← The Josh Hammer Show
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- [00:00]
A
This is John Hichta with aarp. And I want to talk to you about the money you pay into Social Security. With every paycheck, folks, that's money you earned. But special interests in D.C. are pushing to reduce your Social Security payments and annual cost of living increase. They don't get how much Americans depend on Social Security, but AARP is fighting to stop them. Go to aarp.org we earned it to join our fight paid for by AARP.
- [00:30]
B
Donald Trump's approval ratings not heading in the right direction. But Republicans still not looking terrible this November. Is there a chance they hold Congress come January 2027? Harry Enton joins for that conversation and much more. I'm Josh Hatmer and this is Josh Hammer show. Harry Anton of CNN joins us a little later in the program for a wide ranging conversation about all things midterm related. President Trump, Senate House, dsa. We will get into all of that and more. But for now, just some headlines that we want to unpack for you before a conversation with Harry Anton. So as of this morning, Friday morning, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the lame duck center who Donald Trump personally campaigned against and indeed, Bill Cassidy lost quite, quite bigly, you might say, in his Louisiana primary, finishing third, actually, in that statewide contest. He has come out and he has said that he will indeed be the final vote for Tom Blanche as attorney general. So to back up a little bit, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, the two rhinoiest of the rhinos in the caucus, has said that they will not be voting for Todd Blanche. So it ultimately came down to Bill Cassidy or else this could have been a real defeat for President Trump. But Bill Cassidy is going out with some pizzazz and with some style. He could have chosen the deeply, deeply petty route. He could have done that and he could have just tried to stick it to Donald Trump. But he deserves credit, frankly, Cassidy deserves credit for saying that he will vote for Todd Blanche. Ditto John Corn, by the way, Corn and Tillis of North Carolina, who we were very critical of here on the show, including just on Monday with our guest Will Chamberlain. We were very critical of them for their very unclear ask from Todd Blanche when it came to the so called anti weaponization fund. But they ultimately did come down on the right side and they ultimately did come down voting for Tom Blanch. And at this point, Tom Blanche is going to be confirmed presumably this weekend and that's a real win for Donald Trump. Top Blanche is going to be a great attorney general. He's already been the acting attorney general for some months now, he's essentially been running the show already. We talk a lot about Attorney General here on the show because it is my long standing belief that it is the single most important cabinet position in the entire executive branch. In all of Article 2, there are a lot of other big ones. There's Secretary of State, Secretary of War, Secretary of Treasury and beyond. But the most foundational core duty of the President United States is to, quote, take care that the laws be faithfully executed. That's a take care clause of Article 2 of the Constitution. That means you need a rock solid and dare I say also very loyal Attorney General Todd Blanche will be exactly that. The man has bled for the President in a personal capacity when he defended Trump during the height of the Democrat lawfare complex persecution, the Merrick Garland Jack Smith targeting Adonald Trump. Blanche going to be a great Attorney General. And that is now totally confirmed. Well, speaking of President Trump, another thing that just leapt off the page to me was Trump signed two executive orders on Thursday, yesterday on the topic of birthright citizenship. Now, you might say how could he possibly do anything here? The Supreme Court just ruled on this in the Trump versus Barbara case. But did they, did they actually rule squarely, completely, on literally every aspect of the birthright citizenship debate? And the answer is no, they did not. What the Barbara case did was it, it essentially upheld the 1898 Wong Kim Ark case, which infamously said that if, if, if you are here, then you and you give a, and you give birth to a child, then that, that person, that, that child will be a US Citizen. The Wong Kimar case purported to limit it to legal aliens, those who are domiciled here in the language of the opinion. The move from Wong Kimar to Barbara is then to take that and to expand it to illegal aliens, which is an incorrect, erroneous move. But that was moving Barbara. What Barbara, what the Barbara case did not do is it did not overturn. It did not overturn the exceptions that were already part of the Wong Kim Ark regime. So if you go back and read the Barbara opinion, it deliberately, intentionally leaves in place the exceptions to blanket birthright citizenship from the Wong Kim Ark case over a century prior. Those exceptions are things like the children of ambassadors, the children of foreign consuls and foreign dignitaries. Those folks are very, very, very clearly under any interpretation, they are, quote, not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States in the relevant 14American language and therefore they do not get automatic citizenship when they have children on this soil. There are other examples as well as we've discussed on this show, a major example is invasion. If you have a foreign hostile adversary, an army, a military, or even a militia or some functional military that is in the midst of an invasion on this soil, those children, they don't get birthright citizenship. So when the British were, this is before the Fourth Amendment, but in theory, when the British were burning down the US Capitol in the War of 1812, they have a child, not birthright citizenship. And today, I would argue if you are the child of one of the cartel leaders, for instance, if you're part of the Sinaloa Cartel and you're human trafficking in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and you get over the border and you have a child, no, that's an invasion. And in fact, there is this new bill from Senator Jim Banks of Indiana that is trying to copy this into law and to declare that that birth Taurus and those who are, who are born here to legal alien parents shall be interpreted as invaders for purposes of Wong Kim Ark and Barbara. Therefore, falling outside of the Trump versus Barbara decision. It's a very, very good idea and one that I've been pushing in my own capacity for some time. Hopefully, that bill gets some traction. So what did Donald Trump actually do in the executive orders? Well, he signed two of them. The first executive order is targeted on, on birth tourism itself. And it, it basically says that if you are here and you fraudulently get a visa solely for purposes, solely for purposes of trying to give birth here, then that's not actually going to cut it. Then you're not actually automatically going to get citizenship for, for just getting a visa and then coming here. Now, birth tourism was not directly, directly addressed by the Barbara majority, something that was pointed out by the dissenters by Sam Alito, by Clarence Thomas, really Alito more than anyone else, because birth tourism was not really a thing in the Wong Kim Ark regime. In other words, in 1898, there was no world we could hop on a plane and then fly to the United States, pop out a baby, get a citizen. So when Barbara upheld the Won Ki mark exceptions, birth tourism was not really discussed, if that makes sense. So Trump is trying to create this birth tourism exception as well. That's one of the executive orders. The other executive order is just affirming that these Wong Kimark Barbara exceptions still apply. So the executive order, this, the second one, applies to future births tied to four categories. Children born of foreign diplomatic staff working on behalf of another government while in the US Children of people who are classified as alien enemies, including those who belong to FTOs foreign terrorist organizations, especially designated terrorist groups, etc. Those who are born in US territories. That's actually a more interesting and long standing legal dispute. And then children born to mothers who expressly and deceptively enter for the sole purpose of birth tourism. So that's the first executive order. Those are the basic parts of these executive orders. They will immediately be subject to legal challenge, I presume, if the ACLU and various other liberal groups have not sued already. I think Trump is on firm, firm ground here with these especially, especially with that second one. Just trying to recodify the Wong Kim Mark Barbara exceptions. The birth tourism one is a more novel question, again, one not squarely addressed by the Barbara case. We'll see how it winds its ways through the courts. Frankly, entirely possible that actually, that, that actually, that exact question, how birth tourism, specifically how that comports with the fourth Amendment, how imports. Exactly. With the Barbara case and the Wong Kim Ark regime, it's entirely possible that that ends up getting back to the Supreme Court and that will definitely be a blockbuster case. Finally, one other headline that I want to get to. So if you're a longtime listener view of the show, you know that Big tech is a topic that I care a lot about for a lot of reasons. One is because Big tech controls the modern day Public Square X Facebook Meta. These are TikTok. This is how you communicate in the 21st century. Back in 1776, you had Thomas Paine run around in Philadelphia Tom Commons passing out his pamphlet Common Sense. But that's not a thing anymore. Now you do it online. But there are all sorts of other reasons to care about big Tech as well. One of them is that these algorithms are oftentimes pushing vulnerable people to really malicious content. And there's been all sorts of lawsuits in recent years that Meta, more than any other company has faced. Mark Zuckerberg's company, which controls Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, because you have parents of teenagers who have sued for mental health, for mental health, but saying that, that, that Meta either was willfully ignorant of, negligently did not care about the mental health of their users, or in a worst case scenario, it actually exacerbated and made it worse. So a court in New Mexico on Thursday as a result of this lawsuit, order Meta to pay more than half a billion dollars, $567 million. That's on top of a previous jury judgment back in March that ordered 375 million. So this brings Meta's liability in this one case alone to almost a billion dollars. $942 million. Why is this? Well, the judge, Brian Bscheid, found that Meta had created a public nuisance, which means that it's a, it's a hazard basically for the, for the whole state. And as part of this judgment, he ordered the company to implement a series of youth safety measures that include things like monthly limits on teens, use of Facebook and Instagram, restrictions on notifications, tighter controls on adults contacting minors, safeguards for AI, chatbots and the like. We've touched on this a little bit recently, especially in the context of AI, which is the big conversation du jour. But this is our basic thesis on the topic of big tech. Technologies are here to stay. We are not Luddites. We are not trying to put the technological genie back into the bottle. There's no point in trying to go to the local data center and protesting that it be shut down because it's probably very profitable. It's probably actually paying a lot of property taxes. It's not going there. Rather, the better solution, whether it's in social media, big tech, AI, whatever, is to have prudential regulations and rules such as what this judge is doing here in this ruling in place that channel this technology and harness it so that it elevates human flourishing and ultimately conduces to the common good. Technology has in the long run of things has benefited mankind, whether it's the printing press or electricity, the automobile, you name it. But you need regulations for new technologies because otherwise it could get lost. This ruling out of New Mexico is a very, very sound step in the right direction. Hopefully much more to come. I definitely don't pity Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. They deserve to pay this. Hopefully, frankly, there will be much more to come on that front. Folks, we're going to have to go to a quick commercial break. On the other side, we'll be joined by Harry Anthony of CNN for a long ranging conversation on the midterms and much more. We'll be right back with Harry. Anton.
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C
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- [14:02]
B
welcome back. So we have a special treat for you today, folks. Making his return appearance to the Josh Hammer show is a longtime guest and a longtime friend. You've probably seen him on your television recently. He is none other than Harry Enton. So Harry Enton is the chief data analyst for CNN and the host of the Enton Scale on CNN All Access. He has also become ubiquitous in political media, frankly, and media in general. Harry, I've known you a long time, my friend, and I've really enjoyed watching you explode into being the polling guru of all gurus. And we look forward to getting your insights here on the show today. So thank you very much for joining. I want to start at a higher level and then we'll start to getting a little nitty gritty. We're now in the home stretch. So this is August, this is the recess month and then it's really the home stretch, September, October, into the midterms. There is so much fretting that I see. Well, really across the spectrum, especially on the right, Democrats, roughly 5% advantage on the generic ballot. But give me just your high level observations as to right now, where things stand when we're getting into the midterm conversation.
- [15:11]
D
Yeah. Shalom. Good shabbos to you, my dear friend. Look, here's the deal, right? I think you hit it right. You look at the different generic ballots, you might find, you know, three, you might find five, you might find seven, you might find nine. It's somewhere, you know, five, six, seven, somewhere that Democrats are ahead. What does that mean? Well, first off, if that translated perfectly to what the House result would be, Democrats would take back the US House of Representatives. I think most handicappers believe that they will do so the exact majority be determined. It probably won't be a seat or two, but it probably won't be, you know, Democrats running away and getting 235, 240 house seats. That being said, five is pretty close to three if you take an average opposite, you probably get pretty close to five. And I think three to four is kind of the dividing line. I think that's where most experts do it between Republicans holding onto the House and Democrats gaining the House because of the redistricting that happened across the map. So if you know Democrats win by a point or two, that's not good enough. So it's still within the margin of error, but Democrats are favored there. The Senate, to me, is the far more interesting picture. Right. The Senate's interesting because if you take an initial look at the map, you'd say, hey, there's no way. But given that Donald Trump's approval rating is at best in the low 40s at this point, again, depending on which poll you look at, and more likely than not in the upper 30s, that puts states at play that might not otherwise do so. And we can dig into that more. But I think the high level thought here is President Trump's unpopular Democrats are favoring the House. Republicans are favored to hold on to the Senate, but not by as much as they probably should be.
- [16:49]
B
So let's drill on the House, then we'll get to the Senate. So the House, Harry, what I've been saying on the show for months now is Republicans have essentially picked up 10 to 15 seats just in redistricting alone. So it becomes a calculation as to what, what is the greater advantage? Is it the redistricting pickup or is it the generic advantage in the polling for Democrats? There's also, there's so few districts at this point that a true swing was as 15, 20 districts in the whole country that are essentially toss up. So if you were handicapping the House at this point, what would you say?
- [17:21]
D
Yeah, okay, so, you know, you dig in a little bit deeper and we can kind of discuss that. I kind of did a little bit, but yeah, I mean, look, I think the simplest way to do it, which was, you know, if you had just looked at the 20, 24 house lines, right, you would say that Democrats really only needed to barely win the national popular vote in order to take back the House. What are we talking? We're talking about a shift of, you know, maybe they have to win it by half a point and that would be good enough. But now what we're really doing, and again, modeling this is not the easiest thing in the world, but we're really talking about is that Democrats need to win nationally by three to four points, which is a big difference. Right. That's a three, four point shift that we're talking about at this point, it does seem that the anger towards the incumbent party, which is what you normally see in a midterm, will be great enough and be able to climb that wall in order to get over the top. But, you know, when you're all of a sudden looking at the math and you're looking at the map, what you do see is that Republicans start off at a higher baseline than they did in prior cycles. You know, it's something instead of, you know, seats that are leaning Republican or safe or likely Republican probably was between 200 and 210, say in 2018 at this point. Now we're north of 210 right now. Right. We're talking 212, 213 again, depending on how you do the math. But given how unpopular the president is, it just, you look at that generic. It's just tough. But I will say this, which is, it's close enough whereby you have, you know, what's going on in Ohio, 7th district with Max Miller, where you say that that seat now favors Democrats in my mind, if Miller stays in a race. And that could really matter at the end of the day. So we're not far enough away to say one seat doesn't matter, but we are. Democrats are up enough where we can say they're up.
- [19:18]
B
Yeah. No, the polling out of Ohio 7 is not great. And I am among those who would encourage Max Miller to drop out of this race for whatever it's worth. But on the other hand, Harry, in Tennessee just last night, Andy Ogles lost his election to a comparative moderate. So maybe, maybe, but that's probably a safety anyway. It's hard to say, but that's, that's a student analysis, as always, my friend. So I want to turn to the Senate, which, as you said, is the, is, is the more interesting of the two chambers. The situation in Michigan, I think, I think definitely is another wrinkle into, into the broader, into the broader Senate map. I think a lot of folks, frankly, didn't have Mike Rogers on the radar as a likely Michigan pickup opportunity in the Senate. So talk about Michigan a little bit, but also how Michigan fits into, to the broader play for control the Senate come January 2027.
- [20:04]
D
All right, let's talk about Michigan. Let's talk about a little history of Michigan. The state hasn't elected a Republican senator since Spencer Abraham back in 1994. I don't think a Republican has won in a midterm there since what, like 1966? Something like that. And that was with a Democratic president. I Can't even remember the last time they did so with a Republican president. So you look at that issue, you go, no way. But then all of a sudden you look over the last few years and you see that those margins that Democrats have been winning the Senate races by have shrunk and shrunk. Trunk and Alyssa Slakin won by less than a point. Then you look at who the candidate is, and obviously Abdullah Sayed ran a very good campaign in that primary. Obviously the Democratic Party has moved to the left of where it once was. The Democratic Party is significantly more skeptical of Israel than it once was. And Abdul Al Said is certainly no friend of Israel, at least as I think the way most people would define it, certainly not the people in Israel. And you watch his primary performance and you go, wow, this guy barely won. He won by what a point? And did so on the backs of college towns and the Arab Muslim population in and around Detroit. He lost all 15 counties with the lowest share of college educated voters. He very clearly lost in the swing areas. And you look at Mike Rogers who lost by less than a point, and you go, wow, there's a real potential pickup opportunity here. Now, I will note the prediction markets still have Al Said favored, but barely. Now you look at that, right? And you go, okay, if Republicans can possibly win there, it makes the map so much more difficult. And combine that with what you have going on in Maine where I think Troy Jackson is favored, but given how unpopular Trump is in Maine. And yes, Susan Collins has had a history of winning in Maine. She won in 2020 even though Trump lost in the state, but not as popular as she once was. All that that's going on, basically you go, okay, we can get into sort of those Democratic pickup opportunities, but now there are two potential either one is a potential Republican hold that you might not otherwise have thought. And one is a potential Republican pickup. And that is part of the reason why the Senate is still leaning gop.
- [22:24]
B
And it's fascinating, right, because Republicans are very much playing defense when it comes to some of these other sendencies. North Carolina comes to mind, certainly with the retirement, probably lost. So what is the likeliest Democr pick up if Michigan is now the likeliest Republican pickup?
- [22:39]
D
Yeah. Okay, so I think North Carolina is probably, you know, number one. Right. I think Roy Cooper, two term governor, they are in North Carolina, popular guy. I would say this, which is, you know, I know for a lot of years a lot of people have been very skeptical of Democratic chances in Texas. And James Talarico is not by his own record, the most moderate guy in the world. However, he's trying to run against a gentleman in Ken Paxton who was literally impeached by the Texas House of Representatives, who is very much underwater in terms of his net favorability in that state. And Tall Rico is above. We have now had a number of polls in the last week and change that have had Talarico ahead. Beto o' Rourke was never ahead of Ted Cruz. There has not been a Democratic Senate candidate ahead of a Republican in Texas since Lloyd Benson in 1988. This is very much new territory. Trump is underwater in Texas. This could happen. So I might argue that after, after North Carolina and I think, you know, Maine probably is number two. Texas may very well be number three, which is shocking for me to say, but the numbers are the numbers.
- [23:53]
B
The numbers are what they are, my friend. And as a former Texan myself, it's, it's hard to sometimes to hear those words and to take it seriously. I lived during the 2018 cruise O', Rourke, but, but I hear you loud and clear. The numbers this time are quite different. We have to go to commercial break. But say with this, folks, we'll be joined by Harry for much more on this side. We'll be right back with much more from Harry.
- [24:12]
E
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- [24:15]
A
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- [24:17]
E
Join pastors and best selling authors Levi and Jenny Lusko on Hey, it's the Luskos for honest conversations about faith, marriage, family, grief ministry and all the unexpected moments in between. You'll laugh, you'll be encouraged and you'll be reminded that God, God is faithful through every season.
- [24:34]
A
It will always come back to Jesus in the end.
- [24:36]
E
That's right. Tune in to hey, it's the Luskos with Levi and Jenny Lusko available now. Wherever you get your podcasts,
- [24:46]
B
welcome back. And we are rejoined by our friend Harry Enton. He's the chief data analyst for cnn. You can also check out his show the Enton Scale on CNN All Access. Follow Harry on X at forecasterenton where he runs a lively social media feed. Harry, before the break, we're talking a little bit about Texas and we guest earlier this week Luke Macius, who was a longtime conservative activist in Texas. I've known Luke for a long time. He used to live in Texas and I thought Luke would actually be more reassuring. Ah, Paxton's got this. And actually, no, he was hedging quite a bit. So I can tell you that even the conservative grassroots in Texas are really starting to get to get nervous about this. What is the current dynamic on the ground in Texas? Because it seems to me that going back to 2020, remember, there were all these headlines that Trump was dominating in the Rio Grande Valley. These 90% Star counties, Zapot, these massive Hispanic counties, seem like Trump was just totally dominating. I actually took Texas personally off the map. I thought Texas was safe red for a long time. And now tell Rico, who is, let's call him a heterodox camp, I think would be a polite way of saying it. He actually really could take this thing. You're not wrong about that. So what is actually happening in Texas?
- [25:56]
D
So I think there are two trends that have happened over the past 10 or 15 years in Texas which kind of helped the GOP hold on to Texas when a lot of people thought, you know, it's always been the promise that Democrats, you know, oh, as the state becomes more diverse, we'll gain and we'll be able to overtake it and make it a blue Texas. Well, what actually ended up happening was the college educated areas, you know, around Houston, around Dallas, became significantly more blue. But at the same time, as you were pointing out, the Latino, the Hispanic vote started to shift to the right and it sort of canceled each other out and allowed Texas to be won by Trump rather easily. I think it was 13 points was the margin in 2024 after sort of, you know, being in single digits in 2020. But what's happened in Texas is what's happening nationally, which is Latinos have started to shift and sort of rebounded more towards the Democratic Party now, perhaps not to the levels that they were in 2016 under Hillary Clinton, but at least, you know, when we're looking at the polling, if you're James Talarico, he's ahead with Latinos. That was not the case with Kamala Harris. Right. And so all of a sudden you have that combined with the white college graduates continuing their shift to the left, and the two of those together are a dynamic that makes Texas very, very interesting. It's nearly what Beto was able to do. Beto O' Rourke was nearly able to do in 2018, but he just wasn't able to hold off. But remember, that was a race that was decided by under three points. Now all of a sudden you had those college educated white voters even more to the left than they were. You have all of a sudden the recovering with Hispanics aided by Donald Trump's unpopularity with them, and that very much puts the seat in play combined of course, with just the fact. Again I just point out Ken Paxton was literally impeached by the Texas House of Representatives. Scandals do matter and it works.
- [27:52]
B
Yeah, listen, I think it's easy to say that we live in a post scandal era, but it's actually not true. I mean Eric Swallow just resigned from Congress. I mean Max Miller might drop out as we already allude to it. It's actually not true. These sort of scandals sometimes really do percolate in the back of voters minds. And Harry, I want to shift gears a little bit and talk to you not about a specific scandal clad candidate, but perhaps a scandalous movement. And I'm referring here to the dsa, the Democratic Socials of America. We touched on Abdul Syed in Michigan already in conversation. But this is of course a much broader trend. The recent New York City primaries, people like Dariel Lisa Avila Chevalier Zoram Dani endorsed the rise of the DSA is really all the talk from what I can tell in politics today. And I can't help but think about this Bill Maher monologue from Real Time on HBO last Friday where Bill Maher just went off, just went off on the dsa. He seems like he's ready to vote for a reasonable Republican alternative. So I guess I'm curious for your breakdown of the demographics here. Is there a Bill Maher demographic? Is that a real demographic of people who have generally liberal sympathies but just don't want anything to do with DSA and socialism? Is that a real slice or is this kind of just isolated to a few higher profile individuals?
- [29:08]
D
We'll find out. We'll find out. I mean look, you're going to have an election in Michigan in a few months and let's see what happens because if Abdullah Said does not win there, and I'll note Abdullah sayed as a capitalist, but I'm talking about the progressive left, left, you know, more broadly here. And the same sort of, you know, underlings that help catapult him are catapulting the DSA at large. But I would say we'll find out. But that being said, here are a few things that we should just kind of talk about within the polling right, which is number one, who are the biggest supporters of the DSA within the Democratic Party? You might think, oh, it's these Democratic leaning independents who are kind of trying to come in and you know, almost invade the party and turn it to their way. That's not the case at all. The people within the Democratic Party who are more likely to self identify as Democratic socialists are Democrats themselves. They are not the Democratic aligned independents. That is not the case. These are Democratic voters who turned out in 2024 for Kamala Harris. So I want to put that sort of aside. That being said, you take a look within the Democratic Party, the DSA is popular. It is. You just say it's, you know, favorable, unfavorable. It's the net favorability is on the plus side of the ledger, significantly so, even more so than Democratic leaders in Congress. That being said, you look at the general electorate and the DSA is very much underwater. And I think there's this real question. I don't know if it's Bill Maher with liberal sympathies. I don't know whether it's swing voters, but I do think there's a chunk of voters out there who are skeptical, very much so of the dsa. And I think the question ultimately, as we'll have to find out, and maybe the midterm isn't the best test of it, is, you know, is the DSA's unpopularity such that it can somehow mute the effect that Donald Trump's own unpopularity will have. And it may just be the case that Donald Trump's unpopularity is, simply put, too strong. But then I think the question would be, if you're getting back to Bill Maher, what happens in 2028 if the Democrats do nominate someone who is very much on the progressive side of things, very liberal and Republicans don't do that. And depending on who they nominate, will there be this bloc of voters? There may very well be. But at that point, but at this point, we're just not dealing with that dynamic.
- [31:27]
B
Now I know that you're a national guy and you cover national politics and you obviously do it quite well, but you're also, among other things, Harry, you're a New Yorker. And in fact, in my mind, you're an iconic New Yorker. Actually, I've kind of been up. You're born and bred. You really are of buy in for the Big Apple. So I kind of want just your more parochial assessment of the Zora Mamdani era because he really is the kingpin of the dsa. I would actually argue he's the kingmaker of the Democratic Party as a whole. Frankly, at this point I think he's actually eclipsed Bernie Sanders. That's a whole different conversation. But sticking to New York City just for a minute here, he hasn't been in power quite for a year, but we've had a sufficient sample size at this point. Has his performance, do you think, been a boon to the DSA or has it raised a lot of red flags for the DSA brand? It seems to me like his endorsees are still winning, but I don't really know what that means for the broader public.
- [32:24]
D
I would say that at this point he has been a tremendous boon to the DSA brand. I think you see it in those primaries in New York. I mean, let's just talk about the, you know, look, Dan Goldman was always in trouble. And Brad Ladner, again, much like Abdullah sayed, very, very progressive, but does not call himself a democratic socialist. But you go into northern Manhattan and you mentioned Chevalier, right? You mentioned that race she was going up against. Espelat, who is quite liberal, was at one point an undocumented immigrant or, you know, here illegally at one point did from everything that I can tell, nothing wrong for that district.
- [33:11]
B
Right.
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D
He was not a poor fit for the district and he lost. And he lost in large part, in my opinion, because he endorsed the challenge. What in the world. That is still very much of a boon. And look, we'll wait and see. You know, the mayoral ship of New York has a way of humbling even the strongest and greatest of politicians. But the latest data that I have seen very much suggests he's on the plus side of the ledger here. And when all of a sudden you can do what he is doing. I think a lot of Democratic socialists say, hey, hey, hey. And a lot of Democratic voters say, hey, he's able to be the left and it's still popular. Yeah, I'd still say he's a boon for sure.
- [33:54]
B
And it seems to me that way from afar. I just can't help but think, Harry, that at some point the DSA is going to overplay their hands. This whole mainstream.
- [34:04]
D
When did it first move to do so?
- [34:06]
B
This whole mainstreaming of Hasan Piker is crazy. I mean, this guy has literally said America deserved 9 11. I mean, even Bernie Sanders, I believe, was actually on your network on cnn. Even Bernie Sanders said, I can't defend that. That's an indefensible comment. So as more of this stuff gets out there, I just cannot help but think that at some point there's going to be a serious backlash, as we've already alluded to. That backlash very well could happen in the Wolverine State, in the state of Michigan. It could be some history for Republican senator winning in midterms. As you said there with Mike Rogers. We will have to. It happens, folks, we're going to have to go to Another quick break. We have been joined by Harry Enton. He's the chief data analyst at CNN. Follow him on x@forecasterenton. We're going to go to a quick break and we'll be right back on this side with some more with Harry Enton. Say this, we'll be right back with Harry.
- [34:50]
E
Life can be messy, but you don't have to figure it out alone.
- [34:52]
A
Hey, it's the Lusko.
- [34:54]
E
Join pastors and best selling authors Levi and Jenny Lusko on Hey, it's the Luskos. For honest conversations about faith, marriage, family, grief, ministry and all the unexpected moments in between. You'll laugh, you'll be encouraged and you'll be reminded that God is faithful through every season.
- [35:11]
A
It will always come back to Jesus in the end.
- [35:14]
E
That's right. Tune in to hey, it's the Lusko's with Levi and Jenny Lusko available now, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [35:23]
B
Welcome back. And we are rejoined by Harry Enton. He's the chief data analyst at cnn. You can check out the Enton scale at CNN All Access. Follow Harry on X at Forecaster, where I like to note that I believe the forecast was actually initially a reference not to political forecasting, but actually to meteorological forecasting. In fact, I've known Harry for so long that I actually used to get his daily weather forecasting emails. In fact, I actually very much look forward to those emails and I regretted the fact when they went away because you had perhaps bigger pursuits, I guess. I guess we'll put it that way.
- [35:52]
D
There are a lot of factors that went into that.
- [35:54]
B
Fair enough. But perhaps the weather email will one day return. But for now, I want to talk about the elephant in the political room, which is the president, United States, Donald Trump. So it seems to me, Harry, that again, listen, I'm a Trump voter, I'm conservative, cards on the table. But it seems to me like the first year of this second term was generally going quite well for President Trump, at least from my perspective. He seemed to be winning a lot of political and legal battles, cultural battles. His approval rating was generally pretty good. I mean, the tariffs were a little bit of a wrinkle even in that first year. But the second year has been a different story. So can you just talk a little bit about the effect in particular of the Iran conflict? Is it really as big of an anchor? Is it as big of an albatross around the neck as some people fear it is?
- [36:40]
D
I would say there have been two things you hit on it, tariffs earlier and then the Iran War. Donald Trump was reelected to the White House for a simple reason, and that was to fix the economy that American and American minds believe was broken inflation as well. And when all of a sudden you enter into a conflict that at the start was not all that popular, and then all of a sudden the gas prices go up and that of course, goes right to inflation, right to the economy, et cetera. That's a killer, man. That's a killer. If you're a Republican down ballot. The war is very much unpopular. And it's interesting to sort of think about these things. Right, because the gas prices, when you take into account inflation, really aren't that high historically. But there have been a significant rise on top of what Americans are already thinking is inflation. That's just simply put, too high. Obviously, that started back during the Biden era, where it really hit its peak in terms of the inflation rate. And you just go, this is an anchor. And you can honestly, you can see the numbers. When there was the idea that there was going to be a ceasefire, right. You kind of saw his numbers stabilize and maybe climb a point or two, not significantly, but, you know, you saw it going in the right direction if you're him. And then all of a sudden the war starts back up again and down go the numbers again. It's not the only thing. But as someone who's just looking at, from a electoral standpoint, I mean, if your approval rating on gas prices are lucky to hit 25% and sometimes they're below 20, which is the worst ever by far. Yeah, I would say it's a big problem.
- [38:19]
B
So does the situation resolve itself prior to November? It's been this. I mean, no one knows, right? It's been this tit for tat. They. They strike, we strike. It's very, it's very odd, Harry, because I feel like I can feel, I can. I can almost feel the palpable frustration from, from the White House, from their inner team advisors. They clearly want this thing to be over. They want to focus on the economy. They want to get back to James Carpal, it's economy stupid and all the above there. But I don't know, I mean, do you see this wrapping up somehow prior to November, or is this going to be the same situation on election day?
- [38:52]
D
I mean, the question is how far, how close? You know, if it wraps itself up tomorrow, okay, that's one thing. But if it's by October, you know, if it's in the middle of October and it's October, so I'm not sure it Matters. Right. So you're almost. The timeline is actually a little bit more crunch. Voter sentiment starts to bake in, et cetera. I don't know. I can merely say this, which is if this war is still going on come November and Donald Trump's numbers are what they are come November, it would be the greatest political trick I've perhaps ever seen for Republicans to hold on to the US House of Representatives. And I would think that Democrats might actually at that point be favored and maybe not by an insignificant margin in the United States Senate because it'd be awfully difficult given how we now vote in terms of, you know, we really do kind of vote more straight ballot than we used to in terms of the fact that how you feel about the president has an increasing hold and predictability of how you vote for the United States Senate. And given that President Trump's numbers are underwater in all these different states and then the number one issue is inflation and the gas prices are still decently high and he's still in a war that Americans don't like, that would be politically very, very bad.
- [40:12]
B
So speaking of Iran and you mentioned the related topic of Israel earlier a little bit in the conversation about Abdul Al said, I guess I would be remiss, Harry, if I didn't ask you at least one question about our community, the American Jewish community and voting patterns. I was listening to a conversation on radio earlier this week from my friend Buck Sexton and his co host Clay Travis. And they were debating whether or not Abdul Al Sayed Mamdani, whether the rise of the DSA and what some was referred to as this red green alliance, whether this will actually meaningfully affect Jewish voting patterns. And what Buck Sexton said was he thought no, because it's already been priced in. The folks who are gonna move have moved already. Clay Travis said no, this is another wake up call, you know, cards on the table. I am inclined towards the viewpoint that I actually don't think this is going to be a massive, massive shift. Having said that, I was reading an article just this morning about how some prominent Jewish Democrats in Michigan, wealthy donors, are now gonna be headlining fundraisers for Mike Rogers. Me, I'm wrong. Maybe there actually is going to be a big shift this November and beyond. How do you see the Jewish vote going this November and beyond with the rise of the dsa?
- [41:22]
D
So I think the real question is, is what we saw in the Michigan primary is what we saw in the New Jersey. I believe it's the 11th district special election.
- [41:35]
B
Obama.
- [41:35]
D
Yeah, yeah. Is that Sort of, you tear, you sort of string that out, right? You open it up and you go those districts where there are a lot of Jewish voters very much swung in that special election to the right. We know that Abdul Al say did very poorly in, you know, large Jewish communities during that primary. Can that actually move the needle? I will say that there is a lot of skepticism of Bibi Netanyahu and of Israel, even within the Jewish democratic community. But, but to your point, if I'm recalling this correctly, I do believe that the majority of Jewish Democrats called what has happened in Gaza a genocide, which is not the way that most Israelis would see it. Josh, I haven't asked you this question. I don't believe it's the way that you would see it. And I do, I understand the strong skepticism from Buck on that one. Look, I think that there is going to be some movement, but I don't think it's going to be the movement to the extent that you might expect. Maybe that's a cop out, but I would play it down the middle that way. Yeah, go on.
- [42:48]
B
No, I think it's totally fair. I mean, in 2024, the Jewish percentage that vote for Donald Trump was still far under 50%. It was actually debated what exactly it was. I saw some folks say 35%, some folks said as high as 40%. But whatever it was, it was, yeah, it was a marginal increase for sure over 2020. It's getting higher, but it's not a majority vote. So maybe a marginal, maybe a marginal move here or there. Harry, in our main few minutes, I guess I want to just ask a couple of rapid ish fire questions for you which was turning your attention to 2028. I kind of would just want your prediction as to who the nominee in each shot is going to be at this point. So let's start with the Democrats. It's probably the more interesting conversation. Honestly, who will be the democr Democrat presidential nominee in 2028?
- [43:36]
D
I don't have a fricking clue. But what I will say is that there's no favorite. I think if you had asked me six months ago, I think you said Gavin Newsom was a favorite. I don't know. I'd like, honestly. We have a darth of polling data. If Kamala Harris runs, I do think she is the most likely person. Maybe. But you look at those New Hampshire polls and I don't know if that's going to actually be the first the nation primary. But you see that, you know, you see a number of things that are Going on up there. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is quite strong. You've seen John also kind of take off. I'm going to be very interested to see. But there are. This is the most unsettled field since at least 1992, when Bill Clinton was able to win that nomination.
- [44:21]
B
Well, fair enough. Listen, my prediction probably would be Gavin Newsom, for whatever it's worth.
- [44:26]
D
I mean, it could still be. It could very well be.
- [44:29]
B
It could be, but we really have no clue, as you just said, the Republicans on the aisle, I think we have a greater clue. But I guess I will frame the question this way. Is J.D. vance a lock or is there any question in your mind? Yeah.
- [44:40]
D
Okay. Last time we spoke, I was very, very strong in J.D. vance. He is still the favorite to be that nominee. Okay, he's still that favorite. But you go to New Hampshire.
- [44:48]
C
Right.
- [44:49]
D
I just mentioned it. Which will be the first in the nation primary on the Republican side and that lead, which was 40 plus points at the beginning of the year, where Marco Rubio, excuse me, where Marco Rubio was lucky to be hitting double digits and JD Vance was north of 50%. What did the latest poll have him within 15? There's a legitimate conversation that I think is going to be had there. So I would say he's not a lock, J.D. vance, but he is the favorite at this point. But Marco Rubio pretty popular within Republican circles. And I think the ultimate question is, does Donald Trump decide to get involved? And if he does, I think he could choose who he wants it to be.
- [45:27]
B
So that's one question. Question I think is, will Rubio even do this? Is he interested in it? I mean, from what I've heard, it's, it's just kind of scuttlebutts. But what I've heard through the grapevine is that he has no infrastructure. He. That's just what I've heard. He's apparently not planning at all and running at this time. These things, though, as we both know, have a habit of changing. Unfortunately, though, we're going have to leave it there. We are out of time. Harry Enton is the chief data analyst for cnn. Check out the Enton scale at CNN All Access. Harry, you're mentioned. We appreciate your time as always. Shabbat Shulman will talk to you soon.
- [45:56]
D
Good. Chavez, my friend.
- [45:58]
B
All right, folks, that's gonna be all for today's show. Have a great evening and a great weekend. We'll be right back on Monday.
- [46:07]
E
Life can be messy, but you don't have to figure it out alone.
- [46:10]
A
Hey, it's the Lusko.
- [46:11]
E
Join pastors and best selling authors Levi and Jenny Lusko on Hey, it's the Luskos for honest conversations about faith, marriage, family, grief, ministry, and all the other unexpected moments in between. You'll laugh, you'll be encouraged, and you'll be reminded that God is faithful through every season.
- [46:28]
A
It will always come back to Jesus in the end.
- [46:31]
E
That's right. Tune into hey, it's the Luskos with Levi and Jenny Lusko available now. Wherever you get your podcasts.