I miss you on television.

Yeah.

I don't know if the Kirk fans miss me, but thank you for missing me.

It's a question, and I know you did Obama and I was with Bush.

One of the differences that I see is there's beginning to be some Republicans trying to distance themselves from Donald Trump.

You see it in a few doing some spots saying they're different.

The difference in character of the person, Obama, Bush versus Trump, is that even though Obama and Bush, in my view, and you confirm this, didn't like when Republicans and when Democrats sort of said, I need to be have a little distance from you in order to run my campaign and win.

But

What are your thoughts on how these races are going to affect the fall, how these more conservative candidates in Florida are going to affect the fall?

Well, I you know, to me, there's been a total misread by so many folks in this when they describe the results as left as left or progressive versus moderate.

And you look at race after race and Rick, you've done enough races and I've worked with you a bunch.

That in the end, candidate quality and candidate ability to communicate and candidate passion, all those things and a candidate sense of authenticity is way, way, way more powerful than ideology.

I mean, it's why the progressive one in Michigan in the Senate race, he was a much better candidate and he proves himself every day.

Vastly better candidate.

To be a better candidate and race after race.

Maybe that's something to do with

[laughs]

[laughs] Thanks, Rick.

And, uh, as I have said before, it's, I've, I've known Rick and Joe and Stuart, who's not on today, for more than 20 years.

I've known them a long time, uh, in the course of our political efforts and when I was in the media, which many of you know, uh, me from.

I was chief political analyst for ABC News for 10 years and then was senior political analyst for, um, MSNBC until last September.

So I've got to know Joe and Rick for a long time and I've known of Tessa from afar with great respect for her as well as for Rick and Joe in all of this.

And so my sort of step into this was I worked on political campaigns around the country, uh, before I did the media stint, um, both Democratic and Republicans.

[laughs]

Yeah

... all of that, that it's, it's increased the likelihood that, that more people through Iran is gonna radicalize other people around the world, and that's what's so amazing about this.

And Iran has, is more...

I mean, Th- that Trump won't admit this, but Iran today is more powerful in its ability-

Right

... on any of this.

And they keep...

You hear these guys, these congressmen on, Republican congressmen on, on the talk about the price of gas like, like as you said, like trying to convince people of a reality that doesn't exist i- in this.

Matt Dowd, your thoughts?

Well, I mean, I don't disagree with anything and I... a- and anything that's been said.

Um, I, I at least...

Uh, though I worked for Bush, I at least done Democratic campaigns in T- in Texas where we...

I ran the last one that won here, so I, I hope I have a little credibility on this.

Part of the pro-...

I mean, Democrats have a playing field on one hand that you couldn't ask for better of going into 2026.

Matt, what does this look like in practice?

"The people are the ultimate check on leadership." I'm pretty sure you agree with that, Matthew.

(laughs) Yeah, I'm just...

As I listened to that and, and watched this over the course of the last few days, I just can't help but think how far afield Donald Trump and the Republican Party has moved from conservative principles.

It used to be local control and states' rights was a huge plank of the conservatives.

Not only that, it was rule of law, global trade, um, you know, balanced budgets, all of those things.

They've thrown every conservative principle out, including this last one, which is local control in the midst of this.

In my view, Donald Trump is only using this to try to distract from all of his horrible situation he is in.

What do you think?

What do you, what do you hear from watching these town halls?

Well, you know, I, I'm always a believer, you know, that anecdotes are, are interesting and fun, and a town hall is an anecdote.

And it, by itself, I would say, "Oh, the town hall, just a bunch of people sh- showed up and were mad." But the anecdote matters when it's combined with data.

And so the town halls that we're seeing that the Republicans are having to face with all of this anger is a reflection of all of the public opinion polls, and all of the public opinion polls show Donald Trump the most unpopular president at this point in time in his history.

The Republican Party is unpopular.

And, in fact, that they took an unpopular president with an unpopular party and then pushed an unpopular bill, a highly unpopular bill, what did they think was gonna happen, eh, when they did that? And that's what the, you know, fascinating thing about this.

And so the outcome of all of that is these town halls, and the Republicans that do, God bless 'em for doing, for holding a town hall in the midst of this.

Matt Dowd, get back to what Democrats can take from all of this and how they can rewire their connection to their supporters and their voters, or some of the swing voters, from a, you know, message to the head to a message to the gut.

Is this going to haunt the president at all, or will his fan base stay faithful or do they exist in a news desert and they won't blame him for any hardships they face?

face?Oh, well, I mean, I, I, I think the reality is, and you showed the pol- uh, the polling of this, it, this is definitely going to harm them.

The question is, is how much? And that e- uh, to a degree depends on whether or not the Democrats can be efficient and effective in the messaging on this.

I think it's a perfect opportunity for Democrats in this election.

And, you know, Donald Trump can't run again no matter what he says, but the Democrats taking the House and possibly the Senate could make his life exceedingly miserable for the last four, the last two years of his presidency.

I mean, I think what the Republicans have done is twofold and given the Democrats two very powerful message, messages.

First is the R- Republican Party, it, it's laughable anymore if they stand up and claim they're the party of fiscal responsibility.

Why is it that this group of people, these influential Americans, these big donors, why do they shrug off what the President of the United States that's blowing through the rule of law, why do they shrug off what he does day in and day out and they're panicked over a possible mayor o- o- o- o- of New York? Is it because this new mayor doesn't support capitalism and this current president supports crony capitalism?

From a pure optics and imagery perspective, and Donald Trump is all about branding, what do you think of the gamble Donald Trump is making here?

Uh, I think it's a huge mistake on his part.

I mean, just, let's just set aside the constitutional problem and all the other legality problems of using the National Guard, using the military in this manner to do this.

Let's just set that huge substantive problem aside.

I think from a political standpoint, and just your previous discussion I think highlights this on the economy, is Americans don't...

Americans and businesspeople and leaders don't like chaos.

And we just went through, as you just said, the last month or so of chaos related to tariffs in the economy, what's gonna happen, how to make decisions, all that.

Mm-hmm.

But I wonder what you make of the process and how it's flushed out such a, I use the word reverse-engineered, but such an, an in- an incompetent and, and incomplete process.

Well, I, I was...

Before you said the word reverse-engineered, it was the word, th- the word I was thinking, actually.

To me, and I'm, I'm not a lawyer on this, and I defer to oth- the legal issues in all this, the whole thing smells.

I mean, completely smells, because even watching Pam Bondi's press conference, your take, your, your, your... my takeaway from that is it's deplorable, because what she basically is making in argument, one, she doesn't even presume this person is innocent.

She just makes these outlandish claims and then says, "Oh, but we're only filing charges for these couple, but we're gonna make these outlandish claims 'cause it's gonna serve the public relations standpoint in this." The whole thing is they, they, they (laughs) violated this guy's, this man's civil rights in, in violation of not one, but multiple court orders, and then it...

You know, and we'll get a better sense of the timing of this, th- what it looks like happened is they were caught and then in order to "save the PR war," uh, they don't sort of apologize and said, "We messed up on due process, and it's unfortunate, and we'll do that." They don't do that.

(laughs)

I, I saw it, and I'm, I'm, I'm just baffled, to be honest.

Well, you know, this is, uh, it, it is baffling, so I agree with you, it's very baffling that you would get in front of a town hall and basically say, w- as people raise concerns about people's healthcare, you say, "We're all gonna die," when every person in that audience knows that, and that's why they were raising the concern.

(laughs) Because they have, if they don't have healthcare, they're more likely to die earlier.

I mean, to me, this is everything that goes on when...

And somebody like Joni Ernst, and you know this, when she first got elected, she was supposed to be sort of a moderating Republican influence, you know, where her, where she came from and all of that.

But what seemed to has ha- to have happened is this sort of virus of Donald Trump's cruelty, how you treat people, the coarse things you say, the mean spirit with which you act, what policies you push, e- especially this one, we can talk about this in a sec, what polici- policies you can push that are cruel to certain groups.

And Joni Ernst is just another person that has ba- basically turned to that, that sort of Donald Trump tact of, "How cruel can I be?"

What should we expect?

Hmm.

... how much value they've lost in this.

And if I were on the board of Tesla or one of his other companies watching what's happened over the last six months in this and watching my value of my portfolio drop by 50%, which is what it has in this, and watching sales across the United States, and especially in Europe, fall dramatically because of, of, uh, Elon Musk's behavior, I would have tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Enough.

You know, enough with this." And though we think he has unlimited money, when, eh, when you lose, you know, $100 billion of valuation, (laughs) um, e- even with a guy that starts off with 200 or whatever, that's a hit.

And, uh, and I think he was in danger of losing more and more valuation if he kept this up.

One thing I'd like to say about this whole thing, I mean, we, I, I always viewed Elon Musk as a really, really smart kind of technological genius in this, but a weirdo, right? It's a kind of a weirdo that, you know, go about, do your things, you know, invent the...

You know, he didn't invent anything, but do the things to make popular the products you have, ac- and accumulate wealth.

Yeah.

And support for deporting immigrants in the United States who are married to a US citizen, only 5% of Americans support deporting those individuals.

Yeah, I mean, just let, let's just first state, as, as you do almost every show, there's the, the moral reprehensibility of this and, and the constitutional, against the Constitution, I mean, it's morally and constitutionally so wrong in what he's doing in all this.

And I didn't know I would be agreeing with Joe Rogan, but Joe Rogan's absolutely right, it's, you know, constitutional due process, which means any president could walk into your neighbor's church or synagogue or temple and take out, you know, Jane Smith, put her on a bus, then put her on a plane, and then she's u- in El Salvador.

That's the policy.

It's not just, you know, quote unquote, "gang members," it's anyone could, this could happen to without due process.

But I think Donald Trump's made a fundamental error on th- on two of the biggest issues that kept him above water in all of the, his elections.

And the two issues, in spite of people's personal views of him, which, who they didn't like him, they didn't trust him, they didn't, he, th- they didn't think he was a moral person, but the two things that held him up were immigration and the economy.

Um, th- this is an unbelievable moment that, as much as anything, I think is a, is a measure of how, how numb and disconnected we've come from, from the plight of other human beings.

What does all of this do to our standing in the world as the leader of democratic ideals?

Well, it, great question, and I mean, I, I, this is such a scary situation because the way it was done, as you know, it, it was basically no due process was allowed, there was no transparency.

Somebody was just picked up and was, we, as was discovered wrongly, taken to a foreign country and put in a foreign country jail.

And it sounds like, from all the reporting, that we're paying these, the folks in El Salvador, to hold this person until, I guess, somebody at the Trump level says, "Let him go." And that means that anyone watching, this is not just, "Oh, an immigrant was picked up and, oh, this bad person was picked up." It means anyone could be picked up when, and without due process, it would take weeks or months or years in order to get re- a, a legal citizen in the United States, you or me, this could happen to.

And I think this, this, it's such a representation of the deterioration of the rule of law and our justice system in America.

I mean, the, what, what's, I think, incredibly disturbing for many of us, and I think should be to your viewers, is we're the wealthiest country on Earth.

And if we're not the oldest democracy in the, in the world, we're the l- longest c- continual democracy in the world.

So what do you think is brewing when you think about this showdown about to go down between the executive and the judicial branches, when you warned us of this in 2024 and people said, "Oh, it won't happen"?

Um, what do you see?

I mean, I agree with that and you never fully know the power of the moment until the aftermath, and it could come months, even sometimes years later in the aftermath.

This time, I think the power of the moment, I think is gonna be measured in days as we look at this.

Uh, I mean, I think what you saw w- uh, the, the, the results in Wisconsin, and also in my view, the results in Florida, even though the Democrats lost, those were two 30-point district, 30-point Donald Trump districts that the Democrats lost by 15.

And we saw that in the districts in Pennsylvania where they, Democrats did 15 points better than they would normally would, the Republicans did 15 points worse.

I think what it says, I mean, as I reflected on this and, and why Senator Booker's thing was most so beautiful and so powerful at the same time is, you know, you think back at moments and times, and I'm not about to compare his speech to these p- speeches in history, only in the fact that sometimes we don't know the ramifications of the moments and what they build to until later.

I, and I think of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which at the time, Abraham Lincoln lost the election, but basically those, what he said framed the context for the anti-slavery movement that led to his presidency and led to the, obviously the 13th and then the 14th and 15th Amendments and the, and the winning of the Civil War.

And everything that's happening in the Rose Garden, even without listening to every second of it, um, makes those things worse, the economic insecurity and instability.