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A
This episode is brought to you by whoop.
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B
Whoop is one of my favorite all time products. It's clear we're living through pretty stressful times right now. It's easy to underestimate how much that can affect our sleep and ability to stay focused day to day.
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A
Yeah, avoiding burnout can feel like a full time job in and of itself.
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B
Whoop helps with the bit people miss that shows what actually is going on beneath the surface. Cat. It's a screenless, wearable device that monitors your sleep recovery, lifestyle and stress.
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Yeah, and this matters to me. It even looks very elegant.
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B
Did you hear that guys? Whoop is so stylish that even Catty K will wear the whoop.
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A
It's the little gold clasp. I like that.
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I'm telling you, I had no idea how much my old routine was impacting my health. But since using Whoop and making those small adjustments, I've already started to feel the difference. Better sleep, clearer thinking, even more energy.
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Head to join.wh-oop.com politics to get started with whoop today,
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some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now@bloomberg.com.
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A
Welcome to the Rest Is Politics US with me, Katie K. In Washington D.C. the nation's capital.
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B
Hi Caddy. I'm here too. Anthony Scarabucci. How you doing, Caddy? What's going on?
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A
I always feel like I should say I'm in Washington dc. I'm really sorry or I, I live here because you don't have to. Honestly, things are bad, but I'm holding up. Every time I tell somebody I'm living in Washington, they look at me like. Like somebody's passed in the family. I'm so sorry.
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B
I just this morning I had to do an interview with a journalist. She said, I cover America. I said, where do you live? She's in the uk. Very lucky. I know we got to do the show menu, but this is an important point. So I go to a local restaurant. It's my wife's birthday last night.
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A
Oh yes. Happy birthday. Deirdre Scaramucci.
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B
I pull up, the valet is from Peru. He listens to the rest of politics us. He's a very nice young man and he says that he's frightened and he has his US citizenship, but many of his friends have been picked up by ice and he says a lot of his friends say that the new American dream is to leave America for these people. They're very frightened. And, you know, that broke my heart. So I just think it's important for people to understand if you live outside the United States and you're obviously tuned to American politics, there is a dissension going on and there is an unease. And did you ever see the man in the High Castle?
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A
I did. About fascism coming to America?
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B
Yeah. And it was just about the alternative history. If we had lost the war and so forth, it was very good. And there's an underlying tension and there's an underlying anxiety in the society. And you know, there are groups now that are offering security for people that speak out to defend a democracy. You know, these are not for profits. I mean, it's just, this is astonishing to me that we're in that situation. But go ahead. We have a show to do and a menu before us. Go ahead.
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A
Katie K. We have not actually spoken about ICE for a while, which does not mean that ICE roundups are not happening around the country. I've heard the same thing I heard this weekend of somebody who'd been picked up in Virginia. So it is still happening. They're not doing it Minneapolis style, but, but it's still going on and that's still Stephen Miller's goal. And they're still buying up massive facilities around the country to use as ICE detention centers. So we haven't spoken about it because there is a war on. We will get back to it after the war, which may be coming sooner than we think. Anthony maybe the war is coming to an end because the White House seems to think it's getting close. They have a one page deal on the table. I guess one page means that the President might actually read it. The White House hopes that this means that they can get out of this and focus on other things. We're also going to talk, though, about the battle within the war. That's Marco Rubio versus J.D. vance. There's a lot of chatter here in Washington at the moment and around the country about Marco Rubio on the rise. He's on his way off to see the Pope. So we're going to talk about the Vance Rubio battle and how the war has played into that. Is it Vance or Rubio who's closer to Antony's woodchipper? And in the second half, we're going to talk about the midterms and how Trump is using primaries around the country as a revenge tour and he is winning. Guys, we will talk about Indiana. We do not usually talk about the Indiana State Senate primaries on this program. But today we'll dive into that. But before that, Anthony, we've got some very exciting news to share. We're going on tour. You and me.
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B
That's right. We're hitting the road this October. It's gonna be all across America. Caddy. We're going to Atlanta, Toronto. Not in Americ, but love Toronto.
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A
51st state.
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B
So hey, well, I don't want to say that to the Canadians. I love the fact that we have a separate country to our north. But anyway, Atlanta, Toronto, Boston, Washington D.C. minneapolis, Chicago, and of course my hometown, New York. Man, am I excited about this. It's going to be a set of live shows. I can't wait to see you there. This will be right in the final stretch of the midterms, Caddy. And we're going to be breaking down everything, the drama, the turning stakes. And I'm, I'm super excited about this. And of course, in the second half of the shows, we'll be taking people's questions live from stage. And Caddy and I have done this before, so we're really looking forward to doing it again.
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A
Yeah, we love doing these shows. We have done a show in Washington, New York. Those were pretty sold out very quickly. So sign up for tickets. General sale goes live on Friday 15 May, but if you want to make sure you can get a ticket, then sign up to become a founding member. That's one of the benefits of being a founding and you can get exclusive pre sale access starting this Friday, 8th of May. Just head to the restispolitics.com to sign up to get the pre sale code straight into your inbox. We're going to have a lot of fun on that tour and we hope you join us. It'll be great to meet everybody around the country. We've not been around the country, so this is going to be a first for us and we're excited to meet everybody. Okay, Anthony, let's dive in and kick off with this one page memo that is doing the rounds of Washington D.C. this morning. Axios first reported it. Reuters has confirmed confirmed it. The Pakistanis are pushing it hard. This is a one page memo that would basically deal with the Strait of Hormuz and punt quite a lot of the other big issues surrounding Iran. There's some reporting that in this memo there is also a moratorium on uranium enrichment for 12 years for Iran, possibly for 15 years. That's slightly less than the time frame for a barometer Barack Obama's deal. But everything else that is complicated is frankly just being pushed down the road and not dealt with. I don't think that you can have a peace deal in one page. The JCPOA was closer to 200 pages and took 20 months of face to face negotiations to get to. I think this peace deal, this deal, this one page deal, is basically needs to have Donald Trump writing on it in a big Sharpie. I want out of Iran whatever it costs. Because all of the things that he said he was going to achieve at the beginning of the war, when he made that video, I went back and watched it. Do you remember that video he made the first night of the war? He set out five goals. No nuclear weapons, no missiles, no navy, no support for proxies and regime change. The only thing that's actually been achieved at the moment is that they have destroyed the Iranian navy. None of the others have been achieved. So we're in a position where we might be about to sign a peace deal because Trump is tired of it, because Project Freedom threatened the ceasefire. It could have forced him back to bombing, which we all know he doesn't want. And the stars may be aligned for Trump to call it quits, declare a win and move on. But I don't think anyone should mistake this for a win, because far too much money, blood and treasure has been spent on this to be back at the position we were in when Barack Obama signed the jcpoa. What do you reckon?
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B
I'm going to make a statement. You tell me if it's true or false. I don't think we're seeing a real deal materialize a one pager or a 159 pager until Witkoff, Vance and Kushner are back in Islamabad. When the President says they're on their way to Islamabad, then I think we have the framework of a deal. Is that a fair statement to make, or you think we're just going to do this deal on the fly?
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A
What's interesting about this deal is it doesn't have Vance's name on it. We're going to talk about Vance and Rubio in a minute, but this is being put on Witkoff and Jared. So I don't know whether Vance has pulled himself out of this because he doesn't think there's a deal to be made and because this is a farce of a deal. I think there is a potential. I was Speaking to Mike McCall, the former ambassador to Russia, who's kind of plugged in on all of this this morning, and he said, listen, he thinks there's going to be so much pushback against this because however much Fox News tries to paint this as a win, it is so clearly not a win for the United States that he wouldn't be surprised if we wake up tomorrow morning and Trump says up. Actually, that's off the table. Because it's a laughable idea that this could possibly be painted as victory after everything America's put into this.
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B
Again, just again, I think it's important to remind people there's 400 kg of enriched uranium Trump wants that surrendered as a precondition to the deal. The Iranians probably can't accept that. I think the new Khamenei probably cannot accept that for political reasons. So I think that's a big sticking point in the deal. You've got the situation going on in Lebanon, which I think is very important for people. Iran has consistently refused any wider deal that doesn't include halting Israel's fight with Hezbollah. And by the way, the Israelis, let's just go to them. The polling in, In Israel, the IDI poll caddy, 59% of the Israelis oppose ending the deal. So again, the hermit kingdom used to be China, but it's now the United States. The hermit kingdom with one sole ally left. Israel is diverging in terms of what their political sentiment is and what their prime minister wants. So, and you know, General Kaine pointed this out yesterday, Secretary of Defense hecseth yesterday that this ceasefire is Swiss cheese.
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A
But it's a win. It's a win.
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B
But the market is responding to Donald
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Trump, which he knows.
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B
If you look at market activity, the market's telling you that Trump wants out and he's going to get us out some way somehow. And whether it's a one page memorandum or not, he's getting out. And then I guess what happens, you know, do the Democrats capitalize on this and say, hey, the JCPOA was way better than what Trump did. He spent $100 billion on the road to nowhere. Or the Democrats are just in complete disarray.
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A
Before we get to that, can I just say one thing? The markets are going to try and make money out of this. And so they're loving the volatility of the past, whatever it is. Eight weeks that this has been going on, right? Every time there's a spike in oil prices or every time there's a drop, we're seeing that kind of volatility. But the other thing is that, do you really believe that let's say this is a. He'll frame this as we're going to get the straits open and we're going to deal with all of those other complicated things later on. And there's an argument I've heard to diplomats say they were crazy to go to Islamabad and try and put everything on the table and deal with everything in the space of a one day meeting. You just do that. It's far too complicated. So actually it's better to deal with the urgent thing first, which is the straight, and then deal with the other stuff later. But do you think Trump is going to have the patience and the engagement and the involvement to deal with that other stuff? Do you really think that if he gets this and he gets what he wants, which is, I'm out of there, it's done. Let's go back to talking about the stuff I want to talk about, that his attention span will carry on?
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B
No, I think we both know that he's already halfway out the door. But I think that oil prices are the number one concern. And I think he wants those oil prices down way before November. And that's the dominant variable to me, the Strait of Hormuz choking 20% of the global supply. And I said this earlier in the week, $5 a gallon of gas, no bueno for the GOP coming into those midterms. And by the way, Trump cares less about that, but he does care about himself and his popularity and his standing, and he does want to get that down. I'm in the camp that he is going to brand this. Okay, you said this earlier in the week and I believe you. This is a win. This is a perfect deal. This is a beautiful deal. It's a most powerful deal. And it's not a treaty or anything that could be ratified by the Congress. But he's going to go to the Rose Garden, which is now the rose asphalt pavement. Okay, he's going to go to the rose pavement. He's going to go to the rose pavement and he's going to sign something. Probably the Pakistanis will be there and maybe even a representative from Iran. You know, but listen, how do you distance yourself from Israel without abandoning Israel? And how do you stop Israel from invading Lebanon? I don't think you can. So how do you reconcile that piece of it? How do the Iranians handle it? How did the Americans handle it?
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A
I mean, that is one piece of it that needs to be reconciled. There are so many different pieces of this that need to be reconciled. The fact that they still have half of their missiles underground in these missile cities, the fact that actually all we're doing is saying okay, you have to delay enrichment for 12 years. Well, they need 12 years anyway to rebuild the facilities. So that kind of suits Iran fine. They will rebuild those facilities. They have the scientists, they have the know how. They're going to find a way to do it. The fact that you haven't dealt with the proxies, I mean, the inconsistencies in this are extraordinary. He can stand up there in the rose pavement and say, this is a win because we've reopened the Straits of Hormuz. But guess what? The Straits of Hormuz, as we all know, were open in January anyway and it didn't cost $200 billion and everything we outlined in the last program to get this far. And I think here's the political risk. I think, I think Democrats will go after this. Of course they will. And if they're smart, I think what they focus on is not the jcpoa. They focus on how much this has cost America in terms of ammunition and injuries and effects on bases in the region and the amount of money that it has cost to get to the same position that we were in. But I think the problem for Trump is that he sold himself and the team around him. And we're going to get into Vance and Rubio because I think they're falling into the same trap. They sold themselves on being a new kind of politician who told it as it is. And Americans aren't stupid. They know they're being spun. And if Trump stands up there in the rose pavement and sells this as a win, the American public will know that that's not true. They'll know this is a win for Iran and they'll know that they are being spun and they're getting word salads and dodgy language. And it makes the Trump team look like exactly the kind of politicians that Americans have come to hate because they always feel that's what politicians, politicians do. It's politico speak. And I think that doesn't play well for Donald Trump.
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B
We'll go to Rubio and Vance now. I think it's important, but I just think the JCPOA was a better non proliferation agreement than the one that Trump is going to end up with. And that's the great irony.
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A
With a huge amount of damage that shouldn't be underplayed.
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B
Yeah, we'll watch these hypocritical talking heads defend it. But Katty, go to my favorite two Catholics, Rubio and Vance, but they're really not my favorite two Catholics. But please tell us the drama that's going on and the rumors. Caddy K. Spill tea. Caddy spill tea. Spill tea.
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A
Well, I don't know if you watched it. There was Marco Rubio doing your old job, Anthony in the White House yesterday, getting that prime slot. Caroline Levitt is off on maternity leave.
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B
I didn't have the lip twitch, though. I mean, I only did one press conference.
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A
You did it so well. You did not have the lip twitch. We'll talk about serious stuff in a minute, but let's just talk about the style. First of all, the suit, it's too big. He needs to. He's trying to take up space and look like a bigger person than he is. And I mean that physically, not metaphorically. But if you just like cut his shoulder pads to suit his actual size, I think it would be better now
- [17:46]
B
that we're picking up people's physicality. You don't like the Frankenberry? You know, you ever eat from Frankenberry cereal when you were a kid? That, I mean, he looks like. Okay, Charlie, do me a favor. On YouTube, post up Frankenberry next to Rubio. You'll see exactly what I'm talking about. But keep going. Caddy, spill tea.
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A
Okay, so that was not so good. But the fact that he was given the slot was a big deal. You've got all of these polls. We came out of cpac, all of these polls showing that JD Vance is the clear front runner for the Republican nomination for president in 2028. Donald Trump has kind of weighed in on both sides. He is playing both of them off and polling, doing his own little informal polling from the Oval Office. Rubio has said that he's not going to run if JD Is running. So JD Is the top dog, we all assume. And polls have suggested that, but actually now you're starting to get. Polls show that JD Is slipping. Rubio is rising. There's a super interesting focus group that's about to be released by the bull walk for some two time Trump voters in Louisiana. And the overwhelming majority, nearly all of them, say that they prefer Rubio over Vance. The Atlantic's done a story on this. Politico has done a story on this, The Dispatch has done a story on this. And I think Rubio's star is rising. And I think it's tied to the war in Iran, that the country's been put through a stress test internationally. And Rubio has probably handled it better than JD Vance has handled it. I don't think he was fine in the press room. He joked with the press. He answered a question in Spanish. It was good. I'm being snarky when I talk about his suit, but. So the argument for Rubio is that, and here's the main argument, he can win MAGA voters because he's done enough to shore up his bona fides with Donald Trump, but he can also win non MAGA voters and JD Vance in a way that JD Vance can. There's a group called Deep Root analytics is a GOP polling firm. They've looked at this and they've shown that more non MAGA voters would never vote for Vance than would never vote for Rubio. So Rubio's star in Washington, D.C. little bit quietly on the rise as he flies off to meet the Pope. That's going to be a fun trip for him because Donald Trump again trashed the Pope this week. What do you think? Do you think? I know what you think. You think they're both in the wood chipper. And I think you might be right, but I think so for different reasons.
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B
Well, no, I think we're going to take out Vance first.
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A
Okay.
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B
Okay. Because Vance again, I'm in Trump speak again. I am super pissed off. Shot was by my ear. I picked Vance. 72 hours later, I got $300 million from Thiel and Musk and I ended up with the Manchurian candidate next to me. And I don't like the guy. And so I'm going to put him in the wood chipper and I'm going to annihilate all Catholics because of him. Vance is complaining about this privately, by the way. And Tucker Carlson has said this to the New York Times, that this has been going on since day one. Now, to know Donald Trump is to know that for certain he's doing this to Vance. And I'm sure Vance is on the phone with his bro ligarch buddy saying, wtf, guys, what did you get me into? This guy's trying to kill me. It's a full on patricide. Okay, so that's Vance. Okay, we'll put him over there.
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A
And what's Vance weakness with the voters?
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B
I am going to pat us on the back because I said eight months ago, guys, going into wood chipper. He's halfway through the Fargo wood chipper. Okay, so now let's go to what's going on with the Vatican because this is where I'm going to spill a little tea. I know that congressional leadership has gone to Rubio and congressional leadership has even gone to Trump and said, guys, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, these are blue collar, working class Catholics.
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A
80 million Catholic voters in the country.
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B
This Pope is the most popular American right now. What are you guys doing? Okay? And so remember, I just want to remind everybody, they made the outreach, okay? So they made the outreach. May 7, 11:30am he's going to be getting together with Pope Leo, but there are fault lines here because, you know, they're going to talk about the Iran war, immigration, guess what, Caddy? Cuba. Cuba's got to come up. The Pope is not going to be in love with a sovereignty takeover of Cuba. Okay? And here's where Vance got himself in trouble. And he did exactly what Trump would have predicted him to do, which is why he lit up the Pope and had the Jesus stuff going on on orthodox Easter because Vance had to defend. Defend Pope Donald Trump the first over Pope Leo. Okay? So Pope Donald I, I defend you. And my quote is ready. The Vatican should stick to matters of morality and let the President stick to dictating American policy. And you're laughing, Catty K. And you know who else is laughing? The Orange Maniac is laughing because the Orange Maniac does not have dementia. He knows how to f with people and he knows how to steamroll them. And he nailed this guy. Right?
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A
Can I say one other thing, though, that Vance said about the Pope, remember, which is that the Pope should think carefully when he talks about theology.
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B
I know, I know. The poor guy. I mean, you know, come on.
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A
I mean, the poor guy, the new convert to Catholicism, is telling the Pope to think carefully about theology.
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B
About a week ago, I had lunch with Mitt Romney, who is. He's tan, fit and ready, 79. Of course, as a Mormon, he hasn't had any caffeine or alcohol, so he looks 49. And Mitt and I were sitting at lunch talking about Vance coming to Mitt's event, and this was Vance Trump as Hitler.
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A
The old Vance.
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B
Yeah, yeah, the old Vance is mumbling down deep about the new Vance, thinking that he really should be like the old Vance. I'll let everybody figure out that word epigram. But anyway, I said to Mitt, I said, can you believe this guy? And Mitt was just like shaking his head and saying, you know, it's just morally vacuous to be doing what he's doing. But here's the thing that people should really pay attention to. He's in the pole position to be the Republican nominee. And Rubio has told people. I'm not saying he's gonna live up to it, cuz Rubio, as we know, is a weather vane.
- [24:12]
A
I'm not sure he lives up to it.
- [24:13]
B
He has told people he's not running if Vance runs. Vance has dropped in the prediction markets. But Caddy, this is the Republican Party still, and the vice president, whether it's Bob Dole, George Herbert Walker Bush, the vice president, even Walter Mondale on the side of the Democrats, the vice president generally gets the nod.
- [24:36]
A
The only thing is, Vance was in Iowa. Iowa. No coincidence this week. He sounds like he has a little bit of a Kamala Harris problem because he's out in Iowa telling these good Midwesterners, it's all going great. Donald Trump's the greatest president ever. But there is more work to be done. The moment he says, but there's more work to be done. That is the Kamala Harris problem, that he doesn't know how. He's the conundrum of all vice presidents. And it's particularly difficult with this president because he doesn't want a single iota of disloyalty. So there is Vance out there trying to say, okay, I really sign up to everything Donald Trump has done, but I'm also my own man and I will do things differently. And it's not going to be Trump 3.0 if you elect me. And that's the kind of code that he's got to get across. But it's a super hard one to do. Kamala Harris could pull it off with Joe Biden. I'm not sure that J.D. vance is going to be able to distance him enough himself enough. I think you're right. Probably Vance and Rubio end up in the wood chipper. But I think it's a slightly different reason. I think it's because Trump is putting his own record into the wood chipper. And if you are running as an heir to Trump, which either of these men will have to do unless they break with him spectacularly between now and 2028, which they're not going to do. If you're running as an heir to Trump, if things are in 2028, anything like what they are today, which we don't know, that's two years to go. Right. It could be very different. Could all be going swimmingly. It's going to be difficult for a Republican to get elected, any Republican to get elected, but particularly one who is associated with Donald Trump.
- [26:16]
B
So I'm going to make a prediction, and then I'm going to ask you a question. So I'm going to predict on this podcast that Trump, Trump fires Marco Rubio.
- [26:25]
A
Might do him a favor, actually, maybe,
- [26:27]
B
but he's gonna try to fire and disgrace him. Before the end of the term. And so that will be the way to knock Rubio around. And Trump is emboldened by what happened in Indianapolis, where what he says goes in the Republican Party. And just to remind people, Trump went after a few state senators. He's gonna be emboldened by that. We'll talk about that in the second half. But one more point which I think is very important here is the Meloni angle. So there's a Maloney wrinkle to all of this. She's a longtime Trump ally.
- [26:57]
A
Giorgia Meloni, Italy.
- [26:59]
B
Yeah, Giorgia Maloney. She's now defending the Pope. And of course, Trump has turned on her, too. And we're going to be pulling thousands of troops out of Europe now because we're going to. Even though Europe is the whole spine to our military footprint and our reach into the Middle east and to all the global energy supply chains. And so it would be absolutely stupid of us to pull out the people, but we're gonna do this because the orange baby man, Trump is upset with German leadership.
- [27:32]
A
Truth to power. Truth to power.
- [27:34]
B
So we're gonna do this. But talk about Maloney, because I think Maloney is a big thing here because she represents. Represents something that European populists are also turning on Donald Trump. And this also hurts Nigel Farage. So go ahead, tell me what's going on there.
- [27:50]
A
Yeah, I mean, you've seen it in France, you've seen it in Italy. You've seen it in the UK Particularly around the war in Iran, where European populists who had been associating themselves with Donald Trump really don't like the war in Iran. They're reading Room of their Own people, and so they're distancing themselves. Meloni had fallen over backwards to get close to Donald Trump and had done a very good job of it. But she has the double whammy of his criticism of Iran and then his criticism of the Pope. So I don't know these congressional Republicans that are calling on the Trump administration to tone it down on Donald Trump to tone it down when it comes to his criticisms of the pope, they're not having much success because just this week, ahead of Rubio flying to the Vatican, Donald Trump goes on Hugh Hewitt's radio show and says the pope would rather talk about the fact that it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don't know about your understanding of the papacy, but my understanding of the papacy is that probably Pope Leo is not out there saying he loves the idea of Iran Having a nuclear weapon, I just don't quite buy it. Before we go, one thing that I do think for Donald Trump come the nominating process for 2028. I think he wants to be the star of the 2028 Republican National Convention, and I think he wants to stand up there on the stage and have it all be about him again. And he wants to bless the nominee as his chosen person. So I don't know how that convention plays out if it's not Rubio or Vance. That's an interesting. I don't know who the person is unless it's Don Jr. Or it could
- [29:26]
B
be the full narcissistic, nihilistic fury where he doesn't endorse anybody. But let me just say these three quick things. Number one, the first move is we demote Rubio. We take away the NSA from him. Okay? And again, I want to remind everybody here, Rubio is doing the exact job that Trump hired him to do. He's taking the meetings Trump won't take. He's absorbing blame for things. And let me tell you something, he's getting bigger than Donald Trump, ladies and gentlemen. And when that happens, that press conference yesterday sounded articulate, was even putting complete sentences together. Trump does not like that. He would prefer dum dum. Headset looks good. Trump has a crush on him, doesn't like Rubio's brain. So he's going to demote him first. Okay. And then he's going to eviscerate him later in the term, and I predict that that will happen. And that will be the take two. Vance gone first, dispatching him, and then Rubio.
- [30:26]
A
Okay, we're going to take a break and quickly come back and talk about the Night of the Long Knives. Trump exacts revenge in Indiana.
- [30:40]
B
This episode is brought to you by NordVPN. You know, Catty, Alistair Campbell taught me how to use NORDVPN on a train from Glasgo to London. I love this product. I want to be connected as soon as I sit down. But speed can come at a cost to security. Most of the time. Cyber attacks are not Hollywood style. They're disguised as a fake link, a phishing email, or a public network that looks normal. And NordVPN protects you from all of that.
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A
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B
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- [31:41]
A
To get the best discount on your NORDVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com tripus. You'll get four extra months free on the two year plan plus a 30 day money back guarantee. The link's in the episode description. Welcome back to the Rest Is Politics. Us. We're going to talk about the midterms. Yes, they're not until November. But there was a very big test of Donald Trump's power over the Republican Party that is taking place right now. We had elections. Tuesdays are always Election day in America. Tuesday we had elections in Indiana and Trump had backed a bunch of primary challenges against seven Republican state senators who had rejected his calls for them to redistrict Indiana in the run up to the midterm election. So there's this big redistricting campaign going on around the country. Texas said to Donald Trump, yep, Mr. Trump will do it. Florida said to Mr. Trump, yep, Mr. TRUMP will do it. Your little dog imitation that you do there, whap, whap. That sounded more like a duck, actually.
- [32:50]
B
It's more like woof, woof, woof, woof. There you go. It's so revolting.
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A
But Indiana comes back like a lion.
- [32:58]
B
Rah.
- [32:59]
A
We are not doing your bidding, Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump doesn't like that. And so he weighs into the state Senate so he can try and change the legislature to be more Trumpy. And he has a cracking night in Indiana and proves once again that Donald Trump controls the Republican Party. Or at least he controls the Republican Party primary voters in a very red state like Indiana because of those seven state senators who he tried to oust, five of them have been ousted. Five of Donald Trump's candidates won a whole load of cash, went into the state, $14 million. I mean, I've never heard so much discussion, Anthony, of a state Senate primary race in American politics. But it was a test of Donald Trump's pulling power in the Republican Party. And the message to Republicans is only defy Donald Trump when you can keep your political career if you want to have a long life in politics. Because if you want a long life in politics and you defy Donald Trump right now, you are going to be voted out in a primary.
- [34:08]
B
Well, I mean, I'm surprised we don't have T shirts like they do at the concerts. Right? Fiona, our producers calling this the revenge tour. Right. So we could have orange T shirts made up the headline. For me, the headline is a pretty simple headline. Trump still owns the base. It was an expensive election, though. And this goes back caddy, just for some historical analysis, back to Operation Red Map. So when these state legislator races were very small, billionaires pumped money into these races and they got their candidates to win. And then they flexed redistricting. You have to again ask the following question. The Republicans have the lowest registration, okay, As a percentage of registered people, Democrats, Republicans, and independents. And yet they control the Supreme Court, the presidency, the House, and the Senate. How did they do that? They did that through this Katty K. They did that through last night's election results. So blowing that kind of Money, okay, was $126 per president primary vote versus $67 for last year's vote.
- [35:22]
A
Vote could have bought them a good meal.
- [35:24]
B
You got to love these guys. But I want to bring somebody into the mix here, okay? Deus ex machina, Ron DeSantis. And let me explain why I'm bringing him in. He's moving already to redraw the Florida maps. He's going to do that before he leaves office. And oh, by the way, my hand is up if you're listening at home. I am Ron DeSantis. I am running for president in 2028. And by the way, what I'm hoping is Trump will kill off the two people closest to him. And I'm maga. Enough, okay? Now Trump hates him as well, because remember, he's saying he's begging. He's on his knees, Catty K, begging for a job in the administration. But DeSantis is like that kid when I was a kid playing dodgeball. You had to always watch out for the nerdy kid who never went away.
- [36:15]
A
He was always there.
- [36:16]
B
Exactly. He was lurking in the back with the ball.
- [36:19]
A
You could not get rid of him.
- [36:20]
B
And he was waiting for the two jocks to beat the brains out. And at the last moment, he ran up and he knocked the other jock out and won the dodgeball match. And this is Ron DeSantis lurking in the background. So go ahead, caddy, analyze.
- [36:34]
A
Okay, so here's the problem for I think Republicans came out of, or MAGA came out of last night in Indiana and thought that was a great night for Donald Trump. Woo woo. This is great for maga, but here's the problem. The GOP base is still as tied to Donald Trump as it ever was. People who bother to go out, I mean, honestly, people who bother to go out and vote in a state Senate primary are pretty dedicated voters. They are on the more extreme wing of the party. So that's the base. You saw it right there, the MAGA base. If you want to know how many there are, if you want to know who they are, you needed to be in Indiana on Tuesday. The geobase is still as tied to Donald Trump as it ever was. But all of the polls that we've spoken about over the last few weeks have shown us that the rest of the country is moving away from Donald Trump as fast as it can. So is Ron DeSantis in that scenario, the candidate who can square the two circle, can he stay close to Trump enough to win the presidential nomination in 2028, but also persuade a general electorate that there is daylight between him and Trump's policies? Do you think he can do that?
- [37:42]
B
I don't think he can do that, no. I just don't think he has the right person.
- [37:45]
A
I don't think he's a good. A skilled enough politician to do that.
- [37:48]
B
He doesn't have the right personality. Also, he's in a debate. When Gavin Newsom cleaned his clock, he went on Hattity's podcast to explain how he beat Gavin Newsom. It was too. You gotta. When you're getting your ass kicked, one of the best ways to prevent yourself from getting your ass kicked again is to admit you got your ass kicked. Okay? And then you say, okay, got my ass kicked, I gotta go back and train. Right. You know. You know, when Apollo Creed beat Rocky, he didn't pretend that he beat Apollo Creed. He went out and retrained. This is DeSantis problem. He'll have the money. He has a good brand, good national brand. Florida is coming up aces, particularly with Mandani crushing people in New York. I think what Mondani did to Ken Griffin, the billionaire hedge fund manager, was absurd. And Griffin called him out on it at the Milken conference this week. And it just also, he put the guy in danger. I don't even know why he would do that. And now you're not going to get that building built, which is, you know, tens of thousands of potential jobs in the city. But separate topic, but I just don't think DeSantis has the personality ready.
- [38:54]
A
Right.
- [38:54]
B
He's Nixonian weird, catty.
- [38:57]
A
K. Yeah, he's a little weird. And he wears white Wellingtons. You can't be president and wear white Wellingtons when you're filmed on the beach.
- [39:04]
B
That's some weird stuff, right? That was like Nixon. That was like Nixon. With the black socks on the beach when he was walking with Bibi Rebozo. You know what I'm saying?
- [39:13]
A
Doesn't work.
- [39:14]
B
Also, you know, I have to fully confess that DeSantis has bashed me a few times. So I could be biased. Oh, I could be biased.
- [39:24]
A
Oh. Let's quickly talk about the Ohio race because there's a bunch of Midwestern races and they are, they're all interesting. The Ohio race. Sherrod Brown, the former Democratic senator, is running the primary there to be the Democrats nominee for senator again. God knows why he wants to go back into the Senate at the moment, but there you go. God bless him. He does. He's very popular in Ohio. He won the Democratic nomination. Not much surprise. So he'll be up against John Husted, who is the sitting Republican Senator who was put in there after J.D. vance stepped down. I think Sherrod Brown, actually, because he himself is so popular in Ohio. He is one of the people that the Democratic Party are going to spend money on trying to pick up that seat again and flip Ohio and help them get control of the Senate. So you're looking at Iowa, you're looking at Ohio, you're looking at Maine, Michigan.
- [40:22]
B
Not going to happen. I make a prediction here.
- [40:24]
A
Ohio is too red.
- [40:25]
B
No, no. He's too anti crypto.
- [40:28]
A
Right.
- [40:28]
B
You guys will say, oh, crypto's not that big of a deal. Let me tell you something, okay? The Crypto Bros put $40 million into the Marino Sherrod Brown race, okay? And they crushed Sherrod Brown. He was a three time sitting senator, very powerful head of the Senate Banking Committee, hated crypto a la Elizabeth Warren style. And they blew $40 million knocking his ass out of that seat. And the crypto bros are lacking in loading right now.
- [40:59]
A
Interesting.
- [40:59]
B
And they are richer two years later than they were last time. The coffers have swollen. So Sherrod Brown either better back off the anti crypto stuff or get prepared to get annihilated again. That's my prediction there. So we'll see.
- [41:16]
A
That's interesting.
- [41:17]
B
Talk about Bill Cassidy for a second. Here's a Republican fighting for his life.
- [41:24]
A
So that's a primary that's coming up on May 16th. Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor who has run into a whole load of problems because he voted to confirm RFK Jr. As the Secretary of Health and Human Services, but has since been very critical of him around the vaccine stuff. And he's been critical of him in public and critical of some of his appointments. And that has not won him any favors in Trump world, who, as we know, you have to be loyal not 99% of the time. You have to be loyal 100% of the time. And being the biggest critic out there of RFK Jr has not gone down very well. He also voted against Trump in the impeachment trial of 2021, another thing that Donald Trump has not forgotten. And so Trump has backed his primary challenger, Representative Julia Letlow. I think Cassidy could be beaten in Louisiana. And then you've got obviously the redistricting issue in Louisiana as well, where they're going to try and move as fast as they can on that ahead of the midterm elections. I don't know if they can do it in time, but I think Cassidy's in trouble.
- [42:39]
B
He was in big trouble because Trump,
- [42:41]
A
he's been too vocal about his criticism.
- [42:43]
B
And Trump still owns the party. And if the party doesn't show show, in other words, if he loses the primary, bye, bye. And even if he wins the primary, he's in trouble because of the pressure of the MAGA people not voting for him come election day. But caddy loyalty is 100% on Trump's mind for these primaries. And we can definitely see that looking at Rubio and Vance, too. And by the way, shameless plugging here, if you don't mind. We went even deeper into Rubio's political journey in our Members Only series. So take a listen to the second part of our Rubio series. Marco Weathervane Rubio, the most powerful Hispanic official in American history, the man who
- [43:34]
A
presented himself as the reasonable, pro NATO global statesman of the Republican Party. And his now doing whatever Donald Trump wants him to do. The son of Cuban immigrants, he joins an effort to try to get comprehensive immigration reform through the Senate. It's known as the Gang of Eight.
- [43:52]
B
He goes from the Gang of Eight
- [43:54]
A
to becoming Stephen Miller, telling senators, I'm not going to cut things at the State Department. And what does he do? He comes in and makes those cuts.
- [44:02]
B
I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you for Secretary of State. You had all that pro Ukrainian legislation as senator, we should work with our NATO allies in the European Union to help equip and train the Ukrainian military forces. And then you did a 180 on Ukraine as Secretary of State.
- [44:21]
A
He went from being little Marco, little Marco, little Marco to something far more influential.
- [44:26]
B
There's no bridge that's too far for Marco to cross.
- [44:29]
A
It's not just survival, it's succession. Marco Rubio would like to be President
- [44:33]
B
of The United States is Marco Rubio, the star of the next season. If you want to hear the full series and get exclusive pre sale access to our live shows, come on, guys. Please sign up@therestispoliticsus.com Become a founding member. You know you want to get closer to us, we want you closer to us. Please do that. How's that, Gatty? I know it's not Katty K style in terms of the brilliant, subtle promotion and it's very New York, mildly creepy
- [45:05]
A
that we want people to get closer to us and we want to get close to them.
- [45:08]
B
Okay. That's all right. You're so British. I meant it, you know, otherwise it was in an ethereal way. I didn't meant it. Mean it in.
- [45:13]
A
Don't worry.
- [45:14]
B
You're so British. I didn't mean it in a physical way.
- [45:16]
A
We just want to see you at our shows. We want full houses and we'd like you to be there and it'll be fun to meet you all. So sign up. We'll see you next week. Bye, everybody.
- [45:25]
B
Thanks, guys. See you next week.
- [45:37]
D
Hello, it's Norman Peston from the Rest Is Money. I've just had the most gripping conversation with an economist, Nick Bloom from Stanford, who's published a very influential paper on the costs of leaving the European Union. He and his colleagues calculated that leaving the the EU has cost us 8% of our national income, our GDP, that's 240 billion more than we spend on the NHS every single year. What's really striking is that his numbers are now the numbers being used by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, when she talks about the advantages of getting closer to the eu. So if you want to know how damaging Brexit has been and whether that 8% number is robust, whether it's real, join me for the latest episode of the Rest Is Money.