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00:00The blue tsunami. This is the cover of the New York Post the day after the midterm elections.
00:05There is no doubt that Democrats had a huge night, but in the wake of the blue tsunami,
00:09what does the GOP do to move forward? To answer that very question, I am joined by
00:14Isaac Shore, Josh Hammer, Carol Markowitz, and Miranda Devine. Thanks for joining us, guys.
00:20Josh, I want to start with you. I want to start with something you actually posted on X.
00:25You wrote, the right must learn its lessons, and they must be the correct lessons, not
00:31convenient scapegoats. What does that look like to you?
00:35Well, I think it begins with not blaming the Jews. That would be a great place to start. I think
00:39that
00:40was the instinct that we saw, unfortunately, from the vice president of the United States,
00:43and I expect that that will be the instinct of a lot of people, is to blame all the various
00:47woes
00:48on the Iran war, on the U.S.'s relationship, and things like that. That is the lowest of all
00:53low-hanging fruits when it comes to contemporary scapegoats, when it comes to scapegoats literally
00:57going back to biblical times. So I think, listen, there's a lot to talk about when it comes to the
01:02Iran war, and I see a lot of people trying to say that all this was due to the Iran
01:06war. Now,
01:07I have personally been quite critical of the way that President Trump has handled the Iran conflict
01:11since April. As soon as he called the premature ceasefire on April 8th, I basically knew it was
01:15game over, and I've had a lot of questions since then. The Swiss Alpine diplomacy, the Qatari
01:20mediators, this, that. But the point is that a political party does not suffer
01:24a generational rebuke, a historical wipeout, the likes of which has really never happened in my
01:30entire lifetime, simply due to a war. There are deeper issues. Now, if you take a little bit
01:35longer view, if you go back to so-called Liberation Day in the Rose Garden in the White House in
01:40April
01:402025, when Trump enrolled his universal tariff regime, that really was when his approval rating
01:46started to drop. And I think more generally, what has happened here, whether it is the obsession
01:52with the tariffs, whether it is a lot of these, let's call them niche issues, whether it's the
01:57arc, the ballroom, things like that, you know, naming Lake Ontario, the Gulf of America, this,
02:03that. There's been an emerging real delta that I think has emerged between what is happening out
02:08of this White House, including the corruption issue, and what the people are screaming from the
02:12top of their lungs that they actually care about. And this movement started in 2016 as a
02:16populist movement. Populism literally means of buy-in for the people, to paraphrase Mr.
02:20Lincoln himself in 1863 in Gettysburg. So a true populist movement should seek to reflect
02:25the people. And what I worry about is that this administration, in many ways, has gone quite
02:29a bit far from that. Miranda, you sat down with the president a few times over the last year
02:34on Pod Force One. You know, I've seen in our own editorials, people writing that this was
02:41predictable. Do you feel that this was predictable? And do you feel that this was a referendum on the
02:46president and the president's administration versus, you know, a group of like-minded Democrats
02:51deciding to vote blue? Oh, no, it was clearly a referendum on Donald Trump, his presidency. He asked
02:59the voters to pretend that he was on the ballot, and they delivered a whooping across the country. So
03:05there's no way that he can wash his hands of the calamity that is now facing the Republicans.
03:13I think he's admitted today that the war was a part of it. J.D. Vance wrote that lengthy X
03:22post about that. And he, you know, realised that the gas prices and so on were a short-term factor
03:30of dissatisfaction among the electorate. But, you know, I think his sort of style of smash-mouth
03:38politics, it didn't work. It alienated people and caused more trouble than it was worth. And,
03:45you know, he was really a turnout machine for Democrats because, you know, Trump derangement
03:52syndrome, he stoked that. He seemed to revel in it. And it certainly galvanised people to go to the
03:59polling stations, including Republicans or people who voted Republican in 2024 and then flicked this
04:09time. And Miranda, that brings me, that is such an amazing point, the fact that it was not just,
04:15blue voters. It was not just Democrats. It wasn't independents. It was, in addition to that,
04:19some Republicans. And, Carol, I want to bring you in here because you are a self-described
04:24Trump flipper. You went from being not a pro-Trump to being pro-Trump. And in a post that you
04:30wrote
04:30for the New York Post just a few weeks ago, your first line is, let's admit it, Donald Trump's second
04:36term so far has been a wild success. So what is it that you see in his presidency and in
04:42his
04:42administration that you just don't think was translated to the wider electorate yesterday?
04:47I have really great timing with the polling. That was quite the first line.
04:54That's the thing. I think this administration has been fantastic. And the problem, I think,
04:59has been largely communication. I'm with Josh that as soon as the ceasefire deal was reached with Iran,
05:05I knew things were going to head south. And that's where, when they did. But until that point,
05:11I thought we were doing an amazing job in Iran. We took out some of their most senior leadership. We
05:17set back their nuclear program. I thought things were going great. The Strait of Hormuz being closed,
05:22obviously, was a challenge, one that we ended up overcoming. So the fact is that I thought that
05:28things were going very well on that front until we tried to kind of prematurely cut out of there.
05:36And I think Trump kind of knows that now. And he keeps making these motions that we might attack
05:42Iran again. Other things like, for example, gas prices. Of course, gas prices are higher. But what
05:48I don't understand and what makes me completely confused about what voters did yesterday is how do
05:53you think Democrats are going to bring down those prices? Democrats are on the record saying they
05:58want higher gas prices. They don't think people should be driving gas cars and they think you
06:03should pay a premium in order to do so. Gas is like $7 to $8 in California. It's not the
06:08case in
06:09Red Florida. So I don't really understand the impulse of our gas prices are high. Let's vote for people
06:15that are going to make them higher. So many other things in the Trump administration that I've just
06:20enjoyed. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is doing fantastic work. I mean, things that we just
06:27completely don't think about where a segment of the population like white men were not welcome to
06:33apply for certain jobs. Now that EEOC goes after employers that do stuff like that. We no longer
06:39just accept that as all part of life. And just ongoing things. I love how Pete Hegsath has remade our
06:46military. I get it. I'm not on the popular winning side of this argument right now. But I have to
06:53tell my
06:53readers the truth, you know, whether when I support Trump and when I don't. And I also don't try to
06:59fit
07:00my narrow interest into what I think of him. Like, for example, I'm against the tariffs, but he ran on
07:06the tariffs. So if you're against them, what did you think you were voting for when you voted for him?
07:11You know, to answer your question in, I mean, as simple a way as possible, I think voters who are
07:19stretching their bank accounts, who can't afford child care or who are struggling to fill up their
07:23gas tanks, who are paying a ton of money for one bag of groceries. I think the only thing they
07:28can
07:28go in there thinking is, well, this is what I know and it's not working. Maybe the other side will
07:33work.
07:34I don't know if that's going to be the case. We're going to have to see whether or not that's
07:38going to
07:38come down. And Isaac, that brings me to a piece that you wrote about what happens next for Democrats
07:45when they come into both chambers of Congress. You list out two, three, four, five different ways
07:53that Democrats could address big issues by working with the president and maybe get some governing
07:58done. But you follow that up by saying it's not going to happen. They're going to dig in their heels.
08:03Nothing's going to get done. Why do you think that is?
08:07Well, absolutely. And I think the reason for that is the Democratic base does not want
08:14their elected officials to work with the president. They have zero interest in that.
08:18And also now with this kind of new squad coming in, Daria Liza, all of these Mamdani endorsed
08:26candidates. I mean, the Democratic Party is headed so far left. They have zero interest in the kind
08:33of horse trading and compromise that could yield actual results for the American people.
08:39So what we're going to see over the next couple of years is a lot of messaging about how terrible
08:44the president is, how terrible his agenda has been for the country. What we're not going to see are any
08:51results. And we're not going to see. And that's a shame for Democrats, because I think they could
08:57actually get a lot of out of the president. You know, he is pretty susceptible to a charm offensive,
09:03as we've seen. But I don't think he's going to get one.
09:07You know, my question, and I can I'm going to throw this out to everybody and anybody can kind
09:11of jump in. Corruption was seen in exit polls as being something that was really important to voters
09:17that opens up a huge potential can of worms for the next Congress, because do you spend your time
09:24going after what you believe to be a corrupt administration? Or do you spend your time
09:30trying to govern? There's only so many days in a year. There's only so many senators and
09:35representatives out there. You can't do everything.
09:39Well, I think that they will focus heavily on the corruption. I think to Isaac's points that
09:44they don't really have a whole lot of interest in governing for the sake of governing. I mean,
09:47frankly, if you want to take a longer view of this, you know, the vast majority of actual
09:51day to day governance in Washington does not happen at the U.S. Congress. You know, I mean,
09:55constitutional law people like myself wish that were the case. We wish that Congress would
09:59actually do its Article I, you know, Section I, Clause I prerogative to actually make the
10:04laws of the country. But at least since Woodrow Wilson came into power and created the unelected,
10:09unaccountable fourth branch, a.k.a. the deep state, that that's just not how it happened.
10:13So I think that President Trump, I think the corollary of that will continue to do this kind
10:18of quasi-Obama-esque pen-and-a-phone strategy for the remaining two years, something that he's
10:22already done quite well, actually, quite successfully for his first year and a half, two years,
10:25no matter what you may think of the constitutional merits of that. He is, I think, had a lot of
10:30sweeping and quite efficacious executive orders. But the flip side is that Congress is not going
10:35to be very interested in trying to pass laws either. And I think Democrats absolutely will
10:38spend these at least a minimum. You know, Speaker Jeffries, Majority Leader Schumer, I mean,
10:43grossly to say those terms, right? But these guys will spend these first three to four months
10:46starting in January, you know, doing the subpoenas and the investigations and then this,
10:51just to that. And they promise to do just that. I mean, many of the elected lawmakers have promised
10:56to do exactly that. I mean, Miranda, I think back to all of the different sit-downs that you have
11:02had
11:02with different cabinet administrators. Do you feel like, based on your conversations with people in
11:07the Trump administration, that there will be any kind of appetite to come to the table and meet some
11:13of the Democrats where they are? Well, President Trump has already said in an interview with Fox
11:20News that he was very willing to do deals with the Democrats. He told me on Friday that he was
11:30going
11:30to be Mr. Veto and veto bills, but he was more conciliatory when he spoke to Brett Baer last night.
11:36And he said, look, they can bring deals to me, bring bills to me, and I can, you know, cross
11:42them
11:42off with a pen. Or we can do deals, for instance, and he raised the topic of immigration. Now, amnesty,
11:51a legal pathway to citizenship for the 20 million illegal aliens that Joe Biden brought in, that's
11:58definitely on the agenda for James Tallarico has mentioned it, so has Abdul El-Sayed. James Tallarico is
12:06the Democrat who's so far shown the most willingness to sit down with President Trump. He even
12:14complimented Trump when he had an interview with Fox News and later on with CNN, when he called him
12:20a builder. And he said, you know, I can work with Donald Trump for immigration. And I mean, that would
12:26be an absolute abject treachery of the president if he were ever to go down that path to offer amnesty.
12:36And, you know, that's something that's been an absolute no-go zone for his base for a long time.
12:42So while immigration, especially among Latino voters, was an issue, it was more about the
12:48clumsiness, ham-handedness of some of the immigration enforcement. It wasn't about closing
12:54the border. And it wasn't about having the deportations of criminals and so on. I don't think
13:00that President Trump is going to make a lot of friends among his remaining supporters if he goes
13:08down that path. But he's not running for president again. So now I think, and you guys can correct me
13:13if I'm wrong, it really does become about the president's legacy. What is he leaving D.C. with?
13:19What is he leaving the White House with aside from a big, beautiful, glittery ballroom? I mean,
13:24what are people going to remember about him? And the dealmaker-in-chief does seem to be what he
13:29always kind of circles back to. So if you have someone like Tallarico willing to work with the
13:34president, the president already saying, hey, if they can come to the table and try to make a deal
13:38with me, you know, I'm all ears when it comes to that. I mean, Isaac, do you think that the
13:43far
13:43left wing of the Democratic Party is going to end up sort of blowing up those plans? Is this going
13:50to
13:50show the fractures within the Democratic Party? Because they're still kind of in the wilderness
13:56when it comes to who they are and what their vision is for the country.
14:01I mean, I could certainly see that, especially because now we're just two years away from another
14:06presidential election and Democrats might be going for the whole thing right now. They might not be
14:11ready to just take a piece. They want the whole pie now. Because with the gains they've made in the
14:17Senate, I mean, they might not even need to two away with the filibuster. They might just have a
14:24filibuster-proof majority come 2028 with a Democratic president and a Democratic-led House. So I think
14:33there's going to be a real lack of willingness to compromise from them over the next couple of years.
14:39Voters love that. They just love politicians who will never work together and never get anything
14:44done. I mean, that's in a lot of ways how we got into this conversation that we are having
14:48right now. Voters' frustration about certain things not being done. You know, Carol, you mentioned that
14:55messaging you felt like was a big issue going into this for Republicans, that the messaging got
15:00somewhat lost. There was a piece in the Post today that suggested that Donald Trump's team
15:07failed him a bit for not keeping him on certain messaging. I mean, I think we've all covered him
15:13enough and talked about him enough to know that that's not always the easiest task. But moving
15:17forward, Carol, what do you see as the appropriate messaging to move the GOP back into a position of
15:23power? I think it has to be conservative messaging. And one, right at the top of that list, has to
15:29be
15:30we're not going to give citizenship to 20 million people who broke the law to come to this country.
15:36You know, I always like to talk about the fact that I'm an immigrant and I did it the legal
15:40way.
15:41My family came here legally. It was very tough. These people cut the line in front of people waiting
15:46their turn. And now they're going to be rewarded for it by getting granted citizenship in some sort
15:52of bipartisan deal. I think that would end the Republican Party. And I really hope Donald Trump doesn't do
15:57that. In his first term, I wrote about how Democrats were missing an opportunity to make those deals
16:03with him and how people like Kim Kardashian figured out how to do it, despite the fact that Democrats
16:08couldn't. I do think, however, that we do need to govern from a place of conservative values. I think
16:14that's what won Florida last night. I think people understood what Florida stood for, what the values of
16:20the state were, what the Republicans were running on. I think it was a lot less clear in places like
16:24Texas.
16:25And that's really the issue that when you model your message, when you don't have a clear objective,
16:31people don't know what you stand for and they don't come out and vote. I think last night was
16:35even in Florida, which ended up, of course, you know, going red, but only by a few points.
16:41Tighter than we thought.
16:43Yeah, Ron DeSantis won by 20 points four years ago. I think people need something to vote for.
16:50And the states that couldn't produce that were the states that suffered the most.
16:54In a lot of ways, what we saw was people voting against something, less for something on either side
17:00and more against something. I mean, Josh, you started this conversation talking about the war in Iran.
17:05How big of an impact do you think that's going to have on the administration moving forward?
17:09And do you think the administration needs to change tack in order to identify a little bit more with the
17:14American people who, in a lot of ways, are looking at this through the lens of their bank account?
17:20Sure. So here's the problem with the Iran war. The problem with the Iran war
17:24is that it was started seemingly on a whim or a caprice. It was done without any clear articulation
17:31as to what we were doing. I think the context is important. If you go back to when the regime
17:36started massacring yet again tens of thousands of its own people in late December, around Christmas
17:40time into early January, this is also around the same time as the staggering Nicolas Maduro operation
17:45in Venezuela, one of the most successful brief military operations in modern American history.
17:50I think the president at the time was riding very, very high. And maybe he and his people,
17:53frankly, were feeling a little cocky. So they probably felt that they could go in and take out
17:57this, you know, 37-year ruling tyrant, Ali Khamenei, and then just, you know, that, you know,
18:03you'll fill in the blanks in there, essentially shoot first and ask questions later. And, you know,
18:07that is why very shortly after the war, I started saying regularly, you know, it's time for the
18:12administration. It's time for Trump to have a solemn Oval Office sit-down on network television,
18:17look into the camera, look at the people and say, here's why we are doing this. Here are our aims.
18:23Here is how we will define victory. And here's how we will get out. And that sit-down in the
18:27Oval
18:27Office simply never happened. And I think at this point, people are still asking what we're doing.
18:31So if you're at this point, you've suffered the damages, whether it's the Iran war, the tariffs,
18:35you've had a bloodbath, an absolute massacre of the ballot box. So at this point, you know, I think you
18:40should, you should still essentially do what I just said, but do it very late, very quickly,
18:45and then get out. So have some sort of message, talk to people, say, here's how we will finish
18:50the job on our terms, whether it's pickaxe mountain, whether it's another decapitation strike
18:55of, of Syrian leaders, you know, whatever, fill in the blanks, define some concrete goal,
19:00do it, and then get out. And get out, by the way, is a relative term. It's not like America
19:04will ever
19:04fully leave the Middle East, will never fully leave the Persian Gulf. These things are relative.
19:08America is a superpower. Get out of the issue at hand, basically.
19:11Exactly. Now, just as before we wrap up here, Miranda, I want to give you the last word on
19:15if you could pick one issue for the Republicans to work on before the next election. What's your
19:21top issue? What's the priority? Well, as usual, it's the economy, stupid. And look,
19:28the Trump administration has done a great job with the economy. Unfortunately, it was overshadowed
19:34by, you know, the rise in prices due to the war, due to tariffs, Ukraine as well. But,
19:40you know, before all of that, he had inflation was now down to 2%. It was as high as 9
19:48%
19:48under Joe Biden. Cumulatively, Joe Biden put the prices of everything up 21%. And so I think,
19:56you know, I don't know if the electorate fully appreciated that we weren't going to be able
20:01to get those prices down. But what Trump did manage to do with Scott Bessent and the rest of
20:07his administration was get wages up, get jobs up, move the productive part of the economy forward,
20:15while at the same time cutting back on government jobs, they increased jobs in the private sector.
20:21We had GDP growth up to 3.4%. You know, the economy is humming along. And President Trump told me
20:29in the interview before the midterms that he said, there will be an economic boom over the next two
20:36years. We're building factories, we've brought manufacturing back home, we're big chip builders.
20:43And he promised that the price of gas would be down below $2 again. So I guess that will be
20:50his
20:50legacy. And then most importantly, will be if he sets the table for a Republican to win the White House
20:57in 2028. That is absolutely crucial for conservatives. Because if Democrats get all three branches, if
21:06they get the clean sweep, they are going to follow through. They've all promised this, that they want
21:11to stack the Supreme Court, bring in two new states, Democrat states, Puerto Rico, DC, and open the
21:19borders. That would be the end of America as we know it.
21:22Not 24 hours since the polls closed. And we are already talking 2028 presidential run. That is how
21:29politics works. It's like off one thing and immediately on to another. Miranda, Carol,
21:35Josh, Isaac, thank you so much for joining us.