Is Trump Losing a Step?

His Republican rivals in the press are finally starting to point out that the old man has lost a step. And RFK Jr. is taking more support from Trump in two new polls. But first, MAGA Mike Johnson is living up to the nickname in his first week on the job, Dan. Even though there is a bipartisan majority in Congress to fund the government, he has decided to start with a bill that would fund $14 billion in aid to Israel. By making it easier for the richest Americans to cheat on their taxes, which doesn't really fund the aid at all.

Cutting the I.R.S budget will add another $12.

5 billion to the deficit. Johnson then reportedly told Senate Republicans that he's open to a separate bill that would provide some support for Ukraine, though not as much as President Biden wants, and only if it's paired with beefed up border security. He also wants to blow up the bipartisan budget deal that Biden agreed to with Kevin McCarthy by demanding deeper cuts, which Democrats will never go for. Which means there may be a government shutdown in our future. Fun. So, Dan, it seems like we're right back to where we were when McCarthy had the job. Only with a speaker who cares even less about passing anything, and even more about keeping the MAGA base happy.

Sure enough, House Republicans had their best week of online fundraising of the cycle since Johnson was elected last week. Was it last week? I can't even remember, what's your read on all this, Dan?

Obviously, we should stipulate he was never going to pass Biden's $106 billion appropriations request as written. He's Republican, that's not what happens in a divided government, he has a right to change it. We can also stipulate that his own politics, both in the country and in the Republican caucus, meant he could not pass Israel aid and Ukraine aid together.

And so he was always going to separate that out. So we had a few options at that point. And one would be to just pass the $14 billion with no cuts, no riders, just pass it as is. He supports what's in it, and that would be consistent with how these things are usually handled, how these emergency aid requests are handled.

That's how Mike Johnson certainly voted for them when Donald Trump was president. It's how the Covid packages were handled, it's how the Trump tax cut was handled, which is how we know that. Mike Johnson doesn't really care about cuts, so once you add cuts, your choice could be like, you've decided on principle, which we know he doesn't really believe, but his principle. We feel like the deficit is too high, we should pay for this.

And Democrats held that position when it came to Bush's constant requests of funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. And if that is your actual position, which you could say is I'm going to find. $14 billion in largely inoffensive bipartisan cuts, raising custom fees, finding unused money here, fraud, waste and abuse, all the sort of budget money that's out there. Gimmicks, gimmicks, really. But that's a way to do it. That allows you to have cuts and also have a bill that can pass the House and the Senate.

Did he do that? No, he picked $14 billion in funding for President Biden's signature legislative agenda. And to do so in a way that try and very specifically splinter the Democrats and make this a very, very tough vote for him. Which he knows, will do two things. It's dead on arrival in the Senate.

The president won't sign it, and it means now that it's going to take longer to get the aid to Israel. So he picked the absolute most cynical strategy possible, and it's even dumb because the cuts he picked actually don't reduce the deficit. And still now, even because we know that collecting more taxes from rich people raises money, doesn't lose money.

He failed on all of his tests. It's just an utterly ridiculous approach to this.

We also know that facts, if you will, are not a huge part of the Republican message. So if you vote for it. It's not like all of a sudden they're going to say, Well, that takes that attack off the table, we'll do something else. But I could see the perspective where a small handful of people in very tough districts get a pass to vote for it. And it doesn't really affect the overall outcome. Because this is all just a dumb dance that's wasting time in the end because this bill is not becoming law.

Because I'm taking on so much water in so many ways. Because I'm in a Trump district, or it's an incredibly purple district, and politics don't feel great for a Democrat right now. I don't want one more brick on the load and I imagine that there are some people who will give that pass to.

I've read tremendous pressure within his own caucus to back down from that. And it's just. We are really in a situation where there's pretty irreconcilable differences between what Republicans would want and what Democrats can agree to. And combined with their, I think, very correct substantive belief that if we do not get more aid to Ukraine, it's going to be a huge win for Putin and put Ukraine's sovereignty at risk.

It is about trying to drive a wedge in the Democratic Coalition. It's a lot of shit sandwiches coming down the pike. yeah, it's a real shit sandwich buffet.

Well, the House did accomplish something. This week. They voted against a motion by several New York Republicans to expel George Santos by a count of 213 to 179. With 24 Republicans voting to expel and 31 Democrats voting not to expel. The House also voted against Marjorie Taylor Green's motion to censure Rashida Tlaib for speaking at a pro-Palestinian rally at the Capitol. All the Democrats, plus 23 Republicans, voted against the motion to censure. Marge was not happy.

She said the Republicans who voted against censure were Rhinos who have joined the Hamas caucus. She's just lovely. One colleague, One Republican colleague called her a very charming lady. There was a lot of sarcasm there, in case you couldn't tell, I love it when you call her Marge.

Marge Yeah, large Marge. Two questions Why do you think those Democrats voted against expelling Santos? and why do you think those 23 Republicans decided to save Tlaib from that?

There's an ethics committee investigation and that should conclude before you take up expulsion, which is a very serious, well-thought-out position that will, frankly, probably get lost in.

The House has expelled five people, three for joining the confederacy as traitors to the union and two after they were convicted of criminal offenses. Santos has not yet been convicted, nor has he been found guilty of ethics offenses in the House. Bad precedent, he said. I can also think of like four or five House Democrats that Republicans would like to expel without a conviction. And I just don't want to go down that road. I have to say, like, reading that statement, I'm somewhat persuaded.

Like, I do think it is, it is a dangerous thing to start expelling people from Congress with. Forget even about obviously no conviction, but also, like, no internal process from the House Ethics Committee that found anything. It's like, we can all wait for this. And even if you want to go pure politics, it does seem like no one's too scared about running against George Santos in 2024. And it seems like some of these New York House Republicans put forward the motion to expel him because they're nervous about the politics. And the longer George Santos is in Congress embarrassing them, the worse it is for them, and the worst the politics are.

So I don't. I'm not even convinced that it's like the best politics to get him out.

I agree with you. I am broadly persuaded by the idea that on all these things, censure, expelling people from their committees, expelling people from Congress. We've reached a level of ridiculousness and an unseriousness that does not fit with the historical precedents that you want. And we're sort of in a tit for tat now. Can Democrats unilaterally disarm in this process? No.

But on the merits, I think what Raskin and Porter and others said was correct. And look, you can say.

And so there's some that have a responsibility gene somewhere left in their bodies. But I also think that if we're going to be the party about democracy and rule of law, then we should wait till someone's convicted to expel them, or at the very least, is found guilty within a House ethics process. Because I think George Santos is a fucking joke. I think it's very likely he's going to be found guilty, there's a lot of charges, a lot of evidence.

But again, we can't adjudicate these things through the press and social media and just our feelings about it. You actually do need a process before you start.

We're going to see that clip.

You do.

Also, Pots of America tickets for our November 10th show in New Orleans are still on sale. You can come out and see us live. Many people are calling us the Mardi Gras of Political podcast recordings. Where did this come from?

Here's the good news We'll be joined by Tim Miller, our pal Tim Miller, guest Devante Lewis and more. Who knows, maybe Dan will throw some beads?

Tickets are going fast.

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COM That's Cricket.com. All right, let's talk about 2024. In the Republican primary, two new early state polls show an incredibly tight race for second place.

With just 74 days to go until the Iowa caucuses, the des Moines register poll. The very best in the business, maybe the most accurate poll in the entire country, shows Trump at 43, DeSantis at 16, Haley also at 16, Tim Scott at 7, and Christie and Vivek at 4. A CNN poll of South Carolina shows Trump at 53, Haley is at 22, DeSantis is at 11. And love it's guy Tim Scott with only 6 in his home state. He is the senator from South Carolina. And he is pulling 6 after a lot of money spent. High name ID, especially in his state. 6 for Tim Scott not dropping out.

Tells us that he guarantees he's going to get one or two in Iowa, which is fucking hilarious. So the race for second could get pretty heated at the debate next week. And Nikki Haley just gave us a preview of what that might look like when she did an interview with Charlemagne on the Daily Show this week. Let's listen to the clip. Are you wearing higher heels than Ron DeSantis next week at the debate so you can look taller than him on the stage?

This is what Ronnie D is dealing with.

I also think that Nikki Haley not to just give her some advice, but should have just said I don't need to. I'm taller than him in bare feet.

Based on these polls.

Well, not great, is what I would say. A couple of things. Let's start with the Iowa poll. So in the Iowa poll, 61 of Trump's voters say they've made up their mind and are not changing it. That is an unprecedentedly large number.

Steve Kornacki pointed out that. The last candidate to have a significant lead, and nowhere near as big a lead as Trump in a Republican primary, was George W. Bush. In 2000. And he generally had 20 to 30 of his vote was fully committed, so Trump has a locked in electorate. They asked about enthusiasm, too.

To me, that sort of tells the story of the entire Republican primary in 2024, which is that Ron DeSantis is the only candidate who can draw from the MAGA base. Like, if you look who Haley's supporters are, they tend to be independent, college educated, like, just sort of the. I don't want to say anti-Trump, but people who are willing to look beyond Trump, right? People who either aren't favorable towards Trump, or who are like, looking around for another alternative. Like, that's Haley's, that's whose Haley's consolidating, but that part of the Republican Party is not nearly enough to win. The only candidate who can draw from both the MAGA base and the group of people that Haley's drawing from the anti-Trumpers is Ron DeSantis.

And, sure enough, DeSantis in this Des Moines register poll is viewed more favorably than any other candidate, including Trump. So that's the other thing. It's not for all that we make fun of Ron DeSantis for. And as bad as the campaign he's run, Republican voters in Iowa actually like him. They just like Donald Trump more, They just want Donald Trump.

And it's like, it's weird that it's nothing necessarily against Ron DeSantis. They love them some. Donald Trump.

So that's.

Believes in the Trump view of the world, then?

Because there's always that in every primary. But we came into this idea. It was a little closer to 50-50, which meant that someone had a real chance. And the second mistake was. Is we treated Donald Trump like a new presidential candidate like he was in 2016, as opposed to who was essentially the incumbent president for these?

Is someone who can reach voters outside of the Republican Party?

There is no real Democratic primary happening on the same day. And so in a scenario where that, if that were to happen, I'm talking like a 1 or less likelihood here. Then you had to South Carolina, which is her home state, and could that? Just the thing we don't know, because we've never really seen, is Donald Trump taking a loss, a significant loss in a Republican primary, and how that would affect things?

And so that would be the only possible shot ever, and it would require a lot of things. Donald Trump Joe Biden to strengthen, Donald Trump to weaken, probably require Ron DeSantis to strengthen. Among MAGA voters, to take some people from Trump but not Haley, and then have some sort of massive, incredibly lucky, highly unlikely surge with independent voters.

Either Desantis numbers go up because he's taking some from Trump, or his numbers stay the same. But the composition of his 15 changes. Where it's more of those people who are for Trump voters, who DESantis is their second choice, changing to DESAntis. And then Haley taking some of the college-educated, more independent-leaning, more moderate voters that are a little that are more overrepresented.

Now we know from experience that numbers in South Carolina can move quite a bit after what happens in Iowa and New Hampshire can move. Like a lot that happened to Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton was leading by a lot in South Carolina up until we won Iowa and then she wasn't, so that could change, but that is a big gap. 25 30, 22..

Story also includes a quote from Ron DESantis quote This is a different. Donald Trump lost the zip on his fastball in 2016. He was freewheeling. He's out there, barnstorming the country.

Now it's just a different guy and it's sad to see. What could Ron possibly be talking about? You ask? Well.

The windmills are, they're driving the whales. I think a little batty voters, you're not the vote, don't worry about voting, the voting. We got plenty of votes.

You got to watch Victor Orban. Did ever, anyone, ever hear of him? He's the leader of Turkey from. You know, you spell us right, you spell us us. We're going to turn Christmas or remember.

The department stores weren't? They refused to use the word Christmas. Big hello to a place where we've done very well, Sioux Falls. Thank you very much.

Sioux Falls, So Sioux City, let me ask you, is a man pro territories what you're doing? The terrorism, Hezbollah and homeless? And just in conclusion, we have a man who is totally corrupt and the worst president in the history of our country who is cognitively impaired. In no condition to lead. We would be in World War Two very quickly.

Wow, that's good stuff.

Yeah, it's like, what was his fastball?

The fastball that, like, never got him again. Above like, 47 in the in the national popular vote, like, what are you talking about?

I can't imagine they will actually do that. But most people who do not record podcasts for a living do not watch Trump's rallies from beginning to end on 1.75 speed on YouTube. They're not seeing it, so you don't have to, and when? He and I promise you. This is one of the real problems with, in the ways in which the press is not figure how to cover Trump, is that local news tends to sanitize Trump.

They pick is more coherent moments because they're trying to tell a story about what he actually said. And you can't do that with, like him, calling Hamas hummus and the Biden stuff. They those, you know, Donald Trump came to town today and he called for X, Y and Z. And then they'll play clips that support X, Y and Z, as opposed to the worst stuff.

Republicans have a media apparatus that will take the worst moments of Joe Biden and show it to all of their voters. And then pump that content through social media in front of people who aren't just their voters. Democrats don't have that apparatus, at least particularly, does not have that apparatus in a way that would reach Republican voters who would otherwise consider Desantis or Haley.

Scary, demagogue, criminal defendant, congenital liar. What do you think of the crazy Old Guy strategy?

He says crazy stuff all the time, but it's never put in that same framework. You see what I know? There's a tremendous frustration among Biden aides that Biden and Trump are basically the same age. But it's all about Joe Biden being the oldest president. Not the fact that if Donald Trump wins, he will also be the oldest president in American history. He will be the second oldest president in American history. They're just trying to change the matrix by which the press is covering the race. To focus a little more on Donald Trump's stuff, which I think is probably the right thing to do. Plus, if you've been working on Joe Biden's campaign for the last seven months or so since he announced, you deserve some fun.

This has not been an easy seven months. If this is fun, let's get you through the day. I fully support it.

I do think that reminding everyone what a fucking clown Donald Trump is is actually effective. I think that authoritarian leaders, fascists throughout history, they do not like to be made fun of. They do not like to be mocked. Donald Trump does not like to be mocked. I think we need to get back to. He is an extremely scary demagogue that we've said a million times. You got to take him seriously. And literally. We've all seen it in action for four years. Did you just do seriously and literally?

Seriously, and literally, yeah, we all talked about that. He tried to overturn the election, incited an insurrection. All of that, for sure, second term would be fucking terrifying. But he's a clown. I think for a lot of Americans, they don't want to be embarrassed by their president, they don't want to elect a clown as a president.

They don't want to have someone who says crazy shit all the time. Even among Republican voters, the only sort of crack in the armor there is when they say, Oh, well, I don't like his tweets and I don't like his behavior. That is Donald Trump's weakness. I think getting that out there more, reminding people of that more, is going to be important. I think that's slightly different than saying he's lost a step. But it does require us to make sure that people are consuming content where Trump is acting as crazy as he always has been.

I think that's right what I'm specifically.

Because too much of the.

Donald Trump is running on a classic strongman strategy, and too much of our messaging reinforces that element of him. He's an authoritarian, he's going to overturn the election. That all makes him seem powerful. In fact, in some ways, the indictments have made him seem more powerful.

Not so much if he has marched out of a courtroom in an orange jumpsuit, that will not make him seem powerful. But the fact that the narrative that all these government agencies, the deep state, everyone is coming after him is something he has turned into. An evidence of his strength. Our messaging needs to be about evidence of his weakness, and that's what I think.

Some of these the moments that are currently being put through this cognitive decline framework can be used. For this guy, he is a clown, he is not serious.

That's not strong. He wants us to be afraid of him, He wants to seem powerful and strong, and I do think mocking him is going to.

It's like, No, the point here is, he's a joke and a joke. Cannot be a strong man who can protect you from chaos in.

So the new Quinnipiac poll has the race Biden 47, Trump 46.

But when they add in RFK Jr. the race is Biden 39, Trump 36, RFK Jr. 22. When they add in Cornell West, it's Biden 36, Trump 35, RFK Jr. 19, Cornell West 6..

And there's also a new Susquehanna poll that shows RFK Jr. hurting Trump in the three-way race, which Biden does win, so similar to the Quinnipiac poll. What do you make of those polls? Are you more convinced that RFK Jr?

Will hurt Trump more than Biden, or is it still way too early to tell? I have a lot of thoughts on this. JOHN Yeah, there we go, sort of surprised.

Spoiler It's not Tommy.

Because there's a dynamic of two-on-one in advertising. And I think it's particularly problematic for Biden as a former Democrat named Kennedy, going after Biden. So that's one, two. The numbers in these polls are kind of absurd, the idea that one in five Americans know enough about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

To pick him as their presidential choice is ridiculous. He's essentially representing the mystery box phenomenon right here, where if you don't love option A and B, you're going to go see what's behind door C. And so that's sort of he's sort of, I think, representing generic other in that sense. And then the most important thing of all, more than any of these polls, whatever they say now, whatever they say a year from now....

Well, I guess a year from now would be pretty. Six months from now is where he gets on the ballot.

Okay, yeah, I agree.

Some states have very difficult ballot access, where the signatures have to be from all of the counties or some portion of the counties, then they have to be verified. It's very, very expensive, and one of the problems for R.F.K Jr. is his money.

To date, throughout the Democratic primary, it was MAGA donors who thought he was hurting Biden funding him. And if they now think he's hurting Trump, which the Trump campaign reportedly does, so, this is consistent with their polling. I assume I don't know where he's going to find the money to do that.

We need more of the anti-Maga majority in this country to come back to vote for Joe Biden again. And we have zero margin of error.

First time we talked to him was right after he was arrested for protesting Trump's tax cut in 2017.

On his way home from that event, he confronted former Senator Jeff Flake on a plane to beg him to vote against Medicare cuts. The video went viral. And then we booked Adi on the show. So he starts off the interview by saying, Hey guys, I'm pretty excited right now, and I said, Oh well, thanks.

That's nice to say. We're excited to have you on, and he says, No man, I'm not excited about being on your podcast. I'm excited about rejuvenating our democracy with thousands of my closest friends. So he then lets us ask like two questions before he completely takes over the interview and starts interrogating us about Republican politics, economic policy, Barack Obama's shortcomings.

And at one point, he says, Okay, last question for you guys, and Lovett says, Well, now you're just fully hosting the show. And Adi says, Two bad guys, dying. Man gets to do what he wants, and that's who Adi was. He was every bit as brave and determined and inspiring as he seemed, but he was also witty and self-deprecating and darkly funny.

He was wonky and shrewd and tough, He would call you on your bullshit when you weren't doing enough or fighting as hard as you could. Adi did not become an activist because of his ALS. He was an activist his entire life, who understood that his ALS would allow him to reach more people, organize more people, persuade more people, pressure more politicians to do the right thing. But he did all of that with just the most big hearted, generous spirit.

And what he taught me is that, in the face of pain and suffering, and even death, it's important to find joy in the struggle for equality and justice. And the reason it's important is because that struggle is with other people, and it's for other people, people you love and people you may never know. And that's, I think, why Adi embraced that struggle right up until the day that he died. He did it for his brilliant, incredible wife Rachel, his two beautiful children, Carl and Willow, and for all of us. He was the best organizer, best human, and I loved him very much.

And because he wouldn't want it any other way, I will go ahead and we will give Adi the last word. Today, I have come to understand the difference this way. I can do nothing to change the fact of my terminal illness. There is no cure for ALS right now, and there is nothing I can do to stop my rapid neurological decay.

To flail against it helplessly would only cause me additional grief and suffering, so the only thing I can do is accept it. That isn't true about the health care crisis in this country, or systemic racism or the climate emergency barreling towards our shorelines every day. Resisting those challenges, whether by marching or voting or petitioning, that's the only way to solve the most pressing problems facing our society. And that is why I'm doing everything I can, even as paralysis grips more of my body every day. Struggling for justice is a fruitful endeavor.

All right, everyone, thank you and we will talk to you next week.

Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming, Matt Degroat is our head of production, Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team. Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Toles, Kiril Pelaviv and Molly Lobel.

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