Republicans Suddenly Have Plans Next Week

Pod Save America

Pod Save America dissects a chaotic week in Republican politics, highlighting Trump's increasingly self-centered midterm strategy amid declining party enthusiasm. The

Key takeaways

• Trump's midterm ads are tone-deaf and self-serving, failing to resonate with voters who see America as on the wrong track.
• Republican lawmakers are avoiding Trump's convention due to lack of enthusiasm, signaling a fractured party despite financial advantages.

Main topics

• Trump's midterm campaign strategy and ad failures
• Republican reluctance to engage with Trump's political brand

Notable quotes

"This was an ad made for one swing voter and that swing voter was Donald J. Trump so he could feel better about himself."

"They've listed. Passing on the money to his chosen successor in 28, post-presidential travel, pet projects like his library..."

Conclusion

The episode underscores a growing disconnect between Trump and his party, with ineffective messaging and

Transcript preview

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SimpliSafe has been protecting your world for 20 years. Celebrate their anniversary and save 60% on your new SimpliSafe system at simplisafe.com slash crooked. That's 60% off at simplisafe.com slash crooked. Plus when you order. Speaker 1 (0:55) Write in our show name in the How Did You Hear About Us survey to let them know we sent you. Don't forget, there's no safe like Simply Safe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Okay, Dan, we got a big show today. Trump's running midterm ads about himself and hoarding his Super PAC money. Republicans are finding excuses to skip next week's Trumpapalooza midterm convention. The president's face is now on a $1 coin. Speaker 1 (1:43) The gerontocracy prevailed in Massachusetts this week. Kamala Harris is shrugging off some Democrats rejecting her endorsement. And Republicans have a new pro data center vote to explain. Then you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Jasper Nathaniel, an independent journalist who's been reporting on the ground in the West Bank. All right, Dan, with 60 days until the midterms, Donald Trump and Democrats completely agree on what the election should be about. Speaker 1 (2:12) Donald Trump. Republican candidates and campaigns aren't exactly thrilled with the president constantly telling voters to pretend he's on the ballot on account of his 38% approval rating. But there isn't much they can do about it. On Wednesday night, Trump summoned some of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress to the White House so that he could helpfully say each of their names on camera and deliver the welcome news that he will be hitting the road. for 35 Republican candidates in the last 30 days of the election. Trump's super PAC also dipped into its $400 million war chest to shell out just under a million dollars, kind of paltry, for its first midterm ad featuring, who else? Donald Trump. Let's take a look. He is the toughest, most resilient person that I've ever met, and nothing was going to stop him. Speaker 1 (3:06) from fighting so hard for the country he loves. When the world needs courage, vision, and inspiration, it is still turning to America. There is no challenge Americans cannot overcome, no frontier too vast for us to conquer, and our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous, and free. What the fuck was that? Oh, man. It's so good. I know you do a little show called Political Experts React about ads, campaign ads. That has to be one of the just most useless ads I've ever seen. Yes. Let me use the industry term. It sucks. Like let's put aside the obvious strategic blunder of putting in the ad. Speaker 1 (3:57) the very unpopular incumbent president who is mired in a very dumb war right now. Let's just put that aside. Yep. This ad, and then there's another ad that has a similar tone, but actually mentioned some policies. Those are the two ads they put up. I mean, at least that's something. But here's the thing. Both those ads, they're just so tonally off. They are victory laps at a time in which no one thinks America is winning. Speaker 1 (4:19) You have a majority of Americans who think the country's on the wrong track. You have, in some polls, 7 in 10 voters who are with the economy negatively. And here you have this doofus doing this victory lap about all the great things he's done to help America, and no one buys it. My takeaway from this is that anyone who has spent one minute in a focus group, looked at a poll this cycle, or even just had a conversation with an actual person out in the world, would never make an ad like this. This was an ad made for one. Speaker 1 (4:47) swing voter and that swing voter was Donald J. Trump so he could feel better about himself. That's what this was. I understand that. I even think if you were trying to make Donald Trump feel better about himself, you wouldn't create an ad like that. You'd like create an ad about how he was great and did a bunch of things. There's not even accomplishments in that ad. It's just like courage, vision, courage, America, America. But also it's just And it takes for it's so lazy because it's takes from the State of the Union, which he delivered as if he was on Xanax. So there's a new Washington Post story that despite assurances from Trump's political advisers, quote, Republicans are increasingly skeptical and suspicious that Trump's actually going to spend his 400 million dollar war chest on the midterms. They have concluded that it's already too late. Speaker 1 (5:41) some Republicans on campaigns, and that Trump is holding on to the money for his own purposes. I guess my initial reaction after reading that story and watching that ad is, do they really want more ads like that? Is that what they're hoping he'll spend the money on? I imagine that's not what they're hoping for. And I'm not even sure what his own purposes are. I mean, I guess he could steal the money and no one would prosecute him. They've listed. Passing on the money to his chosen successor in 28, post-presidential travel, pet projects like his library, which is estimated to cost around a billion dollars, going to be a skyscraper in Miami. I'm not even sure the legality of transferring money. Like, he can't give any of this money. Speaker 1 (6:30) to another federal candidate. So he couldn't give it to J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio or Pete Hexath or Ted Cruz, whoever the Republican nominee is. He can't give any of it to anyone on the ballot now. He can't give it to the RNC or the NRCC. I'm not even sure he could legally give it to his library. I mean, he could steal it. He could run ads in support of JD Vance or whoever else in 2028. But even if he – whatever reason he's not spending money, which I'm sure is a stupid reason. Or a criminal one. Or a criminal one, yes. He's already wasted the huge advantage. When you have a huge money advantage, you deploy it early when your opponents don't have money because money invested in infrastructure, technology, organizing, staff in – Speaker 1 (7:15) 10 months before the election is worth 10 times the money invested one month before the election. And because he's waited so long, he's already going to pay through the nose for any ads he does buy because ad time has been bought up and they are just truly, these local TV stations, it's the last days of disco for them and they are gouging every super PAC as much as possible. So he's already wasted his advantage in a huge way. How much does this matter? Because I assume that even if he doesn't spend another dime, Republicans still have a pretty significant cash advantage over Democrats, not just because of the RNC-DNC debacle, more of a DNC debacle as we talked about, but also I think the Senate and House committees on the Republican side have more than the Democrats as well. Speaker 1 (8:07) And the Republican super PACs, other than the Trump super PAC, have more money than the Democratic super PACs. Elon Musk is already starting to spend as well from his super PAC. I was looking at the competitive, which is the amount of money being spent in each state starting next week. And it gets alarming very fast. The disparity between what Republicans are spending on TV and Democrats are spending is large. The one hopeful caveat I would give you is dollars a dollar is a bad way of measuring this because a super PAC, a dollar, you need $3 a super PAC money to essentially get $1 of campaign money because by law, let's say it's James Tallarico versus the Elon Musk super PAC. Tallarico can buy an ad. I'm making these numbers up for, let's say if he costs Tallarico $10 an ad, it will cost the Republicans $30 an ad because by law you have to. Speaker 1 (8:59) The TV stations have to offer the candidates the lowest available rate and they can gouge the super PACs. But the Republican money is flowing. And so this would just be on top of that. It does – the place where I think it's going to matter most is Texas. There are a lot of Republicans who do not want to give money to Ken Paxton. He's a terrible fundraiser. The institutional Senate Republican donors hate Ken Paxton because they like John Cornyn and they spend a gazillion dollars to try to save John Cornyn. And James Alarico has raised truly ungodly sums of money. And so if Trump does not come in to help Paxton, it's not really clear where that money is going to come from. I also imagine that in addition to spending on TV, they'll probably want to spend on digital ads all over the place too. And there's no... Speaker 1 (9:44) Limit there. I mean, like there's no lower rate for candidates there, is there? That's just a- No, they can, everyone can gouge everyone. That's what I figured. So either way, it's like, it seems more like an internal fight between, you know, Trump and his advisors and Republican candidates. But at the end of the day, it's not like we should be celebrating the fact that Trump may not spend his $400 million. I think it'd be best if he did not for us. Speaker 1 (10:09) Best if he did not spend it. Did not, yeah. We are really hanging on by a thread here to try to stay competitive in all these places. And we're going to see, particularly in some of the harder states for us, where that Republican spending advantage is going to start to hurt. And so if you could take nearly a half billion dollars and keep that on the sidelines, I would endorse that decision. Are there diminishing returns at some point? Oh, for sure. For sure. But it's just these races are so close. The Republicans have so much money that it would be... Like we don't we are limited in our ability to expand the map because of our money troubles. And it's not even it's not even my troubles. The Democrats, the Senate and House Democrats have done a very good job of raising money, but the Republicans have just raised a lot more. And so it's just. Speaker 1 (10:51) Let's try to – if Trump does not want to spend $400 million and that's not spent, that does reduce their money advantage by $400 million. And that's good, I guess. Everyone else listening, you can go to VoteSaveAmerica.com. We have plenty of great candidates and very, very competitive races, some of the most competitive races in the House and the Senate and down ballot who you can donate to. So every dollar counts at this point. Just to hammer home for people how – Truly excited Republicans are about Trump's plan to make the midterms about Trump. Our friends at Politico surveyed more than 70 Republican candidates and members of Congress about whether they plan to attend Trump's midterm convention in Dallas next week, which, of course, the RNC chair is calling Trumpapalooza. Good branding. Let's just say there are a surprisingly coincidental number of scheduling conflicts. Forty five. Speaker 1 (11:47) of these Republicans said they're not going. Dozens more declined to share their plans. Not a lot of people touting their plans to attend. CNN tried to pin down a few Republicans in the halls of Congress this week to see if they were going to go. Let's see how it went. Are you planning to go to the Republican convention next week? I plan to be in my district. Are you going to the Republican convention next week? Thinking about it. Speaker 1 (12:11) Are you going to the Republican convention next week? I have to be in the district because I have events. I would love to go. I was thinking about it. I'm going to miss out on something important, but I cannot be in two places at the same time. Nope, you cannot. But you get to pick which of those two places you're in, and you chose not the convention. Someone interviewed Max Miller, asked him about it, and he said, no, I want to be spending the time with my family. Yes. Okay. That's a tough one. So, Dan, what if the president throws a party for his party and no one comes? It'll be like most birthday parties that Trump had from age 5 to 14. I think they have like 2,000 people attending so far, I saw somewhere. And I think they interviewed Tim Burchette about it, a Republican member of Congress. And he said, oh, I don't know. They sent me a $25,000 bill. Speaker 1 (13:05) to go. So I don't know if I want to go either. Yeah, they are. That's an important point there. Is it not just that you were invited to go? You're invited to go and then pay to go. And it's $10,000 to $25,000 for most people and then up to $100,000 for some folks. I see this convention as primarily an opportunity for Democrats. Because now I imagine they're going to spend, if they're halfway smart, which I don't. suggest that they are Republicans, they will at least spend the convention like driving up Democrats negatives or trying to and trying to unload the oppo file on all the different Democrats running for in the midterms. So I imagine that's probably what they'll do. But I feel like for Democrats, just having Trump up there speaking and also connecting all the Republicans who are attending, who are in competitive races to Trump will be a boon to Democrats like Mike Rogers is going. Speaker 1 (14:02) apparently, which is wild. John Husted, who's running against Sherrod Brown in Ohio, is going. Mike Lawler, I think, is going. Yeah, Mike Lawler's going. I think Susan Collins wisely to J-Mart said that she is not going. But yeah, I'm surprised that Rodgers and Husted are going. Yeah, it's all very strange. Like, at the end of the day, this thing is a gigantic waste of time, energy, and money. Like, what? And making us stay up Thursday night because you and I are recording the pod after the – That's true. Yes. The true losers are us. But it's like what nonpolitical person is going to consume any of this content? Like what swing voter is going to see it? It's not going to be covered live on television like an actual convention. It's not going to get the media attention of an actual convention. It's not going to have the pomp and circumstance of an actual convention. And it kind of – Speaker 1 (14:50) It's like an unlearning of all the lessons that work for Republicans in 2024. Like when they succeeded was when they were communicating in nonpolitical spaces. So they decided to have a giant political party that looks like the most political thing possible to do their main messaging. Yeah. As one Republican strategist said, the coverage is going to be all about whatever the crazy shit the president decides to say. Yeah. Which is about right. Now, if you're a Republican candidate who can't make the convention. or get the president to campaign with you, fear not. He's going to do everything he can to make sure voters are thinking about him when they go to the polls. For example, the U.S. Mint began selling $1 Trump coins this week. Trump's face on a coin. Legal tender. You can buy 25 coin rolls for the low price of just $61. Just a question. That's 25 $1 coins. Speaker 1 (15:47) For $61. Just in case you don't have a calculator on hand, that works out to about $2.44 per $1 coin. Why would someone do that, John? Well, Dan, apparently quite a few people have done it because 150,000 were printed or made by the Mint or whatever the fuck you say. I think they're minted. I think they mint them. Oh, there is a verb for it. There you go. They're minted. They're minted. Go ahead. Make fun of me for that. And I went on the website, the Mint website, just to see if I could buy a Twit, because act now while supplies last. And they're all sold out. Speaker 1 (16:26) Wow. They are already sold out. And we're sure that money goes to the treasury, right? No. No, I'm sure he pockets it. And I'm sure that they were purchased by, I don't know, MAGA Inc., the Trump family. Yes. Do you think it's a Trump family? I think it's more likely to be someone with a case before the Department of Justice. Yeah, that's right. So it's legal tender, meaning that you can use it as real money, right? It's a dollar. It's a dollar coin. Legal tender doesn't guarantee every store will accept Trump coins. Federal law generally lets private businesses decide what forms of payment they'll accept. So you can refuse a Trump coin if someone tries to pay you in a Trump coin. Just good information for people to have. Interesting. I think it is funny that it's going to now cost you four Trump coins to put a gallon of gas in your car. Speaker 1 (17:17) We shouldn't measure all the costs of the war in Trump coins. Speaking of the war, you can take those coins with you on your next trip through the Trump Strait, which is what the president has suggested, renaming the Strait of Hormuz, just to make sure people forever associate a geopolitical disaster that's led to a global energy crisis with the man responsible, Donald J. Trump. How many Trump coins will it take to make sure that happens, you think, that he renames that? Because I would pay all my Trump coins to make sure that the Strait of Hormuz is renamed the Trump Strait. It's like renaming the Baghdad airport, the George W. Bush International Airport in Baghdad. Yes, little bighorn as Custer Hill. Just so everyone can always associate Donald Trump with the Strait of Hormuz. Speaker 1 (18:10) Just what? Like, what was it? I don't even understand how he got to that point in his thinking. Well, it is interesting because some of these other things he floated, Gulf of America, Lake America, no of. You know, obviously they happened. This one he was asked about in the Oval today or yesterday. I can't remember any of the days. Wednesday? Who knows? And they asked him if he was serious and he was like, no, no, I was just throwing it out there. I was just throwing it out there. The trial balloon. Yeah, even he probably realized, is that what I want? Do I want to put my name on the Strait of Hormuz where they're shooting down, shooting at oil tankers still six months into this war that I had promised would end in a couple weeks? Yeah, not his best idea, John. Speaker 1 (18:56) Did you see the Wall Street Journal story about how Trump is contemplating just declaring the Iran war over? The thing that's so funny about this is he's done it so many times already. Yes, is that line is buried in a story that's entirely the rest of the story. Every other word in that story is about how they're extending the deployments for troops into 2027. Like, I remember seeing that headline. Thinking that was quite stupid then going back when I went to go back to read the stories like this can't be the same story because this entire story is about the war continuing and How much longer the troops are gonna be there? Speaker 1 (19:34) But like I don't even – like he would declare it's over? He did do the mission accomplished truth last week. He did. So I thought it was over. He did. I think – so Alex Ward wrote the story at Wall Street Journal, a great reporter. And there's been some other reporting around this too. I believe what they're thinking is they want to have a whole bunch of troops there deployed maybe into 2027 because – but at the same time, they want everyone ahead of the midterms. Speaker 1 (20:02) to think that the war is over, really beyond the midterms. So who knows? I could see Trump planning some announcement, some more formal announcement where he says the war is over. Maybe he'll do it at Trumpapalooza at the convention. Or maybe he'll do it in October when it's closer to Election Day. And then they want to have the troops there for afterwards so they can resume the bombing if they need to resume the bombing and the military strikes and all the rest after the midterms are over. So maybe that's it. Speaker 1 (20:30) Well, let's just play this out for a second. So let's say it happens in Trumpapalooza. Next Thursday night, you and I are sitting by our computers waiting to podcast. Trump makes this big announcement, declares the war over, says the end of major combat operations in the Strait of Trump. And then immediately after that, Iran shoots a missile at something. And then we respond. Yep. Then what happens? Speaker 1 (20:57) Well, that doesn't count. That's not part of the old war. That's part of a new thing that we're just mowing the grass. And in this modern media environment, people know the war is going on, not by picking up the newspaper off their front stoop, but by going to the gas station. They're not going to stop going to the gas station. No, they're not. And they're spending a lot of their Trump coins at the gas station. Unlike a lot of other Trump ideas, this one seems not particularly well thought out. No. I mean... Speaker 1 (21:24) If you dig into all this, there seems to be, and we talked about this a little on Tuesday's pod, but like there seems to be a thought that because we have successfully navigated either around the Strait of Hormuz or helped ships through the Strait of Hormuz, so we're getting more oil out than we did before, that perhaps we could all live with, or maybe the ultimate goal is like 60 to 70 percent of pre-war. Speaker 1 (21:51) levels of oil getting out of the Strait of Hormuz. And maybe if we can get that, then every time Iran fires off a missile and we fire back, then it'll sort of just fade into the background eventually and people won't really pay much attention to it. Now, again, that's still 50,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East. So at some point, they'll probably want to come home to their families and their families will be wondering where they are. So I don't know how they're going to get around that either. I think the problem for Trump here is twofold. One is as long as gas prices remain. Speaker 1 (22:19) elevated over not where they are right now, but where they were before this whole thing started. That's the main political problem for Trump, the main pressure point. But the other thing here is the political problem is not the failure to end the war. It's the decision to start the war. That was the fundamental breaking of faith with what so many people, even people who did not really like Trump, thought he stood for, which was no foreign wars, no forever wars. And so once he did that, and it was a giant mess, and it continued on, and gas prices went up, and people suffered, and people died. Speaker 1 (22:48) I don't think any of that goes away because we get to a very sort of quiet behind the scenes, let's really get attention, you know, missile exchange, periodic missile exchange with Iran. See, Navigator had a new poll today that found 20% of Trump 2024 voters regret voting for him. And the number one reason cited is Iran. 45% cite the war with Iran and Trump's foreign policy. And then close behind it, 43% cite prices and the cost of living, which is because of the war mostly. The other part is because of Trump's tariffs, the other war, the trade war. And when you do this in focus groups, the words you hear are broken promises. Like that's the thing. And both of those fall under the broken promises category. Yep. Speaker 1 (23:41) Pod Save America is brought to you by Wild Alaskan Company. The difference between low and high quality seafood is enormous. But it's also one of those things that's tough to accurately assess for yourself in the grocery store. Wild Alaskan Company offers the best way to get wild caught, high quality seafood delivered to your door on your schedule. Each Wild Alaskan box comes with individually portioned fillets, vacuum sealed, easy to prep and great for any meal no matter how quick or elevated. 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