Trump's 2020 obsession

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Today, Explained — “Trump’s 2020 obsession”

Date: July 20, 2026
Hosts: Sean Rameswaram, Noel King
Guests: David Weigel (Semafor’s national political reporter), Christy (production), Denise Guerra, Abishai Arzi

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Episode Overview

This episode examines President Donald Trump’s latest obsession with relitigating the 2020 election — and how this fixation is shaping his presidency, influencing Republican policy, and impacting the political landscape ahead of the 2026 midterms. Rather than focusing on the specifics of Trump’s confusing, low-energy primetime address (which most major networks refused to broadcast live), the hosts dig into what motivates Trump’s ongoing claims about election security, why he remains fixated on 2020, and how both parties are responding.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Primetime Address: Content and Reception

• Low Viewership & Network Response (00:01–02:00)
  • Most networks (NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC) declined to air Trump’s address; Fox and CBS aired it with heavy fact-checking.
  • “Based on recent World Cup final viewership numbers, more than a billion people were watching him embarrass himself. The President addressed the nation in primetime … and he’d be lucky if a million people were watching.” — Abishai Arzi (00:01)
  • The speech was described as low energy and confusing.
• Speech Content (03:01–04:06)
  • Preamble claimed big national progress, then pivoted to claims of foreign interference, especially China’s alleged efforts in the 2020 election.

2. Allegations of Foreign Interference

• China’s Role? (05:04–06:27)
  • Trump cited declassified reports alleging China purchased or hacked voter data in 18 states, but experts point out voter rolls are not secret and are commonly sold.
  • “Voter rolls are not locked in a vault. People can purchase voter information. Nonprofits do it all the time.” — David Weigel (05:27)
  • The administration equates these data purchases with a coordinated ‘theft’ against Trump personally.
  • Ironically, new information released to support Trump’s claims actually highlights proven Russian interference in 2016, which Trump continues to deny.

3. Republican Party Alignment and Maneuvering

• Party’s Shift on Election Legitimacy (04:06, 06:33)
  • Trump’s insistence that every loss is due to a ‘stolen’ election has redefined the GOP’s stance: “If he says there was some question about an election, it was stolen, then it was, and we need to backfill a reason to explain that.” — David Weigel (04:06)
  • Some GOP senators have hinted at not considering certain Democrats (Ossoff, Warnock) as legitimate, though not directly echoed by Trump, indicating reluctance among Republicans to escalate.

4. Trump’s Election Law Push and Federal-State Tensions

• Federal Pressure Tactics (08:33–09:44)
  • The administration has tied election grants to demands that states ‘scrub’ voter rolls and audit voting machines, actions that could disenfranchise voters.
  • Efforts to control the postal system to influence mail-in ballots—an area that favors Democrats.
• Save America Act Proposal (10:32–12:00)
  • Trump urges passage of the Save America Act, which would federalize several voting standards, most controversially requiring proof of citizenship.
  • “If this bill passes, then we will not lose an election for 100 years.” — Denise Guerra channeling Trump (11:53)

5. Republican & Democratic Strategies

• Republicans: Stoking Distrust, Focusing on Process (10:09–12:35)
  • GOP base remains convinced that Democrats habitually ‘steal’ elections.
  • Senate Republicans have not united behind Trump’s legislative vision, wary of changing filibuster rules or overreaching on federal power.
• Democratic Response (17:03–19:39)
  • Democrats are content to let Trump focus on election grievances: “It was very telling that Jon Ossoff thinks it’s a good day for him if he gets to talk about how the president thinks his election in 2020 was stolen.” — David Weigel (17:37)
  • Democrats are laser-focused on affordability, arguing Trump’s fixation on fraud is out of touch with voter concerns.
  • “He is depraved, he is amoral, and above all, he cares exclusively about himself.” — Abishai Arzi quoting a Democrat (17:56)
  • Both sides recognize democracy rhetoric rarely moves voters—it is an "elite conversation" (18:26).

6. 2026 Midterms & Future Outlook (19:49–26:07)

• Midterm Predictions
  • Polling leans Democratic: “Democrats are going to win the House, they’re going to gain seats in the Senate.” — David Weigel (19:49)
  • Predicts a “Democratic electorate will come back” and that, due to low Trump approval and high prices, Republicans will struggle to generate turnout.
• Party Dynamics: Democratic Disorder & 2028
  • Intense internal debate on the Democratic side—progressive wing vs. more centrist approaches.
  • Bernie Sanders remains the most visible voice, with large rallies and outspoken criticism of party failings (25:55).
  • Democrats are united only in their opposition to Trump, but lack a consensus vision for the party’s future.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the President’s Obsession:
  • “He very literally thinks that every election he’s lost was stolen in some way. And he has moved the Republican Party into a position of agreeing with him.” — David Weigel (04:06)
• On Voter Rolls:
  • “I’ve moved in the last year, and I’m still on DC’s voter rolls … you could probably, if you wanted, wave a piece of paper around and make it look like a conspiracy—it definitely could.” — David Weigel (08:40)
• On Republican Calculations:
  • “The Trump-led official position is that you have to say 2020 was stolen. Now, the forward-looking Trump position is … Congress must pass the Save America Act.” — David Weigel (10:32)
• On Democratic Messaging:
  • “Any day [Trump is] talking about this, he’s not [talking about] convincing people Republicans made their lives cheaper.” — David Weigel (18:02)
  • “It’s not a good idea for Democrats to talk about [democracy]. It’s not a good idea for Republicans either. This is an elite conversation.” — David Weigel (18:26)
• Looking to 2028:
  • “There is not a figure leading the Democratic Party with a unified Trump message. The closest you get is not the leadership of the party, it’s Bernie Sanders.” — David Weigel (25:27)
• Closing Pithiness:
  • “So it sounds like what you’re saying is that the one thing the left and the right can both agree on is that 2028’s election will be about communism.”
  • “That’s a really pithy, good way to put it.” — Abishai Arzi & David Weigel (26:07)

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Key Timestamps

| Segment | Description | |----------------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 00:01–02:00 | Recap of the President’s awkward World Cup cameo & low-rated primetime speech | | 03:01–04:52 | What was in Trump’s speech and how the GOP responded | | 05:04–06:33 | Claims about China and the tangled history of foreign interference | | 08:33–09:44 | Administration tactics: grants, scrubbing rolls, mail-in ballots | | 10:32–12:00 | Save America Act and Republican congressional dynamics | | 17:03–19:39 | Democratic response and 2026 electoral strategies | | 19:49–21:55 | Polling, predictions for 2026 midterms | | 22:10–26:07 | Democratic party’s internal struggle and 2028 preview |

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Summary

This episode of Today, Explained unpacks President Trump’s fixation on the “stolen” 2020 election and the wide-ranging impacts of his persistent claims on American politics in 2026. The conversation moves from a deconstruction of Trump’s recent primetime speech (notably ignored by most networks), through the GOP’s internal dynamics, to Democrats’ strategic focus on kitchen-table issues and their hopes for the midterms.

What emerges is a portrait of an American political landscape warped by election denialism at the highest level, a tired and transactional Republican leadership, and a Democratic Party energized primarily by opposition to Trump, but divided over its future direction.

The episode’s tone balances clear-eyed reporting, sharp analysis, and some darkly comic moments — capturing deep national anxiety as America approaches its next set of elections.

Transcript

[Abishai Arzi]

The President of the United States was at the Men's World cup final yesterday in East Rutherford, New Jersey. He did the thing where he tried to photobomb the winning team during their big trophy hoisting moment. Again, based on recent World cup final viewership numbers, more than a billion people were watching him embarrass himself. The President addressed the nation in primetime late last week, and he'd be lucky if a million people were watching him embarrass himself. NBC and ABC decided not to air Ditto over at CNN and msn. Now Fox took it and CBS took it too, but they did the whole truth sandwich thing where they blast you with facts before and after to cushion the blow of what comes between. The speech was low energy and kind of confusing.

[Denise Guerra]

We had transgender for everybody.

[Abishai Arzi]

The President's living in the past and trying to drum up concerns about election security in advance of the midterms. It's not worth spending a ton of time on what he said. But on Today, Explain from Vox, we're going to spend a ton of time on why he's saying it. Support for this show Today comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter with deep research. Claude's research capabilities go way deeper than basic web search, comprehensive research, reliable analysis with proper citations, turning hours of research into minutes for problems worth solving. You can get started with Claude at Claude AI todayexplained. That's Claude AI todayexplained. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to don't know the difference between matte paint, finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app download Today.

[Denise Guerra]

You have to trust, they explained, because if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness. And that's very simple.

[Abishai Arzi]

Today, explain Sean Ramis for him with David Weigel, who's a national political reporter at semafor the David, how did you spend your Thursday night?

[David Weigel]

Well, taping another podcast, but also paying some attention to the President's speech, which was very hyped by the White House and by Republicans.

[Christy]

And we encourage every American to tune in.

[David Weigel]

That's what you do when you're trying to get TV time for a national address and you don't have it in hand yet and under delivered. There can be different arguments about what was in the speech, but let's say it fell short of what Ohio Senator Bernareno said, that it was gonna be the most important presidential address since the JFK addressing the Cuban Missile crisis.

[Abishai Arzi]

I mean, primetime address is a big deal. What was so urgent for the President?

[David Weigel]

The arguments before the speech asking for this time it was unclear exactly what was in it. And if you wanted to go on a betting market, there are people speculating that he might have some updates on the Iran war. He might have updates this Moreno suggesting something important about China, which what the actual speech was, was a kind of a preamble about how great things are going right now.

[Denise Guerra]

Two years ago our country was dead. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world.

[David Weigel]

And then the argument basically that there have been attempts to interfere in our elections, which we know about, foreign attempts to interfere. Elections are a factor we've known about for years. The factor in 2016, factor in 2020 factor in 2024. He was saying in so many words that as president in 2020, when he lost, that he was not briefed fully on how much China was trying to interfere.

[Denise Guerra]

Documents show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and NSA reports about China's election targeting were kept out of the presidential briefing.

[David Weigel]

And he once, in sort of a roundabout way, he got there. He wants to use the full power of the government to force states to change their election laws along the lines he wants so that elections cannot be manipulated the way he thinks they're manipulated. Again, I say he thinks because there's a popular idea that's rounding a 10 year anniversary now that, oh well, Trump says a lot of things, but the media takes them literally and people should be just taking him seriously. He very literally thinks that every election he's lost was stolen in some way. And he has moved the Republican Party into a position of agreeing with him that if he says there was some question about an election, it was stolen, then it was, and we need to backfill a reason to explain that.

[Abishai Arzi]

He didn't spend the whole speech talking about China, but certainly China was a major focus. Like what did China do? Does he have some new evidence to introduce to the conversation?

[David Weigel]

Yes. And again, there was intelligence analysis, things that were dis. Classified at the time about how China was trying to interfere with the election in 2020 through one thing he talked about was purchase of voter rolls.

[Denise Guerra]

Tens of millions of voters data in 18 states have been bought, stolen, or hacked by China.

[David Weigel]

Well, voter rolls are not locked in a vault. People can purchase voter information. Nonprofits do it all the time. You'd like for foreign power probably not to do that, but this is a Trump tactic that he employs all the time of using names and innuendo to imply that something was done against him, the theft was committed against him. And a question that you saw the media that aired the speech wrestling with or didn't air the speech live was, what do you do if the president is issuing a bunch of innuendo that's not necessarily news and you're airing it? Do you then go and correct it? I've seen people who were defenders of the way the president conducted this by saying, well, the media aired a lot of questions about Russian interference in the 2016 election, and that wasn't all true. So how can they criticize Trump? Well, some of what was declassified after this speech goes back to the facts around the 2016 election, that there were indeed foreign hackers, Russians, obtaining emails from Hillary Clinton and releasing them, and that was interference in the election.

[Abishai Arzi]

So wait, the stuff that he released after this speech actually bolsters claims against his own election fraud claims?

[David Weigel]

Yes. And so we're getting into Wonderland as we talk about this at the higher level here. Nobody disputes that foreign governments are trying to interfere in our elections in 2016. Include, you know, buying Facebook ads that were trying to manipulate the election, encouraging people to become non voters if they were likely to vote for Hillary Clinton, things of that nature. And it does get surreal because the only people who dispute that Russia was trying to interfere in the 2016 campaign are Trump and people around him. It's clear that it did. Nobody disputes that China was trying to influence the 2020 campaign. Democrats don't dispute that. What they were worried about into the speech was whether he would try to foment some desire for senators who are currently in office to be ousted, to be canceled, to be invalidated because of his allegations about 2020. And he didn't do that. Really. And you saw the extent to which Republicans want to be on his good side was evident here because you had Tommy Tuberville, the senator from Alabama, in an interview with Newsmax, suggestions, we probably have four or five senators that didn't legally win. They shouldn't be up here. That's not something the president Ended up saying you had Cynthia Lummis, senator from Wyoming, asked if they were illegitimate senators.

[Abishai Arzi]

In your mind, are Senators Ossoff and Warnock duly chosen and sworn?

[David Weigel]

I don't know. And that's again, not something the president was able to prove. This is where the speech was less important than the actions the government's going to try to continue to take to interfere in, in state elections. Because it's not the federal, the federal government is trying to impose some standards on the states. It is states and counties that conduct elections. And this is the second time Donald Trump has been president with some influence over what kind of grant states can get to run elections. That's the way that the administration is trying to shape the midterms.

[Abishai Arzi]

What is he actually doing? Was this speech meant to kick off some new campaigns, some new initiative?

[David Weigel]

So the Department of Homeland Security the next day announced, and this is Markway Mullen, the new secretary there, announced that if states want grants to cover their elections expenses, they're going to need to, quote, unquote, scrub their voter rolls. Your voter registration list needs to be scrubbed, meaning audit the rolls and get rid of people who have died. People moved. This is a very common problem. I've moved in the last year and I'm still on DC's voter rolls and I need to call to get myself off. I don't intend to commit election fraud in the meantime. But right now, if you went into DC's voter rolls, you'd find that I am on there. And you could probably, if you wanted to wave a piece of paper around and make it look like a conspiracy, it definitely could. That they need to also audit their machines. The machines had to be secured. No. The administration is also trying to use control of the postal system to manipulate how ballots are sent and received around elections. That's something Democrats have a lot of worry about because they still, in most states, Democrats benefit from mail voting.

[Abishai Arzi]

In addition to changing rules about mail in ballots and scrubbing voter rolls, the Trump administration has fired a bunch of people who work in the federal government who litigated January 6th. They're redistricting, of course. They're, they're changing voting restrictions. They're trying to nationalize elections. We've talked about many of these things on the show before. Is all of this not enough for the president?

[David Weigel]

It's not. And Republican voters believe, we've seen this in polling, that when Democrats have won elections recently, it has been stolen. They do not believe that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. They think it is Ludicrous to say so. Come on, man. This is, the Trump led official position is that you have to say 2020 was stolen. Now, the forward looking Trump position is that in order to prevent this, Congress

[Denise Guerra]

must pass the Save America Act. How easy is that to do? Unless you want to cheat, which would

[David Weigel]

put new federal standards on elections most controversially. And this is something that gets, it's not even confusing, but it gets confused in the political debate. Require proof of citizenship for voting. The White House likes to conflate proof of citizenship for voting for voter id. Voter ID is very popular. This is the thing with the Save America Act. Some of the principles don't sound crazy to people because America does have cumbersome elections based on our federal system where states run them. And there are people who look, not just Republicans, look with envy at France or India or Brazil. And it takes a while to count things that count things pretty quickly because they have a biometric database and they have the same system of paper ballots in every single voting location. So there is some agreement in American politics that our elections could be less cumbersome. It's just, it's kind of fruit from the poison tree when Trump is involved. Because Trump starts from the premise that millions of votes literally are cast illegally against him, a thing that he had time to prove and did not prove. They don't really trust that Donald Trump would, with new federal powers, implement voting rules that don't screw over Democrats. They also have listened to Trump and he will say that if this bill

[Denise Guerra]

passes, then we will not lose an election for 100 years.

[David Weigel]

And so this bill, the Save America act, has the support of most Republicans. Most Republicans in the House have voted for it, some confident that it's not going to get through the Senate and Senate. Republicans have not been interested in blowing up the filibuster to pass it for a combination of reasons. Main ones being, one, some don't believe this is a good law. Two, they have more to lose in the long run. They think, I think they're right. If the filibuster were to go away, any short term gains for Republicans in one election would be undermined by the next time Democrats come into power. They can just blow past these old Senate rules and do whatever they want.

[Abishai Arzi]

It seems like a lot of members of the President's party wish he'd just focus on the economy, affordability, the things that voters really care about right now, instead of election laws. Why won't he? Is it because he's like minting billions while he's in office? And he can't relate to people's affordability concerns.

[David Weigel]

I think he believes this. He's wealthy, he's cloistered, he's surrounded by people who agree with him all the time. I think in Trump's information landscape, it is impossible for him to believe that people showed up in 2020 and said, I don't like this president. I'm going to vote for Joe Biden. Even Kamala Harris winning some states he thinks was probably false. So I don't think you need to overly psychoanalyze why the president's doing this. He just keeps saying it. The subtext is the text. He thinks that Americans want to elect Republicans and Democrats are doing everything they can to rig the elections.

[Abishai Arzi]

We're going to ask David how the Democrats are responding when Today Explained Returns.

[David Weigel]

Foreign.

[Christy]

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[Abishai Arzi]

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[Christy]

Hey it's Christy from Lululemon. I'm here at the office and we just dropped some really fun new summer colors in the Flow Y styles. If you're like me, you've loved the Flow y tank and bra for years and as of this year it also comes in a dress and a crop tank. These are made in our buttery soft nulou fabric and my favorite part is the built in bra. It makes it super easy to wear for yoga or honestly as an everyday basic. You can find Flow Y styles in store or [e-mail] Mr. President, do you

[David Weigel]

have any reaction to Today Explain being named the best news show?

[Denise Guerra]

Wow, I didn't know that. I just. You're telling me now for the first

[Abishai Arzi]

time, David, Democrats don't have a ton of power right now, but they might if the midterms go their way. What is their response to Donald Trump's speech on Thursday night?

[David Weigel]

Some Democrats welcome that he was doing this.

[Abishai Arzi]

I heard a failed president desperately casting about for excuses to meddle in the upcoming election if he can.

[David Weigel]

You saw Jon Ossoff, the senator from Georgia, who was on the ballot this year, who Republicans, not even that privately think is going to be reelected.

[Abishai Arzi]

I also heard a president clearly signaling his intent to attack these elections and to undermine voting rights. And you know it's going to be right here in Georgia, the critical battleground state.

[David Weigel]

Look, it's one of the few states that's been trending towards Democrats, certainly in the South. It is. And so it was very telling that Jon Ossoff thinks it's a good day for him if he gets to talk about how the president thinks his election in 2020 was stolen. It's a big part of his campaign for reelection.

[Abishai Arzi]

He is depraved, he is amoral, and above all, he cares exclusively about himself.

[David Weigel]

And you mentioned the affordability piece of it. This is a discourse in D.C. too. There are a lot of Republican groups that want Democrats to lose the elections and they think, how is the president convincing people that Republicans made their lives cheaper? Any day he's talking about this, he's not doing that you know, there's this

[Denise Guerra]

fake narrative that the Democrats talk about affordability. They just say the word. It doesn't mean anything to anybody.

[David Weigel]

One thing you've heard from a lot of Democrats and a lot of focus group managers, pollsters, just Americans think they live in a pretty democratic country. And if you talk about democracy, they zone out. It's not a good idea for Democrats to talk about it. It's not a good idea for Republicans to talk about it. This is a elite conversation that happens to be an obsession for the President.

[Denise Guerra]

It'll guarantee the midterms. If you don't get it, big trouble.

[David Weigel]

And a story is coming together for Democrats who are not the most confident people right now, but think they will do well in the midter terms that Trump was elected in 2024 largely because people felt things were too expensive. And between the Iran war, self enrichment in the White House and his obsession with the election, he's not going to do anything for your affordability. And when we take the House back, we're going to make life more affordable for people is our singular priority. They're very comfortable making that argument. It's much tougher for them when they're fighting internally about Israel. Any day that the President comes and polarizes the discussion about elections, that's great for them. They want him to talk about elections and say, look what this president is doing while you're paying so much for gas.

[Abishai Arzi]

So what does that mean, just practically speaking? I mean, we have polls. Are the Democrats looking better to take the House and the Senate, or is Trump gonna keep them?

[David Weigel]

Overall polling and expectations are that Democrats are going to win the House, that they're going to gain seats in the Senate. What happens in elections? Trying to not answer the question. It's just that having covered these stuff for 20 years, in many midterms, it's closed through the summer, and then after Labor Day, it breaks in one direction. And so what Democrats are hoping is that there are stuff that's not competitive right now that becomes competitive. Now, the caveat on that one is that no man steps in the same river twice, that the same thing does not happen every election. That's bad analysis. But the other is that the legal and campaign financing regime that has been put into place in the last few years is very good for Republicans. And So Republicans in 2010 had a cash advantage over Democrats, but Democrats had just a terrible turnout and donor coalition. Go back if you want to be amazed at how little Democrats were able to raise for Ohio Senate race in 2010. They just gave up. In the Trump era, Democrats have had a ton of money and they've had Democrats who were out fundraising people who ended up beating them by 10 points. They just. The Democratic donor base really woke up. Democratic dart money was very efficient in the last few years. The Republican strategy, it's basically two parts. One, define the Democratic Party as dangerously radical, ready to undermine and destroy America. Then they've got some experience in doing that. And two, outspend them. That's, that's a strategy. Pollsters, betting markets, they think that's not going to work. They think that the downward pressure of a president polling at 35% in some competitive states, that prices being high, it's just, you're not going to be able to turn out a bunch of Republicans who've voted for Trump in 2024 or a bunch of independents who voted for Trump just because of prices in 2024. They're not going to come back. The Democratic electorate will come back and Democrats will, let's say, win the popular vote by 6 points, win the House.

[Abishai Arzi]

And where does it all leave us for 2028, you think? I mean, midterms are important, but ultimately they don't bring out the same kind of turnout that we get for a presidential election. Are we seeing any signs of what this all means for 2028?

[David Weigel]

If this midterm ends up being a story of Republicans blowing some opportunities? Because even though the economy has improved in a lot of ways, it didn't improve as much as people wanted. And he talked about voter fraud, et cetera. Democrats will be in a pretty good mood about 2028, but they have not agreed on not just their agenda. The issue in the Democratic Party, which has, I think gotten worse this cycle, is that they're on year 10 of this entriest experiment with the Bernie Sanders movement. In my view, we must move forward toward a Medicare for all single payer program. But since 2016, the Democratic Party has been seen by a lot of voters as basically corrupt, as trying to prevent new voices from the left from taking charge, as in a war with its own left wing. And that has been the way that the progressive wing of the party wants it. Basically, when they are not in power, as they've never been, cause Sanders never been the nominee. And the party loses, they say it's because the party did not run on progressive messages. If they win, as the democrats won in 2018 and 2020 and 2022, they say, well, this is progressive messaging that won the day because they lost in 2024 in a devastating for liberalism fashion an election loss. That means USAID is dead and the Department of Education is falling apart and affirmative action is dead, et cetera, et cetera. The left has really capitalized on Democrats despair and its organized Democrats. The rallies and what you can do for action that have come since the 2024 election have been pretty much just left wing. The existential threat of Trump to liberalism and the decisions that donors to the Democratic Party and to progressive groups have made have led to a. I'd say a less ideological infrastructure. So there are a lot of. There were in 2019, the last time Democrats were out of power and trying to come back, a lot of groups arguing Trump was a fluke president. We are the sunrise movement. We want people to commit to a Green New Deal. We are an immigration group. We want to commit to a deportation moratorium. We are a Planned Parenthood. We want to get them to commit to abortion funding. There are lots of demands made on the party and the candidates move to the left. That's not happening this time. What's happened instead is this thing I was talking about where there is no agreement about what they did under Biden, whether they went too far to the left or what, and a left flank that is saying, just let us take the wheel. Let us run on Medicare for all. Let us run on cutting all aid to Israel and even on weapon sales to Israel. So Democrats are just destined to have a fight, but a very different fight they had in 2019 because there's no wing of the party that says, we know that our ideas are going to work. They were much more confident, much more money being spent to organize progressive groups in the first Trump term than there is now. So if it looks messy, it's because it is very messy. There is not a figure leading the Democratic Party with a unified Trump message. The closest you get is not the leadership of the party, it's Bernie Sanders. Too many working class families are struggling just to survive right now. We are going to have an economy that works for all, not just Musk and Bezos and the 1%. It is Bernie Sanders who is a popular politician, having mass rallies around the country and saying Democrats haven't really done anything for the working class in 30 years. That's not an amazing base to build your comeback message on that. Our party's been terrible since the 1960s, arguably, please let us back in. We'll fix things.

[Abishai Arzi]

So it sounds like what you're saying is that the one thing the left and the right can both agree on is that 2028 selection will be about communism.

[David Weigel]

You know what? That's a really pithy, good way to put.

[Abishai Arzi]

Read David [e-mail] Abishai Arzi and Denise Guerra made the show today with help from Amn Al Saadi, Gabriel Donatov and Patrick Boyd. On tomorrow's Today Explained we're going to talk about the divide in the Democratic Party over cutting aid to Israel.