James Carville (3:27)

Well, our President seems to be doing very well. The country is not doing very well. And I don't see that changing here in the foreseeable future. When I say the President's doing very well, I didn't mean politically, I meant financially.

Joanna Coles (3:42)

Right. So he's very good at distracting us, isn't he? What should we actually be paying attention to here, James?

James Carville (3:50)

What we should be paying attention to is that he said on day one that he would get inflation, get rid of inflation, that the economy would boom, that we would get so tired with winning, our head would be spinning. And right now the dollar's losing its value. You can't imagine what the forecasts are coming up. I see the airlines are predicting much softer summer travel, Walmart, people like that are already issuing warnings. And so he obviously didn't deliver anything. I've only passed five pieces of legislation since the Republican Congress and he took over. So he keeps doing, doing things to distract our attention from what's really going on in the country, like I'm going to annex Greenland or I'm going to run for a third term. And he deflects us from what the real is. And that's the massive failure of his administration.

Joanna Coles (4:43)

So why hasn't there been more response to it yet? One thinks back to Trump 1, and there were protests in the street, there was the woman's march and now there seems to be crickets.

James Carville (4:55)

I don't note that all that his rating is going down precipitously. The action, the do something caucus, we can't just stand here. We must do what you don't have any power and whenever you go to people and, well, pound the podium or throw your hands in the air, what good is that going to do? We start, we right now start talking about alternatives to what they're doing what we would do, make them take bad votes. And by the way, I don't know how to tell the commentariat this. Democrats don't lose elections anymore.

Joanna Coles (5:33)

What does that mean?

James Carville (5:34)

Well, I don't know what it means. It means we're getting more votes than they are. I would never tell a certified bona fide member depressed that election returns are more important than polls, but I actually think they are.

Joanna Coles (5:47)

So, James, what do you think about AOC and Bernie Sanders oligarchy tour? Is that an effective response?

James Carville (5:55)

Let's deconstruct this.

Joanna Coles (5:56)

Okay? Okay.

James Carville (5:56)

People think when you ask them about the Democratic Party, they say they're old and they're coastal. All right? That's the image of the party.

Joanna Coles (6:05)

Well, and you've said that too. You've said that they're talking to Oberlin.

James Carville (6:09)

Professors, other people, focus group after focus group after piece of research, after everything. Trust me, when people say the Democratic Party, a huge number of them said they're old and they're urban. So I got a great idea. Let's send an 83 year old and a congressman from Queens out in the country. And by the way, they think that we're trying to talk over people's head and use language among each other. Let's try the word oligarchy. Who. 90% of people in the country have no idea what they're talking about. And that's the problem with Democrats particularly. The more identity, the more pronoun you get, the more you try to use language that no one else uses. So I'm not a big fan of the quote, oligarchy, unquote tour. And what good does it do? It just identifies you as an old urban party. To me, it's counterproductive.

Joanna Coles (7:09)

Okay, so you think it's counterproductive. If you were advising the Dems right now, what would you say they should be doing?

James Carville (7:17)

Well, first of all, timing. In politics, timing is everything. And so you anticipate timing. All right? And so, and you know what's coming. You, you know they're going to have this terrible vote coming up from. They'll probably have voted by the time.

Joanna Coles (7:32)

We do that for the big beach.

James Carville (7:34)

That's on the one part of the budget, then they got to go to another part, then they got reconciliation, then Senate, then they got the debt extension. So be prepared to at all times offer an alternative and point out where else adapt. The second thing is, timing is the Virginia governor's race. I can't tell you how important that is. Why is it so important. Well, it's going to tell a lot. It's going to affect recruiting going into 2026. All kind of candidates that, well, I don't know if I run, you know, can I win? If it turns out the way in Virginia that I'm starting to believe that it will, the Democrats are going to get a lot of better recruits. And it's a telltale election that accompanied with New Jersey, you're not going to post until November of 2026. The idea is not to win the summer, the idea is to win the election.

Joanna Coles (8:27)

Well, we hope you enjoyed your sneak peek of this week's episode. Don't forget, subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app. Just search the Daily Beast podcast, then tap to subscribe or click the link in our show notes below. See you soon.

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James Carville (10:31)

Hi.

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