The GOP’s Unpopular and Harmful Bill (ft. Galen Druke)

Summary

Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Episode: The GOP’s Unpopular and Harmful Bill (ft. Galen Druke)
Release Date: July 2, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Raging Moderates, host Jessica Tarlov engages in a deep dive discussion with political strategist and podcasting veteran Galen Druke. The conversation centers around the recent Senate passage of a significant GOP bill spearheaded by former President Donald Trump, its unpopularity among Americans, the Democratic Party’s strategic challenges, the surprising primary win by Zoran Mandani in New York, and the Supreme Court's impactful rulings affecting the balance of power in Washington.

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The GOP's Controversial Domestic Agenda Bill

The episode begins with Jessica outlining the high-stakes environment surrounding the GOP's recently passed domestic agenda bill. This comprehensive package includes:

• Tax Cuts: Aimed at stimulating economic growth but criticized for disproportionately benefiting the wealthy.
• Spending Changes: Significant alterations to federal spending priorities.
• Medicaid Overhauls: Potentially affecting up to 17 million Americans by introducing work requirements and rolling back Obamacare credits.

Galen Druke provides an analysis based on polling data, highlighting the bill’s overwhelming unpopularity:

"On average, the bill is 25 percentage points underwater, making it more unpopular than any major legislation since at least 1990." ([05:04])

He references research from the Yale Budget Lab and remarks on the potential long-term negative impacts:

"If this does pass, it will be history-making in that sense." ([05:04])

Key Points Discussed:

• Economic Disparities: The bottom 20% of taxpayers might see an additional $560 annually, while top earners could gain $6,000.
• Job Threats: Trade unions express concerns over millions of jobs being at risk due to the bill’s provisions.
• Deficit Concerns: The bill is projected to add trillions to the national deficit.
• Energy Impact: Senator Schott's assertion that the bill will generate 500 gigawatts less energy over the next decade is critiqued as detrimental to energy sustainability efforts.

Galen emphasizes the Democratic Party’s predicament in countering this bill, noting the lack of a robust counter-proposal:

"Democrats have found themselves on the wrong side of public opinion frequently recently." ([05:04])

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Public Perception and Democratic Strategy

Galen discusses how the public views the bill and the Democratic Party’s strategic responses:

"Health care is an increasingly salient issue for Americans overall and Democrats in particular." ([05:04])

He explains the shifting support for work requirements in Medicaid:

"In a recent New York Times poll, 51% of Democrats support work requirements." ([05:04])

Jessica raises concerns about the Democratic Party's lack of a compelling counterproposal, allowing Republicans to push through unpopular measures without significant opposition.

"Why haven't we shown up with our spending bill just to say these are where our priorities lie?" ([11:16])

Galen responds by highlighting the challenges Democrats face in offering constructive alternatives while remaining in opposition:

"One of the great joys of being in the opposition is you don't have to offer your own ideas that then get criticized." ([11:16])

Zoran Mandani’s Surprise Primary Win in New York

The discussion shifts to the Democratic primary in New York City, where Zoran Mandani’s unexpected victory over former Governor Andrew Cuomo has stirred various reactions.

Jessica reflects on Mandani’s campaign strategies and Cuomo’s ineffective campaign efforts:

"Mandani didn't shy away from any of his positions and sat down face to face with people who disagreed with him." ([26:12])

Galen analyzes the implications of Mandani’s win, suggesting it may not yet represent the median voter in New York City due to the closed primary system and low overall turnout:

"Mandani didn’t really take right positions, but he did focus heavily on affordability, which is crucial for many Democrats." ([26:12])

Key Insights:

• Voter Base: Mandani garnered support primarily from Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan.
• Electability Concerns: Despite his primary win, Galen doubts Mandani’s viability in the general election against more moderate candidates like Eric Adams.
• Campaign Style: Mandani’s straightforward, issue-focused campaign mirrors Donald Trump’s approach in 2016, emphasizing key points like affordability to resonate with voters.

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Supreme Court’s Ruling and Its Impact on Balance of Power

Later in the episode, Jessica and Galen discuss the Supreme Court’s recent landmark ruling, which limits the power of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions. This decision has significant implications for presidential powers and the judiciary’s role in checking executive actions.

Galen elaborates on how this ruling affects both Republican and Democratic agendas:

"This caps off a remarkable term for Trump in court, where his administration won a series of emergency rulings." ([50:10])

He explains that while this ruling benefits current Republican strategies, it sets a complicated precedent for future administrations:

"It reshapes the balance of power between the judiciary and the executive, potentially leading to a patchwork of laws across states." ([50:50])

Public Opinion Insights:

Galen references polling data indicating that:

• 50% of Americans believe the president has too much power.
• 30% are concerned that federal courts hold too much power.

This disparity highlights potential public discontent with the current separation of powers, irrespective of party lines.

"Americans are more concerned about the president having too much power than the federal courts." ([50:50])

Jessica adds that the court's recent decisions, particularly on contentious social issues like transgender rights in sports, have deepened partisan divides:

"The court affirmed rulings aligning with public opinion on several key issues, reflecting a shift in judicial alignment with societal views." ([56:00])

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Future Political Landscape and Electoral Implications

Toward the end of the episode, Jessica and Galen explore the potential outcomes of the 2026 midterms and the broader political landscape leading up to 2028.

Galen expresses skepticism about immediate lessons Democrats might take from current events, emphasizing that midterm performance doesn't necessarily predict presidential election outcomes:

"Performance in the midterms has no correlation to performance in the presidential two years later." ([19:13])

He speculates on the cyclical nature of debt and deficit issues resurfacing every 15 years, potentially becoming a focal point in future elections.

Jessica, reflecting on her conversation with Nate Silver, questions why both she and Galen selected AOC as the 2028 Democratic nominee, considering her moderate preferences. Galen clarifies that their choice was based on who might be likely to win the nomination rather than who would best align with practical political strategies.

"AOC has the best of anybody out there, but I don't think she has more than a 50% chance of being the next Democratic nominee." ([40:48])

They discuss the necessity for the Democratic Party to present a more populist and anti-establishment candidate to energize the base and attract independent voters.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reflection on the current state of American politics, the shifting dynamics within the Democratic and Republican parties, and the significant influence of Supreme Court decisions on the balance of power. Jessica and Galen underscore the challenges ahead for both parties in navigating public opinion, legislative priorities, and the judiciary's role in shaping future policies.

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Notable Quotes:

• Galen Druke on Bill Unpopularity:
  "According to this analysis, that makes the bill more unpopular than any piece of major legislation passed since least 1990." ([05:04])

• Jessica Tarlov on Democratic Counterproposal:
  "Why haven't we shown up with our spending bill just to say these are where our priorities lie." ([11:16])

• Galen Druke on Supreme Court Rulings:
  "This caps off a remarkable term for Trump in court, where his administration won a series of emergency rulings." ([50:10])

• Galen Druke on Public Concern:
  "Americans are more concerned about the president having too much power than the federal courts." ([50:50])

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the episode, highlighting key discussions, insights, and the interplay between legislative actions and public opinion, all through the lens of centrist analysis.

Transcript

[Galen Drook]

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[Jessica Tarlev]

Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Jessica Tarlev. Scott's off today, but I'm joined by podcasting veteran you might recognize from his time at 5:38. He's now the host of the GD Politics podcast, which is fantastic. Galen Drook, welcome to the show.

[Galen Drook]

Hey Jesse, thanks so much for having me.

[Jessica Tarlev]

It's such a pleasure. I've been data nerding out over you for a long time and now you're here.

[Galen Drook]

Well, I'm flattered. And I brought some data as well.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Thank God. If you brought anything else, I'd be sorely disappointed.

[Galen Drook]

Well, coffee. I mean, I've also brought coffee.

[Jessica Tarlev]

And you have a great plant behind you.

[Galen Drook]

Oh, thank you. Yes.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Yeah.

[Galen Drook]

You know, I've had to reimagine my podcast base now that I'm an indie podcaster over at GD Politics, which. Shameless Plug.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Shameless Plug. We'll do it multiple times. How do you like the indie life? I feel like everyone is going for it. And obviously FiveThirtyEight was shut down, which was sad for all of us. But how has it been?

[Galen Drook]

It's been both easier and harder than expected. So the easier part is that I have been podcasting alongside a really awesome community for more than nine years at this point, and a lot of them have followed along and been really supportive. And the messages that you get when your newsroom shuts down, it's like attending your own funeral. People are really, really kind in a way that you probably wouldn't experience under any other circumstance. So that was really, really lovely. And the experience of, you know, being my own boss and going in whatever direction the data takes us has been also really fun and being able to swear a little bit more and be a little more irreverent. The hard part is that I work by myself, so doing stuff like hanging out with you is really fun. And there are fewer chances for me to be in a newsroom environment. But, you know, I don't know, maybe someday I'll join a co working space or I'll just have to talk to my plants like the ones that you see behind me. You know, that would be fun, too.

[Jessica Tarlev]

All right. In today's episode of Raging Moderates, we're discussing how unpopular the GOP's bill is with Americans, the Democratic Party's reckoning with Zoran Mandani's surprise primary win, and what the Supreme Court's latest ruling means for the balance of power in Washington. All right, let's get into it. As we're recording, the Senate just passed a high stakes vote on Trump's massive domestic agenda bill. A sweeping package of tax cuts, spending changes, and deep Medicaid overhauls. It's been a chaotic few days of negotiations, last minute speeches, and a late night votorama on dozens of amendments. Galen, there are so many places that I want to start. I just, I don't want to soliloquy about it that much, but there are just so many ways that this bill is unpopular and bad for Americans. And I struggle. I understand politics is a dirty game and people have to serve a bunch of different masters. And K Street has been hyperactively working to make sure that they get everything that they need. And we've had makeups and breakups. I think the last that I saw that, Trump said he's gonna look into Musk's immigration status again, you know, whatever they're doing and all of this. But just to kind of set the stage, you know, up to 17 million that could lose their health care. Between the Medicaid cuts and the Obamacare credit rollbacks, the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, from the young to the old as well. I mean, these stats just blow my mind that the bottom 20% of taxpayers will pay an extra $560 a year and top earners get an extra $6,000 in their pockets. You have the building trade union, the electrical worker unions all coming out and saying that this is threatening millions of jobs. You've got the trillions to the deficit. Shout out Rand Paul, the cuts to snap 186 billion and just wiping out the clean energy industry. And, you know, Trump said, I've always been against the EV mandate. And so you picked an interesting doge master. But I saw Senator Schott saying that we're going to generate 500 gigawatts less energy over the course of the next decade, which, however you feel about drill, baby, drill, like that's not a good thing. So, a, I don't know how you feel, but if you feel anything, talk about that. But then also talk about how the public is viewing the bill as well.

[Galen Drook]

Well, I promise that I'm not a sociopath, but most of the information I have about this bill is based on polling data and other estimates from the Yale Budget Lab and the like. And I think that that can sort of ground folks in terms of, you know, if I don't like this bill, am I alone? Well, it turns out you are not. So looking at four recent polls that asked Americans about whether they approve of the one big beautiful Bill act, on average, the bill is 25 percentage points underwater. And I want to make sure I quote this correctly here. But according to this analysis, that makes the bill more unpopular than any piece of major legislation passed since least 1990. And this is data crunched by George Washington University political science professor Chris Warshaw. So there are things that have been considered that were less popular. For example, the repeal of the Affordable Care act back in 2017, but that, of course, failed. So if this does pass, it will be sort of history making in that sense. And, you know, it is certainly the case that sometimes when things are considered and they get highly scrutinized in the press and they get a lot of negative coverage, when they're considered on the floor, they become very unpopular. But that fades over time. I mean, this happened, for example, with the original Tax Cuts and Jobs act back in 2017. It was super unpopular when it passed, but by a year later, Americans were more evenly divided. It didn't get continuous coverage, and folks kind of moved on at a certain point to what else was happening in the Trump administration. I don't think that's going to be the case with this. I think that this is going to be something that Democrats do not stop talking about for the next four years if it ultimately does pass. And one of the main reasons is because in an issue landscape where Democrats have found themselves on the wrong side of public opinion frequently recently. So in the 2024 election, Americans trusted Republicans more on inflation and immigration and some other key things. Americans have long trusted Democrats more on the issue of healthcare. That was even the case when Joe Biden was unpopular. That is even more the case now, and we see in polling, that health care is an increasingly salient issue for Americans overall and Democrats in particular. So if Democrats are looking for a way to motivate a disenchanted electorate, a disenchanted sort of rank and file Democratic Party healthcare is one of those ways. And not only will the Democratic Party use this in its campaigning over the next two to four years, but the press is going to cover this. I mean, as you mentioned, folks will likely lose their health care as a result of this bill if it's passed. Now, you know, in the abstract, Americans don't have a problem with work requirements for Medicaid. Work requirements for Medicaid get the majority of support, not just amongst the overall public, but even amongst Democrats. So I think in a recent New York Times poll, It was like 51% of Democrats support work requirements. That doesn't mean, though, when people start seeing like, oh, okay, 10 million people have been kicked off Medicaid as a result of these new work requirements, they won't sort of shift their views. You know, oftentimes you see this in polling where you ask something in the abstract and then you present them with different arguments or information and people will move. You know, this, your background is in research. For example, kff, one of the pollsters that focuses on healthcare has done work on this and said, you know, okay, well, do you still support work requirements for Medicaid if it means that this many Americans will lose their health care and suddenly things shift, changes. Yeah. And so I think that this potentially gets into a tricky area. We've heard folks like, you know, Senator Josh Hawley say that. We've heard some of the other conservative populists say that. I think Trump himself has expressed some skepticism about the cost saving measures that are in this bill. So I think even Republicans know that this could get uncomfortable for them.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Yeah, it's, it's so strange to me. I mean, Thom Tillis, you know, quasi profile and courage, I guess, where he basically just said, screw it, I'm gonna retire. He was already considering retiring anyway, but he's, you know, been unleashed on the floor and has given impassioned defenses of. He has, I think 663,000 people in his state that are on Medicaid. And he's like, I, what am I supposed to tell them, right? When it doesn't expire in a year, but in two years, then they find themselves without healthcare. But all of these people went on the records saying that the bill was bad. Like Josh Hawley taking to the pages of the New York Times like a liberal and saying, I'm not going to do this, or Susan Collins, who's always deeply concerned. But Trump usually gets what Trump wants and they'll find ways to do the carve outs to make sure that everyone is satisfied. Lisa Murkowski, who you recently had a very interesting conversation with on your podcast, was looking for carve outs for Alaska. And the latest thing that I saw is that she was able to get that done on, on the energy front, I believe. But like, do they just not think about the fact that another election is going to happen? Is it the YOLO approach to governing and we want to make sure that we ram these tax cuts through no matter what? And as a self flagellating Democrat, I do always think about what we could have done better. So as Donald Trump is overseeing all of these incredibly unpopular actions, you know, he's underwater on everything, including immigration now, which was his best issue. Democrats still have an approval rating of what, like 22%? And Scott and I constantly ask, like, where is the Democratic counter proposal? Like, why haven't we shown up with our spending bill just to say these are where our priorities lie. And it has allowed the Republicans to get away with this massive lie that the tax cuts are going to expire at midnight tonight. Like Cinderella, if she doesn't get back in her pumpkin or whatever. We have six months to figure it out. But the American public doesn't have any idea about that because Democrats haven't been able to say it, or they have said it, but they haven't said it in front of a big enough microphone.

[Galen Drook]

I think they're in some ways reveling in the joy of being in the opposition. And one of the great joys of being in the opposition is you don't have to offer your own ideas that then get criticized. All you have to do is criticize the people in power.

[Jessica Tarlev]

And I would like both.

[Galen Drook]

You know, I think it can be cynical for sure, but it is the fact that oftentimes you let the governing party shoot itself in its own foot and then, then you start making your argument. But I think as far as Republicans are concerned, why are they pursuing this? I think they believe a lot of this stuff. I think that a lot of Republicans believe in work requirements for Medicaid and expanded work requirements for SNAP benefits. I think that when it comes to the tax cuts and jobs, I mean, there was no way that Republicans were going to let those 2017 tax cut and jobs, you know, act expire. And they also were put in a difficult position by the president himself, who said on the campaign we're not going to tax tips or tax overtime or, you know, interest payments on car loans and all measure of things. And so something was going to pass. And I think you just put people under the pressure cooker and they all, I don't know if it's a suicide pact. I don't know if it's just like there's enough in here that I like, that I'm going to get behind it, even if I don't like everything. You know, in some ways, what we've seen over the past several months on this, and by the way, I think it's no surprise that the deadline to pass this is during a holiday week, is that the Republican Party, although it's unified under Trump, is still sort of drawn in different directions. You have the conservative populists who now like Medicaid, like Josh Hawley, and you have the debt and deficit hawks like Rand Paul and others who, you know, seem to care deeply about the fact that America's interest payments are rising and that the more we spend on our debt, the less we will be able to spend on other things. And how do you put all of those people into one room and come up with a tax and spending bill that makes sense for them? I mean, one amendment that Susan Collins was pushing for, I don't know in this moment whether she got it passed, was to increased the highest tax rate back up to 39.5% from 37% where it was placed in 2017. It's hard to do all these things if you also take the position that you can't raise new taxes. So what we will end up with is another bill that dramatically increases America's debt and deficit.

[Jessica Tarlev]

And people will continue not to care or they'll care while they're campaigning and then they're just going to vote the same as always.

[Galen Drook]

I, well, I have a theory.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Yeah, theory me.

[Galen Drook]

I have a theory, Jesse, that it's like we're on 15 year cycles where every 15 years the debt and deficit becomes important again. You know, remember like Ross Perot ran an entire presidential campaign on the debt and deficit and just use his quirkiness to make people care about it. And then, you know, it became important again. Not so surprisingly under Obama, I think that we could be nearing another cycle where somebody could use the debt and deficit to significant effect in electoral politics. Now, will it actually change anything? I have no clue. But I think there is an opening there to try to make a political.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Argument Yeah, I mean, if there was a credible third party effort that could happen again, I think it would probably include something like that, like a grown up pants party. Right. That just says the way that we've been doing this for the last several decades is not good enough and there has to be another way. And you know, I have many views on third party projects of the past that have felt more grifty than genuine to me. But there is obviously a tremendous American appetite for something different than what we have at this current moment. And I, you know, I've chosen that. I think the Democrats are better than the Republicans, but I certainly have my own issues with our party. And if you talk to the average person, and I'm certainly living a higher quality of life than the average American, they have good reason to feel completely despondent when they look at what their options are. Speaking of, you only have two options. How are you seeing the North Carolina Senate race, which Lara Trump rumored to be considering that she would get in to replace Thom Tellis? I would love it if Roy Cooper got into the Senate race. The former Democratic governor of North Carolina. Do you have any thoughts about the Senate race and then also the midterms?

[Galen Drook]

Well, with Thom Tillis getting out of the primary and announcing that he's going to retire, I think that open North Carolina Senate seat has now become the blockbuster race of the 2026 primaries. I don't think that the decision not to run for reelection on Tillis behalf was solely about like not wanting to be part of Trump's Republican Party anymore. I think he saw some warning signs in terms of trying to maybe win a primary in North Carolina. Nonetheless, it's now a prime target for Democrats to pick up. And just to lay out the math really quickly, Democrats would need to pick up four seats in order to get 51 seats in the Senate. Obviously, if there's a tie, JD Vance would break that tie. And so the prime targets are now, number one is North Carolina. Number two would be Susan Collins's seat in Maine, which she has been able to hold onto despite all kinds of challenges and difficult political environments over the past decade. And then things get more difficult for Democrats. You have to look at places like Iowa or Texas or Alaska, places that are not obvious pickups and have eluded Democrats for years. So on one hand, Democrats can be very excited about that race in North Carolina, which if Roy Cooper. Do you know that he sort of like re identified as Cooper really, He went by Roy Cooper for a long time and then all of a sudden told A journalist in an interview. And, oh, by the way, it actually is Roy Cooper.

[Jessica Tarlev]

I don't believe that. Yeah, I mean, I believe that he said that.

[Galen Drook]

So if Roy Cooper gets in that ring, that's Cooper.

[Jessica Tarlev]

C O O P E R Cooper. That's like an easy name.

[Galen Drook]

Yeah. But I think he was able to win when Trump was on the ballot in 2016 and 2020. And, you know, I think Democrats see him as the most promising prospect. You know, he hasn't said that he's in yet, but it would surprise me. 0 if he does get in. And, you know, let's remember, as this talk of Lara Trump comes to the fore, that Trump's victories have been very exciting for Republicans. They haven't been landslides, despite the fact that he's called them that. And the folks that he has endorsed sort of in his image in competitive primaries around the country have done quite poorly in total and arguably even lost Republicans the Senate in the 2022 midterms. And so, I don't know. You know, when you look at polling, like, Democrats are oftentimes more concerned about electability than Republicans. Republicans are like, I want the person to agree with me on everything or be the most conservative or whatever. And Democrats are like, I don't care if they agree with me on everything. I just want them to win. That was at least how they felt during Trump 1.0. I think eventually Republicans would be served well to think a little bit more about electability as opposed to just whoever Trump endorses.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Yeah, that would be smart. I mean, Trump has now started endorsing just every Republican that's in the race, which is a way that you guarantee that you can't lose. Do you have any thoughts about 2026 on the midterms? I'm scared that Dems will do well. Not like Blockbuster well, but will do well, and it'll paper over issues, and then 2028 is going to be potentially miserable. So those are my anxieties.

[Galen Drook]

So Occam's razor is that Democrats win the House and lose the Senate. But I think that there's a long Runway between now and 2026, and economic circumstances will matter. I mean, in particular, inflation. If tariffs end up affecting inflation, if this, you know, tax and spend bill that just passed has massive effects on people's healthcare, and those become a focus point, you know, who knows what will happen over the next year and a half. I wouldn't write off Democrats winning the Senate, but Republicans would have a really difficult time, I think, holding onto the House all right. What lessons will they take from 2026? The lessons they should take from 2026 are almost nothing. Right. Like we have actually looked at this in a rigorous way. And performance in the midterms has no correlation to performance in the presidential two years later. I think there are enough people out there, ambitious Democrats trying to win the nomination, who remember what happened in 2019 and 2020, who are have learned some lessons and probably still regret some of the things they said during that primary campaign that I don't think we're going to see. Like everybody getting up on stage raising their hand in support of decriminalizing, crossing the border. You know, we're going to talk about this later on. But I think, though, that folks will try to learn something from the Zoran Mamdanis of the world about charisma and populism. And they probably didn't need to wait for Mamdani to learn that lesson because Trump has, in a way, taught them that lesson over the past decade as well. So I will be curious, like you to see, do they take away policy lessons? Do they take away lessons about left, right, center, or do they take away sort of more structural lessons from the 2026 midterms? Only time will tell. And like you said, Democrats are awfully unpopular. And sometimes when a party starts to lose sway with its rank and file, it doesn't get to choose its own path. The primary voters choose for it.

[Jessica Tarlev]

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I just know if anyone gives you a questionnaire to answer and it says, do you want to pay for transgender surgeries for undocumented people in prison, that you say no, because that will come back to haunt you in an election ad in 2028. All right, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Avid Reader Press.

[Galen Drook]

Legendary investor Ray Dalio's new book how Countries Go the Big Cycle, explains the mechanics behind big debt crises. Larry Summer says Dalio's brilliant, iconoclastic approach is an invaluable resource. And Hank Paulson says it provides a solution to what is the biggest and most certain threat to our prosperity. Read it to understand the greatest economic issue of our time. Available now wherever books are sold.

[Jessica Tarlev]

I'm Julia Longoria. And this week on Unexplainable Things get a little personal with morning sickness. What I saw in television shows and movies, people saying, ha, ha, ha, she's pregnant.

[Galen Drook]

She's been barfing for an hour.

[Jessica Tarlev]

When I woke up, I ran to.

[Galen Drook]

The bathroom And I sort of laughed.

[Jessica Tarlev]

After thinking, this is morning sickness. Aha. But within a week, realized that it was not.

[Galen Drook]

Not very funny. And it got bad really fast. I just was like, okay, I have to work on this, because there's nothing.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Out there, and I need the answers. Follow Unexplainable for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday. The Supreme Court just ruled on a case about pornography and free speech.

[Galen Drook]

The court has ruled on this numerous.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Times, including in the sexy 70s.

[Galen Drook]

So there was one film that came up in front of the Supreme Court, and the plot of this thing was literally, there's a woman, she likes sex, she has a lot of sex, and then she gets on an airplane and the airplane is hijacked. We could stop in Sacramento, couldn't we? We'd be violating international law. And I suggest you violate it. Huh? If I am correct, with six stops.

[Jessica Tarlev]

For refueling, we shall be in havana.

[Galen Drook]

In approximately 30 hours. At which time, and the five hijacker launches into this lecture on the relative virtues of communist and capitalist societies. The communist countries have far less money than America, but the people work together as equals. Now, why did that happen? Well, one reason is because it meant the film was protected by the First Amendment.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Today explained a wild ride every weekday. Welcome back. Zoran Mamdani shocked the political world by pulling off a stunning upset in New York's Democratic mayoral primary, beating former governor Andrew Cuomo. His campaign leaned hard into economic populism, proposing rent freezes, free buses, and city run grocery stores, while mobilizing an army of online supporters and first time voters in immigrant and working class neighborhoods. The win has progressives celebrating, moderates panicking, and billionaires threatening to bankroll his downfall. I don't want to diminish what mom Donnie pulled off because I. It surprised me. I didn't think it was going to be a cakewalk necessarily, but it wasn't until like a few weeks before the primary day that people even thought he had a shot. There was only one polling firm that actually had him winning, I believe, and I'm sure you know this more precisely than I do, but I still thought that he was too radical for the city writ large. And I know that Cuomo is in a lot of ways, a. A uniquely flawed candidate even. And he didn't want to do any of the work. Like, I watched a lot of Cuomo campaign events, and I use quotes around that because they were barely campaign events. Like, he would show up somewhere, he'd shake some hands, he'd take some footage. He didn't want to do. Questions he didn't want to sit down with people. All of the lessons from the 2024 election, I assume he just told his team, absolutely not. I'm not going to do a long form interview. I'm not going to do a podcast bro thing. I'm, you know, I'm not exploring at all. And so you had this contrast between such an open and an honest candidate. I mean, Mamdani, I don't like a lot of his positions, but he didn't shy away from any of them. He wasn't sugarcoating anything. He sat down face to face with people who disagreed with him and just said, I'm sticking to my guns about this. So how much do you think it actually mattered that Cuomo was terrible versus Mamdani being this great unifier? And that being a preview of what we might be able to see more generally speaking from progressive candidates.

[Galen Drook]

Yeah, I mean, there's no beating around Bush. Cuomo was an absolutely terrible candidate who didn't really run much of a campaign. And I don't think that Zoran Mamdani ultimately represents the median voter or even necessarily the median Democrat in New York City. Ultimately, about a million people voted in a city of 8 million people. I don't want to diminish that because the turnout was pretty, pretty high for a New York mayoral primary. But again, these are things that happen in late June. They're closed primaries. So anybody who's not registered as a Democrat was not able to participate in this primary election. And when we get to the general, you know, there's going to be a lot more people participating. And so I wouldn't suggest that Zoran Mandani now represents the broad political ideas of New York City. And when you look at the polling as well, someone like Adrian Adams, who was a candidate who got in quite late and had a significantly higher net favorability rating than Zoran Mandani. I mean, the deep irony of this election is despite the fact that we have ranked choice voting in New York City, it became a head to head race between two of the most polarizing figures. Right. Cuomo was not particularly popular compared to the other candidates and neither was Zoran Mamdani. The two most popular were Adrian Adams and Brad Lander, who weren't really able to catch on in the primary. So I think somebody like Adrian Adams, who leads the City Council and has corporate experience, is probably more representative of the media Democrat in New York, but just didn't have the campaign apparatus behind her. And I mean, what Zoran Mandani did And like, look, at this point in American politics, we shouldn't discount a charismatic populist in an election. He talked about the issues in a really simplistic way. You know, the buses, they're going to be fast and free. The rent, it's going to be frozen. The groceries, they're going to be provided by the government or sold by the government. And so by the time you get to the argument of like, well, that's not possible, you can't raise those funds, that's socialist, et cetera, et cetera. New Yorkers have already heard the main message about I want to make this place more affordable. And then you start hearing from the other candidates who are fighting over the details. And so I think, you know, one thing that Democrats can probably learn from all of this is the campaign style. You know, when you look at what Trump has done, you remember his agenda or the Republican platform from the most recent election was 10 bullet points that were like, we're going to fix absolutely everything. We're going to make America more affordable. We are going to stop illegal crossings at the border. And that was kind of how Mandani ran his campaign. And so. So the effectiveness of that kind of messaging is something to take away, even if, yeah, I mean, New York City is not America. I actually did a little research before joining you today. And the most representative city of America, larger cities, is like the greater New Haven area, the Greater Tampa, Clearwater, St. Pete area. And so, like, it's not New York City, but it's also not Oshkosh, Wisconsin. And so it's somewhere in between. And no, I don't think that somebody who has the positions of Zoran Mandani makes a great general election candidate in competitive elections around the country for Democrats. But also, that's not New York City. And I guess if that's what New York City wants, that's what New York City wants.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Do you think there's any chance that Mayor Adams is able to win the general election at this point?

[Galen Drook]

It's a really steep climb, I think, not to draw more parallels to Trump. Well, actually, to draw more parallels to Trump, once partisanship sets in, it's a really hard force to beat back. Right. So while maybe if you had every single Democrat in the city or Democrat leaning voter in the city participate in this election, you might have landed on somebody else. And I don't even know if that's the case. Right. Or if you say you had the, the video team behind Adrian Adams, that Democrats might have landed somewhere else. Once you have the candidate, people tend to fall in line. And so you see this amongst even the Democratic establishment or elite in New York State starting to say, okay, you know what? We, we got to support this guy. So I think it is a really, really steep climb for somebody like Eric Adams at this point. And the fact that Cuomo seems to be keeping his name on the ballot is only going to make it likelier that the anti Zoran Mandani vote splits its votes between those two options.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Yeah, I did. I mean, as his final act of selfishness, it's kind of perfect that Cuomo wouldn't even take his name off of the ballot, where you're just like, no, it has to be me, no matter what. It can't even just be someone who's more moderate or someone who is supportive of the police, you know?

[Galen Drook]

You know, I do want to say something to that point, which is there's been some conversation about whether Zoran Mamdani's win is a sort of back to back vibe shift. Right. We felt like there was this conservative vibe shift in the country where, you know, Donald Trump won the popular vote. Americans were more amenable to a lot of his ideas on immigration and law and order and the like. Oh, but all of a sudden a Democratic socialist is winning the primary in New York City. It's important to focus not just on what Zoran Ramdani did, but what he didn't do. He totally backtracked on defund the police. He really didn't talk about a lot of the social positions of the Democratic Party. He wasn't foregrounding immigration and fights over immigration with Donald Trump. I mean, he didn't shy away from some of the positions he had taken once pressed on them. I mean, the one where he did just kind of blatantly walk it back was defunding the police. You know, we can have another conversation about the, the accusations of anti Zionism or whatever, but he really tried to focus on affordability and affordability only in some ways. And I think that's how he won the voters, beyond that young, white, professional class of voters that has been in the Sanders AOC camp all along is these are people who really just think the city is too expensive. And he kicked off his campaign talking to Trump voters in the Bronx about their most important issues. They all said it was affordability. Now, looking at the result, it doesn't seem like he picked up a lot of those voters in the Bronx. Cuomo did the best in the Bronx and Zoran Mamdani did the best in, in Brooklyn and then Queens and Manhattan. But he really tried to foreground an issue that could be strong for progressives and background a lot of the unpopular positions that the progressive part of the Democratic Party or the Democratic socialists have held over years.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Yeah, well, having such a comparatively weak competitor allowed a lot of that to happen to my mind. I mean, he certainly got questions about not just his anti Zionism, but what a lot would argue and sometimes even I would argue bordered on anti Semitism. And he, I don't want to say it was a layup, but when you're looking at the two man race and all that, I think the people just went for the guy who seems to actually care about people. And talking about affordability is the number one way to do that. And Cuomo just, just completely failed at that. But some of the things that you're talking about were featured in your New York Times op ed from last week, which I really enjoyed about how the left needs their own Trump. And I've been saying for a long time, not like taking credit for your op ed, but that being ideologically consistent is just not that important anymore, that people are looking for a common sense human being in a leader. They're not looking for someone that toes the party line. And you know, we have seen Donald Trump out there pushing toeing the party line to the utmost degree and what's going on with the big beautiful bill. But in terms of what folks want to see from someone campaigning, they want you to seem like a rational human being. So, like the country needs a border, but you also need health care, for instance. And those were kind of Trump's diametrically opposed ideas for the party. Right. Where he says we're going to have this tough immigration policy, but also I'm not going to touch Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. Can you talk about some more about what was in your op ed and I guess how Mamdani fits a bit into that mold of a leftist Trump?

[Galen Drook]

Yeah, I mean, I think he fits into that mold in some ways, although that's not necessarily the person I had in mind when I was writing this piece. And the perspective from which I write it is one of a political analyst who spent, you know, over a decade looking at what Americans think.

[Jessica Tarlev]

And I'm not trying to make you a partisan. I'm sorry if my.

[Galen Drook]

Oh, no, no, no, no, by all means. But, you know, just how Americans react to what's happening. And there's something that, like, we all just have to understand in American politics, which is both Parties are unpopular. And when you want to win a competitive election, now in the bluest and reddest parts of the country, this advice is totally irrelevant. I guess do whatever you want. Sort of be as extreme as you want. And I guess if voters will still vote for you, great. But if you want to win a competitive election, frustrating people's perceptions of you as one sort of partisan or another is key. Being something beyond just a Republican or something beyond just a Democrat. And one of the ways that you can do that, there's a lot of ways that you can do that. You can do that with your identity. Like the way that you can present yourself as down home or Democrats shooting guns like Kamala Harris talking about her pistol or, you know, Republicans trying to soften their image with what was George Bush's line? Compassionate conservatism.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Yeah.

[Galen Drook]

So there are many different ways that you can do this, but one of the ways that you can do it is talking about policy differently. And so the example that I present of Trump is from 2016, when you had this broad field and there were the more moderate folks like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, who, you know, Rubio had been involved in pushing for comprehensive immigration reform, Jeb Bush, about as establishment as they come, who were projecting a more moderate version of the Republican Party. And then you had conservatives like Ted Cruz or Scott Walker, you know, who had Ted Cruz in particular come out of the Tea Party movement, were pushing for some of the most unpopular parts of the Republican platform at the time, like cuts to Medicare and Social Security. For Scott Walker, it was union busting and the like. And Trump comes into this situation, and when faced with the sort of moderate view or the conservative view, in some ways he chooses neither. He runs to the party's right on immigration, proposing a border wall and mass deportations, and he runs to the left of his party on government spending. As you mentioned, not only did he say no cuts to Medicare and Social Security, he also originally proposed a big infrastructure bill. He proposed universal health care. I mean, this is how he campaigned, not how he governed, but. And by the time voters cast their ballots in 2016, we have pretty good data that suggests Americans viewed Trump as the less extreme candidate between the two options. And not only did they view him as less extreme than Hillary Clinton, even though he took extreme positions throughout that campaign, they viewed him as less conservative than every Republican nominee, going Back to George H.W. bush, which is what we have data from. And another key part of this is he attacked his party at every turn. He attacked all of the recent nominees, he attacked the war in Iraq, he attacked John McCain, and he basically said, the Republican Party has failed you. So in the end, no matter where you stood on the right side of the spectrum, if you thought the Republican Party was doing a shit job at, you know, representing you being a party, you could find some agreement with Donald Trump. Now, I would say Zoran Mamdani in some ways ran against the party establishment. So that accomplishes that. He leaned into something that Democratic voters care a lot about, which is affordability. In the Times piece that I wrote, I said, you know, for Democrats, maybe going to the left on health care and really like engaging that issue would be helpful while moving to the right on immigration or going left on housing and going right on the debt. You know, this doesn't sound coherent to somebody who's a top to bottom partisan, but ultimately, a lot of people who code as moderates are not top to bottom partisans. They hold all the way left positions on some issues and all the way right positions on others. And so obviously, Mandani didn't really take right positions in what he did, but he did talk a lot about one left issue, affordability, that's really important to Democrats and he ran against his own party. So in some ways he did it. In other important ways, he didn't really do what I suggested could be a winning strategy for the party.

[Jessica Tarlev]

You had a conversation a few weeks ago with Nate Silver about who would be the 2028 nominee for the Democrats. You both had AOC as your pick for that. That surprised me. And maybe I'm just too moderate to my core, but I've been thinking about our coalition as needing to make sure that we continue to capture the center and that we pick up as many independent voters as possible, but that there will be moderate Republicans like the Romney Republicans, that will still be available to Democrats. So putting aside the Bulwark folks, right, like those guys are now card carrying Democrats or maybe not all of them, but I feel like most of them are at this point, that there will be people who maybe tried Trump again in 2024, let's say like 2016, Trump, 2020, Biden went back to Trump or went for Kamala Harris and now they're looking around. And if you put up someone like a Josh Shapiro or a Gretchen Whitmer or even a Gavin Newsom, who's getting his yimby on as of late and having conversations with Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon, that maybe they could see themselves being part of a Democratic Party that had someone more Moderate at the top of the ticket. And I'll just be honest, that's my preference. Not only because I think you can build the biggest coalition, but that's more aligned with my politics. And that doesn't mean that you don't believe in the promise of things like universal health care. It just means that you're a practical person. Says that there are costs associated with doing certain things. And we want to try to get as many people as possible healthcare. So we're going to have a public private partnership or whatever it is. But you guys picked aoc, and I'm curious as to why that is and if you think that, like an AOC pairing with a centrist or more moderate VP makes that a bit easier. I, I've been pretty wowed by her starting at the DNC last year. I was there in Chicago. I thought that she gave arguably the best speech of the entire convention. She sounded completely middle of the road, like a great economic populace. But there was, there was none of the extremism in any of it. She was just laser focused on, like, these are the bread and butter issues. This is what's going on your kitchen table. I'm all about affordability. I was a bartender. Like me, talk to me about aoc, and if you think that that's really what's going to happen.

[Galen Drook]

Yeah. So what our task was in what we termed our first democratic primary draft of 2028, was to choose who we thought would be likeliest to win the nomination, not who we thought would be Democrats best chance at winning the White House. And while we both suggested at the time that that person was AOC, I think we would both take the field over AOC, meaning I don't think she has a more than 50% chance of being the next Democratic nominee.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Oh, great.

[Galen Drook]

But at that moment in time, she had the best of anybody out there. And I think that part of that is seeing her, you know, fighting the oligarchy tour and the fact that she really does seem to be running for president this early on and some of the reaction to her. I think we can also expect a pretty deep field of democratic hopefuls in 2028. And in a divided field, somebody who has a really ardent base of support could do particularly well again. Again, you know, going back to Trump in 2016, he was winning a lot of those primaries with 30 some percent support early on. And so I think part of it is mechanical. Part of it is the Democrat rank and file being fed up with sort of taking what the establishment gives them, which has been for the past decade, ultimately pretty middling presidential candidates and relatively uninspiring ones to them at that. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, then almost Joe Biden again, but instead Kamala Harris. And I think it has been now a generation since Democrats have had somebody that they can get super enthusiastic about and who is charismatic in the way that people think of Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. And so I think in some ways there is a market for that, especially in a divided field. Part of it also goes to exactly what you were just saying and what we talked about with Zoran Mamdani, that the Democratic left, the progressives, the Democratic socialists, however you want to term them, however much they might not like the pundits, they have paid attention to the polling and they know that defunding the police, decriminalizing, crossing the border, abolishing ice, you know, long list of these things are ultimately unpopular and they don't really want to talk about them anymore and they want to talk about the economic part of their argument. And even in the Fighting Oligarchy tour, we heard AOC make pitches like, you know, very Obama esque, like there's no red America, there's no blue America. We all just want to sort of be together and we all, you know, we want to fight the rich who take advantage of us and, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think to your point about winning over independents or moderates, oftentimes when we think about those people, and it's not lost on me that we're on the Raging Moderates podcast in the media's conception of who those people are. They're like people who take the middle position on everything. They're like the kind of person who think that, well, abortion should become illegal at exactly the second trimester mark, or that they want the tax policy to be exactly in the middle of what the Democrats want and what the Republicans want. But like I said before, it's not usually so. It's people who, you know, and these people are not super partisan. They aren't. They can't be because they don't fit into a party neatly. They're people who want a wall at the border and they're people who want, you know, Medicare for all. So oftentimes, and we'll fight over sort of how do you win elections? Does it turnout or persuasion or whatnot? Oftentimes they go hand in hand. Somebody who's charismatic enough to get people to turn out and sort of choose the voting booth over their couch is also charismatic enough to get people to switch Sides. And there's a lot to be said for basically becoming a celebrity in that way. Now, could AOC do that? I have no idea. Could Josh Shapiro do that? Sure, maybe. I have no idea there either. I mean, plenty of folks have also compared him to Obama. And so, you know, I have no idea what's gonna happen in 2028. But I do think that, I think Democrats are ready for a more anti establishment, more populist campaign. And let's remember Barack Obama was not the most liberal candidate when he took that approach. And neither was Bill Clinton. No, right. Barack Obama, yes, he took the left position on the Iraq war, he ran against that, but he took the more right position than Hillary Clinton on healthcare. Likewise, Bill Clinton took the right position on crime and federal spending and then he took the left position on healthcare. In that case, it goes back to just not being all of one thing. Being able to be many things to many people.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, working in conservative media, the amount of clips of old Obama and Bill Clinton that I am shown on a daily basis seeing like you guys used to be sane, even though they've changed their tune about Obama over the years. But when they're talking about immigration, even old Hillary Clinton talking about border walls, old Joe Biden talking about border walls makes a compelling argument that a people can evolve but that you don't, you don't have to betray your party and their values to say something that makes sense to the widest swath of people. And granted, you know, background as a researcher, so I'm always obsessed with, you know, the numbers of it. I'm like, even if this doesn't sound perfect to you, if 70% of people think it, then why are you going to be the one to show up there and say no? There are folks who didn't take that Iraq or vote who feel pretty good about that at this point when everyone else was trying to push them in that direction. One thing, and I wanna move on to talking about the court wonkiness. Democrats are very wonky. We love a good deep dive. I think take policy paper and I saw that, you know, Project 2029 is now bubbling and some of the people that are working on it, very familiar names to me, you know, Neera Tanden, Jake Sullivan, Anne Marie Slaughter, Justin Wolfers, people that I like a lot. But I have this fresh face concern that's going on and I. This is definitely part of the Mamdani effect as well. And whoever it was that was part of his team, we don't know who they are either. They're not like pollsters that are getting bounced around from different Democratic candidates. Do you think the wonkiness is a problem? That people are not able to campaign in bullet points, which Mamdani did. And I think AOC is certainly capable of, and I think a Josh Shapiro would be as well. But that there's always this extensive rollout of everything and we're gonna make sure that you know how we're paying for every single dollar of this. And at the end of the day, people don't really give a fuck. Right. They just wanna know what your vision is and what you're going to try to accomplish. They don't have a tremendous amount of faith in government anyway that you're gonna be able to pull it off. But they would just wanna vaguely be on the same page as you and know that you're a normal human being.

[Galen Drook]

Yeah. I think that the idea of campaigning in poetry and governing in prose comes to mind here. There's a reason that Elizabeth Warren didn't ultimately win the 2020 Democratic primary, who had a 12 point plan for everything. I just don't think that there's maybe the attention span for that. I don't know that that wins over. Right. Who are the marginal voters in America today? They are people who don't pay a lot of attention to the news. I say this based off of polling. They're people who don't vote regularly. They're people who don't really align with either party or don't have a strong track record of voting in one party's primary or voting at all today. They skew more male, they skew more Latino, they skew more middle working class. We're not talking about the swing voter soccer mom of the sort of Bill Clinton versus Bob Dole 1996 campaign. And again to like go back to how the media conceives of a swing voter. It's not somebody in a diner in New Hampshire looking at one person's policy paper and the other person's policy paper and then checking, I like this one and I don't like that one. And I. It's just, you're probably familiar with her, but Kristen Soltes Anderson, she's a Republican pollster who does fantastic work in this space. And you know, something that she's said for a long time is people want somebody who will fight for them. That's the number one indicator of why Republicans like Trump, for example.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Yeah.

[Galen Drook]

And I, I think that's more of a vibe than necessarily a policy package.

[Jessica Tarlev]

I like it and it's true. And I generally like Kristen Soltis Anderson as well. All right, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. You know that one friend who somehow.

[Galen Drook]

Knows everything about money? Yeah. Now imagine they live in your phone. Say hey to Experian, your big financial friend. It's the app that helps you check your FICO score, find ways to save, and basically feel like a financial genius. And guess what?

[Jessica Tarlev]

It's totally free.

[Galen Drook]

So go on, download the Experian app.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Trust me, having a BFF like this is a total game changer.

[Galen Drook]

What's up, y' all? It's Kenny Beachum. The 2024, 2025 NBA season is over, but all that means for us is that the 2025, 2026 season is already beginning. On Small Ball, we'll be talking about breaking news, major trades, and all the exciting developments the offseason has in store. Which teams are tearing it down, who is retooling to make a championship push, and what teams are leaving me dumbfounded by their lack of direction. Don't miss Small Ball with Kenny beach of new episodes Drop every Friday. Available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Welcome back. Before we go, the Supreme Court just handed Donald Trump one of the biggest wins of his second term. Or he's certainly calling it that. In a sweeping 63 ruling, the justices effectively gutted the power of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions, a key legal tool that has been used to block many of Trump's most controversial policies. This caps off a remarkable term for Trump in court, where his administration won a series of emergency rulings that critics say lacked transparency and bypassed normal judicial review. Galen the ruling didn't just limit nationwide injunctions. It reshaped the balance of power between the judiciary and the executive. How could this precedent affect future efforts to check the White House, no matter who's in power?

[Galen Drook]

Yeah, so this is a part of the American judicial system that presidents of both stripes have railed against for a long time. You'll remember that things like DACA and student loan forgiveness were also held up in lower federal courts because of nationwide injunctions. Obama and Biden were not particularly happy about that. But Donald Trump has tried to do a lot more by executive action than any other modern president. And so he has had, as a result, more nationwide injunctions against his policies than any other modern president. And on top of that, oftentimes, especially in his first term, a lot of these executive orders were put together somewhat sloppily, like things that probably could survive judicial review if worded more carefully, more thoughtfully, didn't simply because they were written hastily and without the experience or expertise of other administrations. And so this has affected Trump disproportionately. But obviously, historically and going into the future, it's not like this is only good news for Republicans or only good news for Democrats. I'm sure Republicans will be quite unhappy about having to overcome this hurdle later on. And I should also say this doesn't block all nationwide injunctions. I think it just means that they have to be brought as class action lawsuits. So it will make it a little bit more difficult to potentially get this case hurt or also folks can go straight to the Supreme Court to try to get an injunction. And so this doesn't mean that all of a sudden there will be no more nationwide injunctions, but it does open the possibility where we will have more of a patchwork of laws in America, where they're sort of on pause in some states or some regions and not on pause in others, which could be a little chaotic. Now, I spent a lot of time thinking about public opinion. And so how does this ruling align with what Americans think? I can tell you, based on recent polling from the Associated Press and norc, Americans are more concerned about the president having too much power than they are concerned about federal judges having too much power. So 50% of Americans today say that the president has too much power. Only 30% of Americans today say that the federal courts have too much power. There's some partisan differences underneath that. As you can imagine, Republicans don't think Trump has too much power. They're more inclined to think that federal courts have too much power. But broadly speaking, this doesn't exactly align with Americans current views of who has too much power in the checks and balances system.

[Jessica Tarlev]

What about the courts giving the president too much power? Because that's my main gripe with all of this from the Supreme Court and their immunity ruling down to, you know, Donald Trump was very effective in terms of judicial appointments. I mean, Biden did a little bit better in the four years, but still, Trump went around and he put like 35 year olds on the court everywhere. You know, looking at Eileen Cannon in Florida, who essentially saved him while winning the election. Saved him. But with the Mar A Lago documents case and obviously he's been able to handpick three Supreme Court justices. And I imagine he's going to get one more right. I mean, between Alito Thomas or Roberts going in the next three years.

[Galen Drook]

Jesse, I'm already fretting that news cycle. I Can barely keep up with the news as it is.

[Jessica Tarlev]

It's gonna be really bad.

[Galen Drook]

It's gonna be bad. It's gonna be bad. You know, I think that ultimately this whole process has not been great for the courts. We can see in polling that Americans views of the Supreme Court and the judiciary in general have been in decline as folks have increasingly seen it to be partisan. You know, after the 2000 election ruling in Bush v. Gore, that was a really emotional, hard fought case that in many ways did decide that election. Yeah. But the doubts that Americans had about the Supreme Court ultimately didn't endure. It was a little blip. And then, you know, faith in the institution went back up to around 70%. That's no longer the case. And obviously it's hard to have constitutional, representative, democratic republic use whatever combination of words you want to use, because I know that they code as partisan in different ways. It's hard to do that if we don't have our checks and balances in place and, you know, the judiciary, the legislature, and the president behaving according to how they have been allotted power.

[Jessica Tarlev]

There were also, I mean, there were a spate of other decisions that came out last week, and some of them just affirmed what the consensus opinion is. To go back to what I was saying in our last conversation, like, if something's like a 7030 issue or an 8020 issue, and as a Democrat constantly talking about this with transgender people playing in competitive sports, like, you can feel however way you want to about this, but the polling is clear on it. This is an 8020 issue. It's not something that people think is fair, that Leah Thomas swimming at Penn with biological women is just not something that we're going to be able to get over that hurdle. And the court actually affirmed a lot of those kind of 70, 30, 80, 20 issues as well.

[Galen Drook]

Yeah, it's really quite striking. I think there is a sense that the court has become increasingly partisan, and that's because the balance of the court has shifted. And also that there have been some very high profile rulings recently that have overturned precedent. Obviously, I'm talking about Dobbs here. And so on some high profile cases, the partisan divides or the ideological divides of the Court have really come to the fore. And because we in the press stress conflict, those are the things we're also going to stress the most. But there's some polling done by folks at Harvard and elsewhere called the SCOTUS poll, that tries to ask, in plain language, the American public about every issue before the court during the upcoming term, and they did that this year. And it turns out that in every single one of the cases that SCOTUS poll asked about, the Supreme Court ruled with the majority of public opinion. Now we have to hold the birthright citizenship one because they asked about birthright citizenship to the public. And it was something like just shy of two thirds. But if you look at polling broadly, it's somewhere around 2/3 of Americans believe that birthright citizenship should stand. Obviously, the court didn't rule on the merits. Well, the majority of the court didn't rule on the merits in that the minority said that at its face, birthright citizenship should stand. We should rule on the merits here. Instead, they ruled on these nationwide injunctions, which didn't get asked in SCOTUS poll, but on things like, you know, should you have to confirm your identity before watching adult content in Texas, the court said yes, and a majority of Americans agreed. Should parents and their children be able to opt out of certain lessons on LGBTQ issues? The majority of Americans said yes, and the court ruled as such. You know, these are issues on which maybe Americans didn't used to have super hardened views, like on trans rights in particular. It used to seem like folks trying to ban trans individuals from using gendered bathrooms and things like that were on the wrong side of the issue. I think Republicans have sort of maneuvered a bit to figure out where they actually have better footing politically and have focused more on that. But it is interesting to me, like, I think the court, as much as they say they're not partisan, they may be political in the way that they do try to sort of align themselves with public opinion where possible.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if that was included in some of the heavy research that they're doing. You know, they don't. They wanna do what's right and they wanna follow the law, but they also are trying to create an America that people want to live in and that they think is fair and just and.

[Galen Drook]

Also increase faith in the court. I mean, I think John Roberts has been pretty clear that he's worried about the degree of decline in trust in the Supreme Court, especially with his name at the top. And so the John Roberts court, basically, is it going to be the court that depletes faith in that branch of government? And I, you know, reporting suggests he has a lot of anxiety about it. So trying to do as much as possible to showcase places where there are unanimous decisions, where some justices are more mavericky and take turns that you might not expect them to, obviously. Amy Coney Barrett did plenty of that this term. I think they want to spotlight that as much as possible to try to bat down this narrative that it's just one more legislature with a majority Republican on the bench.

[Jessica Tarlev]

And you might not have data ready to go on this, but I, I wanted to ask you.

[Galen Drook]

Shoot. You know, I'll do my best I can. I can come up with just opinions out of my ass as well.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Good. Well, that's all that being a cable news pundit is anyway. So I. I got you covered there. Don't worry. This is a safe place for opinions pulled just out of your ass on the fly. But one of the many ways that Donald Trump likes to govern is to attack his enemies. Right. And people love that about him. You know, he's our fighter going back to. He'll fight for us, though. I think he just fights for himself and his kids sometimes. But he goes after the judiciary a lot. Right. He thinks that judges should be impeached. He doesn't necessarily care about threats of violence. Amy Coney Barrett was a crowning pick for him. And then she's the devil going after Leonard Leo and saying, you know, he's misled us on all of this and he's just a rino, et cetera. Do you know anything about how Trump voters or conservatives feel about attacks on the judiciary and the importance of having an independent judiciary?

[Galen Drook]

It's a good question. I'm inclined to believe that partisan signaling matters a lot here, because most people don't spend their days thinking about the separation of powers. And so Trump is now the leadership of the Republican Party. The opinions that he expresses can become the opinions of millions practically overnight. And so, you know, that's something to take seriously. One of, one of the best examples that we saw of this recently was bombing Iran. So the Washington Post did polling before the US Bombed Iran on whether we should strike. And then they polled again afterwards, and they saw a 30 percentage point increase in Republican support for bomb Iran once Trump had taken that step. And so when Trump verbalizes a position, especially on something that Americans don't spend a lot of time thinking about, you know, on things like abortion or immigration or guns that we have talked about in American life for decades, people have relatively entrenched views that are harder to move. But on things that are more esoteric or just more distanced or foreign places where Americans don't have really entrenched views, what Trump says can change their opinion. And so whether he is attacking the court, court or the press or, you know, some individual, Elon Musk or what have you. I'm sure many Republicans who were just fine with Elon Musk overnight decided that they don't like Elon Musk anymore once they got in a fight.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Yeah.

[Galen Drook]

But yes, he has the power to change the opinion practically overnight of millions Americans.

[Jessica Tarlev]

Wow. Disturbing. On a whole host of levels. All right, that's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates. Our producers are David Toledo and Eric Jones. Jenny Kiss. Our technical director is Drew Burrows. You'll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds you won't hear anywhere else. This week, I'm talking to Congressman Jason Crow about how Democrats can reclaim patriotism. Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss an episode.