20 days to midterms: GOP 'fleeing' Trump, Hayes interviews Ossoff in Georgia — MS NOW Highlights

[0:00] New details on how Donald Trump's failure to tame inflation or prices is actually harming the entire Republican Party. [0:07] And while some of this may sound like a story that has been a slow rolling disaster, let's not forget it was exactly two years ago in the homestretch of October of the last campaign when he was going around the country promising very clearly that he would lower prices. [0:21] That was like his thing. Apparently, the American people remember. [0:24] And this is feeding a larger disaster for Republicans, according to Republicans. [0:29] I'm going to bring you some new reporting on that tonight within moments, because we are now about just under three weeks out. [0:35] I'll show you the front page of the Drudge Report, which continues to kind of use its same format and be influential. [0:42] And as you see here, President Trump, they refer to him losing the plot, chasing A.I. [0:48] tigers. That's sort of the Drudge sensibility and refers to more of the A.I. [0:53] slop and distraction, disinformation, which, by the way, shouldn't be normal. [0:57] But the president spends untold hours, often late at night, posting all kinds of crap online. [1:02] This is Drudge saying, don't do that if you're going to blow it for his favorite Republican Party. [1:06] The other headlines there, inflation accelerating midterm nightmare approval falls to new low. [1:13] All of that amid nonpopular war. [1:15] And we have new inflation data. [1:18] And this is something where the data catches up with what people are already living. [1:21] You don't need, of course, to check The New York Times or the latest statistics to know how much everything is costing you. [1:28] Indeed, that has been one of the main issues facing Trump and the Republican Party. [1:32] But this data reinforces it. [1:33] Energy costs are up and they're pushing wider prices higher. [1:37] That's the so-called supply chain we've mentioned. [1:39] And over on Rupert Murdoch's Fox Business, here's how it played out. [1:42] Go for it, Taylor. [1:45] We have the numbers. [1:47] So it looks like it's accelerating. [1:49] So these numbers are higher than the previous month and higher than expectations. [1:54] The cost is up 67% on a gallon of diesel. [1:59] I know you don't like headline, but if this is now the biggest jump since May, it is outpacing workers' wages. [2:09] Translation, under Donald Trump, you are getting paid less. [2:12] You are making less in real-term purchasing power because of these problems. [2:17] Affordability, now the top issue on voters' minds. [2:19] Now, I will mention as a political matter, you can kind of mix affordability with, of course, gas prices and the war. [2:26] Everybody understands they're all part of one big problem. [2:28] But affordability, the thing that Mom Donnie and other Democrats put first and early, is now Donald Trump's Achilles' heel. [2:36] And then this brings me to the report I mentioned. [2:37] Politico spoke with five different elected Republicans. [2:42] I'm not talking about aides and staffers and former members. [2:45] I'm talking about Politico, which is a very respected nonpartisan outlet, staking its credibility on the accuracy of its sources and saying they granted these people could be anonymous to explain what they see. [2:57] And here it is. [2:59] Five Republican lawmakers granted that anonymity to speak candidly about this outlook, told Politico the House has all but slipped away. [3:06] A Republican saying Trump's not helping. [3:09] He's made the election all about himself. [3:11] Now, we have to survive that political storm. [3:14] And part of this may sound like the usual blame game. [3:17] These are Republicans, of course, who want to say, oh, look, Trump blew it for us when they are the ones who've been giving him a blank check on all the policies I mentioned, including this war. [3:27] OK, 68 percent of the public is against this war. [3:30] It is not a big, courageous political position for a member of Congress. [3:34] I don't care what party to stand up to the war. [3:36] And yet, with a few exceptions, like Tom Massey, a Republican we've covered, the vast majority of the Republican House wrote him this blank check and the Senate. [3:45] And there have been more votes forced by Democrats since then. [3:47] And they gave him more Iran blank checks. [3:49] So that's part of why gas prices are up. [3:51] And it's part of the inflation chain I mentioned. [3:54] So on the one hand, we've got to say all that because my job is to tell you the news and context. [3:58] On the other hand, the only reason there's a blame game is because they already see something to be blamed for. [4:07] They basically don't think this is close or they can get out from under it. [4:10] Does that mean that we know what's going to happen? [4:12] Of course not. [4:13] You're watching the news. [4:14] I bet you've lived through some elections where people like me or dressed like me or in one of these televisions started saying with sonorous authority exactly what was going to happen. [4:23] We don't know. [4:24] It depends on voting. [4:25] Depends on turnout. [4:25] But they think and they're telling Politico, looks like we're losing. [4:30] We better make up excuses. [4:31] And they're even blaming off the record without their names attached, the beloved president who they've helped every step of the way. [4:39] That is a prelude to the other piece of the story in these local races where depending on where you live, you're hearing more about this. [4:46] You're seeing more ads. [4:47] You might even see debates where Republicans have been suddenly fleeing the recipient of all of their blank checks over the last two years. [4:55] Donald Trump. [4:56] I voted with the Democrats to bring the war to an end. [5:03] In addition, I agree that the president did not have a good plan. [5:09] We need to lower gas prices in this country. [5:11] We need to lower diesel prices. [5:12] But I don't think we need to be making a deal with Russia to do it. [5:15] I have very significant policy differences with President Trump. [5:21] You do? [5:23] Oh, really? [5:24] Where were all these people the last two years? [5:26] I don't just say that as a political observation. [5:29] It is also the case that if you believe them now and you will make up your own mind and you will vote how you choose. [5:34] But if anyone believes them now, the question is, why didn't they do this for the past two years? [5:39] Because the House was narrow. [5:41] That's how they got the Epstein bill passed. [5:42] If even a handful of House members, some of those were Senate members, wanted to actually act the way they're now claiming to save their own seats and jobs, we might not have had all this happen. [5:53] So that's the sound of a lame duck quacking early and Republicans running from him. [5:59] Then there's Charlie Cook, kind of one of the gold standard nonpartisan election forecasters. [6:04] He says this is the election Republicans had nightmares about. [6:08] Now, what does he know that Joe Rogan apparently knows? [6:11] They both are working off data. [6:12] As I said, it's incomplete. [6:13] We don't know anything till people vote. [6:15] But Joe Rogan is one of these new media stars. [6:18] He can see down to each episode, down to each YouTube clip, what people want and like in his audience. [6:26] And he was very supportive of Trump two years ago this cycle. [6:29] And he had a big interview with Trump in the fall two years ago this cycle. [6:32] But he can see where they are now and what they're mad at and what they click on and what they don't click on. [6:37] And in his own Charlie Cook version of math, after that friendly interview he gave Trump in 24, he's saying this now. [6:47] What Trump stood for, some of it turned out to not be real. [6:50] Like one of them was the no wars. [6:52] Well, look, we're at a war with Iran. [6:54] So that wasn't real. [6:55] It's nuts to just give someone a $50,000 signing bonus. [6:59] You train them for seven weeks and then give them guns and you have a militarized force running through the city streets. [7:08] Donald Trump said things he didn't believe. [7:12] He lied to people about what he'd done, who he was and what he would do. [7:17] Who could have possibly seen that coming? [7:20] Anyone with a passing familiarity with Donald Trump. [7:24] And apparently that is now Joe Rogan included and a lot of Americans. [7:31] I want to bring in Bill de Blasio, who is, of course, New York City mayor, tussled with the Trump administration in a past life and knows all about campaigns. [7:38] He ran for president himself, we should note, and also worked alongside Barack Obama on police reform. [7:44] And back with us, our friend Michelle Goldberg, New York Times columnist, MSNOW analyst, frequent guest here. [7:49] When you look at Rogan and Charlie Cook, I argue they come from very different places, but they're reading some version of the same vibe. [7:59] Yes. [8:00] They have their finger on the pulse and they do it very systematically. [8:03] I agree with you. [8:04] I think what's happening here is really quite unusual because most presidents actually struggle to communicate their vision. [8:12] Donald Trump is kind of the anti-Ari Melber. [8:16] He spends time educating people backwards. [8:19] You educate people about the issues, the context. [8:21] He educates in reverse in the sense of he says it's Liberation Day. [8:25] We're going to have tariffs. [8:26] They're going to be amazing. [8:27] And then he changes his mind and he educates people on the changing the mind. [8:30] Then he changes again. [8:31] And there's never an effort to actually say, OK, I hear you. [8:35] Some of this isn't working. [8:36] I'm going to fix it. [8:37] Or we have another policy that might address some of the concerns. [8:39] He keeps pounding away with his lesson after lesson after lesson. [8:43] Tariffs are good and people see prices go through the roof. [8:46] They see economic instability. [8:47] And the same on Iran. [8:49] I've never heard it described that way. [8:50] I don't think he quotes rappers. [8:53] No. [8:53] But he did pardon Kodak Black for domestic abuse, which a lot of people thought was kind [8:59] of the wrong way to go when you look out of that field. [9:02] So, all right, he's the reverse. [9:04] What lessons are people learning if Rogan, again, I said it as archly as I could, Rogan [9:11] would tell his viewers and listeners he thought there wouldn't be wars. [9:16] A heck of a lot of people, you included, Michelle included, have documented this up front. [9:19] No, if you actually just look at the evidence, let's be serious people. [9:22] These are real stakes. [9:23] War is real stakes. [9:25] He didn't mean what he said. [9:26] Now they're learning that, you're saying, after the fact. [9:28] Well, what they're learning is he has told them so many times he brought them a war. [9:32] He brought them tariffs. [9:33] He brought them, in effect, higher gas prices that now he cannot undo the image he has created. [9:39] This is really, I want to emphasize, most presidents don't communicate this constantly. [9:44] He's entirely, quote unquote, on message in the sense of talking about his pet interests, [9:48] but are not working for the American people. [9:51] So now how can he and his party possibly say we are not the authors of this massive inflation? [9:56] They can't. [9:57] And your other point, because Republicans are so captive, they couldn't push him to moderate. [10:02] They couldn't push him for some kind of compensatory policy to give them some fighting chance in this election. [10:07] They're actually trapped in their own bubble, as it were. [10:10] So Trump has perfectly identified himself with the problems and he lied about what he would do. [10:16] So why is it a surprise now we have a political tsunami that's reaching into places like Kansas and Nebraska and places we never thought we'd be talking about at this moment? [10:24] He created that and gave it to Democrats on a silver platter. [10:28] I mean, I think that although I want to be I think the Democratic Party needs to be very, [10:36] very welcoming to people who have just suddenly discovered that Donald Trump sometimes doesn't tell the truth. [10:41] It is incredibly frustrating to look back and see the way people like Joe Rogan let themselves get sort of swept away with this kind of anti-woke like authoritarian chic fervor that was in the air during that election. [10:59] It was always very obvious that the Donald Trump presidency, the first Donald Trump presidency, ended with ended in mass death and insurrection. [11:12] Every endeavor Donald Trump has ever attempted, except for presidential campaigns, has also ended in disaster. [11:21] And so, you know, now this was always kind of going to be this was always going to be how it ended up, I think, or it's always was going to get to this point. [11:33] We are lucky that it has taken only two years instead of three years so that Americans have a chance to weigh in on it. [11:41] But, you know, I mean, I was just in Texas. [11:43] It was really striking to meet Trump voters, not just who are going to vote for Democrats, but who are at Democratic rallies. [11:50] You know, some of whom said like one of whom actually said to me, you know, you can only lie to me so many times and sell me out to billionaires before I'm done. [11:59] John Ossoff, the senior senator from Georgia and the youngest incumbent in the Senate joins me now. [12:03] It's good to have you here, Senator. How are you? [12:05] Welcome to Atlanta. [12:05] It's great to be here. [12:08] Record setting early vote yesterday. [12:10] In fact, it was 50,000 more voters in the first day in the 2022 midterm. [12:15] Do you read anything into that? [12:17] How do you feel about the level of sort of attention and activation being paid to your race? [12:22] There is no doubt that people are fired up. [12:24] We're seeing initial indications of very strong turnout in early voting. [12:29] By the way, we were just talking in that debate last night about our state's health care emergency and our state's refusal to expand Medicaid has driven much of that emergency. [12:39] That's why it's crucial that we win not just this U.S. Senate race, but also elect a Medicaid expanding governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms here in Georgia. [12:48] But look, despite the early promising signs of strong turnout, this is still the pivotal battleground state in the country. [12:55] There is no path back to the Senate majority without winning this crucial Senate race. [13:00] And you heard from the gentleman who was voting out at Pasta Leon Library that we've been ground zero for the president's meddling in elections. [13:08] And just last year, he sent Tulsi Gabbard to oversee a ballot raid in Fulton County, Georgia. [13:14] So we have to win decisively. [13:17] The margin of victory in Georgia has to be so massive that no dirty tricks hatched in the White House can foil the will of the people. [13:23] Well, let me ask you about that. [13:25] We we covered last night, my colleague, Lisa Rubin, this very, to my mind, bizarre letter that came from your state board of elections, essentially like inviting the Justice Department to come in with a few weeks to go to look at the procedures and look at the voter rolls. [13:40] How secure are you that state officials are going to be able to repel anything the feds may try to do to muck around or sabotage the race? [13:49] Well, look, this is the state where Donald Trump was recorded calling Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and trying to bully him to find exactly the number of votes he needed to find in order to overturn the election. [14:02] And the state election board here is dominated by some MAGA loyalists who have been sowing mischief now for many months. [14:10] I am confident that if we have all of the resources that we need to defend voting rights and get out the vote, that we can win decisively here in Georgia. [14:18] But forgive me while I take a moment to address your audience across the country. [14:22] This is the pivotal battleground state in the country. [14:26] We are working hard to get out the vote, but I'm asking for your help. [14:29] You can visit electjohn, electjohn.com. [14:32] Today is the most important and last FEC deadline of the year. [14:36] Chip in five dollars or ten dollars and help us win this crucial Senate race. [14:41] The president, this vice president is going to come to Georgia. [14:45] The president's coming to Georgia. [14:46] When I had Abdul Saeed, who's running in Michigan, and I asked him, what do you think? [14:49] He looked in the camera like you just did now, and he said, please, Donald Trump, Mr. President, come to Michigan. [14:54] We'd love to have you here. [14:55] How do you feel about the vice president and president coming in? [14:58] I know for a fact, because I talk to some of the Republican officeholders, folks here in Georgia. [15:04] Georgia Republicans do not want the president to come. [15:07] I think Congressman Mike Collins, my Trump puppet opponent, the bigot Congressman Mike Collins, is probably the only Republican in Georgia who actually wants Donald Trump to come. [15:17] The president's deeply unpopular here. [15:20] The war is unpopular. [15:21] The tariffs are unpopular. [15:23] The health care cuts and doubled health insurance premiums are deeply unpopular. [15:27] But if the president wants to come to Georgia right now, that's OK with me. [15:32] You just you called Mike Collins a bigot. [15:34] And I want to just play this clip. [15:37] It's been striking the way that you've described him. [15:39] And again, I think based in a lot of pretty vetted reporting about the activities of his son-in-law and the people that he's associated with, I want to just play one clip to give people a taste. [15:49] You maybe haven't followed these debates of your exchanges with the congressman. [15:52] Take a listen. [15:53] But you stand here and say you're going to be a champion for black Georgians when you elevate to positions of leadership in your political organization, people with ties to the Ku Klux Klan. [16:07] You want to explain that to folks across Georgia? [16:09] Did you accidentally put people with Klan ties in your political organization? [16:13] 30-second rebuttal. [16:15] What we need to do for the people of the state of Georgia is make sure that they have money in their pockets, make sure that they have opportunities. [16:22] You do that by getting interest rates down. [16:24] I just have to say, answer this however you want. [16:30] You really seem like you don't like the guy. [16:33] I don't like bigotry. [16:35] I don't like the Klan. [16:37] I don't like neo-Nazis. [16:39] I don't like sitting members of Congress who allow neo-Nazi propaganda to be produced from their house. [16:45] I don't accept that a sitting member of Congress should appoint people to leadership roles in his political organization with documented ties to the Ku Klux Klan. [16:53] And it's not just the folks around Mike Collins. [16:57] It's Mike Collins himself. [16:58] This is a sitting member of Congress who called for immigrants to be executed by throwing them to their deaths out of helicopters. [17:05] Mike Collins personally amplified neo-Nazi propaganda online. [17:10] It's disqualifying for a member of Congress and for a candidate for the U.S. Senate. [17:15] You know, we live in very strong, very strange times in the discourse and just in the time that I've covered politics, particularly on television the last 10 years in the age of Trump. [17:27] And I'm just struck by the way that J.D. Vance and the president are sort of closing this race. [17:34] So you've got the president of the United States calling Abdul-Sahad a jihadist and just using the name Mohammed about him. [17:42] No, it's a middle name. [17:44] But you've got J.D. Vance, basically like his thing now is calling Tallarico gay, I guess. [17:49] Like he said this multiple times. [17:52] You're sort of in the mix in this world. [17:54] What do you think about the level of rhetoric and the kind of rhetoric that has become, has made so sort of commonplace by the president on down his party at this point? [18:06] Look, obviously it is bigoted and offensive, but it's also so politically feeble and weak. [18:14] Forty percent of Americans are going without food or health care to afford gas, and they're throwing around schoolyard insults and taunts. [18:28] And it's getting them nowhere with an American public that has decisively turned against this administration. [18:35] The Trump presidency has failed. [18:38] Donald Trump has cemented his legacy in American history as a failure and a disgrace. [18:45] J.D. Vance will go down as a footnote in that disgrace. [18:50] And right now, the moment is at hand for the American people to use the power that we have as citizens to rebuke these abuses so decisively that no president will dare anything like this again for centuries. [19:04] It's a question of rebuking the abuses. [19:09] We had an MSNOW member who posted this question, which was very in line with what I've been thinking. [19:14] You know, politics is at some level it can be zero sum insofar as you have to focus on one thing and not focus on another. [19:21] And focusing is an act of attention in one place and not a place in the other. [19:25] Prioritization, like what legislation do you move first? [19:27] What do you move second? [19:28] And one of the sort of paths before a possible Senate Democratic majority is meaningful legislation, reform, solution to everyday problems like the ones you outlined in that debate, but also accountability, abuses of power, threats to democracy. [19:42] How do you think about those tradeoffs and your own priorities were you to become the member of a Senate majority in January? [19:49] Look, immediate policy priorities include repeal of the tariffs and end to the war, repeal of the Medicaid cuts, restoration of Affordable Care Act benefits. [20:00] Those are things that can immediately relieve the American people's economic suffering. [20:06] But there does have to be accountability. [20:09] And I want to be clear that when I say accountability, I don't mean vengeance. [20:14] I don't mean something punitive and partisan, but we're a nation of laws in which our Constitution vests the Congress with vital oversight functions. [20:27] And when we face abuses of power and corruption of this magnitude, literally unprecedented in the history of the American presidency, as members of Congress, we have an obligation to investigate and to ensure that those facts become public and that there's accountability for misdeeds. [20:45] It's funny, when you say unprecedented, I was reading the other day that the Teapot Doan scandal, which brought down Warren G. Harding, which was arguably the largest corruption scandal for president, I think in today's dollars was something around the order of $6 to $10 million, which does feel kind of funny when you look at $2 billion in crypto. [21:00] Billions. [21:00] Billions. [21:01] I mean, today there was there was reporting that there were billions in trades right before Donald Trump made big announcements on Iran that were oil trades and that the CFTC was looking into those billions of dollars in what were essentially front running trades. [21:15] And then they were shut down from doing it by the White House. [21:19] How do you get to the bottom of the corruption? [21:22] This is another sort of prioritization question. [21:25] There has been so much. [21:26] I can tell you when we have 44 minutes to cover it every night, it's difficult, right? [21:30] You're going to have fixed legislative time. [21:32] How do you think about prioritizing? [21:34] I think congressional committees are going to have to be disciplined and focused and judicious. [21:39] But you just scratch the surface and you find malfeasance unlike anything before in the history of our republic. [21:46] It needs to be investigated and there needs to be accountability for it. [21:50] Well, today, Donald Trump delivered what I would consider his most unhinged performance at a political rally I have seen to date. [22:02] I don't say that lightly. [22:04] Look, I understand how easy it is to dismiss whatever nonsense falls out of Trump's mouth on a given day, right? [22:11] There's so much that falls out of his mouth on a given day. [22:14] The nonsense is, after all, part of the strategy. [22:16] He wants all of us to be distracted by it, which is why we try to be very selective about what we play for you and what we don't. [22:25] And why we try to be very super thoughtful about what we think is newsworthy and what's not. [22:31] Because so often the noise is just that, it's noise. [22:34] But tonight is not one of those times. [22:36] Because at every one of these rallies, Donald Trump is telling voters to pretend he's on the ballot this November. [22:42] He says it every stop he makes, nearly every time. [22:46] And so tonight, 20 days out from this hugely consequential election day, [22:52] I happen to think that every single Republican in every single race in the country [22:56] should have to answer for the things Donald Trump is saying right now. [23:00] Every single Republican candidate for office that is telling voters they support this guy [23:05] should have to explain to those voters where they stand on this madness. [23:10] They should be asked about a range of things that Trump said in Bullhead City, Arizona today, [23:14] including what he said in an apparent reference to the first strikes Trump ordered on Iran this summer, [23:20] in the summer of 2025 and the subsequent reporting that came out of the Pentagon. [23:27] You know, somebody leaked some sleazebag. [23:29] They ought to go to jail and be shot for the rest of their life. [23:31] They should be in jail. [23:32] Leakers should be, in my opinion, leakers should be shot. [23:36] They should be shot. [23:38] In the old days, we used to shoot leakers, you know. [23:41] Leakers should be dealt with very, very strongly. [23:43] To me, they're the scum of the earth. [23:47] The leakers are the scum of the earth. [23:49] This is not the most important detail, but there were no leaks before the first strikes on Iran. [23:55] But Donald Trump says leakers should be shot. [23:59] They should be shot. [24:01] The question every Republican candidate should be asked between now and November is, [24:05] do you agree with Donald Trump that leakers should be shot? [24:08] Everybody should be asked that question. [24:09] Do you agree with Donald Trump that the U.S. government should shoot anyone who leaks information to the media? [24:16] A simple yes or no answer would suffice for everybody. [24:19] The leader of your party thinks they should be. [24:22] Do you agree? [24:24] Perhaps we might get a clearer answer on something a little less violent. [24:29] And you saw the brand new 747 Air Force One. [24:33] It was about time. [24:34] It was about time. [24:36] I actually, you know, when you're giving gifts, you take them, right? [24:41] When they give you a 747, you say two words. [24:46] Thank you. [24:48] Again, any Republican candidate, every single one of them out there, if they support Donald Trump, should be asked, [24:55] are you OK with the president of the United States gladly, happily, gleefully accepting a $400 million gift from a foreign country that probably wants something in return? [25:05] A gift that I should add raised several national security and counterintelligence concerns and is an open violation of the Constitution. [25:12] And also, to add to it, cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit, according to estimates. [25:19] Do you think that should be allowed? [25:21] Do you think that's a good idea? [25:23] Do you think the only acceptable answer to a gift like that from a foreign country is thank you? [25:27] Are you worried about what Qatar or any other country may want in return? [25:30] Or at the bare minimum, do you think it is appropriate when so many Americans are struggling to put food on the table or fill their gas tanks because everything is so freaking expensive thanks to Trump's war with Iran? [25:40] And when we see stats like this showing 2026 having more days with the average gas price at over $4 a gallon than ever before, [25:49] Trump is on stage in Arizona bragging about the fact that the price of oil is so high. [25:56] Our country is making more money than it's ever made because of the fact that oil is so high. [26:05] Now, they're going to say, isn't it terrible? [26:08] He talked about the fact that he doesn't care about the little person. [26:14] I care about the little person like crazy. [26:16] But the fact is, because of the price of oil, Texas and Oklahoma, North Dakota and all these places, we're making a fortune. [26:26] We're making a fortune. [26:28] Who's making a fortune? [26:30] Exactly. [26:31] Who? [26:33] Republican candidates should have to answer that question. [26:35] They should have to tell voters whether they think the high price of oil is a good thing, like Donald Trump, the leader of their party, does. [26:43] Trump has said versions of all of this before, of course. [26:45] But what's notable now is that he's unraveling at a pace we haven't really seen. [26:51] Now he's making less and less sense, like in this moment, when for some reason during this Arizona rally, [26:57] Trump went on a bizarre tangent about the doctors he travels with and somehow implied they would let someone die. [27:03] I travel with more doctors than any human being. [27:09] If people get sick in the audience, they don't, they leave him alone. [27:12] You know what they call him? [27:13] Collateral damage. [27:16] If that person right over there, a friend of mine, he looks like shit, actually. [27:20] He looks, he looks like he's ready to have a heart attack. [27:23] If he actually had a heart attack, you know what my doctors would do? [27:26] That follow the president, all presidents. [27:28] They would leave him alone. [27:29] I'd say, please help him. [27:30] No, sir, we can't leave your side. [27:32] I said, but he's dying of a heart attack. [27:34] Sir, he's collateral damage. [27:36] Can you believe it? [27:37] I'm sorry, what? [27:40] What? [27:41] Also, that's not what they would do. [27:43] But believe it or not, Trump said all of that as he was trying to attack the intellect of Arizona's Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs. [27:52] Stupid Katie Hobbs, a low IQ individual, in my opinion. [27:59] That's only my opinion. [28:01] But remember, I'm the only one that took the test. [28:03] You know, I took the aptitude test or whatever the hell they call it. [28:06] They say, sir, we're going to give you five words. [28:10] We would like you to repeat those words, preferably in order. [28:14] And what they don't say is at the end of the test, a half hour later, they do it again. [28:20] So you don't know that. [28:22] Five words, sir. [28:23] Your hat, hair, logo, white, black. [28:32] Sir, would you please repeat those words? [28:35] You will get points if you get them all. [28:37] You will get points. [28:40] But if you can put them in order, you get a lot of points. [28:44] Go hat, hair, logo, white, black. [28:50] And they go, holy shit. [28:54] Nobody, no, nobody can do that. [28:56] When I told the fake news about that, oh, that's so easy. [29:00] Nobody can do that. [29:01] Very few people can do that. [29:03] And very few. [29:04] They say very few people can do it. [29:05] But almost none can do them in order like that. [29:08] But I can. [29:09] You know why? [29:10] Because I'm a freaking genius. [29:11] That's why. [29:14] Republicans up for office, running for office. [29:17] Do you think Donald Trump is a genius? [29:19] Do you think the person you saw in that clip is fit for office should be just left unchecked, unfettered? [29:29] Are you comfortable with that person having control of the nuclear codes? [29:32] We know what they'll say, but they should still be asked. [29:35] And the craziest part is Donald Trump seems to actually think he's helping these Republican candidates. [29:40] Here's what he said just after that rally in Arizona. [29:44] I think these rallies have changed everything. [29:46] It changed. [29:47] A lot of things have changed. [29:48] I think a lot of people that maybe were having trouble won't have so much trouble. [29:52] But I feel I owe it to the Republican Party. [29:57] Donald Trump thinks the rallies have changed everything. [30:00] We had to give you a taste there just to remind you of what's at stake here in this elections. [30:04] And he might be right that they've changed everything, but just not in the way that Donald Trump thinks it has. [30:12] President Trump has told voters to act like he's on the ballot, at least in Battleground, Texas. [30:16] Some are. [30:17] A new mayor's poll shows 38 percent of likely voters in Texas, that's nearly four in 10, say when they cast their ballot for House and Senate, they won't be voting for a specific candidate, but instead voting against President Trump. [30:33] So they think he's on the ballot and they don't want him there any longer. [30:36] Joining us, politics reporter at Seba for Dave Weigel, Jonathan Lemire and Michael Steele back with us. [30:41] Dave, Donald Trump has always been an inspiration. Is he still the inspiration he wants to be? [30:50] Well, what they're trying to do, what the entire Republican apparatus is trying to do is convince as many people as possible who voted for Trump in 2024 to come back out. [30:58] And they are learning, I think, door to door how many of those Trump voters are not loyal to him, per se, that they took a chance in 2024. [31:07] Is he helpful for his own base? I think he is. [31:08] I was in northeast Ohio this week when the president rallied Youngstown, and I'd been to Trump in Youngstown a couple of times over the years, starting 2016. [31:18] And did I interview everyone in the crowd? No. [31:20] But there were a lot of people who came from out of state. [31:22] There was less of the person who is not interested in politics, but for the first time, they're interested in this Trump guy because they like what he's saying and he's going to shake things up. [31:33] There was much less of that. [31:34] And so it was more of the faithful and turning out 90 percent of the faithful would win the midterms. [31:41] It's not clear they get there. [31:43] Yeah, that is the question. [31:45] Are 90 percent of the faithful still as faithful as they once were? [31:48] And the polling suggests that, no, that is not the case. [31:52] It is most surprising in Texas, though. [31:56] And I don't want to get ahead of ourselves because who knows what might happen. [32:00] But there there are real concessions being made by Republicans that that Texas looks like it is. [32:06] It is a goner and that it might not just take out the Senate seat with Ken Paxton, Michael, but also the governor's seat with Greg Abbott. [32:14] Well, yeah, not surprising. [32:19] I have been on the Texas bandwagon of those who listen to me know for well over 20 years. [32:28] I've been tracking the trend lines in the state for a long time. [32:31] The Democrats have done a very effective job of of sort of reorienting the voters in one sense by leveling up candidates that like a Tallarico that that play against type. [32:46] You know, everyone has a sort of mindset of what a Democratic candidate in Texas looks and sounds like. [32:52] Well, Tallarico has not fit that bill. [32:55] Voters have responded to him on a very positive way. [32:58] A lot of that has to do with his opponent, for sure. [33:01] But it also has to do with the changing demographics in a state like Texas, which is something I and others have been warning Republicans about for quite some time. [33:10] Again, a lot of that pushback has to do with the changes that we see happening in these states like Ohio, Texas, Mississippi. [33:20] My colleague Simone has put a pin in Mississippi in this cycle for a lot of reasons. [33:26] And that's because those demographic changes, along with the economic pressures that we were talking about before, Katie, have leveled up in a way, as we saw in 2000, 2010 and 2006, which, again, was a was a horrible moment for Republicans on the ballot. [33:44] I know firsthand I was on the ballot that the voters are telling you something and they're saying that you promised me that you would not send my son off to war. [33:55] He's now in Iran. [33:57] You promised me that my economic situation would be better. [34:03] I can't afford to put gas in my cat and my in my car or food on my table. [34:07] So these realities are have come home, not just for those Democrats in other states, as Trump and Republicans always like to make the case. [34:18] It's now hitting home in red states. [34:20] And if you take last point, if you take a look at how the Democrats have performed on the ballot across the country since the 2024 election, they have won every special election from House seats in state legislatures to the United States Congress, except for one. [34:39] That's 37 out of 38 special election races. [34:42] They've overperformed. [34:44] Voters have aligned themselves with them. [34:46] The generic ballot works in their favor. [34:48] And so Republicans now have to live with the the the monster that Trump is for them politically in this cycle. [34:57] Yeah, it's not just Texas. [34:59] Let me read this from Charlie Cook. [35:01] This column had previously noted that Trump's public image has shifted from unpopular to toxic and now radioactive. [35:10] Proximity to him is a heck of a risk for almost any Republican on a ballot this year. [35:14] We're seeing quite a few Republican incumbents getting sucked down by the undertow, even in some unexpected red states and districts. [35:22] It is much more obvious in Senate and gubernatorial races simply because of the of the amount of public polling, even if the most even if most of it is low quality. [35:31] But if this is happening statewide, it would be implausible to think it is not happening at the congressional level as well. [35:40] So there has been a consensus among many that the House is is gone. [35:47] That's going to be Democratic control. [35:48] Even some Republican leaders are saying that privately, at least. [35:52] But the Senate is still sort of sort of up in the air. [35:57] Donald Trump's been campaigning. [35:59] He was in Ohio with Houston talking about his butt, literally talking about his butt. [36:05] But he was in Alaska with Dan Sullivan last night. [36:10] Are these rallies? [36:11] I mean, I know, Dave, you were there for the John Husted thing. [36:14] Lucky you. [36:14] John, are these rallies? [36:16] Is he being welcomed by these these candidates? [36:20] Well, I think in this case, I mean, Trump is giving voice to a silent majority in our country. [36:26] There are a lot of Americans who really do think John Husted has a great butt. [36:31] No, I don't think this is helping much at all. [36:33] He is deeply unpopular. [36:35] His travel itinerary shows you how worried Republicans are. [36:40] I mean, he's it's unthinkable. [36:41] Some of these red states where he is now had to go. [36:44] I mean, Ohio is one thing, right? [36:46] Ohio was a battleground not that long ago, though deeply red the last few cycles. [36:50] But Alaska, Montana, he's heading to Kansas next week. [36:55] You know, so but it's also not clear. [36:57] It shows a lot of desperation that Republicans are like, look, you know, some there are some [37:02] voters who hopefully will turn out if they see President Trump. [37:05] He does still remain popular among portions of his base. [37:09] But there's also not clear this will work. [37:11] I think some Democrats are happy to see him in town, too, that he will be a motivating factor [37:15] for the other side or at the very least, you know, some voters who maybe took a chance on [37:19] in 2024 will see him now and sort of be disgusted and feel like he has been nothing but broken [37:25] promises and will just stay home this time around when maybe they would have been inclined [37:30] to vote for a Republican. [37:34] There are absolutely significant headwinds for the GOP. [37:37] The House, yes. [37:37] And more and more Republicans I'm talking to think there is a real chance the Senate could slip [37:42] away as well. [37:42] Yeah, we'll see. [37:45] It's not just going to be the places that we might have expected in the beginning, like [37:49] Maine, although that's still very much up in the air. [37:51] But you're talking about Kansas, talking about Texas. [37:55] There's talk about South Carolina. [37:57] Who knows how real that is? [37:58] Alaska, Iowa, North Carolina. [38:00] It's not a foregone conclusion at this point. [38:02] North Carolina is gone, right? [38:03] Georgia gone. [38:04] Yeah. [38:05] Yeah. [38:05] Yeah. [38:06] All right. [38:06] Yeah. [38:07] All right, gentlemen. [38:08] Thank you. [38:09] The Senate flips. [38:10] With the president's political power on the line, we're joined now by MSNOW senior White [38:16] House reporter Vaughn Hilliard. [38:17] Jim Acosta is the host of The Jim Acosta Show on Substack and YouTube and former chief [38:21] White House correspondent for CNN. [38:24] Jason Johnson is a professor at Morgan State University and MSNOW political analyst and host [38:28] of the podcast A Word with Jason Johnson. [38:31] And here with me in studio, MSNOW White House reporter Laura Barron-Lopez. [38:35] All right, Jim, election deniers, pardons. [38:37] What does that tell you about his strategy in these final days before the election? [38:43] Yeah, I mean, I think Donald Trump is getting down to Kool-Aid drinkers and next of kin [38:46] in terms of who supports him in the polls these days. [38:48] And so he's going and defending what has been traditional MAGA turf, MAGA territory in places [38:54] like Montana and Arizona. [38:56] And I think that this election day is shaping up. [38:58] I've been saying this on my show as rejection day. [39:00] I think the voters out there have pretty much made up their minds that it's time to slam [39:05] the brakes on this march towards authoritarianism, out of control ice, unaffordable groceries and [39:11] unaffordable gas. [39:12] And Trump is the person who's put himself in this jam. [39:15] So, I mean, it seems to me a lot of these candidates don't want him there and they're [39:19] too afraid of disturbing the delicate bird. [39:22] But at this point, I don't know if the GOP has any other cards left to play other than [39:26] to get Donald Trump out there in these in these states where, you know, he might be able to [39:31] move a couple of percentage points. [39:33] But if it's a if it's a purple district or a purplish state, most of the time, these candidates [39:39] don't want him anywhere near their backyards. [39:42] They barely want him on their websites. [39:44] Vaughn, if anyone is surprised that the president would go to Arizona, stand with these election [39:49] deniers. [39:50] Let's not forget what Steve Bannon said just this past weekend. [39:53] If you go back, we went at the ballot box. [39:58] The MAGA movement has only lost the Pelosi election of 18. [40:01] The core belief of the MAGA movement is we won the 2020 election. [40:05] But you didn't. [40:05] That's not true. [40:06] We did. [40:07] You didn't. [40:07] That's just not true. [40:09] Steve, it's not. [40:10] It's not. [40:10] It's not. [40:11] It's not true. [40:12] It's interesting how they call it the Pelosi election instead of the election where Donald [40:16] Trump was still president and somehow allowed election fraud. [40:21] Any concern, Vaughn, within the White House that the president is doing other Republicans [40:25] more harm than good by campaigning with these election deniers? [40:29] No, because the election deniers that are running rose to power in large part because [40:36] of Donald Trump. [40:37] They are the nominees of their party, like in Arizona, as Andy Biggs is running for governor, [40:43] one of the Republican members of Congress who, after the 2020 election, sent text messages [40:50] to then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about the fake elector scheme and the concept of [40:56] it and that Republican legislature in Arizona should send a different slate of electors to [41:01] Washington, D.C. to be counted on January 6th, right? [41:03] That's the guy that's running, that was given the nomination by Arizona Republican voters. [41:08] And so for Donald Trump, what is he doing today? [41:11] He's going to Mojave County. [41:13] This is a county that he won in 2024 by 55 percentage points. [41:18] In the long theory of the case by advisers to President Trump, including Steve Bannon himself, [41:25] is that the only way to win in this moment is by juicing the turnout and the support in [41:31] these very MAGA communities to make up those deficits among suburban voters, independent voters, [41:37] women voters in places like the suburbs around Maricopa County. [41:41] And to a large extent, they're not necessarily wrong here. [41:44] And when you have those types of candidates, Donald Trump is going to have to follow the [41:48] election denial story to the end because, again, to Steve Bannon's point, voters came back to [41:53] Donald Trump in 2024 because of the promise to prove that the 2020 election was stolen from him. [41:59] Has he done that? [42:00] No, of course not. [42:01] But once you sell that bag of goods to the electorate, you've got to keep running with [42:06] it. [42:06] And this is too late at this moment in time to give up on that. [42:09] But that's not the only bag of goods that he sold, Dr. Jason Johnson. [42:12] He also sold a bag of goods that he was going to improve the economy. [42:16] And as we're on air today, again, 158 days with gas over four dollars, an increase in [42:21] inflation of about four percent since this time last year. [42:25] What is striking to me about that, Bannon Sound, excuse me, I'm very emotional about [42:29] this, is that they used to pair the election denialism with at least a faux populism, but [42:36] they have abandoned that latter part because it no longer matches the president's economic [42:42] record. [42:43] And this is the thing, Alicia, after 10 years of people trying to explain Trump MAGA support [42:50] as economic anxiety, we're finally seeing it, right? [42:53] It wasn't economic anxiety in 2016. [42:55] It was racism and it was bigotry and it was sexism against Hillary Clinton. [42:58] It wasn't economic anxiety per se in 2024. [43:01] It was a lot of similar things. [43:02] But now in 2026, with gas prices being high, with inflation being high, with unemployment [43:08] being at or inconsistent employment being at record levels with with food and grocery [43:13] prices, now people's economic anxieties are making them say, I don't care about trans [43:18] issues. [43:19] I'm less concerned about immigration. [43:20] I'm not worried about who's marrying who. [43:22] I am upset about the fact that I cannot pay my bill. [43:25] So that's what we're actually seeing now. [43:27] There's no policy to go with the sort of bigotry and sexism and everything that happened before. [43:32] And here's the thing. [43:32] You're going to see more of these ridiculous things like offering people pardons and heads [43:38] up saying there's going to be mass shootings. [43:39] We're a step away from Trump basically behaving like Commodus and Gladiator with his thumb out [43:44] saying up or down before he throws somebody to the lions, because the only way you can [43:49] distract people when they are this upset about their daily lives is by bread and circuses. [43:54] But I don't think the bread and circuses are going to save them come November. [43:57] Here's the thing. [43:57] There are now more election deniers on the ballot. [44:00] The United States United Action assessed. [44:04] There are 197 election deniers running in statewide and congressional elections. [44:09] I want to play you some of what our colleague Alex Tabithard in Arizona. [44:14] Does it bother you that the Republican Party keeps on nominating candidates here who don't [44:20] accept the election results here in Arizona? [44:23] Oh, no, no. [44:23] They're fine. [44:24] You know, what they believe in, they believe in. [44:27] And being a staunch Republican, I'll vote for them. [44:33] That's one voter. [44:34] But if these election results come in and there are other Republicans who feel this same [44:39] way and continue to platform this people, what does that then mean for democracy? [44:43] Well, it's not good for democracy because it means that a significant part of the electorate [44:48] believes in a lie, believes that the 2020 election was stolen when it wasn't. [44:54] And it isn't just one voter because the Public Religion Research Institute, which they do annual [45:00] surveys of voters almost every year. [45:02] And during the last presidential election, they found that some 62 percent of Republicans [45:07] believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. [45:10] And they also believe that those convicted for their roles in the January 6th insurrection [45:14] were being held hostage. [45:16] Some 46 percent of Republicans believed that. [45:18] So to Vaughn's point earlier, we've both been covering this for years. [45:22] And the president, as well as a number of other Republicans, think that this is good politics [45:27] to continue spreading these lies about the 2020 election. [45:31] Because the base they've convinced, the president has essentially convinced a significant portion [45:37] of his base that that was reality when it isn't. [45:41] And we saw him give that speech over the summer, again, trying to say that China interfered, [45:47] despite providing no evidence whatsoever, saying that they interfered in the 2020 election. [45:53] So the risk for democracy is that there is a significant portion of Americans that believe this and [46:01] continue to believe it and think that the American democratic experiment is no longer trustworthy [46:08] and then it doesn't work. [46:09] And what happened the last time they truly believed that? [46:12] January 6th happened. [46:13] And I think that you are getting it right, that that is sort of the first layer, [46:17] the most important layer of damage that has been done to our democracy by this president. [46:22] But it goes so much deeper. [46:25] You have the MAGA warrior that Trump is going to be campaigning with later today in Montana, [46:30] Republican House candidate Aaron Flint. [46:32] He is getting a lot of attention for his attack on his Democratic opponent, Sam Forstag, [46:37] during their debate. [46:38] Take a listen and then we'll discuss. [46:39] Jim, defecating in water fountains, I mean, it's not just folks in Montana who deserve better than this. [47:08] Americans as a whole deserve better for our democracy. [47:12] Yeah, I mean, what about the insurrectionists who defecated in the U.S. Capitol on January 6th [47:18] and desecrated the chapel of our democracy? [47:21] A shame on that candidate, not that he has any shame. [47:24] And I will tell you, I've interviewed Sam Forstag, who is running in that hotly contested race. [47:29] That race has been declared competitive now by a lot of different polling analysts. [47:34] And Sam Forstag may win that race. [47:36] And that just goes to show you where Donald Trump, where MAGA, where the Republican Party is right now. [47:41] And I think people have gotten sick and tired of this. [47:45] And I think they've sort of reached their max in terms of stomaching this divisionism and bile and just vitriol [47:53] that's been injected into our discourse. [47:54] Just to pick up, though, on what you guys were just talking about a few moments ago, [47:58] the danger, though, is what happens after Election Day. [48:01] Because I think that we have to steel ourselves of the very real possibility [48:05] that Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson are not going to honor the election results in this country. [48:10] And to me, that is that's as damning as it gets. [48:15] And the Democratic Party is going to have to prepare for what they're going to do. [48:19] My understanding is, from talking to my sources, that, you know, [48:21] the legal battlefield is already being plotted out if and when that occurs. [48:27] But, I mean, these are election deniers who are just not going to give up on this. [48:32] And my sense of it is, is that Donald Trump is going to suffer a massive political defeat on November 3rd. [48:40] And then he's just not going to want to give it up. [48:41] And he's going to have candidates all around the country who are going to echo these election denier talking points. [48:46] And so, yes, absolutely, the constituents in Montana deserve better than this. [48:52] People all across the country deserve better than this. [48:54] But Donald Trump right now has nothing more to offer than what live pardons [48:58] and comments about the backsides of other male candidates, you know, in the field. [49:05] The American people definitely deserve better than this. [49:07] No question about it. [49:08] Hey, it's Rachel. [49:09] I am so glad to see you at the end of that clip, [49:11] because this is where I get to tell you about a new way to watch all our clips [49:15] and all of our shows and everything on MSNOW on your phone or your tablet or your laptop. [49:21] You can watch things live or recorded. [49:24] Plus, you can ask me and all the other hosts and reporters questions in our weekly live chats. [49:29] You can go to ms.now slash membership or just click below. [49:35] Thanks.