Transcript of Blue Tsunami!

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Fabra.

I'm John Lovett.

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Tommy Detour.

Well, how about this?

What a night.

What a fucking night, guys. We're recording this at about 9:30 PM California time, and I mean, we don't have final numbers, but you know, it's a Blue Tsunami. It's a Blue Nami.

It's a Blue Nami.

It's a Blue Kaki.

Oh.

Oh boy. Boy.

California goes in. California gives one little victory speech about loving that neighbor, all of a sudden.

Wanted to set the tone for the pod early.

Tell the record.

He was pitting tops versus bottoms. It was very divisive.

He was. He was.

Democrats are running the table in the Senate races. I think the New York Times model has us controlling the Senate. 55? 45? Who had 55 Senate seats?

Not I.

Anyone?

No.

No.

An absolute thumping in the House. The Times model has the new Democratic majority at, I think it's up to 255 now. It says here 254, 180.

255?

That's what the needle says.

The needle? The needle's never lied.

Yeah, well. Okay, 254, 255. We don't know yet, but that's the range. Also, a ton of governors' races. We're going to go through all the incredible details, but I don't know, let's just start. How do we feel, guys? Aside from fucking amazing. Big picture thoughts on the night.

I mean, this is the electoral ass-whipping that Trump has deserved for 10 years and we've been waiting for.

Yeah.

It is an absolute historic repudiation of him, his party, his agenda, his broken promises. Democrats are winning everywhere. They're winning by huge margins. They're up double digits in districts that Trump won by 15. They're up double digits in Texas. As we record this, they don't narrow, but Telluride goes up by 12 points in Texas as we're recording this. Texas: 12 points. Five points in Kansas. One South Carolina. One Kansas. It's at every we watched it a whole night.

Yeah.

All places winning everywhere.

Yeah, I remember when we were watching these results in 2018 and the feeling as we watched those come in. And you know, Dan, when we were talking about the polls earlier in the week, we were kind of cautiously talking about why we could trust that potentially these polls were this good. And the point you made was actually the conditions on the ground are much better than they were in 2018. The economy is in much worse shape. Trump's approval is in much worse shape. There's an ongoing Iran war, the tariffs, the corruption finally breaking through. And that was a justification for believing hopefully things were as good as 2018.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the Teflon Don era is over. He does not have magical powers. He does not defy gravity. He is a typical politician and now a failed one.

And on his way out.

And on his way out. And so that is good. Like, we don't have to be scared of this guy. And the one thing I really want to drive home, though, is like, I think we cannot overstate how catastrophic the decision to go to war with Iran was. Like, in some sense, it's like stating the obvious, but Democrats need to internalize that verdict from voters and then course correct. Like, we need to say, okay, there's a continuing resolution going through the Senate December 11th. We should say we will not vote to fund the government unless you cut off funding for the illegal war. When we take up power, Democrats should force votes to constrain him or make him end the war with Iran.

I mean, I think yes. And the reason is people don't like war. They also don't like the fact what war did to the price of everything here. I mean, Donald Trump ran in 2020. The reason he won again in 2024 when none of us thought that the country would want another term of Donald Trump after everything he did is because people were really pissed about prices. And he said, I'll bring prices down. And he did not do that. Not only did he fail to bring prices down, he increased prices with the tariffs first and then with the Iran war.

And then was like, I don't give a shit.

And then said, I don't give a shit. And then, by the way, I'm making billions of dollars and so are all my friends and all I care about is my home renovations and fuck you all, basically. And so in some ways it is a shocking result. In other ways, you're like, well, yeah, when you do that to the country and people are hurting and you're basically just flaunting it in front of flaunting your wealth and like just, you know, running around every day. He fucking, he ended the campaign, the midterm campaign, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, holding up signs, talking about algae in the fucking reflecting pool.

Yes, at every step of the way, when he went out there, he seemed intent on making his political problems exponentially worse. He could never feel, not that Trump could feel anyone's pain. He couldn't even acknowledge anyone's pain about the economy because to do so would admit that he had failed in so much of reform. He went out there, he did the, he did whatever it was, 28 rallies in the last month, gaslit the public at every single one of them, bragged and talked about his home rental projects the whole time, which everyone hated. Just like the Democratic message was, he does not care about your costs. He is not focused on them. And he went and did rallies where he explicitly said, I don't care about your costs.

Shout out to all the bozos who said Obama was an elitist who was out of touch for making a cheesecake factory joke. And then Obama baited Trump into like five more days of defending his home renovations and like stapling gold to the wall or whatever.

Democrats gained 36 points in every county that has a cheesecake factory. I made that up.

We're going with that.

Sure.

And also, like, I mean, we're talking about Trump, but every single Republican that lost tonight and the ones who didn't, none of them said a fucking word. Like, if a Democratic president had done half of what Donald Trump did over the last two years, the party would have been, it would have been a fucking uproar.

Yeah.

You know, and they said nothing. And so they all lost.

And it's great. It's Trump's fault because they hit at least, they were doing a piss-poor, half-assed job of it. But a month ago, you know, you have Congresswoman Salazar in Florida talking about deportations. You have members of Congress in Texas talking about deportations. You have Mike Rogers and Ashley Hansen talking about ending the war and tariffs. And then Trump says, I'm going to come to your town and you're going to have to stand next to me while I defend and promote the war and the tariffs. And they have to stop doing all those things and run with Trump.

Also, I mean, the scale of the victory tonight is like.

Stunning.

Nothing we have seen.

In our lifetimes.

I mean, 2008.

Not even in my lifetime.

2008, the margins in 2008, because it was, we won a presidency plus the huge majorities that swept into Congress is probably the most analogous.

Yeah.

But in terms of the sheer, what the House vote is going to be, I mean, it's like up to the New York Times needle estimates up to like 13, a D plus 13 night nationally is something I haven't seen on the Democrat or Republican side since.

1974.

1974.

We're like liberal cicadas. Every 17 years you pop up, you may die.

2010 when the national, the popular vote was, or 2008 the popular vote was 10 points. So we're bigger than that. We're bigger than the year Obama won beat McCain by seven points and won 365 electoral votes.

It's really built up, you know, built up over 10 years. Everyone just had to.

Well, it's right. You know, look, I feel like part of the reason there's so much sort of, I don't know, brittleness and anxiety on the left is like both on the part of politicians and people who just think about politics or care about politics is this feeling of like not knowing the country and feeling unmoored by that. And a lot of the reaction, a lot of, you know, Democrats, whether it's shifting left in 2020, raising their hands at times just to try to win people over and then not being sure how to fight Trump, kind of losing their sense of the country. And part of it's because there's never been this kind of rebuke, right? It takes us days to find out that Joe Biden has won.

2018 wasn't disappointing. I mean, it was.

It was just a split verdict.

It was.

He kept the Senate.

Well, look, he was at the time unprecedented. Obviously, what he's done now makes that look like a visit to the cheesecake factory, but the.

The good old days.

But I think there's a lot of people that have been hyper-engaged in politics, sort of like, where is everybody? And now we have a victory in Kansas for the first time, what, in 94 years.

94 years.

A fact I stole from you from a previous broadcast. And we were then an inch in Mississippi. I mean, it's extraordinary.

The tribalism went away and people voted on interests.

And people, and the Trump coalition abandoned Trump. Like, you see where the Democrats made huge gains were in states with large rural areas. It's why Adam Hamilton won in Kansas. It's why Ann Andrews won in South Carolina. It's why Josh Turick, who was the Democrat probably most likely to lose of the big four races we talked about, he's up what, six points as we're recording this right now?

Most nervous out. And I'll just say, you know, the same kind of running the kind of like anti-trans playbook on Telluride, for example, it turns out that these issues are less salient when gas prices are $6. And so I once again suggest the formation of some kind of independent, non-binary militia to blow up oil refineries in Russia. That you would be serving both the interests of democracy and your own country. Because the higher the gas prices, the more people like trans people.

I don't think there's a rule.

I think there's actually no.

I think there's no evidence that those ads work in any election. Because I actually don't think that's why Kamala Harris lost.

No, it is, it's the reverse of what happened there, which is like when people are struggling financially and they think that the people in power are focused on something other than their financial struggles, they will punish the party in power. And the Republicans made people believe that Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris weren't focused on their struggles and they were focused on other issues.

And other people.

And it turns out in this case with Trump, he really is focused on every other issue, but their struggles, which we know because he tells us that all the time.

Yeah.

That was an easier one.

Other than telling people.

That they can't afford the shrimp cocktails. That also was part of it, the kind of. So it says a lot about the kind of election this was, that the winning the House back was a foregone conclusion, but the margin is obviously pretty astounding. I mean, like I said, we're up to 254, 255 as projection for the House majority here. What were some of your favorite House races or the most notable House races that we won? Maybe the one that you were surprised or you were happy about.

I mean, our several-time guest, Bobby Polito, in Texas is putting up like a sod numbers.

Yeah.

In a district. I think he said like 60, 61% in a district. Trump won by like 17 or 18. That is crazy. Now, that's a story of broader trends, but also candidate quality. Like this is a guy who's like a fate, like a Latin Grammy Award-winning artist who is not seen as a traditional politician by anybody. I mean, it's just a recruiting coup.

I mean, Democrats are crushing across the Rio Grande Valley and the largely Latino districts outside of San Antonio. Just if you look at the map, that is blue. It's like Brendan Herrera, one of the worst humans alive, is getting absolutely destroyed in that race as a Republican candidate there. I mean, just you look at them, you know, the two, we said at the beginning of the outset, the two races to watch because they were the ones where the polls closed first were Kentucky 6. That would be the, if we won Kentucky 6, that'd be the sign of a pretty big blue wave. And if we won Indiana 5, it'd be the size, it'd be a tsunami indicator.

Victorious parts.

It looks like we're going to sweep most of the House races in North Carolina and probably unseat the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, the guy in charge of winning the House back for Republicans.

By the way, shout out Zach Dubbo, cool guy.

Yeah.

I met with him in Kentucky.

How did his piece of shit, Max Miller, lost?

Oh, Max Miller lost? That's great. That's great.

Fuck that guy.

Mike Lawler lost in New York.

Yeah. Who anonymous Democrats were telling Axios could never lose. That was cool.

I also just the total backfiring of their gerrymandering scheme, right? Because I don't know what the final, I don't think we have, I don't think we know the final count yet.

They failed everywhere.

But it was, it just, this wave overcame it. I'll be curious to see after if there's anywhere in the country, given the size of this, maybe not, but are there any places where would they have been able to save one or two seats had they not done the gerrymander because of where they've moved the votes around?

Yeah, they're not in dummy mander danger in this because there are some seats they're going to pick up. But in Florida, they were trying to eliminate three Democrats, Jared Moskowitz, Darren Soda, and Kathy Kasser. All three of them won with relative ease. They created a new district. They were supposed to be an easy Republican take. We won that district. In Alabama, after the Kellay decision, they redrifted the whole thing to take down Schumer figures. He won with ease.

You think that if you add up the seats, if you add up the seats that they put in jeopardy because of the gerrymandering and the seats Democrats pick up in California, like I'm saying, have they netted positive?

Oh, over the whole thing? That's a great question.

I think we don't know.

Yeah, we don't know yet. I think that Randy Fields.

I think almost all of their Florida and Texas gerrymanders failed.

Failed. Yeah.

And those were the two biggest. So like, right, there's a few.

There's a real specific definition of a dummy mander that I don't think they hit, but yes, the whole effort was a complete failure.

All right, let's get to the biggest story of the night, which is the Senate, because that was the only real question heading into the night. As of right now, we have a few races that haven't been called. In Michigan, about half the votes are in. Abdul is ahead by about a point and a half of this recording, but the Times, the needle has him at like more than 95%.

Wayne County is not in, which is okay.

Yeah, that is why. And that always happens with Michigan.

Big liberal dumps coming.

Big liberal, huge dumps. And they think maybe he'll win by five or more, maybe six. Last time I saw it, we don't have any numbers yet from Alaska. So we don't have that yet. But everything else.

Mississippi is supposed to call.

Mississippi is just went up.

It's tightening up.

It's tightening.

Yeah, yeah.

He's up.

It's crazy.

Yes. He just, just as we were talking, he just took the lead.

Wow.

So that's happening. But we've already flipped, Democrats have flipped seven Senate seats and held Georgia. Biggest surprises there. Annie Andrews pulling out a four-point win in South Carolina. Lindsey Graham's old seat beating Darlene Graham. Adam Hamilton cruising to a five-point win in Kansas. Bye-bye, Roger Marshall. Those are the big stunners so far. Annie Andrews, Adam Hamilton, and I don't know, those were the big ones.

Shocked.

Annie Andrews winning would have been a surprise enough. The fact that she won by that much is crazy.

Annie Andrews won is the most surprising. Not that she won. Like we had talked about how it was a possibility. The race was incredibly close and that Times poll that came out last week was essentially tied. But the assumption always was that enough Republicans would come home. And she won with ease. They called that race so quickly. It was hard to believe. Kansas is obviously on its face and incredibly surprising that it wasn't even on the map six months ago. Adam Hamilton gets in the race, makes, you know, runs an incredible campaign, is an incredible candidate. Roger Marshall, possibly the worst candidate to ever walk the face of the planet, not named Ken Paxton. And, but even like heading into the week, you're talking to people who are involved in trying to win the Senate, they were very confident about Kansas.

Yep.

Tell a Rico, Adam Hamilton, Annie Andrews.

Abdul.

Abdul, just Troy Jackson, a law, just like the, like really talented, really interesting people from all different kinds of walks of life. Many of them not traditional politicians in any way, shape, or form. Like it's, like this will be one of those Senate classes I think people will talk about for a very, very long time.

And also it's just another indication that candidate quality really matters. Like the South Carolina Republicans naming Lindsey Graham's sister and just like passing along a Senate seat like it's a dynastic thing was a disaster. And you know, we saw candidate quality really hurt Republicans in 2022. Like voters in Georgia were like, no, Herschel Walker is a moron. We're not voting for this guy. But Chuck Schumer deserves credit for recruiting some really great candidates. Candidates we're not even talking about. Like, you know, in North Carolina and, you know, the others.

Yeah, Roy Cooper, Sherrod Brown.

Yes, like we just swept.

Josh Turick.

But also like some great candidates emerged in the primary process. Abdul, Annie Andrews, right? It's like an exciting moment of like the bench we now have.

Yeah. Also, there's a lot of like talk about the way in which Trump obviously sort of sabotaged the whole operation here. He gets behind Ken Paxton, gets behind Darlene Graham and fine. But these are all people that won their primaries, right? Texas Republicans, South Carolina Republicans, they saw the choice. They watched the debate and they still voted for her, whether it's because Trump told them to or because Trump was seeing what they were seeing, whatever. And I also wonder what kind of evaluation you'll see on the Republican side of what led them to this moment.

Susan Collins, Senator No Moore, called the race for Troy Jackson. That was another one everyone was a little worried about towards the end. I mean, the polling was a little iffy on that. As of now, he's up by five points, six points, and they call, she called him to concede. So I do think that some of these races, when there's a wave this big, and this is sort of what the hope was, even if a candidate is strong like Susan Collins or, you know, a candidate who didn't have a whole race to get well-known like Troy Jackson, like the wave just carries you along.

Yeah. I mean, this is a weird.

Or you can't, or you can't fend off the wave if you're like a Susan Collins.

Susan Collins can end up being one of the greatest Republican-ever performers, even in this election. If, you know, it's a state Kamala Harris won by eight points in a plus 13 Democratic environment and she loses by five or six.

Yeah.

But you know what? You benefited from this once in 2020 and now you're gone. So cool.

There were a few heartbreakers in Florida. Angie Nixon, another shocker, came within three points of Ashley Moody beating the polls in a state that Trump carried by 13 points in 2024. We talked about Mississippi, which is still happening right now. Louisiana with 95% of the vote counted. Democrat Jamie Davis is losing to Julia Letlow by just under five points. That's a state Trump won by 22 points. Didn't even see Louisiana.

No, the Republican polling, it works because there was that report right before Trump agreed to do the last-minute telerally in Louisiana that it was six points in the internal polling.

I mean, the Florida thing was interesting because Florida counts the votes really fast and also throughout the day, they are constantly providing updates. So you can sort of like start looking at the tea leaves in the Florida turnout. And it did seem throughout the day that all the turnout reports were, they weren't, they were like Republicans turning out, but it wasn't, it was basically matching the polls from Florida. And then it turns out that like the turnout was not what Republicans needed in Florida, but the persuasion when they started opening the ballots and counting them, suddenly like a lot of the deep R places, there was just a bunch of Democratic votes there for both Angie Nixon and David Jolly, who both came pretty close to winning their races.

The Florida moment was like very personally meaningful for me because in 2016, when they dumped all that Florida vote, and that's the moment we all knew that things were not looking like they were supposed to. I remember talking to someone, like a Democratic operative, who was like in and around the Clinton campaign and who basically said to me, if our numbers are that wrong in Florida, they're wrong everywhere. You were on that email chain, I believe.

Yes, I was.

And then in 2020, same thing happens again and you realize, oh, Biden is not going to walk away with this like we thought. 2024, that's when you knew we were going to get our ass kicked out of here because you had like Osceola County and all these other places with massive Latino swings. And to have the Florida numbers come in and show something good for us was like an out-of-body experience.

Do you remember that we were talking about this? So when you and I had agreed to go on NBC and it was, we realized it was the final 15 seconds before we would have had to admit on, just be on television while it was over. We still had a moment to just pretend there was hope.

Back when Tony Hinchcliffe was going to deliver the election.

It turned out that the Puerto Rico vote was not moved by the Tony Hinchcliffe joke.

Maybe it was just delayed.

Yes.

Never wrong, only early.

Louisiana is only, Jamie Davis is only down two points now.

What?

It's funny the stories we're not talking about. Like Josh Shapiro just got 60% in the swing state of Pennsylvania in his race.

And brought in a bunch of House Democrats in the same way.

John Ossoff won by 18 points.

18 points.

I think that's the latest.

In a state that Trump won.

David Crowley's up six in the governor's race in Wisconsin. I don't even, yeah, they called that race.

Hey, hey.

Roy Cooper, where does Roy Cooper at? Is he like a 15-point margin?

I think they might have done it like a little league game where you're up nine to nothing.

Yeah, it's like, all right, everybody, ice pops.

I feel like it's, I think it's also maybe an okay night for having contentious primaries and it not mattering in the end, right? Like, you know, even up to and including the late Hailey Stevens, may her memory be a blessing.

Roy Cooper's up 20, 59, 39.

Is that really?

That's a New York Times.

That's wild.

95% of the vote.

Are we doing a separate Michigan category?

No, we're about to do Texas.

Okay.

So stick with us. James Tellarico, heard of him? He's going to the Senate. He crushed Ken Paxton.

We worship an awesome non-binary God in the blue states. And we don't like, we don't like, we don't like OB-GYN sending us bills in the red states. We don't like those OB-GYN bills.

Let me just fucking, the New York Times, the website could be a little easier to read when the state.

Oh, boo hoo.

You know?

They do a great service to us.

No, I love them.

I will just say, I think.

Honestly.

Let's all reflect on Nate Cohen's cowardice in not predicting this wave. In his refusal to actually admit how good the numbers really were.

Both Nates. Our Nate.

Our Nate.

We're claiming him for, yeah, he's ours now. Our Nate. The other Nate.

Yeah, it was a good night for Nates.

Good night for Flipper.

Yeah.

The model still count model.

Yeah, I'd night for Keith Raboi.

For those who followed up.

And fucking Clay Travis.

Did he make that bet?

Tough night for the All In pod.

Did Nate ever get that bet?

No, no.

We're going to save this pun foot to the end.

It's hard.

Sorry, are we on the part of the All In that says score settling? No, that's after Michigan.

Yeah, that's right.

Tellarico, 55 to 43.

I can't believe that.

Texas. Let's talk about Texas because it's not just James Tellarico. Gina Inojosa is going to be the governor of Texas now, defeating Greg Abbott by a bunch. What is it, six points now? Five points? The Texas legislature is flipping.

Statewide was it 17?

The railroad commissioner, John Rosenthal is going to be the new, Bofrench.

Dumbass Bofrench.

Gina right now on the Times is 53-46.

It's about oil and gas pipelines for some reason.

I mean, what the fuck happened in Texas?

Like Ken Paxton was a terrible candidate. Like historically bad. Corrupt, terrible human being. Couldn't keep his dick in his pants. Like all the things you don't want in a candidate. He was terrible. Greg Abbott was like a very strong candidate. People were worried about him. He was a machine. He had a lot of money. Gina Inojosa came out of nowhere. She had no money. No one was paying attention to this race. She kicked his ass.

She came on this podcast.

She kicked his ass.

Yeah, they're going to try to blame.

Two appearances.

Two appearances.

They're going to try to blame.

Count up the appearances and then connect them to the wins.

Yeah. Hey, how many times did Kamala come on 2024? Score settling. Do you think they're going to try to blame, they're going to try to blame Ken Paxton for dragging them all down? And I'm sure that's part of it, but it won't be able to explain it.

Gina ran a great campaign.

No, no, no, no. Of course, I'm saying it. Like I'm sure in some way, Ken Paxton is obviously not a help to the ticket. He probably, whatever, but they're going to try to lay it on him and they can't.

But a statewide Republican massacre in Texas, like the ingredients for that were, and you saw this in the turnout numbers today too, as they were coming in, like the rurals just didn't turn out in Texas. And, you know, in the big counties, the turnout was strong, especially before Election Day. The South Texas, Latinos in South Texas and everywhere just swung way to the left. And so, you know, what you started seeing in 2018, I think, with Beto coming within two and a half points of Cruz, and he got like that huge suburban vote out of like Dallas and Houston and Travis County and Austin and everything.

The way to understand Texas, and I think the whole thing, is that the Republican Party reverted back to the pre-Trump Republican Party in terms of its turnout and its vote share coming out of rural areas. And the Democratic Party stayed in its post-Trump form, which by just driving up massive turnout from not just urban areas, but also rural areas. And then you get a Latino swing that's not back to even where it was with Beto, but back to a 2020 level. And that is a formula where you're going to do very, very well in a state like Texas.

I also just like got to give the flowers to like everyone who has organized in Texas for the last decade or more, because this doesn't just happen because it's a, like a wave year and they get swept in. Like obviously that's part of it, but what people on the ground in Texas have built to make this possible over many elections where they've lost and then people will roll their eyes after the election and be like, oh, everyone blew Texas.

Blew through with the football.

Yeah, why are Democrats looking at Texas again? Like people on the ground there, they just kept working, kept organizing.

And that's the thing. Now we have to, this is one of the great parts about having Gina as governor is we have to build on it because Texas has to be a battleground state in 2028. And once you get to 2032, there is no real path to a sustainable electoral college majority without Texas.

Yes.

Except now that we have Kansas. I'm just kidding. And of course, Mississippi, the new battleground of Mississippi.

So Gina Inojosa, new governor of Texas. We got some other big governor wins in Ohio. Amy Acton beat that piece of fucking shit, Vivek Ramaswamy, by five and a half points so far in Georgia. Keisha Lance Bottoms handily beat Rick Jackson by more than eight to become the first Black woman governor in American history. Any other governor's races that I'm missing out there?

Iowa.

Iowa. Rob Sand.

Rob Sand crushed.

Rob Sand crushed.

Crackline. Where are things in Kansas right now as you look at this? You got your laptop?

I don't know.

Cindy Holscher was leading when we went into our record this pod.

So in Kansas, she's up 50, Cindy Holscher's up 50.4 to 49.6.

So.

So we could have a new governor in Kansas.

What's the latest in California's governor's race?

Javier Becerra is going to be the governor in Kansas.

California.

California. Sorry, California. Obviously, Amy Klobuchar, Hannah Pingree in Maine, Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota.

Jocelyn Benson.

Jocelyn Benson is crushing in Michigan. Oh, and we talked about David Crowley in Wisconsin. A lot of Democratic governors.

What about, we don't know, we don't know enough from Nevada yet about Aaron Ford.

No, but he's going to take it to the bank. Aaron Ford's going to win.

Oh, one good election, we're making predictions again.

I've been maybe perusing John Ralston's blog here and there.

He's been good. But like most Americans will live in states governed with a, that have a Democratic governor. Most states will have a Democratic governor, I believe now. And we now have Democratic governors in what we hopefully battleground like Texas, but also Georgia and Wisconsin and a bunch of states that'll be places where they could contest an election in a future presidential. Like I think it's just going to matter for election integrity, whatever Trump tries and whatever they try. The Georgia one matters a ton because Brian Kemp and the state legislative Republicans already said they were going to redraw the maps in Georgia next year.

Also, if one of the senators from Georgia or maybe both or, you know, either or would like to run for president in 2028, now we have a Democratic governor in that state who could, you know, appoint their replacement.

Worth noting.

Just something to think about.

I will say, I think we all knew that Vivek Ramaswamy was a repulsive, repellent human being who was just so annoying that you couldn't imagine being in a room with him, let alone being governed by him. But the fact that his disgusting ad about Amy Acton maybe cost him the race and also helped lead Sherrod Brown to victory is a wonderful repudiation of him as a human being, but also of just like the politics of divisiveness and just like cravenness that we've all gotten used to being effective.

Seems like nothing compared to what Vivek did.

I know. So you've seen this shit work and just to see it blow up in his face so spectacularly was wonderful.

It's extra. I was thinking about how great that is. And just that here's someone who's always been kind of a slimy guy and just in the home stretch of a campaign, loses touch with whatever he's pretending he is and just lets his demon out. And he will be now for this foolish reason of a backfiring ad will be defined by it for the rest of his fucking life. This is what we talk about the Max Cleveland ad. We are going to talk about this ad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's a big tennis career.

Oh yeah, plus and the tennis, right?

Yeah.

Probably not as a baseball coach.

Yeah, I was going to say.

Not so much baseball. So Trump seems to be handling this all pretty well.

I think actually usually you'd say that as a joke. I kind of think that's true.

No, I mean, you know, first he posted that if he was on the ballot, Republicans would have won in a landslide.

His support rating was 39 in the exit polls.

Yes, right. Yeah. And then he did a phone interview with the New York Times where he said he'd absolutely accept the results and look forward to working with Democrats. Then he posted an image of a MAGA hat with the word veto on it instead. Then opposed attacking Greg Abbott as a rhino who deserved to lose. He bitched for a while about candidate quality, which is interesting because his handpicked candidates, Darlene Graham, Ken Paxton.

Vivek Ramaswamy.

Vivek Ramaswamy. There's a couple other that I'm missing too. All of his handpicked candidates. Oh, Mike Collins in Georgia.

Yeah. Michael Watley.

Michael Watley in North Carolina.

He pushed Tillis out basically.

Right.

In North Carolina. He like kind of, he didn't drive Brian Kemp out in Georgia, but you know, he made it harder for him to run.

Yeah, so candidate quality were his candidates. And so he said all this and then he rounded it all out with a brief appearance on Fox News. Let's listen.

Well, I'm a little bit surprised. I thought they'd do better. We had tremendous rallies. And I wasn't on the ballot. If I was on the ballot, they would have gotten out. You know, they just weren't inspired. They really probably weren't willing to do the short-term consequence of paying more for gasoline. And that, you know, I understand that. Some of the candidates that I endorsed, they fought me and they didn't like that they fought me. No matter how good the president is, you lose. I don't know why. It's just a point in time, Bret.

Can you just imagine that level of punditry? Like that is somebody that you should be talking to at like a senior care facility who you're serving and who's like used to be involved in politics and still watches it on the TV and then comments on it from time to time. Like it's somebody like, and they even at the end of the interview, they're like, that's a great point, sir. Good night. Have a good night. Get some sleep, buddy. Because like they were done with him before he was done.

Yeah, they cut him off.

What do we think happens with Trump next? What does he stay mad? I don't think this whole like I'll work with the Democrats.

No, he's going to rage.

You don't?

I think tomorrow he probably restarts the war with Iran because he knows like a good conflict will change the narrative and, you know, we get like insane, unhinged Donald Trump again.

Yeah, he's going to spend, like right now he can do this like very momentary. I don't even know what you would describe what that was, but it wasn't lashing out.

Conciliatory approach.

Yes, yes. That'd be the way to put it. And then he's going to consume all the news coverage that says he's a giant loser.

Yeah, the worst loss ever.

There's going to be fuming. There's going to be a lot of mood in the White House stories.

Yeah, ketchup on the wall.

Yeah, but then that's a fine. Yeah. I saw a lot of people make that joke today.

The Orange Cheetos is really mad now.

You got him.

Yeah. He needs someone to blame. He can be mad at Democrats. He can take it out on Democrats. He can't blame Democrats for this. He has to find someone else to kind of vent the cause.

And all the fucking pussies in the Republican Party are blaming other people. Ron DeSantis is like, oh yeah, Kristi Noem is at fault, right? Kristi Noem is like, the reason we lost is because we were too successful in the first term. It's like you are a bunch of embarrassing losers who all think you can run in 2028 and you think that you need to kiss the ring because Trump's endorsement will decide who the nominee is. And maybe that's right, but it is going to prevent the reckoning that they actually need inside that party, including on the set of Fox News where Brett Baier is like, okay, sir, well, I love you and I hope you sleep tight tonight.

And that's why they lost.

That's why they lost. They cared too much.

I don't.

But yeah, I think he's, I think he's going to get pretty pissed. Now, here's a question to your point, Tommy, about the pussies in the Republican Party. Are they, do you think Republican, this is it? Like to me, I feel like the bloodletting within the Republican Party is going to be like we haven't seen in the whole Trump era because these people now, like he's on his way out. He was a lame duck before this. Now he's the lamest of lame ducks. And the thing that they were all worried about, which is like, oh, Trump has this hold on the base and if I piss Trump off, you know, he could turn the base against me and I can lose my job.

I mean, that is the existential question, right? They should theoretically be under no pressure to do so. Are they worried that he'll endorse their primary opponent in 2028? Will that matter? I don't know.

He said in that interview, he was like, yeah, people say whoever I endorse in 2028, whoever Trump endorses is going to win. Didn't say I worry about that.

So there's like two separate questions. There is people who are thinking of running for president and how they have to want to stay in Trump's favor. I think that's one question. And then there is just like you're a random congressperson who is in, there aren't going to be a lot of them, any of them are probably districts because we won all those seats. But you're a random congressperson. What is your incentive to keep doing this? And if you are a student of history, which none of them are, except maybe some periods of Germanic history, but is you know that it's very possible that this is part one of a two-part wave?

Yeah, but see, I think that's, but it was not because they were afraid of George W. Bush as a figure. It was what, like there's two parts of what it means to go against Trump, right? Like why does Paxton beat Cornyn? I think it's part because Trump's word goes a long way and Trump's attacks matter. But it's also because being seen as a Trump antagonist in any way or being seen as a Trump ally is a shorthand for the kind of people that fight the people we don't like, right? Like the base made a lot of self-destructive decisions, right? Like what you're saying is, will these other politicians convince the base not to be self-destructive and willing to take that bet?

I think there's a difference between people like taking off the MAGA hat and putting on the lingua franca sweater.

Sure.

And like being for impeachment or whatever that is.

But I think it is, but there is like, are they just going to in his house meet? Are they going to break with him on things that may matter politically like the tariffs and the war? They're going to be a whole bunch of those votes with Democrats in charge. Where are they going to be?

Right, but like Mike, that we've, like on tariffs specifically, they've all felt like they've had room to do that, right? Like I think there's something.

Not to vote to actually get rid of them.

No, but to oppose them on the campaign trailer.

Well, let's talk about the next few years. So as for Democrats, the most widely shared Democratic response from Congress was a two-word press release from incoming House Oversight Chairman Robert Garcia, which just says lawyer up. And that was the one that was read on Fox. What do you guys think about that?

I think we should do a little more. I think we should investigate every single thing that should be investigated. That is absolutely, that is like the constitutional obligation for these folks. Because Trump's going to pardon every single person, we also just need to put it all in the historical record of every single thing that happened. The public needs to know about the depths of it. I also think that making it our entire identity as a party is probably not the best politics.

No, it's actually bad politics.

Yes, yes. That was my point.

I just want to put a finer point on it.

Yeah, I'm going to invent a phrase here and I don't know if I think this is going to make a lot of sense. I think it's going to be really cool, okay? Because it's kind of something that we got to walk and chew gum at the same time.

So smart.

You know what I mean? Like, but you get what I'm saying with that?

Can I read you something that's going to bum you guys out?

Can you?

John Fune told Punchbowl News that he would not rule out a lame duck's scotus confirmation.

Yeah.

I saw that. Was that his old comment to them though? This is from November 3rd. It can't be done. You're basically talking about 60 days post-election. I certainly wouldn't rule that out. Was that from a while ago?

I know. I thought he, because I remember.

Oh, you're right. It was from July. God damn you, Punchbowl.

No, I know.

Clickbait.

If you were a subscriber, they would have texted you the proper date on that.

Punchbowl Pro doesn't do tricks. The tricks are for the non-baying people. That's how they get you.

Look, I don't know if you all.

They give you the real news behind the paywall.

If you all watch Sam Alito's interview with Jan Crawford, like that guy wants to serve an extra. He wants to serve out his term.

He's mad.

We never got to the bottom of that Nina Totenberg misbegotten scoop, you know, about saying that Alito was stepping down.

Sounds like it.

Or the Jan Crawford DMs. We didn't talk about that.

Yeah.

I'm always thinking about those Jan Crawford DMs.

I do want to get back to the democratic house here just for a second. Because there is a challenge here where we know that, like, so if you ask, what's the best thing for Democrats to do? Focus on affordability. Great. Nothing's going to happen about affordability for two years. Nothing. They're going to pass no legislation. They're going to pass show votes, message votes that everyone who pays unbelievably close attention to politics is going to applaud and say, great job. And then no one else in the country is ever going to hear about it. And then there's going to be the ability to do investigations that also maybe don't go anywhere because he's going to pardon everyone and then the Supreme Court has decided that the president is immune from criminal prosecution.

Yeah, I think that's true. Here'd be my question about it, which is, yeah, it's not going to be any sort of big kind of Democratic agenda bills that are going to be able to get through and get to Trump. Fine. But I do wonder what happens when you have some of these budget fights. There's going to be fights that involve funding for the military that include the Iran war. When we draw a line there, there's going to be overall funding fights that will include questions around whether we undo some of the Trump cuts in the big beautiful bill. And do you extract concessions on that? Does Trump threaten to veto it? Do you accept that?

It's like the Trump will shut down or two in our future.

Right. And Trump will probably be the one who shuts it down like he was the last time Democrats were in charge.

Unless he wants to make a deal to undo the Medicaid cuts.

Yeah. Right.

You know, maybe Jeffries and Schumer can tell him, you can be a hero. You can undo the Medicaid cuts and everyone's going to love you. I don't know.

But then you'd say, well, yes, that'll get tied. All of a sudden, there's going to be these, this is what I mean. It's like there's going to be these real negotiations and there's going to be lines in the sand and there's going to be a debate about whether we gave too much. If it's worth it, it's worth it. That to me is, those are the big fights to come that are actually impactful, actually could help on Medicaid.

Well, and the reason they're going to be different than the other fights we've had the last 10 years is overshadowing all of those fights will be the 2028 primaries on both sides.

Yeah, it's going to drive the race.

And so there's going to be what happens in Congress that will be the C block and the A and B block will be the Democratic primary and the Republican primary.

I mean, think about 2006, right? So Democrats win this huge victory. Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female speaker. It's a gigantic deal. They take power on January 3rd. On January 13th, Barack Obama announces he's running for president. Hillary Clinton announces two weeks later. And some things, a lot of things happened in the house. There were really high-profile investigations. The Democrats actually did get Bush to sign a minimum wage bill in that period, but it became the Democratic primary right away.

And the Republican primary.

And the very busy Republican primary there. Yeah. We have a similar thing going on here too.

Yeah. Okay. Before we go, we want to take just a quick moment to be, as promised, petty as hell and play you some of the highlights of right-wing commentators just being kind of sad.

This watch party is best described as quiet, subdued, and apprehensive.

Trump ran around the country saying, vote as if I'm on the ballot. And that's exactly what happened.

I wish it was two years ago. South Carolina, again, Sean.

Brutal.

It's sad to me. You know, ended tragically.

Can we do a spin on the races that, oh, I'm sorry, Garrett. I guess we're on TV.

Have gone around the country saying, act like I'm on the ballot. And then tonight post, I wasn't on the ballot.

Well, it was a metaphorical. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. There's a political science term for what's happening. It's called a country ass whooping. That's what's happening right now.

Oh. I love the, can we do a spin on the good results?

Just caught alive. Caught alive.

I think what he was saying was a spin around to the various states if we're defending Brad. I don't like Brad Bear.

Yeah, sorry. I know that.

I think that's what happened there.

I know that you're a big Brad Bear fan.

I'm trying to fake news us here, you know?

Yeah. Hey, we play a fair here. We play a right.

I don't know. You want to react to any of that?

There was a Washington Post reporter who did an update from the Vivek Ramaswamy concession party. And he talked to, I'm going to paraphrase this, but he talked to somebody and the guy was like, I'm not doing so good. I bet a lot of money on this. And that's a crazy thing to have done. But you're at the Vivek party betting on Vivek.

Boy, what a weird reality.

Yeah, sort of someone on the other side of that bet, I'm happy for.

Johnny Manzel was parlaying the Texas Tech game and Ken Paxton to win on Cal Share. Like this is not good.

Did Texas Tech win?

Yes, they did.

Okay.

He blew up his parlay.

Yeah. Looks Elon Musk.

Oh, thank you, Dan.

Half a billion.

Thank you.

I know it doesn't matter to him, but it's nice.

Half a billion. Half a million dollars. He spent $200 million in Texas alone.

On Paxton.

He tried to buy for the Senate the single worst candidate to run in modern American history.

Money in politics. Bad thing, but does it matter that much? Not this cycle.

Well, here, I think that's it. Money does matter, obviously, but if you don't have a message, all the money in the world doesn't matter.

Or if you start a stupid war.

As the saying, the dog has to eat the dog food.

I also think like if you, it matters to a certain point. And so if there is a spending imbalance where, you know, the Democratic candidate doesn't have much money at all and the Republican candidate just swamps them, right? Like that matters. But if both candidates can at least get to a certain level where the fucking airwaves are saturated with ads that everyone fucking hates, then at least you can neutralize it. That's how ridiculous the campaign finance system is right now.

Also, if we're going to be like sort of nerdily precise about it, what mattered here is Democratic candidates raised a ton of money into their campaigns. They were able to buy ads at a much cheaper rate than the Super PACs. And to the credit of the Democratic Super PACs, they understood what the plan was and they reserved their time really early and not even having all the money they needed for that and then raising to get to that. Because the earlier you buy your ads, the lower rate you have in the Republicans, because Trump sat on his money for so long and Elon came in late, they were spending, you know, two times what the House majority PACs, Senate majority PACs.

I just want to pour one out for the Democrats in disarray narrative. Maine. Turned out that didn't really matter.

Array, Michigan.

Texas. Everyone's like, oh, Jasmine Crockett is not doing enough for Tower Rico. Turned out fine.

Hailey Stevens.

Hailey Stevens.

That was a fun news cycle.

Yeah, that was a fun way to close out the campaign. Turns out no one gave a shit.

And I'll just also say, you have the exit vote of Jewish voters in Michigan. Was it like 60-35, something like that?

Yeah.

And yeah, some people absolutely switched to Rogers, but the majority of Jewish voters stuck with Abdul and voted for a Democratic majority. And I was glad to see it.

What a night, guys.

What a night.

Long time coming. Not a lot like this. All right, we're going to go to bed. See you in 17 years.

And I'll think about our just sort of workshop our takes for the rest of the week.

At CricketCon?

CricketCon.

CricketCon.com.

We're all heading to CricketCon tomorrow.

Now it's a fucking party.

Oh, wow.

Boy, we danced through the raindrops on these CricketCons. Woo. Would have been hard to pitch this thing if it was a bad night. No, I'd be returning my ticket.

Hey, hey, hey.

And now it's going to be amazing.

Yeah, it's great.

So see you there. Come see us at CricketCon. We'll see you there.

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