Will the Blue Wave Be Bigger Than 2018?
Pod Save America
Jon, Dan, and Alex discuss the current political climate ahead of the midterms, analyzing JD Vance's plea for another chance for Trump, risi
Key takeaways
- JD Vance's call for 'another chance' for Trump is seen as tone-deaf and counterproductive to swing voters.
- Recent polls show a more favorable environment for Democrats than in 2018, despite economic headwinds like high gas prices.
Main topics
- Midterm election polling and voter sentiment
- JD Vance's political messaging
Notable quotes
"Give us another chance or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years." – JD Vance
Conclusion
Despite Republican attempts to reframe their messaging, Democratic momentu
Transcript preview
Speaker 6 (0:00) Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. A break-in isn't just about what gets stolen. It's the feeling after. It's the sense that your home is not safe anymore. SimpliSafe isn't just protecting your stuff. They stop intruders before they get to your door, protecting your family's ability to feel normal inside their own house. Unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break-in is underway, SimpliSafe is designed to help stop intruders before they get inside. They have smart AI-powered outdoor cameras that detect suspicious activity at the perimeter and alert live U.S.-based agents to step in. Simply saved agents, assess the threat, intervene through the outdoor cameras to scare off trespassers, and then they call 911 for dispatch. Our CEO, Lucinda, got a SimpliSafe system installed recently. She said the setup was really easy. It was fully installed in a couple of hours. All the components were up and running and going seamlessly in no time. She said the system is comprehensive. There's outdoor cameras. There's indoor cameras. There's temperature and water sensors to protect your house from flooding. There's motion and window and door sensors. All the sensors you want, they got it. And they have solar-powered cameras. They have exterior cameras run on solar chargers to minimize maintenance. Right now, you can get 50 % off a new SimpliSafe system. Go to simplisafe.com slash crooked. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked for 50 % off. And when you order, please write in Podsafe America in the How Did You Hear About Us survey to let them know we sent you. Don't forget, there's no safe like SimpliSafe. Speaker 2 (1:44) Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. Speaker 1 (1:46) I'm Alex Wagner. I'm Speaker 2 (1:47) Dan Pfeiffer. Alex and Dan in studio. What? Speaker 1 (1:50) We're finally fulfilling our contractual obligations to be in person for this. I know, we were supposed to do this more often. Speaker 2 (1:54) Dan, I'm not going to ask you why you're in town. You're in town because Alex is in town. So why is Alex in Speaker 5 (1:59) town? Alex, Speaker 2 (1:59) why are you in town? Speaker 1 (1:59) I'm in town because I am here shamelessly promoting my excellent, essential new book, The Steal, for right-wing hardliners, won Republican presidency. Look at that cover. And Speaker 2 (2:09) the raid Speaker 1 (2:09) on America's courts. It's actually, the cover. is not the best thing about the book, but it's one of the Speaker 2 (2:14) great. Speaker 1 (2:14) It's really good. It's Barry Blitt, the New Yorker cartoonist, did this. And it is a shout out to the January Sixers who used a flagpole to beat down the doors of the Capitol. But this time, it's the four main characters in my book, plus Ronald Reagan using a pillar to break down the doors of the Supreme Court, which they figuratively did in 1980. Speaker 7 (2:34) Why did you want to write this book? Speaker 1 (2:36) I am incensed by the injustice of the judicial branch, and I feel like this group of—they're not bewigged. Berobed, six conservatives are the full expression of partisan corruption, and I wanted to know the origin story of it, and that is what this is. I'm sure we'll talk about it later. Yes, we Speaker 5 (2:53) will. Speaker 1 (2:53) You can buy a copy now. Speaker 5 (2:55) You should buy a copy, and if you're a listeningist and you haven't bought a copy— What are you doing? Come on. Speaker 1 (2:59) You need it because it's going to be turned into a movie, and we do think Jesse Eisenberg would make a great second character. I won't go into who I want in which role. I don't actually, by the way, I don't know that it's going to be turned into a movie. This is just shameless. Speaker 7 (3:12) Manifest it. Speaker 1 (3:13) I am manifesting it, but it's movie worthy. It's a heist novel. Can I help you with the Speaker 5 (3:16) pitch? Yeah, please. It's not Speaker 1 (3:17) going Speaker 5 (3:17) to be turned into a movie, and if you ever want to know the story, you have to buy the book now. Speaker 1 (3:21) Right. Speaker 5 (3:21) In this day and age with visual culture, some people wait for the movie. Speaker 1 (3:24) You're totally right. And the movie could be 2079. We Speaker 7 (3:27) have been told by many authors before that the Pod Save America audience is very helpful in moving books and buying books. And so do not let... Our co-host, Alex Wagner. Don't Speaker 1 (3:39) let Speaker 7 (3:39) me down. Don't let me Speaker 1 (3:40) down. Also, because Ted Cruz has a book about Clarence Thomas that is out now. This is the real story about how Clarence Thomas got radicalized both on his own accord and through the Republican networks of the 1980s. It's the real Clarence Thomas story by my version, not Ted Cruz's. And also, let's beat him. Let's beat him on the charts. Speaker 7 (4:02) Nice. Speaker 2 (4:02) Good pitch. Thanks. Speaker 1 (4:04) That's all we need, right? Speaker 2 (4:05) All right, on today's show, we're going to talk about the bad vibes and polls haunting Trump and the Republicans with just 46 days left until the midterms, including gas prices hitting new records, the Fed raising interest rates, and the Supreme Court striking down Trump's plan to restrict mail-in ballots. For now. We'll dig into the latest polls, including the rapid shift in how people feel about the possibility of a robot apocalypse, and talk about whether Trump is about to tear down the Kennedy Center because a judge won't let him name it after himself. Then I talked to Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborne about his race against Pete Ricketts, why the Democratic brand is so toxic in the Midwest, and that leaked audio of him talking about how Trump voters' lives suck. Speaker 1 (4:50) It's a lot. There's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of meat in that sandwich. Speaker 2 (4:54) Let's start with a quick update on the golden age that we were promised by our president. The Federal Reserve voted to raise interest rates this week on account of the inflation. Trump has made worse by starting a war with Iran and a trade war with everyone else. Gas prices are above $4 a gallon and climbing, while the price of diesel is the highest ever recorded. The rest of the economy is largely being propped up by a few AI companies that may or may not unleash a robot apocalypse, all of which gave... the Republicans' 2028 frontrunner, an inspiring midterm pitch during his latest podcast appearance this week. Give us another chance or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years. Just standing outside the voters' window, holding up a boombox. Give us another chance, please. Speaker 1 (5:45) He at one point also says Rome wasn't built in a day and it's like, oh, that. That's the message, dude. Nice one. Do you workshop that? Speaker 2 (5:51) How many days was it destroyed? Totally. Speaker 1 (5:53) Exactly. It's burning, though. Speaker 2 (5:55) What did you guys think of that pitch before we get into all the issues from JD? Speaker 5 (5:59) It's hard to think of a pitch that would more inflame the already inflamed swing voters out there. Because what makes people mad, people's perception is not that Trump has simply failed to do the things he promised to do. And if he were only given more time, he would get them done. The reason people are pissed is that he broke the two core promises of his campaign. Lowering prices, no more wars. And so this idea, like what the pitch here is, two more years of the exact same thing. And that's the opposite of what people want. Speaker 1 (6:28) He also has like no counter argument. He basically says, even if you don't agree with us on every issue, the other party is consumed by craziness. They're consumed by people who want to steal everything, who want to give the country over to illegal aliens and criminals. I mean, I just don't. think that if we're talking about the people who have been conducting corruption and grift and literally raiding the federal piggy bank in plain sight, in broad daylight, that would be this administration. The people who have been self-enriching themselves multiple times over and having their weddings paid for by Russian oligarchs. I mean, just as a matter of principle, saying that Democrats want to steal everything seems like an incredibly losing message. But yeah, overall, could it be less inspiring? I don't think so. I Speaker 7 (7:14) just want to call attention to the setting there. That was a podcast appearance at the All In Summit, the All In podcast, which is a bunch of extremely rich people who had on stage some of the wealthiest people in the world to talk about how they were all going to make more money from artificial intelligence. And that was the setting he used to really show that he felt people's pain. It's a real choice. Speaker 2 (7:40) He's a man Speaker 1 (7:40) of the people. A Speaker 2 (7:41) real man. Speaker 1 (7:41) I will also say the best part of that ridiculous interview, after the sort of polite golf claps, after he says an utterly unconvincing response, is they try and rage bait him by asking Vance. whether Marco Rubio is doing a good job. Speaker 7 (7:54) Oh, I didn't, I missed that part. Well, Speaker 1 (7:55) it was at the very end. Why in God's name would you listen to the whole thing? I mean, I Speaker 7 (7:58) listened to most of it. Speaker 1 (7:59) Well, that's at the end. And he's like, no, Marco's a great dude. In fact, I have a call with him in five minutes as if that's proof of their steel-toed friendship. Speaker 7 (8:10) I thought a funny moment was Jason Calacanis, like, tried to ask him a real question about... well, you guys started this war in Iran and that's like, you know, and you could see like people are like, oh my gosh, a real question. And then some other guy on stage who's not part of the podcast, I don't know where he came from. He was like, I have a question, Mr. Vice President. Speaker 2 (8:27) What's it like to work for someone so energetic who never sleeps? Speaker 1 (8:33) And he's like, it's never boring. It's never boring. He doesn't always ask if we're doing the easy thing, but the right thing. That is literally, Trump has never asked. There's no fucking way. The Speaker 5 (8:44) thing about Trump is that's what he's focused on most. What is morally correct in all stages of his life. Speaker 2 (8:48) Speaking of which, let's talk about the Fed's decision. Trump has wanted the central bank to lower rates for so long, so badly, that he launched criminal investigations into former chair Jerome Powell and Fed governor Lisa Cook. But now his handpicked Fed chair, the new one, Kevin Warsh, didn't just vote to raise rates along with every single other member of the Fed's rate steering committee on Wednesday. He signaled that more rate hikes may be on the way. Here's Speaker 8 (9:16) how Speaker 2 (9:16) Trump reacted to the news on Wednesday. Let's take a look. Speaker 8 (9:18) The board is very hostile. They're very political. They're doing the wrong thing. They're a bunch of politicians or people put on by politicians. And it's a shame. It doesn't matter because he doesn't have the votes. No matter how good a job, he's a good man, Kevin Warsh. But no matter how good a job, he's got a hostile board. Speaker 8 (9:40) Well, I don't know what he was referring to, but I will tell you interest rates are too high. You Speaker 2 (9:46) guys think Kevin Warsh is making sure that all the T's are crossed and I's are dotted on his mortgage application? Hoping he isn't having a home reno project. That's Speaker 5 (9:54) what Speaker 2 (9:54) we're doing right now. Speaker 1 (9:55) My HELOC loan. Yeah, the puppets aren't puppeting. Geppetto mad. Speaker 2 (10:01) Not happening. How significant, both from a political standpoint and an economic standpoint, do you think the... the rate hikes are? Speaker 5 (10:09) I think it's pretty significant from a political standpoint. It's another sign. It's another thing that's going to make costs go up. It hits housing first. It's going to lock more people into their mortgages. It's going to lower the amount of supply on the market. It is going to make it more expensive to buy cars, to use your credit cards. And so that's a huge problem for Trump. And they were hoping for some sort of, it's not just that they went up, it's the opportunity cost because Trump was hoping that rate cuts would juice the economy. Instead, they got rate hikes. Because they went to war with Iran and raised the price of everything. Yeah. Speaker 1 (10:39) Well, and I, you know, we talk about the structural problems facing the American economy and the feeling that Americans have that the dream is escaping them. I mean, home sales are, I think, what was it? Mortgage applications to buy a new home dropped 20%. Speaker 1 (10:54) People don't feel like they can buy a new home. People feel like they can't sell their first home. They're locked into much lower rates. It's this feeling that the entire American economy is rigged only for the ultra-rich, that the most basic sort of standards of wealth and stability are slipping out of grasp. And I think you combine that with all the other, I almost said macroeconomic trends to sound like a CNBC reporter, but you combine it all together. And I think it makes people feel a really piercing sense of hopelessness, which... I think in turn translates to political rage. Speaker 7 (11:25) Also, you know, the Fed can raise interest rates as a way to fight inflation. But if the Fed cannot end the war in Iran or stop Trump from imposing more tariffs and starting more trade wars with... Speaker 2 (11:37) our allies. So there's a limited effect that they can have, Speaker 1 (11:40) even if they're Speaker 2 (11:42) doing everything correct on monetary policy. Speaker 1 (11:44) Totally. And Kevin Warsh is not going to go negotiate with Houthi rebels because that's where we're at in this war. Speaker 2 (11:50) Yeah, we haven't talked about the war in a while because not much progress has been made on. any of our objectives. For six months. For Speaker 7 (11:57) six months. For a war that started seven months ago. Speaker 1 (11:59) It's just going to be a couple weeks, guys. Speaker 7 (12:01) You were talking, Alex, before we recorded about gas prices going even higher. I Speaker 1 (12:05) have a lot to say about this. Yeah, please Speaker 7 (12:07) do. While Speaker 1 (12:08) the Trump administration has been covering up the slaughter of girls in school in Iran and not giving the American public any information relating to the destruction of bases. The Iranian-backed militias are laying waste to oil infrastructure over there. Most recently last week in Saudi Arabia, the oil that's coming through is not coming through the Strait of Hormuz, though the Trump administration would like. people to think that they had created a workaround. Most of it's coming through Saudi Arabia. And the East-West pipeline last week was bombed to the degree that you can see the smoke from space. That is— Speaker 7 (12:48) That's bad, right? That is Speaker 1 (12:49) very bad. Here's— Speaker 7 (12:51) I'd say like five to six weeks for repair. Speaker 1 (12:53) Months. This is the Washington Post headline from last week. Quote, this is the first day that Iran really started winning the war. a Yemeni official said. It's a 745-mile pipeline. It's the principal overland alternative to the Strait. And this is a petroleum consultant who says they'll need to replace piping, valves, all that electrical stuff. It's not like you can just go to Costco and pick that stuff up off the shelf. Yeah, you can't. And do you know what that means? Now we have news this week. Analysts are saying there's going to be a major uptick in oil prices. They're already high. Diesel's like, I Speaker 2 (13:29) mean, Speaker 1 (13:29) we're in the land of the Republic of California where diesel is like $200 a gallon. Yeah. And that just has knock-on effects across the American economy. So like as bad as it is now, in the coming months, it is only going to get worse and it is not expected to go down until 2027 at the earliest. That's like a meaningful bit of news as it concerns pricing, affordability, and also Republican chances. Speaker 5 (13:52) And why the diesel matters is because Diesel, trucks run on diesel. Trucks deliver all of our food and goods. And so all those costs get passed on. So if diesel is expensive, it raises the cost of groceries, everything you buy at the store. Farm Speaker 1 (14:06) equipment that is needed to plow fields, harvest goods. I mean, it's the entire agricultural sector runs on diesel. Speaker 7 (14:13) Yeah, I mean, we've been looking at this through the narrow lens of like what it means for the midterms. But this is now. far beyond the midterms, we're going to have impacts for this. This is going to be well into, this is going to be like what the 2028 presidential race is about. Speaker 1 (14:28) Absolutely. And like, people have our number. Like, it's amazing to me that whoever's running the Iranian regime is like looking at the polling in Michigan and Maine. And they know, I mean, just like the Canadians are making, you know. Tariffs that pierce the veil in very particularly weak spots here. The Iranians know exactly what they can do with drones and Iranian-backed militias that are threatening our allies and their infrastructure. The Speaker 7 (14:53) Canadians who may now join, you know, floating, joining the EU just as a fuck you to us. Right Speaker 1 (14:59) on, dudes. We're Speaker 2 (15:00) doing Speaker 1 (15:00) great stuff. Good times. Great stuff in Speaker 2 (15:02) America. Golden age. So the silver lining in all these dark clouds is that most Americans do seem to be holding the party in power responsible. This week's New York Times Sienna poll wasn't just a big deal because it's the highest Speaker 7 (15:15) quality poll out there, but because it's right in line with an avalanche of public and private polling that shows Democrats expanding their lead over Republicans. Our friend Nate Silver of Crooked's new Still Counting podcast. What? Speaker 2 (15:27) Yeah, that's right. I'm Speaker 7 (15:28) kidding. Speaker 2 (15:28) It's so awesome. I know, it's good. He's got the generic ballot at D plus 7.5. That's Democrats' largest lead of the cycle. A Cook Political Report out this week of the 37 most competitive House districts, which Trump won by an average of five points in 2024, now has the generic Democrat leading by two points in those places. That's a swing of seven points from 2024. Again, these are just the 37 most competitive House districts, so a two-point lead is bigger than it seems nationally. Just to give you an idea of how Republican candidates are feeling about this, here's a new ad. From Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, who's running for re-election in a South Florida district that Trump won by nearly 15 points. Speaker 8 (16:13) Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50 % of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policies. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. I'm not talking about giving them amnesty. I'm talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land. And only you can do that. Speaker 2 (16:41) Quite something. Before we get Speaker 7 (16:45) into discussion about that, Dan has some takes on all these numbers on Polar Coaster. Yes, yes. This week. So he's only going to give us top line takes here. If you really want to get into the good stuff. You've got to subscribe. You've got to become a Friends of the Pod subscriber. It's Speaker 1 (17:01) essential. Speaker 7 (17:01) Let's Speaker 1 (17:01) just be honest. I love Polar Coaster. Thank Speaker 7 (17:03) you, Alex. Also, Speaker 1 (17:04) I can feel the, like, thrum of energy emanating from this side of the studio as, like, we get to the, like, very exciting polling Speaker 4 (17:11) numbers, Speaker 1 (17:11) generic ballots. It's like when my cat knows the treat drawer is getting opened and is, like, sitting there very patiently, but you can feel the fur standing on end. It's important Speaker 5 (17:21) to find work you Speaker 2 (17:21) love. Speaker 1 (17:22) I'm very happy for you and us because we get to benefit from it. Speaker 2 (17:25) Here's Speaker 1 (17:25) the Speaker 2 (17:25) thing. You subscribe, become a Friends of the Pod subscriber. You get Polar Coaster, a lot of our other shows. We have an extra episode of Pod Save America that we do for subscribers. 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