“It’s Going to Be a Tsunami” — GOP Braces for Midterm Wipeout w/ Marc Caputo

The Tara Palmeri Show

Tara Palmeri and Axios reporter Marc Caputo dissect the GOP's deteriorating midterm outlook, revealing a coalition gripped by private panic over an impending electoral wipeout. They trace

Key takeaways

• GOP operatives at the Republican midterm convention privately predicted a 'tsunami' wipeout, citing widespread voter disillusionment and economic frustration.
• Diesel prices have risen 72% under Trump, creating a double whammy for Iowa and Kansas farmers already squeezed by tariffs and corn futures collapses.

Main topics

• GOP midterm election outlook
• Economic pressures and fuel costs

Notable quotes

"It's going to be a tsunami, total wipeout. Anyone who says we're going to hold the Senate, it's not going't happen."

Conclusion

The episode highlights a Republican coalition facing structural headwinds

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Guys, I am back from the Republican Midterm Convention, and as you all saw, the speeches were lit. But at the bar, it was quite another thing. Really eye-opening. More like an Irish wake. I wanted to tell you the scoop right away, but as you all know, I was thrown out of the convention with the Epstein survivors, my credentials were confiscated, and I subsequently lost my voice for like two weeks. I've never had that happen before. Clearly my body needed a break, but I'm back. And I wanted to synthesize it all because it looks like the numbers have finally caught up with what I was hearing at the Republican midterm convention. First of all, it's the first time they've ever had a midterm convention. Very bizarre. The RNC chair called it a Trumpapalooza. And it was a big fundraising event. Members who are running for re-election in seats that they're scrambling to defend had to pay $25,000 just to be there. Okay? Now, the first night I managed to get into Trump Jr.'s party, it was at this bar called The Rustic, and inside there were all these bullhorns on the wall, and you could see a lot of Trump allies and operatives having a good time, drinking heavily, seeming to have a great moment and enjoying each other from a distance, okay? Then when I got closer, like with an earshot, I heard stories about pain, misery, and disillusionment. Literally everyone I spoke to said that they could see a catastrophe coming. They thought that everyone else was clearly delusional. Perhaps they were just putting on a brave face for each other. But when I spoke to these sources, these Trump allies, these Republican operatives, it really turned into a therapy session. I mean, I heard anger, sadness, defeat from grown men. One Trump ally pulled me aside as if to tell me. You heard it from me first. It's going to be a tsunami, total wipeout. Anyone who says we're going to hold the Senate, it's not going to happen. They're delusional. It's going to be a wipeout. Get ready for impeachment. Everyone needs a lawyer. Then across the room, another party operative said, what are we even doing here? We are all going to lose. The operatives have known this all for two months. It's over. I guess we're just supposed to party until then. This was the mood. But everyone was drinking, and the second you got close, you heard what was really going down. Now, another person I spoke to at another party who is close to Trump said that he was concerned that Trump had morphed into the person or the entity that he came into office vowing to defeat the elites. You know, they are seeing the crypto money, the alliances with the tech bros, the fascination with the ballroom, the inability to accept that affordability crisis is a real thing. The Epstein cover up. The never-ending war in Iran. And then this person got even more existential. The future of the party. And they said, J.D. J.D. Vance, that is. Has he gotten too close to Trump's cronies? Has it ruined his viability for 2028? This person pointed out that J.D. Vance was just hosted at a fundraiser at the Hamptons home of Omid Malik, a partner in the 1789 investment fund with Donald Trump Jr. And they're thinking to themselves, what is J.D. Vance from Appalachia? You know, the guy who could explain the Trump phenomenon from the working class doing the Hamptons with one of Donald Trump's juniors friends. Has the cronyism started to spread onto him? Does he see it coming? I heard this deep discontent also from my family over Easter. They saw it coming. My MAGA family, they were turning on Trump. Speaker 2 (3:50) months and months ago over the war, over Epstein. But this past week, the numbers, they caught up with the fumes at the bar. For everyone who is just finding this channel for the first time, please hit the subscribe button, comment, like, tell all your friends about this. This is independent journalism, no shadowy funders, just me working for you. Please tell all your friends about it. Check out my work. TaraPalmeri.com, where I have the red letter, my exclusive newsletter. By becoming a paid subscriber, you can support my independent journalism and get all the scoops straight to your inbox. Now, here I go on to talk to my former colleague, Mark Caputo at Axios, who wrote about this phenomenon that I saw three weeks ago. He said that the GOP outlook is... Quote, craptastic. Trump's disapproval has hit its worst mark of either term. Texas is now in play and Republicans are spending money to defend seats Trump won by double digits. Okay. Here's what got me though. Mark's sources sounded more hopeful than mine. Maybe they thought they could pull it off, hope dead, or are they catastrophizing to lower expectations? We break all of it down and more. Take a listen here. Speaker 1 (5:04) Mark, Speaker 2 (5:05) your latest piece in Axios says GOP election outlook goes from bad to craptastic. By the way, who the hell uses the word craptastic? Well, the folklore Speaker 1 (5:17) was that it was also shitabulous, but... The editors didn't want to use shetabulous in a headline. Speaker 2 (5:22) I have never heard either word before. So bravo to whichever source you're speaking to that makes these words up. Speaker 1 (5:29) It's an evolving language and it's an evolving landscape for the Republicans, Tara, and it looks bad. Actually, it looks shit-tabulous for them. Right. Speaker 2 (5:38) I mean, I heard other phrases at the Republican midterm convention that suggested that they all knew that this was going to be a shitstorm for them. But, you know, why have the convention, first of all? Did you hear the same thing and now the numbers are finally catching up with them? Or is this something that they are now just awakening to and freaking out about? No, Speaker 1 (6:04) it's just things are just getting worse. Right. And the advantage of having the convention, it was like, OK, we're here together and we have a sort of a shared purpose and message. And, you know, maybe we could pull this off like there was, you know, maybe it was felt that. Speaker 2 (6:19) Yeah, Speaker 1 (6:20) for a number of people. Maybe it was like, or maybe things aren't going to be as bad as we feared they would. And now it's like, things are getting kind of as bad as we feared they would. At least that's where the Republicans are. I mean, you know, the price of diesel, which now everyone seems to know about and be an expert in, right, has gone up 72 % under Trump since he took office. You know, that's terrible. And that underpins so much of the economy. And then fuel prices. are not showing much signs of coming down, at least quickly enough. So that's just in the nutshell. Speaker 2 (6:53) Yeah. Well, when I was at the bar, it seemed like all the doomers were coming up to me and they were just saying, Tara, this is ridiculous. I don't know why we're here. It's going to be a tsunami. Anyone who tells you anything other than that is a liar. They're telling themselves lies too. Speaker 1 (7:08) So maybe they felt like I would console Speaker 2 (7:10) them and you wouldn't console them, Mark. And they had to tell you sweet little lies. Speaker 1 (7:14) That might have been earlier in the convention. I know there were... At the end, maybe people had enough liquor in them where they're like, OK, yeah, we can do this. But the overarching problems just sort of remain the same. And then you just stack on the other things in there. The Fed had to hike the interest rate. The bond yields are really high. Besant, the Treasury Secretary's efforts to sort of stabilize the bond market in the government's favor hasn't worked. And it's just difficult to look in all of this and find much of a win. Speaker 2 (7:45) Right. So back in July, Speaker 1 (7:46) the Democrats are like, great. And one of the things I think in which we had in our story, and that was a quote from Charlie Cook, from the author of the Cook political report. The phrase he used was really good, which was red undertow. Like maybe it's not going to be Speaker 2 (8:02) as Speaker 1 (8:02) much a blue wave as just, you know, the Republicans just not showing up. And that's a persistent fear that you're just hearing across the country. Speaker 2 (8:12) Makes sense, especially because you have a pollster in your story who also says they can't even get them to respond to their polls. So why would they go to the polling sites to vote? Speaker 1 (8:23) Right. The worry is, is like all a lot of pollsters are having to sort of upweight. You know, you you don't really have enough completes for your poll. So you sort of have to estimate that is weight where the Republicans normally would be. And some of them are like, man, what if what if this is. Republicans just showing us another facet of their lack of enthusiasm. Speaker 2 (8:45) Yeah. So back in July, your sources said this would be the hate election where voters would have to hate Democrats more than they hate Republicans. I'm guessing that plan's dead now. Speaker 1 (9:00) Well, they're still going to try it. If you look at all of the if you look at the all the ad traffic or most of it in Texas, it's. You know, James Tallarico is a weirdo and he's a freak. It's not as sort of a fever pitch in Iowa, which has sort of its unique blend of problems. Roger Marshall is trying to unexpectedly in Kansas, trying to salvage himself like places you didn't expect. The one place that might work for Republicans, and this is a might, is in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. According to one of the people we talked to, he does. Or is scary enough for Republicans to sort of wake them up and be like, OK, we've got to go out and vote against this guy. And so the Republican machine is sort of piling on. Speaker 2 (9:47) Do you think it's wishful thinking? Speaker 1 (9:49) I don't know. The you know, I don't know Michigan well enough, but it's certainly safe to assume that a lot of the 9-11 related statements that, you know, I even hesitate to say Hassan Piker's name. I'm sorry. I guess. Well. that they've attached to Abdul Al-Sayed and all of the other conservative-related issues. That might just work. The thing is, is that you don't have that in, like, North Carolina, where Watley is just getting blown out, and appears to be at least, by Roy Cooper. You don't have that in Georgia, where John Ossoff is making what looks like quick work of Mike Collins, and on and on and on. Speaker 2 (10:28) Right. I mean, Cooper is very popular. So is Ossoff. And now Maine is becoming a problem? Speaker 1 (10:36) It might be. And that's the thing for Republicans. Once you're saying Kansas might be a problem, like everything else might be a problem, right? Nebraska might be a problem. Now, these are mights. We're not saying they definitely will. And one of the things that people like us, we talk to elites, we talk to pollsters, we talk to consultants, we talk to people who do focus groups, we talk to campaigns. And so they're very highly attuned to the stuff. We're all on social media. And so there can be sort of a self. reinforcing narrative where Republicans are psyching themselves more and more out into the idea that they're going to lose and maybe Democrats amping themselves up more and more in the idea that they're going to win. But it might not pan out that way. Like we saw sort of the inverse of that in 2022. Like the polling really showed that it was going to be quite a significant red wave and that didn't happen. So the question is, does the inverse happen here? I don't think so. I do generally trust all the people we're talking to and then just the anecdotal evidence you have. We're just sort of driving around looking at how much gas costs, let alone filling up your tank with gas if you don't own a Tesla or an electric car.