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This is the daily blast from the new Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I'm your host, Greg Sargent. Republican senators are privately very upset with Donald Trump and Maga. They don't understand why Trump keeps prodding them to pass voter suppression legislation when they don't have the votes to get it done. In fact, Republicans fear that their string of losses at the state level bodes very badly for the midterms and they really want to focus on the economy.
Trump won't let them. We think this is a telling moment because it shows that Republicans really do expect to face real elections this fall. And it doesn't look like Trump can get his way and cheat his way through this. Is that too optimistic? We're talking about all this with Tara McGowan, a former dem strategist who's a shrewd observer of politics as the publisher of Courier News.
Tara, nice to have you on.
Always good to be with you, Greg.
So Trump wants Republicans to pass the save act, which is a truly disgusting piece of voter suppression legislation. It's already passed the house, but doesn't have close to 60 votes to pass the Senate. Trump and Maga want Republicans in the Senate to use a talking filibuster to pass it.
“Tara, can you explain how this Trump Maga strategy is supposed to work?”
I can do my best, Greg. Just trying to explain any Trump-led strategies these days is very difficult. The save act is horrific voter suppression. The issue at hand now is that after it passed the house, John Thune, the majority leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, has said repeatedly and explicitly he does not have the votes to get the save act bill passed. That is making the President in the administration increasingly desperate and they are calling.
First, to get rid of the filibuster, that is not to get rid of that procedural motion.
Thune has always stood against that.
This is not the first time Trump has called for that to try to get his agenda passed by a Republican-only line vote and majority. And so now what's happening and this gets a little convoluted, but basically there is another procedural option to have to get around the 60 vote threshold with a talking filibuster, which would require Democrats to hold the floor as we have seen occasionally and recently in other situations, but they would need to hold the floor to debate this bill and talk about their opposition to the bill.
They essentially have to hold the floor and when they cease holding the floor of the chamber, then the majority party can bring the, bring the measure to a vote and pass it on a simple majority instead of requiring that 60 vote threshold.
“That's how I understand it, but even that Senator Thune has come out and says he do does not have the votes to be able to push the talking filibuster to get the save act passed.”
The strategy of getting rid of the filibuster that itself doesn't have enough Republican support to pass because a few senators, maybe more than a few Republican senators, oppose getting rid of this traditional filibuster. And the talking filibuster strategy can't work either because Democrats would probably relish the opportunity to hold the floor for pretty much forever because they could do what Cory Booker did recently and get a ton of attention to what's going on with Trump's economy with his immigration crackdown.
We have millions of Epstein vials that we could do story time with America for, you know, months really Greg on and that would that would be absolutely something that they would do. And I think smarter Republicans know that it would be an absolute catastrophe to let Democrats tie things up that way, especially when Republicans want to be focused on the economy. Even the Wall Street Journal editorial board ripped into the strategy calling it basically a mirage and a fantasy and pointing out that Dems would love to jump at the chance to draw attention to both themselves and to all the failures on Trump's watch, so it's not happening.
Nope, that's exactly right.
Withheld endorsing either of those and like everything else in this administration, everything to President Trump is a bargaining chip to get his agenda passed, which is always about him right he knows and Mike Mike Johnson. The leader in the house came out after the state of the union and even said, if and when Republicans lose the house in the midterms this year, that is game over for this Trump administration or any Trump agenda, they won't be able to get anything through not that they've gotten anything through that has the support of the American people to date.
“So Trump is also fighting not just for his political life, but his life because when he is no longer in office, that man will be in jail as well his family and as well many members of his cabinet.”
I wish I had the same sort of confidence you do, but you know, I mean he's not going to go easily, Greg, let's be honest.
Okay, let me just switch gears here. Punch ball news had the striking report. It says that GOP senators are quote unquote incensed with Trump and MAGA for pressuring them to do this. They're shocked that Trump and MAGA are demanding that they do something unworkable. Some of them are blaming social media disinformation for this according to punch ball. You know, Tara, this is funny because Republicans created this Trump MAGA dissatisfaction monster. Now they're upset that Trump and MAGA are making unreasonable, non-fact based demands of them. You know what, tough shit, you deserve this, you're thoughts on that.
“Yeah, they chose this leader. They have stood by him unconditionally and equivalently through the horrors and disastrous impacts that this administration has had on our economy.”
On the lives and well-being of Americans, 15 million Americans stand to lose their healthcare under the billions of dollars cut from healthcare that were then given to fund the Department of Homeland Security under Christy Nome of which she spent 220 million on an ad for herself, which got her fired last week, amen to that. But also has funded, you know, thugs, masks, thugs that have publicly executed to Americans, since this house, right, went into session for exercising their constitutional rights in broad daylight.
Truly, these tariffs have hurt the economy and our alliances abroad. We now, a cost of living has only gone up. It was a huge promise of Trump and his campaign that that would be a priority for them as was releasing the Epstein files.
We have bait and switched on every single promise made and instead now, we're in a billion dollars a day war in Iran that no Americans want and that Congress did not approve.
That is now increasing gas prices that could skyrocket to five dollars a gallon on top of how Americans are already feeling squeezed. So of course, Republicans are panicking. I really appreciate what you said at the very top of this program, which is that them panicking publicly is actually a very good sign, because I think all of us paying close attention.
Our worst fear is that they do not allow free and fair elections or elections at all in the midterms because they know that they will get a shallacking to quote President Obama from 2010.
This is the situation they're in. I think it's so important because we all need to be pre-bunking this to the American people, right, to make it very clear what they're trying and that they're in their desperation out of this administration, because the writing is on the wall.
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I'm saying, you can say that you can't get the correct answer.
You're a master-writer, right? But you don't understand.
“Egal, it's just a challenge. You're doing a lot of stuff with this story. And if you then work, you'll get it. - That's right. - Save. This story. - You're going to get it.”
Now, let's try it out. So yeah, it's very clear that Republicans do think they're facing an election. Politico reports that Republicans are looking at all these democratic wins on the state level. Some of which are coming in deeper at areas, as you mentioned earlier, and they're worried about this fall, the midterms. Brendan Steinhauer, a Texas GOP consultant says, "I'm rigging the alarm bell."
Another senior GOP operator tells Politico that all these state level races are showing that Republicans aren't turning out the low info voters who put Trump over the top in 2024. This operative says, "How do we turn out these Republican voters in the midterm election?"
Tara, that does seem like the story right now. It's a double whammy. First, midterms usually are driven by high engagement voters to start with, which is not great for Republicans.
Second, in the Trump era, Republicans are particularly reliant on the low info voters who turn out for Trump and no one else. Is that about the size of it? - Now, all we have to do is look at the Texas primaries last week, where we saw a ton of defection from Republican voters, from voting in their own primaries to voting in democratic primaries in protest of Trump and the administration and the GOP led agenda. And of course, we're seeing that in races across the country. So they are going to struggle with enthusiasm. They already are, with turnout and with defection.
Because you cannot create the swings that we're seeing to democratic candidates without Trump voters switching sides. It is not just an increase in turnout among Democrats or independence. - Yeah, and you mentioned at the top of this that you think that the Senate could go to Democrats. I mean, it looks like a very tough map to me even so. The House certainly Democrats are favored though. I wouldn't say that it's a sure thing by any means, but yes, Democrats favored.
“I think the Senate's a tough road still. Are you more optimistic? I'd love to hear why.”
I am more optimistic than you today, Greg. That's not always the case. Yeah, no. I think that honestly everything is on the map in this country. I truly do believe it.
Based on, and that's based on a lot of data from the special elections, from the turnout numbers that we saw. And in large part, it's because, you know, Democrats really suffered in 2024 because millions and millions of Americans who voted for Democrats and for Biden in 2020 sat home in 2024. These folks are not sitting home and we are peeling off folks because they are vehemently opposed to parts of this administration's agenda. They do not want Americans killed in the street by masked thugs who work for the federal government. They do not want the economy to tank even worse than it was.
They like this, it's so everything is on the surface right now and being felt very viscerly by the American people. Also, we have to always be talking about the Epstein files. That is such a powerful wedge. There are people who voted for Trump three times in a row who will not vote for Trump or the Republican party because of how they have missed handled the release of the files and the lack of accountability.
It really is very powerful. So they've created their own perfect storm and they know that there is no way out of it. And I am optimistic about the Senate for the same reason.
We have enormous opportunities because there is an incredible bench of Democrats running and contesting Republicans and open seats across the country and Senate races, including in states like Alaska in Ohio.
“And I think that these folks would have, you know, been living on a prayer in an ordinary midterm election season, but now actually have a very viable shot.”
Yeah, definitely has a bit of a 265 to it in 2006. It sure looked like Democrats were favored for the House, all throughout the election. Senate always looked like a very, very tough road. And in a really dated thing, Virginia was seen as a really, really tough lift for Democrats. And then, of course, they somehow squeaked out that Virginia race and one Virginia. This was before the big shift in the Democratic direction in that state.
They were able to take the Senate.
It does. And I mean, the other reason to be optimistic about the House is I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the mass exodus in terms of retirements in the Republican party, right?
“Are making their majority thinner and thinner by the day before even we get to the elections that Democrats are very much favored to win.”
And the other thing I would say is that the part of this story, which is important to note, is that all of this detection and increased enthusiasm and turnout against Republicans in the election is happening despite Democrats having the lowest approval rating they have ever had in history.
Republicans know this is about them. This is their failure in power to have a trifecta of power. So every American knows who's in charge and who's running our government in our Congress.
And instead, prices are going up. We are now at an expensive endless war that nobody asks for and has no end in sight where American service members are being killed and people are going to feel increasingly anxious and worried because we have a very volatile situation on our hands. And the corruption is everywhere on the surface, which is the issue that actually unifies the most Americans in a bipartisan way is against a system of corruption where the wealthiest and most powerful get a different set of rules.
That is the definition of this administration in this Republican party. And so I really do feel like this is going to be bigger than any election I've ever seen in my lifetime as would 28 because folks are in raged and understand that the stakes actually truly have never been higher. And they don't need candidates or paid advertising to tell them that this time around. We are seeing races that are getting very little attention or investment have these massive swings. So it really is a testament to the American people being like this is not the country that I want to live in and even this is not the Republican or the president or the party that I voted for even on the right.
That's an important point you raise about these races that are not getting a lot of investment and attention swinging because it really shows that the Trump and what they're doing particularly I think some of the ice stuff and the tariffs and that sort of thing.
Those things are really penetrating to voters in the middle. The information is getting through to them about what's happening, which is just so damn rare as you know.
“I want to address the point you made about Democrats having like their lowest approval rating ever. I think we should be sensitive to that point and you know there are a number of critics out there kind of”
centrist liberal types who point out this problem a lot and I think it's fair enough right. We have to worry about the Democratic approval rating. There is way away to understand why things are happening the way they are and spite of that though and I think it's this as you say point one everything is about Trump he just sucks up everything and he's deeply unpopular but point number two is that in a situation like that. If you have good democratic candidates individual candidate that's running in some of these races you can get voters to give those individuals a second look and take them seriously regardless of what they think about the national party at a time like this what do you think of that is that what's going on.
I mean yes I hope I mean my hope is that because we've seen this before where Democrats have won despite themselves pretty much every election honestly that they won after 2016 and the error of their ways was that they didn't believe that they won despite themselves and they believe that they had a mandate over one I one sort of approach or another and that wasn't actually the case. And so my hope coming out of this is that this really does allow for a very diverse group of Democrats to win because it isn't everybody growing in one same direction or with one set of talking points right that can tend to happen in a presidential like 2024.
And and and what needs to happen then is once they take office they need to produce results based on the demands and the fears of the American people. All right just to wrap this up I think a lot of liberals and Democrats tend to look at Trump's demand for a passage of the save act and they simply assume he's going to get his way because they just assume you know he'll be able to hold power forever no matter what but I wonder of that ultimately surrenders too much power to him like we can't demobilize ourselves.
I don't even think that's a real risk because what we're seeing again in all of these elections and special elections is that the American people are outraged and they are voting.
“Because of it and that's a good sign and one that I think will only build the closer and closer we get to November.”
I agree on that point a hundred percent terror mega and great to talk to you thanks so much for coming on it's it's getting very interesting.
