Trump's Military Occupation Comes to DC (ft. Shane Goldmacher)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Episode: Trump's Military Occupation Comes to DC (ft. Shane Goldmacher)
Release Date: August 13, 2025
Host/Author: Vox Media Podcast Network
Guests: Shane Goldmacher, National Political Correspondent for The New York Times

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Introduction

In this riveting episode of Raging Moderates, co-host Jessica Tarlov welcomes Shane Goldmacher to discuss the latest political maneuvers surrounding former President Donald Trump's recent actions in Washington, D.C., the ongoing redistricting battles, and the evolving strategies of both major political parties as they gear up for the 2026 midterm elections.

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Trump's Federalization of D.C.

Overview:
The episode delves deep into former President Donald Trump's decision to federalize the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. On August 13, 2025, Trump announced the deployment of 800 National Guard troops and 120 FBI agents to conduct night patrols in Washington, D.C.

Key Points:

• Legal Authority:
  Shane Goldmacher explains that the President holds substantial authority over D.C. under the D.C. Home Rule Act. "He absolutely has this power," Goldmacher states at [03:21], although the takeover is limited to 30 days pending congressional approval.

• Public and Local Reaction:
  The move has sparked significant concern among D.C. residents, with a Washington Post poll indicating that "71% believe Trump is getting too involved in local issues" at [02:58]. The Attorney General of D.C. labeled the move "unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful," setting the stage for potential legal challenges.

• Motivations Behind the Move:
  Both hosts discuss whether Trump's actions are a strategic diversion or a genuine attempt to control local governance. Jessica Tarlov muses, "He wants to be, you know, a sheriff essentially," at [06:42], suggesting a desire for direct control over D.C.'s law enforcement beyond mere policy adjustments.

Notable Quotes:

• Shane Goldmacher ([05:29]): “He’s using policing authorities through the National Guard repeatedly over the objections of blue state mayors and blue state governors.”

• Jessica Tarlov ([14:37]): “It's a show of force.”

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Redistricting Wars: The Battle for Congressional Seats

Overview:
Shane Goldmacher outlines the intense redistricting efforts spearheaded by Republicans, particularly focusing on Texas, and the Democratic countermeasures to preserve their congressional influence.

Key Points:

• Texas as the Epicenter:
  Texas lawmakers are engaged in a high-stakes battle to redraw congressional districts, potentially adding up to five Republican seats in 2026. Governor Greg Abbott’s aggressive stance includes threatening to arrest Democrats who obstruct the process, as discussed at [33:34].

• Democratic Retaliation:
  States like California are pushing back by threatening to implement their own redistricting maps, though the effectiveness is mitigated by California’s adoption of nonpartisan commissions, making gerrymandering more challenging.

• Broader National Implications:
  The redistricting efforts are not isolated to Texas. States such as Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, and Florida are also in the throes of similar partisan battles, potentially reshaping the national political landscape.

Notable Quotes:

• Shane Goldmacher ([34:47]): “This really does look like increasingly these congressional districts are going to be drawn for maximal party partisan gain and not for, like, what makes sense for a community or a district that might be able to flip if the president or the leadership of either party is unpopular.”

• Jessica Tarlov ([42:04]): “And it’s weird that you should be fighting fire with fire and that we Democrats have spent too long letting Mitch McConnell or whoever you know, push us around.”

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Democratic Strategies: Recruiting Military Veterans

Overview:
The discussion shifts to the Democratic Party's strategy of recruiting military veterans to run for Congress—a tactic that proved successful in past midterms.

Key Points:

• Historical Success:
  Shane Goldmacher references the "camo wave" of 2018 as a period when veteran candidates made significant inroads, leveraging their service to appeal to a broader electorate.

• Current Landscape:
  Heading into 2026, Democrats are intensifying this approach, believing that veterans can bridge partisan divides, particularly in swing districts. However, challenges persist as candidates like Amy McGrath have faced electoral defeats despite their veteran backgrounds.

• Effectiveness and Challenges:
  The strategy is seen as a double-edged sword. While veterans can attract voters across the spectrum, the overarching negative perception of the Democratic brand in certain areas poses substantial hurdles.

Notable Quotes:

• Shane Goldmacher ([50:53]): “These veterans could help stretch the map for Republicans. Maybe that veteran helps you put those seats into play.”

• Jessica Tarlov ([55:19]): “It shows the degree to which they think this is a chance to widen the playing field.”

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The Future of the Republican Party Post-Trump

Overview:
The episode explores the potential trajectories of the Republican Party should Donald Trump step aside, given his entrenched influence over the party’s direction.

Key Points:

• Trump’s Dominance:
  Shane Goldmacher underscores that Trump remains a pivotal figure within the GOP, making it challenging for any successor to redefine the party’s identity independently. “Until Donald Trump isn’t leading it, it’s hard to see what it looks like after him,” he asserts at [68:18].

• Potential Successors:
  The conversation touches on potential leaders like J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, though uncertainty remains about their ability to fill Trump's substantial shoes.

• Long-term Implications:
  The Republican Party's future appears inextricably linked to Trump's legacy, with his strategies and influence likely shaping the party's policies and electoral strategies for years to come.

Notable Quotes:

• Shane Goldmacher ([68:18]): “He is a singular figure not just in Washington, all across the country. Are state legislatures excited in all of these states to do these remappings? Not necessarily.”

• Jessica Tarlov ([70:14]): “My real anxiety is that the kids take over and we have to pay homage to Don Jr. And Eric on that uplifting note.”

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Conclusion

The episode of Raging Moderates offers a comprehensive analysis of Donald Trump's latest political maneuvers in Washington, D.C., the intricate battles over congressional redistricting, and the strategic shifts within the Democratic Party aimed at bolstering their electoral prospects. Shane Goldmacher provides expert insights into the legalities, public sentiments, and long-term implications of these developments, while Jessica Tarlov navigates the complex interplay between party dynamics and voter behavior. As the 2026 midterms approach, the conversation underscores the pivotal role of leadership, strategic recruitment, and partisan tactics in shaping the future political landscape of the United States.

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Key Takeaways:

• Trump's federalization of D.C. is a strategic move with significant legal and political ramifications.
• Redistricting wars, led by GOP efforts in states like Texas, pose substantial challenges to Democratic representation.
• The Democratic Party's recruitment of military veterans remains a crucial strategy, though not without its challenges.
• The Republican Party's future remains closely tied to Donald Trump's influence, raising questions about its adaptability and leadership succession.

For those interested in contemporary political strategies and the evolving dynamics between the major parties, this episode provides an in-depth and insightful exploration of the current American political climate.

Transcript

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[Jessica Tarlov]

Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Jessica Tarlov. Scot free August rolls on, but we have a fantastic substitute. I'm very excited to have Shane Goldnacher here with me, national political correspondent for the New York Times. Shane, how are you?

[Shane Goldnacher]

I'm pretty good. How are you?

[Jessica Tarlov]

I'm great. How's your summer been?

[Shane Goldnacher]

Uh, summer's excellent. Yeah. I, I like the off year better than the on year.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I'm not surprised by that, though. Everything now feels like an on year. Probably not as much for you who would actually have to be out on the trail, but there seems to be no rest.

[Shane Goldnacher]

It feels more on than than it should, but it is less on than the actual election year.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Definitely probably a Trump effect, though. I'm thinking last summer we were in Chicago for the DNC at this point, which was way more on and the RNC was the most on with the assassination attempt. Crazy what has happened in the last year of politics. All right, I'm going to get into it. Thank you again for joining us. Can't wait to talk to you about all the things starting with Trump's crackdown of D.C. the latest on the redistricting wars, which you've been leading the reporting force on, and how both parties are building their strategy going into the midterms. So first up, on Monday, Donald Trump held a press conference. He had been saying for a couple days that he was going to be federalizing the D.C. metropolitan Police, and he really went for it. He's bringing in 800 National Guard troops plus 120 FBI agents who are going to be reassigned to night patrols. Local leaders, including the mayor and the police chief, say that they weren't given a heads up even about the announcement. Trump claims the city is overrun by bloodthirsty criminals and roving mobs. But DC's own numbers show violent crime is at a 30 year low and down another 26% this year. A Washington Post poll from the spring found that while crime is down, it's still a big concern for residents. Over 50% say it's a very serious problem. But 71% believe Trump is getting too involved in local issues. I would definitely be in that. 71%. The idea of a full federal takeover of DC is concerning to people across the board. The DC's Attorney General is calling the move unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful, setting the stage for a legal fight. So, Shane, he's doing this under something called the D.C. home Rule Act. How much authority does he actually have to do this?

[Shane Goldnacher]

I mean, the short answer is he has a ton of authority. That Washington D.C. exists under the thumb of the federal government for the most part. A few decades ago, the federal government gave D.C. a lot of power to rule itself, but carved out exceptions to basically take things over when they want to on a short term basis. And so not only is he talking about deploying the National Guard, he's literally taking over the police department or having his federal government take over the police department. And as you saw with the sort of somewhat relaxed reaction, all things considered, from the mayor, he has the power to do it. Not forever. There's a time limit on the takeover of the police is about 30 days. I believe once you notify Congress, there's some steps, but in the short term, he absolutely has this power.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, so it's 30 days, and then they would need congressional authorization. My concern, as you know, I think a reasonably minded but definitely partisan person, is that Republicans have been rubber stamping absolutely everything that Donald Trump wants. So this could go on in perpetuity. And he is threatening to do this to other blue cities. We saw it in Los Angeles during the time of the immigration raids when they started going after Home Depots and picking people up from, you know, when they go to get their kids from school. And he's. What did he cite? You know, Oakland, Baltimore, which I think has halved its murder rate in the last couple of years under Chicago. I'm torn about this because on the one hand, I believe to my core that everything that he does is a distraction from the fact that he is not getting the results that he expected to like. His trade wars are not going well. They can talk about the billions of dollars in revenues but the American public has severely underwater when it comes to that immigration policy. Also underwater. And then there are the Epstein files of it all, which seems like the one thing that he can't escape. How do you see it? Like, he obviously wants to be doing this, but do you think that he's playing a game of diversion more than anything, or he's just walking and chewing gum?

[Shane Goldnacher]

You know, I think that sometimes we assign some more strategy to some of the Trump's decisions than there is. Look, I thought some of the comments he made yesterday were revealing of what he's thinking and some of the comments from people who are working around him, which is he is ferrying himself around or being ferried around Washington, D.C. and he is seeing homeless encampments, he is seeing coverage of crime. And he talked about, you know, the dirty kitchen at a restaurant is a bad. Or the dirty front door is the bad sign for the kitchen is something his father taught him. He doesn't like the way DC Looks when he's going around the town. And so he wants to talk about crime in general. He's always wanted to talk about crime. He's been talking about urban crime for 40 years. He wants to talk about immigration in general. And he's enamored with the police powers of the presidency. He has been since his first term, where he was often more resistant to using them. And as you mentioned some of these examples, he is using policing authorities through the National Guard repeatedly over the objections of blue state mayors and blue state governors. And so I think it's a continuation of that. I don't know that this is a grand strategy as a diversion or new topic. As much as he is seeing something, he has power here to act upon it, and he's acting upon it.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I think that's right. And it also, it's in the 20 Project 2025 playbook. And it's kind of amazing how they spelled everything out. And Democrats had a moment like a couple months where it was actually resonating with people. And then Trump took control of the narrative back with the Butler assassination attempt. And then we kind of didn't hear about Project 2025 again, but it's definitely in there. He wants to play mayor and sheriff sometimes more than an American president, and to be in charge of all of this. And obviously red states are going to go along with whatever he wants.

[Shane Goldnacher]

There's been all these Republican dreams of taking D.C. which has been sort of a liberal playground for policy and ideas for a long time. Say, you know, what Congress controls Washington, D.C. they control the Pershings. They have all of this authority. They. There's been chatter for years ago about charter schools attempting all kinds of things that the Republican Party as a goal and saying, you know what, while this is a liberal city, it's actually sometimes under Republican control because of Congress. And so, yeah, as you mentioned in Project 25 and just in general, for a long time, it's been one of those dreams, hey, this is a place where we actually have real authority in an urban area in a way that the Republican Party generally doesn't. Because cities in America in general have been progressive or Democratic.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Definitely. That's a really good point. And there's also something that I noticed about Mayor Muriel Bowser's response, and you said it was more muted. It was definitely more conciliatory than I expected. If, if a president who I don't support politically on top of it came in and said, basically, I'm taking control of everything. She looked incredibly defeated. Right. That's the, the idea that she can't do anything about this. But she has really done her best in the first, you know, seven, eight months of the Trump administration to stay out of his way. Right. And to pacify him as much as possible and enjoyed when she can get a little bit of adulation. You know, he made an announcement himself in May. He got up at the podium and talked about the drop in violent crime in D.C. and he wanted to take a victory lap on that. Cash Patel yesterday, even the FBI director was talking about how the murder rate is so far down. So it's strategic obviously to make sure that she doesn't inflame him. But she also said maybe this more police isn't such a bad thing. And that really stuck out to me because there's this constant back and forth, I feel like amongst liberals, more like me, kind of like a liberal elites that live in nice neighborhoods and don't worry about day to day crime or the carjackings or whatever it is. And that's not the totality of the city. The experience at different parts of we're both New York City ites in other neighborhoods is much worse than that. And she's acutely aware of the fact that while violent crime might be down and the murder rate might be down, that there still is a carjacking problem and there is a huge homelessness problem in her city. And you continually hear from police chiefs and people of color that they're not necessarily upset at the idea of there being a larger police presence.

[Shane Goldnacher]

I mean, you see In New York, the current mayor, Eric Adams, that's how he was elected four years ago. Right. He ran on a, a former police officer background. He was saying, I'm a black leader who worked in the police and thinks we need more policing. Look, I think that you see the arc of this in Muriel Bowser. Right? It was in Washington, D.C. after George Floyd's murder, where they painted the streets just outside the White House while Trump was still there. The Black Lives Matter Plaza, right? There's this. There was yellow and black lettering all up 16th Street. And it was there for four years. And when Trump came back in, Mayor Bowser had that removed. And so that lettering is no longer there. There was a push on Black Lives Matter. There was a sort of a related push by some progressive activists about defunding the police that really didn't gain traction in the mainstream of the Democratic Party, but was really successfully used to attack Democrats. You know, I think Joe Biden gave a speech not long in late 2020 in the campaign, late in the campaign saying, do I look like the kind of person who wants to defund the police? The Democrats right away were trying to push back against that label nationally, but it stuck. It stuck because activists can be loud and activists have some influence and they can have an echo chamber online. And so we sealed Bowser and Eric Adams and a whole slew of Democrats frankly, saying that is not our actual goal. You know, as some folks said at the time, both, I think Defund the police, Abolish ice was a predecessor, is if the end goal is accomplishing your slogan, which is that there would not be a funded police department, and that is not actually your goal, then the slogan's not serving a good purpose. Right. Like you want people to hear your slogan, follow it to the finish and be like, yes, that is in fact what I want. Right. You can contrast that with other people running, you know, if you're Zoran Mamdani running for mayor now, right. Free buses, okay, end slogan. It's like people would be okay with free buses, right? Freezing the rent. They could be okay with freezing rent, defunding the police. People like, no, actually, I don't really mean all the way that. And I think that was from the get go, one of the struggles with the slogan, which is if people actually take it at face value and say, that's exactly what I want and it's not popular, then you probably don't have a good slogan.

[Jessica Tarlov]

No, I think James Carville said it last week to me that he thought to fund the police were the stupidest three words in the English language, especially tied together. You know, Jim Clyburn tried his best. A lot of the kind of dons of the party to say you absolutely may not run around saying things like this. There's a way to talk about racial justice and social justice and the murder of George Floyd without using that kind of language. And it's haunted us Mamdani doing his best to kind of backtrack at this particular moment in advance of the election in November. I'm curious as to and I'm just spitballing this because, I mean, I'm not going to end up mayor of D.C. but if I were mayor of D.C. yes. Or I were part definitely not, that would be serious carpet bagging. And it seems not good. I don't know what city I would want to be mayor of. It's too hard here. But it would be hometown fun, I guess, to be in New York. But it feels like there's always an opportunity with Trump to at least present a rational pushback. You're not necessarily going to get him to agree with it, but there's, there feels like there are proposals or things that you could say that could make him look as absurd as I believe that he is and that this is all part of Project 2025. And he wants to take over every single facet of American life. We see this with the universities, with law firms, et cetera. He wants to control as much as possible. And the Republicans, for instance, they cut a billion dollars from the D.C. budget. Why is no one talking about that? Or U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro? I can't. I'm not adjusted yet to calling her U.S. attorney. I should say Judge Pirro. But she got up there and gave a fiery speech, as she usually does, and she's talking about the laws that prohibit her from locking up juveniles, even juveniles that are running around with guns and committing terrible crimes. And that's something that Democrats and Republicans agree upon. Joe Biden talked about that as well, and how the DC Was actually way over its skis and had to change the laws. And Congress has a tremendous amount of control. So why do you think that we're not seeing that conversation going on right now?

[Shane Goldnacher]

I mean, I don't think that the action you saw yesterday from Trump is about a specific set of policies. Right. It is about a sense of control, a framing of a conversation around power and policing, and it's an exertion of power. I mean, I think that a lot of these things are about showing his support.

[Jessica Tarlov]

It's a show of force.

[Shane Goldnacher]

Yeah, it's a show of force. And I think that, you know, there are places where Democrats and Republicans can come together, frankly, on some of these issues. You just mentioned one about some juvenile justice issues, but that wasn't the sort of tone. Right. Like, if you wanted to work together with the city of D.C. you would have been more collaborative up front and in advance and given them warning. Right. This was a, you know, there was reactions to, you know, some violence against a person who'd worked for Elon Musk that Trump had posted about and Musk had posted about. Right. This is a reaction to things and an exertion of power more than a specific set of policies. There are people around the president and around Republican politics who do have specific policies in mind and outcomes that are policy oriented. But I think this is him saying, I can take control here. I want to show that I'm taking control. So much of Trump's, you know, for six, seven months almost now has been about action, giving his supporters a sense of action, giving people who didn't like him a sense of action and saying, oh, you are really on the defensive. And I think it's just. I think it's. It's important to think of this as a continuation of that. I think, you know, there are two parts to this. Right. The first part is he's taking over the police of D.C. for a month, well within the formal powers, even if it is, in fact, unprecedented. The other thing he is doing is activating the National Guard and activating a slew of other federal law enforcement officials and saying, you, too, are gonna be part of this. And I think of that as different. I think you can think of a bunch of examples where Trump has taken the National Guard or other armed forces and brought them into the political fray. You have it at the border, certainly you had it in Los Angeles. Probably most strikingly, you had the parade. I think a lot about trust and voters trust in our political system. One of the last remaining institutions that have the trust across partisan lines has been the military. And it is a slow creeping that instead of 99% of the country, 85% of the country seeing troops and thinking positively of them, they're going to be seen less positively. If you're in a blue state and these troops are being sent against your wishes to impose a policy that you don't support, I don't think that's a reaction that's going to happen quickly. But we've watched the erosion of trust in the media, where I work in almost every institution. Churches, media, schools, universities. Right. All of these things are eroding trust. And the military has been one of the last places where that's not happened quite as severely. And I do see each of these steps in totality, adding to a real strain on the left's trust of the military.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. The term for what happened in Los Angeles that was batted around, that there was an occupation, essentially, and. And an occupation where they were doing nothing. I mean, there were thousands of troops that were just sitting around. They were forced to be sleeping and living in substandard conditions because there was. LA was not set up for those folks to be sent in. And I would imagine we may see a similar fate in D.C. i mean, the numbers are gonna be less so far, but how do you think it actually will look on the ground once everyone is there? Like last night, we saw there were some random stops outside of Howard University. I saw some footage from there, patrol cars. There were DEA agents walking along the National Mall, which is strange. I don't know how much crime is really occurring there, but how do you think it actually physically manifests whatever is to go on in the next 30 days?

[Shane Goldnacher]

That's a really good question, and I really have no idea. I mean, I lived in D.C. for a number of years, and because there's so many different government agencies, there are often people who are. Who are, you know, armed services of various branches doing things and patrolling the city for some different purposes. They're not patrolling the city in that sense, but you see them out and about at various moments. So, you know, will 800 people feel or look different? I don't, frankly, know. You know, if. If you take 800 National Guard troops and you take people from a bunch of other agencies and you have DEA and FBI, there could be something different. But it really. We're in uncharted waters here. Right. They've taken over the police force. It's important to note that these. These are trained professionals, but not trained for these jobs. Right. It's a different set of training. And so if you're a National Guardsman, I don't believe you have arresting authority.

[Jessica Tarlov]

And so, no, they have to call the local police. They can essentially detain you, and then they call in for backup. And Trump even admitted that there were technically enough cops on the street that should be able to be executing the job to get it to the point where when he rolls around, he feels like it looks like a nice TV set versus a graffiti LA homeless problem.

[Shane Goldnacher]

But I think that that's. That. That Graffiti laden homeless problem, I feel like, is a big part of it. Right. He brought this stuff up repeatedly. It wasn't just the violent crime, it's the visual crimes. Right. The things that make you think you're less safe or that you think look dirty. You know, the line to me, I mean, I said this earlier, but the kitchen thing was just so fascinating about a restaurant. This is the psyche that he has about it doesn't look good. We want to make the Capitol look good so people trust our country, so people feel better about our country. It's a visual thing. And can you make changes on the visuals in 30 days? You probably can. You probably aren't going to substantively change the crime dynamics of a city. If you have a short term, potentially something changes. But like, these things go up and down. And as we heard from all the people in D.C. crime is at a low. It has been going down. And so, yeah, I think it really is an open question of what this will end up actually looking like in the streets of D.C. in the. In the coming weeks.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, it's. I mean, he's a visual person, he's a TV person, and he knows what looks good. And we've seen liberal leaders clean up in advance of big events. Like Gavin Newsom cleaned up San Francisco pretty well in advance of the China summit that took place. Was that two years ago now. But he's making a crime case, and it's about, you know, started well years ago, but the attack on Big Balls, which is what he's the nickname he's called the Doge employee, was really the catalyst for moving forward with this. But it's interesting to me that this is both the crime issue and also these quality of life issues, which is where the homeless conversation comes into play. And the administration has said we're just gonna get them all out. And that's something that we've heard for here in New York City and in Chicago. And people have suggested a wide range of solutions, like, you know, putting more people in mental institutions, which frankly, has a decent amount of bipartisan support, that there are a lot of people who need mental health help and are on our streets to shipping them elsewhere. I don't really even know what that means, because they might be homeless, but this is still their home. Right. It doesn't mean that you can send them to rural Wisconsin, but you do so much work and in talking to voters and kind of reading the pulse of what's going on electorally. And I do think that the argument that Democrats have failed to Take good care of these blue cities, which are the crown jewels of the country in a lot of ways, is very salient with voters and that they would listen to Donald Trump say, you can't have homeless encampments all over the place. You can't have open air drug markets. You can't have your kids walking by, you know, prostitution, or we shouldn't have graffiti on the walls there. And that, that resonates.

[Shane Goldnacher]

Yeah. I mean, I think everything you just said are 80, 20 issues, right? 80% of people feel that way. And so if you're a politician, and I think this is maybe, you know, example of, of Trump's sort of instincts is take the 80, right? Like, you know, say like, we don't want open air drug markets. Okay? Nobody really wants open air drug markets. But then act like you're the person solving the problem. I mean, this is one of those things where you can pick all of those topics and say, yes, okay, Democrats have failed in this place. He's going to say the Democrats have failed. Whether there's improvements or not, people are still unhappy with the state of cities and homelessness and cities all across the country. And so it is one of the challenges, I think, for Democrats as they think about how to present a face for their own party into the future. How do you solve those problems and do it in a way that matches sort of your progressive ideals and not see the topic of being against rampant homelessness. Right. Like, you can't be the party that is comfortable with people living on the street because that's not popular. Right. So you can be the party of getting folks services, you can get folks into housing, you can do things that are policing. But you don't want to be the party that is just for people living on the streets because again, you don't want to take the 20 in general of an 8020 issue and be successful politically.

[Jessica Tarlov]

No, absolutely not. I was talking to Congressman Richie Torres who's saying how hard it was to get an open air drug market in the South Bronx closed because there were all of these. I don't know if stakeholders is even the right term to use for this, but the people who were opposing the move to just shut it down, eventually they did. And guess what? His constituents are thrilled because there isn't a drug market that's open there. And it kind of boggles the mind of, I think, any sane Democrat to see these kinds of forces. And it's not about, you know, being unkind or saying, like, to your point, we want people to get the treatment that they need, but you wouldn't send your kid through there. And then you get into this whole NIMBY debate. Right.

[Shane Goldnacher]

I mean, the successful politicians show the voters they care about the issues they care about. Right. Chiefly that's been the economy. But for cities it can also be homelessness. It can be affordability as a cause of homelessness. Right. You can tackle some root causes along the way. You know, San Francisco is a city where the former mayor was ousted last year and was replaced by Daniel Lurie, who has been, you know, on his own, not nearly as viral, but his own sort of social media campaign to show that he cares about the places that have been some of the worst parts of of the city. And he goes, and he's not saying things are perfect, but he's showing people that he cares. And I do think that telling constituents that you care about the issues that matter most to them is the most obvious thing in politics, but it's often a forgotten thing.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, I love his videos on the trolleys. I think he has such a neck. Yeah, it's great. You can go to Union Square and say there's still problematic here, but retail is coming back and I feel safe walking around here and you should come down and do some shopping. I want to ask you, it's kind of a wrap up about this. So Democrats immediately, and I was part of this, so maybe I should Maya Culpa a little bit like, I think that Donald Trump is freaking out about the Epstein files to a level that we don't even really understand, or that the words in the English language can't even meet the moment of how panicked they are about this. And it's multiple people in his administration who have staked their reputations on this issue, which is obviously about, you know, a pedophile and sex trafficking, but also about transparency and this idea that we're on your side. Right. We're not on the side of the cabal of elites that fly around on private jets to go to islands and hang out with 13 year old girls. And so I think that that's a major issue. And I think as well, you know, Donald Trump's authoritarian streak is important to continually bring into the consciousness. And like I said, there are ways to work with Muriel Bowser and the police chief to make sure that you can clean up DC or get to your end result without sending in federal troops. But he wants to do that because he wants to be, you know, a sheriff essentially. But we've seen over the years that making the argument that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, is not resonant, really, that people have moved past it, they've made their decision about him. And a lot of the folks who didn't vote for him in 2020 turned around and voted for him in 2024. So could you talk a little bit about how salient you think those kinds of arguments against Trump and the Trump administration actually are? Or are we just really in a full, like, bread and butter, kitchen table issues, political moment?

[Shane Goldnacher]

I think that they are important issues, but they're often not front of mind for folks. And I think you could even think about the conversation we've just had about and taking over the police and not talking about one of the most violent episodes in recent years in D.C. which was the storming of the Capitol, where Trump could have sent in National Guards.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yes, apparently he does have that power. Who knew?

[Shane Goldnacher]

Yes, it certainly does have that power. And so, you know, that was a. This sort of. It felt like a searing moment that you wouldn't forget. And here we are talking about this for a few minutes, and it hasn't come up right away. Right. As we've talked about federal authority in D.C. i think it is a. A potential. You know, I think something else we're talking about is redistricting. I think that people don't like to feel like their democratic powers are being taken away from them, their right to express their vote. And I think that that's a real concern that voters do have, but I don't think it's the first concern. Right. If you are concerned about the state of American democracy, then you probably have enough food for you and your kids. Right. You're probably not concerned about whether you're going to pay your rent the next month. And if you look at the economic statistics, a lot of Americans have real concerns about if they missed a paycheck, if they could pay their bills. And so until that problem is solved, it's part of the conversation, but I don't think it is the centerpiece. And that's why you don't see Democrats chiefly running on this all across the country. Right. It was part of the last campaign voters gave their verdict on that question. They said, we saw Trump as president, he didn't end our democracy in a first term. We don't believe he's gonna end our democracy in a second term. And he is back as president again. And so Democrats, it's a hard argument to make when you know that the voters have pretty soundly rejected it. I mean, it was a centerpiece of the 2024 campaign for Democrats, not the only piece, but it was a big piece, especially in the Joe Biden era. And so looking forward, I think the party's looking at other messages to put at the forefront, not to ignore these issues, but to not center them.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I think you're right. And I not bringing up January 6th, I realize how conditioned I am as well from working in media and especially conservative media because they just, they turn off completely. If you bring up January 6th, which seems like a pretty important historical event and something that says something very clear about Donald Trump and what he thinks about power and his control over truth and people's understanding of truth in this nation. And they just roll their eyes at you and they wanna move on to Hillary Clinton's emails. And it stuns me on a daily basis. And I'll go do it again this afternoon. But I will lead with January 6th because of that. All right, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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[Cam Hayward]

Support for this show comes from Pure Leaf iced tea. You know that point in the afternoon when you just hit a wall. You don't have time for self care rituals or getting some fresh air. So maybe you grab a beverage to bring you back, but somehow it doesn't do the trick or it leaves you feeling even worse. What you need is a quality break, a tea break. And you can do that with pure leaf iced tea. Real brewed tea made in a variety of bold and refreshing flavors with just the right amount of naturally occurring caffeine. With a Pure Leaf iced tea in hand, you'll be left feeling refreshed and revitalized with a new motivation to take on what's next. The next time you need to hit the reset button, grab a pure Leaf iced tea. Time for a tea break. Time for a pure leaf.

[Shane Goldnacher]

My name is Sean Ramaswooram for today explained. I'm outside the Air and Space museum in Washington, D.C. with one question. Do you think we should go to Mars? I don't think you should live in Mars, no. I don't know why. Just Mars.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I think as earthlings, we are a.

[Shane Goldnacher]

Nosy group of people and I really.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Don'T think that we have any business going to Mars. Our knowledge about the solar system and the universe will grow substantially. I think maybe we should just leave Mars alone, just sit with Earth like.

[Shane Goldnacher]

So many innovations are going to come out of it because so many different companies are going to be fighting to get, you know, that first ticket to Mars. So I feel, I feel like we should, but at the same time, we should solve some problems here first.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I think we need to expand what we, what we know, what we see.

[Shane Goldnacher]

Honestly, for our own benefit.

[Jessica Tarlov]

We should go way beyond today.

[Shane Goldnacher]

Explained from Vox is taking a summer sojourn on Mars. Join us.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Welcome back. Shane just mentioned this. The redistricting war and I want to get into it more in depth. Texas lawmakers are still locked in a high stakes game of political chicken for the second week. House Democrats remain out of the state to block a GOP redistricting plan that could hand Republicans up to five U.S. seats in 2026. Governor Greg Abbott says he'll keep calling special sessions and arrest Democrats if they come back. The fines are piling up, lawsuits are flying, and blue states like California are threatening to redraw their own maps in retaliation. Shane, you on the Daily last week about what's going on with the redistricting wars. What is the latest?

[Shane Goldnacher]

I mean, the latest is it's just expanding state by state. You know, we've written about the idea that the Trump team is pushing this and Texas is not the end game. It is the beginning of the game. There are a slew of Republican states that are at various states along the process. You have Texas, where they're talking about potentially five seats. You have Ohio, which has to redraw its maps already and hoping to carve out one or two seats. They're talking about Missouri a seat, Indiana a seat, and now Florida, where Ron DeSantis is and the attorney general there who's DeSantis's former chief of staff, are talking about tearing up the map there and carving out even more seats. And you have the Democrats talking about retaliating. But the complexity of this issue in blue states where Democrats have adopted commissions, nonpartisan commissions to draw these lines makes it harder for them to gerrymander these districts back this at the same ease and speed with what Republicans are threatening to do. Even if Texas Democrats have fled the state and stopped them for now, most folks don't think that the Democratic lawmakers in Texas are going to stay out of their state forever if Greg Abbott continues to call special session after special session.

[Jessica Tarlov]

So the idea of them making it to December. So I think that's, that's kind of the drop date, right. Where the map has to be finalized. And so if they can stay out until December, then they can avoid this.

[Shane Goldnacher]

I mean, my view of when things have to be finalized is always a little bit loose. Right. Deadlines aren't really deadlines because there's always another deadline. Right. Texas has some of the earliest, usually I think the earliest primaries in the country at the beginning of March sort of kicks off the national primary season. Well, they could move it back if they wanted to. Right. Like if they're changing all the laws, what if they move their primaries to September, which is when, like New Hampshire tends to have their primaries, that's six more months. So, yes, I think that December is one of the current drop dead dates. Again, these are legislators who have families and who are left, have left the state, who are and have other jobs and have other jobs, 500 fines. Right. I mean, so it is logistically complicated to stay out. And but I think the hope, frankly, and I think they've been successful in this, which is draw national attention and draw blue states into a fight and say, hey, maybe Republicans don't want to do this in Texas because California Democrats are going to retaliate and it's going to wipe it off. And maybe we all just back away from the table and put away our weapons for drawing voters out of having a say in their own congressional membership, their own congressional representation. That doesn't look like what's happening. Right. Republicans aren't backing away because California is threatening to retaliate. And we can get into some of the specifics of California and why they could in some ways draw even more seats for the Democratic Party. But it is a much more complicated process. But there is no sign of Republicans backing away in Texas. The attorney general is trying to get some of these lawmakers thrown out of the legislature entirely, basically saying they're derelict of duty. And so for now, Texas is at a standstill, but other states are advancing and advancing pretty quickly. And this really does look like increasingly these congressional districts are going to be drawn for maximal party partisan gain and not for, like, what makes sense for a community or a district that might be able to flip if the president or the leadership of either party is unpopular.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. It's the YOLO approach. Right. Is always the Trumpian take on politics. I want it and I want it now. Right. Baruch assault of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I would like to talk about California a little bit. I know that you covered the Schwarzenegger administration in Sacramento. He is out talking about this, has released a statement, big proponent of the independent commission approach, which they have in California and also in New York. And I don't think Kathy Hochul will be able. She's talking a very big game. And I don't know if you saw the recent polling, but has boosted her popularity double digits. And she seemed to be in a lot of trouble. And we were all saying, like, oh, you know, is Richie Torres gonna run? Like, does Delgado have a chance? And Kathy's keeping it together at this point. But yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about what California could actually accomplish? I know that there's a Republican lawmaker. It's Kylie. Right. Kevin Kiley. Who?

[Shane Goldnacher]

Kevin Kiley.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. Has a proposal that he thinks Mike Johnson is going to take up, which is utterly ludicrous to say that we should actually do this, this the fair way, because everyone is just in this gunfight essentially at this point. But be a little nitty gritty with me about California.

[Shane Goldnacher]

Sure. So California has 52 congressional seats, and right now Republicans, I believe, have nine of those seats. And the Democrats are looking at a map that can wipe five of them out, just as the same number potentially level with Texas, just as to level Texas. But the reason why I say it could do more is not only would they take those seats, they potentially take four incumbent Democrats who are in swing districts. These are some of the most contested races in the country. And shore up a handful of Democratic seats, too. Maybe four more Democratic seats. The maps have not even been shared with the lawmakers. These have been sort of people have been briefed on what these maps look like and people have described them to me. But you're looking at a potential eight seats, nine seats that move solidly in the more Democratic direction. So that's the sort of quote, unquote, good news for Democrats who are trying to match Texas, they can even get more. They're shoring up vulnerable incumbents. Republicans don't have any vulnerable members in Texas to shore up. They're just drawing new seats. The challenge is that the legislature and the governor can't just pass a law and sign this because as you mentioned, Arnold Schwarzenegger campaigned for and got the voters of California to rewrite its constitution to allow only a nonpartisan commission to draw these maps. And so what Newsom is talking about is getting the legislature to pass a constitutional amendment with maps tied to it and ask the voters for a one time dispensation. Please, please vote for this, adopt these new maps temporarily. This new commission goes back into Place in 2030. This is just gonna respond to Trump and the Texas Republicans. Voters might get into their partisan camps in California on a ballot measure and the Democrats put on their blue jerseys and they might pass a ballot measure like that. But if you are telling voters you need to go vote for gerrymandered mats instead of a nonpartisan commission, that's a tricky proposition. You add in if Arnold Schwarzenegger starts running ads or being featured in ads, he's improved his standing among independents in the years since he left the governor's office. Right? He became a, a Trump, Trump skeptic, a Trump critic. He doesn't look like a partisan Republican here. He would be saying, this is a thing I care about as a statesman, as your former governor. And then you talk about the number of seats there. Five Republican seats could get basically wiped off and four Democratic seats could be bolstered. An expensive congressional race costs 10, 20, $30 million. The size of the budget that the Republicans could spend to torpedo this ballot measurement could be really enormous. And big, big money on California moves voters. I covered California politics for years. If you want to win a big campaign in California, you need a big check. And Trump's political operation is sitting on a lot of money. And Republican donors know that losing all of those seats. It would be better to spend a huge amount of money trying to win this ballot measure than not even be able to compete in a number of seats over three election cycles.

[Jessica Tarlov]

That's so interesting. You know, ethically speaking, I wish none of this was happening at all, right? And frankly, that none of some of the behavior that regularly happens, even after the census, and this is extraordinary circumstances to be doing it mid cycle and at the behest of a president that has also asked for someone to find him 11,000 votes when things are going the wrong way in Georgia. But how effective of a messenger do you think Governor Pritzker is on this? For instance? He was, you know, all over the Sunday shows. And the Illinois map looks terrible. Right? It's severely gerrymandered.

[Shane Goldnacher]

It's a total partisan gerrymander.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Right, Exactly. And, you know, I kind of feel like you should be fighting fire with fire and that we Democrats have spent too long letting Mitch McConnell or whoever you know, push us around, and that when you have the opportun opportunity to do that, you should. Is it ideal to do it the way Massachusetts did, where you had a GOP governor that signed off on a bipartisan commission plan? And, you know, Donald Trump's railing about how there are no seats, Republican seats in Massachusetts, but it was Republicans that signed off on it. That is not the case in Illinois. And so who do you think is winning the messaging battle about the redistricting? Or does that not even matter because it's just about seats and everyone's gotta be cutthroat and get as many as possible?

[Shane Goldnacher]

I mean, I think that just in order a couple of those things. Yes, JB Pritzker is not an ideal messenger because Illinois is a partisan gerrymander. Now, his defense is we followed the law, which is to say they did it once a decade. And that's true, but that doesn't make a difference for voters who saw competitive seats wiped off the map. I do think that this fight has really helped position Gavin Newsom politically and frankly, other Democrats. And Kathy Hochul is an example as well. You know, I've been spending a lot of my time this year covering Democrats and this sort of attempt to rebuild and what does the party need to do next? And there's been a lot of talk and a lot of navel gazing and a lot of frustration that the party is powerless. This is a thing that the party is proactively talking about doing right. Cory Booker got a huge amount of praise for giving a long speech that didn't have a specific outcome other than that he showed that he was in the fight. This is Gavin Newsom showing he's in the fight and actually doing something. And what I've heard from pollsters, people who do focus groups, and voters themselves is the party is craving someone who's actually fighting, not just talking about fighting. And this is a real rare moment where he is actually doing the fighting. And look, he may be doing the fighting on something that ends up being unpopular. Right? Voters don't like the idea of politicians drawing their districts. This isn't a popular concept across the country. But you saw the same thing you mentioned about Kathy Hochul and her polling numbers. Right. She is showing gumption and fight and a willingness to engage. That voters are just Democratic voters are desperate to see from their leaders. They see Trump and they see all those exertions of power that we were talking about, and they see Democrats looking feckless and unwilling to engage. And so in all of these cases, you see these political leaders taking the opportunity to show fight. And I think in Newsom's case in particular, to actually deliver something, potentially now it's risky, there could be backlash, but as a political moment, he's doing something, he's not just talking about something. And this is a party desperate for more doing.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. And he's been able to, with his approach, to get folks that are really against partisan gerrymandering, like even Eric Holder has come out and said that he's supportive of it the way that Newsom is proposing it, because it only exists for a couple of years. Right. And then you will go back to normal. But if we don't treat the Trump era as the aberration that it is, we are doomed to fail and then pay the consequences for decades afterwards once there are all of these extra GOP safe districts. And I mean, we've seen how much they've accomplished with just a three seat majority. I mean, Mike Johnson, and I add, you know, know, I've said that I, I think Mike Johnson has been very successful and I've gotten very respectful pushback from a number of elected Democrats. You know, Jared Mosque was like, well, this is the laziest Congress in American history. We've basically passed nothing. And my point was, well, you pass the stuff that matters. Right. There's very little that Donald Trump could say I wanted and I didn't get. And isn't that the mark in the modern GOP of what success actually looks like?

[Shane Goldnacher]

I mean, Mike Johnson has been successful by ceding his authority to the White House. Right. Like the Congress used to be a separate branch with its own set of prerogatives and priorities. And he has deferred to Donald Trump and that has allowed him to pass legislation with votes from people who had not voted for such legislation before. So, yeah, I mean, in that regard, there's one number in the Congress that matters. There's 218. Can you get 218 votes on anything? And Mike Johnson has been able to get 218 votes because he is deferred to Donald Trump. So has he been effective? That, yes. Is he a powerful Speaker? Absolutely not. Right. Because power is having your own set of priorities. You're pushing. And I couldn't identify his priorities separate from the Trump administration's priorities. And that's intentional that they've made that. I want to go back to one thing you said about Eric Holder and whether this just reverts in a few years with Newsom. I mean, I think the challenge here is that I don't know that anybody thinks that any of this stuff gets unrung. Right. Once you ring the bell that everyone is going to remap everywhere, you end up, everybody's got a gun pointing to each other all across the country and nobody's going to holster. You're not going to get 50 states holstering simultaneously unless there's a federal law. And Democrats had tried to do that and they were unable to pass such a measure. So I don't think that we are looking at this sort of being unwound quickly. And while, you know, I cover national politics and I'm really focused on control of Congress where these really narrow margins, this is why these districts potentially matter. Right. The Congress has been controlled by just a handful of seats. But there are other factors here, not just for Congress, but state legislative seats that are drawn where there is no counterbalance, where there's not a blue state to counteract a Texas remap at the state legislature level. Just one party can exert total control and wipe the other party out of control in a state with no other recourse. And so, you know, I do think that there's some small d Democratic concern about redistricting at the state legislature level, where if you're Texas and you decide to make the Democrats a permanent minority, there is no countervailing force. There is no California inside Texas. So blue states and red states could have this arms race and basically wipe out minority parties within state legislatures all across the country.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Depressing. All small d democracy conversations are depressing these days. But we are going to soldier on and talk about the midterms. So we're going to take a quick break. Stay with us, amigos. Vivimos parofres paquetes de huelo. Yo tel pormenos expedia. Vivimos paraviajar.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Hey, what's good, everybody? It's Cam Hayward, seven time Pro Bowler and defensive captain of the Pittsburgh Steelers and your host of Not Just Football. The NFL season is right around the corner and that means it's time to get locked in on our show, Not Just Football with Cam Hayward. We're bringing you everything you need to know about the the upcoming season. We've got some incredible guests lined up, former teammates, current players and legends of the game. We'll give you insights you won't hear anywhere else. We'll be here every week with game breakdowns, player spotlights, and all the stories that go beyond the box score. Because football is about more than just what happens on Sundays. So be sure to listen and subscribe to Not Just Football with cam Hayward on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. Let's get ready for another incredible NFL season.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Welcome back. Before we go Shane, you recently wrote about how the Democrats are heading into the 2026 midterms with a big push to recruit military veterans to run for Congress. It's a strategy that paid off in 2018. We had the camo wave. A lot of those stars are currently running for big positions like governor of Virginia and New Jersey. The idea is pretty simple. Veterans can often connect with voters who might otherwise lean Republican, especially in rural or swing districts. And their service record can help them sidestep some of the partisan baggage tied to the Democratic brand right now, which is like the heaviest baggage of all time. So Democrats had real success, as I said, with this approach. What's different about the political landscape in 2026 that might make this more or less effective? What's your read?

[Shane Goldnacher]

I mean, I think that it has been effective basically for most of this century. For Democrats, they did it in 2018 and they did it back in 2006, too, when Rahm Emanuel was at the DCCC and they recruited a wave of veterans, not just for the House, frankly, there were at other levels of governor and senator. The reason the Democratic Party keeps returning to this strategy is something you just said, which is people start to make presumptions about what a Democrat is and looks like, and they make different sets of presumptions around military veterans. And that allows you maybe if you're knocking on doors, a little extra time to make your case. If you're running a TV ad, it allows people to see you not just as a Democrat, but something more. Look, military veterans are not guaranteed to win these races. I could give you a whole laundry list. And Republicans certainly have. As a I've written this story of big spending Democrats who got the party all excited were veterans. Amy McGrath comes to mind, who ended up losing.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I literally was going to say, how much money did I give to Amy McGrath thinking that she was the solution.

[Shane Goldnacher]

Right. I mean, so you know, at the same time, it's hard to run in a Trump area if you're a Democrat and B, what is the brand you want to affiliate yourself with? Right. Most people are not going to run. I'm a Joe Biden Democrat anymore. People are not going to run and say, I'm a Kamala Harris Democrat in these districts. These are districts that she lost. And the Republican Party and the Republican sort of conservative media are going to call everyone an AOC Democrat. Right? And so how do you carve out your own brand when you're running for Congress for the first time? You don't have a party brand. You don't have probably a voting record. Maybe you worked in the legislature, and voters aren't paying super close attention. So what can you do to. To get yourself in the door and have a chance and say this is a tactic that the party has turned to over and over. And look at this point, I think, and there's literally more candidates since when I wrote that story, I think we're at like 10 or 11 of the most competitive seats that the Democrats have a military veteran running now. Some of them have to clear their primary first. That's a huge portion of the House battleground map to have a military veteran. It shows you the degree to which they think this is a chance to widen the playing field. Those are the most competitive. Then there's the reach areas, right? The places that you probably aren't going to win. But like maybe in a year that, you know, if the tariffs go poorly and voters are unhappy about the state of the economy and Trump is overreached and there's a backlash we just talked about, right? Republicans in Congress have not pushed back against Trump on almost anything, if you want to check. Maybe they reach into even redder areas and maybe that veteran helps you put those seats into play. So that's definitely part of the strategy. But I think when I think about this, I think there's two parts of the Democratic Party's future that I think about differently. Part one is how is the party looking in 2026? The answer is probably pretty good by almost every historic measurement, right? Trump's popularity is going down. And his popularity moves in a pretty small bandwidth because Republicans have continuously liked him. But on some other key metrics, his popularity is down on the economy. He is less trusted on the economy today than he has been. That has been one of his superpowers since he was the host of the Apprentice. The presumption of voters was he was a smart, decisive businessman who knew the economy. And people are less confident in him on that issue, which is probably the most important issue last year. And so 2026 looks like it's moving in the Democratic direction. These veterans could help. Help. The longer term project of the Democratic Party feels very different, which is, you know, if you did an open ended word cloud poll of voters, what do you think about the Democratic Party? And pollsters do this, the words don't look good. Right. Like the words you get back, they are not positive words. People don't like Trump, they might not like all the power he has. They might want to put a check on it. But when you're thinking about longer term, the next presidential election, you need to have of something that people are buying into. And yes, that will come with a particular candidate, but you don't want the brand itself to be a hindrance. You want the brand to be helping. Right. The average Republican in Congress today chooses to run as a MAGA Trump Republican because that is not hurting their chances to win. The average Democrat in a competitive House district is not trying to run as are one of the million Democrat, because running as a run of the mill Democrat is not currently a path to victory in most of those seats.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, I'm definitely noticing that. Even the conversations that I'm having, like I had Mallory McMurraw on the podcast last week and one of the first things she said was Chuck Schumer's gotta go. Right. And that has had a huge impact on our campaign. You know, she's fundraising like crazy and Haley Stevens, who she is running against, feels more establishment. Yeah. And I don't know how the race shakes out, but you can see that candidates are trying to carve out space for themselves to run against the party when it's convenient. And Nancy Pelosi was an utter queen in so many ways, but she was great about this where she always said, you know, if you need to call me the devil, call me the devil. If you need to call me and you want me to come campaign with you, I'm there. And it doesn't, it doesn't feel like folks have that kind of freedom, I guess anymore. Like it's, it's almost like we're just scratching the surface of the reputational problem. And people obviously have gestured towards issues that we've had and there's a media problem and there's a connectivity problem, and there's in some cases a patriotism problem, but mostly there's, there's an effectiveness problem. And this goes back to all the conversations that we've had. Right. About what Trump is trying to do in D.C. and Blue State governance, even in the question about what we're going to do in the redistricting wars, like, how are you going to get shit done? Because that's all that Americans want at this point. And in your conversations, are you feeling that folks that are running or who are already in elected office as Democrats are understanding this moment in that sense.

[Shane Goldnacher]

I think it's a mixed bag. I don't think that there's a full understanding. And I think there are different approaches on what they want to get done. And I think that a lot of the fight right now look, because there is so little power that Democrats are holding right now, it's created a real vacuum. And so what I think you see right now is these sort of early skirmishes to fill that void and show that that different ideologies or different approaches are actually going to be the way to go. I think that Bernie Sanders Stop the Oligarchy tour has been important. He has showed that his message is still able to get a huge crowd all across the country. If you. Look, I've covered campaign finance stuff for a long time. If you look at the most recent first six months of the year, ActBlue, which processes most of your past donations to Amy McGrath, I presume most of the online donations, just the number of actual contributions to AOC was about the same as the dccc, which is a huge staff of people, which is a national party arm raising money for House members. All across the country. People are on the left excited to give to aoc. People across the spectrum are showing up at these Bernie Sanders and some of them with AOC rallies. On the other hand, you have have moderates trying to reassert themselves and say, that's great, but like, those campaigns and those messages don't work in red states and you will never have a majority without us. And so there's a lot of fighting. Fighting is maybe not even the right word. It's like positioning. There's a lot of positioning to say, you know, one of these things is great. We want the energy that Bernie Sanders getting, but, like, we don't want the positions he is taking if they're going to cost us in particular races. And this is a big fight that's happening. Less about the midterms, although there are a bunch of Democratic primaries. Michigan is one, Minnesota is another. There's going to be a big primary in Iowa and Texas for Senate races. These are more Democratic primaries than we've had big open Democratic primaries in big states in recent years. But I think that this is all this Is all like the appetizer to an open primary for 2028. We now know Kamala Harris isn't running for governor. It seems less likely that she's going to run for president again. That's as wide open a race as we've really had in a very, very long time without a clear front runner, without even a clear front pack. If you had to say, here are the top four, that's a tricky thing to do. We don't know yet. And so that's the fight that's going to define the party of the future. But a lot of this is happening now is sort of set the stage for what the table looks like when people get there.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, I want to talk about 2028 a little bit, but I won't go back first to what you were saying about AOC and the battle with the moderates. I think folks like Pat Ryan have done a very good job of straddling all the areas or the factions within the party. You know, an ally of aoc, also, a moderate himself and a veteran, which, to go back to your initial point, helps a lot. But I think Mom Donnie is going to be a huge reputational factor, at least for the party for the next year, year and a half. My expectation is that he's going to win the mayoralty in November. And you've seen moderate representative Democratic representatives like Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen running away from him. He doesn't have all the endorsements that you would expect someone who won the primary so handedly to have. Can you talk a little bit about what you see the Mamdani effect being on the party?

[Shane Goldnacher]

Yeah, I mean, I think that he won that primary. And, you know, there's been a lot of stories and reporting and, like, essays around, like, he won for this one reason. I think it's pretty clear he did not win for one reason. Right. He won for a confluence of reasons. His ideology was an important part of it, and one that probably wouldn't work in other parts of the country, but does work in New York City. But he also won because he was relentlessly focused on the things that voters care about in New York and probably most country, which is. It's expensive. Right, right. Like, if you were any New Yorker is aware of the price of living in New York, and that was the overwhelming focus of his campaign. And yes, he made good social media. Yes, he is sort of an appealing, charming, charismatic figure. Right. That works all across the country. You know, charming, charismatic, focused on what voters care about. Turns out that that's a really good formula, regardless of what the specifics you're standing for. I don't usually think that a single local office will come to define the party nationally. I think it's hard to. To take one person and say, yes, Democrats all across the country, especially if it's a mayor, are going to be identified with this person. I think it'll have spillover. And I think the two examples you gave are in the New York media market, hopefully. Right. Like Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen, they get New York media coverage. Those are the people who are going to be likeliest to be affected. But there are other people who in November who win, who also, if they do win, will be faces for the Democratic Party going forward, which is the Abigail Spanbergers and the Mikey Sherrills who are running for governor of Virginia and New Jersey. And again, talking about that skirmish, which side gets to claim the future in the face of the party. Right. What do those races look like? It's possible that Spanberger wins comfortably. Right. There's been a lot of Democratic conversations trying to knock Tampa up enthusiasm, but people feel very comfortable and confident about that race right now. If she has a very big win in a state that was, you know, this century a battleground state, it's become a bluer state. But it is a state that has a Republican governor. She flips that governorship by a wide margin, it's possible she becomes a really big part of the conversation. And she was an important part of the conversation about the party's left lurch during the Biden years. She was trying to yank the party back to the center. She's not a hidden centrist. She's pretty unabashed about it. Right. So I think Mamdani is someone that Republicans will absolutely campaign against, but they're gonna. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party, Democrat is basically only campaigning against Trump for like a decade at this point. Republicans have switched. Right. There was a brief moment I remember campaigning. I remember being on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania where all of the Republican voters at Trump events were talking about Ilhan Omar. She was the centerpiece of the Republican sort of message machine. It's possible Zoran Mamdani becomes that, but if he doesn't, somebody else will be. And I'm not sure that he is the single best person to define the Democratic Party or if he's more effective than using AOC as that foil for the right.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I'm curious. So you said you Know, historically speaking, it should be pretty good for Democrats, barring, I guess, that Republicans redraw all the maps and they suddenly have 10 new seats, but they only have a three seat majority right now. What races are you paying particular attention to as potential Democratic pickups? I mean, I'm definitely tracking the Medicaid recipient numbers in all of these districts, like David Valadajo out in California, Mike Lawler here also in New York, who seems to be putting his foot in it left, right and center. What races are you watching closely?

[Shane Goldnacher]

I mean, you mentioned the Democrats would only have to flip three House seats to take the majority before any of these gerrymanderings. The Senate is actually harder, which is crazy. They actually have to flip four Senate seats to win the majority. So I've been tracking the efforts for the Democrats to like expand that map to give themselves possibilities because on its face, it is not a good map for Democrats in the Senate. But they have been working very aggressively to find new places to conceivably compete in. There's been an aggressive push by Chuck Schumer to recruit Sherrod Brown to run in Ohio. Again, whether he can win. That was the most expensive Senate race in the country. That would be a huge suck of resources. Texas, which has become the sort of center of the political universe.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I know, I just.

[Shane Goldnacher]

It's like, it is. It's a state where the Democrats have. I think the Democrats are unlikely to.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Invest so much money. Well, mostly to Beto o', Rourke, like for anything that he says that he's going to do. And I love Colin Allred and it seems like James Talarico is going to get in though. Allred, I don't know if he feels more like the pulse of where Texas is, but anyway. Can these guys actually be defeated?

[Shane Goldnacher]

Well, I would.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I guess it matters who's on the Republican side. If it's Cornyn or Paxton.

[Shane Goldnacher]

I think about Ohio and Texas, not as terrific Democratic pickup opportunities, but money holes for a Republican Party. If Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee in Texas and Sherrod Brown is the Democratic nominee in Ohio. Ohio, you're talking about Republicans looking at probably having to spend $500 million between those two states. That could allow Democrats to try to reach in some smaller places that are a little less expensive. Look, it's very hard to flip four seats for the Senate, period. There is only one Republican senator in a state that Democrats have won, which is Susan Collins. There's a second open seat in North Carolina, Roy Cooper, former governor, a Democrat, is running. Those are the two best pick up opportunities for Democrats 3 and 4 is like cuffed of sea. That's the landscape right now. But they are trying everything they can do to stretch the map for Republicans. And I have this sort of strange analogy that I have in my head. I'm not even sure I've said it out loud yet. So first for you, I think that.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Try it out.

[Shane Goldnacher]

Yeah, try it out. Let's just do it. Live. For years, I think Republicans had a media disadvantage. They had to work harder to get their story, they felt in the mainstream media. And so they had to be more creative about coming up with ways to get their story out. And I feel the same. And there was sort of a complacency for Democrats in getting their story out. At the same time, I actually feel like the Senate map is almost the same thing in reverse, which is the Senate map is so bad for Democrats year after year after year they have like a real creativity on like how are we possibly going to make this a thing that we can compete and even win in? And Republicans have this complacency because really they just have to win the red states and then that, that gets them to 50. And so I see you see cycle after cycle a real effort for Democrats to come up with interesting and different ways to like expand the map. But on the Republican side, you haven't seen that there's an occasional candidate, but you know, they're really the reach campaigns and some of the which are successful have mostly come from Democrats in these Senate races.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Quickly. And I know that you're deeply embedded on the Democratic side, but do you have any views on what the future of the Republican Party looks like in a, I'm not even gonna say potentially post Trump era? He's not allowed to run again. Let's say for the purposes of this conversation, he's not running again. But I was talking to Kellyanne Conway about it and she was pretty blunt. She said the Republican Party is Donald Trump. I don't know what it looks like. And he's openly said like he doesn't really even know about J.D. vance. Right. As the heir apparent to this, which seems strange since he's your vice president. But what's your feel about what Republican life looks like going forward?

[Shane Goldnacher]

Yeah, I mean, I think that I expect Trump to try to maintain his hold and control on the party as long as possible, which means not announcing who your successor is or anointing that person. Look, he is, Kellyanne Conway is correct. He is a singular figure not just in Washington, all across the country. Are state legislatures excited in all of these states to do these remappings? Not necessarily. There have been signs out of Missouri and Indiana that these state legislators, they don't necessarily want to do this. But guess what? If Donald Trump wants to do it and, you know, a single truth social post from him against all of your primary opponents, you know, there's a real willingness to listen, text all of these places. I mean, we have not seen a president with this much control over their own one party in a really long time. And I think it's important to think it's not just that the politicians are scared of Donald Trump. His power comes from voters, Republican voters like Donald Trump. Republican voters overwhelmingly picked him again in 2024. They were drawn even further into his camp with the indictments. Right. So until there's a break with the public, Trump's power is going to continue. And I agree. I don't know what a post Trump Republican Party looks like. It doesn't look like the old guard of the Republican Party, but whether it looks more like JD Vance or more like Marco Rubio, I think it still just looks like Donald Trump. Until Donald Trump isn't leading it, it's hard to see what it looks like after him because he's such a blot out the sun dominant figure.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. And then my real anxiety is that the kids take over and we have to pay homage to Don Jr. And Eric on that uplifting note. Shane, thank you so much for your time. It was great to have you.

[Shane Goldnacher]

Thanks for having me on.

[Jessica Tarlov]

All right, that's it for this episode. Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates. Our producers are David Toledo and Eric Jenikis. Our technical director is Drew Burrows. Going forward, you'll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday. Friday, subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds. This week, I'm talking to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. You won't want to miss it. Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode.