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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 and i think we
00:19could be looking at a similar scenario in 2028 where republicans potentially keep the presidency
00:25i think one of the big issues obviously for anybody who wins is to think that you have a
00:31mandate and to think that you have basically the exclusive ability to enact your agenda without
00:38any reaction to the polls or feedback that you're getting in real time and so i think there are a
00:46lot
00:46of things that trump did like the tariff agenda and rather than see okay markets are taking people
00:51really don't like this favorability is going down rather than take that into account and maybe
00:58recalibrate 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
01:07as they evaluate how to proceed which is helpful um and it's going to be interesting to see if
01:12democrats 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 is
01:27great because in the next two years democrats will demonstrate to voters why they are so insane they'll
01:33be obsessed with impeachment um bring back some of the really woke social issues and that could sort
01:41of wake up voters that okay yeah republicans have a lot of issues but remember how insane democrats are
01:48sure i think it's also an interesting question what exactly the mandate is that voters handed democrats
01:53in this cycle because you have a whole host of different kinds of democrats that have won it was
01:58not a clean sweep of the dsa abdul al-sayed types there were some more moderates like you know james
02:04tallarico who at least tried to tack much more to the center since his previous statements that were more
02:09controversial um and i think that it would be a mistake for the democrats to assume that this
02:14means that we want more mom donnie style politics in america or that the dsa is ascendant um and i
02:20at least in my read this is a move towards or a plea for moderation from the american people who
02:27seem to be in the past few election cycles more reacting against those in power than voting for
02:33something wholeheartedly um and i i mean i think that there's a danger that the democrats overplay
02:38their hand and they become a more extreme end of their party and in my view the more measured approach
02:44would be to see this as a mandate that you know the american people just don't want one party in
02:49power
02:49and they want checks and balances and that would be the more responsible way to lead going forward but
02:54lydia do you see this as a kind of invitation for the dsa to uh rise further or become more
03:01bold
03:02i i think they'll absolutely take it as such but i disagree i think tallarico was somebody who was
03:09extremely radical if you hear some of the statements he made just a few years ago um you know obviously
03:15about god being but but he always tried to talk to the center and right right but but i think
03:21they're
03:21going to point to that and say okay it doesn't matter what i've done before if i if i distance
03:26myself
03:26right even the way that we're seeing aoc say on on these morning shows now that woke one was crazy
03:32that's not what i'm doing anymore i think i think they feel like this is creating sort of a permission
03:36structure for them to have done anything and and as long as they're pivoting as long as they're
03:41messaging a little bit differently thinking that they can get away with it so you know there were
03:47obviously some moderate candidates but there were also really far left candidates what i think texas people
03:52feel like you know some folks are saying texas has fallen texas has fallen and what does this mean
03:58if texas has gone blue can republicans actually win potentially in 2020 if you have some of these
04:05really important states that are now shifting dramatically i mean a republican i don't think
04:11can ever win again if texas is blue in 2028 so the jury's out i i do think you're absolutely
04:17right that
04:18this is clearly a reaction to trump and you know i heard somebody say trump kept saying vote like i'm
04:25on the ballot and people did and that is reflected um obviously in a lot of these races and so
04:32i i do
04:33think there's a sense in which people are frustrated trying to send a message and look i mean this is
04:37kind of what democrats fell into where they weren't paying attention to cost of living they weren't paying
04:43attention to the economy and i i think there's so much more nuance here obviously i think trump i
04:49think there's definitely a valid argument for the iranian war but that was not messaged to the american
04:54people so all they know is they go to the gas pump and they realize oh shoot my my it
04:59costs this much to
05:00fill up my tank so i think people were facing the consequences of a lot a lot of these policies
05:04and
05:04they weren't being told why they were facing those consequences i i also think republicans
05:12failed to really point out the fact that democratic policies were a failure because this is this is
05:17going to be the problem for democrats is it's easy when you are trying to win to point to the
05:23incumbent
05:23and say look look at look at gas prices this is terrible vote for me but the reality is they
05:28don't
05:28really have any real solutions that they can offer beyond just by saying you know trump bad orange
05:34man bad that's what they currently have to offer and even you know we covered this kathy hochel on
05:40her campaign website really didn't have any great details about what she's going to be offering folks
05:46the next four years so i don't think that they're going to offer any great solution if you're talking
05:51about gas prices republicans actually have really tried to they wanted the keystone pipeline they wanted
05:56all these things to allow more energy production here in the u.s uh domestically so i think republican
06:03policies always do lead to more affordability and i mean we see this is the beauty of federalism people
06:08can go to the states that have the best policies and that's why we're seeing typically people leave
06:14blue states like new york and california and go to more affordable states like texas and florida so
06:20i think people may start to see um that some of these policies are problematic i'll also say i think
06:26one this is a on the one hand this is a very small thing that i think um republicans are
06:31latching
06:31on to but they really have tried to start messaging a lot more about fraud and pointing to a lot
06:38of the
06:39failures in states like minnesota where we see a huge expansion of the welfare state where we see so
06:45much government spending and some of the the flaws that that creates and the opportunity for fraud and
06:51so jd vance even last week was saying when he was asked about affordability kind of danced around it
06:56and pointed to fraud as his talking point saying oh well we need to address that first and foremost
07:01because 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
07:10seems to resonate with some voters whether that's salient enough uh to move the needle i think for
07:17means to be 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
07:28specifically on local levels in certain areas data centers may have played a role too um and while i
07:35definitely 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
07:54everyday young people who are trying to figure out what their jobs or their futures look like and
07:58for some people ai feels like a real existential challenge and i'm curious lydia do you think that
08:04that in any way played a small role in how people showed up at the polls or didn't show up
08:09i guess is
08:09another part of the story too yeah i i don't think that moved the needle i think people are really
08:15looking at these big picture issues of gas prices i mean i think it's just when you look at how
08:21high
08:22gas prices are i think that's really the only thing and you're faced with that every time you're
08:27driving down the highway every time you see the gas station i really think it is those bigger issues
08:32that people care about the other thing too that's kind of was was challenging and i don't know that
08:37anybody could have done well in this scenario was trump really ran on let's bring prices down
08:42and the reality is when inflation has been accelerating so dramatically you can't bring
08:48prices down you can slow the rate at which they increase which apart from gasoline he did right
08:55groceries i think year over year are increasing at less than two percent so there were a lot of
09:00things that he did well but prices were never going to go back down to pre-covid levels and so
09:05i think
09:05people two years in are like wait everything's still expensive this isn't what i signed up for i thought
09:10things were going to get cheaper and that just was not a realistic message uh to deliver to people
09:17and i i think there were a lot i mean obviously everyone when they run for office they over promise
09:21and under deliver um but this was certainly one of those instances where you did hear a lot of
09:27over promising not a lot of uh delivering necessarily on that front and i i also do think i mean
09:34i don't
09:35know how things would have gone if if we hadn't gone to war in iran obviously tariffs were one sort
09:41of notch uh down in trump's availability rating but then the iran war really fractured i think the gop
09:48more than any other issue i've seen in recent history you really saw a lot of anger from more
09:54of the populist wing against the neocons and that's going to be i think a huge question as well who
10:01who
10:01sort of owns that right because trump is going to be done he's not going to run for a third
10:05term so
10:06he's going to be done and gone in the next couple years and who who is ultimately going to bear
10:11responsibility for a war that is very unpopular at this point i think jd vance has really tried to
10:17dance around that he's trying to distance himself will marco rubio basically be left with the blame for
10:23that but i think this is sort of a necessary reckoning obviously we've had trump in the political
10:30landscape now for a decade i mean ricky like all of all of your adult life basically all of my
10:35adult
10:36life and this is a moment where even if republicans had one they would have had to figure out do
10:44we
10:44still want to lean into this populist movement i don't think there's any going back to the sort of
10:48george bush mit romney or paul ryan fiscal conservatism so i think this is a moment where
10:55republicans have to think about what it what does the republican party look like in a post trump
11:02world and certainly those conversations are going to be happening um now more than they ever would
11:09have otherwise yeah i also to your point about um bold promises being made on the campaign trail i think
11:15you know the administration really set themselves up by pretty unambiguously saying no new war wars and no
11:21forever wars and you know between not ending the war in ukraine on the timeline that was promised and
11:28then now especially having concerns about iran like swirling around on twitter and social media and
11:34tons of rumors right in the lead up to the election is probably as unfortunate for the republicans as
11:40possible but one silver lining that i definitely personally feel as someone who's an independent and
11:46has always been a little suspicious of the two-party system is that there are some early indications
11:50that there was a lot of split ticket voting and you know that that i i think a an electorate
11:56that's
11:56more complex and that says earn my vote and it's not guaranteed to you or i'm not expressly partisan
12:02is healthier for democracy long term i think short term it's just made for a ton of really confusing
12:07elections and a lot of people feeling like they're choosing between the lesser of two evils but you know
12:12you saw that with gen z voters really coming out for trump in 2024 particularly young men it seems like
12:18that wave has kind of subsided a little bit the same with hispanic voters um people are open-minded
12:24they're looking for solutions they're looking for uh new political lanes to potentially hop on to and
12:31you know in my view going forward you know people not just doing the down the line voting every single
12:37time is 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 the polling did not necessarily suggest that was going to happen i think darlene graham never
13:08should have been put in this place and again how tragic she's mourning her brother's death but
13:13what in the world is this some sort of like aristocracy where you inherit a senator seat like american
13:19people are not down with that so she clearly had a lot of moments um in the primary debate with
13:25her
13:25opponent basically saying she didn't know a lot about foreign policy and couldn't talk about taiwan
13:31which you know you've been in the senate a couple months at that point you're running for this office
13:36that's not something that you can be flipping about ken paxton really was saddled with a lot of baggage
13:41about corruption and this is a moment where 88 of americans say corruption is one of their top
13:49concerns which is understandable given the climate but also pretty staggering um that that is such an
13:56important issue for americans right alongside the economy and some of these other pocketbook issues and so
14:02somebody like paxton who has all of these question marks a lot of scandal a lot of videos that kept
14:11coming out about him partying in the uae uh just not a lot of great headlines and i think people
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
14:31corruption in dc and um people obviously had hoped that would happen and um there's a lot more of
14:37the swamp to drain still do you how important of an issue do you think that is ricky oh i
14:42think it's
14:43a completely important issue and i mean unfortunately in some ways it seems that members of the trump
14:47family are reflecting what the biden family was doing not so long ago um and i think people have lost
14:53faith and in in my view i think that just these past few election cycles have really been parties being
14:58humbled 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
15:25of outlets 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 i would think absolutely yes but of course he's gonna be really handicapped any sort of impact that
16:05we were hoping to have on the supreme court you know some potential retirees sam alito i think had
16:10hinted he might be looking for the exits i i would be skeptical somebody like him would leave in the
16:16next two years and if he doesn't leave the next few years when does he leave so i think we
16:21could be
16:22looking at the supreme court changing pretty dramatically not going to be possible to really
16:26get any nominees any appointees through in the remaining years um interesting to note though some
16:33presidents have despite losing uh congress in their final couple years have tried to make a lot of
16:39dramatic changes i think it was in his final two years that obama joined the paris climate accord
16:44um that he made that iran deal that were still depending on which side you were on either
16:52suffering from or benefiting from so there are certainly things especially in terms of foreign
16:57policy that trump could continue to do in the in the final few years of his term yeah i think
17:02it's
17:03funny what you said um at the beginning about trump saying that he wasn't on the ballot because for
17:07quite a long time he was saying vote as though i am on the ballot um and this is a
17:12pretty predictable
17:13outcome when i was looking to see what he had said on truth social i'm like i know that he
17:17will somehow
17:17uh figure out a way to justify this and i think that that might be an indication of how
17:22the rest of his presidency is going to go frustration and sort of a inability to look inwards in my
17:28view
17:29so
17:29you
17:29you