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- [00:00]
Mike Pesca
It's Spring Black Friday at the Home Depot. So what are you working on? If you're sprucing up your lawn, you know there's no such thing as too much mulch, so don't miss this special. Buy five bags of Scott's EarthGrow mulch for only $10 at the home Depot. Promote healthier soil, prevent weeds, and beautify your yard with mulch that maintains its color for up to 12 months. Shop 14 days of deals during spring Black Friday, now through April 16 at the home Depot. Hey prime members, are you tired of ads interfering with your favorite podcasts? Good news. With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad free top podcasts included with your prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to Amazon.com ADFreePodcasts that's Amazon.com ADFreeP Podcasts to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Hello, just podcast listeners podcast an audio medium, but really I've been gearing up to make the big time. Yes, the Gist is now on Instagram. We started an Instagram page. It's a way to foment discoverability. I just always whenever I was doing my interviews I never realized that what I really wanted was to extract a one minute clip with subtitles and big block letters. But it's really cool and it's a really good way to help people find the show because people don't pass around audio, but they pass around video. And we're populating the Instagram feed. Please go to Peska Gist if you're on Instagram or join Instagram in order to go to Pesca gist. It's Monday, April 7, 2025 from peach fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Today wasn't another co tariff strophe in the markets, but it wasn't good. Not even as good as that pun. Things are not good. The way the administration conducted, implemented, explained and justified the tariffs are not good. Here's a very wise point from Bloomberg's Joe Wiesenthal, who is going to invest the additional marginal capital to build the economy that Trump wants to see. In other words, Trump is saying this is all in the service of reindustrializing America. Companies are going to onshore and invest. Which companies? The ones that just lost $6 trillion in value over two days? The ones whose internal guidance just greatly increased the chance of recession. This is the opposite of how to get investment. So that is a good point and one that uses the Phrase marginal capital going to go in a different direction here with a different set of points, one that uses the word penguin. CBS's Margaret Brennan with the question, like.
- [02:47]
Devin Archer
Why are the herd and McDonald Islands, which don't export to the United States and are quite, quite literally inhabited by penguins, why do they face a 10% tariffs?
- [02:58]
Mike Pesca
Did you use AI to generate this?
- [03:02]
Devin Archer
No, no.
- [03:03]
Mike Pesca
The idea, look, the idea is why.
- [03:05]
Devin Archer
Are they on the list left off?
- [03:07]
Mike Pesca
Because the idea what happens is if you leave anything off the list, the countries that try to basically arbitrage America go through those countries to U.S. commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick there, he's one of the members of the administration who at least tries to offer economic rationale for the irrational. The Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant, he's another one of those. Besson frequently seems tortured at having to say the things he has to say about tariffs. Lutnick, he's more a happy warrior, not averse to protectionism, kibitzing. On the other side, you have the country farmer slash culture warriors. All I know is God loves Trump type analysis. And the epitome of this insight stems from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. You're imposing a 10% tariff on the.
- [03:57]
Devin Archer
Herd and McDonald Islands. The Herd and McDonald Islands have zero human inhabitants.
- [04:02]
Mike Pesca
They have zero exports.
- [04:03]
Devin Archer
They have zero imports.
- [04:05]
Mike Pesca
They do have a lot of penguins.
- [04:06]
Devin Archer
Why are you putting import tariffs on islands that are entirely populated by penguins? Well, I mean that. Come on, Jake. Obviously here's the bottom line. We live under a tariff regime from other countries. We have too long.
- [04:26]
Mike Pesca
The McDonald Islands is not imposing idea.
- [04:29]
Devin Archer
That America goes first. I mean, come on. Whatever. Listen, the people that are leading this are serious, intentional, patriotic, the smartest people I've ever worked with. I did not come up with the formulas. I'm the AG Secretary. I studied agriculture at Texas A and.
- [04:45]
Mike Pesca
M. That was a worse answer, but probably a more accurate one. What Lutnick was saying, you got to put a tariff on everyone or else big countries will exploit territories as a pass through. That might make sense. Well, it does make sense, but it might be true. It's not true, but it might seem true if there are a whole lot of other territories where that was going on. But now this island paradise of penguins seems to be alone on the list of the uninhabited territories that made its way onto the tariff chart. Just seems like a goof. To which Rollins was right to answer. Yet whatever. I meet your question with a hearty whatever, which is, I guess the best we could hope for as we wait for whatever tomorrow's Tariff tribulations may bring on the show today the political predictions that I have as regarding tariffs and control of the House and Senate. But first, Devin Archer was a businessman partnered with Hunter Biden until their company Burisma, maybe you heard of it, began to make all the wrong kind of news. Archer was eventually subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee and gave testimony in which he said Hunter was selling the Biden brand. This greatly displeased the Biden family. A financial trial, a judge's not guilty decision, an appellate reversal of that decision, legal torment, and last week a Donald Trump presidential pardon. Later. And Devin Archer is here on the gist to tell all. This will be a two part interview, the most in depth interview ever with Devin Archer. And the first part is up next. You know how much we hate the middleman, but sometimes the middleman looks really good. I mean he looks sharp. If the middleman is wearing Quint's high quality travel essentials, you can't really begrudge him at least his sartorial style. I've been wearing quints for a while. I got some pants, I got a button down shirt, I got a sweater. I'm gonna get the shorts and shirt for the change of season. Now why I mention the middleman, this good looking middleman, this middleman who's dressed to the nines, he's the guy who got cut out from the entire process to allow Quince to give its high quality items to you at an extremely low cost. And I have to say I'm glad the middleman is availing himself of Quince's offerings because he looks good and he's gonna have to save some money and maybe go on a job interview. And there's dressy, there's less dressy, there's cash. Middlemen, all men, women too can benefit from the cut and quality of a quince piece of clothing. For your next trip, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve from quince. Go to quints.com the gist for 365 day returns plus free shipping on all your orders. That's Q U I n c e.com/the gist to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/the gist. I'm joined now by Devin Archer who, well, I don't want to reduce his life to this phrase, but Hunter Biden's former business partner. And yet if he wasn't, he probably wouldn't be here. But I'm glad he is. We're going to Talk and Hello, Devin, thanks for coming on the gist.
- [08:23]
Devin Archer
Thank you.
- [08:23]
Mike Pesca
We're going to talk about. I want to talk about four main topics. Your history background with Hunter, your testimony before the House Oversight Committee, what you've been trying to do to get a pardon, and then your reflections on how you were described, how you were treated. Just the truth. The accuracy of the entire recitation of the story. Sound good?
- [08:47]
Devin Archer
Yeah, absolutely.
- [08:47]
Mike Pesca
All right. So you meet Hunter. You're a Yale graduate. You're from. Not too far where I'm from on Long Island. You're North Shore, I'm South Shore. So that's like a knife fight. That's like East, East Coast, west coast beef. But you graduate from Yale, you go into business. Your business partner is Chris Hines, who's. Yes, yes.
- [09:06]
Devin Archer
Rosemont Capital.
- [09:07]
Mike Pesca
Rosemont Capital. And Hines is. He's the, he's the son of the ketchup people or the grandson and Teresa Hines, Kerry's son and John Kerry stepson.
- [09:17]
Devin Archer
Correct.
- [09:17]
Mike Pesca
And so was that he was a friend of yours. Did he have many skills beyond being.
- [09:23]
Devin Archer
Heinz, would you say? No, he was, yeah, he was a talented, very, very intelligent guy. Talented, talented. Also a good friend to start. So I met him in college, actually, the first day I got to Yale in 1992, the fall of 92, I ended up arriving on the. At the practice field of Yellow Cross, went to a captain's practice and ended up, after having moved into the dorm with my parents, ended up just taking. Jumping in a Cherokee and driving out to Nantucket. So that was the beginning of the friendship.
- [09:52]
Mike Pesca
So you're like, I'm really at Yale.
- [09:53]
Devin Archer
Yeah, exactly. This is really. Yeah, it was really Yale. And I also didn't know where Nantucket was at the time. Right. Even being from Long Island. So that was.
- [10:01]
Mike Pesca
You heard the limericks, but never.
- [10:03]
Devin Archer
Exactly.
- [10:04]
Mike Pesca
So now Hunter Biden's also a Yale Law grad, right?
- [10:08]
Devin Archer
He's at Yale Law. There's. There's some. There's like some speculation or some stories that we had met while I was there. I don't recall. But that's the folklore is that we had met two times.
- [10:19]
Mike Pesca
So you cannot. I can't deny, but he's in your orbit. But not some guy you knew. And so you go into business with Chris Hines.
- [10:27]
Devin Archer
Right.
- [10:27]
Mike Pesca
And the name of the firm is Rosemont Capital.
- [10:29]
Devin Archer
Rosemont Capital, which is named after the Heinz family farm or residence in Rosemont outside of Pittsburgh.
- [10:37]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, I've been there. Fox Hollow, is that the name of it? I did a campaign event there or Something.
- [10:41]
Devin Archer
Yes, yes, yes. Beautiful, beautiful property.
- [10:43]
Mike Pesca
It is nice. Wow, I didn't realize that. Then you get into some other ventures and tell me when you start talking to Hunter Biden as a business partner.
- [10:53]
Devin Archer
Yeah. So what happened was in. It was, it was 2008 and he was. Get the dates correct, but it was 2008 and he was basically had to scale down or shut down his lobbying.
- [11:07]
Mike Pesca
Firm because he was a lobbyist. Yeah, he was registered official lobbyist.
- [11:11]
Devin Archer
Exactly.
- [11:11]
Mike Pesca
So what he has to do is because in 2008, his dad's going to become vice president. It's a bad look or maybe even worse for him to be a lobbyist. He has to transition into something like.
- [11:20]
Devin Archer
A strategic advisor, certainly from the Democrat Party. Yeah, it's a bad look, but I think. Because they're not realists. But at the end of the day, the, the. What happened was he had to scale it down. So it wasn't immediate after 2008, but we were reintroduced. I'd met him a couple times in the past that I think L A at the DNC in L. A. And then. And then following that in A four and had come across him. So we'd shaken hands and seen each other. Not allegedly. We'd actually met and had been at a dinner or two that I remember at certain points, couldn't put the date on it.
- [11:54]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [11:54]
Devin Archer
But in 2000, I think it was probably late 2008, 2009, beginning of 2009. It's not immediate. It's not like, okay, you have to close your doors because it was his livelihood. But he, he was in the process of shutting down.
- [12:06]
Mike Pesca
Unwinding.
- [12:07]
Devin Archer
Unwinding.
- [12:07]
Mike Pesca
Exactly.
- [12:08]
Devin Archer
So that was a process. And so we sat down for a lunch. It lasted a lot, very sober lunch, I should mention, and lasted for hours, you know.
- [12:17]
Mike Pesca
And at this point you had, though a registered independent, you had raised funds for Democrats.
- [12:22]
Devin Archer
I had, yeah. I was, I was national finance co chair for John Kerry in 2004.
- [12:26]
Mike Pesca
Because of your connection.
- [12:27]
Devin Archer
That was, you know, kind of like in a kitchen cabinet type of role.
- [12:31]
Mike Pesca
Gotcha.
- [12:32]
Devin Archer
I had, I had come out of just the, you know, I'd come out of Citibank. I was in Asia for a while and I was at New England Financial. We were purchased by MetLife. And then I had started a tech company out of that, sold it. So I was kind of, I was in the sale process leading up to the campaign in 04. So just timing wise, I didn't work for the campaign, but I was a, you know, enough, enough financial independence that I could volunteer and run around the country. And at that time, it was, it was actually, it was an incredible way to meet. You know, I'm a wanderlust kind of at heart and just, you know, traveling around the country raising $2,000 checks because it was kind of pre Internet and it was pre super PACs, and the money flows were not these small, you know, big campaign, big events that cause lots of small donors or, you know, big, you know, mega donors that come in with super PACs that align perfectly with campaign strategies. This was like you're out there organizing fundraisers, doing tours, doing surrogate tours and raising checks $2,000 at a time.
- [13:30]
Mike Pesca
So your, your self conception at this time is you're a finance guy. You do some for a friend of yours whose dad is, well, your business partner dad is, happens to be running for president. But you don't see yourself as becoming, or do you see yourself, oh, maybe I'll be some sort of Democratic fundraiser full time. This is not what you want.
- [13:48]
Devin Archer
No, no.
- [13:48]
Mike Pesca
How much of the, how much of the activity to raise funds, political funds, helped your business in any way? Or was it totally ancillary?
- [13:56]
Devin Archer
No, I think, I definitely think it helps your business, you know, because you're just coming. I mean, you're in a, in private equity. You're in a business where you're identifying assets that you think are going to grow and that are going to make people money. So if you're, if you're meeting, you know, thousands of people that are writing $2,000 checks, you know, a number of those will be high net worth or have family offices that can end up investing in your, your next.
- [14:17]
Mike Pesca
People are saying, Devin's a connected guy. Devin knows the right people. That's part of it. You know, none of this is underhanded, by the way. No, none of this is even what Hunter is trying to do at that point. What are you going to immiserate? The children of politicians, you know, they have to earn living. He's a Yale trained lawyer, so.
- [14:35]
Devin Archer
Right, exactly. It made sense. Listen, it was, you know, the biggest mistake of my life. But, but on paper it made a lot of sense.
- [14:42]
Mike Pesca
When you would look at a financial sheet and when you would talk strategy, was he right there with you? Did he need hand holding? Was he sharp and a valued brain, a valued intellectual asset in this strategy.
- [14:54]
Devin Archer
You were discussing from an investment side? No, he was, he was, he was very astute in regards and knowledgeable about the strategy and how to plug the DC component into it. Right. So from a. If A particular company had a regulatory issue that could be, you know, that required legislation or appropriations that would help sway. He would know the path on how to.
- [15:21]
Mike Pesca
Okay, that's something, right? It's often opaque. And he would know. This guy used to work at this committee.
- [15:25]
Devin Archer
This is his issue.
- [15:26]
Mike Pesca
This is the way in. And there's a lot of regulations. He would actually know the regulations.
- [15:30]
Devin Archer
Raised about 400 million in equity and bought about 2 billion in real estate. And out of that equity, he raised probably 20 million of it. So small amount, but 5% of the equity. Yeah, exactly. But you never, you know, hindsight's, you know, not 2020 in this case because we did raise that capital. But you don't know because his name was on the advisory board in 2011, that that was. But so was Bill Richardson and so was any other kind of fancy Mexico governor. That's exactly. Any fancy people that we could attract. That just gives people the sense that this is, this is stable. Nothing's, nothing bad is going to happen here. And that was a very, you know, it was a successful run. We purchased it in May 2010 and sold it August 31, 2015.
- [16:17]
Mike Pesca
Okay, so here I am, I'm owning a building in New Mexico. Maybe better call 23 states. 23 states, but maybe better call Saul's. Maybe his strip malls. Actually something I own that we did.
- [16:27]
Devin Archer
Have a couple of those.
- [16:29]
Mike Pesca
So then he's like, you know what the next play is? Ukraine. Well, take me there. How'd you get to you?
- [16:34]
Devin Archer
Yeah, that was another, another interesting one. So at the time, oligarchs were being, you know, they were being solicited by, you know, I was at, at dinners with Steve Schwarzman and, and all of the, you know, from blackrock, from blackrock, Apollo, kkr. I remember hosting a dinner at the Four Seasons. The CEO of Chevron and the president of Kazakhstan. With all of the, you know, the titans of industry, the barbarians and the new barbarians at the gate, we end up in the geography of the Ukraine because we are out there pitching our wares really, with the flipbook.
- [17:09]
Mike Pesca
And who would, who would invest in you? One of them oligarchs?
- [17:13]
Devin Archer
Yeah, well, yeah, oligarchs we'd call, you know, family offices, you know, at the.
- [17:17]
Mike Pesca
Time, the equivalent of family offices.
- [17:18]
Devin Archer
Yes, yes. Ultra high net worth individuals. Yes, Family office. Absolutely. Family office. Family office is like a nice term for, you know, you're, you're in the US you're an ultra high net worth individual and, you know, you're an oligarch in, in, in The Eastern bloc. And so one of the pitches that we had was Zulchevsky who was the, the owner of Burisma and so we pitched, I pitched him with a Rosemont Realty Flipbook. Hunter had long been removed from the, from the pitchbook at the time but I do think he had earlier versions and knew the connectivity there.
- [17:52]
Mike Pesca
Why was he removed?
- [17:53]
Devin Archer
He was removed from. He was removed when he had the cocaine scandal and got kicked out.
- [17:58]
Mike Pesca
So he wasn't helping you at this point.
- [17:59]
Devin Archer
That's why he was removed. Yeah, he was removed.
- [18:01]
Mike Pesca
I'm also hazy on. You said you had a very sober lunch. When did his addiction kick in?
- [18:07]
Devin Archer
It's hard the addiction like the you know it's an unit, it's a wind up I guess as opposed to an unwind pick up on the term. But I, I, I think that the addiction went off the rails when his brother died.
- [18:20]
Mike Pesca
Right.
- [18:20]
Devin Archer
Which was May 2000. I don't want to get the state wrong.
- [18:25]
Mike Pesca
Exactly what Joe Biden did in the Robert her interview. He remembered the date but he forgot about the year. Exactly.
- [18:31]
Devin Archer
Gets a little blurry. 14. Yeah and so what? So, so leading up to that there were some you know he was, he had been sober for quite some time and then there were Miranda probably Miranda Devine probably knows this better than me but you know in the.
- [18:47]
Mike Pesca
She's the Post columnist, she's the Post column.
- [18:48]
Devin Archer
She's written two books right. And so from it from. But it, but it starts to. He starts to have episodes and I actually remember the first episode. I don't remember the date. I should probably do do some but I like to forget most of this dates are fit but I do remember we were flying back we were working on a renewables project for an investment in Spain and he was upgraded to first class and I was, it was an all business and first class plane but he had the secret Service so they you know upgraded to first class. And I was in, in, in business class and, and the Stewart the, the stewardess offered him a flight attendant offered him a Bloody Mary. You know, would you like a Bloody Mary? He didn't ask for it and I guess that was the, that was like the straw Started drinking, I started drinking first class and that was probably in 2012.
- [19:38]
Mike Pesca
Did you go up to first class and see him drinking?
- [19:40]
Devin Archer
No, not and he has he caugh to DC so I never saw him again but I, I ended up going down to the D.C. office like a week later. You know this is maybe return on a Friday and I go down there On a Thursday. And I went to the office, and Eric Schwern or Rob Walker were like, no, Hunter's at, you know, McSorley's Tavern or whatever it was on Washington Street. I forget the name of the. And I was like, is that the bar? And I was like, that's weird. And then we. I went to the. To the restaurant, and he was upstairs, and he clearly had a drink, and he was in a great mood. The best Hunter I'd ever seen. He was not grumpy, smoking less. But it was, you know, unfortunately, that was. That was, you know, so he must have been drinking since that time, and then he was sober. And then. So it was a. It was a. It was pretty dark.
- [20:27]
Mike Pesca
And so what was an asset now had become a liability. And you moved on as best as you could from him. And this is when.
- [20:33]
Devin Archer
Not. We didn't move on from him. We just. It was not like a. You know, it was a. It wasn't public. Yeah.
- [20:40]
Mike Pesca
The whole idea is the halo of.
- [20:42]
Devin Archer
These was not helpful.
- [20:43]
Mike Pesca
Yes. It stops becoming a halo. It starts becoming something closer to devil horns. We get it now. You're in. You. You meet with Burismore. You do a deal with Burisma.
- [20:54]
Devin Archer
Right. Well, we.
- [20:54]
Mike Pesca
We.
- [20:54]
Devin Archer
I pitch barista. This is to give you some. I do know this in. In March 4, 2014, I'm in Moscow, and I was in Miami, flew to New York. I fly from. I fly from. And this is, you know, Maidan had happened, and Yanukovych was taking his helicopter, but no one knew what was happening. I fly to close a deal in Moscow with a big investor for Rosemont Realty, unrelated to Zulshevsky. When I land, Putin had invaded or liberated Crimea, depending on what side of the fence you're on. And you know what I see on the news at Schmetvin Eve Airport or whatever, however you pardon my pronunciation, was John Kerry saying, crimea has been occupied. And so I get to the meeting where we're closing a large, very large deal for Rosewood Realty. And basically, it was like, guys, deals off.
- [21:56]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. But I want to take this in parts. When you realize, when you are notified there's an APB out and so forth, that Shokin is investigating Burisma. What? Internally within Burisma is the conception of the Shokin investigation.
- [22:13]
Devin Archer
It's very quick where we are. He's of counsel at Boys. Boys is engaged. The, you know, Barisma teams flies to D.C. we have big meeting, and. And we, you know, start the commissioning of the Snello Report. Which is these giant binders that still live in my office here in Brooklyn. And. And that's all going swimmingly. And Hunter's playing that role of council who's like the introduction, you know, introductory council. And things are going well for, I'd say a month. Yeah. So a month or maybe two months. Okay, so it's March, you know, beginning of March. This all happens very quickly. I joined the board. April is all, you know, you know, the. Of council stuff. The Snowdell report.
- [22:51]
Mike Pesca
By summer 24.
- [22:52]
Devin Archer
Yeah. By May, he. We are at a conference in. At Villa d'este in Lake Como, Italy. It's like a world economic something or something. Some. Some boondoggle. And we're there, you know, half interested in listening to some economists talk about nothing that ever impacts anything. And. And Vadim gets wind that were, you know, through the Triglobal guys that were up in Lake Como. And oh, you know, Nikolai has. Zolchevsky has some medical appointments in Milan or something somewhere. And basically. Or in Germany. It was in Germany. Sorry. And we'll fly over there and meet you. And so they fly over, meet us up at Lake Como. And I'm like, okay.
- [23:33]
Mike Pesca
And to me, this is a world I don't understand. Business associates in Germany. Oh, you're in Milan, we gotta fly over.
- [23:40]
Devin Archer
Or north of Milan. Yeah, exactly.
- [23:42]
Mike Pesca
And he's like doing what? Like doing the blood spitting that a rod did.
- [23:46]
Devin Archer
Definitely. There's something we don't even know about. Okay, so he's doing exactly. God knows. So he's doing something there. And so he. So he flies in. And I just. I remember this vividly. I was like sitting kind of on this beautiful terrace in. At Villa d'este with like the doors open and this kind of elegant downstairs, maybe breakfast room, very ornate and like it's a beautiful day and it's got to be, you know, May, you know, mid May. And I see. And hunters there. And I see Zulchevsky and Vadim take a walk down towards the. The lake, Lake Como. And I see that like the sun is glistening. And I just remember being like, oh God, this is not going to be good. I know it's happening here.
- [24:27]
Mike Pesca
Devin's instincts were right. This was not going to be good. The two would be enmeshed in international scandal. Devon Archer would be charged with crimes. Devon Archer would vie for a pardon, which he got. That's all going to be covered in part two, in which I will ask Devon Archer, does handling it mean taking care of Shokin or neutralizing the investigation? Yes, what does it mean? And that's tomorrow on the Gist.
- [25:02]
Devin Archer
Foreign.
- [25:09]
Mike Pesca
This is one of those days where there's only one story in America, the Yukon Lady Huskies. No, it is the stock market. It is the economy and it is going down. It might go down further by the time you hear this. I hope we could say it didn't plummet as dramatically today as it did during the previous two days when it nosedived more precipitously than anything we've seen since the pandemic. What I want to do here is to bring value, a fresh perspective that's a little bit organized, a little bit different, and hopefully eye opening or ear opening if you're listening to it on podcast and not watching on video. Sometimes politically inclined analysts agonize over the question how can the cult of Trump ever be broken? And the answer is, and I think you know this, it can't. But the other answer is that but we don't need to break the cult. You just need to chip away at the third to half of his supporters who aren't in the cult but chose to back him out of their self perceived rational self interest when the stock market or the economy overall craters, as it is doing right now. And that's not too strong a verb, that is a powerful way to the third to half of Trump supporters to become disillusioned by him. They're still open to that. So this creates an opening not just for Democrats, but for Republicans in the coalition who want to, as the late grading Susan Power would say when it comes to tariffs. But you may have noticed right now we are only 77 days into the presidency and it is 574 days until midterm elections. Will the American carnage of this time period be felt as keenly in the next 77 days, in the 77 days after that? And really there are seven and a half more 77 day periods until we get to vote, until election Day. So if the answer is yes, we are going to feel on Election day the impact the horrors of what the tariffs have visited upon us the last few days, then we are very screwed, which is very possible. So it could happen. The problem is, even if the midterms deliver some victories for the Democrats in the House, the House alone can't do much. It is the Senate. The Senate needs to be under Democratic control, or at least controlled by people who are against tariffs, which right now is Democrats publicly, because Republicans know they're slitting their own throats if they ever oppose Donald Trump's initiatives. It is a long shot for Democrats to take control of the Senate. You may have heard it is a tough map for the Democrats. Yes, like climbing Mount Everest and flip flops is tough. Here is Ezra Klein calmly explaining this on the Lex Friedman podcast.
- [28:08]
Devin Archer
If that means Hakeem Jeffries becomes speaker.
- [28:10]
Mike Pesca
After the midterm, he's going to have.
- [28:11]
Devin Archer
A much louder voice because he's going to have power. It's going to be a harder road.
- [28:15]
Mike Pesca
For Schumer to get back to the.
- [28:16]
Devin Archer
Majority because of the Senate map.
- [28:18]
Mike Pesca
A tough Senate map. David Axelrod calls it a very challenging Senate map. I'll tell you why. Of the 33 states holding an election, Trump won 21 of those and Kamala Harris won 12. So that means Republicans have the advantage. Also in 2026, Democrats will be defending two states that Trump won and Republicans will defend will be defending one state that Harris won. Maine. Susan Collins. Maine. And we know Susan Collins usually does pretty well, surprising all of us. Now, you may be saying to yourself, wait a minute, Mike, you're saying the Senate map is tough this year. Don't we say that every year? Isn't the Senate map tough for Democrats every year? We do kind of say that, don't we? Here was NPR's Politics podcast discussing the map for the most recent 2024 Senate elections. Democrats are going to face a tough map. We talked about that before. Right now they've got a little more.
- [29:15]
Devin Archer
Breathing room than they did last year, 5149.
- [29:18]
Mike Pesca
But it is a tough map if you are Democrats. And as you heard there, he was even saying, oh, yeah, it was tougher in 2022. In 2020, the terrain wasn't exactly favorable to Democrats anyway. And then if you want to go back to 2018, according to 538, Democrats face the most unfavorable Senate map since the direct election of senators since the 17th Amendment was adopted. Okay, to recap, Democrats have a bad map. They often have a bad map. They almost never have a good map for them. Why? Because they're unlucky? No, because on a state by state basis, the Republican Party is generally more popular than Democrats, you know, in the way that Velveeta cheese is generally more popular than Brussels sprouts. I happen to like Brussels sprouts. I endorse Kamala Harris. How bad is the map for the Democrats? Well, it's changed. Before the tariffs went into effect, the betting markets gave the Senate an 80% chance of staying in Republican control. In the last five days, that has dipped down to 70%. That's not nothing. Also, I'm not saying the only chance to mitigate the devastation of these tariffs is one year, nine months away and has only a 30% chance of occurring. I'm not actually saying that. One reason why the betting markets say there's only a 70% chance is that they know there's a good chance that Trump relents. It might not seem like it now, but there is. Now, Trump does love tariffs the way a toddler loves a security blanket made of solid gold. But he also pays a lot of attention to the stock market, especially the Dow Jones, the Rolls Royce, or Time magazine of ST indices. So much of his minimization of the COVID pandemic was in the service of cajoling the Dow, and so much of his messaging was Dow related during that period. Take this announcement, November 24, 2020.
- [31:16]
Devin Archer
The stock market's just broken 30,000.
- [31:19]
Mike Pesca
Never been broken that number. That's a sacred number, 30,000. Nobody thought they'd ever see it.
- [31:24]
Devin Archer
That's the ninth time since the beginning of 2020, and it's the 48th time that we've broken records in during the Trump administration. And I just want to congratulate all the people within the administration that work so hard.
- [31:42]
Mike Pesca
Now, for context, that was a day when 2,100 people died of COVID the most since early that summer. But Trump is not totally impervious to the disapproval of Wall Street. He wants the favor of his friends on Wall Street. He wants at least the index that generates a number which is more or less a proxy that tells him how many friends he has left on Wall street to be in his favor. So Trump may back off. He's been sowing some seeds. He's talking about negotiating the tariff numbers down. He'd like to take the win on that. It cuts against the other stated goal of a complete restructuring of American industry through the hard medicine of tariffs. You can't say we're going to need the tariffs to change everything and it's going to be tough. But oh, by the way, if a rival country sues for peace, we're open to that, too. You know, if I told you that Donald Trump often claims contradictory things so that no matter the result, he can claim triumph, would you call me a liar? Would you say I was insane? You would not. And there is a third path that isn't a Trump relents in the short term and the economy rebounds. That'd be nice. And it also isn't. Trump holds firm and his party is decimated in Senate elections It is this, the Republican senators who do have it in their power to defy Trump, risk his wrath, defy him, pass legislation to rein him in. Yeah, I know at this point you're saying, Mike, but that's a possibility. And it is very much within their remit to pass simple, straightforward legislation doing this. But we have seen no sign that there is an appetite or frankly, a wisdom, as they define it, in defying Trump. But it is possible. It's more possible than any other issue where Republicans are routinely called upon by Democrats or others to defy Trump and vote for, say, his impeachment or some other thing that would probably end the careers of the Republicans going along with that advice. This one's different. Trump is terribly besotted by the power of tariffs, but 90% of Republican senators are not. I'd say about half of them hate tariffs, by the way. They're right. That counts for something a little bit. A little bit that they're right to hate the tariffs. So that is a small factor. But they're also a little closer to the voters. They're a little closer to their own Republican constituents, the ones not in the cult who might start demanding it. And back to the cult cult. These Republican senators don't have an actual cult. Trump has the cult. They're just drafting off Trump's cult. So that too, the Republican senators saying, my people hate this part of the Trump agenda. They'll back me if I defy him. That is a potential path forward, more so than other issues. What's likely? I don't know. I really don't know. But I think the most likely thing is that Trump relents to some extent, maybe even a large extent. He just can't weather the day after day after day of stock market loss, where a correction becomes a bear market becomes a crash. Even Trump has got to take heed. Or, you know, he might not. It might be too late for all of us. Or, and I'll throw this one out there, maybe Trump's totally right. Maybe Peter Navarro has nailed it. Maybe decades from now, we'll see the wisdom of tariffs with rates set by random GROK number generators and will say they've transformed the economy so there's a steel plant on every corner. And the canton of the US Flag glints with the glut of stars representing every state from Alabama to Greenland, all the way to Heard and McDonald Islands. Long may their representatives feast upon Krill and Sardine Day at the Senate Dining Room. And that's it for today's show. The GIST is produced by Cory Wara. Michelle Pesca is COO of Peach Fish Productions. Leo Baum is sometimes around to be an intern, but he's also rehearsing for the variety show, which is very important. Improve and thanks for listening. The GIST is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.