Election ‘26 Outlook: It Ain’t the Meat (It’s the Motion)

subbasement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, D.C. and from other undisclosed locations

across America and around the world. Hello, welcome to Deep State Radio, I am your host David Rothkoff, and all of you have been listening for a long, long time know that mostly what we talk about, on this podcast is National Security and Foreign Posse, but if we believe as we have often asserted that the

“greatest national security threat that the United States faces are domestic, then I think”

we really need to focus on U.S. domestic political issues in the same way we would address address those around the world. And so we are going to do that periodically as we get into the home stretch of these midterm elections. And of course, to do that, we have got to have experts who have thoughts on these things and

we've got three of our favorites and your favorites, beginning with the bedrock of Deep State radio, the foundation on which it is all built, at the loose of the financial times, how are you doing it? I'm doing right. Well, David.

Thank you. Well, glad to hear that. By the way, Rosa Brooks was supposed to join us, but she had a scheduling issue. So we will send Rosa our love and she, I know wishes she could be part of this discussion. So when we continue them in the future, she will be there.

Also joining us is our friend Simon Rosenberg, the Emperor of all things. Hope you. How are you doing today? Simon. I'm great, David.

It's always good to be with this amazing crew.

Well, we can occur, and our other friend, commentator, professor, and wise man, E.J. Dion, how are you doing, E.J.? I'm great. Thank you. Great to be with you all.

Well, that's great. The theory behind all of this is we're kind of now just turning into the home stretch of the midterm elections. It certainly seems like they've been a long time coming. Yesterday there were a number of primaries in California and Iowa in New Jersey.

“There were some other developments that were important, including a particular heinous Supreme”

Court decision, and there are not that many primaries left. There are a few more, but we're kind of getting an idea of where it will be. In addition to that, conventional wisdom has it that voters views towards things like the economy don't get formed in the weeks before the election. They get formed in the June before the election.

Well, it's June before the election. So now it's the time that we can sort of look at what's going to happen. We talk a lot about Trump. We talk a lot about the Republican Party. Obviously, if this election is going to produce change, it's going to be because more Democrats

get elected than Republicans in the House and in the Senate. What I'd really like to look at is how we do and on that, what are the factors striving that, what may be some surprises associated with that, and what will the Democratic Party the day after the election look like, because that too is important. But to start out, let's get a little bit of a take on just what happened yesterday and

what if any of it is significant. Let me start with you, Simon. Sure. Well, we had sort of the big primary, it was in California, and it looks like Karen Bass and Havi Arbassera are likely to be the Democrats that get through this jungle primary and then

it should go on to win in November. There were worries about there being two Republicans getting through the gubernatorial race that doesn't look like that's going to happen. But we still have more votes to be counted for it to be settled, but that was assuring. And also, I'll say that given that Democrats are trying to reclaim our standing with

Hispanic voters that we have stumbled with in recent years, having the first Hispanic

“governor of California get elected as going to be a important symbol, I think, for us in”

terms of us being speaking to and bringing this part of the electorate along and reconnecting to the electorate that we've lost a little ground with.

candidate prevailed on our side, and who has been polling in the most recent polling I was actually polling ahead of the Republican Senate candidate.

I was going to be one of the most important states this cycle, because we have competitive

governors, races, Senate races, and three competitive house races. And it's a sign that Democrats are on offense, and we're playing competitive in states that Trump won by 10 to 15 points in 24 states that I don't think many operatives thought we had confidence that we'd be competitive in this cycle. And then we had a sort of also the establishment candidate when in New Jersey 7, which

is one of our most important pick-up opportunities in the country, a great candidate named Rebecca Bennett, who I just interviewed a few days ago. So in general, I think. Another Navy, another military helicopter pilot. I don't know.

What did you do? What did you do? What did you do? What did you do?

I just can't use up all the helicopter.

The helicopter pilots, two of our candidates, and Iowa have been chaplains and our religious leaders in the state.

“In part of this, I think, speak today, but I'll just summarize, is that I think that you're”

seeing Democrats picking candidates who fit their districts in their states, that this isn't sort of any significant ideological overlay. I think this party is feeling different than it felt before, or now moving on to the next Democratic Party, I know it's something this is Edward's been writing about. But I think people come out now feeling good about where we are.

We have a shot. We have a shot to flip the Senate. It's going to be really hard. The house despite all the redistricting is still favored, you know, we're still favored to win it.

And now we have to go run good campaigns and go kick their butt over the next five months.

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Thank you, and enjoy the show. . And there's the cube capsule machine in your Chibofiale and on Chibode E. Yeah, I keep reading on the paper that Democrats are in disserake, which they've been in my whole life, according to the papers. And that Democrats are fighting with each other like crazy.

And they can't get their act together. But another way to interpret that is what Simon just said, which is the Democrats are running reform candidates, where they want reform candidates, the running establishment candidates, where they want establishment candidates. They're trying to win. So that doesn't sound like disarray to me.

That sounds like a reasonable strategy. What do you think? Well, in fact, you anticipated something I want to say.

First, I just want to underscore what Simon said about Iowa.

I mean, Democrats, in order to ever build a decent majority in the Senate, and in general, to have hope of bringing the country together, really need to come back in rural, more rural states from where they are now. They used to be quite strong, South Dakota and North Dakota, quite recently had four Democratic senators. Iowa, as Simon pointed out, used to be a purple state, almost leaning Democrat.

“And so I think what could happen in Iowa this year is very important, and they have really good candidates leading the ticket.”

I think neutral observers think that, not just Democrats. And I think that what you saw in these primaries was really interesting. You don't think of an electorate being pragmatic, but you really had a quite pragmatic, democratic primary electorate where in states where we're very competitive and tightly contested like Iowa. The voters went with a candidate who seemed to be more ideologically moderate or middle of the road.

On the other hand, in districts that Democrats are likely to win a race in New Jersey, for example, the progressives really did well.

And so what you got is Democrats seem to be voting along ideological lines and seats that they're going to win anyway, and that's where they're having their sort of ideological contests. And in other races, where they need pickups, they tend to be voting for the candidates most likely to have appeal to the Republicans.

And what happened in California is really fascinating, I don't completely rule out at this moment the possibility of a two Democrats on the ballot race and the fall.

“I think it's unlikely it'll probably be Hilton versus heavier Bessera, but most of the votes that are uncounted are much more democratic than the ones that have been counted already.”

But again, you talk about the pragmatism of an electorate. One of the reasons those late votes are democratic is because a lot of Democrats were worried about a month ago that you could under California's peculiar system. And up with two Republicans on the ballot in November, and they were worried about that. They were trying to figure out who among the Democrats could win, so they could make sure that there'd be at least one. And a Democrat on the ballot, and the race ended up after a very complicated process in Eric Swallwell being forced out. It came down to two very, what voters decided with the two strongest candidates in the field.

And that's where they concentrated their votes. So it's really interesting to think about electorate. It doesn't just think about their issues at interest. They are. It's some ways these days political strategists and they they perform that job pretty well. I thought this week.

“Definitely did. Now Simon made reference to a column ad wrote this week called why young America is trending socialist. And I have a couple of comments. First, where do you get off writing about young America?”

I interact with my daughter's generation. What old genzi is I say? Okay, well moving moving beyond that. You wrote about the fact that the views of people who are under 30 and indeed probably under 40 and in fact, baby under 50 towards socialism are very different from the views of people who live through the Cold War. So those people associated socialism with communism and Russia, China. But these people have lived through period in which capitalism has seen great excesses and growing inequality and it hasn't worked very well for them and they're kind of bleak on the future.

And so they have said well, where are things working and why don't places they see things working, for example, Northern Europe, where there are people who call themselves democratic socialist, their capitalists.

“But they have more developed social safety net and so forth. But the interesting thing to me is that the word is losing some of its stigma.”

And that old words don't mean what they used to. And if there's going to be a theme to this conversation, it's going to be that. So with that is the framing, you know, how do you see all this, I would add one thing. There was a story in the Washington Post, which I assume is a direct response to your story, which was centrist Democrats launched new pledge. We are capitalist, not socialist. So of course, it's only because you guys, it's only two guys, but but you know, it did contain an element of something that I don't think is super constructive, which is.

You know, Democrats going after each other. But anyway, I just, I thought it would be good for you to frame the core thesis of what you wrote about it. Well, thank you for the, for the question and the reference to it. Let me just very quickly, though, say something about the California jungle primary of a material jungle primary.

The Steve Wilson was there, say me a lived on the same staircase as me at university. So I've known since 1987 the first night we met.

We had a screaming shouting match in a pub as one does wish students about that charism he being ultra that right me definitely not.

And I just want to translate for Americans, like where I went to college, we wouldn't say we lived on the same staircase.

“We would say we lived in the same cell block, but yeah, we were not.”

We didn't really have a roommate system. We were not, but it was pretty close to being. And so I've known him a long time and I spoke to him last week. I am not a supporter of his kind of politics. I've watched. Stroudly evolution from being a Tories should not be the nasty party. He was David Cameron sort of car rove, if you like, or David Cameron's, and as the Campbell for those who find it pretty politics. To then becoming a pro Brexit tier falling out with David Cameron, it was also the same year as me at Oxford.

And then reinventing himself, crossing the Atlantic as a Fox news, blue color populist and thinking, well, you know,

this is some really talented morphing that's going on here.

And now he looks likely to be in the final two. And I said, I called him last week. And I said, look, if you make it three to the final two, and even more unlikely, into becoming the next governor of California, I'm going to have to go into deep therapy. I mean, I just, this is my life expectation that a guy who I knew from that long ago, who is clearly British, home counties British, renounces his British passport five years ago to become American is now probably in the final two, from America's richest largest state is pretty extraordinary. I would not vote for him though.

But the, it answered your question about people younger than all of us than Steve Hill.

I get to, I get the impression because Simon and E.J. that that was kind of therapy for Ed, you needed to get that out of his system.

That's a great fight. It was the pilot episode. Yeah, and I want you for people who read the financial times, I want you to take him out to one of those lunches to a very fancy place in L.A. And I want to hear your conversation with him. You've got to do that.

“Yeah, I think that could be, look, I could be fun and worthwhile. Thank you, E.J.”

It's the one to be, you know, I mean, I think you framed the question roughly. You presaged roughly how I would answer it David, which is that of what, what young Americans mean by socialism when post is asked them the question. And indeed, by communism is not what we think of it. It's not Soviet style. System is not public ownership of the means of production. It's not closing down the market economy.

It's about public provision and universal health insurance. It's about help for college fees. It's about not having a corrupt government. It's about not allowing the oligarchy to, you know, dominate the nation's legislature. And it's about having some kind of protection against their deepest fears about what AI is going to do to their earnings potential.

And then of course, as housing, this is what you would describe as sort of a Nordic style social democracy, even Christian democracy. It's not socialism in the sense that Cold War generations would have understood it.

“And I think it's relatively practical, precisely because they're not a very optimistic generation.”

They're not that stereotyped. And, you know, I experience this, I think, totally, but, you know, the numbers are really quite consistent on this over a number of years and a different polling groups and different focus groups. The Gen Z are less optimistic about their future than almost any previous generation. They don't automatically think the American dream A is going to be something they will avail of or B is something that's necessarily real anymore. It's quite cynical about the greed of meritocracy.

I don't think they think that that conveyor belt is really working. And, you know, are very distinct in their political outlook. And the reason I was writing about this is not because the Democrats are in any position at the moment. To deliver the kinds of things they're asking for, these look pretty impractical from the vantage point of 2026. But if there's one thing, Democrats are I feel, and I've been to Germany, James, and Simon, well, all three of you, your views on this.

The Democrats are just less good at doing than conservatives is thinking and planning long term. And building sort of grassroots vehicles for changing politics, changing public opinion. And maneuvering sort of the forces of society to achieve victories.

The more work you put into it.

And I would like to see more evidence of that. Now, I'm not, you know, I'm not omniscient. There might be lots of stuff that I'm not aware of. And I know there are serious groups. In the Democratic and liberal world that, you know, have these discussions and you're part of them.

But I'd like to see more of them. And I don't think Gen Z are being irrational in their aspirations.

“I think some of these, including healthcare, a basic civilizational minimums.”

Well, I mean, they seem to be viewed that way in most of the developed countries around the world.

And, you know, generational change happens. And one of the things that happens when it does is that words sort of lose their meaning. You know, the labels that we use are kind of artifacts of conventional wisdom of the past 10, 20, 30, whatever the period is. And Simon, you know, we use all sorts of words these days. And I hear them in the media all the time.

I just use some, we all do, that just don't mean what they did. Like conservative, the conservatives aren't conservative. They're not for conserving anything. And, you know, we talk about liberals and progressives in Simon, New and I've had this conversation a hundred times. And I'm actually writing something else about it for my sub-stack.

“Now, and I went through, what do you consider progressive ideas, crazy progressive ideas?”

And this is going to take me 30 seconds, but I'm going to do it and then get to my question. And that is, I'll go through a list of things like universal background checks for guns or letting Medicare negotiate drug prices or protecting social security and Medicare, raising taxes for the wealthy. Raising taxes on large corporations, universal health coverage, paid family medical leave, raising the federal minimum wage, same sex marriage, abortion. Legalizing marijuana, prioritizing new renewable energy.

Every single one of those things has the approval of over two thirds of Americans. Not Democrats, Americans. Those are the main street. So, when you're starting to have an argument, and you say, "Well, I'm against some of these progressive ideas." You could, well, be saying, "I'm against the ideas that are supported by a super majority of Americans." And so, that's not super helpful way to look at it.

People, you know, there's certain words that don't mean the same thing anymore.

“For some reason, left has come to be a curse word among people in the center, right?”

And center has come to be a curse word among people in the left. And this is useless to me. I mean, it's just useless. We have to toss all this for Democrats. You've got to figure out how do you win? And I think one of the ways you've got to figure out how you win is recognizing that those Gen Zs and Millennials are your new majority. And they have different views. And so, how do you think we're doing at grappling with all this stuff, Simon? Easy question, David.

Let me, let me give an uncharacteristically short answer. I'll try two points. One is that with young people who wandered from us in 2024, too many did. And it was one of the reasons, like with Hispanic voters, it was one of the reasons we didn't win the election. They've been repulsed by Trump and Trumpism. And so, we do have an opportunity based on polling data to reclaim lost ground. And to re-establish a very strong relationship with Gen Z that had become attenuated in recent in 23-24.

And in part, because I think, and I have three Gen Z kids, and it's always dangerous to draw broad conclusions from conversations you have inside your own family.

But I think that Biden was very hard for them to connect and relate to, and it created distance from us as a party. And so, number one is that we have an opportunity. Number two, though, on the question that Ed raised and that you're raising in a different way. What I'm really looking forward to in 2027 is a very aggressive, ambitious, rolicking debate among really talented presidential candidates who are all going to be grappling with all of these things. We haven't had a really vigorous Democratic primary for president in a long time. And these kinds of things we need one now.

Like we are, and I agree with Ed's basic premise is that the party feels tactical right now. It feels very kind of narrow and tactical and not deep and strategic and making big arguments about the future.

And that's just not really where we are right now, but I think it's where we're going to be in early next year. I think we, and I think then finally, add a third point.

“I think you're right about your assessment that the strategic part of our movement has weakened and that we're, it feels we're operating in a very tactical world right now and very sort of fear-based defensive crouch in many ways.”

And I, and hopefully, after we have a successful election, we've regained some of our confidence in November, there will help restore some of the ambition that I think is necessary for us to respond to the moment that we're in. Because, truthfully, whoever becomes, if the Democrats win the Congress in 27 and we win the presidency in 29, governing this country after the mass that Trump has made is going to be unbelievably hard. And it's going to be different. It's a discontinuity from what came before.

And it's going to require enormous creativity and an entrepreneurship in the thinking, because we're not going to be restoring anything. We're going to be building a new thing.

And that's Edward, I think, what and the things that makes this next period if you can get there, sort of exciting, which is we get to go build a new American thing that, because we're not going to be restoring what came before. That's not going to happen. And I do think that young people are going to be at the forefront of all this. It's interesting. I certainly agree with a lot of what Simon just said there, E.J., but you know, one of the things is I just listed off a whole bunch of policy things and it was talking about socialism and the context of economic policy primarily.

And I'm not sure those are the dividing issues.

The Republicans have made culture dividing issue and in some weird ways, by the way, they seem to be obsessed with people's genitalia. I don't even understand what's what's going on there.

“But I think that the dividing issue in Democrats may be something else. And that is how hard they're willing to go at restructuring holding people accountable and so forth.”

And, you know, are they willing to, you know, are candidates saying, well, I'm going to go after Trump or I'm going to change the Supreme Court or I'm going to, because I think that I've talked to people really good friends of mine. Who's names, you know, who I would sit there and talk this way and they would go, it would be terrible if Democrats focus on restructuring or accountability. They have to focus on just kitchen table issues. Personally, I see them connected. They didn't see them connected. And I'm just wondering, what do you see is the dividing line issues that Democrats are going to need to deal with.

Let me go back, because I think there's a lot more consensus between, first of all, I agree with you, totally, on this point about center and left fighting each other. I wrote a book called, with the subtitle why progressives and moderates can unite to save our country.

“Precisely because I think that neither moderates nor progressives can win without each other. And I think there is coming to be a greater consensus about what needs to be done within between those factions,”

so they seem to want to have a lot of fights. I want to go back to two things that Ed talked about a while ago on socialism. Some years back, my friend Bill Galsson at Brookings and Robby Jones, a PRRI, the polling firm actually looked at the socialism question. And what you said earlier has a lot of empirical grounding, which is not only our young people more likely to identify with socialism, but they are also much more likely to identify socialism with social democracy of sweet Norway Denmark than they are with an oppressive Soviet style system.

We asked a particular question about essentially state socialism versus a strong labor and welfare state. And young people saw socialism almost entirely, not almost entirely in those terms that most Americans can identify with. A lot of Americans would like healthcare in the manner of Sweden or Norway and Denmark and so on. And then the other thing that's happened is young people have lived through a real crisis of capitalism that started with the downturn of 2008. And that is where it all sorts of backlash since. First, the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Bernie Sanders campaign. And so capitalism kind of lost some of its moral standing just as it did during the Great Depression when America also moved toward the left.

One was a labor movement and I think the decline of labor movement explains quite a lot about how politics veered to the right how social issues became more important.

There's a great anecdote about a labor leader giving a speech for Al Gore in 2000 to a group of union members who were also sympathetic to the NRA. And he looked out at him and said, well, at least under the Democrats you can afford ammunition. And what you have now is a much weaker, particularly in the private sector or much weaker labor movement.

And we can't forget the civil rights movement, who is the achievements we will get to this are being dismantled by this right wing supreme court.

“But I think it is kind of and I would make a case that there have been movements that led to change and that the conservative power came from controlling certain blocking points in the government, the electoral college biases presidential elections.”

The Supreme Court is in the hands of a solid block of conservatives, the filibuster has made a progressive action, all kinds of action more difficult in the Senate, because you've had have had strong movements for healthcare, which help get the Obama care pass, you've had really strong movements for gun control, which gets stymied usually by the filibuster and overwhelming majorities.

And I think you're seeing some organization going on around the country, around other questions like child care, elder care in the like.

The last point is, yes, I think a lot of these divisions in the Democratic Party are over, sort of, what do you call yourself and how militant you sound, and some of them are how far do you go on particular issues. I think at this point, the issue of how far you fight Trump has largely been settled, there will be arguments if Democrats ever take power again in all three branches of what kind of accountability should there be for the corruption of the Trump years. I'm sure they'll be arguments about that, but I think Democrats have given up being soft on Trump because the country doesn't want them to, they know that, and I think almost every Democrat, even the most moderate sort, speak now pretty aggressively about taking on Trump, because guess what, that's going to be the primary thing that wins in the 2026 election.

“And both Simon and E.J have offered some comments and response to your comments, do you want to respond to those?”

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I, I fully agree with both, I mean, you know, the Labour movement was hugely important. The women's rights movement, the civil rights movement to sort of feeding into the left and the Democratic Party over generations. I'm not sure what the equivalent is at the moment, or what we can anticipate. And I think rather than waiting around, you know, the more action, the more the possibilities will be opened up and created.

“So, you know, I don't think we should be holding up the Federalist Society as some kind of model of how to tackle democracy, but that's how the right wing victories with minority,”

with the minority of the public around them, it's a sort of level of zealotry and organizational sort of purposefulness. The, the get some winning things that, as you pointed out, David, they shouldn't be winning by all rights if you look at public opinion. And I think one of the sort of deeply valid reasons for young people to be feeling skeptical, if not cynical about the system as a whole, is they do see, as we all see, the degree to which minority interests with money, you know, business interests, whether they're from Silicon Valley or whether they're from, you know,

Open's Day inspired legal figures can produce the public will and majority opinion to produce results to bring about results that, you know, very antithetical to most of the democratic values that we hold dear and I say democratic with a small D. And so I think they see this system again and again being rigged, and that requires a larger sort of theory of the case than as both DJ and Simon have pointed out,

And I don't yet see that kind of planning or conversation happening. Let me kind of jump in.

By the way, 30% is David, I want to plug a book by late mom was a librarian, so I'm always plugging books.

There's a very interesting book by a political scientist called Daniel Schlossman called wed movements anchor parties.

“And I think there is a fascinating history of the relationship, the complicated but often supportive relationship, movements to parties.”

So I agree with that it's premise that it is a very important thing to have some alignment between the two, but this has always been a struggle in our history. And I think Dan Schlossman's book is a really good commentary on this. Let me just jump in quickly, is that the closest thing we have right now is the No Kings movement, which has produced the largest crowds on the streets in American history. And it's an interesting movement because it's unifying.

It's bringing people together, it's pro-democracy, it's non-exclusionary, it's expansive and it's orientation.

And it feels like it's something that has, I've gone to all the No Kings events. I run a community of 150,000 people at HopeYM. And I do think that in many ways the unifying energy in the family right now is around this fight for democracy. And it's going to be interesting to see how that carries on. One of the things that I talk about in my talks is that when we think about the next 10 years, when you're to the point you're making like what comes out of this,

I mean imagine if the aspiration of the center left or whatever we call ourselves, the pro-democracy movement in America,

is to bring about a new birth of freedom here and everywhere around the world.

Imagine if we come out of this and we've seen Orban fall and if Putin stumbles and if we can claim back power here from Magga in the United States, there are all of a sudden, becomes a future that feels a little bit more about triumph over autocracy and oligarchy than submission to it. And I still think that that to me is something that's possible that becomes this galvanizing thing in the short term that is connected to what you're talking about, which is also about life liberty and pursuit of happiness is about having a better life for everyone who lives here,

which is consistent with what you is the aspiration of the United States from all of our history. That's now been short changed by this movement towards oligarchy and autocracy, which clearly doesn't care about the welfare of everyday people, that doesn't give a shit about everyday people.

“So I think there's seeds of things here that are important and I think sometimes the no-kings movement gets,”

I mean I overlook it even my own comments, but it's been very galvanizing and very important to people and very empowering to many, many Americans, who've had a much deeper relationship to democracy and participating in democracy now than they had two years ago. All right, let me go to each of you for one minute because we're running out of time. But I'd like to look ahead to November and based on what we know because I say we're in the home stretch here, knowing that Trump is trying to cheat and the Supreme Court is helping him,

knowing that they're going to be five, six, eight, nine, ten seats fewer than they should have been given jury-mandering. And knowing that polls definitely are at the wind at the back of the Democrats,

“how do you expect to feel the morning after election day of this year, E.J.?”

I think something truly remarkable or massive interference in the right to vote by the administration's forces, absent something big that Democrats win the House rather easily. I don't know how big the margin will be because of the jury-mandering. And I think there's no doubt that the Senate has become competitive too. And so I think the -- I'd be shocked if the Democrats don't win the House pick up some governorship's Iowa for one as to where we started.

And I think they've got a real shot at the Senate. That's hard because of the array of seats. But many more competitive and too independent might win in Nebraska and Montana, knocking out a couple of other Republicans. So I expect to feel pretty good. I think the challenge that we've got to think hard about is what will it look like if you have a president like Trump who will not honor of subpoenas who will abuse executive power.

But be obviously part of their job is to go to be to hold a Trump accountable to expose some of this corruption. How are they going to deal with an administration that really doesn't recognize Congressional power?

And hasn't had to deal with it in these first two years.

I can't get my head yet around exactly what that is going to look like.

“And I think it could be -- I think it's important that the accountability starts that.”

But I think that's going to be a very difficult period for the country and a real challenge to Democrats. Ed. So I agree with each. I mean, I think the House is that we're however much gerrymandering the Supreme Court, you know, permits a deep south to do. The Democratic wave looks to be considerably bigger. So the majority wave is large as it ought to be if there were a better abortion system, but it'll be large enough for Trump to lose the House.

We haven't yet talked about people like, perhaps deliberately like Graham Plattenite, you know, because Henry might have descended into Rochak tests and never sort of emerged alive from them.

But the Senate looks like a toss-up to me.

“And I think Trump -- well, I mean, what E. J. mentions about the next Congress Democratic round, at least partially wrong Congress.”

My fear about it is -- my hope -- well, my hope for it is that the investigations into corruption and self-dealing will be thorough. We'll be along the lines of Jan 6, really sort of well and rolled out, really exhaustive and really impact from on public opinion. I would fear another impeachment attempt. And I think Trump would welcome it. I think the law fair thing is something that's worked for him.

And I hope that, you know, the party will resist that siren song.

I agree. I think the House -- it is about the size of the margin we should win at this point. And I've optimistic. The Senate is going to be -- we've got a real shot.

“And I think if the election were held today, would the Senate would probably flip, frankly, based on public polling.”

But I think David, the next five months or maybe the ugliest political period that any of us will have ever experienced in our time in this business. I think that the Republicans have started with their attacks in Tallarico last week that were sort of by any measures like way, way, way, way over the line and over the top. There's going to be AI-generated imagery. I mean, we haven't -- I don't think the whole political system really digested. Some of the media that was produced against Massey, where there was a video of him sitting down and having meetings with AOC and Squad, you know, that looked very real.

Right? I mean, they were not -- they were not Lego figures, right? The way the Iranians were doing this was attempt to create something that looked real. Because the Republicans are desperate, and they're acting desperate at the court. The Supreme Court is acting like a desperate political body. Trump is feeling desperate and cornered, you know, every day. And they're going to have an extraordinary amount of money. And there's also Russia. Russia is going to do whatever it takes to try to keep the Republicans in power.

And so I think this is -- the next five months is going to be -- when we get to the other side of it, you know, we're going to be grateful for having gotten through what is going to be, I think, because the -- as a strategist, the Republicans are not going to be competitive on issues. And so the only real strategy they have to keep it close is scorched earth on individual candidates. And -- and they haven't enough money to do that. And I don't think we should underestimate how brutal this is going to be.

And how hard this is going to be. And the Talorico stuff, I think, is just the beginning of where they're going to go against every individual democratic candidate in the country. And spend unprecedented amounts of money against our candidate. So I think, on when we get to the other side, we're going to be grateful that that period of history is over, and that we survived it. But I don't think any of us should have any illusions about how difficult the next five months is going to be. You know, I listen to you guys talk, and I'm encouraged to hear that you think that there will be a democratic margin of some size.

I'm reminded of an old song, because clearly what's important here is not the size of the margin. It's what you do with it. You know, the song, of course, Simon, the Maria Moldauer song. It ain't the meat. It's the motion. And it's, you know, it is really the crucial test. Not just because we face unprecedented corruption, not just because there are real threats to our national security that are profound and not being addressed into our economy.

That's going to come from Kevin George and a bunch of project 20, 25 people now installed at the Fed.

“But what it's going to say, well, what do you do about that?”

I'm not sure I agree with that about impeachment, but that's something to debate.

I do agree about investigations, and I do agree that dealing with structural issues is going to be extremely important.

“Because if there is a dividing line issue in American 2026, it's the same one that led to Trump being elected.”

And it's a point that, at articulated, it's that most Americans, Republicans and Democrats, think the system is rigged.

They don't think it works for them. They think it works for the few and not the many.

“And the question is, who is going to provide an argument that makes them believe they might be able to wrestle back some of the power that should belong to the many in a democracy?”

That's a good discussion to have in the 250th anniversary year of the American Republic, better perhaps than say a UFC fight on the south lawn. Anyway, very, very glad to have this discussion with you three very smart gentlemen. Thank you, E.J., thank you Simon, thank you as always, Ed, and thank everybody for listening. We'll be back with more on this subject. Well, every day, between now and then, so join us. Bye-bye.