Our challenge for your podcast is "Frischis Obst and Knackiegis Gemüse" from ...
"Imagut, Imagünstig. Imagünstig. Imagünstig."
"Kuts" says "Frischis for Aldi." "To Aldi Price." "This week." "Cesprich Kiwi Grün." "This week for 44 cents."
"Oda Mini Cherry Riesbentomaten." "500 grams for 0.1 Euro."
“"In Decca, there are many ways in your Aldi Nordfiliale."”
"And furthermore, let's take a look." "And Aldi." "Goodest for Aldi." This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I'm your host, Greg Sargent. Donald Trump privately raged that Republican senators during a lunch on Wednesday.
He declared he won't sign a bill reducing housing costs for the American people until Republicans end the filibuster and pass a vile piece of voter suppression legislation first. This shocked Trump's own advisors and angered Republicans who see it as undermining their hopes in the midterms.
What's striking about all this is that ordinarily a president would let members of his own party get distance from him in order to survive the elections. But he can't do that.
“And he's likely going to be the one who gets screwed by this.”
We're talking about all of it with Salon's Amanda Marcott, who has a good piece, digging deep into Trump's narcissism as the throughline to all his current foibles.
Amanda, good to have you back on his always.
"Thanks for having me." So Trump was expected to sign this housing bill bringing down costs, and instead he tweeted the following. "Today's housing news conference and signing is hereby canceled until such time as we pass the desperately needed save America Act, which I consider to be a national emergency.
Thank you for your attention to this matter." Amanda, the Save Act would probably disenfranchise millions and millions of people. The real national emergency here is that Trump's deep unpopularity will cost his party one or both chambers of Congress. This isn't subtle, is it?
No, not even slightly. I'm beginning to think he actually genuinely believes that the Save Act is what's going to save the Republican Party in the midterm elections. And I don't see that that's necessarily true because it's got these voter ID restrictions that are so severe that it seems to me that the only way that it may even be able to
successfully vote is if you have a passport, which I feel benefits, college educated, urban voters, the most of all, who pretend to be Democrats. Brian, I mean, Republicans don't want this thing to pass for a reason, and it's not because they altruistically really want people to vote. We know for a fact that Republicans in the past have been, they're all over the map when
it comes to Trump's fantasies about stealing elections, and he really, I think he doesn't just want to steal elections because he thinks it's the only way he's going to win. I think he just really likes the idea of stealing elections.
“I think Donald Trump would rather cheat to win than just win out, right?”
He just, it gets him off somehow. And so he's gotten really fixated on the Save America Act, and he just cannot understand that it is not at all the slam dunk for Republicans that he thinks it is. I agree. I think that Donald Trump sees cheating as another form of winning as another form of getting
over, but let's put off that for a second.
Again, and again, we've learned that Republicans simply did not have the votes to end the filibuster and pass this voter suppression bill. And yet, I want to highlight something from punchball news reporter Andrew Desiderio. He reports that in this private meeting, Trump was in a sour mood throughout, and he again demanded that Republicans pass the so-called Save Act and get this, according to
this reporter, nobody pushed back. Amanda, just to reiterate, it's typical for presidents who are this unpopular to let members of his party get some distance from him, but Trump won't allow that because it would constitute an admission that he's unpopular, and that can't be allowed. And on top of that, these Republicans won't challenge him on this.
What do you make of that? So ironic, isn't it, right? He can't admit he's unpopular, but he's still pushing legislation that's premised on the idea that he's so unpopular that he can't win an election without it. But yes, I mean, I think it's sad at this point in time that Republicans are afraid
Of at least being singleed out as being anti-Trump.
They voted in the Senate to stop his powers, to continue to fight the war in Iran, even
“though, I think that's kind of toothless at this point.”
But they do resist him sometimes, but always with this sort of eyeball towards never
being, never catching as evil eye, never being seen by him, or, you know, the Average Fox News viewer as resisting Donald Trump because he still has this intense hold over the party, even as he's losing all of his power everywhere else in the American public. It's a really interesting dichotomy, and to go to your point, literally minutes before he tweeted this announcement that he won't sign the bill until Republicans, press millions
of votes, he tweeted this quote, "My real poll numbers are the highest they have ever been. Thank you." So like one minute, his, his, his poll numbers are showing that he's astronomically popular, and then the next minute he's saying, "God, David, please prevent lots and lots of people from voting. Otherwise we're going to get killed. There you have it right there, right? Like that's all of it right there."
One of the wildest things about watching Donald Trump in the second term is seeing how
“much worse his narcissism has gotten. I didn't think it was possible, honestly, in the first”
term, but the, the spiral that he's in, he's just, he's, he's, he's, he's talked himself into incoherence. I don't know if it's that he's 80 years old, and he's just falling apart, or if it's just that the stress of this situation is getting to him, or if it's a combination of those two things, but he ping pongs wildly between the two problems that narcissists have, which is this overblown sense of self, and this like constant insecurity,
right, and so it is just that. Like, I can't win this election without cheating. I'm also the most popular president of all time, and it's like, "You gotta choose, man." Yeah, well, yeah, you'd think, although maybe Magga doesn't have to choose. Let's listen to Magga Senator Tommy Tuberville talk about Trump's demand that Republicans pass this voter's professional legislation.
If we don't do something with the fellow buster, and we don't get things passed, it'll be the last time we'll have a Republican president or a Republican Senate or a House.
“That's how fast this country's going down to communism, and we need to stop it. We can”
stop it. It's, it's in, it's in Boston, our court. President Trump said that, "Boss near court."
I mean, there you have it, Amanda. Things are so bad that Republicans will never win an election
again if they can't figure out how to prevent millions and millions of Americans from voting. Could that be clearer? This was a wild interview for a couple of reasons. One, the word communist is just like a blunt dog whistle to mean, you know, not white conservatives, right? And he's talking about this, he's using the demographic change as this, like, hysteria point. So there's like genuinely white supremacy right there. It's right under
the surface, and he would probably argue with me, but I think it's communist, really communist, you know? They keep putting Zaron, mom, Donnie's face up when they say the word communist. So we all know it's going on there. And the two, it's, if you are an democratic system, and I know that Tommy Tuberville is not like the brightest of guys, but if you're a democratic system, and you can't win an election too bad, so sad, your job
is to change your party so that you can win elections. It is also delusional. I mean, unfortunately, Republicans have, they're the ones who have unverid vanage in our electoral system. They're the ones who can get way, that punch way above their way, who often lose the popular vote and yet somehow still win elections because of our electoral college and Senate just proportionality and other problems like that. So this entire thing was just
bonkers, but it goes to show that they're trying to whip the base into a state of hysteria over this. And you do have to wonder why because it, it only, it feels like it only is to please Trump because the voters that Tommy Tuberville speaking to are some of the people that would probably be disenfranchised. I am white, working class, white suburban, white, rural voters are not likely to have the level of ID that is required to vote under
this system. You know, who has their birth certificate in their house? I do, but I'm a college educated urban voter. You know, I'm the kind of person who has that ID. I hate to interrupt this thrilling podcast, but we have some exciting news at the DSR network. Our substack is now live. Our substack is going to be the new home for free and paid content here at the
DSR network.
Right now, there's an early bird special until the end of the month where you'll get 30 percent off of a new subscription with no code required to sign up for either a free or paid subscription to our substack. You can go to DSR network.substack.com. That's DSR network.substack.com. We're super excited for our new substack and fee to join us there. We have a lot of things coming that we're thrilled to share with you in the future. We appreciate your support and thank
you for listening. Now back to the show.
Freudy also the one on the second episode series and further highlights.
It's not a second episode, I'm going to tell you how to get out of the world. To the best price. Now the two of you are 90 months old. Go on, watch the movie. Streaming was also not so good. Thank innovative press brutality and over 17-year-old coffee for every taste. Elieba premium coffee is already at the 19th century. And the Keeb's the Cuba capsule machine in
Diner Chibofiale and on Chibode E. A perfect free-length tag. Sonne. Park. Pickneck. And so many Paul.
Shoppapoteca sagt, Tschüss, Allegy and Hallo, Fuling. Here, if you're all at the bottom of the world,
“you have to come through the allegations. As a new customer, spend 10% on 35 euros. With the code,”
9-10. You have a real estate, a shop-opoteca at Rontaladen and direct one-listen. Good-shind bidding on shop-minsus-opoteca.com/goodshind. I want to highlight a couple of other tidbits. The post reports that this announcement surprised even Trump's own advisors who had spent the morning touting this legislation, and the Times reports that Republicans were shocked by this announcement, and even that they regarded as an effort to undermine their chances in the mid-terms.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune appeared almost days the Times says, "I just want to reiterate Republicans know that this is absolutely terrible for them, yet they still can't say it that way. They have to dance around the fact that this absolute madman is fucking them in every possible way he can." It really gets to the heart of a conflict he's having with the GOP during the mid-terms, which is they understand they can't steal
this election. They understand that they have to win seats by appealing to voters and trying to get votes. And so the whole point to this housing bill was to try to address the affordability concerns that are motivating voters to turn against Republicans in this election. It's kind of very standard
“politics, right? And Donald Trump's attitude is like, "Why bother with all that stuff?”
I don't care about any of that." And he's almost mad at voters from making him have to care about their stupid poor people concerns about affording housing and gasoline, right? And so he's just like, "Why do we just steal it? Can we just please steal it?" But they can't steal it. This bill is not a way to steal it. There's not a mechanism to steal it. He just can't get past the idea that there's gotta be a way to steal it. And we know that he thinks like this because this is what caused him
to behave the way he did in the run-up to the riot on January 6. He just can't get it out of a set that there's gotta be a cheat code. There's a "I win" button hidden somewhere. Right, I really like that idea that he just wants to cheat his way through rather than change
“the policies and change the approach. Because again, I think that gets at the deep narcissism”
here because doing that would be an admission that he's failed. And that isn't allowed. And yet at the same time, the need to cheat to win is also an admission that he's failed. But he's too narcissistic, too admit that to himself. It's like there are so many layers of narcissism here. You can't even like penetrate it. That's sort of the nature of narcissism. It's like the turtles going on top of turtles. It's just like a bottomless pitest in essence, isn't it?
Yeah, they get caught in these cycles of shame and bombast, right? Unfortunately for our Republicans, they caught them all up in it. But I think that it couldn't have happened to a
more deserving group of people. They all actually, here's the thing, if they held hands and
Jumped together, they'd be fine.
on the Save America Act. It'd be wild if they tried to pass it just to placate him. But you can't
“anybody who's ever dealt with a narcissist in real life knows that you can't just constantly”
placate them. You eventually have to give them the boot or at least, you know, set a strong boundary with them because they will continue to do this stuff. And I don't know, these Republicans just can't do it because they know he'll single out anyone who does, who turns against him. But again, the answer to that is, you know, solidarity, not to sound like a leftist.
Right, exactly. Oh, always to sound like a leftist, actually.
Absolutely. Well, I just want to highlight how this is backfiring for Trump in every conceivable way. It shows the voters that Trump doesn't care about people's economic struggles and that will drive down a approval, which is the coin of the Roman midterms. It prevents Republicans from getting distance from the unpopular president. And all of this makes it more likely, rather than less, the Trump and the GOP lose control of one or both chambers of Congress, which means investigations
of Trump. His own narcissism is fucking, and basically. Every single time, I mean, it's just like the reflecting pool, right? He got it in his head that the way to prove his greatness was to
fix this pool. And instead, he made it much, much worse. And now he's panicking and denying
what everyone can see, which is that he failed miserably. And we're getting a preview from not what's going to happen after they lose a little midterms. I suspect. Yes, that's going to be really interesting. So, Amanda, how do you see this playing out? I mean, I really hate to dismiss the possibility that they could pass the save act. Do you think it's possible? And if not, how do you see it unfolding? I agree. I don't want to dismiss the possibility because the
the links that the GOP will go to to play Kate Trump and his ridiculous ideas have been fairly bottomless, right? That said, they usually tend to be more passive than active when they disagree with him. There's a reason that he just goes around Congress to do things like start the Iran more,
“right, which is he does still, I think, on some level understand that they might actually get in the”
way if they're required to take action to do what he says. They'll passively go along with it. But I imagine whipping the votes on this is going to be really hard when you're talking to congressional members who are like, "Look, dude, none of my voters have the level of ID that you expect." You're going to ban all the married women from voting because they don't have their, because their marriage name doesn't match their birth certificate. The save act America Act
is truly ridiculous, and I think that's one of the obstacles here. But they're going to try to, I feel like we're going to continue to see what's happening, which is they're not going to pass up, but they're going to try to publicly play Kate. And because he's also very shallow and as long as you're praising him and tying him, he's the greatest president of all time, he can be distracted, you know, like a cat with a toy. Yes, and that's the ultimate irony is that if Trump gets his
way, it backfires even more dramatically for him and the GOP than if he doesn't. Yeah, but I mean, we should, genuinely, oppose this because we really don't want a system where only like a pretty small percentage of people can vote, because they are the kind of people who have all their paperwork in big files in their cabinet. No, 100%. Well, we really got to hope it doesn't pass, and it does look like it won't pass.
“What do you think's going to happen? How are you feeling about the midterm these days?”
I feel like a lot of the people that are flirting with voting for the Democrat in road states will panic in at the last minute, find their, you know, James Teleriko said,
God is non-binary, excuse to vote for the Republican. So I'm always like worried about that,
but the very fact that there are people in places like Texas and Iowa considering switching their vote from Trump to a Democrat for those midterm elections is pretty significant. And I think that it's possible that we win the Senate. I think we're definitely going to win the House. It sure looks that way right now. And I got to say, Trump is doing everything possible to drive his own approval down as much as he possibly can, which I guess, thanks Donald. I'm end of my cut. Thanks so much for coming on.
Always great to talk to you. Thanks for having me, Greg.
Nice to meet you.
No. A few photos of the low-stoe-competition of the low-stoe-competition make it very good. It's very good. Hold your money to your goal. With Viso Steuer.
