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[00:00]
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Hi there everyone. Happy Thursday. It's four o'clock in the east. Well, it didn't take very long for even Donald Trump's own voters to to sour on him. Less than two years into Trump 2.0 and the vast majority of all Americans are completely fed up with the rising costs. Spurred by what may be Donald Trump's greatest political betrayal of all time, starting a war in the Mid east with no clear or easy way to get out, a new analysis by Yahoo. Finance finds this quote, you're not imagining it. Everything is expensive. The conflict with Iran this year has pressured prices even further. Gas prices are nearly $1 higher than a year ago. A typical 16 item basket of groceries compiled by Yahoo. Finance was 41% higher in July than the same month in 2019, far outpacing overall inflation. That inconvenient truth continues to drive Donald Trump's poll numbers down ever lower and lower and lower. A new poll by Politico finds that 56% of Americans view the high cost of living as as the most important issue facing the country today, followed by 29% of people who say the poor state of the economy is the top issue. They're laying the blame directly at Donald Trump's feet. At this point, when asked about the failures of Trump's presidency, 36% say cost of living, 27% say the economy more broadly, 23% say it's Donald Trump using the presidency to enrich himself, and 21% say it's Trump's tariffs. And if Trump is looking for good news in any of this, he might want to change the channel right about now. When asked about the successes of Trump's presidency, the number one answer, the number one response at 36% was none of these have been successes. And the anger isn't confined to feelings held by Democrats and independents. Politico writes this about these poll results. Quote, the results reveal an urgent warning sign for Trump as Republicans try to keep his winning coalition intact ahead of November and new indications of where among the very voters that helped elect him in 2024, the issue cutting most sharply against Trump is also the one voters, including his own, say matters the most. And it has been for months, one Republican strategist telling Politico this quote, for gas prices, it's hard to find a more visible or salient indicator of prices than them. Right. I think voters, they're drawing a pretty direct line between a closed strait of Hormuz because of a war to higher gas prices. And, you know, I don't know if there's a way around that right now. As the war puts pressure on Americans finances, Iran manages to humiliate Donald Trump on the world stage. A threat forced him to be smuggled inside a catering truck with his Diet Coke valet alongside him. Behavior more associated with a bootleg of Melvin Marcos. Iran is now openly taunting Donald Trump, saying the war will not end anytime soon, with Tehran vowing to prolong the war until Donald Trump is out of office. The Trump economy putting renewed pressure on him to end the war as Iran promises to keep fighting is where we begin today with two of our favorite friends. Publisher for the Bulwark, host of the focus group podcast, Sarah Longwell is here. Also joining us, political analyst, host of the Bulwark podcast, Tim Miller is here. It's so nice to have both of you. Thank you.
[03:43]
A
What's up, girl?
[03:47]
B
I want to start with the Bush line because, Sarah, I think you said this to me when I had you on my podcast, and I live through the bush line. Like, 32% means you can't really land Air Force One in normal political times. It means nobody wants you in the district because they don't want the local coverage and the coverage of their constituents. Seeing you with a politician at 32%, Trump is now not just flirting with 32. He's sort of squatting right on top of it in Quinnipiac and AP and a bunch of polls. And I wonder, in your view, one, if it's the floor, and two, if you see anything changing in our body politic now that he's at that number,
[04:26]
C
I definitely don't think it's the floor. You know, what you're seeing actually is the numbers, they're all bouncing around a little bit, but they're all bouncing around at a lower place. But the aggregate right now has them around 38%. And when I talk about the Bush line, what I mean is I want those aggregates of all the polls to be down at 32% and lower. And the reason that the Bush line is so important to me is that when Bush left office, right, with his low approval rating because it was an unpopular war and a bad economy, the Republican Party at that point was able to be essentially hijacked by Donald Trump and these outside forces because there was like a weakness from when Bush had left office. Right. A perception that he'd left office, and it wasn't a successful second term. And it's important that Americans see Donald Trump and the MAGA experiment as a failure, not just so that we don't repeat what happens with Donald Trump, but also so that everything that Trump touches from here on out, the people that were in his administration, J.D. vance, Marco Rubio, that their political futures are imperiled by their association with Trump and this administration. And so that's why Trump being that low. But it also matters for 2026. I mean, there is a direct correlation between the low approval rating of the sitting president for that party having a poor outcome in midterms. And so we want Donald Trump to be as low as possible going into the 2026 elections, because that will enable sort of that blue wave to crest. And I think one of the reasons that you're seeing so many polls come out showing individual matchups in the swing states between Democrats and Republicans, you're seeing the Democrats start to really pull away, is that the environment is tainted by Donald Trump, by the fact that Republicans have nothing to run on, nothing optimistic to run on. What are they going to talk about? The reflecting pool, the arch, the ballroom? These are Trump's obsessions. And Republican congresspeople or senators, they can't run on that. And so Trump being unpopular, it also diminishes enthusiasm among Republican voters. So you get this enthusiasm gap between Democrats who will crawl over broken glass to vote for their candidates, and a Republican base that's like, why do. I don't need to show up. This is a, you know, nothing's going well and I'm not happy with how things are going. So I think that's the national environment that these numbers are creating.
[07:03]
B
What's interesting to me is that this is the point, I think, nine years in, where the political strategy is the best bulwark, not to, not to use your name, but the best prophylactic against authoritarianism. Right. Like, it's the first moment where there's a political solution right there on the table to grab, to protect the country from becoming a straight up authoritarian structure in terms of political prosecutions and a military not accountable to Congress or the military. I mean, this is that moment. And I wonder, Sarah, if that's coming up in focus groups.
[07:41]
C
Oh, Nicole. Every time I'm on, I always want to tell you so badly that the American people are, you know, shuddering at this authoritarian power grab. But of course, that's not really the way that voters are experiencing it. Instead, what is happening is they're saying, look, we hired this guy to do one thing. We hired him to lower prices. He promised he would lower prices. And not only do we not have prices that are lower, but he has done specific policy things, namely tariffs and the war in Iran, both of which are increasing costs, keeping inflation high, and doing the exact opposite of what voters wanted. Now, that's voters in general, I will say, on the Democratic side, to your point, and I think you're seeing this in the way that Democrats are really unifying after what are these incredibly toxic, bruising primaries, is them saying this is our best chance to put a check on Trump in terms of what he is doing. And I think that what Democrats have learned is that they should talk less about authoritarianism and instead talk about the things that allow them to win elections so that they can curb the authoritarianism that we're seeing. And I think that that's actually a pretty good impulse.
[08:59]
B
Tim, tell me how you see the moment.
[09:02]
A
Yeah, I guess I agree with everything Sarah said. I would add a couple of points to it. I do think that there's a little, you are seeing this galvanizing force on the Democratic, Democratic side. And some people certainly are motivated by feeling like they have agency to stop this authoritarian takeover. And I think if you look at these primaries, all this focus, for example, in Michigan and Wisconsin on kind of the factional dispute on the Democratic side, one thing that I think was undercover that struck me was just absolutely gargantuan turnout in both of those primaries.
[09:37]
B
Massive. Yeah.
[09:38]
A
On the Democratic side and much smaller turnout on the Republican side. I mean, the losing, losing candidates in the Michigan and Wisconsin races, I think would have won every, just in raw vote total, would have won every Democratic primary in the past decade in those states. So I think you are seeing that for sure. The reason why Trump has to get his numbers lower and why I think it's important for the Democrats to keep being aggressive, particularly on prices and the way that the stupid war has contributed to higher prices is that if you look at that number that Sarah said, the 38% number versus 32, this is going to be a very meaningful difference in the Senate and the key Senate states. The states where the Senate will be decided most likely Ohio, Iowa, Texas, Alaska, maybe some others. But if you just look at those four, Trump won them by about 11, 12, 13 points. So he was about, call it 10 points higher than he was nationally in those states. So if he's at 38, that means he's probably like 48 or 47 or 46 in those key states. And that makes those races very competitive. If he's down at 32 and he's in the low 40s in those states, that makes those states very winnable for James Talrico, Sherrod Brown, Josh Turek, Mary Peltola, who are all running really good races in those four red states. And so to me, I think that is like the political job of the Democratic Party, the pro democracy movement is how can you communicate to that, how can you take his number down from where it is even lower? And talking to people who are Trump voters, and to me, that's focusing on the betrayal and making sure that they tie the higher costs that they're experiencing to Trump's choices directly.
[11:27]
B
Sarah, let me play some of your Trump voter focus groups. We'll hear directly from them.
[11:35]
D
I remember the day that we started
[11:38]
B
going to war with them and I could have sworn Trump said, we're going
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C
to go in and out.
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B
It's going to be over with.
[11:43]
C
Two weeks long.
[11:45]
B
Yeah. And it's taken forever.
[11:48]
D
And I think he realizes this is a big mistake.
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C
And I seriously think he don't know
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B
how he's going to get out of this.
[11:56]
E
I was holding out for F. I was expecting mass deportations, like real mass deportations. That's kind of what I was expecting. I was expecting, you know, revising who's
[12:05]
A
actually being able to be, you know,
[12:07]
E
a resident as well. Iran is really bothering me because I feel like for decades we've spent a lot of time in the Middle east for all the wrong reasons, not serving our interest, but serving Israel's interests.
[12:24]
B
Sarah, what's so interesting to me is these are the people enthused by the mass deportation signs at the convention. These are the people who feel for him. Right. There's some sympathy from the first Trump voter that she really thinks that he just didn't understand and made a big mistake. What are those voters going to do in November?
[12:48]
C
I mean, these voters. So first of all, this is from our most recent group and it was in Florida and we did a couple groups of Republicans in Florida. And I mean, this is where Trump, like MAGA lives there. It is the home of Mar A Lago. It is the home of Trump. These are where Trump voters, like, live and breathe the Trump stuff. I was genuinely surprised by how down all of these voters were on Donald Trump. He didn't get above a single see from any of them. You were listening to that guy. He started out by saying, I was holding out for F. I want to give him an F. Because. And in that Case that guy was mad he wasn't doing more deportations, but also mad about the stupid war in Iran. Now these are people who voted for Trump three times already. My guess is that they vote, these voters vote still for Republicans, but they're frustrated. And so as a, as a broader matter of the electorate, I think two things are happening. I think your normies who live on the edge, right, the, maybe even some of the lower info people, although in midterms people are more high information. But for the normies who live on the edge, many of them I think will vote for Democrats when the Democrat you're giving them is John Ossoff, when it's James Talarico, you know, when it's Mary Peltola, like the candidate quality is pretty good. So some of them will vote or even these right leaning independents. I think that the other thing is that Trump is just, he's not on the actual ballot. And so for people who are kind of these Trump only hardcore voters, their enthusiasm is being sucked away from them. They're like, I don't know, I thought this was going to be better. I thought it was going to be like the first term when the economy is good, but the economy's not good and there's a stupid war in Iran. And so that flagging enthusiasm, that goes to turnout and that goes to the idea that like Republicans are less like rushing to the ballot box to defend Trump's record because they don't like Trump's record. And so they're just less motivated to stop the correction that will come from the enthusiasm on the other side putting Democrats in office.
[14:53]
B
Tim, I'm so struck by, again, these are voters who likely aren't getting any of their information from any of us, but they've reached the same conclusion, right? Like the thing with Iran is that he clearly doesn't know what to do. He is clearly afraid. The caper in Turkey is so destabilizing, I think, to citizens to think that a president was so frightened that he stuffed himself or they stuffed him in a catering truck with his personal valet and left the cabinet on a decoy plane. I mean, even if you are sort of saying hardcore maga, these are very, very clear signs that Trump has lost the upper hand and has lost control of this fight with Iran for sure.
[15:41]
A
And I saw a poll the other day just asking if it seems like people, the people in charge of the country are in control. And that number was way below the Bush line. It was like in the teens. Because I do think people have this sense that this thing has gotten out of control for him. And I think one thing that's different now about the war in Iran and the prices is just how tangible it is. I apologize. When Sarah was talking, I wasn't looking at my phone. I was trying to grab this tweet that Trump sent. This was two months ago now. The deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all ships of the world. Start your engines. Let the oil flow. That was two months ago. And so the MAGA voter in Florida is still filling up his truck or her truck, and it's costing a lot more. And they know what that price was before, and they know what it is now, and they can see why it's happening. And so it's like, even if they're getting their news from inside the MAGA bubble, you know, like, reality is breaking through it a little bit. And I do think this is kind of a different story. I've mentioned this before. Like, if you think about some of these other big lies, whether that be about COVID you know, or whether it be about the election fraud, the alleged election fraud in 2020, it's like these people's lives aren't impacted one way or the other by the election fraud. They're just mad that he lost. And so if you want to tell them a big lie, they were happy to hear it. They're like, okay, I guess it was stolen on Covid. I think a lot of these people were like, well, they were told all these lies. It was hard for them to kind of figure out what was true, what was false. Should I blame China? Should I blame Fauci? There are a lot of potential scapegoats for this, and Trump's really good at scapegoating people. The Iran war is different than that. He went at it alone. There's nobody a scapegoat. I mean, I guess Bibi Netanyahu came to the Situation Room and helped convince him. And so if people's lives are getting worse and they're getting worse because of a decision Trump made and there's nobody to point the finger at, it's like, even if they're watching propaganda news, they're living a reality that is in conflict with that propaganda. And so I think that's why you're seeing his numbers go down while you're hearing that from his voters in those focus groups.
[17:56]
B
I want to come back to the first thing you said, Sarah, that this is not the floor. I want to press both of you on where you think that is. And how you think Democrats get there? I have to sneak in a break. Also ahead, one of the most closely watched races in the country that Sarah and Tim both mentioned is that Senate race in Texas. We'll hear this hour from the candidate who has a real chance of turning that state blue for the first time in nearly four decades, James Talarigo. That's after a break. Plus, the super secret plane switch and the new reporting on the CIA being skeptical about just how credible and big of a threat there may have been from Iran on that day in July with Donald Trump overseas. The reporter who broke that story is coming up. And later in the broadcast, Todd Blanche addressing the Department of Justice staff today for the first time as ag he stressed unity and integrity in the rule of law. He only mentioned Trump's name once, seemingly trying to whitewash everything that he has directed to happen since he's been at the Department of Justice so far. All those stories and much more when DEADLINE WHITE HOUSE continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
[19:06]
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Ever since I was young, I've watched
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people working hard, chasing opportunity, making sacrifices,
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doing everything they can to build a better life.
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And now we're shining a light on what matters most, our economy, our national identity, our democracy, our future. The stakes have never been higher.
[19:24]
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It's all on the line. On the line with Alicia Menendez, weekdays at 12:00pm Eastern on Ms. Now,
[19:39]
B
Democrats just got some very good news in one of the races. Sarah, Tim and I have been talking about this hour, that Senate race in Texas that could help deliver the Senate back to the Democrats. A new poll out of Emerson College finds that James Talarico is in a virtual dead heat against embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as Republicans start to break with Donald Trump's party. If Talarico were to win, it would be the first time a Democrat won an election for U.S. senate in Texas in nearly 40 years. I want to bring in my friend and colleague, chief political reporter Chris Jansing, who just spoke with James Talarico at an event in Abilene, Texas. Sarah and Tim are still here. Chris, what do you say?
[20:20]
D
So it was really pretty extraordinary. You don't see a lot of this for sure. In 2026. There was bipartisan furor in a room in the community center behind me, Republicans, Democrats, independents, and at the center of it, James Talarico, who for over the course of more than 30 minutes just listened. He wanted to know where their anger was coming from. And he said he's angry, too about what's happening with these data Centers. And I talked to one woman, for example, who said she has two sons, they just graduated college. She was excited about them going out on their own, but they wanted to stay here. Now, in the last six months, rents have in some cases doubled. So they are really concerned about this. The single most expensive data center in the country is being built here, 1100 acres. And not only rents are going up, but they're concerned about water. Their electricity rates have gone through the roof. So listen to part of my conversation about it with Talarico. Why here? Why come to a ruby red county and spend half a day, maybe a full day here? Strategically, does it make sense?
[21:33]
E
Absolutely. I want to be a senator for all 31 million Texans. Not just Democrats, not just independents, but Republicans too.
[21:39]
D
Maybe you're going to change some minds.
[21:41]
E
Well, I mean, I think you're already seeing it. You're seeing a lot of independents and Republicans joining this movement that we're building because it's bigger than party. This is about working people coming together across partisan differences, across cultural differences, geographic differences so that we can come together and take on the corrupt politicians like Ken Paxton who are selling us out every single day, including on this issue.
[22:05]
C
Right.
[22:05]
E
He's taken nearly half a million dollars from data center companies and then he turns around and protects those companies at our expense. And so if we can defeat the
[22:15]
A
most corrupt politician in our state, then I really do believe we can come
[22:18]
E
together to defeat this entire corrupt system.
[22:23]
D
It's really fascinating to me that the people around that table agreed with him and they almost that they were talking to each other the way that they were. And when you talk about corruption, there was a 52 year old man. He did not want to be filmed on camera when we were inside. But I spoke with him afterwards. He said he has been voting every election since he was 18 years old and he has never voted for a Democrat. He believes Ken Paxton is corrupt. He will not vote for him. And I said, so will you vote for James Talarico? And he said, I'm seriously considering it. He clearly was impressed. Impressed that he came here, listened to what people had to say and look, the polls are incredibly tight, but what I really noticed in the latest poll that came out today is that in all of the key metrics, James Talarigo is ahead. He's ahead on the economy, he's ahead on affordability, he's even ahead on keeping Texans safe. And so he's going to stay here tonight. He's going to do a rally not far from where I'm standing. And he believes that as he goes and learns from things like this and takes the message that people are giving him to other parts of the state, that it's part of the way to win. Not that he's not raising money, he's raising lots of money, but he thinks that this ground game, this one on one kind of aspect of his campaign could be the difference.
[23:46]
B
Chris, you've been on the ground for so many of these races in this moment, and I wonder if you sense that Talarico is just a sort of apex political athlete, like a super talent like Ossoff, like Obama, or if it's that Paxton is historically weak or if it's that Trump is so unpopular, I mean, are you able to pull one thing out or is it really this combination that leads to these circumstances?
[24:18]
D
I actually asked him that question. I said, do you think the reason you're so in this race is because Donald Trump is so unpopular? Is it you? What is it? And he really does believe that this is a moment.
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B
Right.
[24:31]
D
And I think that's what I see. He's not the kind of political athlete that John Ossoff is. That El Sayed is the people that I have been watching who have been riling up crowds. The question that he's answering is, can message rile up crowds? Can someone who sounds like you, who understands who you are, really? When you look at campaigns like Abdul Al said, where a lot of the people who started his campaign are so much more progressive than the bulk of the people who are supporting James Talarico. But the thing about them that they share is that people feel like they're listening and responding to their direct needs, that they're not getting sidetracked by some of the other stuff. I also asked him, for example, he said he's not going to get into the nastiness of the campaign. We've heard some things from Ken Paxton. He just said that he thinks that God is like guiding him to be the person to protect Texans from the ultra left. And he wouldn't even go there. He just said, look, I care more about not what, who God is providing for. Am I providing the kind of message that God would support? And I think it's that kind of conversation that connects with people in a state like Texas. And he's running a very Texas race.
[25:55]
B
Yeah. Chris Jansing, awesome reporting and great get. Talarico isn't doing many interviews at all, but of course he did one with you. Thank you for joining us. Sarah and Tim, let me bring you in on this. It Is amazing how many, and I'm sure you experienced this, Sarah, in doing your focus groups, how many people just want to be heard and listened to? That seems to be one of Talarico's superpowers.
[26:20]
E
Yeah.
[26:21]
C
You know, authenticity has become a real buzzword. It's like a watchword of the moment. And I sometimes think people think that being authentic is a specific thing. Like, it's a. You gotta be able to engage everybody in all these ways and go on all these podcasts. But, like, really what it means is, can you communicate in a style that's authentic to you? And I think Tao Rico's authentic style, and Tim and I got a chance to hang out with him because he came to one of our live shows at one point when we were in Texas. I think his style is like a kind, I want to sit and engage with you. I genuinely like people. I want to understand people. And I think that this is a real thing. You hear this in the focus groups. People have a lot on their minds, and one of them is the data centers. But it really is the pain that they're feeling economically. And when somebody's willing to sit in front of you and say, hey, I hear that. And like, I really want to address it. And especially in contrast to Trump right now, where Trump is saying, hey, are you in a state that didn't vote for me? I'm not sending aid. Like, if you have a tornado, you have a hurricane, I'm not doing anything for you. For Tail Rico to do exactly the opposite. I think that there are still, and this is me believing that people are still good in a lot of ways. They've got a lot of good nature to them, including Trump voters. Like, in a place like Texas, you've got to believe that you can reach some of those people. And I always think one of the number one ways to reach people isn't telling them just, like, what they want to hear, but listening to them and saying that you're going to take their concerns seriously and that you want to be, you know, a politician that's going to serve them regardless of party. But of course, it is the combination. It is the combination of the fact that Ken Paxton is wildly corrupt and there's a lot of, again, good faith Republicans in Texas who really don't like that, like him. I hear that in focus groups and the fact that Trump's unpopular, it just gives Tao Rico an opening, and it seems like he's willing to grab it by going and really sitting down people. Texas is a huge state. It Requires a ton of money if you're just going to do tv. I love that he's not just relying on tv. He's really getting in front of people and sitting down with them, because that is what it's going to take to turn Texas blue.
[28:29]
B
I also think that Talarico is either because of the generational piece or because it's Texas just hardwired Tim to latch onto the post. Political issues like data centers are not. I mean, Republicans are enabling them and facilitating them, but in terms of how voters perceive them, there is bipartisan. I mean, I think that's the best way to describe how actual people feel about data centers. They are enraged by them. And national politicians don't talk about them. Or if they talk about them, they don't talk about them on national platforms. Maybe they're dealing with them locally. Prices is like, not a partisan issue anymore. Everybody thinks everything is too expensive and it's this political betrayal under it. But prices in and of themselves are not a partisan issue. And corruption, I mean, corruption is so in people's face. Everywhere you look, someone named Trump has stolen something from the taxpayer. It's not just getting rich in a vacuum. It's getting government contracts, it's squirreling away things for themselves. It's taking shady donations. It's dealing with people who are in legal peril and getting rich on the back end of that. I wonder what you think about the people doing the best, seemingly attracted to the least partisan issues.
[29:42]
A
Yeah, I think that's a student because James Talarico, definitely, I think, you know, codes is having, like, as being liberal, like, his liberal values. And I think the people can sense that, but he doesn't really come off as, like, partisan. And those are two different things. Right. Like, it's one thing to be like, hey, I'm a party team Jersey bomb thrower and, you know, I hate Republicans or I hate Democrats. Right. And we see a lot of that out there in our politics today. And that's just like, not in his makeup. And so, you know, we have the data center example today. We're just campaigning there, listening to Republicans in Abilene, Texas, in a red area who have concerns about the data center. There's another story that I've been covering on my podcast lately that Talrico brought to my attention, which was he was down on the border near the Big Bend part of Texas, and he was meeting with sheriffs there, Republican sheriffs, MAGA sheriffs, like, quite MAGA sheriffs actually, who post on their social media about the Immigrants that they capture and stuff, like real right wing guys. And they're up upset about the wall. Trump's back to building the wall, by the way, and they're adding to it since he didn't finish it in the first term, through this Big Bend national park, where it's insane to put it there. It is a desolate place. People go there for outdoors. Nobody crosses the border there. And what Trump is doing is building this wall and it might make it easier for people to cross the border. For one, it costs a ton of money. It's corrupt. And even crazier, they're using eminent domain to take people's land in Texas and some of it's going back to Mexico because the wall can't go right on the border. And so Trump's literally taking land from Texans and giving it to Mexico to put up his corrupt wall. And the sheriff's down there like, this is crazy. We don't want this, we don't need this. Tellarico is there. He's just been very astute at finding these issues, demonstrating that he really cares about them. Things that are post partisan. He obviously came to attention going on Joe Rogan's show and I think that Democrats could learn a from the strategy there. But I think that the strategy is working because it's pretty authentic to him.
[31:49]
B
Yeah, Joe Rogan said of him, why don't you run for president? We need a good person. So really ringing endorsement from him well ahead of the primary. All right, I get you guys a little bit longer. No one's going anywhere. When we come back, we'll get to the secret flight involving Donald Trump and the confusion around why the Secret Service that they needed to covertly move him to a third plane that only a handful of people knew about. One more break. We'll be right back.
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[32:51]
B
Viewed as low confidence. That is what one US Intelligence official is telling the Washington Post concerning an Iranian assassination threat against Donald Trump that led to a Bond style clandestine maneuver to get him out of Turkey. Washington Post reports that the Israeli government relayed the threat to the CIA, where analysts, quote, did not view the intelligence as compelling and conveyed that skepticism to Trump administration officials. That's according to an intelligence official. Reporting from other outlets has described the threat as credible. This brand new reporting comes after the outlet first reported that after concerns arose about Trump's Qatari Force One, he boarded a Legacy Air Force One aircraft, only to later secretly leave that aircraft and sneak into a catering truck that brought him to a third aircraft that flew him and a couple of handpicked aides to the UK Washington Post says that the CIA and the Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for details. I want to bring in the Washington Post John Hudson, who's bylined on this explosive new development. Sarah and Tim are still here. John, first tell us what you're reporting in another scoop on this story.
[34:04]
E
Yeah, well, the irony here, of course, is that the Secret Service carried out one of the most elaborate ruses in presidential history. The type of ruse where you would expect was based on highly credible, highly lethal intelligence. And what the Post can now report is that the CIA has low confidence in the intelligence that it received from the Israeli government related to this threat. I think, you know, the big picture here is, is telling you a little bit about the risk calculus that the Secret Service is taking right now. For a president that has had three high profile near miss assassination attempts, this is they're clearly quite frazzled at this at this moment and are willing to take extraordinary measures and exercise extraordinary caution when it comes to the President's well being. And that's a big takeaway of what happened in Ankara.
[35:05]
B
Well, explain how the Cabinet ends up on the decoy then, because if you've got one agency, and I take your point about their emotional state, frazzled sounds right. And not taking any chances. But the threat's the threat and either it was not viewed serious enough that they put half the Cabinet and all the press on it, or it was and they stuffed the president into a catering truck.
[35:30]
E
Yeah, it's a great question. I can tell you from new reporting I've gotten just in the last hour from sources, including a Turkish official that I spoke with is before the president's plane took off. And this is something that could have also informed the Cabinet which you asked about, which you correctly said did fly on the Air Force One plane that Trump did not fly on. The Turkish government relayed to the Americans that they had no evidence of what the Israelis were talking about and in fact had contradictory evidence that there was a specific lethal threat to the president in Ankara at the moment. So it's Certainly possible that some of the officials who were consuming all of the information that was being given made the decision that, you know, they were willing to take the risk of being on the plane alongside the journalists, alongside the other White House aides that flew on the decoy plane.
[36:35]
B
John, Air Force One, to my understanding, is not a plane, a physical thing. It's a designation for the aircraft carrying Donald Trump. Do you know if they ever officially classified the plane carrying Donald Trump as Air Force One, or did the decoy plane fall, fly falsely as Air Force One that day?
[36:53]
E
Yeah, it didn't go with the call sign of Air Force One, which is one of the other highly unusual, highly abnormal aspects about this. That's why I call it one of the most extraordinary ruses in presidential history.
[37:10]
B
It's an extraordinary story. Do you have any sense that the intelligence community would be receptive to any congressional efforts to declassify the low confidence intelligence and have more transparency around this?
[37:25]
E
It's a great question. The Washington Post is in the process of asking for more information as well from officials. I think it is very safe to say that the administration tried to keep this quiet. There's a reason why we're learning about this one month after this all happened is the Post took extensive efforts to report this out, to fact check everything, and there was not a willing administration helping us along the way to publish this. It was very difficult. We needed to go, we needed to marshal video evidence, we needed to marshal air traffic evidence and our own sources to firm this up. So I don't expect an administration to suddenly have a come to Jesus moment and say, actually, let's lay it all out there. But we'll see and we'll push for it and we'll hope that happens.
[38:22]
B
Have you been subpoenaed since we spoke to you last?
[38:25]
E
I have not.
[38:28]
B
John Hudson, thank you for answering our questions and thank you for your extraordinary reporting on this story. After a quick break, Sarah and Tim will join this conversation on how we even got here and how it all started with an act of corruption and grift Trump's enthusiasm and embrace of that Qatari gifted palace in the sky, he called it. More after this. Rebecca, Sarah and Tim. Sarah, I worked in the White House after 9 11. I'm completely sort of attuned and sympathetic to extreme efforts to keep the president safe. It's a national security imperative. It's why the Secret Service is there. And I also see an extraordinary lack of everything that we've come to expect, of everything Trump touches and lack of transparency A lack of adherence to the norms, a lack of thoughtfulness in terms of who he took with him, like the Diet Coke person and the human printer and not the country's Secretary of state, which would be equally destabilizing to lose him if the plane was truly a decoy. How do you, how do you see this story?
[39:43]
C
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to laugh, but there is something like, insane about the idea that on one plane was our secretary of State, it was Scott Besant, it was a whole bunch of other members of Trump's team that are high profile, and then on the other one was Trump and Pete Hegseth. And I don't know, it seems like, what's that? A revealed preference for who gets to be protected from the threat and who doesn't. Look, the fundamental issue here, the real one, the very serious one, is you don't accept a plane from the Qataris to be the president of the United States's main plane. It's just not a thing that you do. Of course it's going to bring with it enormous security risks. And it's. Honestly, if I was Marco Rubio or if I was the press pool, I would feel quite put out, to say the least, about the fact that there was a threat to the plane that led the president to go so far as to get into a catering truck and then they just let me fly on that plane. And you asked this question, and it's the right one, obviously, which is, was it a serious threat or not? And if it was, it seems insane, the way that they handled it, to just split people up. And if it wasn't, then that calls into question sort of how people are using the intelligence to make decisions. And it feels all very sort of sloppy and like maybe there's something else going on. I mean, I did read in that Washington Post story that there was some sense that maybe the intelligence was coming from Israel and that Israel wanted to make sure that the relations between the United States and Turkey was maybe not as warm. And so like, those kinds of things going on, though, at this level really is really is unprecedented and crazy.
[41:48]
B
Tim, the thing about the threat is if it was real, then no one should have been on the plane. And if it wasn't, then there should be. And I can't want this more than Trump does an explanation for why he was made to look so sort of unable to stand aboard Air Force One and wait, which is what a strong, safe, well protected leader does.
[42:10]
A
Yeah, there are a lot of layers of this story just on Your point about whether this is safe or not? I was talking to our colleague Bill Kristol who worked for Dan Quayle when he was vp and he's like, I remember this was Gulf War one. There are threats. He's like, there were a couple of times. It was just the plane didn't take off. People got another night at the hotel room. We said that there are mechanical issues while we figured out whether the threat was serious. There are a million other things you can do rather than this crazy ruse, what John called it, where you have the President of the United States, like hiding underneath the chicken parm in the catering truck with the human printer who according to Jonathan Swann and Maggie Haberman, wrote him love notes, leaves love notes around the White House. It's very strange. And they also lied about it. We should say your colleague ours at msnow, Carol Lennig was called a liar by Stephen Chung. She's the first person to not that they changed the process like about a month ago right after this happened out of safety concerns. So I mean all of that is there and it just for a war that was started with all this machismo. It's a pretty embarrassing look for the president for it to end with him in the catering truck hiding with Pete
[43:26]
B
Hegseth and Walt Nauta. Sarah Longwell to Miller, thank you so much for spending the whole hour with us. It's a treat. Thank you both. When we come back, Donald Trump and his hand picked board at the Kennedy center are not giving up yet on this vital national imperative. We'll tell you about their latest move challenging a judge's ruling. Donald Trump's Trumpy handpicked, personally installed Kennedy center board is trying one more time to sneak Trump's name back on the Kennedy center by hook or by crook. New York Times is reporting today that this hand picked Trumpy board voted to inscribe Trump's name on the building beneath the main signage. That's according to two people with direct knowledge of the proceedings. New York Times is reporting that the inscription underneath the institution's name would read restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump. Not exactly. In the same meeting, the board agreed to shutter the building for those renovations. Trump had originally announced in February that the center would close for two years. But he was blocked by a federal judge calling the board's first vote, quote, ill informed and seemingly preordained. The judge is set to review this vote and decide if the board was any better informed this time. We'll stay on top of this story for you.
[44:53]
D
Of course.
[44:54]
B
After a break, Todd Blanche's first day on the job, addressing the doj, Washington, what he says versus what he's actually done. The next hour of Deadline White House starts after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
[45:09]
A
Can I just quickly say hello to you? For me, being a part of this place has always been about the people, not about the politics. Why are you holding this sign? You ever been to a protest before? Be safe. People that we cover who allow us to enter their lives.
[45:23]
E
How's everybody doing?
[45:24]
A
Everybody doing okay? How long has it been in line? I love human beings. To spend time connecting with them is the biggest blessing that I could ask for. From the field to the studio, Jacob is finding the heart of the story. Connect with Jacob Soboroff Weekends at 10:00am Eastern on Ms. Now.

Summary8 min read

Podcast Summary: "Even Trump’s voters are souring on him"

Podcast: Deadline: White House
Host: Nicolle Wallace
Guests: Sarah Longwell (Publisher, The Bulwark), Tim Miller (Political Analyst, The Bulwark), Chris Jansing (Chief Political Reporter, MS Now), John Hudson (Washington Post Reporter), James Talarico (Senate Candidate, Texas, via interview)
Date: August 13, 2026
Duration: ~45 minutes (Main segments summarized below)

Overview: Episode Theme and Purpose

This episode examines the deepening dissatisfaction with Donald Trump—even among his own voters—less than two years into his second term. Rising costs, political missteps (especially the war with Iran), and broader GOP malaise are fueling a shift. The hosts and panelists discuss how Trump’s declining approval ratings may reshape the midterms, offer insights from voter focus groups, and analyze a critical Texas Senate race as a possible bellwether, alongside breaking news about a covert operation to protect Trump from a reported Iranian assassination threat.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Collapsing Support: Rising Costs, War, and Voter Disillusionment

[00:20–03:43]

Economic Impact is Central: The conflict with Iran has driven up gas and grocery prices dramatically—gas up $1, groceries up 41% since 2019 (per Yahoo Finance).
Polls Show Discontent: 56% of Americans cite cost of living as the country's top issue (Politico poll); Trump is held responsible.
Trump’s “Successes” Perceived as Nonexistent: In poll responses, the top answer for Trump’s successes is “none of these have been successes.”
Republican Base Fracturing: Even in deep-red strongholds like Florida, voter enthusiasm is flagging.

“The vast majority of all Americans are completely fed up with the rising costs... the anger isn't confined to feelings held by Democrats and independents.” – Nicolle Wallace [00:20]

2. The “Bush Line”—Historic Low Approval and Midterm Implications

[03:46–07:03]

Historic Parallels: Sarah Longwell references the “Bush line,” a term for sub-32% approval ratings that forebode electoral disaster for a party.
Trump Approaching Historic Lows: Current approval aggregates hover at 38%; some polls show him “squatting” at the 32% line.
Why the Floor Matters: Low presidential approval traditionally predicts midterm losses—potential for a “blue wave.”
Republican Message Deficit: GOP candidates lack credible or popular achievements to campaign on.

“When Bush left office, right, with his low approval rating... the Republican Party at that point was able to be essentially hijacked by Donald Trump and these outside forces because there was like a weakness from when Bush had left office.” – Sarah Longwell [04:26]

3. Authoritarianism vs. Pocketbook Issues

[07:03–08:59]

Voters Not Focused on Authoritarianism: Focus groups reveal voters care more about unmet economic promises than abstract threats to democracy.
Strategic Democratic Messaging: Democrats are learning to channel focus onto practical, winnable issues like controlling costs rather than emphasizing Trump’s authoritarian tendencies.

“Voters are saying... we hired this guy to do one thing. He promised he would lower prices. And not only do we not have prices that are lower, but he has done specific policy things... increasing costs, keeping inflation high.” – Sarah Longwell [07:40]

4. Voter Turnout and the “Enthusiasm Gap”

[08:59–11:26]

Democratic Energy: Turnout in Democratic primaries is huge, far outstripping Republicans in states like Michigan and Wisconsin.
Republican Deflation: Trump’s base is becoming demoralized, and the lack of enthusiasm threatens GOP prospects in the midterms.
Red State Senate Races Widen: If Trump’s numbers continue to fall, states like Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska become very competitive.

“The losing candidates in the Michigan and Wisconsin races, I think would have won every Democratic primary in the past decade in those states.” – Tim Miller [09:37]

5. Trump Voter Focus Groups: Direct Voter Voices

[11:26–14:53]

Dissatisfaction is Deep: Trump voters describe the war in Iran as a “big mistake,” are frustrated with lack of mass deportations, and feel the administration serves other interests.
Enthusiasm for Voting is Low: Many Trump voters in deep-red Florida express feelings of regret, assign failing grades, or openly consider sitting out or voting for quality Democratic candidates.

“I could have sworn Trump said, we’re going to go in and out... and it’s taken forever. And I think he realizes this is a big mistake.” – Trump voter, Florida focus group [11:35]

“He didn’t get above a single ‘C’ from any of them.” – Sarah Longwell on voter grading of Trump [12:47]

6. Tangible Consequences Break the “MAGA Bubble”

[14:53–17:56]

Personal Impact Preempts Propaganda: Unlike with election fraud or COVID messaging, rising prices and the visible failures in Iran are cutting through right-wing media ecosystems.
Can't Scapegoat: With the Iran war and economic fallout, Trump lacks plausible scapegoats; his voters see him as directly accountable.

“On Covid... there are a lot of potential scapegoats for this, and Trump’s really good at scapegoating people. The Iran war is different... There’s nobody a scapegoat.” – Tim Miller [16:15]

7. Texas Senate Race: James Talarico’s Momentum

[19:38–26:20]

Historic Competitive Race: New polls show Democrat James Talarico neck-and-neck with Ken Paxton, Texas’s embattled Republican AG.
Ground-Level Engagement: Talarico is praised for listening to constituents across party lines—a strategy refreshing and effective in a state historically resistant to Democrats.
Bipartisan Anger: Constituents express frustration at issues like runaway rents (spurred by data centers), high electricity rates, and government corruption.

“I want to be a senator for all 31 million Texans. Not just Democrats, not just independents, but Republicans too.” – James Talarico [21:32]

“I spoke with [a Republican voter] afterwards. He said... he has never voted for a Democrat. He believes Ken Paxton is corrupt... will you vote for Talarico? ‘I'm seriously considering it.’” – Chris Jansing [22:22]

8. Authenticity, Post-Partisanship, and Effective Messaging

[26:20–31:49]

Authenticity Resonates: Voters prize authenticity and candidates who sincerely listen; Talarico’s ability to connect across divides is lauded.
Nonpartisan Issues at the Forefront: Issues like affordability, corruption, and data centers are not neatly partisan, giving certain Democrats an opening if they focus on them.
Expert Take on “Post-Political” Strategy: Talarico avoids hard partisanship, focusing on Texas-specific concerns; he has also reached right-leaning audiences (e.g., Joe Rogan podcast).

“For Talarico to do exactly the opposite [of Trump], I think that there are still... a lot of good nature to [people], including Trump voters.” – Sarah Longwell [27:16]

“Joe Rogan said of him, ‘Why don’t you run for president? We need a good person.’ So really ringing endorsement from him well ahead of the primary.” – Tim Miller [31:49]

9. The Secret Flight: Iranian Threat & Security Chaos

[32:51–39:42]

Breaking News: John Hudson (Washington Post) reports details of a covert security operation: Trump was moved among three planes in Turkey due to an alleged Iranian assassination plot.
Credibility and Secrecy Doubts: The CIA held “low confidence” in the Israeli intelligence tip. The Turkish government found no evidence of a threat, and there was apparent internal disagreement on the necessary precautions.
Extraordinary Measures: Trump and select aides (not the Secretary of State or much of the cabinet) were shuttled secretly; many aides and journalists were left on a decoy plane.

“The irony here, of course, is that the Secret Service carried out one of the most elaborate ruses in presidential history... the CIA has low confidence in the intelligence.” – John Hudson [34:03]

10. The Grift and Lack of Transparency

[39:42–43:26]

Security Lapses and Symbolism: Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller note the absurdity and risk in Trump’s acceptance of a Qatari plane as Air Force One, and the cavalier handling of a possible threat.
Pattern of Grift and Nepotism: The incident epitomizes a lack of transparency and the willingness to flout norms for personal and political benefit.

“You don’t accept a plane from the Qataris to be the president of the United States's main plane... Of course it’s going to bring with it enormous security risks.” – Sarah Longwell [39:42]

“For a war that was started with all this machismo, it’s a pretty embarrassing look for the president for it to end with him in the catering truck hiding...” – Tim Miller [43:26]

11. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“Trump is now not just flirting with 32. He's sort of squatting right on top of it in Quinnipiac and AP and a bunch of polls.” – Nicolle Wallace [03:46]
“None of these have been successes.” – Top answer about Trump in Politico poll [02:51]
“Even if they're getting their news from inside the MAGA bubble... reality is breaking through it a little bit.” – Tim Miller [15:40]
“I was genuinely surprised by how down all of these voters were on Donald Trump.” – Sarah Longwell [12:47]
“Can message rile up crowds? Can someone who sounds like you, who understands who you are...?” – Chris Jansing on Talarico's strategy [24:30]

Important Timestamps

Rising costs & waning support: [00:20–03:43]
Bush line and 2026 midterm stakes: [03:46–07:03]
Democratic strategy vs. authoritarianism: [07:03–08:59]
Focus group: Republican voter voices: [11:35–14:53]
Texas Senate race: Talarico interview: [20:20–26:20]
Authenticity / Post-partisan issues: [26:20–31:49]
Secret flight & Iranian threat scoop: [32:51–39:42]
Security/graft discussion: [39:42–43:26]

Conclusion:

Key Takeaways

Trump’s approval is historically low—even among his base—with economic pain as the driving factor.
Democrats are uniting, GOP voter enthusiasm is waning, and former Trump boosters are beginning to defect.
Authenticity and focus on nonpartisan, real-life issues are proving effective for Democratic candidates in tough states.
Breaking news exposes continuing dysfunction, secrecy, and security mismanagement in the Trump administration—symbolizing the broader malaise and corruption that has soured even his reliable supporters.

For listeners and readers, this episode is a revealing snapshot of a moment when political dissatisfaction and economic anxiety are forcing realignment—even in America’s most stubborn partisan bastions.

Loading summary

Transcript77 lines

[00:00]
A
Have you ever wanted to share Your opinions with MSNow about our TV programs, podcasts, live events and more? Now's your chance to have your voice heard. Join the MSNow Insights community at Ms. Now Insights.
[00:20]
B
Hi there everyone. Happy Thursday. It's four o'clock in the east. Well, it didn't take very long for even Donald Trump's own voters to to sour on him. Less than two years into Trump 2.0 and the vast majority of all Americans are completely fed up with the rising costs. Spurred by what may be Donald Trump's greatest political betrayal of all time, starting a war in the Mid east with no clear or easy way to get out, a new analysis by Yahoo. Finance finds this quote, you're not imagining it. Everything is expensive. The conflict with Iran this year has pressured prices even further. Gas prices are nearly $1 higher than a year ago. A typical 16 item basket of groceries compiled by Yahoo. Finance was 41% higher in July than the same month in 2019, far outpacing overall inflation. That inconvenient truth continues to drive Donald Trump's poll numbers down ever lower and lower and lower. A new poll by Politico finds that 56% of Americans view the high cost of living as as the most important issue facing the country today, followed by 29% of people who say the poor state of the economy is the top issue. They're laying the blame directly at Donald Trump's feet. At this point, when asked about the failures of Trump's presidency, 36% say cost of living, 27% say the economy more broadly, 23% say it's Donald Trump using the presidency to enrich himself, and 21% say it's Trump's tariffs. And if Trump is looking for good news in any of this, he might want to change the channel right about now. When asked about the successes of Trump's presidency, the number one answer, the number one response at 36% was none of these have been successes. And the anger isn't confined to feelings held by Democrats and independents. Politico writes this about these poll results. Quote, the results reveal an urgent warning sign for Trump as Republicans try to keep his winning coalition intact ahead of November and new indications of where among the very voters that helped elect him in 2024, the issue cutting most sharply against Trump is also the one voters, including his own, say matters the most. And it has been for months, one Republican strategist telling Politico this quote, for gas prices, it's hard to find a more visible or salient indicator of prices than them. Right. I think voters, they're drawing a pretty direct line between a closed strait of Hormuz because of a war to higher gas prices. And, you know, I don't know if there's a way around that right now. As the war puts pressure on Americans finances, Iran manages to humiliate Donald Trump on the world stage. A threat forced him to be smuggled inside a catering truck with his Diet Coke valet alongside him. Behavior more associated with a bootleg of Melvin Marcos. Iran is now openly taunting Donald Trump, saying the war will not end anytime soon, with Tehran vowing to prolong the war until Donald Trump is out of office. The Trump economy putting renewed pressure on him to end the war as Iran promises to keep fighting is where we begin today with two of our favorite friends. Publisher for the Bulwark, host of the focus group podcast, Sarah Longwell is here. Also joining us, political analyst, host of the Bulwark podcast, Tim Miller is here. It's so nice to have both of you. Thank you.
[03:43]
A
What's up, girl?
[03:47]
B
I want to start with the Bush line because, Sarah, I think you said this to me when I had you on my podcast, and I live through the bush line. Like, 32% means you can't really land Air Force One in normal political times. It means nobody wants you in the district because they don't want the local coverage and the coverage of their constituents. Seeing you with a politician at 32%, Trump is now not just flirting with 32. He's sort of squatting right on top of it in Quinnipiac and AP and a bunch of polls. And I wonder, in your view, one, if it's the floor, and two, if you see anything changing in our body politic now that he's at that number,
[04:26]
C
I definitely don't think it's the floor. You know, what you're seeing actually is the numbers, they're all bouncing around a little bit, but they're all bouncing around at a lower place. But the aggregate right now has them around 38%. And when I talk about the Bush line, what I mean is I want those aggregates of all the polls to be down at 32% and lower. And the reason that the Bush line is so important to me is that when Bush left office, right, with his low approval rating because it was an unpopular war and a bad economy, the Republican Party at that point was able to be essentially hijacked by Donald Trump and these outside forces because there was like a weakness from when Bush had left office. Right. A perception that he'd left office, and it wasn't a successful second term. And it's important that Americans see Donald Trump and the MAGA experiment as a failure, not just so that we don't repeat what happens with Donald Trump, but also so that everything that Trump touches from here on out, the people that were in his administration, J.D. vance, Marco Rubio, that their political futures are imperiled by their association with Trump and this administration. And so that's why Trump being that low. But it also matters for 2026. I mean, there is a direct correlation between the low approval rating of the sitting president for that party having a poor outcome in midterms. And so we want Donald Trump to be as low as possible going into the 2026 elections, because that will enable sort of that blue wave to crest. And I think one of the reasons that you're seeing so many polls come out showing individual matchups in the swing states between Democrats and Republicans, you're seeing the Democrats start to really pull away, is that the environment is tainted by Donald Trump, by the fact that Republicans have nothing to run on, nothing optimistic to run on. What are they going to talk about? The reflecting pool, the arch, the ballroom? These are Trump's obsessions. And Republican congresspeople or senators, they can't run on that. And so Trump being unpopular, it also diminishes enthusiasm among Republican voters. So you get this enthusiasm gap between Democrats who will crawl over broken glass to vote for their candidates, and a Republican base that's like, why do. I don't need to show up. This is a, you know, nothing's going well and I'm not happy with how things are going. So I think that's the national environment that these numbers are creating.
[07:03]
B
What's interesting to me is that this is the point, I think, nine years in, where the political strategy is the best bulwark, not to, not to use your name, but the best prophylactic against authoritarianism. Right. Like, it's the first moment where there's a political solution right there on the table to grab, to protect the country from becoming a straight up authoritarian structure in terms of political prosecutions and a military not accountable to Congress or the military. I mean, this is that moment. And I wonder, Sarah, if that's coming up in focus groups.
[07:41]
C
Oh, Nicole. Every time I'm on, I always want to tell you so badly that the American people are, you know, shuddering at this authoritarian power grab. But of course, that's not really the way that voters are experiencing it. Instead, what is happening is they're saying, look, we hired this guy to do one thing. We hired him to lower prices. He promised he would lower prices. And not only do we not have prices that are lower, but he has done specific policy things, namely tariffs and the war in Iran, both of which are increasing costs, keeping inflation high, and doing the exact opposite of what voters wanted. Now, that's voters in general, I will say, on the Democratic side, to your point, and I think you're seeing this in the way that Democrats are really unifying after what are these incredibly toxic, bruising primaries, is them saying this is our best chance to put a check on Trump in terms of what he is doing. And I think that what Democrats have learned is that they should talk less about authoritarianism and instead talk about the things that allow them to win elections so that they can curb the authoritarianism that we're seeing. And I think that that's actually a pretty good impulse.
[08:59]
B
Tim, tell me how you see the moment.
[09:02]
A
Yeah, I guess I agree with everything Sarah said. I would add a couple of points to it. I do think that there's a little, you are seeing this galvanizing force on the Democratic, Democratic side. And some people certainly are motivated by feeling like they have agency to stop this authoritarian takeover. And I think if you look at these primaries, all this focus, for example, in Michigan and Wisconsin on kind of the factional dispute on the Democratic side, one thing that I think was undercover that struck me was just absolutely gargantuan turnout in both of those primaries.
[09:37]
B
Massive. Yeah.
[09:38]
A
On the Democratic side and much smaller turnout on the Republican side. I mean, the losing, losing candidates in the Michigan and Wisconsin races, I think would have won every, just in raw vote total, would have won every Democratic primary in the past decade in those states. So I think you are seeing that for sure. The reason why Trump has to get his numbers lower and why I think it's important for the Democrats to keep being aggressive, particularly on prices and the way that the stupid war has contributed to higher prices is that if you look at that number that Sarah said, the 38% number versus 32, this is going to be a very meaningful difference in the Senate and the key Senate states. The states where the Senate will be decided most likely Ohio, Iowa, Texas, Alaska, maybe some others. But if you just look at those four, Trump won them by about 11, 12, 13 points. So he was about, call it 10 points higher than he was nationally in those states. So if he's at 38, that means he's probably like 48 or 47 or 46 in those key states. And that makes those races very competitive. If he's down at 32 and he's in the low 40s in those states, that makes those states very winnable for James Talrico, Sherrod Brown, Josh Turek, Mary Peltola, who are all running really good races in those four red states. And so to me, I think that is like the political job of the Democratic Party, the pro democracy movement is how can you communicate to that, how can you take his number down from where it is even lower? And talking to people who are Trump voters, and to me, that's focusing on the betrayal and making sure that they tie the higher costs that they're experiencing to Trump's choices directly.
[11:27]
B
Sarah, let me play some of your Trump voter focus groups. We'll hear directly from them.
[11:35]
D
I remember the day that we started
[11:38]
B
going to war with them and I could have sworn Trump said, we're going
[11:41]
C
to go in and out.
[11:42]
B
It's going to be over with.
[11:43]
C
Two weeks long.
[11:45]
B
Yeah. And it's taken forever.
[11:48]
D
And I think he realizes this is a big mistake.
[11:52]
C
And I seriously think he don't know
[11:55]
B
how he's going to get out of this.
[11:56]
E
I was holding out for F. I was expecting mass deportations, like real mass deportations. That's kind of what I was expecting. I was expecting, you know, revising who's
[12:05]
A
actually being able to be, you know,
[12:07]
E
a resident as well. Iran is really bothering me because I feel like for decades we've spent a lot of time in the Middle east for all the wrong reasons, not serving our interest, but serving Israel's interests.
[12:24]
B
Sarah, what's so interesting to me is these are the people enthused by the mass deportation signs at the convention. These are the people who feel for him. Right. There's some sympathy from the first Trump voter that she really thinks that he just didn't understand and made a big mistake. What are those voters going to do in November?
[12:48]
C
I mean, these voters. So first of all, this is from our most recent group and it was in Florida and we did a couple groups of Republicans in Florida. And I mean, this is where Trump, like MAGA lives there. It is the home of Mar A Lago. It is the home of Trump. These are where Trump voters, like, live and breathe the Trump stuff. I was genuinely surprised by how down all of these voters were on Donald Trump. He didn't get above a single see from any of them. You were listening to that guy. He started out by saying, I was holding out for F. I want to give him an F. Because. And in that Case that guy was mad he wasn't doing more deportations, but also mad about the stupid war in Iran. Now these are people who voted for Trump three times already. My guess is that they vote, these voters vote still for Republicans, but they're frustrated. And so as a, as a broader matter of the electorate, I think two things are happening. I think your normies who live on the edge, right, the, maybe even some of the lower info people, although in midterms people are more high information. But for the normies who live on the edge, many of them I think will vote for Democrats when the Democrat you're giving them is John Ossoff, when it's James Talarico, you know, when it's Mary Peltola, like the candidate quality is pretty good. So some of them will vote or even these right leaning independents. I think that the other thing is that Trump is just, he's not on the actual ballot. And so for people who are kind of these Trump only hardcore voters, their enthusiasm is being sucked away from them. They're like, I don't know, I thought this was going to be better. I thought it was going to be like the first term when the economy is good, but the economy's not good and there's a stupid war in Iran. And so that flagging enthusiasm, that goes to turnout and that goes to the idea that like Republicans are less like rushing to the ballot box to defend Trump's record because they don't like Trump's record. And so they're just less motivated to stop the correction that will come from the enthusiasm on the other side putting Democrats in office.
[14:53]
B
Tim, I'm so struck by, again, these are voters who likely aren't getting any of their information from any of us, but they've reached the same conclusion, right? Like the thing with Iran is that he clearly doesn't know what to do. He is clearly afraid. The caper in Turkey is so destabilizing, I think, to citizens to think that a president was so frightened that he stuffed himself or they stuffed him in a catering truck with his personal valet and left the cabinet on a decoy plane. I mean, even if you are sort of saying hardcore maga, these are very, very clear signs that Trump has lost the upper hand and has lost control of this fight with Iran for sure.
[15:41]
A
And I saw a poll the other day just asking if it seems like people, the people in charge of the country are in control. And that number was way below the Bush line. It was like in the teens. Because I do think people have this sense that this thing has gotten out of control for him. And I think one thing that's different now about the war in Iran and the prices is just how tangible it is. I apologize. When Sarah was talking, I wasn't looking at my phone. I was trying to grab this tweet that Trump sent. This was two months ago now. The deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all ships of the world. Start your engines. Let the oil flow. That was two months ago. And so the MAGA voter in Florida is still filling up his truck or her truck, and it's costing a lot more. And they know what that price was before, and they know what it is now, and they can see why it's happening. And so it's like, even if they're getting their news from inside the MAGA bubble, you know, like, reality is breaking through it a little bit. And I do think this is kind of a different story. I've mentioned this before. Like, if you think about some of these other big lies, whether that be about COVID you know, or whether it be about the election fraud, the alleged election fraud in 2020, it's like these people's lives aren't impacted one way or the other by the election fraud. They're just mad that he lost. And so if you want to tell them a big lie, they were happy to hear it. They're like, okay, I guess it was stolen on Covid. I think a lot of these people were like, well, they were told all these lies. It was hard for them to kind of figure out what was true, what was false. Should I blame China? Should I blame Fauci? There are a lot of potential scapegoats for this, and Trump's really good at scapegoating people. The Iran war is different than that. He went at it alone. There's nobody a scapegoat. I mean, I guess Bibi Netanyahu came to the Situation Room and helped convince him. And so if people's lives are getting worse and they're getting worse because of a decision Trump made and there's nobody to point the finger at, it's like, even if they're watching propaganda news, they're living a reality that is in conflict with that propaganda. And so I think that's why you're seeing his numbers go down while you're hearing that from his voters in those focus groups.
[17:56]
B
I want to come back to the first thing you said, Sarah, that this is not the floor. I want to press both of you on where you think that is. And how you think Democrats get there? I have to sneak in a break. Also ahead, one of the most closely watched races in the country that Sarah and Tim both mentioned is that Senate race in Texas. We'll hear this hour from the candidate who has a real chance of turning that state blue for the first time in nearly four decades, James Talarigo. That's after a break. Plus, the super secret plane switch and the new reporting on the CIA being skeptical about just how credible and big of a threat there may have been from Iran on that day in July with Donald Trump overseas. The reporter who broke that story is coming up. And later in the broadcast, Todd Blanche addressing the Department of Justice staff today for the first time as ag he stressed unity and integrity in the rule of law. He only mentioned Trump's name once, seemingly trying to whitewash everything that he has directed to happen since he's been at the Department of Justice so far. All those stories and much more when DEADLINE WHITE HOUSE continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
[19:06]
A
Ever since I was young, I've watched
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C
people working hard, chasing opportunity, making sacrifices,
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A
doing everything they can to build a better life.
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C
And now we're shining a light on what matters most, our economy, our national identity, our democracy, our future. The stakes have never been higher.
[19:24]
A
It's all on the line. On the line with Alicia Menendez, weekdays at 12:00pm Eastern on Ms. Now,
[19:39]
B
Democrats just got some very good news in one of the races. Sarah, Tim and I have been talking about this hour, that Senate race in Texas that could help deliver the Senate back to the Democrats. A new poll out of Emerson College finds that James Talarico is in a virtual dead heat against embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as Republicans start to break with Donald Trump's party. If Talarico were to win, it would be the first time a Democrat won an election for U.S. senate in Texas in nearly 40 years. I want to bring in my friend and colleague, chief political reporter Chris Jansing, who just spoke with James Talarico at an event in Abilene, Texas. Sarah and Tim are still here. Chris, what do you say?
[20:20]
D
So it was really pretty extraordinary. You don't see a lot of this for sure. In 2026. There was bipartisan furor in a room in the community center behind me, Republicans, Democrats, independents, and at the center of it, James Talarico, who for over the course of more than 30 minutes just listened. He wanted to know where their anger was coming from. And he said he's angry, too about what's happening with these data Centers. And I talked to one woman, for example, who said she has two sons, they just graduated college. She was excited about them going out on their own, but they wanted to stay here. Now, in the last six months, rents have in some cases doubled. So they are really concerned about this. The single most expensive data center in the country is being built here, 1100 acres. And not only rents are going up, but they're concerned about water. Their electricity rates have gone through the roof. So listen to part of my conversation about it with Talarico. Why here? Why come to a ruby red county and spend half a day, maybe a full day here? Strategically, does it make sense?
[21:33]
E
Absolutely. I want to be a senator for all 31 million Texans. Not just Democrats, not just independents, but Republicans too.
[21:39]
D
Maybe you're going to change some minds.
[21:41]
E
Well, I mean, I think you're already seeing it. You're seeing a lot of independents and Republicans joining this movement that we're building because it's bigger than party. This is about working people coming together across partisan differences, across cultural differences, geographic differences so that we can come together and take on the corrupt politicians like Ken Paxton who are selling us out every single day, including on this issue.
[22:05]
C
Right.
[22:05]
E
He's taken nearly half a million dollars from data center companies and then he turns around and protects those companies at our expense. And so if we can defeat the
[22:15]
A
most corrupt politician in our state, then I really do believe we can come
[22:18]
E
together to defeat this entire corrupt system.
[22:23]
D
It's really fascinating to me that the people around that table agreed with him and they almost that they were talking to each other the way that they were. And when you talk about corruption, there was a 52 year old man. He did not want to be filmed on camera when we were inside. But I spoke with him afterwards. He said he has been voting every election since he was 18 years old and he has never voted for a Democrat. He believes Ken Paxton is corrupt. He will not vote for him. And I said, so will you vote for James Talarico? And he said, I'm seriously considering it. He clearly was impressed. Impressed that he came here, listened to what people had to say and look, the polls are incredibly tight, but what I really noticed in the latest poll that came out today is that in all of the key metrics, James Talarigo is ahead. He's ahead on the economy, he's ahead on affordability, he's even ahead on keeping Texans safe. And so he's going to stay here tonight. He's going to do a rally not far from where I'm standing. And he believes that as he goes and learns from things like this and takes the message that people are giving him to other parts of the state, that it's part of the way to win. Not that he's not raising money, he's raising lots of money, but he thinks that this ground game, this one on one kind of aspect of his campaign could be the difference.
[23:46]
B
Chris, you've been on the ground for so many of these races in this moment, and I wonder if you sense that Talarico is just a sort of apex political athlete, like a super talent like Ossoff, like Obama, or if it's that Paxton is historically weak or if it's that Trump is so unpopular, I mean, are you able to pull one thing out or is it really this combination that leads to these circumstances?
[24:18]
D
I actually asked him that question. I said, do you think the reason you're so in this race is because Donald Trump is so unpopular? Is it you? What is it? And he really does believe that this is a moment.
[24:30]
B
Right.
[24:31]
D
And I think that's what I see. He's not the kind of political athlete that John Ossoff is. That El Sayed is the people that I have been watching who have been riling up crowds. The question that he's answering is, can message rile up crowds? Can someone who sounds like you, who understands who you are, really? When you look at campaigns like Abdul Al said, where a lot of the people who started his campaign are so much more progressive than the bulk of the people who are supporting James Talarico. But the thing about them that they share is that people feel like they're listening and responding to their direct needs, that they're not getting sidetracked by some of the other stuff. I also asked him, for example, he said he's not going to get into the nastiness of the campaign. We've heard some things from Ken Paxton. He just said that he thinks that God is like guiding him to be the person to protect Texans from the ultra left. And he wouldn't even go there. He just said, look, I care more about not what, who God is providing for. Am I providing the kind of message that God would support? And I think it's that kind of conversation that connects with people in a state like Texas. And he's running a very Texas race.
[25:55]
B
Yeah. Chris Jansing, awesome reporting and great get. Talarico isn't doing many interviews at all, but of course he did one with you. Thank you for joining us. Sarah and Tim, let me bring you in on this. It Is amazing how many, and I'm sure you experienced this, Sarah, in doing your focus groups, how many people just want to be heard and listened to? That seems to be one of Talarico's superpowers.
[26:20]
E
Yeah.
[26:21]
C
You know, authenticity has become a real buzzword. It's like a watchword of the moment. And I sometimes think people think that being authentic is a specific thing. Like, it's a. You gotta be able to engage everybody in all these ways and go on all these podcasts. But, like, really what it means is, can you communicate in a style that's authentic to you? And I think Tao Rico's authentic style, and Tim and I got a chance to hang out with him because he came to one of our live shows at one point when we were in Texas. I think his style is like a kind, I want to sit and engage with you. I genuinely like people. I want to understand people. And I think that this is a real thing. You hear this in the focus groups. People have a lot on their minds, and one of them is the data centers. But it really is the pain that they're feeling economically. And when somebody's willing to sit in front of you and say, hey, I hear that. And like, I really want to address it. And especially in contrast to Trump right now, where Trump is saying, hey, are you in a state that didn't vote for me? I'm not sending aid. Like, if you have a tornado, you have a hurricane, I'm not doing anything for you. For Tail Rico to do exactly the opposite. I think that there are still, and this is me believing that people are still good in a lot of ways. They've got a lot of good nature to them, including Trump voters. Like, in a place like Texas, you've got to believe that you can reach some of those people. And I always think one of the number one ways to reach people isn't telling them just, like, what they want to hear, but listening to them and saying that you're going to take their concerns seriously and that you want to be, you know, a politician that's going to serve them regardless of party. But of course, it is the combination. It is the combination of the fact that Ken Paxton is wildly corrupt and there's a lot of, again, good faith Republicans in Texas who really don't like that, like him. I hear that in focus groups and the fact that Trump's unpopular, it just gives Tao Rico an opening, and it seems like he's willing to grab it by going and really sitting down people. Texas is a huge state. It Requires a ton of money if you're just going to do tv. I love that he's not just relying on tv. He's really getting in front of people and sitting down with them, because that is what it's going to take to turn Texas blue.
[28:29]
B
I also think that Talarico is either because of the generational piece or because it's Texas just hardwired Tim to latch onto the post. Political issues like data centers are not. I mean, Republicans are enabling them and facilitating them, but in terms of how voters perceive them, there is bipartisan. I mean, I think that's the best way to describe how actual people feel about data centers. They are enraged by them. And national politicians don't talk about them. Or if they talk about them, they don't talk about them on national platforms. Maybe they're dealing with them locally. Prices is like, not a partisan issue anymore. Everybody thinks everything is too expensive and it's this political betrayal under it. But prices in and of themselves are not a partisan issue. And corruption, I mean, corruption is so in people's face. Everywhere you look, someone named Trump has stolen something from the taxpayer. It's not just getting rich in a vacuum. It's getting government contracts, it's squirreling away things for themselves. It's taking shady donations. It's dealing with people who are in legal peril and getting rich on the back end of that. I wonder what you think about the people doing the best, seemingly attracted to the least partisan issues.
[29:42]
A
Yeah, I think that's a student because James Talarico, definitely, I think, you know, codes is having, like, as being liberal, like, his liberal values. And I think the people can sense that, but he doesn't really come off as, like, partisan. And those are two different things. Right. Like, it's one thing to be like, hey, I'm a party team Jersey bomb thrower and, you know, I hate Republicans or I hate Democrats. Right. And we see a lot of that out there in our politics today. And that's just like, not in his makeup. And so, you know, we have the data center example today. We're just campaigning there, listening to Republicans in Abilene, Texas, in a red area who have concerns about the data center. There's another story that I've been covering on my podcast lately that Talrico brought to my attention, which was he was down on the border near the Big Bend part of Texas, and he was meeting with sheriffs there, Republican sheriffs, MAGA sheriffs, like, quite MAGA sheriffs actually, who post on their social media about the Immigrants that they capture and stuff, like real right wing guys. And they're up upset about the wall. Trump's back to building the wall, by the way, and they're adding to it since he didn't finish it in the first term, through this Big Bend national park, where it's insane to put it there. It is a desolate place. People go there for outdoors. Nobody crosses the border there. And what Trump is doing is building this wall and it might make it easier for people to cross the border. For one, it costs a ton of money. It's corrupt. And even crazier, they're using eminent domain to take people's land in Texas and some of it's going back to Mexico because the wall can't go right on the border. And so Trump's literally taking land from Texans and giving it to Mexico to put up his corrupt wall. And the sheriff's down there like, this is crazy. We don't want this, we don't need this. Tellarico is there. He's just been very astute at finding these issues, demonstrating that he really cares about them. Things that are post partisan. He obviously came to attention going on Joe Rogan's show and I think that Democrats could learn a from the strategy there. But I think that the strategy is working because it's pretty authentic to him.
[31:49]
B
Yeah, Joe Rogan said of him, why don't you run for president? We need a good person. So really ringing endorsement from him well ahead of the primary. All right, I get you guys a little bit longer. No one's going anywhere. When we come back, we'll get to the secret flight involving Donald Trump and the confusion around why the Secret Service that they needed to covertly move him to a third plane that only a handful of people knew about. One more break. We'll be right back.
[32:18]
A
Listen to your favorite Ms. Now shows anytime as a podcast. Enjoy new episodes of Morning Joe, Deadline, White House and the Rachel Maddow Show.
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D
Every small d Democratic muscle that we have is flexing.
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A
Plus the Last Word with Lawrence o', Donnell, the Beat with Ari Mel, the Weeknight and more on the go wherever you get your podcasts for ad free listening to all of your favorite shows, subscribe to Ms. Now Premium on Apple Podcasts.
[32:51]
B
Viewed as low confidence. That is what one US Intelligence official is telling the Washington Post concerning an Iranian assassination threat against Donald Trump that led to a Bond style clandestine maneuver to get him out of Turkey. Washington Post reports that the Israeli government relayed the threat to the CIA, where analysts, quote, did not view the intelligence as compelling and conveyed that skepticism to Trump administration officials. That's according to an intelligence official. Reporting from other outlets has described the threat as credible. This brand new reporting comes after the outlet first reported that after concerns arose about Trump's Qatari Force One, he boarded a Legacy Air Force One aircraft, only to later secretly leave that aircraft and sneak into a catering truck that brought him to a third aircraft that flew him and a couple of handpicked aides to the UK Washington Post says that the CIA and the Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for details. I want to bring in the Washington Post John Hudson, who's bylined on this explosive new development. Sarah and Tim are still here. John, first tell us what you're reporting in another scoop on this story.
[34:04]
E
Yeah, well, the irony here, of course, is that the Secret Service carried out one of the most elaborate ruses in presidential history. The type of ruse where you would expect was based on highly credible, highly lethal intelligence. And what the Post can now report is that the CIA has low confidence in the intelligence that it received from the Israeli government related to this threat. I think, you know, the big picture here is, is telling you a little bit about the risk calculus that the Secret Service is taking right now. For a president that has had three high profile near miss assassination attempts, this is they're clearly quite frazzled at this at this moment and are willing to take extraordinary measures and exercise extraordinary caution when it comes to the President's well being. And that's a big takeaway of what happened in Ankara.
[35:05]
B
Well, explain how the Cabinet ends up on the decoy then, because if you've got one agency, and I take your point about their emotional state, frazzled sounds right. And not taking any chances. But the threat's the threat and either it was not viewed serious enough that they put half the Cabinet and all the press on it, or it was and they stuffed the president into a catering truck.
[35:30]
E
Yeah, it's a great question. I can tell you from new reporting I've gotten just in the last hour from sources, including a Turkish official that I spoke with is before the president's plane took off. And this is something that could have also informed the Cabinet which you asked about, which you correctly said did fly on the Air Force One plane that Trump did not fly on. The Turkish government relayed to the Americans that they had no evidence of what the Israelis were talking about and in fact had contradictory evidence that there was a specific lethal threat to the president in Ankara at the moment. So it's Certainly possible that some of the officials who were consuming all of the information that was being given made the decision that, you know, they were willing to take the risk of being on the plane alongside the journalists, alongside the other White House aides that flew on the decoy plane.
[36:35]
B
John, Air Force One, to my understanding, is not a plane, a physical thing. It's a designation for the aircraft carrying Donald Trump. Do you know if they ever officially classified the plane carrying Donald Trump as Air Force One, or did the decoy plane fall, fly falsely as Air Force One that day?
[36:53]
E
Yeah, it didn't go with the call sign of Air Force One, which is one of the other highly unusual, highly abnormal aspects about this. That's why I call it one of the most extraordinary ruses in presidential history.
[37:10]
B
It's an extraordinary story. Do you have any sense that the intelligence community would be receptive to any congressional efforts to declassify the low confidence intelligence and have more transparency around this?
[37:25]
E
It's a great question. The Washington Post is in the process of asking for more information as well from officials. I think it is very safe to say that the administration tried to keep this quiet. There's a reason why we're learning about this one month after this all happened is the Post took extensive efforts to report this out, to fact check everything, and there was not a willing administration helping us along the way to publish this. It was very difficult. We needed to go, we needed to marshal video evidence, we needed to marshal air traffic evidence and our own sources to firm this up. So I don't expect an administration to suddenly have a come to Jesus moment and say, actually, let's lay it all out there. But we'll see and we'll push for it and we'll hope that happens.
[38:22]
B
Have you been subpoenaed since we spoke to you last?
[38:25]
E
I have not.
[38:28]
B
John Hudson, thank you for answering our questions and thank you for your extraordinary reporting on this story. After a quick break, Sarah and Tim will join this conversation on how we even got here and how it all started with an act of corruption and grift Trump's enthusiasm and embrace of that Qatari gifted palace in the sky, he called it. More after this. Rebecca, Sarah and Tim. Sarah, I worked in the White House after 9 11. I'm completely sort of attuned and sympathetic to extreme efforts to keep the president safe. It's a national security imperative. It's why the Secret Service is there. And I also see an extraordinary lack of everything that we've come to expect, of everything Trump touches and lack of transparency A lack of adherence to the norms, a lack of thoughtfulness in terms of who he took with him, like the Diet Coke person and the human printer and not the country's Secretary of state, which would be equally destabilizing to lose him if the plane was truly a decoy. How do you, how do you see this story?
[39:43]
C
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to laugh, but there is something like, insane about the idea that on one plane was our secretary of State, it was Scott Besant, it was a whole bunch of other members of Trump's team that are high profile, and then on the other one was Trump and Pete Hegseth. And I don't know, it seems like, what's that? A revealed preference for who gets to be protected from the threat and who doesn't. Look, the fundamental issue here, the real one, the very serious one, is you don't accept a plane from the Qataris to be the president of the United States's main plane. It's just not a thing that you do. Of course it's going to bring with it enormous security risks. And it's. Honestly, if I was Marco Rubio or if I was the press pool, I would feel quite put out, to say the least, about the fact that there was a threat to the plane that led the president to go so far as to get into a catering truck and then they just let me fly on that plane. And you asked this question, and it's the right one, obviously, which is, was it a serious threat or not? And if it was, it seems insane, the way that they handled it, to just split people up. And if it wasn't, then that calls into question sort of how people are using the intelligence to make decisions. And it feels all very sort of sloppy and like maybe there's something else going on. I mean, I did read in that Washington Post story that there was some sense that maybe the intelligence was coming from Israel and that Israel wanted to make sure that the relations between the United States and Turkey was maybe not as warm. And so like, those kinds of things going on, though, at this level really is really is unprecedented and crazy.
[41:48]
B
Tim, the thing about the threat is if it was real, then no one should have been on the plane. And if it wasn't, then there should be. And I can't want this more than Trump does an explanation for why he was made to look so sort of unable to stand aboard Air Force One and wait, which is what a strong, safe, well protected leader does.
[42:10]
A
Yeah, there are a lot of layers of this story just on Your point about whether this is safe or not? I was talking to our colleague Bill Kristol who worked for Dan Quayle when he was vp and he's like, I remember this was Gulf War one. There are threats. He's like, there were a couple of times. It was just the plane didn't take off. People got another night at the hotel room. We said that there are mechanical issues while we figured out whether the threat was serious. There are a million other things you can do rather than this crazy ruse, what John called it, where you have the President of the United States, like hiding underneath the chicken parm in the catering truck with the human printer who according to Jonathan Swann and Maggie Haberman, wrote him love notes, leaves love notes around the White House. It's very strange. And they also lied about it. We should say your colleague ours at msnow, Carol Lennig was called a liar by Stephen Chung. She's the first person to not that they changed the process like about a month ago right after this happened out of safety concerns. So I mean all of that is there and it just for a war that was started with all this machismo. It's a pretty embarrassing look for the president for it to end with him in the catering truck hiding with Pete
[43:26]
B
Hegseth and Walt Nauta. Sarah Longwell to Miller, thank you so much for spending the whole hour with us. It's a treat. Thank you both. When we come back, Donald Trump and his hand picked board at the Kennedy center are not giving up yet on this vital national imperative. We'll tell you about their latest move challenging a judge's ruling. Donald Trump's Trumpy handpicked, personally installed Kennedy center board is trying one more time to sneak Trump's name back on the Kennedy center by hook or by crook. New York Times is reporting today that this hand picked Trumpy board voted to inscribe Trump's name on the building beneath the main signage. That's according to two people with direct knowledge of the proceedings. New York Times is reporting that the inscription underneath the institution's name would read restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump. Not exactly. In the same meeting, the board agreed to shutter the building for those renovations. Trump had originally announced in February that the center would close for two years. But he was blocked by a federal judge calling the board's first vote, quote, ill informed and seemingly preordained. The judge is set to review this vote and decide if the board was any better informed this time. We'll stay on top of this story for you.
[44:53]
D
Of course.
[44:54]
B
After a break, Todd Blanche's first day on the job, addressing the doj, Washington, what he says versus what he's actually done. The next hour of Deadline White House starts after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
[45:09]
A
Can I just quickly say hello to you? For me, being a part of this place has always been about the people, not about the politics. Why are you holding this sign? You ever been to a protest before? Be safe. People that we cover who allow us to enter their lives.
[45:23]
E
How's everybody doing?
[45:24]
A
Everybody doing okay? How long has it been in line? I love human beings. To spend time connecting with them is the biggest blessing that I could ask for. From the field to the studio, Jacob is finding the heart of the story. Connect with Jacob Soboroff Weekends at 10:00am Eastern on Ms. Now.

“Even Trump’s voters are souring on him”

“Even Trump’s voters are souring on him”

Podcast Summary: "Even Trump’s voters are souring on him"

Overview: Episode Theme and Purpose

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Collapsing Support: Rising Costs, War, and Voter Disillusionment

2. The “Bush Line”—Historic Low Approval and Midterm Implications

3. Authoritarianism vs. Pocketbook Issues

4. Voter Turnout and the “Enthusiasm Gap”

5. Trump Voter Focus Groups: Direct Voter Voices

6. Tangible Consequences Break the “MAGA Bubble”

7. Texas Senate Race: James Talarico’s Momentum

8. Authenticity, Post-Partisanship, and Effective Messaging

9. The Secret Flight: Iranian Threat & Security Chaos

10. The Grift and Lack of Transparency

11. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Important Timestamps

Conclusion:

Podcast Summary: "Even Trump’s voters are souring on him"

Overview: Episode Theme and Purpose

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Collapsing Support: Rising Costs, War, and Voter Disillusionment

2. The “Bush Line”—Historic Low Approval and Midterm Implications

3. Authoritarianism vs. Pocketbook Issues

4. Voter Turnout and the “Enthusiasm Gap”

5. Trump Voter Focus Groups: Direct Voter Voices

6. Tangible Consequences Break the “MAGA Bubble”

7. Texas Senate Race: James Talarico’s Momentum

8. Authenticity, Post-Partisanship, and Effective Messaging

9. The Secret Flight: Iranian Threat & Security Chaos

10. The Grift and Lack of Transparency

11. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Important Timestamps

Conclusion: