Start with the Senate.

Yeah.

Okay.

So this is kind of a boring prediction because basically what I'm doing is I'm saying we're going to win the races that we're currently leading.

And I think that Democrats are going to come really close, probably closer than they've come in a long time in a bunch of red states like South Carolina and Kansas and Nebraska.

But I'm honestly just not sold on us winning any of those seats.

I wouldn't be surprised if we took one of those three.

So maybe you can help me on this.

Forget the bets in Vegas.

All right.

If you wanna gamble, gamble.

That's fine.

I, I like gambling.

All right, so starting, so we're starting on the Senate, right? We've got f- we've got, um, forty-seven seats in the Senate, and we need to get fifty-one to get a majority because Se- uh, Vice President, um, JD Vance breaks the tie in the Senate, right? So we can't get fifty.

Fifty is not gonna do it.

You know what I'm saying, Dave? My God, what do you guys need?

So why do you think this time could be different?

Well, structurally, it's a similar situation, right? In 2018, it was not a great map for Democrats.

Democrats were defending some seats in deep red territory where they happened to have incumbents, for example.

So like Claire McCaskill in Missouri or where they had good candidates that they had recruited for tough races, like Phil Bredesen in Tennessee, who was a popular former two-term Democratic governor.

You had some reasons to think that the wave in 2018 would be so big that it would carry over these pretty good or credible Democratic candidates.

And that just did not happen.

Claire McCaskill lost.

It's interesting you say that because literally there was like a New York Times article that was like, everyone's panicking about New Hampshire because, you know, Sununu's name is so high recognition there.

So why do you think this time could be different?

Well, structurally, it's a similar situation.

In 2018, it was not a great map for Democrats.

Democrats were defending some seats in deep red territory where they happened to have incumbents, for example.

So like Claire McCaskill in Missouri or where they had good candidates that they had recruited for tough races, like Phil Bredesen in Tennessee, who was a popular former two-term Democratic governor.

You had some reasons to think that the wave in 2018 would be so big that it would carry over these pretty good or credible Democratic candidates.

And that just did not happen.

It's interesting you say that because literally there was like a New York Times article that was like, everyone's panicking about New Hampshire because, you know, Sununu's name is so high recognition there.

So why do you think this time could be different?

Well, structurally, it's a similar situation, right? In 2018, it was not a great map for Democrats.

Democrats were defending some seats in deep red territory where they happened to have incumbents, for example.

So like Claire McCaskill in Missouri or where they had good candidates that they had recruited for tough races, like Phil Bredesen in Tennessee, who was a popular former two-term Democratic governor.

You had some reasons to think that the wave in 2018 would be so big that it would carry over these pretty good or credible Democratic candidates.

And that just did not happen.

Claire McCaskill lost.

It's interesting you say that because literally there was like a New York Times article that was like, everyone's panicking about New Hampshire because, you know, Sununu's name is so high recognition there.

Does that f- Do you find that troubling in any way?

I don't know if I find it troubling.

I think it's a reflection of the time.

You know, I mean, I think if you look back to some of the entertainment and some of the themes of, like, movies and television in the post-Watergate period, you see a similar sort of mistrust of authority.

You know, there's like Three Days of the Condor, and there's The Conversation.

There's always movie after movie after movie where the American national security state is corrupt.

Um, you know, politicians are cor- everybody's corrupt, and it's like one person fighting against the system.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, this discourse has been going on for 10 years now, right? The sort of like the DSA left, the Bernie left versus the centrists and the moderates.

And I feel like the thing that I find frustrating about the sort of the knee-jerk criticism of any candidate on the progressive left is that it's almost typically completely divorced from any sort of like data-driven analysis of whether the claims are true, right? There's a political scientist named Jake Grumbach who's done some pretty great work on this and who has demonstrated that there is virtually no difference in performance whether the Democratic candidate is on the progressive left or is perceived as a moderate.

At most, we're talking maybe a point, right? Um, maybe the moderates sometimes do better by a point under certain circumstances.

Right.

Um, and the, the bigger problem with the, like the moderates versus the progressives discourse is that most of your average voter, the persuadable voter, the people who change their minds, the people who are gettable and the people we're trying to get do not see politics in, in these terms.

So take it away, David.

But so, David, why don't you do a little riff on your thoughts right now about Donald Trump and his war in Iran? Go ahead.

Sure.

So, you know, we're back at war.

The ceasefire that wasn't lasted about a month.

And I think as most people predicted from the jump, the terms of the memorandum of understanding that we signed were so bad, were such a catastrophic humiliation for Trump, that it was hard to envision him actually implementing it because it would require him to admit that he lost.

You know, what he did, and this is a classic Trump maneuver, right? He's done this over and over and over again over the past 10 years.

Remember when he came back from North Korea in 2018 with absolutely nothing, but he came home and he started tweeting.

Your thoughts?

minutes.

It's hard to know where to begin, but I think at a most basic level, just in terms of the Iranian issue, we are exiting the war in a much worse strategic position vis-a-vis Iran and their nuclear program than we were going into the war.

It very much looks like there was a better deal on the table between the Trump administration and the Iranian negotiators before we started bombing them.

And so one of the things that the war revealed was that Iran has a sort of a previously unthought of amount of leverage over the US, over Israel, over the global economy by virtue of its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz.

And that's bad enough.

As it is, right? But I think the reason that it's a broader strategic setback for the United States that sort of transcends our Middle East policy, it transcends the problems that we've had with Iran for 47 years.

The reason it transcends those things is because Iran was able to damage, apparently quite severely, a number of American military bases in the region, a number of our radar installations, airports and ports and natural... natural gas and oil infrastructure in a way that really calls into question the entire American global military strategy.

Professor Ferris, what role do you think Donald Trump's often noted erratic behavior and what some describe as cognitive decline or unhinged megalomania play in launching this historically unpopular war And as you and others describe it, this humiliating defeat.

As you observe the Trump regime's erratic handling of peace talks here with the Islamic Republic of Iran, where do you think the situation stands today?

Well, I mean, I think the situation stands.

It's about the same as it's been for about six or seven weeks, which is that the president took the United States into a war with deeply delusional objectives, discovered pretty quickly that they were not going to achieve those objectives, at least not the way that they thought they were, and discovered to their horror that that Iran has a source of leverage over not just us, but the entire global economy that no one in Washington seemed to have thought through very well, even though I've been, you know, kind of war games within the Pentagon for decades.

And yet they all seemed really taken aback that the Strait of Hormuz has been closed this whole time.

And so Trump kind of went guns blazing into this war.

I thought it was going to be this kind of like Venezuela scenario, you know, where they depose the top of the regime and replace it with somebody more compliant.

only to find that they have inadvertently put people who are even more hardline into power in Tehran, who are, I think, pretty justifiably in no mood to compromise right now, right? I think from Iran's perspective here, the United States has clearly bitten off more than it can chew.

Trump may have been convinced that his success in kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro back in January with few repercussions could be repeated in iran against all evidence but now the entire world is suffering higher energy and fertilizer prices a lot of commodities that go through the persian gulf are are no longer coming to where they're destined um in the whole the whole global economy has been up ended why do you think trump joined israel in launching this work

Here he talks about Trump's apparent inability to end his own Iran war quagmire and the long-term damage to the United States' standing in the international community.

The president took the United States into a war with, um, with deeply delusional objectives, um, discovered pretty quickly that they were not gonna achieve those objectives, at least not the way that they thought they were, and discovered to their horror, um, that Iran has a source of leverage over not just us, but the entire global economy, um, that no one in Washington seemed to have thought through very well, even though it'd been, you know, [laughs] kind of war gamed within the Pentagon for decades, and yet they all seemed really taken aback that the Strait of Hormuz has been closed this whole time.

[laughs] And so Trump kind of went guns blazing into this war, thought it was gonna be this kind of like Venezuela scenario, you know, where they'd depose the top of the regime and replace it with somebody more compliant, only to find that they have inadvertently put people who are even more hard line into power in Tehran, um, who are, I think, pretty justifiably in no mood to compromise right now, right? I think from Iran's perspective here, the United States has clearly bitten off more than it can chew.

The president is embarrassing himself on a daily basis, um, seems to have no idea how to get himself out of this situation without making concessions that he himself has spent like the better part of a decade making fun of, um, [laughs] in terms of, like, the kinds of concessions that were made to Iran in the, in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, uh, that was negotiated by President Obama.

So we're in the muck and mire here, right? Um, and the...

What's happening this weekend does seem to be moving a little bit faster than things had been before, although the New York Times is reporting [laughs] airstrikes on, uh, Iranian missile launch sites in the Persian Gulf.

I think the, the basic problem here is that, is that President Trump and, and his team have no serious expertise on board at all about Iran, right? Like, they decimated the State Department.

But what are the consequences for the United States and its standing in the world?

David, what did Trump want China to accomplish here, and why did he fail? Is it just that what he was expecting is impossible?

I mean, [sighs] there's two reasons, okay? One, so Iran is a kind of a client state of China at this point, right? Um, the, they've been doing business, right? Like, um, China has helped Iran evade various sanctions for, for many years, um, has become a major destination of its oil.

Um, and there's, you know, there's, there's deals take place for arms and, and other forms of influence, right? Like, um, so, so Iran is, is essentially a Chinese client state.

Um, but what you find out when, when you think about client states is they don't always do what you ask them to do [chuckles] right? Um, you know, China cannot wave a magic wand, um, and force Iran to capitulate to America's terms, right? The, the basic problem here, aside from China, is that Trump's ask of Iran, um, is beyond the s- the sort of like the bargaining window that he has.

You know, like he's asking Iran to accede to terms that Iran simply will not accede to.

Um, unless you, unless you literally overthrow the regime and replace them with, with people [chuckles] that wanna work with you, they're not gonna get this done.

Um, they are, they are not gonna give up all of the enriched material and say, "We're never gonna do any, um, nuclear enrichment," um, and then get nothing else in return.

The lower Trump goes, the more likely they're gonna be to hold out.

David, what did Trump want China to accomplish here, and why did he fail? Is it just that what he was expecting is impossible?

I mean, [sighs] there's two reasons, okay? One, so Iran is a kind of a client state of China at this point, right? Um-The, they've been doing business, right? Like, um, China has helped Iran evade various sanctions for, for many years, um, has become a major destination of its oil.

Um, and there's, you know, there's, there's deals take place for arms and, and other forms of influence, right? Like, uh, so, so Iran is, is essentially a Chinese client state.

Um, but what you find out when, when you think about client states is they don't always do what you ask them to do, [chuckles] right? Um, you know, China cannot wave a magic wand, um, and force Iran to capitulate to America's terms, right? The, the basic problem here, aside from China, is that Trump's ask of Iran, um, is beyond the s- the sort of like the bargaining window that he has.

You know, like he's asking Iran to accede to terms that Iran simply will not accede to.

Um, unless you, unless you literally overthrow the regime and replace them with, with people [chuckles] that wanna work with you, they're not gonna get this done.

Um, they're, they're not gonna give up all of the enriched material and say, "We're never gonna do any, uh, nuclear enrichment," um, and then get nothing else in return.

The lower Trump goes, the more likely they're gonna be to hold out.

With a new president.

With a- like, say, we have a new Democratic president with, like, a 10-seat majority in the House and, like, a one-seat majority in the Senate.

That's when I would be worried about this narrative, sort of like, "Well, we didn't do, we didn't do as well as we hoped," or, "This isn't really that big of a repudiation of Trump, and maybe we better, like, move to the center and moderate and work with them," whatever, bipartisanship.

Um, for, for taking one or both chambers of Congress as the opposition party, I'm not sure that those, those dynamics are as important for the next couple of years.

[gentle music] It's not like we're getting, like, Medicare for all, and we're not abolishing ICE, even if we take both chambers of Congress, right? Like, we're not...

Like, there's no- there's nothing on the progressive wish list that's gonna get done.

We can fight about it, you know, like, Matt Iglesias can yell at people, whatever.

[chuckles] Let's do it again!

like that old saying about like, what do you call the last guy in his med school class? You call him doctor?

Doctor.

Yeah.

So it's like the five seat majority is a five seat majority, right? Like the reality is like, if we have the gavel, we can do things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do.

I read the political piece.

I know what you're talking about.

And they're not wrong about the obstacles to a truly historic wave happening here.

Let's do it

like that old saying about like, what do you call the last guy in his med school class? You call him doctor?

Doctor.

Yeah.

So it's like the five seat majority is a five seat majority, right? Like the reality is like, if we have the gavel, we can do things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do.

I read the political piece.

I know what you're talking about.

And they're not wrong about the obstacles to a truly historic wave happening here.

Let's do it again.

Can you just lay out some of your ideas? Because you've talked about stuff like, I don't know, like if you roll into a blue state with your red state car, maybe you're getting charged more for traveling the roads, those sorts of things, which I hadn't thought about.

Yeah.

So, I mean, interesting to me is that the states administer like allegedly federal highways.

Right.

And they they pay for them and they like they set the tolls and stuff like that.

And, you know, it got me thinking about like when I take my kids to the aquarium in Chicago, which my children really love, we get a discount because we live in Chicago.

And if you live outside of Chicago, you pay more.

How do you feel about that?

Can you just lay out some of your ideas? Because you've talked about stuff like, I don't know, like if you roll into a blue state with your red state car, maybe you're getting charged more for traveling the roads, those sorts of things, which I hadn't thought about.

Yeah.

So, I mean, interesting to me is that the states administer like allegedly federal highways.

Right.

And they they pay for them and they like they set the tolls and stuff like that.

And, you know, it got me thinking about like when I take my kids to the aquarium in Chicago, which my children really love, we get a discount because we live in Chicago.

And if you live outside of Chicago, you pay more.

How do you feel about that?

It's, uh, legible in a way to people where they're like, "Oh, that's what we're doing."

Right, it reminds me of, if you think back to the, like the period just after the, the acute phase of the pandemic ended and it was like it was a real employee's market and people were talking about quiet quitting.

Um, we're conducting a, a, there's a thing in, in organized labor called a work-to-rules strike where instead of, instead of going on strike you just, you look at like the manual or you, you look at the regulations of your company and you, you obey them to the letter.

Um, which as it turns out in most workplaces would grind everything to a halt overnight.

And so I think that soft secession, um, like anything that, that the governments of blue states could do to communicate to the federal government that like what the federal government is doing is completely unacceptable would be helpful.

If they, if they all add up to a, kind of like a memo to Trump and Vought that like...... "We see what you're doing.

Like, we were not born yesterday, and, um, it's not going to work." Right? Like, "Yes, we don't have the same levers of power that you do, but ultimately, what we're doing is we're thinking about ways to fight this."

How do you feel about that?

We had an opening for sunshine, David.

Yeah, no, sorry.

I mean, just, I mean, going back to the inauguration, right? Congressional Democrats, like, one of their first things they did was to help pass, uh, legislation that a lot of people in their base didn't like.

And, like, you set aside the merits of the legislation, you know, the Lake and Riley Act, um, I think the instinct aggres- uh, of the Democrats from the very beginning was to, was to find ways to cooperate, right? Find ways to moderate, to make it look like, um, they were reasonable people, um, on the theory that Trump had just won this, like, magnificent mandate to govern the country, and, like, we have to accommodate ourselves to that reality.

Um, and I think, like, what, what people in the Democratic rank and file have been screaming for, for like months and months and months is that that's not what we want, right? It's not just that it's not what we want, it's not the path back to power.

Um, what Democrats need to be doing here fundamentally is making sure that Trump is holding the bag, uh, for all the bad things that are about to happen, uh, kind of what Tim was talking about, right? Um, like when you sit down with Republicans and you negotiate good faith compromises, like, not only can you not trust the President to carry them out, but you're helping the President politically, right? Um, and I think that they should not be doing that.

I think that's, like, what the, what the base, uh, has been so animated about is they want confrontation rather than cooperation.

(laughs)

David said, "Keep in mind, lack of support from the American people is not really constraining this administration."

Well, the president has already taken a number of actions during his administration that I think that they know are unpopular, um, and they have so far been willing to simply weather the public relations hit and the, and the hit to his approval ratings.

I think that one of the things that they're gambling on is the, is the sort of the, the MAGA magic, you know? So whatever Donald Trump says should be done.

Eventually, the hardest core supporters in his political movement will, will get on board, um, and will eventually say within a week or two that they always supported striking Iran (laughs).

Right? Um, so I think the, the, the opinion polls that we're looking at right now, which show, you know, 16 to, to 25% of Americans in favor of these strikes, um, I think the Trump administration is gambling, and I'm not sure that he's wrong, um, that he'll be able to bring, um, his political movement along and turn those numbers around so that they look like just sort of moderately unpopular rather than something that's, like, pretty radioactive.

Don't need to tell you that," which is wild to me how far we've come.

Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at the history of the Iraq War (laughs), um, from a, you know, from, from the perspective of the, like, the war hawks, right? Like, I think that they look at that, you know, six to nine month period wh- where the US was building its case to the international community and going before the UN, trying to build public support for it, I, I think a lot of the people, even at the time, um, a lot of folks on, on the right, on the far right, regarded that as a waste of time.

You know, they were like, "We should've just done what we were gonna do and not bothered with the fig leaf of, uh, of international law, not, not bothered trying to get the UN's permission for what we were gonna do." I think it's pretty clear that the United States would not get that permission from the United Nations.