How are you seeing this punch bowl named freak out manifest itself in Georgia?

Yeah, I mean, to me, we see it playing out in two separate ways in the two key races in Georgia.

In our Senate race, Republican Mike Collins has not distanced himself from President Trump.

Now, he's perceived to be in a lot of trouble against incumbent John Ossoff.

So he's hoping to turn out the MAGA base in hopes of getting enough of Republican voters to push him over the edge.

So he is not shying away from Trump, even though he has bigger fish to fry with his race.

In the governor's race, Republican Rick Jackson has more distance with Trump.

And the president says, make it all about me.

Yeah, and this, quite frankly, is all about him, right? Him saying, I don't like how the media reports about me.

He's saying, it's my White House, even though it's not.

The people own the White House.

He does occupy it right now because he's the president.

But I think there are a lot of Republicans who wish Donald Trump was focusing on the issues they're hearing about from voters.

And every time he does something, not only that it's not on the number one topics for voters, but that it's perceived negatively by voters.

And so what do you expect in this moment?

But Republicans are very, very pessimistic about Mike Collins' chances here.

And Galen, I just want to say that a lot of the reasons why Mike Collins' campaign has not taken off are self-inflicted by Mike Collins himself or the people that he chose to surround himself with.

You have the ethics investigation, which largely centered around his then chief of staff, Brandon Phillips, and whether he hired his girlfriend for a no-show internship and whether he was using official funds while working on the campaign, just a lot of it had to do with Brandon Phillips, right? But Mike Collins got named also as a target of that ethics investigation.

And then Brandon Phillips did that really vulgar tweet making a rape joke about an operative for a rival campaign.

That didn't go over well.

Even fellow Republicans thought, you know, thought that was just so disgusting.

Brandon Phillips get fired.

Has that permeated in Georgia? Like, is that at the top of voters' minds when they're thinking about the

What do Republicans actually want voters to try to take away from that convention?

So I think it's a couple of things.

A, I think there are Republicans who are on the ballot who know that people paid a lot of money to go to this convention and they want to be in the room with the people with the money.

So that's one of the reasons to go.

They're also trying to raise money that they can spend on candidates outside of the district.

Some of it is just fundraising, right? But then on messaging, which is what most people at home will be consuming, it's going to be twofold.

A, it's going to be painting Democrats and their policies as wrong for America.

especially the highest yeah exactly so but i do think it's reflective of the fact that he is so the numbers are so close that talarica was a real threat to the majority for republicans in the u.s senate

Uh, to what do you attribute her abrupt resignation?

Well, I think it's been building.

There has been a split in the Republican Party, particularly among MAGA far right Republicans Trump's White House bid, his second administration, because they felt that he wasn't necessarily living up to some of his campaign promises.

Of course, Marjorie Taylor Greene started speaking out about it earlier this summer on things like Israel and the war with Gaza and other foreign policy, some legislation that the White House wanted Congress to pass that she felt didn't adhere to the America first MAGA brand.

But things really came to a head when it came to releasing the Epstein files.

Marjorie Taylor Greene was one of the four Republicans who, along with Democrats, forced a vote on the Epstein files over Trump's objections initially.

And that was really what sent Trump over the edge.

What do you think is gonna be next for her?

And I can tell you right now, that generation, they are barely making it, and they're very hopeless for their future.

And so her criticism has been that the issue Democrats raised, that if the subsidies are allowed to expire, many people's insurance, and we're talking about millions of people, their insurance will go up in ways that they will find it hard to afford coverage.And she says Republicans, instead of engaging with this real issue, are just kind of saying, "Oh, that's just Democrats bellyaching.

That's just Democrats trying to keep the government shut down." And they're not really listening to voters and they're not engaging on what she says is a valid issue that should be addressed.

Hmm.

"I can't believe I find myself agreeing with some of the things she's saying." And I think for her, she is gratified by the fact that when people listen to her, they shed the assumption that she's just a crazy QAnon lady who has nothing intelligent to say.

Now, does she want to be a Democrat? Absolutely not.

Not too long ago, we gave our elected officials more flexibility to like, it doesn't have to be either you're with us or you're against us at all times.

We thought our elected officials should find places where they had common ground.

Mm.

... where you, um, knowing how universally he's, um, supported by his party, that there's still a little bit of a gap there. But of course, what's more concerning is those independents. Three out of four independents do not approve of how Donald Trump is handling the economy, and we know that that was the number one issue, particularly for independents. I think there were other issues at play for the partisans, but those independents really did trust his messaging on the economy, so the fact that they don't necessarily think he's making good on that I think is a problem.

Mm.

And I think what we saw, particularly during the presidential campaign and just the midterm elections, is the Democratic big tent has so many factions that want their leaders to agree with them on their issue, and you can't please everyone all of the time. And whereas we see Republicans are more likely to say, "We're gonna fall in line. We might not, we might not like everything Donald Trump does, but he's our guy and we're gonna stick with him," Democrats said, "Hey, Kamala Harris or-"Chuck Schumer, I don't like where you're at on this issue, even if I like where you're at on many other issues, and now I'm re- ready to fight you on this. And that's what we're seeing, so Democrats are really having a hard time keeping their coalition together. They're having a hard time creating a message that everyone can rally around, and they're having a hard time figuring out who is going to be the leader of party, who is gonna be the one who kind of we say, "This is our standard bearer and we can get behind them."