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I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
Donald Trump just uttered an extraordinary quote. He said this, "I don't care about the midterms, but it actually got more revealing from they're on out. In discussing what just happened in Texas where the MAGA extremist will now be the GOP nominee in the Senate race, Trump accidentally revealed that he still under the delusion that he
and MAGA are popular. Meanwhile, three different indicators in the polling contain terrible news for Trump and the GOP. And new reports say that Republicans are growing more alarmed about the midterms. Some of them are plainly afraid to say so, so how much longer can they stand by while Trump drags them down?
We're discussing all this with new Republican-contributing editor Philippe Delauze, who's been arguing that Trump's historic unpopularity gives Democrats all kinds of new openings. Delipee, nice to have you on. Always good to be, Greg. So let's start with what Trump said at his cabinet meeting.
He was talking about how he's winning a huge victory over Iran, which he isn't. That aside, here's how he characterized that. "They thought they were going to out, wait me, you know, we'll out and wait him. He's just got the midterms. I don't care about them midterms.
I just look what happened last night, that was the prelude to the midterms. People understand that they know that very simple Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I'm doing that for the world, I'm not doing it just for us." So let's break this up into two pieces.
First, Trump's claim that he doesn't care about the midterms.
I think this is quite literally true. He doesn't care what happens to Republicans really. He really doesn't give a shit. And it's also true that Trump's war is absolutely tanking their chances. What do you make of all that?
Yeah, you know, as often the case with Trump, it really could be interpreted in a variety of different ways. And I doubt that they're going to really clarify.
“On the one hand, it could mean that he literally doesn't care, which I think is possible”
and he, you know, as far as American political figures go, is probably the one that has most openly and with gusto thrown his political allies under the bus. I think it could also be a reference to the idea that his sort of manga endorsed candidates have been winning primaries, you know, in the last several weeks. I think it could be interpreted as him saying that, you know, this is an indication of
the strength of his brand, which I think is mistaken. You know, we saw something similar play out. I think in 2018 and 2020 with his sort of, you know, manga candidates winning primaries and then getting slaughtered in the general. To your point about how Trump really only cares about how he's doing with manga, the
second piece of what Trump said in that little clip is really telling.
He says the prelude to the midterms is what happened last night, meaning Tuesday night. He's clearly alluding to manga extremists canpaks them getting the GOP nomination in the Texas Senate race, something Trump engineered. But what's funny, Felipe, about that is that this has improved democratic chances in the Senate race, though it's certainly not going to be easy by any means.
But aside, Trump is saying that it's good that Republicans nominated the Maga Wackjob. He really is under the illusion that he and Maga are popular. He revealed that accidentally, I think. Your thoughts on that?
“Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, it's like the Texas is this great white whale, right,”
for Democrats. And it's like, you know, I think there's sort of an intermediate point that we have to look at this, where, you know, on the one hand, I think that this idea that, you know, there will be some sort of democratic savior who's going to run such an excellent campaign that will overcome all the odds and, you know, deliver a decisive democratic victory in a statewide
race in Texas is probably not going to happen, at least not in the foreseeable future. However, the idea that it's also some kind of, you know, pipe dream of fantasy and that, you know, it can happen, Texas is Texas blah, blah, blah. I think is clearly wrong and has been disproven as you wrote by the, you know, sort of success, not the victory, but the sort of success of the Iraq campaign a few years ago.
And so, you know, I remember actually when Trump endorsed Paxton, which was, you know, I'm really on the eve of the election, that there was a lot of reporting about how Republican strategists in the state and in Washington were furious and, you know, sort of, already sort of, almost not writing off the race, but, you know, really concerned about the impact that this is going to have.
“And I think they're looking at the same polling, more polling than we are, they have their”
own internal polling, and they realize that this is going to be, I think, disastrous.
James Tellerico, I think, as you wrote, is someone who has, you know, several...
of layers of credibility, you know, he has his, the angle of his faith, which is something
that we have necessarily seen at Democrats successfully exploit in, in sort of a race like this, and I think there's something interesting about him, which is that so far what we've seen is that, you know, he is very willing and able to attempt to welcome some of the moderates in the independence. While at the same time, he's not doing the kind of, you know, bipartisan humbayao thing
of, you know, oh, my opponent is a good man, you know, and this is a contest of ideas, yada, yada.
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Thank you, and enjoy the show. James Telerico, the Democratic nominee, is reaching out to independence and moderates and Republicans, but he's also making it very clear that MAGA and Trumpism and Trump are
a disaster for this country.
He's not sidestepping discussion of what Trump and Trumpism have done to us, and that's really critical. Also to your point, it's going to be really hard. We have a piece on this up at TNR.com. We're under no illusions here.
This is a very hard state for Democrats, and Beto O'Rourke came nearly three points away from winning, and he really outperformed in some major ways. It's going to be a big lift for Telerico to get there. It's not impossible, though, and even if he loses, he's probably going to end up forcing Republicans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to save Texas, which could impact
the rest of the map. Just want to clarify, though, Telerico could win. That's possible, just very hard.
“I think, in my lifetime, we're presuming that everything we maintain the same sort of”
electoral political system, I think that it's entirely conceivable, and I would say even likely that at some stage, a Democrat will win a statewide race in Texas, just given the graphics, given what we've seen, I don't know if it'll be Telerico, but it could be. I don't think that this is a sort of a crazy pie in the sky idea.
It's absolutely possible, as I wrote in my piece, tried to argue anyway, if there's a time it's going to happen, a lot of events are lining up right now that make it at least plausible. Just as an aside on this, the Texas Senate race is going to be really interesting on immigration, Paxton is a magoradical or true extremist workshop, and the Democratic nominee, Telerico, as a striking position on the issue, he calls for increased border security to distance
himself from Joe Biden, but he also speaks about the need to be welcoming to immigrants, how immigrants are a positive good for our country, and how they deserve due process unfair treatment, and critically, Telerico casts this as a matter of his Christian faith. You wrote about this, is there an opening here for Democrats to strike kind of a new set of moral positions on immigration due to Trump's hideous on popularity, and just the
horrors he's unleashed? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when it comes to Texas, unfortunately, I'm not sure that being a complete immigration like job is a disqualifier in part because obviously Greg Abbott was sort of like the original
“you know, whack job, and I think, you know, is kind of a dark horse for sort of a template”
for how to use sort of immigration as a political cudgel and like a really, you know, messed up way with what he did with the busing and whatever, but sort of setting that aside, we are in a different situation right now, where I think, you know, historically immigration has been sort of the impenetrable issue where Trump and Republicans writ large seem to just kind of have a default, enjoy a sort of a default kind of level of deference from
The voting public, where there was sort of the assumption that they would han...
whatever that means in sort of the meeting voters mind, in sort of a similar way to, you
know, the economy writ large, right, which is something that, again, people don't necessarily grasp in its granularity, but that they sort of felt that Republicans in better
“than that is done, I think, you know, I don't think that there is an inherent, you know,”
sort of turn towards trusting Democrats necessarily, which is why I have argued for not just this kind of sort of approach of responding to what Republicans are doing, they'll obviously Democrats need to and should respond to particularly the, you know, the truly atrocious things that are happening in sort of, you know, all of our names, but setting out an actual cohesive, forceful unified vision that can be sort of packaged and repeated by candidates all around
the country with their, you know, sort of regional variations, but that actually exists on a separate access, then sort of defensive posture that Democrats have adopted for the most part, which is to say, not just we're going to do enforcement better, which, you know, has really been the core message, I think, of, especially national Democrats. I agree 100% and that's why I'm really heartened to see James Telerico talking about immigration
as a positive good for the country and affirmative good. It's a good thing for us. And by the way, I'm the point about Texas being a place where very hard-line immigration politics works. I think we're in a different place than we were even just a couple years ago, because now people have seen violent white nationalism as an agenda, play out on the streets of major cities across the country and they are recoiling in the horror. And by the way, Trump has
thrown away his 2024 gains with Latino voters as a result. So I do think this is the time
to step up and provide something affirmative, moral, coherent, clear and say, here's what we are for.
We tried it their way, mass deportations failed this country and we're going to do something
“better. That's what I'd like to see. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, what ended up happening was”
that some of these things went from being theoretical to realized, right? And unfortunately, it's a long time American tradition that people have to sometimes just touch the stove. And so you know, I, there are so, so many stories all over the country, published everywhere, where people on the ground in various cities and suburbs and exorbs and even rural areas are saying, look, I had this conception of the, you know, the enforcing the borders agenda or whatever
that was going to entail, sort of rounding up these criminals, yada, I mean, we hear it over and over again. And once the understanding really sets in that that's not what anyone meant, that's not what's even Miller wants, that's not what they're working towards, that's not what they'll accept as victory in this sort of, you know, zealotry, anti-immigration zealotry, people are not only against it,
“they're repulsed, they are disgusted. And so I think that, you know, that visorality, that feeling”
is something that can be harnessed and is harnessable, if, if sort of Democrats want to, to, to kind of use it as a hook to then also present their alternative agenda, right, it has to be both things. You know, we're going to hold these people accountable, we're going to ensure that, you know,
this doesn't happen again, I think is a powerful message. And here's what, what our vision is,
which, you know, as you mentioned, is something that Tyler Rico is attempting to do now, right? Here's how we think these things should go, which is just not something that has been part of the conversation. So we just got hit with a barrage of new polling. That's very bad for Trump and Republicans. G. Eliot Morris's new poll has the Democrats lead in the generic house ballot matchup at eight points now. It's been growing. If that continues, if it holds at eight, if it turns out
to be eight at the end of the day, that's a wave. Meanwhile, in the new U.G. of tracking poll, Trump has sunk to an approval rating of 34%, with 59% disapproving. That's around 25 points underwater. And critically, that may not be an outlier because in the polling averages collected by 50 plus one, a website, Trump's approval is at 36%. He continues to slide. Reliebe, all the polls are telling the same story right now. No. Yeah, I think so. And look, I mean,
you know, I know that there's been a lot of skepticism about polling that has been sort of born out of the last several years, but there have been some, I think, significant misses. Let's call it. But I don't think there's any way to ignore the totality of the polling here. And it's palpable. I mean, it's palpable all around the country that there is a discontent,
There is a sense that people were sold a bill of goods that wasn't true, that...
and you know, it's like almost every day. I hear Trump or some of his cadre say something that it's just like a dream for a democratic strategist, right? The idea that they have unified behind
the notion of a large billion dollar ball room as some sort of, you know, necessary policy,
as sort of an, you know, an objective. This, this grand objective is just, is laughable, right? Especially when, you know, people are struggling economically. And so, you know, it's like there's this trend that exists already. And then every day there's sort of lustfully shooting themselves in the foot, because I think they're just, you know, sort of incapable, you know, nobody wants to displease the king. Even Trump's Republican allies are admitting this to New York times how
to pretty remarkable peace just a couple of days ago, reporting that Republicans are growing
frustrated by Trump's megalomania, basically. They put it a little more politely than that, but
“that's what they meant. It's Trump obsessing over as ballroom, obsessing over monuments to”
himself. That's really panicking Republicans. And they're afraid, too, of course, say outright that this is what's happening. And so that just makes it worse. A couple quotes from Republican strategists that I want to read. One is from Witt Ayers, a Republican pollster. He says, quote, if Trump's highest goal were to maintain control of Congress, he would not be doing what he is doing. And then on top of that, we've got David Urban, a Republican strategist, an ally of
Trump, telling the independent this, quote, it's going to be a tough fall unless things dramatically change. Well, it's cool. Felipe, it's an interesting loop, an an interesting trap that they're kind of caught in here. The megalomania is syncing them, but it's also the megalomania that prevents them from going the Trump and saying, we really need to change here, right? Yeah, I mean, I think it's like, you know, they have seen the primary results as we all have,
where, you know, Bill Cassidy got knocked off even though he voted, you know, infamously not a confirm arcade junior as I think, you know, sort of a balloon to Trump. And all this stuff, and it wasn't
enough to save him. And so they're all terrified that, you know, either basically they'll either
lose the primary or the general, right? It's sort of the position that I think a lot of these
“looked to find themselves in. And, you know, I think like one thing that it's important to keep in”
mind is that what we've seen for the last, you know, year and a half is a Congress that has been sort of fundamentally absent from, from kind of like the mechanics of government. It's a Congress that has openly allowed Trump to kind of usurp their constitutionally delicated functions, whether it be tariffs or whatever else, right? That is fine with it has allowed it to happen, you know, and has been paralyzed, you know, to the to the point where it's just
like passing a budget with with very little policy, you know, just the very, very basic mechanics of keeping government open is like some sort of feet. And so what I think, you know, Democrats, but also do well to remind people is that this isn't just about, you know, acting as a check-on Trump necessarily, but that if Democrats were to take control of the House in the Senate, then a lot of things could be put into motion that would severely or could severely constrain
and actually very functionally limit what sort of Trump is able to do, right? Like Congress can can take away some of these executive tools that have been misused, right? Congress can haul officials in under oath and answer a force than to testify about certain things. To conclude this,
“I really think that after 2026, American politics could get a lot crazier even than it is right now,”
that's going to be pretty crazy too, and it's going to be pretty rough going. I think for a lot of us, but Trump is out there now saying that he doesn't care about the midterms. I think he's going to care about them soon enough. Felipe de la Hose, thanks for coming on, great to talk to you. Thanks so much, Greg. Here, whenever you need me. Yeah, well, I'd have been cheeset, cheeset, yet cheeset, yet some gratis testing.
