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The Opinions
Will 2026 Be the Year Voters Pull the Emergency Brake?
00:40:11
The midterms will be a battle for control of Trump’s legacy.
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- [00:01]
David French
The New York Times app has all this stuff that you may not have seen. The way the tabs are at the.
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Nichelle Cottle
Top with all of the different sections.
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David French
I can immediately navigate to something that.
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Jamelle Bouie
Matches what I'm feeling.
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Nichelle Cottle
I go to games always doing the.
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Jamelle Bouie
Mini, doing the wordle.
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David French
I loved how much content it exposed me to things that I never would have thought to turn to a news.
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Jamelle Bouie
App for this app is essential.
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Podcast Host/Announcer
The New York Times app. All of the times all in one place. Download it now@nytimes.com app. This is the Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. You've heard the news, here's what to make of it.
- [00:50]
Nichelle Cottle
I'm Nichelle Cottle. I cover national politics for New York Times Opinion. And this week we have the band back together. David French, Jamelle Bouie, my fantastic colleagues and column. It is so good to see you for the first time in 2026. It has been such a quiet start to the year. How you feeling? Good.
- [01:12]
David French
I'm tired already. Michelle, you're tired already? Tired already, Jemel?
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Jamelle Bouie
I am feeling as good as one can feel given the circumstances, which I'll let people figure out what that means.
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Nichelle Cottle
Yeah, everybody can just google that. But Jamel, we missed you last week. But I hear that for our Jamel Stans, of which I know there are, you're gonna be doing an event live in Southern California.
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Jamelle Bouie
That's right.
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Nichelle Cottle
So they have the opportunity to catch up with you. Tell me about this. Tell me, give me the details.
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Jamelle Bouie
Yes, Next Tuesday, the 20th, in Los Angeles, we'll be having an event. It'll be me, our boss, Katie Kingsbury and Ross Douthat, our colleague, talking about the first year of the Trump administration and what it means and what it portends and all those things.
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Nichelle Cottle
Oh, so it's a feel good event.
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Jamelle Bouie
Yeah, a feel good event. Lots of, I don't know, laughing and chortles and the like.
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Nichelle Cottle
Okay, so it's 7pm at the Aratani Theater, which means nothing to me cause I only go to LA sometimes, but I'm sure that means a lot to those there. Okay. And we'll put a link for people to get tickets in our show notes because I know we've got some demand.
- [02:24]
Jamelle Bouie
Yes.
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Nichelle Cottle
All right, so moving right along, we spent our last episode of 2025 looking back. So now we gotta look forward. As a political writer, I am already obsessed with the midterms. Both parties have red hot primaries coming up as early as March 3rd in Texas. And then the drama just keeps on rolling straight through November. So, okay, as political nerds, we keep close tabs on this, but for our more normal listeners, and I am so happy for y' all's sanity, let me give a quick lay of the land in terms of what's at stake in these midterms and what the parties need to do for success in November. I'll briefly get the ball rolling, and then I want you guys to have at it, too. So, as far as what is at stake, the midterms are a referendum on the sitting president. So for everyone, Republicans, Democrats, all of us, what is on the line is basically the shape and power of the remainder of the Trump presidency. If Republicans keep unified control of Congress, Trump is going to take that as a mandate to just do whatever the hell he wants for as long as he can hold onto the office. Does that seem right to you guys?
- [03:39]
Jamelle Bouie
Yeah, that sounds basically right. If Republicans hold on to both chambers, then it's sort of all bets are off for the next two years after that.
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Nichelle Cottle
At least two years.
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Jamelle Bouie
At least two years, yeah.
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David French
I think that's 100,000% true because he'll take it as a validation of all of the brutality, because there is a sort of silent majority theory operating behind the scenes in the White House. They like what we're doing to the immigrants. They like what we're doing to, quote, criminals. They love all this. They're just not going to tell pollsters. And so, yeah, if he keeps that majority in the House, if he maintains or extends that majority in the Senate. Yeah, I mean, all bets are off. Absolutely. It'll be a total validation of the administration strategy and approach. I say not total, let me be clear. Political validation, not moral validation. Political validation of the administration's approach so far.
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Nichelle Cottle
All right, so nothing focuses the political mind, though, like a good butt whipping. So if voters rebuff his team, Republicans are going to need to decide if they really want to go down with that ship. Right?
- [04:47]
Jamelle Bouie
Yeah. I mean, a lot of this is about expectations. It's always about expectations. Right. So I think the expectation right now is that Democrats are probably going to win back the House. I'm not sure anyone has a sense of the scale of that. And that's going to shape how people react as well. If it's a narrow win, Right. Like narrowly take back the House, I think that will be read as basically like a good performance for Republicans. If Democrats sort of crash through the wall like the Kool Aid man and take back the House, then that's going to be taken as a Major repudiation. And likewise with the Senate. Any scenario in which Democrats take the Senate, which is a very tough reach for them right now, is a scenario in which there really has been, I think, a decisive repudiation of what the administration's been doing. And I think in that world, Republicans are gonna be like, okay, we gotta spend the next two years distancing ourselves from Trump. Now the trouble, the trouble is that Trump does not want to be distanced from. So there will be a push, but there are also, there's also gonna be a pull.
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Nichelle Cottle
It's like trying to break up with somebody who just won't, won't take.
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Jamelle Bouie
It's like trying to break up the most toxic partner you can imagine.
- [05:56]
Nichelle Cottle
But the Dems, if they underperform, this is a disaster for them because they are desperate to show that they heard voters unhappiness in 2024 and have been working to correct some of those errors. And if the party cannot manage to beat a broadly unpopular president in a cycle when historically whatever party is out of power in the White House, Democratic does better. If they can't manage that, then I believe it's hit the red button, break the glass, full blown panic mode for them.
- [06:34]
David French
There was a really interesting discussion of this online yesterday about this disparity between the general election voter and the primary voter. And I think that one of the problems that both parties have right now is there is too little participation in the primary and that is driving candidate selection in a way that is going to be ultimately harmful to parties in general. Let's look at Texas and let's look at the Republican side. Republicans have a real problem right now in Texas and that the latest polling that I saw on the Democratic side, James Talarico has about an eight or nine point lead over Jasmine Crockett and Ken Paxton, who might be. I mean, there's a lot of competition for this. But, you know, one day we should do sort of the horse race rankings. He might be the most corrupt elected politician in America this side of Donald Trump.
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Nichelle Cottle
And his wife is divorcing him on biblical grounds despite the fact that he has been a huge player in Christian politics and driving out the evangelical vote. Oh yeah.
- [07:35]
David French
In the before times I would be at conferences where he was holding court, holding forth as the model Christian politician. Right. And so now his wife is divorcing him for adultery. And, and he's leading in the primary. But you're talking about in John Cornyn, one of the more respected mainstream establishment Republican senators, and he's in the fight of his life in a primary against a walking ball of corruption. And so that's one of the issues that's unfolding here. And look, the Republicans, I think in particular have that primary voter problem, but I also think the Democrats have a primary voter problem issue as well. When you have a race that concentrates your most hyper engaged, hyper aware, sort of political nerds, so to speak, their priorities don't align completely with the sort of the voter that kind of lays low and just kind of walks into the polls every two years. They have different kinds of concerns. And it's one of the reasons why these parties are lurching in and out of control. Because in many ways, these parties are built for their primary voters. They're not as built for the general election voter.
- [08:45]
Nichelle Cottle
Okay, so let's dig in a little bit. To the Democrats looking at a midterm, which we all understand is different than a presidential year, what message should the party be focused on? They've leaned into the anti Trump theme for cycles. Didn't work so well in 2024. But, you know, how do they balance that message in a midterm that acknowledges some of the Trumpian chaos that we've been seeing, but also gets in those, you know, quote unquote, kitchen table issues and other things that voters are, you know, that are top of mind for.
- [09:20]
David French
Voters, you know, part of the issue and one of the problems you're going to have in analyzing this election is, as we said at the very top of this, these midterms are mainly verdicts on the president. And so running for things like affordability or building more housing, those are kinds of issues, of course, the kitchen table issues that voters want to hear about. Also, at the same time, when you don't have the presidency, it's very hard to implement an agenda. It's very hard to run on. This is the agenda we're going to implement. If you vote for us, it's much easier to run on. Here's all the crap we're going to stop. In some ways, I think what you're going to have is a kind of, you know, go back to this analogy, a break glass in the case of emergency sort of election where you're saying we are in an emergency situation right now. There is a lot of chaos, there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of rage, there's a lot of anger and we're gonna be able to at least provide some accountability and some restraint that doesn't exist right now. And I think that that's gonna be just a very compelling top line message. You know, one thing that is fascinating to me is a lot of these things that just totally consume the online world do not escape into the offline world. But I don't think that's true of the killing of Renee Goode. For example, the polling indicates that Anywhere between almost 70 to around 80% of Americans have seen video, have seen the footage of that shooting. And so there will be these things that break through, you know, as we're recording this, the podcast, Trump has threatened the Insurrection Act. And, you know, these are things that they create a big online tempest. Maybe people don't, will not know 48 hours from now that Trump threatened the Insurrection Act. But if he invokes it, they'll definitely, if he actually invokes it, they'll definitely know.
- [11:14]
Jamelle Bouie
Yeah, Jamal, I think David's right that in terms of messages to win, all you really have to do is like, announce your intention to hold the administration accountable in, like, you know, concrete ways. I do think that Democrats are going to be using the midterms to test out messages, right? To try to reach out to voters they know they're going to need in 2028. And so I would to see some version of what Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said a couple days ago. I believe she was like, walking on the steps of the Capitol and said to a reporter, you know, they cut your health care to pay for this ICE stuff, right? That's both a accountability message and like a kitchen table affordability message, Right? It's both. They cut food stamps so they could shoot a woman in the face. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if anyone's going to go that. Like, that's how I, if I were running for office, that's what I would say. I'm a little blunt in that regard, but I would imagine you'll get some version of that that like we, the government could be doing these things to help you. But they cut all of that to pay for, you know, armed thugs harassing your friends and neighbors. That I think is going to be the way they try to capture both ends of this. And I actually think that's a pretty effective message. Right. I think it's both a recognition of kind of like the material stuff that people really care about, a recognition of the kind of soul of America stuff that people do really care about.
- [12:45]
David French
There's also an appeal that Democrats can make to sort of the educated Republican voters. And you've got some messages there that I think could resonate with them. You know, Trump just proposed a $600 billion increase in defense spending. $600 billion for one year. Okay. He proposed a plan that the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget would say would add almost 6 trillion DOL deficit to the United to in debt to the United States. And you know, why is that? Well, his Don Road doctrine is going to bankrupt America. Because when you alienate all of our allies, guess what they actually carry. All of our allies collectively carry more of the defense burden than we do. Okay. And so if you alienate all our allies, we're going to bankrupt ourselves trying to pick up that slack. And so there's lots of things that. How you can make a Greenland controversy or the Venezuelan intervention resonate in domestic terms and say this. Your bank, your arrogance and your pride and your alienization of allies is bankrupting this country.
- [13:54]
Nichelle Cottle
So I think that's exactly right. Earlier this week, I was talking to Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, and he was kind of walking me through the party's umbrella theme for the midterms of. And we gotta go with the alliteration costs, chaos and corruption. That gives them a framework for saying these are all tied together. When Trump is doing all these things abroad, it adds to the chaos. When he is cutting questionable deals with certain companies or favoring his favorite players, you know, that kind of kind of quasi corruption adds to not just the chaos, but the costs that you're gonna pay. Even when he does something like decide he's gonna prosecute the Fed chair, that doesn't really resonate with people in and of itself. But if you pitch it as well, it's gonna make everything more expensive. If we destroy the independence of the central bank, then people are gonna pay a lot more attention, and they're certainly gonna care. Mary Peltola, the former House member, Democrat, just jumped into the race in Alaska for Senate, and you can see in her messaging already how these things all tie together. You know, she's saying that big corporations, because of the corruption in Washington, are being allowed to essentially rape Alaska's natural resources, that nobody in the lower 48 cares about Alaska. They're feathering their own pockets. So you see how the costs and the corruption and the chaos all tie together. And Schumer was saying that this is absolutely something that works as kind of a big framework. So the last thing on the Democrats, you don't want to overlearn the lessons of any particular election, because obviously everyone's different, especially depending on the off cycle year, presidential midterms. But There was a bit of a blue wave in the 2025 off cycle races. Are there lessons that you guys think the democr should be taking forward from those?
- [16:09]
Jamelle Bouie
I mean, the big lesson to me of the 2025 wave, such that it was, is that Democratic voters, they want people who are gonna be aggressive. Right. They want people who are going to be fighters. But one of the results that just shocked me the most was the Virginia Attorney General race, Right. Where the candidate had, you know, texted about, gosh, you know, like.
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Nichelle Cottle
Unfortunate text.
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Jamelle Bouie
To air shooting, you know, an opponent's family, and he won by six points. And it's like that, to me, was a sign. That was a sign that Democratic voters in Virginia were like, yeah, we don't care. You know, and part of that is that we've been. We've witnessed how the President talks about opponents.
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Nichelle Cottle
Yeah. There's been a desensitization for years.
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Jamelle Bouie
People are desensitized to it. But I think it's also sort of like, you know, hey, if that guy's willing to say that, maybe that shows he's willing to fight. Right?
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Nichelle Cottle
Yeah.
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Jamelle Bouie
And I think. I think that desire for fighters is the lesson to take from last year, that I do not think that candidates who take a very kind of cautious, oh, we just all want to get along with our Republican friends approach are going to do very well.
- [17:26]
Nichelle Cottle
So I have a question for you, Jamal, related to that, which is that. So the Attorney General candidate in Virginia was. Who he was, but Abigail Spanberger, Mikey Sherrill, premier races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, they weren't milquetoast, but they were very pragmatic in their approach. Do you think that there's a way to blend those two things, which is that I'm a fighter, I'm gonna fight for you, but you're. But I'll work across the aisle with people who are reasonable as well. How do you see that kind of reconciling?
- [18:02]
Jamelle Bouie
Yeah. So I think one can think about fighter in any number of ways. And one of the ways you can think about it is in terms of accountability politics. Right. Not fighter in terms of I'm going to humiliate my partisan opponents, but fighter in terms of there was wrongdoing that happened and I want to deal with that wrongdoing. And that is not incongruent. Right. That's not in tension with the more moderate and pragmatic politics in other places. Right. You can be someone with moderate views on any number of issues and then also say, there's no way we can fund ICE in its current form, or we have to think about reorganizing dhs, given the abuses we've seen. Right. Those two things are not in tension with each other. You could make the argument, right, that sort of someone willing to be kind of bold and progressive in their policy preferences maybe is a little more likely to be. Be aggressive in the accountability front, but there's a bit of conceptual separation there. I had a question for David, actually, and this is thinking about post Trump politics, just the way of the cards in the table. I think that any post Trump politics that's gonna put us in a place that doesn't just lead us back to where we are is gonna have to rest on aggressive accountability for wrongdoing and lawbreaking of a kind that I think Americans are actually kind of uncomfortable with. Right. You know, if we, you know, investigations of the executive branch of what Stephen Miller's been up to. What has Russ Vote been up to during these years? A willingness to say, people who broke the law need to be held criminally accountable. People who were engaged in this massive corruption flowing from the White House, we need to freeze those assets. We need to refer them for criminal prosecution. And so that's gonna read as very aggressive. It's gonna read as very partisan. It's gonna read. It's very divisive, but I think it's necessary. Or you just come right back to where we are. And my question, David, is like, how do you perceive that? Like, I don't perceive that as tit for tat, trying to humiliate my opponents. I perceive that as trying to clean house. But I'm curious to know what you think.
- [20:19]
David French
Yeah, I think that we have lost the distinction sometimes between the notion of fighting hard for a position and fighting hard for accountability, fighting hard for justice, and personally attacking human beings. So these are the distinctions that have sometimes been lost in this Trump era. And it turns out often that a lot of the people who are very good at lacerating other human beings and sort of very good at that. The attention economy of extremely aggressive politics. As we're learning in maga, Republicanism, are not often all that competent at things like governance, accountability, stuff like that. Sometimes the people are extremely competent at the things that you're talking about, Jamel, which I agree with, I think there should be an accounting and accounting, although.
- [21:09]
Nichelle Cottle
I think you have to be very careful calling for that, because one of the things Trump is doing going into the midterms is whining that if Democrats retake either chamber of Congress, Retake the House. They're gonna impe. And he's using this as like, they're out to get me. It's another witch hunt. I mean, he is the master of victimhood. Boo hoo. Poor me. But you have to be really careful with that.
- [21:35]
David French
No, I do agree with that. You have to fight hard and smart at the same time. My issue is that when you're talking about a creation of an attention economy and politics, it really, really puts a premium, especially in the online world, as to who has owned you or destroyed you. And that is a perversion of our political culture that I think has completely consumed the right. I mean, you've got cabinet officials who are more concerned about angry podcasters than they are about popular opinion. And I'm just saying this is very dangerous. This is one of the ways in which Trump has impacted our politics in a dangerous way that could easily outlast him.
- [22:23]
Nichelle Cottle
Well, I think the party, I think the Republican Party in general has gotten bitten by that lately. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene, she basically learned her own lesson and got, you know, decided that it was time to leave the house when all of that venom got turned on her.
- [22:43]
David French
So can I make a take that might age very poorly?
- [22:48]
Nichelle Cottle
Please do. Please do.
- [22:50]
David French
Okay, so here is my theory.
- [22:52]
Nichelle Cottle
Okay.
- [22:53]
David French
My theory is that we're going to be very soon reaching a point where you need to stop looking at Trump's approval rating to know how popular MAGA is. And here's what I mean. Trump, I think at this point, we're now in the 10th year since he came down the escalator and announced his presidency. So in the 10 years, oh, my.
- [23:13]
Nichelle Cottle
God, I can't wait till that. That phrase is dead. I am just like, I would like to burn that escalator to the ground.
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Jamelle Bouie
As a member, I just, I just like imagining like a calendar when it's like B E and A E before escalator.
- [23:25]
David French
Oh, gosh.
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Nichelle Cottle
I mean, so does Trump, Jamel. So does Trump. Go ahead.
- [23:30]
David French
So we're in the year 10 AE. So in the year 10 AE, I think a lot of Trump voters, that is part of their identity now it is fixed. And from now on, Republicans are going to be running without Donald Trump on the ballot. And so I think that the Trump position is going to be an artificially high indicator of the popularity of MAGA policies, that the actual indicator of MAGA policies is going to be much more indicated by, in some senses, although I think issue polling is often kind of quasi garbage. But if you start to see overwhelming numbers in Issue polling. And then ultimately in the outcome of the midterm elections. And. And I think a lot of Republicans are, it's starting to sink in that the rules that apply to Trump or the rules that don't apply to Trump still apply to them.
- [24:27]
Nichelle Cottle
Okay, which brings me to something I need both of you to address, which is we've spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about Republican members of Congress pushing back against Trump, or rather not. Do you already see signs of this changing? I'm thinking in particular of, like, the opposition to Trump's persecution of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. But there have been a couple of other episodes of this of late. And I was talking to Thomas Massie a couple of weeks ago, who, as I'm sure you know, is Trump's least favorite House Republican. And he predicted that after this cycle of primaries, some of his colleagues would start to loosen up and be more willing to defy the White House going forward. What do you think?
- [25:13]
Jamelle Bouie
I'll believe it when I see it. Okay. Representative Massie, Sure. I'll believe it when I see it. I do think that, you see, I mean, on sort of things that are truly beyond the pale, you do see Republicans kind of blanch a bit. House Republicans recently joined with Democrats that put a health care ACA subsidies extension passed out of the House. There's a decent chance it passed through the Senate. But as far as anything more serious than that, again, I will believe it when I see it. I wanna add one comment on. I think David's good point about the delta between MAGA issue and Trump issue, you might say. I think you can see that in the relative approvals of Trump and J.D. vance, you know, good point. J.D. vance not especially popular. Right. In a post Trump world, JD Vance clearly wants to be the standard beare for maga, and he is just broadly disliked in a way that is obviously somewhat just. Him.
- [26:11]
Nichelle Cottle
Well, he's like the opposite of Trump as a cultural phenomenon. Right. J.D. vance is pure political aspiration, and you're kind of just straightforward political business as usual. He's not a celebrity, he's not charismatic. He can't order a donut without looking awkward. He doesn't know how to talk to people. He's every senator in a suit who hears Hail to the Chief playing in his head on some level.
- [26:38]
Jamelle Bouie
Right, right, right, right, exactly.
- [26:40]
David French
And we consistently underestimate the extent to which Trump is a completely unique cultural figure as a politician. And those of us who have dived into this for a long time, the mystique is over. With Trump, like, the mystique is gone. But I think we underestimate to the extent to which for a lot of Americans, the mystique still exists.
- [27:02]
Nichelle Cottle
Well, so talking about him not being on the ballot, him having a position that nobody else in the GOP has, what are they gonna do with the midterms? What should they do going into the midterms? At a House retreat for Republicans last week, the President told the party to campaign on his policies. Border security, anti transgender athletes, tax cuts. Roadmap to victory, he called it. I mean, is that what they should be doing? I mean, what. What is their path forward?
- [27:36]
Jamelle Bouie
If I were a Republican running in an unfavorable conditions, I would try to localize things as much as possible. Actually talk about the policies in the most abstract way. You know, I brought you tax cuts to, you know, for X, Y or Z, but really try to keep things local and try to erase whatever connection as much as possible, you have, you have to Trump. That would be my advice in terms. But that never works. Every midterm cycle, when it's gonna be bad for the president's party, people are like, yeah, you gotta keep things local. And it never works, right? Like, voters understand these things to be referendums on the president. Can I just say, this can be cut if this is too much. This can be cut just depending on how much time he's been online. And Trump talks about this, he was like, things are going so well. Maybe we don't have to have midterms. And there was this chit chatter on the Internet about the president canceling the elections. And I feel like since we're having this conversation about the midterms, I feel obligated to say that that's not a thing. And I know the response is going to be, look, he does everything else he wants. And I think that actually intelligent response to that is like, actually, there's a lot of things on which he stopped or he's blocked, but that in a very practical sense, right? Like states run elections. States run federal elections, not the president. The president has no role in federal elections. The president has no role certifying federal elections. The president has no role seating members of Congress when it comes to the conduct of federal elections and the results, at least for legislative elections. The president is just a guy. He's just a guy watching on CNN like the rest of us. And yes, he has, you know, he has ice. He has his, like, a little private army. Ice on paper has 22,000 people looking at Minnesota right now. Minneapolis. They've committed more than 10% of their on paper agents to try to pacify the 46th largest city in the country. 45th. 46th. And they can't do it. You know, obstinate Midwestern, you know, middle aged Midwesterners have essentially stopped ICE from operating in Minneapolis in a meaningful way. So I just feel like saying, I feel like it's necessary to say that there's a lot of fear mongering and scaremongering about what the President can do with regards to the midterms.
- [29:55]
Nichelle Cottle
Well, he just got shot down by the courts, right? For he was. He was arguing that he needed to deprive states of federal funding if they didn't follow his rules for how they run their elections. And the courts are like, nah, bro, step back.
- [30:11]
Jamelle Bouie
He's demanding voter rolls. And the courts are like, no, that's none of this is your business. So for Trump to try to cancel an election in Virginia, for example, like Abigail Spanberger would have to be like, okay, sure, right.
- [30:23]
Nichelle Cottle
Like, yeah, that's gonna happen.
- [30:25]
Jamelle Bouie
How is Donald Trump gonna stop Gavin Newsom? How is he gonna stop Kathy Hochul? Right. Like, you have to think in practical terms. And I understand the temptation to latch on to worst case scenarios and fantasies. It makes a lot of sense in the moment. But you have to temper that stuff with sort of like, okay, how does the practical operation of government actually work? That's all.
- [30:50]
David French
I think Jamel is exactly right. I'm glad you brought up the numbers of ice. ICE cannot control America. It cannot do it. And then there's another factor that I don't think people have appreciated quite enough, and that is the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. Illinois here in the last few weeks, where it upheld an order blocking the national Dugard deployment under this particular statute that Trump was trying to use, that if he was permitted to use it at sort of at his discretion, at his will. Yeah, we don't have very many ICE officers, but we've got hundreds of thousands of Guard of soldiers in the guard. And you could easily imagine a scenario where he starts deploying the Guard into, to, quote, vote to preserve the sanctity of the election or whatever pretext that he would use. Not in a way that would overtly block people from voting, but then would create an atmosphere of intimidation that might sort of deter people from going to the polls. And I think that Trump v. Illinois case was very, very important because it's really cut off from him this ability to just deploy the guard at his whim. Now there's still, the Insurrection act hovering out there, that's a whole, whole different can of worms. But I do think that there is great hope to the point where I think it's irresponsible to argue otherwise, that the election in the off year, I mean, the midterms are going to be regular elections under regular order, counted in the regular way. That's the way this is all going to unfold. And I think it's very important to get that message out there. As far as what are Republicans going to do? I think what you're going to see is just more of what Republicans firmly believe works for them, which is negative polarization. And I think that one thing, and this is, I'm going to take this in kind of a dark direction. It is very hard for me to watch ICE tactics without thinking that there's a purpose here beyond intimidation. And that is absolutely provocation, and that Trump is trying to. Okay, it creates the impression. ICE tactics create the impression that Trump is trying to. And the administration is trying to recreate many of the conditions in 2020.
- [33:11]
Jamelle Bouie
I think that's absolutely right, because I think in.
- [33:13]
David French
Yeah, I think in Republican circles, there is a firm belief amongst a lot of more radicalized Republicans that 2020 and the rioting and the violence in the streets in 2020, A, was Democrats true colors, and B, that that's the reason why, in actuality, Trump didn't lose more decisively in 2020 was because of the unrest. And so that's why I think this moment is so incredibly dangerous. What we're watching looks exactly like deliberate provocation. And if you saw it in another country, what we're seeing today, you would say that's a brutal crackdown that seems designed to trigger an angry response. And so I'm in a position right now where I'm very, very worried that we're going to see an actual tactic of trying to foment urban unrest as a means of proving or demonstrating that Trump's crackdown was necessary in the first place. And that is one thing that I'm very concerned about in the midterms.
- [34:26]
Nichelle Cottle
Okay, on that. Super upbeat.
- [34:28]
David French
I thought you was gonna go dark.
- [34:31]
Nichelle Cottle
I know better than to let you have the last word on anything. I mean, well, I can't. It can't be the last word. Please, all day. We gotta land this plane. But that just means it's time for Rex and David. Last week, you were fired up to defend the Stranger Things finale. Are you gonna go down that road and confront the haters today, or are you gonna Give us some.
- [34:52]
David French
I have to. I have to. You know, I know, I know. They landed the plane in a way that I thought was true to the story and true, more importantly, to the ethos of the entire show. And it kind of comes full circle in a way. And maybe it just hit me in all the feels because, Michelle and Jamel, this might come as a surprise to you. I was a Dungeon Master in middle school and high school.
- [35:20]
Nichelle Cottle
I am putting that one in my pocket for later use. David. I was a dungeon master. You told me that.
- [35:28]
David French
And just that chapter of life was really special. And just sort of seeing the development of friendships and the bonds that you form with your childhood friends, and then the sense of loss as you grow older and you lose touch to some degree, some greater or lesser degree. I just thought it was so emotionally true and real in a way, that a movie about superpowered, telekinetic people doing battle with demigorgons from another dimension in that context is one of the most emotionally real shows I've seen.
- [36:03]
Nichelle Cottle
You know what? I support you in this. I support you, David.
- [36:07]
Jamelle Bouie
I've never seen a second of Stranger Things in my life, and I don't intend to change that.
- [36:10]
David French
There's so much to look forward to, Jamil.
- [36:12]
Nichelle Cottle
I know, Jamil.
- [36:14]
Jamelle Bouie
It's literally never gonna happen. I know.
- [36:16]
Nichelle Cottle
It could never say never.
- [36:19]
Jamelle Bouie
So my recommendation is also visual. It's a film I am a huge fan of the director, the late director John Frankenheimer. Films Frankenheimer has directed include the Manchurian Candidate.
- [36:32]
Nichelle Cottle
Awesome.
- [36:32]
Jamelle Bouie
Seven Days in May.
- [36:34]
Nichelle Cottle
Also awesome.
- [36:35]
Jamelle Bouie
His most famous One of the 90s is Ronin, with Robert De Niro. Prob. De Niro's best performance of the 90s. And before that, he directed a picture for HBO that I watched recently called against the Wall. It stars Kyle MacLachlan and Samuel L. Jackson, as well as kind of a bevy of thespians. And it is a dramatization of the Attic or a prison riot. And it is terrific. I had such a good time watching it. Frankenheimer is a great director of action and kinetic action in particular. And the prison riot scene feels like you're in the midst of it. It's so well shot and so well directed and captures sort of the sense of, especially from the perspective of the guards, the sense of surprise and shock, and then from the sense of the prisoners, the sense of opportunity, like, oh, we are actually doing this. This film has been kind of on my watch list for a long time. So I was like, let me just watch this as kind of a Frankenheimer completionist. And I came away thinking that this is some of his best work.
- [37:36]
Nichelle Cottle
That's so funny you brought that up. Last night my husband and I rewatched Dog Day Afternoon where Al Pacino has that famous moment where he's one of the bank robbers. He comes outside and he gets the crowd cheering attic.
- [37:50]
Jamelle Bouie
Attic.
- [37:52]
Nichelle Cottle
So why on earth would we have that overlap? That is not what I am recommending for the week though it's lovely. Watch it. Of course, it's a classic. But I just finished watching the trailer for the new season of Shrinking, which I love. This is a complete. David, you better not say anything unfortunate about show.
- [38:16]
Jamelle Bouie
I like how I have no idea what this is.
- [38:19]
Nichelle Cottle
Okay.
- [38:19]
David French
I love that show.
- [38:21]
Nichelle Cottle
This is a show that was it stars Jason Segel as a therapist whose wife gets killed and he's mourning and as a kind of part of his grieving coping process, he starts meddling in his patients lives. And it is, despite that basis, hilarious. It is one of the rare shows that I watch that just makes me feel better about the world. The cast is spectacular. It's like this sprawling cast of his friends and family and three words. Old Harrison Ford. So magical. So it's gonna start airing on January 28, which means you just have time. Time to binge rewatch the other seasons.
- [39:01]
David French
I can't recommend that show enough. Yeah, it's so good.
- [39:04]
Nichelle Cottle
That's it, guys. That's all I got for the week. Thank you so much for coming to play.
- [39:08]
Jamelle Bouie
Oh, always a pleasure.
- [39:10]
David French
Bye guys.
- [39:11]
Nichelle Cottle
Bye, David and everybody. Remember, if you're on the west coast or planning to be on the west coast, get your Jamel tickets. It's gonna be lit.
- [39:44]
Podcast Host/Announcer
If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. The Opinions is produced by Derek Arthur, Vishaka Darba, Christina Samulewski and Gillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin and Allison Bruzek. Engineering, mixing and original music by Isaac Jones, sonja Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Saborough and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Aman Sahota. The Fact Check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience dragon by Shannon Busta and Christina Samulewski. The director of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.