- 12 minutes ago
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00so obviously for republicans there is going to be a huge post-mortem just like we saw with the
00:06democratic party two years ago and it's certainly remarkable to see how quickly democrats fortunes
00:12have changed and i think anything can happen very quickly in this political landscape
00:18and i think we could be looking at a similar scenario in 2028 where republicans potentially
00:24keep the presidency i think one of the big issues obviously for anybody who wins is to think that
00:31you have a mandate and to think that you have basically the exclusive ability to enact your
00:37agenda without any reaction to the polls or feedback that you're getting in real time and so i think
00:45there are a lot of things that trump did like the tariff agenda and rather than see okay markets are
00:50taking people really don't like this favorability is going down rather than take that into account
00:56and maybe recalibrate there was just this emphasis on continuing to go down that road so it's going
01:03to be interesting to see this is certainly going to be sort of a mea culpa i think for republicans
01:08as they evaluate how to proceed which is helpful um and it's going to be interesting to see if
01:13democrats take this as their mandate and go back to either woke one or move on to woke 2.0
01:22and it's
01:22it's going to be interesting i think some republicans i've already spoken to say okay well this is this
01:26is great because in the next two years democrats will demonstrate to voters why they are so insane
01:33they'll be obsessed with impeachment um bring back some of the really woke social issues
01:39and that could sort of wake up voters that okay yeah republicans have a lot of issues
01:45but remember how insane democrats are sure i think it's also an interesting question what exactly the
01:51mandate is that voters handed democrats in this cycle because you have a whole host of different
01:56kinds of democrats that have won it was not a clean sweep of the dsa abdul al-sayed types there
02:02were
02:02some more moderates like you know james talarico who at least tried to tack much more to the center
02:07since his previous statements that were more controversial um and i think that it would be
02:12a mistake for the democrats to assume that this means that we want more mom donnie style politics in
02:17america or that the dsa is ascendant um and i at least in my read this is a move towards
02:23or a plea
02:24for moderation from the american people who seem to be in the past few election cycles more reacting
02:30against those in power than voting for something wholeheartedly um and i i mean i think that there's
02:36a danger that the democrats overplay their hand and they become a more extreme end of their party and
02:42in my view the more measured approach would be to see this as a mandate that you know the american
02:47people just don't want one party in power and they want checks and balances and that would be the
02:52more responsible way to lead going forward but lydia do you see this as a kind of invitation for the
02:57dsa to
02:58uh rise further or become more bold i i think they'll absolutely take it as such but i i disagree
03:06i think talarico was somebody who was extremely radical if you hear some of the statements he made
03:12just a few years ago um you know obviously about god being but but he has tried to talk to
03:18the center
03:18and right right but but i think they're going to point to that and say okay it doesn't matter what
03:23i've done
03:24before if i if i distance myself right even the way that we're seeing aoc say on on these morning
03:30shows now that woke one was crazy that's not what i'm doing anymore i think i think they feel like
03:34this is creating sort of a permission structure for them to have done anything and and as long as
03:39they're pivoting as long as they're messaging a little bit differently thinking that they can get
03:44away with it so you know there were obviously some moderate candidates but there were also really far
03:50left candidates one i think texas people feel like you know some folks are saying texas has fallen
03:56texas has fallen and what does this mean if texas has gone blue can republicans actually win potentially
04:03in 2020 if you have some of these really important states that are now shifting dramatically i mean a
04:10republican i don't think can ever win again if texas is blue in 2028 so the jury's out i i
04:16do think you're
04:17absolutely right that this is clearly a reaction to trump and you know i heard somebody say trump
04:23kept saying vote like i'm on the ballot and people did and that is reflected um obviously in a lot
04:31of
04:31these races and so i i do think there's a sense in which people are frustrated trying to send a
04:36message
04:36and look i mean this is kind of what democrats fell into where they weren't paying attention to cost of
04:42living they weren't paying attention to the economy and i i think there's so much more nuance here
04:47obviously i think trump i i think there's definitely a valid argument for the iranian war but that was
04:52not messaged to the american people so all they know is they go to the gas pump and they realize
04:57oh
04:57shoot my my it could cost this much to fill up my tank so i think people were facing the
05:02consequences
05:03of a lot a lot of these policies and they weren't being told why they were facing those consequences i
05:09i also
05:09think republicans failed to really point out the fact that democratic policies were a failure because
05:16this is this is going to be the problem for democrats is it's easy when you are trying to win
05:21to point to
05:22the incumbent and say look look at look at gas prices this is terrible vote for me but the reality
05:27is they don't really have any real solutions that they can offer beyond just by saying you know trump
05:34bat orange man bat that's what they currently have to offer and even you know we covered this kathy
05:39hochel on her campaign website really didn't have any great details about what she's going to be
05:45offering folks the next four years so i don't think that they're going to offer any great solution if
05:51you're talking about gas prices republicans actually have really tried to they wanted the keystone
05:56pipeline they wanted all these things to allow more energy production here in the u.s uh domestically so i
06:02think republican policies always do lead to more affordability and i mean we see this is the beauty
06:07of federalism people can go to the states that have the best policies and that's why we're seeing
06:13typically people leave blue states like new york and california and go to more affordable states
06:17like texas and florida so i think people may start to see um that some of these policies are problematic
06:24i'll also say i think one this is a on the one hand this is a very small thing that
06:30i think um republicans
06:31are latching on to but they really have tried to start messaging a lot more about fraud and pointing
06:38to a lot of the failures in states like minnesota where we see a huge expansion of the welfare state
06:44where we see so much government spending and some of the the flaws that that creates and the opportunity
06:50for fraud and so jd vance even last week was saying when he was asked about affordability kind of danced
06:56around it and pointed to fraud as his talking point saying oh well we need to address that first and
07:01foremost because that's where a lot of taxpayer dollars are wasted i i don't know that that's true
07:05statistically if you look at the budget but i do think that's an interesting messaging point that seems
07:11to resonate with some voters whether that's salient enough uh to move the needle i think for means to
07:17be seen but it's going to be interesting to see what do republicans try and latch on to
07:21in terms of the messaging sure another thing that i've just been so fascinated by is how ai and even
07:28more specifically on local levels in certain areas data centers may have played a role too um and while
07:35i definitely see the trump administration's argument that this is clearly good for the stock market so
07:40far and it's brought a bunch of abundance to america to have an ai optimist approach i think that
07:47there is a sense that leaders are sort of leaving regular americans behind and particularly everyday
07:54young people who are trying to figure out what their jobs or their futures look like and for some people
07:59ai feels like a real existential challenge and i'm curious lydia do you think that that in any way
08:05played a small role in how people showed up at the polls or didn't show up i guess is another
08:10part of
08:10the story too yeah i i don't think that moved the needle i think people are really looking at these
08:15big
08:16picture issues of gas prices i mean i think it's just when you look at how high gas prices are
08:23i
08:23think that's really the only thing and you're faced with that every time you're driving down the highway
08:27every time you see the gas station i really think it is those bigger issues that people care about the
08:33other thing too that's kind of was was challenging and i don't know that anybody could have done well in
08:38scenarios trump really ran on let's bring prices down and the reality is when inflation has been
08:46accelerating so dramatically you can't bring prices down you can slow the rate at which they increase
08:52which apart from gasoline he did right groceries i think year over year are increasing at less than two
08:58percent so there were a lot of things that he did well but prices were never going to go back
09:03down
09:04to pre-covered levels and so i think people two years in are like wait everything's still expensive
09:09this isn't what i signed up for i thought things were going to get cheaper and that just was not
09:13a realistic message uh to deliver to people and i i think there were a lot i mean obviously everyone
09:20when they run for office they over promise and under deliver um but this was certainly one of
09:24those instances where you did hear a lot of over promising not a lot of uh delivering necessarily on
09:32that front and i i also do think i mean i don't know how things would have gone if we
09:37hadn't gone
09:38to war in iran obviously tariffs were one sort of notch uh down in trump's availability rating but then
09:45the iran war really fractured i think the gop more than any other issue i've seen in recent history you
09:52really saw a lot of anger from more of the populist wing against the neocons and that's going to be
09:59i think a huge question as well who who sort of owns that right because trump is going to be
10:04done he's not going to run for a third term so he's going to be done and gone in the
10:08next couple
10:08years and who who is ultimately going to bear responsibility for a war that is very unpopular
10:14at this point i think jd vance has really tried to dance around that he's trying to distance himself
10:20will marco rubio basically be left with the blame for that but i think this is sort of a necessary
10:26reckoning obviously we've had trump in the political landscape now for a decade i mean ricky
10:32like all of all of your adult life basically all of my adult life and this is a moment where
10:39even if
10:39republicans had one they would have had to figure out do we still want to lean into this populist
10:46movement i don't think there's any going back to the sort of george bush mit romney or paul ryan
10:52fiscal conservatism so i think this is a moment where republicans have to think about what does
10:57the republican party look like in a post trump world and certainly those conversations are going
11:05to be happening um now more than they ever would have otherwise yeah i also to your point about um
11:13bold promises being made on the campaign trail i think you know the administration really set themselves
11:18up by pretty unambiguously saying no new war wars and no forever wars and you know between not ending
11:25the war in ukraine on the timeline that was promised and then now especially having concerns about iran
11:32like swirling around on twitter and social media and tons of rumors right in the lead up to the election
11:36is probably as unfortunate for the republicans as possible but one silver lining that i definitely
11:43personally feel as someone who's an independent and has always been a little suspicious of the two
11:47party system is that there are some early indications that there was a lot of split
11:51ticket voting and you know that that i i think a an electorate that's more complex and that says
11:58earn my vote and it's not guaranteed to you or i'm not expressly partisan um is healthier for
12:03democracy long term i think short term it's just made for a ton of really confusing elections and a lot
12:09of people feeling like they're choosing between the lesser of two evils but you know you saw that with
12:13gen z voters really coming out for trump in 2024 particularly young men it seems like that wave
12:19has kind of subsided a little bit the same with hispanic voters um people are open-minded they're
12:24looking for solutions they're looking for uh new political lanes to potentially hop on to and you know
12:31in my view going forward you know people not just doing the down the line voting every single time
12:37is potentially a silver lining and we'll ask more politicians as they uh vie for people's votes
12:44well and clearly there were some really unfortunate candidates uh particularly in the republican party
12:50that were nominated i mean the idea that you would have somebody's sister you know and i and i feel
12:56for
12:56her it seems like in some ways darlene graham who lost in south carolina i think that was a pretty
13:01dramatic upset that polling did not necessarily suggest that was going to happen i think darlene
13:07graham never should have been put in this place and again how tragic she's mourning her brother's death
13:12but what in the world is this some sort of like aristocracy where you inherit a senator seat like
13:18american people are not down with that so she clearly had a lot of moments um in the primary debate
13:24with her opponent basically saying she didn't know a lot about foreign policy and couldn't talk about
13:30taiwan which you know you've been in the senate a couple months at that point you're running for
13:35this office that's not something that you can be flipping about ken paxton really was saddled with a
13:41lot of baggage about corruption and this is a moment where 88 of americans say corruption is one of their
13:48top concerns which is understandable given the climate but also pretty staggering um that that is such
13:56important issue for americans right alongside the economy and some of these other pocketbook issues
14:02and so somebody like paxton who has all of these question marks a lot of scandal a lot of videos
14:10that
14:10kept coming out about him partying in the uae uh just not a lot of great headlines and i think
14:16people
14:16really what we've seen have a strong reaction to that and don't want to feel like they're sending
14:20somebody to washington who is going to profit off of them that was obviously one of the promises that
14:26trump made initially was let's drain the swamp right let's get rid of these ngos and all the corruption
14:32in dc and um people obviously had hoped that would happen and um there's a lot more of the swamp
14:37to
14:38drain still do you how important of an issue do you think that is ricky oh i think it's a
14:43completely
14:44important issue and i mean unfortunately in some ways it seems that members of the trump family are
14:48reflecting what the biden family was doing not so long ago um and i think people have lost faith and
14:54in in my view i think that just these past few election cycles have really been parties being
14:59humbled pretty deeply and it's unclear who really has the cultural uh sway in this country that in a
15:05lasting and staying way um i i'm not really sure what to think going forward and i think if if
15:13these
15:13past election cycles have taught anyone anything it's uh wait to make your predictions a little bit
15:18longer yeah i'm also curious too i mean trump this wasn't a white house official statement but lots of
15:25outlets reporting that he was saying i'm not on the ballot right so i'm not bearing responsibility for
15:32these losses which is a pretty
15:37confident statement i'm looking for the right word uh to say in the wake of a pretty sweeping loss
15:44for republicans and so it's going to be interesting is he uninhibited in the last two years does he
15:50like obama rely on his his phone and his pen and push forward with a lot of executive orders
15:58i would think absolutely yes but of course he's going to be really handicapped any sort of impact
16:04that we were hoping to have on the supreme court you know some potential retirees sam alito i think
16:10had hinted he might be looking for the exits i i would be skeptical somebody like him would leave
16:16in the next two years and if he doesn't leave the next two years when does he leave so i
16:21think we could
16:22be looking at the supreme court changing pretty dramatically not going to be possible to really get
16:27any nominees any appointees through in the remaining years um interesting to note though some presidents
16:33have despite losing uh congress in their final couple years have tried to make a lot of dramatic
16:39changes i think it was in his final two years that obama joined the paris climate accord um that he
16:45made that iran deal that were still depending on which side you were on either suffering from or
16:53benefiting from so there are certainly things especially in terms of foreign policy that trump
16:58could continue to do in the in the final few years of his term yeah i think it's funny what
17:03you said um
17:04at the beginning about trump saying that he wasn't on the ballot because for quite a long time he was
17:08saying vote as though i am on the ballot um and this was a pretty predictable outcome when i was
17:14looking
17:14to see what he had said on truth social i'm like i know that he will somehow uh figure out
17:18a way to
17:19justify this and i think that that might be an indication of how the rest of his presidency is
17:24going to go frustration and sort of a inability to look inwards in my view