which does get this bigger question of whether we're seeing a wider realignment here. So I guess for each of you, maybe, Eamon, you haven't jumped in a bit. Do you think there's a definition of a Republican in this moment now? I do. I really do. I think it's as simple as owning the libs on these culture war issues because when I'm in these areas - That's all they got.

48:30I think that's what they care about, honestly. So, for example, I was in Dearborn, and Dearborn is a really interesting place in Michigan because in the last Trump election, Trump won handedly. He got 43 % of the vote there. And so when I was like asking people who identify now as Republicans because they just voted Trump twice in a row who are now switching to Abdulaziz Saeed, they'll tell you straight up that like my values are like I care about trans people having access to bathrooms or I care about, you know, LGBT books in the library. And therefore, I'm going to support the Republican Party because they're family values.

49:05Right. And I don't think the thinking goes further than that. I think they just spent a lot of time on their phones.

49:09Luke Winkie: But do you think like because the economy got so bad, it sort of like swamped that issue this time around? Well, for every single person I talked to, it was all about how awful the ads were, how terrible the muttslinging was. Even Republicans I spoke to were very ready to admit that like the Islamophobia and the anti-Arab racism was just way too far. I recently interviewed Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, who I think of as maybe the biggest ideologue in this space or one of. uh he i asked him about like the the Islamophobia being used against Abdul Sayyid and Zoran he called it like boomer shit he thinks it's like an old tired trope that's not really a part of the Republican Party anymore huh yeah to go off that amen like i just sort of feel like the Trump administration these last years just i think this is what i was trying to get to earlier it just got kind of cringe for like the lack of a better word like it like that the Islamophobia not only was it like horrifically offensive and gross, but it was also presented in this like sort of cringe, outmoded, uncool way.

50:10It was a very, it was a very uncool period in American history. Like, like Elon Musk has bad taste. And I feel like those factors did kind of play in with this, with this realignment. Like, it's interesting what you're saying that like, that is what people ended up kind of kind of citing it was it was the the aesthetics of trumpism got so much more garish and like unseemly and hard to associate with and i i i just have to i have to imagine that did play

50:39Luke Winkie: a factor well trump leaned into the aesthetics like he was like i'm putting everything in gold i'm like putting weird stuff up in the white house i'm gonna tell you about it all the time So it was like, you know, it became such a strong message. OK, Jim, what is a Republican to you in this moment? I think that is a complete open question now, because Trumpism got its rejection 10 years in the waiting. And I think it's something that's going to be answered through the next Republican presidential primary, which I mean, same for the Democrats. Like, I don't really know what it means to be a Democrat right now.

51:21I think that's something that's going to be determined through that primary as well.

51:24Luke Winkie: But I do feel like there are green shoots for the Democrats. I can see what, like, they're striving for, and I can see some options for them. I feel like for the GOP, I'm like, I see racism. I see what different factions of the Democratic Party are striving for. I don't see what the entire Democratic Party is striving for. Jeffries did use the word affordability five times, though. For sure. But Dems definitely have, like, a bench now, that's for sure. Yeah. But I like I like on the Republican side. I mean, to me, the biggest loser in terms of going forward for the Republicans is J.D. Vance, because this how are you?

52:01He was the presumed nominee. I don't know, maybe he still is, but like being tied to this administration, it just seems like such, such a millstone. And that's, we talked about his, his tweet this morning where he very, he was very much like, yeah, we lost because of the Iran war. Like, let's, like, let's face facts. Like he is like, that to me just read as, and he's been known for speaking about the Iran war,

52:28Luke Winkie: like to reporters being like, I was against it, but this was like, like a masks off. Like it was the iran war kind of thing the first time he says yeah but he's like that rich me is just desperation like he's he's trying to save his his 2028 run like right away like he's just creating the separation over that issue well and it's his like third heel turn as like a like his his affiliation right like he was sort of trying to do an in-between guy and then he was like i'm a trump guy and now he's like and now i'm this other guy the anti-iran war guy and i just feel like at a certain point i mean it's very inauthentic it's very transparent what's happening yeah but i mean If you look at which direction the Republicans could go, I mean, what does J.D.

53:06Vance mention to him are the reasons why they lost? He says the Iran war, cost of living, support for Israel. There's one more or something else. So he might be taking it like there could be a bridge here where he might think the future is down more of a like Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene road. you know, the kind of the MAGA that felt left behind by Trump or felt like he broke their word to them, or they could go down more of like a Marco Rubio world where it's more of a repudiation of, I mean, I know Rubio is like on board now, but like you could go down a more like kind of return to the pre-Trump status quo, sort of a return to normalcy path.

53:53So I think those might be the two visions we see clashing next year. Yeah.

54:02Luke Winkie: For the Democrats, I'm kind of curious, too. Does anyone here think, like, Hakeem Jeffries isn't going to be the leader in the House? Do you think he's going to have any real opposition? Jim's shaking his head no. He's got it on lock, is what Jim says. Yeah? If it was a smaller margin, maybe. But, like, if they're going to end up with, like, 250 seats, Hakeem Jeffries is almost certainly going to be the speaker. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's no one to challenge him. I'm surprised. Like, challenges have happened in these situations in the past. Not after you win 50 seats. Like, you're not getting a challenge.

54:35I don't know if you guys disagree, but, like, when I compared, like, this slate of senators that got elected this year, like, when I compared to, like, the real factional fights of, like, 2020 or 2016 or, like, the Bernie versus platform Democratic vibe that these electorates have had in the past, I didn't really, like, feel that this much this time. It felt like everyone was kind of with the program. I didn't see any like hardcore lefties all like super mad about like some of Josh Churek's moderation necessarily. It felt like everyone was kind of like rowing in the same direction to an extent.

55:06Luke Winkie: Well, it's interesting because what happened in Michigan gave a chance for sort of the OGs of the Democratic Party to come in and be like, no, Haley Stevens, we support Abdul El-Sayed and kind of do that full throatedly in the last few days. That and like I think when you spoke to individual candidates, we did this on the show a few times, you could hear how even the moderates were becoming a little more progressive and how they talked about things. The affordability thing became about like expanding health care, making sure there's a public option, all these things that had kind of been floated as more progressive things.

55:39Luke Winkie: They were becoming part of just what a moderate would now say. So it was interesting to kind of watch this shift happen in real time. David in the chat is wondering, can Democrats maybe get some bills passed if they offer a monument or a ballroom to Donald J. Trump? What do you guys think? Yeah. No. Yeah, if they say we'll authorize your arch slash military sniper complex, you know? Like a minimum wage bump for ballroom funding. I'm signing off that on tomorrow. That's like an easy trade for me. Like not even close. Totally. I mean, like, yeah, we'll authorize the golf course if you, the renovation.

56:27If you give the health care back. Yeah, yeah. If you restore the Medicaid cuts. This is so depressing.

56:34Luke Winkie: So depressing. So depressing. This is politics, baby. This is Tammany. This is what we're doing. We got a gold plate some stuff to get our health care. We'll trade you fed kids for your name on the Kennedy Center. It's a good trade. It's a good trade. That's easy. Yeah. No. He's going to be dead in like three years. You just take it off afterwards.

56:58Luke Winkie: Okay. Okay. Listener named Doug is wondering if, what are the guardrails on executive power that Congress can actually start to build once the new congressional term is underway? I actually don't know really the answer to these questions, although I think that beginning investigations will certainly slow down agency actions. Like it'll sort of like, like everything will kind of slow down once that gets started. I think that if you keep hauling Pete Hegseth into Congress to testify, that's going to take up his time. You know, you're going to be able to gum up the works in that way. But Jim, like what are the guardrails on your mind?

57:36I mean, those, I mean, investigations are the main guardrails. Like, think of everything that has gone on over the last two years.

57:46Luke Winkie: I mean, there's too many investigations, though. Don't you think they need to focus up? I mean, they will. Yeah, they'll need to prioritize. But like what I'm saying is there has been so much corruption and graft and scandal after scandal. And there has not been one hearing called to investigate any of it. I can think of one. Bill Cassidy in the health committee held an oversight hearing into the firing of a CDC director. That was the one time I remember a Republican calling a hearing into some sort of scandal within the Trump administration. That seems so niche. Every single one of those is now going to get an investigation, like time permitting.

58:27Like that is that is the major guardrail. It's sunlight. I mean, this stuff is going to be if you do something like it's going to be aired publicly, which it has not been done before at all.

58:40Luke Winkie: um you know we haven't talked about democratic victories at like the state house level jim i don't know if you've like dug into this at all but like i was seeing people basically putting out there like okay democrats have gained control over enough state governments to like work together and do stuff like i don't know pass the national popular vote compact which would essentially like kind of blow up the electoral college like i don't know if we need and there are a lot of AGs who are also Democrats who are elected. I just sort of wonder if maybe what we need to be thinking about is what's happening not just in Washington, D.C., but what's happening locally and how those things might work together.

59:17Yeah, I haven't had the chance to like completely go through all the state legislative flips. I assume there's hundreds and hundreds of them, like, you know, individual seats. Hundreds and hundreds. Not hundreds and hundreds of legislators. But yeah, but like, I mean, individual seat flips. I think they picked up the trifectas in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, maybe some others. They flipped, Democrats flipped the North Carolina House back for the first time since 2010, I think. They just missed Texas, I think. That's the one. Did they get the Texas House, though? I think they may have gotten it. I think they have the House and the governor.

59:58I think they missed the Senate. They missed the Senate. But yeah, I mean, like the North Carolina GOP, I mean, those are some hardened guys there. I mean, they've done a lot of very restrictive gerrymandering and voting rights legislation over the last 16 years. And now there's a wrench in that. So, I mean, this is like I think the breadth of this and all the implications of it are going to be, I don't know, it's going to take a while to really sift through. Yeah. Yeah. I'd be curious to see if people are, if they're willing to, like, when I think of all like the anti-DEI stuff that got rolled out the last two years, if that is something they want to spend their political capital on.

1:00:38As someone who went to UT, I'm very invested in the idea of UT in Texas becoming woke again. I would like to see that happen. But also, I don't know if that's going to be like, I wonder if that's where they're going to spend their resources. I don't know. I'll be curious to see how that's done.

1:00:55Luke Winkie: Is this a different woke? I've heard a lot of people basically be like, it's Woke 3. Which Woke are we on? I think we're on Woke 4, actually. It's sort of, yeah, it's up to interpretation. Has Woke evolved? Do you know what I mean? Are we at a new Woke level? Have we broken through to some new Woke level? Woke is a lot less cringe right now, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Luke. I think Woke now is like, I've just seen a lot of tweets about what we should be doing with Mark Andresine and stuff like that that I can't really repeat here. I think that might be where woke has arrived. Yeah. Dark woke, as it's known.

1:01:36Luke Winkie: Dark woke, for sure. I mean, we're getting word right now that Trump is giving a speech right now about the ballroom. It just seems like he's... I don't know what's happening. They're giving him his blankie. This is when he gets stressed. He needs to talk about building something. I mean, I guess this is... But this is like the good outcome, right? Yeah, if this only does the next two years, it's fantastic. It's fine. It's fine. There's a world where he just won re-election and just wanted to go to sporting events, wanted to go to NASCAR races, wanted to go to boxing matches, wanted to go on TV shows, and just let technocrats do whatever they want with the government.

1:02:12And he would have been popular, but he did not choose that path.

1:02:16Luke Winkie: Well, okay, here's a real question, though. What happens with someone like Stephen Miller now? because like basically there have been a lot of jokes about how the presidency is actually like Stephen Miller and like Russ vote in a trench coat like with Donald Trump consigliere and I do feel like they're not going away it doesn't seem like and I don't know um I don't know how that plays out because I don't think their desires will be sublimated in this moment I like I have such a hard time seeing Stephen Miller um being given the hook just he's been there since 2015 2015. Yeah, he's an OG at this point.

1:02:51He could be called into Congress for investigations, I guess. He could be called in. I mean, that's another thing, too. I think we're going to see an extraordinary amount of ignored subpoenas in the next couple of years. So, yeah.

1:03:03Luke Winkie: Do you think Congress is going to do anything about that when people are like, no, thanks. They'll have contempt votes. And then I don't know, maybe if there's like they're not going to get charged by DOJ for contempt because Trump runs DOJ. So we'll see how that all plays out. But I don't know, like, Like he should fire Stephen Miller. I mean, like he's responsible for a lot of terrible stuff, you know, that made Trump lose. Like he made immigration go from Trump's best issue to a huge liability that cost him Texas. So good job. Yeah. OK, Scott in the chat is asking, will J.D. and the cabinet use the 25th Amendment as Trump's mental health continues to deteriorate?

1:03:45Luke Winkie: That's a kind of hot take. I mean, that's one way for J.D. Vance to make a real pivot here if he really does want to get that seat. I would say no. I'm just going to run out the clock, yeah, at this point. There's too many loyalists. I would say no, but like every lib dream happened last night. Like Blue Texas, Susan Collins losing like 50, potentially 56 seats in the Senate. So maybe like Trump getting 25th Amendment is like the next lib dream to come true. Anything seems possible now. yeah i mean this is connected to my lib trump take but like yeah if he just like ended up resigning in the next like year or so i wouldn't like i would obviously be surprising but i don't know if i would be like completely shocked who i don't know well yeah totally yeah there was like some headline on drudge was like looks for third country to go to and i was like i can see it it goes back to that phone call you have with fox news where he just seemed really checked out just It's like, well, you know, I just, you know, I could see him hanging.

1:04:44I mean, would you want to deal with what he's going to go through the next two years? I would definitely stand it up.

1:04:48Luke Winkie: Like the Pope who retired. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like actually literally exactly. Okay, guys, we're going to get out of here. See what's new broken while we were in the chat. This was so much fun. Can we like do it again sometime? Maybe? I don't know. Yes? Yeah. Okay. Jim, Eamon, Luke, thank you If you enjoyed this conversation Keep in mind it only happened because you're a Slate Plus subscriber You guys keep the lights on for us We really appreciate it What Next is produced by Evan Campbell Madeline Thames-Dusharm and Patrick Fort Paige Osborne is our senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next CBD Mia Lobel is the executive producer of podcasts here at Slate Ben Richmond is our senior director of podcast operations I'm Mary Harris You can go track me down on Blue Skies say whatever you want right to my face.

1:05:37Luke Winkie: Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon.

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