What are, what are you feeling in your gut here, five and a half weeks out, as you look at the upcoming election?

Well, first, every poll, and I take every one of them with a deep, uh, big grain of salt because the polling world is, uh, not entirely trustworthy.

Um, but if you put them all together and you look at the trends, Trump's support and that of Republicans is dropping like a rock.

Even among the stronger Trumpists, there's a recognition, uh, for some portion of them at least, that he made all these promises and he hasn't fulfilled a single one, and that their lives are not doing well.

And these candidates, the Republican candidates, are running not on, "We actually will take affordability seriously," but it's like, uh, Collins in Georgia running against, uh, Jon Ossoff, and his focal point is, "Ossoff puts on too much makeup." That's not exactly, uh, a formula for winning support from voters.

But there's the caveat we mention every week, David, which is, and it was reinforced for me when, at least for a time, after a judge ruled that the White House had to allow these journalistic outlets, Politico, MSNBC now, uh, CNN, back into the White House, and the White House defied the court ruling, where I got even more chilled in the prospect.

But the reality is there are no norms, no laws, no constitutional provisions safe with Donald Trump, and he is going to try every violent act and dirty trick in the books to try and sway this election.

But you could very easily see, in a number of cases, stealing ballots, seizing machines, sending troops in, and so forth, Trump coming up with a national security predicate for violating our election norms, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that.

What, what are you feeling in your gut here, five and a half weeks out, as you look at the upcoming election?

Well, first, every poll, and I take every one of them with a deep, uh, big grain of salt because the polling world is, uh, not entirely trustworthy.

Um, but if you put them all together and you look at the trends, Trump's support and that of Republicans is dropping like a rock.

Even among the stronger Trumpists, there's a recognition, uh, for some portion of them at least, that he made all these promises and he hasn't fulfilled a single one, and that their lives are not doing well.

And these candidates, the Republican candidates, are running not on, we actually will take affordability seriously, but it's like, uh, Collins in Georgia running against, uh, Jon Ossoff, and his focal point is Ossoff puts on too much makeup.

That's not exactly, uh, a formula for winning support from voters.

But there's the caveat we mention every week, David, which is, and it was reinforced for me when, at least for a time, after a judge ruled that the White House had to allow these journalistic outlets, Politico, MSNBC Now, uh, CNN, back into the White House, and the White House defied the court ruling, where I got even more chilled in the prospect.

But you could very easily see, in a number of cases, stealing ballots, seizing machines, sending troops in, and so forth, Trump coming up with a national security predicate for violating our election norms, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that.

Huh.

Uh, but let me first, uh, do an, an additional condemnation of one of his cabinet members, the nephew of John F. Kennedy, our slain president for whom the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was created, who has said nothing about this desecration, who just a few days ago at this midterm convention, which was basically just another, uh, please praise me, uh, event by Donald Trump, Kennedy gushed in praise saying that Trump was brilliant and nice and warm and empathetic, and has said nothing about this outrage.

Now, I can go back, um, to something that we discussed many months ago, many months ago, when K- uh, Trump, coming in as president, first announced that he was firing the board, firing the president, taking over the Kennedy Center.

And the leadership of the Kennedy Center, the president, uh, the general counsel, and the board all just unilaterally caved on this.

And I wrote a piece saying, "This is ridiculous.

You have a strong case that he cannot do this, that it is unlawful for him to do this." But they triggered all of this, which could lead to the absolute destruction of one of the signature monuments and cultural centers in our country, and certainly in the city where, uh, we reside and work, and that he is doing this petulance after already having a judge, one, tell him, "No, your name can't be there." And when they took the name down, he insisted they put up a scaffolding so that, "If you can't see my name, you're not gonna see John F.

Kennedy's name." That scaffolding's still there.

Do you think in, in small ways, not in the big ways that, you know, ought to be the case given everything that we've said thus far about Trump, do you think he's losing it a little bit?

Ah.

Uh, but let me first, uh, do an, an additional condemnation of one of his cabinet members, the nephew of John F. Kennedy, our slain president, for whom the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was created, who has said nothing about this desecration, who just a few days ago at this midterm convention, which was basically just another, uh, please praise me, uh, event by Donald Trump, Kennedy gushed in praise saying that Trump was brilliant and nice and warm and empathetic, and has said nothing about this outrage.

Now, I can go back, um, to something that we discussed many months ago, many months ago, when K- uh, Trump, coming in as president, first announced that he was firing the board, firing the president, taking over the Kennedy Center.

And the leadership of the Kennedy Center, the president, uh, the general counsel, and the board all just unilaterally caved on this.

And I wrote a piece saying, "This is ridiculous.

You have a strong case that he cannot do this, that it is unlawful for him to do this." But they triggered all of this, which could lead to the absolute destruction of one of the signature monuments and cultural centers in our country, and certainly in the city where, uh, we reside and work, and that he is doing this petulance after already having a judge, one, tell him, "No, your name can't be there." And when they took the name down, he insisted they put up a scaffolding so that, "If you can't see my name, you're not gonna see John F.

Kennedy's name." That scaffolding's still there.

Do you think in, in small ways, not in the big ways that, you know, ought to be the case given everything that we've said thus far about Trump, do you think he's losing it a little bit?

by large margins.

And let's hope so, because it's our only hope of somehow beginning to counter in even the smallest way some of these depredations.

So let me start, Mary, just by saying that most people, including most journalists who write about this, have a big misunderstanding of what Medicaid is.

And the stories about this, and there have been a number that they built into their big, beautiful, horrible bill, a trillion dollars in cuts in Medicaid.

The major part of that is adding incredibly onerous work and reporting requirements that most people simply could not do.

And some of this, by the way, is people who are not working, who are at some level able-bodied, they're not working because they're taking care of other loved ones who are disabled or in trouble.

The money from Medicaid doesn't go directly to the people who are losing their health insurance, which is an awful part of this.

Is it literally just about their own power and their own wealth and there's really no strategy beyond that?

I wonder if you could reflect on this all, Norm.

I do think what Trump has done is to take a very strong position for Republicans where they were making very serious inroads into previously strong Democratic constituencies.

And that includes something that began really with his first run at office with working class white Americans, especially more broadly, but also with Hispanics.

And the support from Hispanics came in part because there are a lot of conservative Hispanics.

There are many evangelicals, a lot in the military.

And the immigration issue, for those who are here as citizens, the idea of people coming in illegally it didn't work for them.

And at the same time, if you look even at the 2024 election, you could even go back to the previous couple of elections, South Florida Miami-Dade, Broward County, had been strongholds for Democrats, except for the Cuban-American population.

So there's something very peculiar going on in that relationship between Trump and the Republicans.

That would seem to me to be in violation of the Hatch Act, which forbids federal employees from engaging in partisan activity.

Every one of the cabinet members will be violating the Hatch Act, but it's not like they're virginal when it comes to violations of the Hatch Act.

But what I can tell you for a certainty, every vulnerable House or Senate Republican is fearful of.

that it will turn into a celebration of a man who, as the Wall Street Journal editorial said, is no longer the champion of the vast majority of Republicans.

What we know is that Trump's approval, which is down around 30% or thereabouts, and it's not just that it's at 30%, what we have often seen as his base, But that base, which used to be enthusiastically supporting him, now is evenly divided.

If you think of it, 33%, it's 17% who strongly approve and 16% who approve but have great misgivings.

A lot of those won't vote.

But beyond that, Trump is just demonstrating his own vanity.

Um, how desperate must this man be to host a Trumpapalooza party in Dallas, Texas, uh, in the middle of a midterm when he's not on the ballot? Uh, how desperate is this guy to sort of remain relevant, uh, as he seems to be sinking into the worst kind of irrelevancy of lame duck status?

Uh, so desperate, just check the Truth Social postings that he's made, which, uh, go beyond the usual unhinged and embarrassing to a level of unhingement unseen and unheard of.

As he says, "Never before have we seen anything like this." But I, I wanna segue just briefly from this to, um, somebody whose, uh, tweet on this I just saw, and that is Roger Marshall, the Republican senator from Kansas, who's up for re-election, uh, who tweeted, uh, "Let me know how you're going to spend your five thousand dollars." But let's note that there was news about Roger Marshall in the last few days, uh, from The New York Times.

Roger Marshall is an OBGYN, and let me caution women everywhere, if you can find an OBGYN, which in states like Texas and, uh, uh, Georgia are increasingly difficult to come by because of the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, but if you do, whether you're in Kansas or anywhere else, and you know that you're dealing with a MAGA lunatic, find another doctor.

Or if you're desperate, go to WebMD or some other place like that.

What we know from Roger Marshall, who bragged about what he had done for rural healthcare, is that he, for hundreds of women who came to him, some with miscarriages, others for deliveries, many of them poor, rural people, he first of all made them sign something saying that if they didn't pay everything immediately, there would be 18% interest charged.

And then he had almost 100 of them arrested because they were late in their payments.

Disgusting.

How desperate that he's doing something that's obviously illegal, that would cost a trillion dollars, that would add even more to our deficit? Um, how desperate must this man be to host a Trumpapalooza party in Dallas, Texas, uh, in the middle of a midterm when he's not on the ballot? Uh, how desperate is this guy to sort of remain relevant, uh, as he seems to be sinking into the worst kind of irrelevancy of lame duck status?

Uh, so desperate, just check the Truth Social postings that he's made, which, uh, go beyond the usual unhinged and embarrassing to a level of unhingement unseen and unheard of.

As he says, "Never before have we seen anything like this." But I, I wanna segue just briefly from this to, um, somebody whose, uh, tweet on this I just saw, and that is Roger Marshall, the Republican senator from Kansas who's up for re-election, uh, who tweeted, uh, "Let me know how you're going to spend your $5,000." But let's note that there was news about Roger Marshall in the last few days, uh, from The New York Times.

Roger Marshall is an OBGYN, and let me caution women everywhere, if you can find an OBGYN, which in states like Texas and, uh, uh, Georgia are increasingly difficult to come by because of the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, but if you do, whether you're in Kansas or anywhere else, and you know that you're dealing with a MAGA lunatic, find another doctor.

Or if you're desperate, go to WebMD or some other place like that.

What we know from Roger Marshall, who bragged about what he had done for rural healthcare, is that he, for hundreds of women who came to him, some with miscarriages, others for deliveries, many of them poor, rural people, he first of all made them sign something saying that if they didn't pay everything immediately, there would be 18% interest charged.

And then he had almost 100 of them arrested because they were late in their payments.

Disgusting.

We shouldn't be afraid of criticizing people within the party that are, uh, d- taking views we don't like, should we?

Uh, I, I think this is a point and it, it gets also to the criticism of those on the right who have become Never Trumpers with a lot of people saying, "We don't want allies like that.

They supported the war in Iraq," or whatever else it might be.

When you're fighting in an existential battle, you take your allies and you embrace your allies who have, uh, actually, uh, caused themselves all kinds of headaches by taking a more principled position.

So, uh, I'm fine with all of that.

Um, you know, having said that, I worry about Democrats screwing this up in another way.

And that is, one, not understanding that just because you look great right now and you're winning elections, uh, for, uh, open seats at different levels or you're exceeding vastly the expectations, keep in mind that the lesson Donald Trump will take from the astounding, overwhelming defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary is not, "Oh my goodness, we better change so that doesn't happen to us." It is, "We're not gonna let that happen to us because we are going to destroy the free and fair election." So we need a vigorous effort to counter what is going to be a multi-pronged attack on fundamental decency in the election process and the voting process.

Yeah.

Uh, Donald has always been a symptom of, of a, a greater problem, and they demonstrate that every single day that they continue to, uh, kiss his ass and grease the skids for him to be the most corrupt, venal, dangerous, cruel president, uh, or leader, um, this country's ever seen, I think.

Let's talk about the cruelty, uh, because of another element today.

Four of our service people who were killed in Kuwait, and by the way, killed because they were in a trailer, a makeshift trailer with no protection because Pete Hegseth wouldn't secure it, landed at Dover Air Force Base today.

Not only was Donald Trump not there, Pete Hegseth, who's been doing fundraisers for Republicans in the middle of this war, wasn't there.

Nobody was there from the administration to greet these four heroes.

So when, uh, his former chief of staff, uh, said back during the first term when Trump was at Normandy that he called the dead suckers and losers, you know that, uh, he was not making that up.

And, you know, the, the way that Pete Hegseth referred to the fallen soldiers makes it clear that the level of inhumanity here, the lack of, of any empathy, while you're the ones who are responsible for these deaths, you're putting our troops in, uh, jeopardy.

Did you see anything in the results that give you hope for what Mary's talking about?

Yes.

Yes.

You're burning your house down, and you wanna distract from the fact that you have set your own house on fire.

So what do you do? You set your garage on fire, and that's in effect what he's doing here.

Uh, we should also note that with Iran, I mean, we could spend several shows just doing all of the, uh, collateral damage, uh, that has emerged out of this.

But I do wanna mention a couple of things while we're on that subject.

One is that we know not only did, uh, Pete Hegseth cover up for five months the fact that our key base in the region, which is the one that's used, uh, for all of our aircraft carriers and other ships to refuel, to use as their, uh, destination while they're out on duty, um, which is why the Lincoln was stuck out there in these horrific circumstances.

And s- that's hard to make fun of because it could work.

Yes.

Yes.

You're burning your house down, and you wanna distract from the fact that you have set your own house on fire.

So what do you do? You set your garage on fire, and that's in effect what he's doing here.

Uh, we should also note that with Iran, I mean, we could spend several shows just doing all of the, uh, collateral damage, uh, that has emerged out of this.

But I do wanna mention a couple of things while we're on that subject.

One is that we know not only did, uh, Pete Hegseth cover up for five months the fact that our key base in the region, which is the one that's used, uh, for all of our aircraft carriers and other ships to refuel, to use as their, uh, destination while they're out on duty, um, which is why the Lincoln was stuck out there in these horrific circumstances.

And s- that's hard to make fun of because it could work.

So just to put that into the into the mix with your comments on it.

I'd frame it a somewhat different way.

I think there's a strong anti-establishment backlash among the Democratic base.

You're getting big nods, I want to report.

And some of that is because of the actions of the leaders.

And I've been critical of them, more of Schumer than of Jeffries, but of both.

Because I think the frame that they have adopted is...

You know, why did Zach Nunn want him? And does it make any sense at all? Well,

Yeah, just injured myself getting in and out of the car.

[laughs] Yeah.

There's that too.

Uh- The last few years I had a Miata, I had some of that difficulty.

Um, and you had to go to an emergency room.

Do that in one of these places where one of the hospitals closed, and you're gonna be waiting for hours longer.

But let's turn to nursing homes.

It's, it's huge.

But I thought maybe this would be a good chance for you to talk a little bit about what you say in your article.

Uh, yes, thank you.

Okay, just, uh, as a précis, um, I first started to write this because I had noticed, a- as many others have, but it was getting no attention, that the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which is the opposite, it's big, but it ain't beautiful, uh, includes a trillion dollars in cuts in Medicaid over a 10-year period.

But they postpone them until after the midterm elections, and then they phase them in so that the big cuts come further down the road, but they're big cuts coming in January.

And I thought, "This is gonna be horrible for an awful lot of people." Uh, but then I began to realize that, uh, it's worse.

[scoffs] It's even worse than that.

Now, there are a couple of important points to make here.

Yeah, just injured myself getting in and out of the car.

[laughs]

And it is i- i- interacting three different areas.

One, the one we've been talking about, which is the destruction of food safety.

A second, related, is the immigration policies, because among other things, the egg, uh, uh, processors, the meat processors, the chicken processors, those have all been populated by, uh, undocumented workers, in part 'cause the jobs are pretty awful and they're the ones who've been willing to take them.

Take them away and what happens is you're gonna have fewer people working in these areas, and we have, in many cases, the meat producers doing their own safety inspections.

So we're gonna see more health problems across the board.

Plus, of course, the fact that Taylor Farms gave Trump some money and then, uh, the FDA said, "Oops, well, maybe it wasn't so much them," although now we know, uh, that it was.

I get what it was like

[laughs]

And it is i- i- interacting three different areas.

One, the one we've been talking about, which is the destruction of food safety.

A second, related, is the immigration policies, because among other things, the egg, uh, uh, processors, the meat processors, the chicken processors, those have all been populated by, uh, undocumented workers, in part 'cause the jobs are pretty awful and they're the ones who've been willing to take them.

Take them away, and what happens is you're gonna have fewer people working in these areas, and we have, in many cases, the meat producers doing their own safety inspections.

So we're gonna see more health problems across the board.

Plus, of course, the fact that Taylor Farms gave Trump some money and then, uh, the FDA said, "Oops, well, maybe it wasn't so much them," although now we know, uh, that it was.

I get those vibes.

Learn more at unitedhealthgroup.com/commitment.

I want to reflect a little bit more broadly on AIPAC and on Netanyahu.

There was a time going back, eh, three decades when AIPAC was an extraordinarily effective organization, and it wasn't just because they were able to get most Jews firmly, squarely behind Israel.

It, it was because there was a much broader consensus, but we had complete bipartisan support for the existence of Israel.

AIPAC made a conscious decision to tilt towards Republicans and to rely on evangelical Christians, and a part of that was believing that, "Hey, Democrats aren't going to abandon Israel.

We can abuse them as much as we want.

We can move away from them.

Anyway, sorry.

We can do grassroots campaign finance reform and simply not be swayed by the people who are spending tens of millions of dollars." So I don't, I, I don't know how you feel about that, but that's how I feel about it.

I wanna reflect a little bit more broadly on AIPAC and on Netanyahu.

There was a time going back, eh, three decades when AIPAC was an extraordinarily effective organization, and it wasn't just because they were able to get most Jews firmly, squarely behind Israel.

It, it was because there was a much broader consensus, but we had complete bipartisan support for the existence of Israel.

AIPAC made a conscious decision To tilt towards Republicans and to rely on evangelical Christians.

And a part of that was believing that, "Hey, Democrats aren't going to abandon Israel.

We can abuse them as much as we want.

Anyway, sorry.

Thank you, and back to the show.

I think that's probably accurate at this point.

Uh, the, the biggest problem they're gonna have is whether they can somehow muster the possibility of doing a third reconciliation bill under the Budget Act, which means that they could expedite it and do it with the majority.

It's not clear they have the wherewithal to be able to do that.

But of course, the Senate has a different agenda, and that includes confirming or not Todd Blanche.

And there we have a very interesting phenomenon.

With Lindsey Graham gone, if a single Republican in the Judiciary Committee votes against the confirmation, under their rules, that's it.

But, but it's really at the core of all this.

Thank you, and back to the show.

I think that's probably accurate at this point.

Uh, the, the biggest problem they're gonna have is whether they can somehow muster the possibility of doing a third reconciliation bill under the Budget Act, which means that they could expedite it and do it with the majority.

It's not clear they have the wherewithal to be able to do that.

But, of course, the Senate has a different agenda, and that includes confirming or not Todd Blanche.

And there we have a very interesting phenomenon.

With Lindsey Graham gone, if a single Republican in the Judiciary Committee votes against the confirmation, under their rules, that's it.

But when asked about this today, Senator John Thune, um, a man who does not look like, um, Mitch McConnell but acts like him in every respect, um, said, "Well, we have to honor our troops," uh, which, you know, to me is a non sequitur, but, but it's really at the core of all this.

It's different what's happening now.

Absolutely true, and, uh, I wanna pick up on a lot of those points.

Few years back, I, um, my wife and I went to Germany and Poland.

We went to a lot of different sites.

There are museums there that point out that before the Germans, before the Nazis went after Jews, they went after people with mental disabilities and physical disabilities.

Now, part of this was an extension of what was one of the sorriest periods of Our history and others, eugenics was the notion that we ought to sterilize people who are not pure like us.

But it was an early part of a systematic effort to define certain groups of people as less than human to justify starting with sterilizing them, but then moving to gassing and murdering them.

Um, and you know, I think we've gotta go back to basics, and when you're looking at a candidate, you gotta say, "Who is this? What is their character? Are they a good person? Would they, um, you know, behave in a bad way?" We talked last week, uh, you know, we talked about are there any Republicans that you could d- f- you know, foresee being a decent president? And, and, and the issue is, are there any people out there who know the difference between right and wrong and who won't do the wrong thing? And I know that sounds like a Sunday school sermon, but we've, we're completely off the track, Norm.

It's different what's happening now.

Absolutely true, and, uh, I wanna pick up on a lot of those points.

Few years back, I, um, my wife and I went to Germany and Poland.

We went to a lot of different sites.

There are museums there that point out that before the Germans, before the Nazis went after Jews, they went after people with mental disabilities and physical disabilities.

Now, part of this was an extension of what was one of the sorriest periods of our history and others'.

Eugenics was the notion that we ought to sterilize people who are not pure like us.

Um, and you know, I think we've gotta go back to basics, and when you're looking at a candidate, you gotta say, "Who is this? What is their character? Are they a good person? Would they, um, you know, behave in a bad way?" We talked last week, uh, you know, we talked about are there any Republicans that you could f- you know, foresee being a decent president? And, and, and the issue is, are there any people out there who know the difference between right and wrong and who won't do the wrong thing? And I know that sounds like a Sunday school sermon, but we've, we're completely off the track, Norm.

He's one of the worst things that ever happened to the United States, and I think we need to admit that even if he is, you know, unconscious, in a coma, alive, dead, whatever, because doesn't change the record.

No, and, uh, you know, he is the longest serving, uh, leader in the Senate, having been minority leader and majority leader.

I first met Mitch when he had come to the, uh, to the Senate, and he was a protege of John Sherman Cooper, who was a stately, moderate Republican.

And Mitch said many, many times that John Sherman Cooper was his role model.

And when I first met with him, I actually went in to talk to him.

He was the chairman of the Foreign Aid Subcommittee and was very good on that stuff and was a reasonably center-right guy and then got transformed into one of the most villainous figures in modern American history.

And it's not just what he did with campaign finance reform.

Can you think of people who are... who could be that kind of reform moment candidate?