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known i'm david ramnik and each week on the new auger radio hour i'll try to make sense of what's

happening alongside politicians and thinkers like korea booker nancy polocie list chaney tim walls katonji brown jaxson new gingrich robert of kennity junior charlament the god and so many more that's all in the new yorker radio hour wherever you listen to podcasts welcome to plethora america i'm john fever i'm john fiverr on today's show we're going to talk about reports that trump is getting bored with the war even as the military is preparing for

“a possible ground invasion of a run more republicans and congress are speaking out against the war”

gas prices keep going up and the polls are looking bleak for the president and his party we'll get into all that as well plus the latest with the dhs shut down that's causing huge lines at american

airports finally we'll talk about the shit show of a governor's race here in california

where democrats may be screwing ourselves into electing a republican also beyond the show we continue to cover all the developments around the war and around Donald trump's presidency and everything else so please consider subscribing if you haven't already so you don't miss out on anything friend of the pod subscribers get our new extra episode of podsave america called podsave america only friends uh love it and i did it this week so there's one on the feed right now if you subscribe

other subscriber only shows like polar coaster with Dan fiverr the guy that's right here with me that's me virtually but you didn't do one this week because now we do it every other way to us yeah so right now we want to read one next week well boy we're going to do some polar coasting in this episode but uh to hear more you got a subscribe and listen to uh get you can get polar coaster with Dan you also get access to all of our excellent sub stack newsletter like

podsave america open tabs uh add free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods and you get to feel good about supporting one of the few independent pro democracy media outlets left in trump's america head to crooked dot com slash friends and uh and subscribe today or i'm about 50 thousand last week there was 50 thousand like any moment okay could happen it could be right now who knows all right but you know what whether we are being when it hits there yeah we haven't figured

out what we're going to do once we hit 50 thousand like we were going to promise that someone does something Tommy said that maybe he would put a picture of his feet uh online on it did subscribe for numbers go down after that yeah i was going to say it's not someone suggested that like maybe maybe if we get hit to 50 hit 50 thousand Elijah will stay on parental leave but i feel like no no no no no no no no no no no I don't want to subscribe myself to keep that for now we need

that man back i know i agree he subscribed 12 times to try to get you there it probably anyway there'll be some kind of a prize so you know it could be for you be the 50 thousand subscriber who knows all right let's get to the news the president has now deployed nearly 7 thousand american troops to the middle east some of whom may or may not be fighting on the ground in a round by the time you hear this we are recording on Thursday afternoon but even

as Axios reports that Pete Hickseth is developing options for a quote final blow uh that could involve a new massive bombing campaign in ground invasion trump just said that he's pausing quote energy plant destruction for another 10 days per Iranian government request because he says talks are ongoing and going well he then he called into the five on fox and friends which is something that happens so waiting for him to call in here but you know but when he called into the five he said

be made up but we can get into that either way the Wall Street Journal reports the trump is uh he's

ready for this thing to be over um and he's apparently been telling people that quote the war was distracting from his other priorities and that quote he's ready to shift to his next big challenge though trump didn't say what that might be fortunately uh we did get a sense of what those other priorities and challenges might be during a cabinet meeting on Thursday where he talked about Iran and so much else what's awesome read the story today that i'm desperate to make it the i'm

not i don't i'm the opposite of desperate and okay we don't need the hormone straight we don't need it we don't need it we don't need it oh we don't we have so much oil our country is not affected by this frankly i thought the oppresses would go up more and i thought the stock market would go down more hasn't been nearly as severe as i thought this ballroom is going to be something

“that's so beautiful for the city's no secret the military wanted it more than anybody who”

we're building an architriant for a lot which would be incredible for the city kind of we're fixing

up the what was the Kennedy Center i was honored where the board changed the name a little bit i'm a gold person it's all real stuff you can't imitate it they've someday they'll discover a paint that would look like gold and the guy's going to be the richest band in the world see this pen right here this pen is an interesting example it's the same thing so this pen is very expensive but it writes well i like it but i can't have the pen in the way it was you know what it is i

don't want to give too much publicity but they do chip me will sharpie i don't want a stupid person big president here here sir here i mean that went on for hours this morning it's a cabinet meeting

in the middle of a war marines other troops headed to the middle east could be a ground

invasion any moment now oils prices off the charts stock market had its worst day since the around war began today and we got that this morning it doesn't seem like he's a little bored then with this massive war that he continues to claim he's already won what he thinks going on behind the scenes and uh what do you think of that journal story what is going on behind the scenes you know everyone's won the simsons they go to the inside of homers brain it's just like uh

“tumbleweeds or like a hamster on a wheel i kind of feel like that's what it's going to be on the”

scene so it's just yeah like that story in the Wall Street Journal is so disturbing because it's it's like the takeaway is that Trump just simply doesn't have the attention span for the war he started and when you read the story he's like a passive observer of the war it's like he's told a he wants it to end soon well it's it's an it's another episode of the Trump show and he feels like the episode has run its course and it's time for a new episode because otherwise

he's going to lose the audience but he's the commander in chief he started the war like what's his plan ended what's he doing like what is that actually happening there's just he really just like gave an order a war started and he's kind of like just kind of weighing in periodically from the sidelines it's like like the pinnick gallery and it's like it's embarrassing yeah i've been trying

“to piece together as I'm sure you have and everyone else over the last 48 72 hours like what”

actually is happening uh because you can't really trust Donald Trump to tell the truth can't really trust the Iranians to tell the truth it seems as though that there are some countries that want to act as mediators and they've been trading messages between lower level US officials and Iranian officials and they want to put together actual negotiations where in person but no one has decided that they want to do that yet the Iranians they are very cautious about trusting Donald Trump

uh and why exactly because they think he's just talking about negotiations um so he can pull off another sneak attack on Iran um as he has done now many times before in the Israelis have also done so Iran is preparing for some kind of an invasion it does seem like we could get you know the marines and the other troops they sent over to the Middle East could arrive any minute now the original deadline for Trump deciding to do a war crime and blow up all their power plants was Friday night

and so there is some thought that maybe Friday or Saturday there's some kind of a invasion or attack Axios as they they reported on the final blow there's four options three of them involved in vating carguerland and other islands in order to secure the the straight-of-war moves one option is

negotiations it's happening I don't it doesn't seem like that's true it seems like the Iranians

“are open to negotiations but again can't trust Trump so they don't know what to do but who in Iran right”

they've been that's that too yeah well like Trump for a while was the leader of parliament he was wanted to talk to but it's unclear if that person is any power and as soon as Trump called that person you know when do you call them hot or a really hot option hot option hot option that probably wasn't good for that person standing in the in the country and with the Republican Guard who had the IRGC who actually runs the country and and it's just there really is something

like the president is just lying all the time he lied about why we went to war repeatedly he is lying about the how the war is going it appears he's making up negotiations of some kind of releases dramatically overstating what's happening in order to manipulate the market yeah the most that's the most the most generous interpretation is that yeah I mean like is it possible that there are people in the country of Iran who are talking to people in other countries and then those

“people are talking to people in our country that is probably happening in some way should perform”

whether any of the people have the authority to actually cut a deal or there is actual progress like we have seen publicly traded publicly talked about conditions the Iranians had some the guys it's a 15 point point whatever else but the president's making it seem like there is a group of Iranians and a group of Americans in some sort of mythical yalta having a conversation about the future of this war and that's clearly not happening and like the Iranians on trust them

we don't trust them we know not to trust the Iranians it's it's all it's very and it we're in doing this in a country of which there are no American reporters on the ground of consequence maybe there's a handful and there's no domestic reporting in that country to tell us what's

happening and so we really just have no idea what's happening meanwhile four million people

but in Iran and Lebanon have been displaced so far tens of thousands have already left those countries as refugees some to Turkey some to other countries thousands are dead including American soldiers and basically oil prices continue to rise and the straight-up for moves has not opened up anymore Trump talked about getting eight ships through that Iran gave as a gift no one really knows what the fuck he's talking about there that's another example it's like

what is how he said he made it seem like it's a grand diplomatic gesture no to show that they were serious people can't really tell what he's talking about there's evidence of two ships going through but that seems to be the sorts of ships that Iran was letting through already so it's just and again the worst of the oil crisis hasn't hit yet because there are still tankers that took off before the war began and so we're still relying on some supplies that are

we're already out there and once those are gone then it starts getting really bad and again it's

also not just oil but it's fertilizer and it's other critical supplies that don't just matter

to us in the United States but to countries all over the world they're declaring like a they've been emergency in the Philippines because they don't have energy, India's running into all kinds of problems and like the idea that this isn't going to come back and bite us in the ass is fanciful because it is a global economy and what happens to other big countries with economies is going to matter to us as well and meanwhile Trump's out there saying we don't need

the straight we don't need the straight or we don't need the straight why are you sending like a couple thousand troops over there to potentially invade various islands to open up the straight like we don't need the straight what are you talking about and if the straight does it being close doesn't affect us why are our gas prices up more than a dollar why are they about to it for an average of four dollars nationally in a day now why are diesel prices near their highest level

“in recent memory and the diesel prices thing is very important because how do you think things get”

delivered in this country on trucks that run diesel why is jet fuel so gotten so expensive that United Airlines is cutting five percent of its flights right in airline prices are up for anyone who would like to fly right now during a time of travel chaos and so it absolutely affects us and he's just lying about in the lies but what's happening at home are annoying but we all can see the reality of it like he's not tricking if someone wants to believe that things are fine because

they love Trump so much that's fine that's their choice but he's not tricking anyone that the straight performers affect us the lies that really matter the lies about what it's going to actually happen in this war where we can't see the real truth yeah and the lies that like other countries have to parse right because they have to make decisions too that our life and death decisions that could impact the global economy and millions of people everywhere so my guess on this like

pushing back the deadline thing is the deadline is just going to keep getting pushback he's not going

infrastructure across the Middle East and that would send prices soaring everywhere and then

“cause even more destruction and more instability and more chaos and more violence so I think”

he's just not doing that and he's just going to keep kicking the can down the road on that there's also like this is the kind of shitty does negotiations are going as the Iranians guess this is the kind of shitty does you know the negotiations are going well and I'm gonna give you another 10 days just because I'm nice and then he goes and does a massive invasion or bombing campaign

or whatever he might do so I do think we could be on the cusp of that as well because you never know

one other line in the Wall Street Journal story that actually made me laugh out loud when I read it and though it's not that funny is um quote some allies are hopeful trump can pivot to ousting the communist regime in Cuba great pivot great pivot let's let's pivot to regime change in a country closer to home maybe that would be that's a good thing to do well close

“advisors want him to focus on the most pressing issue facing voters concerns about the cost of”

living which have been exacerbated by the war yeah no shit I saw someone point out on Twitter I think you showed this um that trump found the one thing you could possibly do to brace both gas prices

and mortgage rates at the same time incredible incredible I mean I just love them all way in

the option like what should we do next should we focus on costs for the ability the reason we won the election yeah let's go invade Cuba look if you you're struggling to war you got to get off the mat fight another war yeah Cuba yeah yeah not going to war you got the war horse Donald Trump he's going to do Cuba to distract from around to distract from the Epstein files well no no Venice right you're tracking from Venezuela which is also to strike the Epstein files which is distracting

from the p tape which is which trump now says all of it is distracting from his other priorities which are pens ballrooms arcs um what else marble number the trump can be sent a marble on center yeah he's also see he's going to be um putting his name on the dollar bill now yes yes yes we're going to start putting his signature on the dollar bill that's the new one

right just amazing amazing stuff we got here in America one reason trump made genuinely believe

he's already won this war is because um the uh blow-dried dipshit he put in charge of fighting it um uh says shit like this he's like at the cabinet meeting today it's the same old tire playbook TDS in your DNA you wouldn't know it if you listen to the dishonest hate trump media my message to the media is get it right this actually isn't something new to me maybe a young guy mr. president but i'm not a rookie in this realm in 2007 and 2007 I

helped lead the surge the public fight for the Iraq surge stood and watch people stand in the Senate and declare the war is lost before you even started who was that it was Harry Reed that was the Democrats and the media working hand in glove back then it was three years into a war now we're three weeks into an operation but you unlike Iraq this isn't a tie this is not parity this is not chaos this is success pure American success the Iraq war famously a tie

this is a dated reference everyone went home with a little something I really feel like whoever used to write the no fear t-shirts back in the day writes p-decks at speeches pure uncut American success we negotiate with bombs tDS in your DNA with some STDs and like what is he he keeps using that line he sucks Jesus Christ I'm shocked the weekend anchor

“at Fox in charge of the penting I think that's it worked out swimmingly it's like I'm no rookie”

remember Iraq yeah I was the guy that sold the surge took three years to have that war be a fucking disaster this one just three weeks yes did you see I think's a terrible point of this that around the penting I'm not calling um um dumb McNamara I thought it was the Iranians calling them oh it was not that was the penting I'm maybe I don't know so who knows it could be both it's a good to good name I think we could workshop it's love it pointed out

done dumpsfeld was sitting right there for the take-up done dumpsfeld all right well there's a title for this episode did you see the NBC news story that um hexettes folks have been putting together a daily morning highlight real for Trump of quote stuff blowing up in Iran I don't know seems like maybe the president's not getting a full picture of what's happening if he's just getting the just getting the highlight real I was it's like the he's just like watching NFL red zone for the

for the wrong war except the red zone actually would include the bad stuff it's even worse than that I mean it it like it's a more he's just getting he gets his diet coke and a snuff film the start the day

bombs just blowing things up everything's going great hey hey it does like there's something like

bigger here which is the reason they do this is because it makes him happy and if they tell him bad news he yells at them and they don't want to get yelled at so we're making decisions around war in military quote unquote excursions the same way parents treat a hangry toddler right they don't they're so afraid he's going to lose his shit and have a meltdown that they just tell them what he wants here which is a very bad way to raise a child and it's a worse way to run a government

it is yeah I try not to I try not to give them their way too much I mean it's it's hard not to sometimes but it's hard not to but you know what if they had their finger on the button and could launch a nuclear war or or send thousands of troops to the Middle East then maybe I would maybe

I would be a little tougher on them you know yeah but apparently no one can do that with Donald Trump

I don't even know like does Pete hexeth even know things are going bad as well like what

“is happening I mean I guess he gets briefed he must I don't I mean here's the thing from his perspective”

we're blowing up all the things we're supposed to be blowing up and that's the only language he understands anyway because we think we're not with bombs and those we need to go shape with bombs and we've got our hand on the our hand on the throttle as he's saying in the at the other day in the Oval Office um yeah so I guess they they really are judging success in this war by the amount of destruction we cause which is a strategy that worked great in Vietnam

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Iran again let's pivot to some good news for trump for trump and the republicans who will be on the ballot this fall um a bunch of them just got classified briefings from the Pentagon about the war and uh and some of them do not seem happy Mike Rogers chairman of the arm services committee

campaign that's according to the New York Times Roger Wicker chair of the arm services over in the

Senate said he could see why Rogers would say that he could go quite beyond that he was like I let me just say I could see why he said that um and here's here's a surprising mega voice of reason uh who was in those briefings Nancy Mace what was it about today's briefing that you found so concerned in terms of the idea of the United States possibly putting troops on the ground anyway gotta be careful about what I say because it was in a skiff it was classified setting but

there was frustration that reverberated throughout based on the information that we were receiving and i i i'm mega mace i am a conservative foreign republican and i support president trump

“i think he said an excellent job but when we're talking about troops on the ground that is a”

different stage in an operation or in a war that has a significantly greater gravity than any other thing that we've talked about i mean reading between the lines with what mace said and what some of these other republicans are telling reporters about these briefings it sure seems like they were brief that they're going to be some kind of ground troops on the ground in a round soon whether it's on car island or wherever the fuck it is

and uh didn't have a lot of details beyond that because they all seemed pretty free to it seems quite bad and it makes sense because i'm sure they got to for the first time ask questions about like what's the plan what are we doing what do we know how do we get out of this and there are no good answers to those questions so uh anti-maces running for uh for governor of South Carolina which i forgot until that interview uh in a crowded primary um obviously she's an anti-mace

and uh usually unwell but um what is her answer tell you about the politics there in uh in some of these races you know it's interesting because if you look at the polling which we're going to dig into in a minute but there is among republican base voters mega voters there is a high level of support for what president trump is doing in a rock well there be a high level

support for $200 billion for that that's an open portion but so she's not actually doing

she's not capturing something that you feel right now but South Carolina is the state with a very high military and veterans population it is she's maybe thinking ahead about where things might be a week from now two weeks from now three weeks from now a few months from now about where people are

“going to be but like i think i i'm not going to give Martin he wants me as credit for being like”

sincere here but it does seem like she went to the briefing wanting to support trump and came out believing maybe not that trump is wrong here but that he's being poorly served by the people who are running this war yeah i mean none of them can do the most obvious thing which is to criticize Donald trump because he is the big boy at 80 years old who has decided to fight this war and is the decision maker but they are too afraid so they can't do that so they all try to like

blame someone else or talk around it but you can tell the people who are in you know who have to run for office or her in tough races or even the people who just like been there a while and think this is and if they've been through other wars or starting to think this is a little bit crazy because it is you can't think it's not crazy if you have any amount of sanity in your life you can't think it's a crazy because it's fucking bananas it makes no sense what we're doing

“no one can answer a question about it there is no explanation we're a month into it there is”

no strategy there is no objective there is no endgame the gas prices are going up like if you are spent your entire life fantasizing and possibly period ways about a war with the wrong like Lindsey Graham like this is very exciting if you're just someone who hasn't thought about this for two seconds it's just getting your news from the Fox News propaganda channel on the war

then maybe you think these are going fine but if you actually think about it for a second

it's insane it was also telling how like Marco how Marco Rubio and JD Vance spoke about it at the cabinet meeting we could have played Clips forever but we didn't really have the time but like Rubio all he could say continue to say is like the people running around are religious lunatics they're religious lunatics like that's all he can say because he's like okay here's something that's true so I can keep saying that JD Vance went on something about like you know

some of these some of these guys they walk in to to a store with a with a vest on with with with bombs in the vest and they blow it up and imagine if it was nuclear imagine if the bombs were bigger like it made no fucking sense he's talking about like random suicide bombers was he talking about them here in the middle east where he doesn't even know like he's way that guy is like does not want to be any part of this although apparently he might be leading negotiations

it is interesting to watch both of those two who may have political futures beyond this

only saw Clips of JD Vance but Rubio he basically has tried to define success as what's already

happened so matter what happens next no matter who's in charge no matter what deal is struck no matter when the the straight opens or not Iran was dangerous there were dangerous people in charge those people are now dead we are safe or because like that is he's trying to like that's not how the world works it's not what's actually happening but that's the KC trying to make it I think in his mind anything that happens after that is ptx has fallen yeah that is true I feel like

Trump's getting ready to do that too since he basically has like set a couple times this week Pete wanted the war Pete doesn't want the war to end it was Pete's idea to do the war and now he's really sad that we're gonna have to end it so yeah they are preparing to uh Pete's gonna be doing his next briefing from under the bus so all these Republicans are clearly seeing the same polls the rest of us are um people are pissed at this point mostly because of the

wars economic impact mortgage rates increased for the third straight week or now at a five

month high gases now at an average of 3.98 a gallon expected to keep climbing a new forecast on Thursday set inflation is headed back up this year and all of this is why Trump's approval rating is already hitting record lows for his second term now under 40% according to three new polls out this week from Quinnipiac AP and Reuters a new Fox poll has his disapproval at 59% the highest in either of his terms uh with half of those strongly disapproving polls even worse on his handling of Iran where

he's underwater 36 to 64 what a week not to have an episode of Policoster but uh for those of you

“who don't yet get the message box uh which you should be subscribers uh which crooked dot com slash”

yes we Dan go subscribe to the message box but um here you're just gonna give us all a free preview maybe I love what you said in the message box today I will so Trump's position is even worse than people think it is like as you point out his approval rating is lower than it has ever been he is under 40 and 3 polls this week has Laxia Jane in the argument points out Trump is not just unpopular he's more in popular than any modern president at this point in the presidency including

Donald Trump and his first term it's tough he is underwater on every single issue his entire political strength the reason he's been able to survive every other problem you know period of political turmoil in his in his career has been because of people trust in one of the economy that is over he is 20 points underwater in the economy 30 points underwater on inflation in and one of a couple of these polls Trump's economic we're running is now lower than Joe Biden's was at any

“point in Joe Biden's presidency wow okay and then there's another point here which I think there's”

not enough attention I hit on this in the message box is it had always been true since Trump came

down the escalator that yes Trump drove intense opposition among Democrats he also drove intense support among Republicans and so Trump being on the ballot or Trump being out there campaigning yes it would drive up Democrats but it helped Republicans because it would drive up Republican turnout too that is not true anymore and nature was pulling model the number of Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump is two times the number of Americans who strongly approved

of Trump Republicans like Trump they don't love him anymore and you can see that in the generic ballot right in the scene in a scene in Paul last month and he has mentioned this on Tuesday but the number of Democrats who are highly interested in the election or in or motivated to vote is much higher than the number of Republicans and when you just ask among those who are highly interested in the election how they're going to vote in 2026 the the generic ballot expands from five

points to 16 points I mean this is the make-ins of an absolute 1994 2018 2006 style political disaster and I left 2010 out for a reason I can explain if you're interested but it is like the conditions are there for it just an absolute disaster for Trump and the Republicans this fall why do you leave 2010 because 2010 I think is different because Obama was much much more popular than either any of these other presidents were at that point and you had 10% unemployment but the

thing that really hurt Democrats was that we had had two consecutive wave elections and so there was a large this huge number of seats that were in enemy territory that the wave receded in 2010

“and they all got left behind but yes if you're but like if you want to compare in 2010”

Trump's numbers are abysmal compared to Obama's at that point I keep seeing these polls and it's lovely it's the best part of my day to see polls where Trump's under 40 but you know the election is with other Republicans on the ballot it's the midterm election coming in November and you know the generic ballot like you said it's been it's so the the average the Democratic lead on the

individual polls have sort of been all over the map there's been a big range so just this week

“it was Democrats plus 11 plus 10 plus 8 plus 8 there's a Quinnipiac polls global strategy group”

Emerson and then you had like Reuters where Trump's approval was very very low you go of morning consult that only has Democrats up like between two and four points in those polls so it could be much bigger than five and a half at this point it is notable of course that in all these polls the approval rating of the Democratic Party is still in the future now the Republicans aren't more popular either but like maybe like a pointer to more popular than the

Democrats in these polls but Democrats and their Republicans are sitting at like 30 35 percent

favorability in a lot of these polls now among independents Democrats are slightly more popular than Republicans which you know is probably good for the midterms and of course some of that Democratic weakness is just Democratic voters being pissed at the party but still going to vote Democrat but I do wonder as you look towards the midterms like Democrats need to start making more a case against the Republican Party in general and not just

Donald Trump or do you think that they're just so tied to Donald Trump that it's easy to if Trump's approval is way down then people are just not going to vote for Republicans. History would say that in the midterms making it about Trump is sufficient is enough. There's like

“the way we think about this is a two-step process. Voters leave one side and you have to”

persuade the Republican for your side. Step one is happened. Step two is not yet happened.

There are opportunities for that to happen. There are things we're going to have to do the Democratic approval rating at you point out is a business. Also if you compare Republican versus Democrat trust on the issues yes Trump is 30 points under water but we're on inflation but we're essentially tied. A debt shouldn't our Democrats tied with a general Republican on inflation and in some of these health races are a sort of a generic Democrat

versus a general Republican we're going to have to continue to make that case that individual Democrat is going to have to show why they are better than a generic Democrat on inflation or cost of living and a whole host of other issues and so there's a lot of work to do the what the

way I would put it is this is a historic opportunity for the party like the the political

storm clouds have aligned as such that we have a shot to have a very very big election. We have worked to do to get there and that includes improving the party brand it includes our candidates running good races it includes having enough money to be able to compete in some of these Trump plus 10 Trump plus 12 Trump plus 13 seats that are on the cusp of possibly tipping if we do everything right it means being able to compete aggressively in all these expansion

Senate states like Ohio Texas Iowa Alaska maybe even Florida and so like I just there are a lot of ways that we can stumble on the way the altar here but the opportunity is there as we sit here today and if this work continues if oil prices and gas prices continue to go up the opportunity is going to get even bigger and again this is not just about 2026 but it is about setting the table for 2028 because for every extra house seat and especially Senate seat Democrats win this

time around it's going to help our chances of having majority if we get a Republican president

“in 2028 and then can actually pass it and that means and I think the Senate map is it's”

instructive here right which is like it used to be like oh maybe we're a close in Texas or wouldn't it be cool if we want to ask up and it's like no no now Texas Alaska Ohio Iowa we too of those four and North Carolina and Maine and to hold Michigan and New Hampshire in order to win and and and and off-off in Georgia sorry to have a Senate majority to take the Senate back and then the map doesn't get a whole lot easier in 2028 there's not a lot of pick-up

opportunities in 28 for Democrats either so then you'd have to like hold more seats in tough states and maybe I guess Ron Johnson's up and Wisconsin then in 28 and McCormack is up in McCormack in Pennsylvania yes no that's not sure sorry federalists federalists federalists yeah but like this is a little bit of the bad luck is you would have almost wanted yes we have all like maybe this year we have a shot at some of these Senate seats we would not have in a different year also we have a bunch of

Democrats and tough seats who we like to have up in a great year like this you know it's like Joe Mancham was able to cruise to reelection in 2018 they would have been great if we could have reelect you know Ruben Gaggo or Mark Kelly or Ralphie O'Warnock or Tammy Baldwin you know just it's not the best of year to have this happen but the opportunity is there and your point is if you if we do not pick up a significant number of senators even if we don't get to 51

we're not they were not our the next Democratic president in 20 29 is not going to have a governing majority to start with and again just like want to get get this in people's minds too

congressional majority passing a bunch of executive actions not going to fly

yeah because we have this Supreme Court we've seen what happens and everyone's just going to get incredibly cranky with good for good reason to that Democratic president and then we're going to lose the majority then we're going to lose you know I'm saying so just like you really it

“really is important you know go to what's a america because we're we're focused on”

giving you stuff to do to help take back the house but there's also senator races there's plenty for everyone to do but you're right it's a it could be a historic opportunity because of the political environment in 2026 and we need to put the fucking foot on the gas that's uh to pick up every single seat possible and that's going to require not just Trump fucking things up but Democrats

getting their shit together

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“it was it was yeah it's great it was cool that's how we knew we made it when stamps dot com with”

advertisement that's right one of the podcast oh geez oh geez oh and you know what for good reason because great way to save time right now you can try stamps dot com risk free for 60 days go to stamps dot com and use code psa to get 60 days risk free 60 days gives you plenty of time to see exactly how much time and money you're saving on every shipment that stamps dot com code psa stamps dot com code psa in case you're not a fan of the polls we also have some new election

results that should scare the shit out of republicans in florida democrats flip two state legislature seats on Tuesday a state senate seat in Tampa and a house district the trump one by eleven in 2024 that just happens to include the president's home in morolago where trump himself voted on Tuesday along with melania and barren now you might be wondering how they voted since this is what trump said

earlier this week i hate malin ballas because basically it's a wave cheating hates them hates them

let's hear how he answered a question about this the cabinet meeting you mean i use the mail in valent you're probably said yeah i did you know what because i'm president of the united states i felt i should be here instead of being uh and the beautiful sunshine taking uh and i decided that i was going to vote by mail in ballot because i couldn't be there because i had a lot of different things but you know we have exceptions for mail in ballot you didn't know oh yeah so okay

you had so you had a lot of different things so you used mail in voting because it was more convenient is that what you're saying okay cool you know look it's unique to a president too have to work on election day and maybe not be able to go to get off work to go to the polls and so those people who can't get off work to go the polls should be able to mail in their ballot mm-hmm mm-hmm i mean it's a great game it makes a great case for mail-in balloting right there you

you also said he's like and we have exceptions we have exceptions if you're sick if you're on a business trip and i'm like oh oh really these are the how are you going to implement those exceptions you're going to you're going to require doctors note from people and employers note that they run a business trip to get their mail-in balloting done what the fuck is he talking about it so

“so crazy so stupid so we're through remember stupid his campaign aggressively encouraged mail”

balloting in 2024 yes of course because they because republicans now that's good for them they need mail-in balloting as well do you know what state has led the nation in mail-in balloting for a very long time for another and you know who it usually benefited for a very long time before covid republicans so anyway let's talk about that let's talk about that race that trump voted in and obviously he also endorsed the republican candidate that didn't that didn't help what do you think of those

florida wins is the uh is the blue wave going to uh going to bury marilago look with our current climate policy eventually yes john something is yes a wave will do it of some kind electorally or otherwise yes like these these are big wins there indicative of the uh political

nothing but a big swing in the tamp of district where that can't democrat was outspent 10 to one in the race in still one well and we spent a lot of time in twenty three and twenty four pointing out that special elections were not perfectly predictive that that's a very different political environment we were succeeding in them as democrats because we had a base of hyperpensity voters we turned out all the time now two interesting things here one yes there was very good democratic turnout in these races

but that's not why the democrats won the number of votes received by both the debt by the both the democrats in these um districts dramatically exceeded the number of registered democrats

“in the district and so the only way they could perform that well was to do very well with”

independence and republicans another thing that our friend Amy Walter of the cook political report has pointed out uh in a piece today special elections have been pretty predictive of midterms so both in in twenty eighteen democrats were winning special elections by about eleven and half points and they won the national popular vote by nine points and then in twenty twenty two republicans were winning special elections by about four points and we're hoping it's on the

popular vote by three points in that election you know i was gonna ask you this because i was looking at the swing in that Marla go district between the last republican who won it because Trump won it by eleven but the last republican won by i guess nineteen yeah and i feel like all of these the swing from twenty four in so many of these special elections ends up somewhere between like fifteen and twenty yeah and it's just like it keeps hitting their retirement i'm like

it's weird because you know we're seeing the generic ballot at you know five and a half right now some ten or whatever but all these swings from twenty twenty four have been in the in the

“high teens i think the average of all the special elections since twenty twenty five has been”

about twelve points i think that's been the debt the the performance above comma Harris' number uh yeah i feel like in twenty six like feel like like the last couple months of them have gotten a little i mean there's a small sample size but i feel like they've gotten a little bit of a couple

of like gigantic ones this month and it's always these things are always very you got to look at

all of them because they're very race specific like you could have a very bad candidate like you look at this like you you use the Trump number not the twenty the previous um special house race in that house district it was Marla go because you probably was not particularly competitive because the Democrats didn't run a real race right so you just you know so you cannot you throw them all in there and it's it is it is like a right now the special elections look like twenty eighteen

in terms of margin well well it's exciting some exact it's a generic ballot that's we we have what we want to do but we go work to do all right let's talk about the airports many of which are currently still a complete mess just as millions of kids and families are traveling for spring break uh security lines are hours long in some places uh all because TSA agents haven't been paid in a month many of stop showing up for work nearly 500 have quit, problem hasn't been solved by Trump

sending in uh ICE agents to uh stand around all day in the airport that hadn't fixed it but just now Dan breaking news oh wow we have breaking news Trump has has truth he has he said that he is instructing the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSA which apparently he could have done all

“along you know I don't think that's how that works that's what he also here here we go”

I'm going to get through I'm going to just read you the statement there's a lot of this is exciting to go live radical left Democrats crying Chuck Schumer the you know blah blah blah blah blah let's see they Democrats almost destroyed our country a silence blah blah blah you've heard that all before okay because the Democrats have recklessly created a true national crisis I am using my authorities

under the law to protect our great country as I always do therefore I am going to sign an order

instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security Mark Wayne Mullin congrats to you Senator Mullin to immediately pay our TSA agents in order to address this emergency situation and to quickly stop the Democrat chaos at the airports it is not an easy thing to do but I am going to do it I want to thank our hardworking TSA agents blah blah blah and ICE course um that's it thank you for attention to this matter DJ T that's so bad what you think it seems bad

yeah I think it seems bad because that says there's no deal there's no wall being passed that sends money to the Department of Homeland Security that they can then take that money and give it to the workers we have a response from Chris Murphy he said the national emergency is that he can't cut a deal that he's a bad negotiator I don't think that's grounds for a national emergency we made progress today we've been actively talking all day so the backstory here is

Congress have not been able to reach a deal it seems like one option that has been discussed is

basically funding everything in the Department of Homeland Security except for ICE but then also

be willing not to do as many reforms as they originally asked for but they want more than the

White House was going to give them which is basically nothing and so that was the sticking point

but I'm not quite sure what the challenge was there like I don't know why you can't just because I know Democrats were trying to just fund TSA and Republicans were blocking that so then why not fund all of DHS and just leave ICE for another negotiation the sticking point was if you want to get nerdy about this is that if you've fund all of DHS except ICE you're still funding CBP and HSI Homeland Security Investigations and they do immigration enforcement and so they would be

“proceeding we'd be paying them to do immigration enforcement absent reforms and if we remember it was”

CBP officers who were involved in the killing of Alex Prady and also seems like they were going to get a deal as our old boss Pete Rouse from Obama Rodgers to say nothing but a way to send it like the smell of jet fumes and once John Thunes said well I guess we're not going to act be able to go on recess if you don't fix this it was pretty sure they're headed for a deal so Trump has fucked this up it's not clear how they're going to pay for it like are they going to

take money from ICE and give it to them which seems cool but definitely maybe maybe they'll get some from the big beautiful bill but you really do like I mean I'm like yeah like I haven't seen nothing matters but that's definitely not how the power of the purse works like Congress didn't fund them like you can't maybe he's getting a rich person to pay them I don't really know what's happening no no he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's oh we're going to

emergency this is authority under the law under the law of course so here's here's a question Dan so the Department of Homeland Security then is still shut down no one else than DHS is getting paid Trump is paying just the TSA workers with some emergency funding that we don't know where it's coming from yet why then for the last two weeks have Republicans blocked Democrats efforts to simply just fund TSA because it's very easy to they could right now with a very simple vote in the Senate

in the house just say okay we're going to fund TSA and let's negotiate the rest later so we can fix the airports which Democrats have been trying to do Republicans blocked that and now Trump's

basically doing it anyway with some magic money as Americans have a soybean farmer would say he's

“jujitsuing you John we're jujitsuing the Iranians with their own oil yeah I honestly have no idea”

like I get I don't I don't even know what to say it's it makes no sense it seems crazy maybe so maybe it's so crazy it'll work uh that someone pointed out Eric Watson from Bloomberg he said Trump did the same likely illegal move to pay troops during the fall shutdown and it was just too politically toxic to try to stop it in court so you know it's like so it's illegal but who's going to court to say don't pay that that's probably what's that's probably what's happening here that is probably

what if I get any contracts who's get people back on the trains hey you know what it's like whether the Republicans finally said yes to the Democrats attempt to fund TSA or Trump just does it with magic money that we can't find who who cares I guess we're just I guess the airports will get fixed although I mean I still don't have those I might have those 500 TSA agents that

“quit back probably huh yeah seems like things are not kind of be perfect any time soon at the”

airports I also don't understand how this is going to get any kind of a deal now at DHS because

what is the what what's the pressure to get a deal now that the airport chaos yeah I always say

co-scarter FEMA worker I'd be pretty pissed right now right because they all have to get paid yeah and how much magic money is there John who knows who knows we're we're we're spending how many billions if we spent in Iran already he's just Scott Vason's going to turn on the presses and start printing those Donald Trump bucks get the get those printed for some people you know we get a fucking build the arc two I'm positive America's brought you by Cook Unity if you've got

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go to cook unity dot com slash crooked or enter code crooked before check out for 50% off your first week that's 50% off your first week by using code crooked or going to cook unity dot com slash crooked one more thing before we go on Tuesday the California Democratic Party released the latest

gubernatorial primary poll that shows two Republicans and therefore no Democrats advancing to the

November election to succeed governor Gavin Newsom there have now been several polls that show a result like this with Republicans in the one and two spots if you're not familiar California has a jungle primary system where all candidates regardless of party compete in the same primary with the top two vote getters advancing to the general election here in 2026 two Republicans

“are running in the primary along with around 10,000 Democratic candidates I think that's the number”

and according to the California Democratic Party's poll those two Republican candidates Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton are polling at around 15% while no Democrat is polling higher than 10% so this is a fucking mess USC had to cancel a debate this week that would have featured the two Republicans and four of the leading Democratic candidates because USC's debate criteria locked out four of the lower polling candidates who all happened to be either black Latino or Asian

who pushed back pretty hard until the debate was called off would you make of that before we get into the broader issue the mistake here is the criteria included not just polling position but also money so that led them to include Matt Mayhand the low polling but Mayor of San Jose who also has a lot of money because people like Sergey Bryn and a lot of tech people are funding his campaign and so once you put you I think you could have made a credible argument that you were going to

stop at Tom Styer Eric Swallwell, Katie Porter they have been three four and five in the polls and bunched up together for a very long time with a decent sized gap between them and everyone else but once you've included Mayhand in there it seemed like a very I understand why people

“will be upset about that because you should be able to get on a debate stage just because Sergey”

Bryn writes a massive check to your super PAC yeah it does seem like that the criteria was laid out before the debate when they all agreed so it's not like they made it up as they went yes point point taken but I think the larger challenges there's a debate on April 1st and I think there's one of the 22nd and the Democratic candidates were not included in the USC debate uh hobby or Pissera in Tony of Eorgosa Tony Thurman who's the superintendant state superintendant

California Betty Yee who's the former state controller they have all made apparently an informal PAC that if not all of them are included in a debate then none of them will participate in the debate which seems like unwise yeah to me thanks a lot because I think Pissera and Virgo said did qualify for the next debate but I don't know they're going to in I think they accepted and now are they not going to go because Yee and Thurman who are pulling it one in two percent

aren't going to go I don't know broader question what happens now primaries June 2nd ballots are already printed they will start getting mailed out in early May what a California Democrats need to do to fix this mess and avoid accidentally electing a Republican governor it's a classic collective action problem John everyone's incentive is to keep things exactly as where they are up until the exact moment

where we nominate two Republicans to run for governor and the most democratic state in the country

“I mean there have been several polls now right I think it's so I think we're at 20 polls that”

all show the same thing because I think they do just one of the maybe vote hopper someone who does a poll average we've just hit the the criteria to actually keep an average going and it's bad for

Democrats well and but here's what's important about these polls so you got the two Republicans who

Katie Porter are all in like double digits and most of these polls I think a few polls may be

Katie's at eight or you know someone else like they slip here and there but most of them are in like double digits in these polls then Bacera Viragosa Thurman Betty Yee and Matt Mayhand are all none of them have have topped five in any of these polls five percent many of them are like one or two or three so it's like these candidates are just they're just gonna stand even though that they think

“and like here's the thing Matt Mayhand you're like okay well he's the mayor of San Jose and so maybe”

you know people don't really know him although he does have a lot of money so we can get on air he'd be enjoying the race late but put him aside Bacera has one statewide he was the attorney general of California served in the Biden administration so clearly he's got name ID Viragosa ran statewide mayor of LA ran against Gavin Newsom when Newsom ran so he ran a statewide campaign and then Tony Thurman and Betty year like one percent anyway but like what I don't know if you're

Bacera and Viragosa like what are you doing well or Matt Mayhand at this point like what are you doing

yeah I mean it's a great question I mean it is the the problem here is that the California is basically

a 60 40 state and the 60s being divided up like 12 ways and the 40s being divided up two ways and the math is very bad for Democrats if that's the case now there is a big chunk of undecided and that undecided is mostly democratic and so what you have to hope is that that was that when

“that undecided comes home it comes to one of the candidates who has an actual chance of winning”

right if the undecided allocates evenly amongst all 12 candidates wherever it is then we stay in this problem it's also there's I wrote in the aforementioned message box a month or so ago like Dallas not time to panic I don't think it's time to panic yet but we're getting close to panic time and people are going to like what's going to happen here is people are going to have to think about what's best for the party in the state and not themselves it's going to include all these

candidates who do not have a shout to win because if you do not have support now and you do not have money to become known in the most expensive television state in the country you're not going to win there is no path to winning it is not can't happen so the best you can do is drop out and endorse someone who has a chance to win so that's your feeling that it is incumbent upon everyone who has a platform from Gavin Newsom Adam Schiff Alex Pidea people who talk in a

“microphone people who post on social media to at some point in the near future say these are the”

candidates who have a chance to win pick one of them and a vote for anyone else is a vote for a Republican governor of California we actually this actually went down and a house racer too in like 2018 yeah because this comes up you're out of community of a lot of Democrats running and two Republicans you're going to end up in this situation and we we've successfully navigated those that's easier to do in a house race level than a statewide level but people are going to have to

we have to say and it's going to be uncomfortable because the most most most likely scenario is those three candidates are going to be error swallwell, Tom Steyer, Kitty Porter right and you know I was going to say like that's it but it's like you know I guess you got one another week or two let's see it could cut another couple polls if anyone breaks up it's like nothing's happening it's California is it is a huge state it's an expensive state no one knows who anyone is other than the governor and the

senators these these candidates even though you're right the seriously trained general in the in Biden's agencies and secretary and a member of Congress for a long time no one knows very much about them the you know same thing all these other people you're mentioning are the metman are state elected officials they have run statewide and no one knows anything and if they're not and they don't have the money to introduce themselves like the system here sucks because of how expensive

it is to run ads and yeah the state's too big to go around and meet everyone and local media

so hollard out that you can't even like have a incredible earn media communication strategy to

get well known because no one sees that shit anymore and so like this is this is where it is what it is and it's going to be uncomfortable we have to have to make some tough decisions to ensure that California does not have a Republican governor one thing that these Democratic candidates and every other Democratic official in California could all work together or decide together on is to elevate one of those Republican candidates and attack that Republican candidate

instead of the other one and to make them a bigger deal because I was thinking about this when I was reading Gavin's book and Tommy and I interviewed him like he talked about how in his race it was him and Viragosa and he knew that if in the general he felt good about winning but it would be a tougher race against a fellow Democrat Viragosa than it would be a Republican and so he elevated John Cox as this Trumpy Republican focused all of his advertising negative advertising on Cox

third and then Gavin Christ of Victory and obviously this is a different situation in different

composition of candidates but I would imagine if they all decided we're going to all go after Steve Hilton he's the boogie man he loves Trump he's on Fox all the time and make him the big the big bad guy

“and like maybe he gets more Republicans than Chad Bianco falls well I think so in the Cox Newsom”

race I think Cox got 38 yeah 40% right and so when you add up what like I haven't looked at the average but in general it seems like Bianco plus Nelson's getting to like 32 32 yeah so you have what you're probably doing if you're taking that 8% of Republicans who don't know that the poll that the election's

happening and putting them towards one of them it's not clear your it's not it's not it's not

that is zero some game on your Republicans for what Newsom was doing if I recall correctly is there was one Republican of consequence who had any chance of making it and he was making sure Republicans knew that this is the person that's there and so I think and he's a slightly different situation if it was because he was just moving one Republican ahead of a Democrat which is easy to do given the size of the Republican electorate and the fact that most Republicans don't

turn out in a primary because there's really not much of them to vote for here it's different

because I'm not sure you're gonna lower Bianco you might just raise Hilton and we ask you there's

no one in charge this is it I wonder if like Newsom or Kamala Harris some for Kamala Harris another person he has a person here let's remember I'm saying like at some point I wonder if one of these statewide officials who's popular I mean they're probably you know these campaigns are doing polls and prep sure they've tested the power of some of these endorsements and not like I think endorsements make a huge deal but in a situation like this where we're in the

narrow range of you know one or two percentage points separating some of these candidates think it could probably make a difference yeah for sure I mean Kamala Harris of course they'd all have to do the same yeah yeah that's right like this fucking state you have like Gavin Newsom like endorses Eric Swallel and then Kamala Harris jumps in and endorses K-Porty yeah and then someone comes in and just stier then we're right back where we were again yeah but anyway yeah I mean right now

it's one of those three and I know like Matt Mayhand has like gotten the race late but you know

“he's got a lot of money and he's you know spending and unad so we'll see I think maybe like another”

another week or two see where these candidates are maybe maybe suddenly everyone will be like oh viewer goes so great we want him back in state government or bazaar or I don't know but like I really think we're like a week or two away from just like no it's those three candidates and that's it yeah we're five weeks away from ballots coming out so fuck all right well that's something to look forward to here in California that's our show for today also reminder no kings is tomorrow we've got

another no kings day so make sure you make a plan to get out there you can go to vote save america.com and you can find out a no kings location near you Alex Wagner will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with independent journalists and trump target don lemon check it out have a good

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