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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hi everyone. I'm Achilles Suarez, senior vice president for Government affairs at NAOP and today's guest host. You're listening to the NAOP podcast, Inside CRE, featuring interviews with commercial real estate leaders who share industry and career insights. Naop, the Commercial Real Estate Development association, is development industry's leading source for education, advocacy and connections that drive your business forward. They say that in Washington, if you want a friend, get a dog. Well, we're going to add to that old adage. If you want the truth, you call today's guest. Joining us on our 50th episode of Inside Cre is Jonathan Martin, politics bureau chief and senior political columnist at Politico. A veteran of the New York Times and co author of the bestseller this Will Not Pass, Jonathan has spent his career in the rooms where decisions happen and often where they fall apart. He recently gave the closing keynote at the NAOP Chapter Leadership and Legislative Retreat, warning that the political center isn't just shrinking, it's being intentionally dismantled. Jonathan, welcome to the podcast to be with you guys.
- [01:26]
B
Loved being with you all in D.C. earlier in the year.
- [01:30]
A
Great. And it was great listening to you. We got a lot of questions, a lot of questions that were left unused.
- [01:35]
B
Bring on the hardballs.
- [01:37]
A
Well, first of all, let's talk about, and you touched upon this, the current state of a the political landscape in D.C. for both, both the politics and media. You know, you've described being a political journalist today as drinking from a fire hose. Does it ever feel like the news cycle has officially outpaced our ability to govern?
- [02:00]
B
I think that's exactly what's happened. Everybody, look, all of us grew up in the post war year, a period of consensus, a period where the we all sort of spoke the same language, watched the same movies, same TV shows, heard the same music, watched our news and sports the exact same times on the same three networks. We're living in a different, much more fractured environment. It's almost like we've gone back in time to the 19th century and we're now living in a fragmented society in which we're all living in our own bubbles. And in some ways more information has meant less, if that makes sense. Right. So like we're overwhelmed now. We're the proverbial man surrounded by salt water, looking for fresh water. There's no lack of salt water. Like we're overwhelmed every day. We are all on it. Even like folks who don't work in politics don't cover politics. We're overwhelmed with push alerts, you know, updates, tweets our phones are constantly beckoning us. Right. That is so different from, you know, walking down to your driveway, getting the morning paper, watching the network news at 6:30 or 7:00 clock every night. Like, the world has been transformed by the delivery methods. I think that that technology has overwhelmed the system. And if we in Washington have a hard time keeping up, I mean, imagine the average person trying to make sense of every hour, every day, what's going on. It's dizzying. And so I think that has presented an acute challenge to our political system. Is. And then you get a President Donald Trump, who intentionally tries to overwhelm the system. Right. So I just think it's created an enormous challenge, and it's hard to keep up. It's hard to know fact from fiction. And we're being pushed deeper and deeper because of the algorithms into the world that we want rather than the world that is. And there's an old quote from Senator Pat Moynihan, who said, everybody's entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. And I worry that we're kind of in a world now where we are marinating in our own facts. And, guys, it's hard to sustain a democracy when you're sort of living in your own world if you don't have shared facts. Right. And just lastly, I think that algorithmic life that we're living now has deepened our polarization, deepened our tribalism, made politics more an identity, more a religion than a preference. Right. It's. It was strawberry or chocolate. It's now good or evil. And I think because of that, because of that, our politics has gotten coarser, and that's kind of the world that we're in, and it presents huge challenges to both policymakers and everyday citizens.
- [04:50]
A
Yeah. Do you think that President Trump would have been elected at any other time, or was this kind of the gateway for him to.
- [04:58]
B
You're totally right. I think Trump. Trump is a result of our times, not. Not the cause of our times. Right. He's the. He. He's the end result. He's the symptom. Maybe you could say he's the accelerant. Right. I think the biggest story in American life, really, the biggest story in the world this century, is not the 10 years of Trump since 16 to 26, the age of Trump, as consequential as that is. I think the biggest story is what caused that, which is the decade before Trump. I think that's the decade that explains why we are where we are and what happens. Two things. The iPhone is invented in 07 by Steve Jobs. And around the same time, social media really comes into full force. I think the convergence of those two things led to the moment we're in. It changes how we get information. It lessens the role of gatekeepers. It coarsens are not just our debate and our political conversation. It coarsens everything in America in life, right? And so I think we're living through the end result of that period. And the question is, where do we go? Where does it end? How much deeper do the algorithms push us apart and what's the implications for AI? And is there a break, is there a switch in which we start figuring out that we gotta change this and we gotta get to a better place politically?
- [06:25]
A
You know, I studied political science when I was in college, right? And we were always taught there was this theory of American politics, that every 30 years we had this progressive wave, right? We had the 30s, we had the New Deal and then the 60s, 90s, Great Society, and now we're here. To what extent do you think this is just the natural flow of generations taking over versus what you. You just cited, which is the social media disruption that we're dealing with?
- [06:56]
B
Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's a combination of both. Look, people ask me all the time, give us some good news, man. You're Debbie Downer and I think the glass is half full if you appreciate the perspective of history. We're 250 years old this year. The long arc of American history, it ain't a straight line, it's pretty jagged. It's two steps forward, one step back. And I think if you understand that, you understand there's always been periods of problem progress followed by periods of backlash. That's the history of the country. People who watch what's happening with immigration play out now, they shouldn't be surprised. That's the history of immigration to this country. Periods of immigration spikes followed by periods of backlash and reductions in immigration, followed by periods of more immigration. That's America for you right there. Tocqueville said in the 19th century, America is genius. America's brilliance is not that it's perfect. It's its capacity for self improvement. Right? And that's why I'm optimistic, is we always get it right eventually. And you're right. The cycles of American history. Arthur Schlesner wrote this book, the Cycles of American History. That's where we are. Periods of progress followed by periods of backlash. And that's just the nature of American history. And I think technology has accelerated it and sort of deepened the divisions, but it's the same cycles.
- [08:25]
A
So knowing that, and you mentioned it's been 10 years since Trump, almost 10 years since he became president, more than 10 years since he was running for president. And there's been a lot of changes. Which one of these changes or which changes do you think last past his presidency, maybe 10 years from now?
- [08:44]
B
I think the way people conduct themselves, I mean, I just think the old decorum of the gentleman, my good friend, I just think a lot of that feels Victorian now. I think the sort of coarse nature of debate, sadly, I think is here to stay. I think, you know, politics as sort of zero sum, you know, we win, they lose. I know. I think it's hard, it's hard to see how that that starts shifting. The big thing to me that's bigger than Trump that I wonder about, that I think looms over all this is I mentioned the post war era that all of us grew up in. And that era was defined by every big institution, whether it's the Warner Brothers films, Dwight Eisenhower or jfk, Dick Nixon. You know what they all wanted to do? They all wanted to appeal to the broad center. The center of American life was where the customers, the clients, the voters were, and they all wanted to appeal to them. So what did they do? They empowered the center, they appealed to the center, they ran toward the center between the 40 yard lines. To put it in football terms of American life defined America broadly and it sort of kept the country unified. Right. Well, what's happening in this century, I think is we've left the post war era and we've gone back to a 19th century model in which we're much more, much more fractured. Here's my question. When does the center reassert itself? And is there a way to put voters in the center back in charge? Everywhere I go, every group that I speak to, I get the same question. Why are the extremes so powerful? Why do our politicians fight and bicker? Why don't they get shit done? Why don't they appeal toward the center? And the reason is the incentive structure. It's geared toward appealing to the flanks. If you're a Republican, you want to appeal to the right, Democrat to the left. They don't want to appeal to the broad center because they don't necessarily need to politically. If all they're worried about is surviving their primary, how do we change that? How do we get folks to appeal to the center and run on consensus, not combat conciliation? Right. And I think you have to change the structure I think you got to push politicians away from the extremes and give them a reason to run toward the middle.
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A
Yeah, actually, it's a good segue to this question. If politicians are following their own incentive structure, obviously, and that you can't blame them for that.
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B
Sure.
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A
Well, maybe you can, but you can understand it at least. And the primaries reward those who stick to the ideological, you know, purity. Right. Do we, do we need term limits? Now? I used to think that term limits was something that was a popular saying, but with the turnover in, in the House and Senate, it sure didn't seem like you needed term limits to get new people in. But maybe you need term limits to change the mindset of these politicians. Just a perfect example is Senator Tillis from North Carolina, who seems to have become unlearned now.
- [11:44]
B
Right, right, right. My worry on term limits is what I've seen play out in state capitals that have term limits is it really did. It just empowers the permanent class of state officials and lobbyists who kind of know where the bodies are buried and, you know, essentially take the power out of the voters, throw away the voters because you have massive turnover. And so the folks making decisions aren't the representatives of the people. It's permanent figures, whether in state government or lobbying. So I worry about, I worry about what that would mean for democracy if the folks making decisions are not the elected officials. Effectively, here's my view. I think bigger than term limits is how we nominate people, whether that's gerrymandering, reform, getting these districts drawn by nonpartisan figures to create more competitive seats. If you push folks away from the 90% of House districts that are already cooked for Team Red or Team blue, and you make them run in competitive seats in the fall, well, guess what? They're worried about the center, not the right or the left because they have to appeal to a broad swath of voters in the general election. Right. Because their districts, their districts demand it. And you only have that if you change the folks who are drawing these. These seats. Take the pen out of the hand of the politicians and give it to folks who will draw a nonpartisan lines. But it's hard. We're watching it right now. Each party wants to have an advantage on drawing these lines. Secondly, moving beyond districts, well, what do you do about statewide races, gov, Senate, and obviously the presidential level? Well, here's my view on that. I think you got to change the nominating process. I think you got to move toward either a, what in Louisiana is called the jungle primary, which is everybody runs on the same ballot on the same day, and that way. And then the top two vote getters go to a runoff. That way you can run in the first round forging a coalition that is right, left, center and not just be hemmed in because you know that the primary electorate on that given day is going to be, you know, very right if you're a Republican or very left if you're a Democrat. If it's everybody, you can find a way to sort of cohere a coalition that is much more diverse ideologically. Right. Secondly, if you don't want to do that, that style in which everybody runs the same day, and then you nominate the sort of top two, go to the Raw, then do what's called the ranked choice, which they have in Alaska, which is how Murkowski has survived, in which what that means basically is you can, as a voter, you rank your preference 1, 2, and 3. And so you vote for your top choice. You're a Democrat, for example. You obviously, number one is Democrat, but number two would be the Republican who you fear the least. And so that has a way, if nobody gets 50, well, it then goes to who the second and third choice preferences are, and it tends to reward those folks who have a broader appeal to a broader swath, the electorate. So that's a long answer, but I think you got to address the districts and who's drawing them, and then you got to figure out how we get folks to participate in nominating contests which are right now reflective of only the base of the two parties. How do we broaden those out? Get all voters involved in nominations and get candidates to appeal to them?
- [15:07]
A
Yeah, and I'll ask you an even harder question. You know, you can look at all these different ideas, and each one has pluses and minuses. There's no perfect system. But the system we have now, what can people do to incentivize compromise or actual governance as opposed to posturing?
- [15:28]
B
You can participate in primaries and nominate candidates who you know are going to run or sort of comport themselves in ways that are more aimed at conciliation and consensus. Let me. Democracy is not a spectator sport. I mean, this is in the hands of voters. You want to show up and you want something better, then you don't just have to vote in the general election, you got to vote in the primary. Right. Because 90% of districts, that's where the action is. 80% of states, that's where the action is. Okay. And if you don't do that, you don't have a choice. Roy Blunt, the former senator from Missouri, explained this to me. I've forgotten exactly how he said it, but basically, like, you know, one twentieth of the country effectively is deciding who governs the country, because it's basically a plurality of each party's primary electorate, which is like a tiny fraction of the electorate nationally. And they're deciding who represents these districts in these states because if you get the plurality in a primary, you get the nomination, which means you're going to win the general election in most of these places and then you're in charge. So, like, it's a small fraction of the country who's running the show. So you want to have a voice, you want a better system, you got to vote in primaries.
- [16:43]
A
Do you think a low voter turnout in some of these primaries and actually in general elections is due to just a lack of trust that folks had in politicians?
- [16:53]
B
Cynicism, you know, fatigue? Yeah, I think distrust, certainly. And also, they're all kind of the same. They all do it. They're all crooks, they're all bad guys, they're all dishonest. You know, screw it. Right. And every American institution is facing a crisis of faith. My business is politicians certainly are, and I think Trump benefits from that. Yeah, I don't like the family grifting, the crypto stuff. He's a little too much. But the other guys do it too. They're all rotten. They're all rotten and. Well, actually they're not. But, you know, voters increasingly are just down on every institution in America. We, we live in cynical times. Voters think stuff's not on the level, you know, and I think that creates enormous challenges and people then just turn off politics generally. Right, they just turn off politics generally.
- [17:44]
A
Well, it's also just a kind of a, you know, you look at what's happening with the Epstein files and it goes beyond politics, but more the power structure that exists, you know, that folks believe that everyone's on the take. True, Totally.
- [17:58]
B
It's a great point. Why is that story so resonant? Because most voters say, see, I told you so. It's not a conspiracy theory. All these elites, they're all operating by their own rules. They're all. They're all trying to get around the law. They're all in on it. See, See, the whole deal is rotten. I couldn't agree more. I think the Epstein deal is a stand in for a broader society. Wide contempt for elites, contempt for institutions, and a mistrust in them in a sense that this whole thing isn't on the level. And so yeah, why not have Trump go blow it all up? Because you know what, it deserves to be blowing up right now. Trump gets there and they don't like necessarily how that's going either. So they're going to find somebody else to try to blow it up. You know, I mean, I believe the Democrat who wins in 28 is going to be the person who can run like Trump did in 16, which is the outsider who wants to clean up the status quo, you know.
- [18:52]
A
Right, right. You know, interestingly, it seems like a lot of the, you'd hate to say this if you're a politician, is blaming the public for some of these issues. And I remember had a politician once tell me that it used to be that the public hated politicians who didn't keep their promises. But the problem in governing is the politicians who do keep their promises. And he was talking about essentially you could never vote.
- [19:19]
B
What do you mean?
- [19:19]
A
Yeah, you couldn't vote. If you ran on never voting for, to increase the national debt, then when you got here in D.C. you realize that would be a disaster. You still had to stick to your, to what you said.
- [19:32]
B
You got it.
- [19:33]
A
So how do we educate, and this is putting your media hat on, these are broader questions. How do we educate the public on some of these issues so that they understand that compromise is how government works and not the other way around?
- [19:50]
B
Civics, history, the people have. Here's a great opportunity. 1776, the creation of our country. 250 years ago, it was based on compromise and deal cutting. All right, the Declaration of Independence, it was marked up. You know why? Jefferson wrote a draft. Franklin got in, Adams got in. Southerners, Northerners, New Englanders, they had to compromise. They had to change the language to appeal to everybody. It's not a dirty word. Compromise is not a four letter word. It's the foundation of our country. It's the foundation of every business, every family, every. Every organization in society is built on compromise. Not everybody can get what they want all the time. That's the only way that we survive. And I think we gotta rebuild civics and history and sort of under tell people how this stuff works. And the other side isn't evil. They're the opposition, okay? They're not the bad guys, they're not the adversaries. They just have a different view of the role of government. Politics can't be identity, it can't be religion. It's got to be preference. It's got to be something that a healthy society lets us self govern. It can't be you know, defining people, it can be breaking up families. Right. It's so unhealthy. Now the Facebook comment section has become like open warfare in some families. And that is just not where we want to be. We got to go back to being. Politics is preference. Do you cheer for the Yankees or Red Sox? Do you like strawberry or chocolate? Right. Yeah. It's more consequential than that. I get that. But it can't be so defining that we hate the other person because they have a different political view than us. And so we got to return compromise to the center. And I think the way you do that is you re empower the center because there's a lot of folks in this country that don't have a voice in politics now. You know why? They don't vote in primaries. They don't see their views reflected by other party. And so they say, screw it, I'm sitting it out. You know, it's broken. Well, you can't set it out because if you complain about it, don't do anything about it. You're making it worse. Now I'm preaching to you. Now I'm preaching to you.
- [21:47]
A
Well, it's a good segue in terms of just talking about the media in general. And I remember reading a story that Leslie Stahl from 60 Minutes actually said. She did a. What she thought was a devastating piece on Ronald Reagan, and she got a call from Reagan's communications director saying Deaver, who loved it. Yeah, yeah. Michael Deaver, who said that was a great piece. And she said, why? And there were flags behind Reagan in every shot. It was just very visual. And so the, the reason I raised that is because, you know, you had communications guys in the White House who were trying to out Fox the media and get their message. Now it seems you don't need to outfox the media. You just go to. Well, and I'll use the word conservative. You go to the Fox network. If you're liberal, you go to MSNBC.
- [22:38]
B
Well, I mean, that was the model 15 years ago. Hell, you know, now you don't even have to go to. Yes, they're still home team media. The left has their own networks, the right has their own networks. But you don't have to even go to meet. You can just do social media. Right. Just go around everybody and just communicate the voters directly. Right. And just do it straight, unfiltered, 140 proof. You know, here's my hope. And I'd say this, obviously with some self interest here. Being a member of the media My hope is that to come back to that proverbial drowning or, I'm sorry, thirsty man surrounded by salt water with nothing to drink. You know, I come back to that, that metaphor. My hope is that there will be a flight to quality and the flight to quality will come because we're so inundated with crap. What's real, what's fake? What's the algorithm feeding me now? Is this video, is it AI? Is it a deep fake? Like what's what people will say, I just want to know the facts. And look, they're never going to love journalists. We're always going to be down there with used car dealers, trial lawyers, you know, they're never going to love us. I don't want to be loved. I just want to be needed, you know, and people want facts, they want to know what's going on. They need information. They man, it's always wanted information. Right? The caveman comes back from the cave and tells the family, you're never going to believe what I saw today. Right? People want to hear stories, they want to know what's going on. They want. Yeah, my hope is that technology has gotten to the point now where there'll be a flight to quality. People will say, no, I need good information. I want to know what's happening in my school, my community, my roads, my country, my state, my city, my world. And I can rely on X, Y and Z person, X, Y and Z brand, and therefore I'll pay for it. That's my hope. Maybe that's fanciful, but that's my hope.
- [24:27]
A
Here's a related question. I don't know if you caught today's Wall Street Journal. There was a piece in the op ed section and the title was the biggest threat to journalism, Journalists.
- [24:37]
B
I saw it and I don't buy it. And here's why. Not all media coverage is politics. And this is so on. Again, not everything is politics. Like there, there's, there's like traffic, there's weather, there's sports, there's local news, schools, there's roads, there's features, there's. There's so much stuff how that's not national politics. The reason why the media companies are having challenges isn't because the right doesn't trust those left wing journalists. That was happening before the Internet, before the iPhone. You and I are old enough to remember the people in the political right didn't like the media in the 80s and 90s, hell, even before then, right? What's changed is technology and the 25 years of massive technological Changes and the impact on the financial model of news organizations. Right? That's the challenge we have is people are getting their information from different ways, different sources. It ain't the morning paper on our driveway or the evening news from Cronkite or Brokaw or, or Dan Rally or Peter Jennings. Right? It's a massive change in information consumption. And the media hasn't figured out a way at a lot of levels to find a replacement financial model to fill in the blanks for ones that you can't rely on advertising or classifies anymore. That's the issue. It's not that some woke 27 year old was writing a lefty story and that alienated half the country. Like sure, I understand the critique. I understand why people don't like some of the mainstream media. I understand the excess is real or perceived. But like that's a flesh wound, man. Like the bigger structural challenge we face is information delivery and consumption and how to pay for it. That's the problem. Like Craigslist killed classifieds and then the Internet killed off like the full page ad from Macy's or Saks Fifth Avenue or the car dealer on the highway. And so we can't pay for this stuff anymore. And people don't want print anyways. They want to look at their phones. Like that is the meteor that has crashed to the earth. It's not like the politics. That's a smaller issue compared to the larger challenge ahead of us. So that's my rant.
- [26:52]
A
Well, let's play this out in concrete terms. Let's talk about the elections, midterm elections and maybe 28, you've noted that folks following the great sort that's gone through America and folks are living where they want to live.
- [27:08]
B
You got it.
- [27:09]
A
Very tight margins in the House. How does this thing play out? Is it going to be a huge wave one way or the other? It seems like we don't have those anymore.
- [27:17]
B
Great insight. Because there's fewer competitive districts, fewer competitive states because we're so damn polarized. There's just less given the rope. Right? The rope is so taut. So there's. There's not 70 House districts that are competitive anymore there, there's like, you know, 20. Right. I'm just geo generalizing here. So yeah, there's less field of competitive ground. So in the House because of gerrymandering, because of sorting, because of polarization, there's just less seats up for grabs. But Democrats only need to get three seats basically because the House Republican majority is so small. So they don't need a wave. They just need, like five, six seats, which they can, I think, probably get. Look, the first midterm for any, Any. Any president is almost always difficult. There's just a backlash that comes. Right. The Senate's more interesting. I. I think, like, I'm reminded of 2006, which is going back always 20 years ago. But, you know, the House was obviously in play. The Senate came on late. And I think this is similar because of Democrats profound structural challenges, I. E. They can't win half the country. There's just fewer seats in the Senate that are up for grabs. Look, if you can't win much of the south, you can't win the Plains, and you're a Democrat. Well, like, there's a lot. There's just not many states to go to find Senate seats, right? So let's say. So Democrats need 51 because Vance breaks the tie at 50. They're at 47 now. They gotta hold the seats they House. They gotta hold Michigan, New Hampshire, and Georgia. Democratic health seats. All right, here's the stage. Democrats gotta win to get a Senate majority. Maine, or Susan Collins has been in office since 1996 and is a formidable incumbent and is a bifurcated state. It's a blue state, but obviously lots of red. North Carolina, where they haven't won a federal race since 2008, Obama's first election. Ohio, which has become a deep red state, gone to Trump the last three presidentials and basically transformed from one of the premier battlegrounds to a reliable red state. All right, so Democrats got to win those three away games to get the 50. Now, where do they find 51, 52? Oh, well, that's easy. Texas, Alaska, Iowa. I mean, shit, that's like the Upper west side of Manhattan and Berkeley right there. That's a lot of liberals. Gee. I mean, so this is tough sledding for Democrats. Now, given the difference in turnout and given how motivated Democrats are about Trump, it's not crazy, because they're gonna be so animated. And if Trump loses the vanishing middle, either because of the economy or his conduct or immigration or some combination of all of those, you can see a scenario where Alaska, Iowa and Texas are in play. I think it's difficult, but you can see a scenario where one of those goes or two of those go. If things really collapse for Trump, is Trump going to be at 38 on election day or 34 in terms of his approval ratings? That's a big driver of this. And I think that could determine a lot of what happens in these midterms But Democrats have a turnout advantage, a motivation advantage, but they're bumping up against the structural challenge, which is their lack of ability to compete in red America. And one last thing. There's a precedent here. 2018, same deal as today. There was a big Trump backlash. Democrats had a big year in 2017. They won special elections. They won those off year elections in Jersey and Virginia. They had a ton of Energy in 2018. They won a big House majority. But guess what happened? They couldn't hold a lot of their incumbent red state senators that year. Missouri, North Dakota, Indiana, Florida. They lost Senate races that year in an otherwise good year. So I say that as a word of caution for Democrats that, yes, if everything goes well, you can get back to the Senate. But it's not going to be easy because even in good years for Democrats, you're bumping up against a structural challenge in which these red, heavily rural states are just not going to vote for Democrats.
- [31:15]
A
Yeah. Quick speculation on your part. Okay, let's just go with a more conservative view that Democrats take the House, which would not be out of the question, and the Senate remains in virtual Republican control, whether 50 or not. How do you see the Democrats playing out the last two years of the Trump administration? I've been told that there's such anger among the Democratic base that they would have to immediately try to impeach him or do other things that you and I both know aren't really going to go anywhere. How do they play it out?
- [31:48]
B
So it's a great question. And I thought about this a lot. If I was Democrats, this is what I would do. I would recognize that my best chance to get a big deal done on immigration is with a Republican in the White House and especially this Republican. And here's why. It's Nixon goes to China. Mr. Brett, you. You closed down the border. Now you can go the next step and you can fix our broken process so you can fix the entire immigration system. You will have a legacy. You're not Stephen Miller. You're going to be a big consequential figure and you're going to fix this system entirely. And you can do it. Only Republican can get Republican votes on the Hill for an immigration fix. Right. Otherwise, Republicans on the Hill are going to be scared of their primaries. Trump gives them a level of coverage. Right. So if I'm Democrats and I win a big win in 26, I go to Trump immediately and I say, Mr. President, you know that there was a mandate for us. You know, we had a big win in November There's a backlash. Our base wants us to impeach you. They hate you. But what if we tell our base, you know what? Let's just do something better than impeach him. Why don't we go to him and say, tell Stephen Miller to pound sand. Let's do a big compromise on immigration. Let's address this broken system. You can be Nixon goes to China. You can fix the entire system after you already dealt with the border. Let's go to the next step. And I think Trump, knowing Trump, who wants a legacy, who wants to be a big consequential figure, who wants the Nobel Peace Prize, who wants to be on Rushmore, I think Trump would be awfully tempted to take that deal. He's not ideological. He's the least ideological figure I've ever covered. He wants to do big deals and get big credit for those big deals. Big beautiful wins, Right? That's what he claims. That's what he covets. And I think if he is, in the closing year and a half of his presidency, clock is ticking. He's a lame duck. He hasn't gotten Greenland yet. You know, what's his walk off? What's his legacy? If you can give him that, then he's tempted.
- [33:53]
A
Yeah. Are you surprised? I mean, I've heard a lot of Republicans talk about the immigration issue, and they are waiting for Trump to make a move. I mean, he could clearly claim that he did what Republicans in the past have said was holding up immigration reform. He closed the border. Are you surprised he hasn't pivoted toward immigration reform now as opposed to maybe waiting after the midterms?
- [34:17]
B
Not too surprised. I think that, first of all, he has hard liners around him like Stephen Miller, like the vice president on that issue. Secondly, I think his party, especially in the House, is much more hard line on immigration than it was 10 years ago. It's really 20 years ago. And I think they don't want to give up what was a great issue. Now, you and I know that the issue has changed the issue, right? The politics of the issue was an unalloyed asset. Trump wins in 24, I think, because in large part the two I's, immigration and inflation. Right? But now he's facing the backside of both those issues, Right, because he hasn't tamed inflation. It's still growing. And secondly, immigration, which was an asset when he closed down the border. Now Americans view immigration as these massed ICE agents in American cities yanking folks out of cars, off roofs or God forbid, shoot some of them. I think Trump. The politics of that have changed. I think Trump knows it. I'm not sure if they've changed enough for him to. To do this pivot in the midterms, but, boy, I think it's going to be tempting for him to do after the election. He wants a big legacy, and I think this would be it.
- [35:27]
A
I'm just. I recall when George Bush was in the White House, George W. Bush, and folks were calling for him to fire Rumsfeld because the Iraq war was going very badly, and he said he wasn't firing him. And then the day after he got destroyed in the midterm elections, he fired Rumsfeld. And Republicans Hill were saying, why didn't he do this earlier? And I'm wondering if some of those conversations are happening now on immigration.
- [35:52]
B
I think that there's just a smaller, you know, more in the Senate and the House, but I think it's just, it's a smaller group of Republicans on that issue who, who are eager because of how they're elected. They're. They live in fear of their base, and their base doesn't want anything that smacks of amnesty. You say the a word, they run for the hills. Right. So I think it's hard because of the politics of the issue on their flank in the primaries. Now, if Trump comes out for it, it makes it easier, but I don't know if you can rely on him, if he's going to do that, at least before the midterms. Yeah, the party has changed on that issue. There's just less folks willing to because of this larger cycle of sort of immigration followed by backlash. So I think it's hard to see them do it. Don't forget 2013. The immigration vote in the Senate got 68 votes. Right. That's a lot of votes. I think Trump could get the same today.
- [36:48]
A
Right.
- [36:48]
B
But again, he's gotta be for it. He's gotta put capital behind it, and then he's gotta get to the House, which was the problem in 13. I think that'd be the challenge now.
- [36:58]
A
Well, let's talk about 2028.
- [37:00]
B
Yeah.
- [37:00]
A
You know, folks are talking about a number of Democratic challengers. On the Republican, there's focus on Rubio and J.D. vance, but on the Democratic side, I heard your fellow journalist Mark Halperin recently categorically say that he did not think Newsom was gonna run. And he said that because he has a young family and he thought that he wouldn't want to put his family through that. And on the other side of that, I hear A lot of folks who say Newsom is the leader in the Democratic Party. What do you think?
- [37:32]
B
I think Newsom today is the front. There's no question that today he'd be the front runner. We're two years out. But certainly he starts with the advantage.
- [37:40]
A
He is.
- [37:41]
B
He has a couple things going for him. He's got a profile that fits the attention economy. He knows how to get attention. He knows how to break through. And he does it using Trump style tactics. Right. It works. Secondly, he's a fighter. And I think Democrats right now want somebody that's going to punch Trump back. So he's got two big things going for him. Right? He can break through the attention economy and he's a pugilist. And Democrats want a pugilist. Right? So I think he starts with an advantage, but I can't recall a primary that was this wide. I mean, this is the first Democratic primary in which you haven't had a Biden, a Clinton or an Obama since 1984, either running or looming over the campaign. So these same families have dominated Democratic politics and they're kind of out of the picture now. So it's wide open. It's a couple of things. One is Democrats have run against trauma effectively for a decade, right? They orbit around the Trump solar system, right? I mean, he is their alpha and their omega. He's what unifies them. He's what organizes them, what motivates them. And he's their best force for all of that. And I think because he coheres that disparate coalition, Democrats don't want to give it up. They don't want to give up the addiction, right? Because it works. How do we get our folks out? How do we get our folks together? How do we raise money? Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. How do we keep a Liz Cheney to Bernie Sanders coalition singing off the same sheet of music, we yell Trump. Right. Paul Begala, the former Democratic operative, says when the asteroid is coming toward Earth, it tends to unite the American people. When Trump is the threat, it tends to unite Democrats. Right. So what do they have left when they don't have Trump? Well, I think Gavin Newsom and some folks like him say we're going to keep running against Trump. Maybe Trump isn't on the ballot in 28, but we're still running against Trump in 28. So I think the question is, do Democrats have to decide what they're for or can they keep running against Trump one last time? And I think that's going to divide some Democrats is those who want to just keep making Trump the center of the action. And those who want to say no electorate about the future, we have to talk about what we're for and what we're proactively going to do. Now, some of that is derivative of Trump, obviously, given everything he's done. But I think that's where some of this divide is. And then there's the more ideological questions, is, okay, we know you're against Trump, but like, are you a Clinton Obama style Democrat, center left, or is something more radical required, like invasive surgery? The system is broken. We've got to change everything and put a sort of socialist model now to address these gaping societal challenges. Like that's their other debate within a debate too is like not just what we're for, but are we for the traditional center left or for something more radical? So I think that to me is a bigger question. And then lastly, who can credibly run against the status quo? When do Democrats win? Democrats win when they nominate Carter, Clinton and Obama. Take Biden out of the equation because Biden twenties about Trump and about COVID Every other Democrat for a half century runs and wins on being an outsider, confronting the status quo and challenging both parties, right? Carter, Clinton, Obama, fresh faces, fresh faces, outsiders against the status quo. So I think who can do that and who can sort of harness the attention economy? You tell me who can do that. I'll tell you who their nominee is going to be.
- [41:14]
A
And what do Republicans believe in anymore? Because when you look at establishment Republicanism, free markets and free peoples and all the rhetoric that was associated with Ronald Reagan and those folks, and then you look at what someone has called the kind of command capitalism of the Trump years, where he's dictating to the market what to do, what messages do Republicans have going forward?
- [41:40]
B
My joke is state capitalism is more state than it is capitalism, right? Taking a share of Nvidia or Intel, not exactly the free market there, right? So look both parties again, Trump has by think of his personality, not any ideological agenda because there is no set of principles, right? There is no Trumpist agenda. Trump is, wants to, wants to win. The means to the end don't matter. It's the end which is winning. So because of Trump's dominance, his personality dominance, he has so defined the two parties both in support of him and in opposition to him. So now, and we can close with this, 28 is a reckoning. It's a reckoning for what Democrats believe in. You can't keep going back to the old, well, guys, we know you're against Trump. What else you got? Are you socialist or are you Clinton Democrats? You know, business friendly, left of center? Tell us Republicans, we know that you were for Trump and you were against the woke left. We got that. Guess what? Trump is heading to the, to the Hill as Trump's going back to Mar a Lago. What are you for? What's your agenda? Are you a Reaganite party? Do you broadly believe in the free market or. No, times have changed. We're a more restrictionist, European style nationalist party that's very different on immigration, trade, and the economy and foreign affairs than the Reaganite party of yesteryear. Both parties are facing this reckoning. They don't want to confront it, but it's unavoidable because the sand's going out of the hourglass. And the closer Trump is to be in a lame duck, the more the question is what's next? And the two parties got to figure out what they're for and they got to figure out what they're for on policy instead of just Persona, which is Donald J. Trump.
- [43:29]
A
Okay, before I let you go, this is the lightning round that we like to call it here, and it'll be very. I want to ask you a few questions, and these are a lot easier, hopefully than the ones that you've been asked. What's the best barbecue joint in America?
- [43:42]
B
Oh, my God. Now we're talking. I have a very one in row approach to barbecue. So, like I'm in Texas now, for example. I'm happy to eat brisket sausage, you know, get the pickles and onions on the side. Get a little avocado. That's great, right? I'm in Memphis. I'd love to get some dry rub ribs. I'd love to get, you know, a shoulder sandwich. I'm in eastern North Carolina. I want minced vinegar based barbecue hush puppies on the side. Just tell me where I am. I want to play the strengths, right? Play to strengths. That's why I tell my wife, okay, you're, you're at, you're at a barbecue joint in Houston. All right, like, understand that or like, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're in Maine at a Lobster at a Lobster Hut. Why are you getting a crab cake sandwich? What do you think? Right? Play the local strikes. All right. I think that's my approach to barbecue and really dolphin.
- [44:46]
A
That sounds right to me. What about who's the most underrated political figure in US History, in your opinion?
- [44:53]
B
Most underrated figure in political history. I mean, obviously he's detested. But Nixon's capacity to survive politically, and I mean, the Brazilians is incredible. He was on five national ballots, right? 52, 56, 60, 68 and 72. Eisenhower has no use for him at all. He sort of ignored. He still gets the nomination, almost wins against a much more charismatic candidate in 60 and, you know, goes to California, gets embarrassed two years later, loses the governorship, former two term vice president, you can't even become governor of your own state. Left for dead claws back, becomes president, wins two presidential terms. Now we know how it ended, but still that, that level of endurance and resilience from World War II naval officer, post World War II house member, to like a relevant figure into the 70s. And then like even after he's exiled and like a disgraced ex president who quit rather than face impeachment, he's still advising Bill Clinton on Russia policy into the fricking 1990s, right? So I don't know if he's underrated, but certainly the most resilient and just somebody who had an incredible run for decades.
- [46:17]
A
So other than your book, which book should every aspiring journalist read?
- [46:23]
B
I'll tell young journalists or young aspiring journalists that if you think that you want to cover politics but you're not sure, here's two books to read. And if you come after reading these two books and you say, well, actually, I'll give you three books. If you read these three books and you come away saying, oh man, that sounds fun. I want more of that. What else can I read? That sounds like a really fun life that's so compelling. Here are the three books. Richard Ben Kramer, what it Takes. It will never be equaled. It is the best book on a campaign. He chronicles the 1988 presidential campaign and has unbelievable access to Bob Dole, George H.W. bush, Joe Biden, Dick Gebhardt, Gary Hart, and I'm forgetting somebody. It's incredible. It would never be equal because the access he got and just the level of talent and the volume, it's a doorstop of a book. When it came out, he was mocked by other journalists who were kind of jealous. They said, it's called what It Takes. It should be called what it weighs because it was so thick. Right? What It Takes. Richard Ben Kramer, secondly, the Prince of Bob Novak's memoir. Bob Novak was known in history as kind of a conservative pundit, sort of a crotchety one. He was, at his core, reporter who wrote a reported column for decades. His survey of American politics from Eisenhower through George W. Bush is fantastic. You read that, you want more, that sounds like kind of a fun life. Maybe you should be a political journalist. Lastly, maybe the best title for a book of any genre I've ever heard, Fat man in a Middle Seat. Brother, I've been there. Fat man in a Middle Seat, which was the title of Jack Germond's memoir. Jack Jermyn was a political journalist, too, some folks may recall from the McLaughlin Group. He was on there back in the day. Pre cable. Here's my more about covering politics. If you read those three books, you want more, man, you got a future in politics. Boy,
- [48:18]
A
that's great. Well, listen, you've talked about the 2026 political landscape. Is there one issue that you think, one wild card issue that might dominate or come to the fore?
- [48:29]
B
I don't think the issue of phones and AI is more of a 2028 issue, but I think it's growing bigger every day in terms of not just the economy, but in terms of how we live our lives. I think that is enormously significant. But I think in the midterms, it's so much about Trump, and it's just all politics is national. Now, covering the governor races in Jersey and Virginia, you talk to voters, they aren't mentioning schools or roads in their districts or the state budget. It's which side are you on? It's Trump before or against them. It's the nationalization of politics. Trump has accelerated. But that's another big phenomenon of our times. This stuff's all nationalized, right? So these, these races, no matter how close to the, the, the grassroots, are much more about national politics and identity. I'll tell you one, one last story before I leave. I remember I was covering the governor's race in Florida in 2018, and I went to a big county fair in Florida, was Sarasota county, and I go to, like, one of the booths of the local county Republican Party, and I see the pamphlet there for the guy running for county commissioner says, I will be the pro Trump Sarasota county commissioner. Now, I don't know if there's a Trump way to pick the garbage up, but, like, when you're a county commissioner, that's what you're doing, right? But that tells you how nationalized stuff is. So short answer to your question, midterms, there's so much about Trump approval. He's the issue, right? And how do you view his conduct? And I think that's what drives so much of this longer term, I think AI and phones.
- [50:05]
A
Well, Jonathan, this has been incredibly insightful and a lot of fun for me. Thank you for helping us demystify the gridlock in D.C. yeah. Where can our listeners follow your latest work?
- [50:16]
B
Sure. So I write a column for Politico. You can find my column on Politico. You can also see me on Twitter. My handle's Martin. And then I'm a contributor to NBC's Meet the Press. So you can see me on Meet the Press on NBC News about one Sunday a month. Fantastic.
- [50:34]
A
That was Jonathan Martin of Politico. You can find his book this Will Not Pass wherever books are sold. Thank you.
- [50:41]
B
Thanks guys. Appreciate it.
- [50:48]
A
Thanks for listening to Inside CRE with your guest host, Achilles Suarez. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others and be sure to subscribe. To learn more about NAOP and join our network of over 21,000 commercial real estate professionals, visit NAOP.org.
- [51:15]
B
Sam.