It's all about to get worse.

Yeah, in politics, Nicole, as you know, if you're explaining, you're losing.

There's just, there's nothing that Republicans have to campaign for, uh, that there's nothing that they can defend, uh, because it's defenseless.

You know, our job as communicators, Nicole, in campaigns at the White House is to kind of net things out and try and really get to the core of what people are feeling other than all these individual issues, and it's, it increasingly seems to me like it's becoming chaos versus control.

People just have a sense that they've lost control, that Trump has lost control of the government.

He's lost control of the war.

He's lost control of the economy.

[laughs]

And social media is small potatoes compared to AI.

Well, we waited too long on social media.

We're not going to have that opportunity with AI, Stephanie.

You talked about taking a deep breath.

I'm hyperventilating now.

I read a great newsletter in the morning from John Ellis, who's the cousin of George W. Bush.

And he does a whole AI feed that's really eye-opening and scary as hell.

Then do you have any faith that this could be something that we could see bipartisanship around, given how dangerous it is?

Why should we think ourselves smarter the third time and say Republicans are going to get shellacked this time around?

Well, Leland, the reality is that it's a midterm election and that this is an election where not usual voters turn out to turn out in presidential elections like they did for Donald Trump.

These are not casual voters.

These are voters who pay a lot of attention.

And there's a huge gap right now between the perception about Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats have a huge advantage.

But the most important thing is that Democrats have an even bigger advantage on who's actually excited about going to vote, who's animated.

Let government, specifically let us Democrats, who kept you all in masks and kept your kids out of school and made people take vaccines and, by the way, created 40-year high inflation, we should be the ones who take back control.

Is the tolerance still there?

Well, the fact is, I think that Donald Trump's voter suppression efforts, which they clearly are, are only going to backfire.

I think it's just the awareness of all this is going to activate Democrats to double down on their efforts to mobilize and get out and vote.

The greatest voter fraud perpetuated on the American public is this notion that there's any voter fraud.

I was kind of stunned by the attorney general's appearance today.

because I expected him to have some very forceful comments about the Supreme Court ruling.

All he basically did was say, we're going to comply with it.

Mark, last word on this.

Oh, it's happening, the blue

wave.

And I've always been the guy tapping the brakes.

Just because I spent a lot of time in Texas, I know how conservative it is.

And the thing driving that mythology is an increasing demographic, particularly of Hispanics, and people think, oh, more Hispanics, that means they're going to vote Democratic, and it'll finally shift.

Well, Hispanics in Texas are very conservative, as witnessed by the last election when many of them along the border voted for Trump.

Mm-hmm.

It's do you think we're going to have a free and fair election in November? And what do you think is going to happen? Will Republicans lose control, not just of the House, but the Senate, too?

That's one of the questions Indira asked Republican Mark McKinnon, who was an advisor to President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, as well as a founder of the centrist political group No Labels.

The, the biggest problem with this is it, it just smells of desperation because first of all, it's, it's completely, nobody believes that this is actually gonna happen.

Uh, I mean, this is sort of like Mexico's gonna pay for the wall.

Um, first of all, there's, no matter what happens, it's almost certain that there'll be a Democratic Congress.

They're not gonna vote for it.

Uh, but Republicans may hold the, the, the Senate.

But the big question is, you know, first of all, I thought it was a pretty good idea to have a convention when they announced it a while back, a good, a, a good time to get the faithful together, get on the same page, get on the same message.

[laughs]

chance.

Madeline makes some fair points.

You live in the Middle East, so I know you feel strongly about these issues.

I would like to see you two go at it because, I mean, I think it says a lot that the people of Michigan who know him better than we do have nominated him so they know something we don't know.

Or they just blindly went into this.

I don't think they blindly went into it.

I think they have a better sense of him.

I don't think that position, at least among a lot of Democrats in Michigan, especially the Arab world, hurts them that much.

Mark, your thoughts? Well,

first of all, I think the Democrats need a lot of tough love like Rahm Emanuel brings to the table.

So I'm glad that he's in the mix and hope he remains so.

Listen, it's remarkable.

Yes, there's going to be like 30 candidates.

It reminds me of 2016.

You kind of flip the deck here, though.

Go take it away.

We are hearing some whispers of a ton of Trump travel in October, possibly as much as a Trump rally a day in the most competitive states and districts.

Is that going to work? Listen, 49 percent strongly disapprove that.

That's an astonishing number.

And if you think about if you're Republican running, the last thing you want is Trump front and center really right now.

And, you know, a smart political operation would say, listen, boss, let's just take a seat and let the candidates run their own campaigns.

Not only is Trump now they're announcing is going to be out there campaigning, but there's also a huge war chest that is being reported that he's going to spend.

And what does he want him to do? Talk about Donald Trump.

They only they he only convinced Trump.

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[laughs]

Are you worried about that or are you worried about them doing something beforehand, like, I don't know, sending ICE agents to the polls?

polls?I'm worried about all of it.

I mean, I, I think all of this, or, or predominantly it's about trying to seed this notion ahead of time that there was fraud so when it turns out badly, which I think Donald Trump at least he's, has enough [laughs] realistic perception about the environment to understand that's likely to happen.

So he's doing everything in his power, um, to seed the notion that there's something wrong with the election so that he can say so afterwards, and he will have already made the argument.

Uh, by the way, uh, let me just level set from my perspective here in Colorado.

The notion that there's widespread voter fraud is the greatest fraud there is in American politics right now.

There simply...

Uh, is that necessary, number one? Number two, is Donald Trump, um, are all these efforts to, to sow, uh, uh, doubt, to claim fraud ahead of time, the, uh, threat of sending ICE agents or maybe declaring a national emergency or saying that certain people shouldn't be allowed to vote, does that create more incentive for people to get out there, more incentive for them to participate in a midterm election?

Does a couple hundred million dollars in advertising and putting those clips out between now and November change that?

I don't know.

I, [laughs] you know, I, I think you, you have your thumb on the pulse here, Leland, as does Madeline, just in the sense that this is, this is a lot more about just voter anger.

And the greater the anger, the more they're willing to put up with, and the more radical candidates they're willing to support.

I'm just reminded so much of being back in Texas in the 2009, 2010, the early days of the Tea Party, and having the sa- and hearing a lot of the same reaction to the Tea Party candidates.

"Oh, they're..." You know, "It's wild, crazy stuff.

This'll never fly." Uh, but that's, that's, that is a reflection of voters' anger and that sentiment.

Go ahead, Mark.

But is it too soon for Democrats to count on those disaffected voters coming over to their side of the aisle or in- incorporating, in- incorporating them into their fold?

It is too soon.

I mean, it's always too soon.

Uh, it should always [laughs] run like you're 10 points behind right up until the, the polls close.

But, uh, uh, listen, I, I, the enthusiasm gap is huge.

Uh, and that's, that's such a big factor in any midterm election.

So I, I think that there's, the window's closing.

So would this be the same fight all over again?

Are we finally at the point where the extremes of both parties get ejected and all of us normies in the middle, finally it is extreme now to be in the middle and have some kind of option?

Now, I sure hope so, Leland, you know, because I really believe and have for a long time that there is a broad center of America.

And by the way, recent polling shows that more and more people and a majority, particularly among Gen Z and younger demographics, identify as independent.

And so I think that understandably voters have gotten really mad at the parties, but they've gone either far right or far left.

And I want them to go to the middle.

And this is something I've thought about.

I've worked on for a long time through several different cycles.

Why are there not more people in the middle who are members of both parties willing to be more vocal?

Um, MS now had an article, uh, posted by, uh, by a couple of our r- reporters, Laura Barron-Lopez and David Rohde, in which it said, "Six former CIA and intelligence officials told MS now that the CIA and the White House should answer questions about the origin of the intelligence document on China's alleged efforts to undermine Trump in the run up to the 2020 elections." People inside the, you know, former CIA people are saying, "Where, where are you getting this stuff from?"

Yeah.

A- a- and I mean, the, the irony of all that is that, uh, I think we're gonna discover that that was problematic and maybe manufactured.

The reality is that any foreign agencies, uh, are, are the, the ones with any sort of power to do so, were probably helping Trump if they were doing anything, 'cause they were for Trump.

Putin was helping Trump.

Xi's probably for Trump.

I mean, the, the [laughs]-

And, and if we let this slip after this midterm elections, we are slipping closer to a place where maybe it's not a joke when Donald Trump puts that 2028 cap on.

W- what do you make of just the tired, limp, old smears like, oh, affordability is a hoax?

Well, that specifically is very problematic because you're telling people that the pain that they're feeling is not real.

Uh, I, I mean, y- you and I both been in political communications business for years or were, and, uh, there were a lot of things that we could shape or influence in terms of our communications, but the one thing that you could never spin was the economy and, and people's own pocketbooks and what was happening to them.

The, the, the greatest retail campaigner that, that we've probably seen in our lives was Bill Clinton, and, and when he had that problem in front of him, what did he say? He didn't try to dismiss it or push it away.

He said, "I feel your pain." What does Donald Trump says? He says, "Your pain's imaginary.

It's not real.

It's, the affordability's a hoax." I mean, that, that is astonishing for a political leader to say about something that's so fundamentally affecting their voters.

[laughs]

Is Trump really going to be OK with some Republican saying no? No,

but the problem is he's still the top of the ticket and people still look to the top of the ticket as kind of being the guidepost for this.

And if you're a Republican candidate, if you're running right now, all you're doing is explaining.

All you're doing is being on defense.

You've got nothing proactive around.

I mean, you're talking about the you can't talk about the economy.

You can't talk about inflation.

What sort of messaging would you be?

What made him that?

Well, he was a politician from central casting.

He was kind of like a Mickey Rooney character.

And I mean that sort of in the best and the worst ways about politicians.

I mean, he was a true public servant.

I think that was a good characteristic in him.

But he also was really needed relevance, which is why he saw the shift to supporting Donald Trump the way that he did, which which complicates his legacy for sure.

And Lindsey Graham was advocating.

This is another loss for the administration.

Well, you put your finger on it, Katie.

I mean, I'd love to see, you know, stacked up the number of cases now over, you know, since Trump became president.

where we've seen this kind of just totally unprepared or over-prosecuted presentations that get thrown out of court.

And I think this is a reflection not only of of the prosecutors themselves feeling pressured by the president to prosecute cases that shouldn't be prosecuted.

I mean, that's the fundamental problem.

First of all, the prosecuting cases that shouldn't be prosecuted.

It's significant for the average family income.

Are we all living in the past, sitting here talking about the Rubio-Vance nomination fight?

Well, I think Caroline has a great observation that millennials and Gen Z will have an inordinate impact of a huge growing demographic.

And I would say that would be the case, except that I think Trump's endorsement will be key if he endorses, and I presume that he will.

And if he does, I think that that pretty much stakes out who the nominee will be.

As for Vance, you know, one of the things I did as George Bush's media guy, and I did all his advertising, when I got the job, I went back and I studied advertising for the advent of television and presidential campaigns.

to see, and it changed over time, what would influence voters.

But for the last couple of decades, the key to influencing voters, because people are so skeptical about politics, is authenticity.

Are we seeing Donald Trump lay the groundwork for his own surge in Iran?

Um, what did you think of that, um, news availability by Jon Ossoff?

Well, I agree with your panelists.

Uh, uh, uh, Ossoff has for a long time been demonstrating a, a really profound ability to tighten a message, which I think all Democrats should watch and, and emulate.

Particularly as George has said, bringing together not just a, a, a, the message about corruption, which I, I, you know, nobody but Ossoff has really found that target zone like, like he has.

But it's not just that, it's connecting it to people's lives and the fact that, uh, that, that while Trump is, uh, fleecing you, uh, you're, you're paying [laughs] higher prices at the cost of all of this.

So it's really not, you know...

It, it's an ability to, as George said, weave this all together, and I, I think it's really, uh, it's really impressive.

Does that concern you, especially Mark, after what we saw in 2021 at the Capitol?

Have you figured out, as you study this politically, where this support for socialism, progressivism comes from young white women?

Well...

Yes.

I think there's a long history in the United States of constituencies and demographics voting against their self-interest, Leland.

I think that, for example, MAGA voters voted for Trump, and a lot of those voters are voters who rely on Medicaid and SNAP benefits, and now those are being taken away.

I think this is a similar situation.

But I do feel that these are demographic groups also who feel neglected, overlooked, and are mad.

What would this week's episode be to explain this?

What does this White House do now that they are in this mess? Is it something they can clean up? Is it as easy as draining a pool and trying to trying to resurface the bottom and filling it back up again?

Well, Katie, I mean, the metaphors are they're so perfect for his adversaries.

Metaphors are important to storytelling.

And I'm reminded as I watch, you know, the ballroom and the reflecting pool and just how obvious a metaphor that is for what's going on with the Trump administration, where his priorities are right now.

I think about.

the day that I saw the video of John Kerry windsurfing in 2004.

And that was a perfect metaphor for John Kerry and the flip-flop.

Does that transfer again in 2028 if he's not on the ballot?

Are they making that case, or is this voters moving away from Donald Trump?

Well, given all that's going on and all that's happened, Democrats should be up by 20.

The fact that they're only up five is problematic.

Voters, they're not unhappy with the Republicans.

They're not happy with Trump.

They're not happy with Democrats.

They're in a bitter, foul mood.

But the president, who's the person currently in office and controlling Congress, they ain't making that case.

Why would that be, and how does this play out?

Well, Leland, I, I, I wish we were doing a episode of The Circus on this one.

This is tailor-made.

Uh, this is kind of a classical political situation [laughs] when, when you have a new candidate who y- everybody gets excited about but they're unvetted.

And this is the United States Senate, and you don't go through this without g- going into the wood chipper at some point.

And that's the, that's the problem for Democrats, and it's really problematic I think for Democrats who ar- who have argued all along about like h- unlike in your segment about Hegseth or Trump about y- the character matters, character counts, and then you're supporting a guy who's got th- th- the problems that we know about already.

I've been trying to think about how you would resolve this If you're a Democrat, uh, and you're...

Mm-hmm