Walk us through why this is so significant.

The reason there is a press pool, this rotation that the networks share, and there's a separate print rotation or digital rotation now, is because for two reasons.

Number one, there simply isn't enough space in the Oval Office, on Air Force One, at the UN General Assembly, et cetera, for 500 reporters, 900 reporters to crash in there.

And so they create a rotation of news organizations that have enough staffing and funding to be able to make the financial commitment to be in those places, to pay their own freight to be there, and to provide coverage that is shared by everybody else.

And that benefits the American public.

It benefits the news organizations that use the coverage.

It also benefits every sitting president, whether they're a Republican or a Democrat, in good times and in bad times, because it gives them a distribution system for them to get their own messaging out.

If I was only willing to speak with people who agreed with me all the time, I would be sitting at home looking in a mirror.

Given the cost of living, given the political drag on Republicans in the president's party, why? Why is he picking a trade war and this fight with Canada now? Not just beef, the broader trade war that we're gonna talk about.

Yeah, I, you know, I, I don't th- think that the president fully baked in the trade war implications on midterms in crucial states Republicans want to hold, and that's really the only conclusion that you can reach when you look at, uh, whether it's tariffs or whether it's the [laughs] what are you gonna call the lake w- that the rest of the world [laughs] still calls Lake Ontario.

Um, this doesn't necessarily play in Michigan and Alaska the way it plays in the MAGA base nationally, and I think the president is trying to, is trying to have a national impact ahead of the midterms, but is under-calculating the localized impact.

In the midterms, control of the Senate in particular, and a couple pivotal House races, is won state by state or district by district.

The way an undecided voter or a swing voter feels about US relationsh- with Canada or, um, [lips smack] uh, whether, uh, US ranchers should basically eat it so that all...

Not...

Sorry, I didn't mean to say eat it, but eat it so that [laughs] other Americans can eat it more cheaply.

Forgive me if that's, if it's three-point-six, but it's right around in that neighborhood, which is very high of the traditional target, Margaret.

Absolutely.

I mean, Gallup showing data centers have become a top five issue.

Uh, my colleagues at Axios writing about Republicans being quite concerned in Ohio in particular about data centers.

We saw this here in the conversation with Georgia voters.

Uh, three out of the four voters saying their data centers are something they're watching very closely.

Three out of the four saying in a negative way they're watching it.

They're-

Mm.

That's a dose of negativity to the Democratic Party.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, these are, obviously Maine and Michigan voters are very different.

They have different, um, concerns and, and traits and patterns and things on their mind, but they're all down on their own party, and they don't care because they're so down on President Trump's policies, uh, with regard to everything, the war in Iran, the price of gas, the, the execution of, uh, ICE unleashing on American citizens, that they're like, "Eyes on the prize.

Doesn't matter that we don't like our own party.

Doesn't matter that our candidates are complicated and troubled in some cases.

We don't even care if they take the fight to Trump." They want to win in November.

How do you see that playing out?

Mm.

But when you get into the nitty-gritty about it, again, this group of 14 was really divided.

Many of them are blaming President Biden for Donald Trump's economy, still, a year after the election.

And you've got five saying they actually feel better about the economy now, six saying they feel worse, three saying it's unchanged.

So they're, they're not loving the Trump presidency, but they're not sure what the alternative would have been.

And they're all over the map about whether to hold Trump accountable for inflation or whether it's not really his fault, it's other stuff, he's got other stuff to do.

Uh, the president can't control the economy.

Interesting.

Margaret, what else are we hearing from Democrats right now?

There's a lot of concern about, uh, when you add it all, uh, when you add the benefits and you take out the subtractions about what's really left, so you're starting to hear some of that, you know, from Democrats, but by the way, you're also gonna hear it from Senate Republicans (laughs), which we can talk about, uh, in a minute.

But here's the thing.

There are elements in this legislation that I would put in the kind of, um, Donald Trump loyalty/brand aggrandizement category.

You've got the so-called Trump accounts.

They would once have been called MAGA accounts.

Uh, this is kind of a, a alternative to a 529 savings account.

What's going on there?

Yeah.

This doesn't necessarily represent the overwhelming majority of Black men in America or African American voters in America.

But it represents an important segment because this is a segment that President Trump and his team have targeted and said, "Democrat, Democrat, the Democratic establishment has, has taken these voters for granted for too long," and there are a lot of men in this country who think that the Democratic Party got too woke or is focusing on the wrong issues or isn't decisive enough.

And this (laughs) survey tells us he is right about a slice of that electorate.

O- um, more than overwhelming support for Trump, what I heard that was so interesting was just the total disillusionment with these voters-

Yes.

...

but, but what about this? But what about this? But what about them? Uh, but what's important to remember, s- some of their criticism is coming from their personal experience, the way they have perceived the political system, right? And, uh, part of it is coming from the way they consume media, and many of the men on these panels, uh, get a lot of their news or information from social media, and, uh, the depth of knowledge on the substance of some of these issues, what is Doge doing? Do you know what's, what do you know, what's Elon Musk doing? Do you know what Trump is doing on X, Y, Z? The knowledge is not deep and specific.