he uh does he is he delusional or does he realize what's happening is he whistling in the graveyard what's going on there

You know, I'm not sure.

I think he's talking to himself, obviously.

I mean, he's trying to convince himself that, OK, if he does lose the House and the Senate, well, that's not unusual because that happens to presidents.

And so he's trying to convince himself that that's maybe also the media.

Hey, just reminding you this stuff happens.

But he's also trying to convince himself.

But thoughts on this?

Speak to what actually might happen, if you would, David.

I would say that the bigger problem in terms of the certification of the election is where the issue lies, because with 50 different states and so many different voting systems and there's still a lot of local power over elections, A number of technology folks have told us over the last couple of weeks, it's actually very difficult to hack for Elon Musk or anybody else to actually change results.

Now, the possibility, of course, is that maybe you send federal agents or ICE agents to the polls and that keeps African-Americans, Latinos and others away from the polls because maybe they're afraid, they're convinced, oh, I have a parking ticket.

I'm going to get arrested if I show up.

So there's some of that suppression.

But the greater concern seems to be, I'm talking with a bunch of folks about this, is that Mike Johnson and others in races that are close, in other words, not the entire thing, but if certain races are close, there is a way, there is a process where the U.S. Congress led by Republicans and with Donald Trump's support, can gum up the certification so that certain numbers don't get seeded.

So if you have, say, a Senate that is 49-49, let's suppose it's close, and there are two Senate races that may be determinative, that's where I think you could have some real issues in terms of, well, who's going to have Senate control? who's going to be able to have the majority.

And in that case, it was with a GOP operative.

David?

Yeah, and the fears that, uh, Republicans keep trying to play with the economy is, never mind, you know, what was going on with George W. Bush, but they wanna try to say to people, "Look how bad things were during Biden.

And if we elect Democrats, we're going right back to the horrible inflation under Biden." Well, Kevin Hassett, the Trump economic advisor, was on TV yesterday saying, "20% inflation under Biden." Well, actually, it was 9% at its peak, but at the end of Biden's term, when J- Donald Trump took office, he handed Trump an economy where inflation was at 3%, and we're now up to 3.4%.

At the end of the Biden administration, he handed Trump a, an economy where gasoline prices were 3.35 a gallon.

All Americans know it's, you know, 4.36 a gallon now.

So just on those sort of issues in terms of are you paying more now for gasoline and are you paying more for food and groceries than you were at the end of the Biden administration, that's an easy answer for people, even if they don't quite remember how things-- what the exact data was during, during Trump 1.0 or during the Bush administration.

They know that things are a lot more expensive now in a year and a half under Trump.

Go ahead, David.

Not as bad as it was under Biden." And the reality is now, no, it's worse than it was under Biden.

Right.

If there's an element of truth to Donald Trump saying that gas-- I mean, look, if you look at the end of the Biden presidency, the beginning of the Trump presidency, inflation ha- Biden handed off inflation that was lower than it is now.

Donald Trump started with inflation lower than it is now, so inflation has gotten worse.

If you look at gas prices, sure, there was a spike at a certain point in gas prices during the Biden administration.

But again, at the end of Biden's term, gas prices were around $3.12 a gallon.

Now they're averaging about $4.30 a gallon.

Uh, so, so, uh, uh, please, some thoughts.

Again, I don't want to be somehow casting Iran as angelic in any way, but I don't think there are any honest brokers to this whole thing.

No, absolutely not.

And in fact, I mean, the way things stand, the way the place that things stand now is you have the Chinese leader Xi Jinping telling Donald Trump, go back and restart the memorandum of understanding.

Well, the problem that Donald Trump had with that is it was giving Iran hundreds of billions of dollars with no promise about what they would do about their nuclear weapons.

And Donald Trump faced such resentment for that that I think he felt obligated to at the first opportunity to re-engage with the military war with Iran.

So at the moment, both Iran and the United States are basically saying, you go first.

Iran, you freeze your nuclear weapons and you open the Strait of Hormuz, and then we, the United States, will unfreeze your assets.

that essentially the domestic squeeze, which is the result of these Trump policies, it's being felt by everyone to the point that there's just really no swimming away from it.

Let's just stay the course and let's just live the prosperity when the wave comes in.

Yeah, the status quo is not a great place to be if you're campaigning for any office right now.

And so I'm sort of shocked.

Yeah, he talked a little bit about federal health centers, whatever those may be.

I would have said, Mark, you know, a couple of months ago that this would probably be the easiest victory Republicans would have.

When the Democrats nominated Abdullah Syed, I thought, OK, Mike Rogers, he's sort of a centrist Republican.

He's going to have an easy time.

This ice stuff and these thugs are out of control, and yet there's no effort to rein them in.

Give me some thoughts on this please, David.

Well, a couple of things.

We already have regulations for things like the financial crisis.

There are government regulators who sit in some of these firms and make sure they don't crash the financial system.

That's essentially what the AI companies are asking for.

And, and I'll take you back, you know, the people who are close, the people who are closest to the research, they're the ones who say there's a 75, 80% chance that within the next couple of years this is gonna wipe out humanity.

The people who have the most to gain financially from the business, Sam Altman, Dario Amodai, Elon Musk, they say, "Well, it's maybe only about 10%." Still, 10% is a lot and when those tech titans are saying, "Yes, we have to slow down.

He's an everything is fine, nothing to see here kinda guy.

But the other thing that I think kind of does is he has a populist message, a message that I think will really land well, particularly in this moment.

Yeah, absolutely right, Mark.

I mean, the issue of economic inequality and bridging the wealth gap, I think that resonates perhaps better than any other issue.

When you poll things like, let's tax people who make more than $500 million, you get something like 75% approval.

Even a majority of Republicans who generally don't like taxes would say, yeah, the wealthy should be contributing more.

I think what's interesting is, to your point about, can there be two progressives or more, there certainly seems like there is a lane for a... progressive who talks about economic populism and stability and expanding, say, Medicare for all and raising the minimum wage and making the wealthy pay more.

I think there is a lane for that in 2028 in the Democratic Party.

And he and his wife, who attends many of these classified briefings, it's an extraordinary thing, but she does, they have reshaped a lot of the Pentagon messaging, and maybe this is among it.

[laughs]

So I just sort of think, you know, if, if, if Pete Hegseth...

And I was fine actually with, you know, if the Pentagon wants to include a lot of different types of media organizations and invite some of their, you know, right-wing [laughs] media influencers, whatever.

I think more people covering the Pentagon, that's fine.

I don't have a problem with it.

But once they started moving people out and saying, "You have to run scripts and run stories by us, otherwise you're gonna be, not get your credentials," that was a problem.

And now- You know, instead of just pushing back about, "Well, what is it about the Stars and Stripes reporting that you don't like? What is it that's not true?" Instead, they just fire people.

Again, these immigrants who are trying to follow the law, trying to do everything by the book, and still, because what? They're the wrong color or they happen to be, you know, trying to fix a green card issue, all of a sudden they're swept up and detained by ICE.

Yeah, I mean, so give me some thoughts on this new media and Al-Sayed in view of this.

Look, his political skills are off the charts.

You could see just in his body language, he's putting his arm around the other guy's shoulder, leaning in, sort of smiling as he's talking.

I mean, everyone says that his political gifts are endless, and I agree with that.

I think the other thing is, and for those of us of a certain age, it is a little bit jarring, and it was jarring when Donald Trump would say things that felt inappropriate.

I think it's still jarring when a mainstream candidate for the U.S. Senate says that Donald Trump poops himself in the Oval Office.

Even though there are those claims about Donald Trump's incontinence, it still seems strange to hear a Democratic candidate go there or any candidate.

A lot of what he's saying just is not even even the part about American ships guiding tankers through the strait is made up.

To what degree is there a real insurgence?

I think there is a real anti-establishment feeling that's been around for 10 years.

And if you go back, as you mentioned Bernie Sanders in 2016, I look back to 10 years ago when a lot of people were warning that half of all jobs were going to disappear because of technology.

And we didn't have names for all the jobs that were coming online.

And there was a lot of economic turmoil in so many communities.

And people literally felt the ground shaking from underneath.

And they couldn't put a finger on it.

Again, he's so Teflon that maybe it just doesn't matter, but it's really bad politics.

[laughs]

... they've already had their prison sentences commuted and everything else.

And on top of the horrible messaging that this, you know, gives to Republicans in terms of the Republicans stand for the, the criminals and the, and the lawlessness, all that sort of thing, it also distract from what Republicans were trying to do last week in the Senate, which was pass a spending bill and pass funding for, um, uh, Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But because Trump introduced this slush fund, Democrats had all these amendments ready to put Republicans on the record, "Do you support the slush fund or not?" And Republicans didn't wanna take that vote because it would mean going against Donald Trump, which is bad, and also it would be used against them in elections.

So they just decided to punt on everything and not bring up any of the other stuff that they were planning to do.

So Trump derailed the schedule of the Senate, which is, you know, wholly, uh, is a holy issue for [laughs] members of the Senate.

So I think it's, I, I think Republicans in the Senate at least, I don't think some in the House recognize that a tsunami is coming.

I mean, Warren G. Harding looks kind of charming at this point.