Transcript of Trump Admits Bleak Future as he Scrambles to Grasp Power!

Donald Trump just had one of the worst weeks of his presidency, of any presidency, of his entire life in a way. And privately, people are saying he's done. He's done. He doesn't want to do this job anymore. He's tired. It's the beginning of an end of a presidency that is now one of the lamest lame ducks we've ever seen in American history. He was completely wiped out on election night, and the hits keep on coming. Arizona Democrats just secured a complete trifecta: states in 2028 that Republicans thought were in the bag, like Ohio, are now competitive, and the president continues to just deflect blank.

Hello.

We're winners.

Happy election week.

I can't believe we haven't spoken. I mean, we've, like, texted, but we have not spoken in front of thousands of other people yet.

And so you guys are going to get our first raw reaction together to the blue tsunami that just hit America from sea to shining sea. And it's just, it's, it's a—

It's insane.

As Ronald Reagan said, it's morning in America.

Yeah, morning, afternoon, evening, night, all the times. All the times are blue at this point.

It is. If you guys are just joining, though, by the way, subscribe up here if you're on Substack, subscribe down there if you're on YouTube. Welcome to the Raging Perspective. We are back.

Raging Perspective winners edition.

Winners edition, post-election edition.

Every time that I open up what used to be the hellhole of Twitter, it is now the happiest place on Earth, full of millennial-coded content, which is so perfect for me. I was thinking about this because tomorrow's Croquet Con. You're going to be there too, right?

Yeah.

So I'll see you in Le Flash. Anyway, last year, when I was getting ready to go to Croquet Con, I was having this panic attack about what to wear, and I only had tight, like, jeggings, like jeans, which is very millennial-coded. Like, no Gen Z ladies are wearing those. And I was like, oh my God, this is so dorky. I can't do this. I can't show up at, like, this cool thing and be dressed like a 42-year-old mom, even though I'm a 42-year-old mom. This year, I feel like I have to wear my jeggings because this is, like, the revenge of the millennials to a level I never expected.

Yeah, James Abdul. I mean, you go through the entire Senate.

John.

John Annie Andrews. I mean, like, right? Like, this is.

Our queen. Our Dr. Queen.

And you know who's about to join them? Scott Caloum, who's also very young, who will be flipping this recipe—

And you pronounced his name properly, which I have been messing up a little bit. But I even asked. I was like, am I messing this up? And then I was asking Scott, and Scott definitely wouldn't have known the right way to do it. Anyway, we apologize. But so into your story, I cannot wait. This is also my first day back on the Five.

Oh, that's going to be a— you should have, you should enjoy it.

Yeah, I'm so excited, and Jesse is so dreading it. So he's been very on, like, the same page about what happened, which I appreciate. There's no, like, denial of the wipeout.

You know what I find interesting, and I'd love to get your thoughts about this, and we're definitely going off script, but this is going to be more interesting, is the fact that they all knew this was coming. Every single Republican I've spoken to after the election said, yeah, we knew this was going to happen. I mean, not to the extent that—

At this level?

Not to this level.

Yeah.

Like, they didn't think South Carolina would be in play, or Mississippi would be in play. But they all thought they were going to lose the House, and they were going to lose the Senate, and, like, there was really no chance for them. Most of them, like, I spoke to a Republican yesterday who was like, oh, we never thought Ken Paxton had even a shot. Like, like.

I think that that is a bit of a lie.

Copium?

Yes, the copium. We're in the hopium. Well, actually, it wasn't even hopium. It was just reality. And they're doing the copium. I think they thought it was possible that he would lose. But when you spend, and we haven't covered this yet, the amount of money that was lit on fire across the country, not just Elon Musk's personal piggy bank, which I know it's only, like, $10 to him, but seeing nearly $500 million go up in flames is fun for me. Like, I think they thought that they could save some of these seats, and potentially even Ken Paxton's seat if they could mobilize people to get off the couch, at least, and come out and vote.

The polls? Polls were wrong. Just not, they weren't liberal enough. I mean, they didn't, and it's interesting, I think that the reason why pollsters couldn't find Republicans to answer the question was because they weren't going to vote. I mean, a big part of this is not just the fact that there were plenty of Republicans who turned out and were like, I'm going to vote blue for the first time, but so many Republicans stayed home.

Right.

All the Republicans thought on election day you'd see this surge in, like, Republican turnout. And even in a state like Florida, which Republicans barely won, that state is now back to 2012 levels when it's a purple state, which DeSantis worked very hard to avoid. And so I think that this was a reckoning of epic proportion. Now Democrats just have to do something that they're not known to do, which is not mess things up. And so let's see how they govern moving forward.

All right. Yes to that. And we're going to be talking about what that governance could look like.

Yes.

Are there any particular plotlines that you would like to highlight that really blew your mind or you think are just super important to keep in mind as we begin this new blue era in America?

Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest plotline is that it didn't matter whether you were on the left or in the center. As long as you had a D next to your name, you were popular. And I think that, and at the same time, if you had an I next to your name in South Dakota or in Nebraska.

Yeah.

You lost. I argued on election night that if Dan Osborne had a D next to his name, he would have been better on Tuesday night. And I think that is a major plotline, that a lot of people were like, the Democratic Party brand sucks, but I don't know that it does suck as much as people claim because it was very popular Tuesday night.

I think it was popular insofar as it was the known opposition to the Republicans, more so than the party itself and what it stands for.

Sure.

But I think that you're right, and I love Dan Osborne, and I was really disappointed about that. I mean, I don't know what would have happened in Montana because remember the Democrat wouldn't get off the ballot.

Yeah.

When the independent candidate was running ahead. But I think you're right about the independent thing.

Another plotline, I'm just very excited about this.

No, no. I'm excited. Like, I can't contain myself about all of this.

Another plotline I have that people need to talk about more is we need to invest in the South more. And I think that if.

We're sunbelt people now.

No, I know, but I'm saying, like, I think even leading up, like, Louisiana, if we threw a couple million dollars into Louisiana, that state would have flipped. It would have.

I know.

Louisiana was.

1.8 points. 1.8.

It was closer than Florida, Louisiana was, which is crazy to me. Scott Caloum is going to be the next Senator for Mississippi. I am comfortable making that prediction. It's not officially called, but I'm comfortable doing that.

Yeah.

If you want to keep Scott in that seat moving forward, investing in a state like Mississippi, investing in a state like Alabama, if we pumped some more money and Doug Jones would be governor today. And so I think a lot of kudos needs to go to Stacey Abrams for what she built down there.

In Georgia.

In Georgia and just generally in the South. And I think moving forward, Democrats need to really look at the South and not just say it's a lost cause. Even Marcia Blackburn almost lost the governorship in Tennessee. I mean, it was a very close race.

She's mad.

Yeah.

She is mad.

Yeah, exactly. It was not an easy race for her by any means.

No. I think that's totally right. It also feels like where we should be going since we always talk about, like, Black women are the backbone of the party, and we certainly saw that happening in this election. Also saw, you know, they already vote for Democrats in high numbers, but an uptick with Black men as well. Obviously, this Latino surge is enormous, and we can unpack all the dimensions of that. But I think that you're right. And wouldn't it be nice to own the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt?

Yeah.

That's how you end up owning the country. One thing, well, I have a ton of things, but one that I just want to get out there before we get into the topics because I realize it's been 10 minutes of just like, oh my God, we're amazing. I cannot believe that Republicans do not have a single Republican representative along the border in Texas.

Yeah.

Like, the joy that that brings me, that, I mean, I guess part of it is that the border is closed and that was a big deal. But Democrats were able to take the lessons of 2024 and learn from them and create campaigns rooted in showing that you learned those lessons and that you had more to offer. And it's really interesting to me to think about what Republicans are going to do with this because so far it looks like save for maybe Ted Cruz, who I think just feels lonely because he's the only statewide Republican in Texas anymore.

Crazy.

Yeah. He's going to be, like, friends with Democrats. He's going to have, like, no one else to hang with.

But can I tell you something? The underreported plotline and all of this.

Yeah, tell me. Is it a secret?

No, Ted Cruz can't run for president anymore.

I know.

Because if he's the nominee, you know, we'd put a Democrat and be a full blue state. But also, like, it's the biggest loser in all of this was Elon Musk. Elon moved everything to Texas thinking he was going to get better governance there for his companies. And Gina, literally, you know.

Well, maybe he will get better governance.

Well, yeah, but she just came out and she was like, well, we're going to pause land sales to SpaceX with the Boca Chica State Park that they were going to sell to SpaceX. Well, now we're going to put a pause on it. And she goes, we can work with Elon, but it's going to be on our terms, not his. And it's a new day for Elon Musk. He's lost hundreds of billions of dollars in market cap in his companies. His Cybertruck business is completely out of operation at this point. And he just lost $400 plus million dollars. Burned it on fire, literally. So bad, bad, bad times for Musk.

Sad. Okay. Midterms are over. Trump is building. Have you noticed he's had a different, like, pet project each day? He's like ballroom. Today is the arc to Trump. He's just, like, moving ahead as if nothing happened.

He looks like death. He looks like death. He does not look good lately. Okay, continue.

When did you find him good-looking? Okay. A federal judge just blocked his proposed 250-foot triumphal arch, the arc to Trump, just hours after a planning board packed with Trump allies approved the project. He's also turning his attention back to Iran and the possibility of unleashing a new wave of bombing. Trump says he'll soon decide whether to resume all-out war, continue squeezing Iran economically, or pursue a diplomatic deal. Those are a lot of options. Meanwhile, Iran is laying down conditions of its own, and U.S.

Yeah, there was even reporting today that the Iranians were starting to hand out iodine tablets in certain areas near nuclear facilities in the preparation of possible bombing. And so all signs point we have another, I think, the third aircraft carrier in the region now or soon to be. All signs point to hostilities restarting. I don't know what that would look like and how long it would take and how fierce the strikes would be. Listen, I think Chris Van Hallen has a very reasonable point. I think that right now, at least, listen, over the next two months, Democrats don't have a ton of power to shut things down, but when they take over, they will have a ton of power because they'll ultimately decide whether money is flowing to the Pentagon or not.

Agreed. And would just add, though, of the bevy of messages that were sent to this new crop of electeds, one of the ones that voters were screaming the loudest was, "Get us out of this war." And I think that there will be a lot of support for really taking really tough tactics and potentially inflicting some harm on folks to be able to get there. I'm not saying I want, you know, a 21-year-old service member not to get their paycheck, but it was, you know, shouting from the rooftops, and that was one of the things that made Republicans cross over.

Yeah.

That took a year, 14 months for them to become obsessed with him, but the war was obviously a big force in that. We had a great day with the market right after the election, and then things got ugly. Wall Street on a roller coaster. The Nasdaq plunged more than 5% Thursday as investors worried Democrats would crack down on AI and data centers before it rebounded slightly on Friday, this Friday, this morning. But Trump's reaction was classic blame-shifting after taking credit for Wednesday's market rally. On Thursday, he blamed voters for the crash, telling them they had only themselves to blame for electing Democrats.

What says to me is that the president, it's all out of the president's hands. It doesn't matter. Good jobs report. It's not the president. Like, the president's not getting any credit anymore. He's done.

Oh, well.

He gets no credit for anything. And that's kind of the position of a lot of Americans right now. Him putting the blame on Americans for the stock market falling, it's pure, it's after an election. I mean, like, there's a lot of turbulence. The market doesn't like turbulence right now. And so the market's going to correct itself. I'm not, I'm totally fine with it. And at the end of the day, he's the president of the United States. Democrats are not a majority right now. So any stock market is his, it's his stock market. When it's performing well, it's his. When it's performing poorly, it's also his. And so the stock market falling is his. It's not the voter's fault.

What do you think about this concern over the data center issue? Because this is a real issue. So there were 44 ballot initiatives relating to moratoriums on data centers. It passed in all but one instance. It was North Dakota. One didn't get through. And I mean, we know, and you could listen to Democratic governors like Josh Shapiro or Abigail Spanberger of Virginia has the most data centers of any state in America that we are going to fall behind in the AI race.

We have data centers. Jess, we have data centers. We have so many data centers.

Do you think a moratorium is completely fine from this point?

I think a moratorium is fine until you figure out, until you figure out how to root out the bad actors. I think we are in a position right now where we have more than enough data centers. We do. And especially in places like Virginia. And this moratorium is not covering everywhere. Virginia is still going to be building their data centers.

No, no, I know.

But we are at a place right now where it's getting out of hand. And the only way to kind of scale it back a little bit and to make sure that bad actors are not continuing to act poorly is to say, okay, let's pause, let's level set, let's put in some regulation, let's do it quickly, and then let's continue building where necessary. I think there was a report today that came out that Doug Burgum, the Interior Secretary, is setting aside massive amounts of federal land to build data centers and at the same time is profiting off of this personally.

Well, I mean, voters said the same thing. We'll see. I hope people move fast on this. I'm glad to see, you know, some folks like Mark Warner coming into, you know, leadership of committees, people who actually, you know, understand both sides of this, like the benefits of slowing down, but also the importance of making sure that we push forward. 2028 on everyone's mind now. It was, you know, officially the first day on November 4th. Several potential presidential contenders are beginning to distance themselves from the administration.

I think the only person who has a legitimate shot outside of JD Vance or Marco Rubio being the nominee is DeSantis. That's the only person who I could see, especially given the fact that he's just coming out swinging and dropping.

He mad.

Dropping truth bombs on truth bombs. And he is right. I give him credit to this one point. He's a Republican governor and he bucked the Democratic tsunami. Florida is still going to.

Barely.

Barely, but he's the only one. He's the only one. And a lot of it is in part due to him and like, because Floridians do like him and like some of the things he's done. I'm not saying he's a good governor. I'm just saying that he's governed.

He's popular though.

He's popular. So this, it's a three-person race. It's really a two-person race. And if I was a betting man, it's going to be Marco Rubio.

I mean, I don't want to bet yet. I just want to live in my blue tsunami for longer. But I know they've got to figure out their, get their house in order. Let's talk more about Democrats. I want to talk about me. They rode voter frustration over the cost of living. The major victories in the midterms. Now comes the hard part. We have to actually make things cheaper. We have to govern. Nithya Raman with a big win in the LA mayor's race. Two of the country's largest cities, now New York and LA, are led by Democratic socialists.

In the cities or in Congress?

Well, the cities, I don't think we control. I mean, Mamdani is just Mamdani, right?

Mamdani is one of the most popular politicians in the country. And Nithya will be too.

And Kathy Hochul, it was a huge, they really helped each other. I will say that as a mutually beneficial relationship, what Kathy Hochul and Mamdani have going on. And they also seem to, like, genuinely enjoy each other now.

What's their not to like? What's their not to like? I would enjoy myself with Kathy and Mamdani drinking a beer, even though I don't drink.

Okay. We do not drink at all.

Yeah, I don't, I don't, it's not for me.

Oh, it's so for me. Okay. Anyway, all right. So agenda then DC-wise.

DC-wise agenda. Okay. You got to walk and chew gum at the same time. You got to be investigation heavy, as heavy as possible. Launch the largest investigatory scheme that Congress has ever done in American history. Target everyone with the last name Trump. Target everyone with the last name Musk. Anyone associated with the federal government from junior staff all the way up to top Trump officials get to subpoena, haul them up to Congress, lay out the record, and deliver this giant binder, this giant record to a future Democratic attorney general and say, go forth and prosecute.

Does it mean we can get it anyway?

I think you get it anyway.

I think there is going to be hesitancy for that. You're definitely going to have a few Republican senators that are going to want to play ball depending on, especially when you look at the 2028 map, which is a misery for Republicans. Like, this was our bad year and we turned it into our best year since, what, 1974? 2028 for Republicans.

It's awful.

They have no pickup opportunities and they are defending in some of the purpliest places.

Yeah, for sure. But we need, I mean, like, Democrats need an agenda. And the agenda has to be, you have to raise the minimum wage, at least $15, right? Like, that has to be a bill on day one. And it's, and the agenda can't just be, we're going to roll back tariffs or we're going to try to do a war powers resolution to limit Iran. That's not an agenda. It has to be a forward-thinking agenda. Universal childcare. That's what the voters want. Some type of a nationwide healthcare coverage, making the Affordable Care Act better or Medicare for All, whatever is palatable to.

Medicare for whoever wants it.

Whatever it is.

Whatever you want to call it.

Pass that agenda and go line by line, ending stock trading for members of Congress and the administration.

Yes, the ethics packages.

Right? Like, do that. Boom, boom, boom. Force Trump to veto it. I guarantee you he's not going to veto all of it. He's going to look at it and be like, hmm, stock trading bad. I think that's pretty popular. Like, why not? Let's just do it. Like.

Well, does he know how much money he is making from stock trading?

No, but he's going to say, it's in a blind trust. I'm not controlling it. He's going to try to find a loophole. I get it. But like, they're going to, he's going to, and he's going to try to sign some things and take them as wins.

Well, I think also how these articles, and I'm not saying they're leaked out, like the reporters were sitting on them, but like, you know, people start wagging their mouths a lot more when they're in a bad place. And did you see the Wall Street Journal piece about how Melania had talked to him about Steven Miller's overreach when she was like, some of my friends are being deported. And Trump was like, Steven, what are you doing here? So I do think there is opportunity. I'm not saying for like comprehensive immigration reform right out of the gate, but like to get him on things where the like liberal-minded New Yorker type in him understands that this is actually very normie policy.

Wait, really?

Well, I saw that they were like talking. I don't think it's like ripped down.

That'd be hilarious.

Is that like breaking news or maybe I hallucinated it? I have been having like liberal hallucinations all through my flight back from Indiana this morning.

You were in Indiana?

Yeah. I just said that at Mike Pence. I just, do you listen to me? We're on a show together. You don't listen to me?

Yeah, I listen to you.

Okay. I really like that Gina Iñocosa appointed a Republican already who lost a seat, but had gone against Greg Abbott about school vouchers. We haven't talked about how much of a factor school choice and education was in the Texas race. But Texas Dems are wasting no time using their power. Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson says he'll end Ken Paxton's practice of suing out-of-state doctors who prescribe abortion pills. Major shift in how the state enforces its near-total abortion ban.

Yeah. I mean, state legislatures across the country, trifecta's everywhere. I mean, it's insane.

I know. Trifecta, trifecta, trifecta, trifecta. Arizona is like a blue state now.

Yeah. I mean, it's just, I mean, Texas is a blue state. Texas is a blue state.

Well, with a Ted Cruz sticking up in the middle of it, but yes.

And I'm sure he'll be next.

Oh my God.

If he keeps messing around.

Wait, we only have like one more. What do you want to do? You want to talk Newsom, Democratic leadership, or the compact, the Electoral College, National Popular Vote Compact?

Whatever you want, honestly. I could talk about all of them.

Let's do Newsom quickly. So he commuted the sentences of 548 of California's death row inmates, clearly thinking about 2028. Cory Booker heading back to South Carolina, first primary state. Jim Clyburn has said that he's, I think, talked to six of the 2028ers already. Andy Beshear with a massive night with the Democratic Governors Association. My favorite map is where all of the Democratic governor, the new female ones, it's like lit up in pink.

I do. I mean, I personally do. I've been against death penalty for as long as I remember. He's not letting these people out. They're going to spend the rest of their lives in a state prison. So.

A friend texted me that and was like, oh, well, what happens if he kills again? And I'm like, he's just going to rot in a cell by himself instead of a more expensive procedure that could fail. I also think that people are freaking out about the fact that it could not work as a torture that that woman, I understand she's a killer. I'm not saying like I'm siding with her. But I was with Trey Gowdy yesterday, who was a Republican member of Congress, but he's a prosecutor before that and has prosecuted death penalty cases. And he said that most of the time it's the family that wants the death penalty, actually.

He's right.

So I'm curious if there'll be pushback from families on the decision.

Well, I have to see. I mean, maybe, maybe, but I don't know. We'll have to see.

Okay. We'll have to see. Should we do questions?

Sure. Let's do questions.

Okay. AnneH628 asks, seeing both Dem wings claiming this is their victory, who actually won, the moderates or the progressives?

The Democrats. Everyone won. And that's what I said from the beginning. It didn't matter if you were a socialist, a leftist, moderate, whatever you want to label yourself, you won. As long as you had a D next to your name, you won. And that's why you had even people who were literally no longer even running winning in state, like.

The guy who pulled out like two months ago?

Correct. As long as you had a D next to your name, you won. And that is the takeaway.

Okay. I will add to that, that there is data that speaks to the level, the size of the win, depending on which wing of the party you were in. And notably, because I'm a Jared Golden truther, look what happened in Maine. You know, the guy who was going to Dunlap, Dunlap, Dunlap, who was going to challenge Jared Golden for that seat. And so Golden just retired. And Schumer had wanted him to run for Maine Senate.

Yeah, 100%.

Like, it's crazy.

100% it's coming.

It's like, you can't, they can't even look at the ballot and issues about like, you know, transgender people in sports and just be like, okay, people can hold two thoughts in their minds, right? They can say that there's a biological advantage on the competitive level and also they, you know, they can't afford gas, groceries, the chaos is killing them, stupid wars, and the corruption. It's amazing that they're still yelling like, you're going to trance my kid. All right. Mary wants to know, do you think Elon will take all his toys and leave the country to avoid testifying?

No. All of his stuff is here. He's not going anywhere except Capitol Hill.

All right. Gridlock EMV says, Scott Colum, no, wait, it's Colum.

Colum. No, sorry. You just got me. Scott Colum.

No, it's like Colum.

Scott Colum, Colum, Colum. I'm so sorry. You just confused the hell out of me. Okay.

Oh, it's my fault. Anyway, I love you, Scott. Okay. Yes. Do you think him making it across the finish line will be the story of the midterms?

Yes.

It'll be a good one.

I mean, him, Annie Andrews, those, that's the story of the midterms. Scott Colum flipped to Forest County, which was named for Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford's forest. And.

I loved that one.

You're about to have a black man representing Mississippi for the first time since 1875. So.

Yeah. I would add also, there's so many stories, but I do think like the redistrictings all turning into dummy manders and North Carolina is a crazy story.

Should I do Anderson Clayton?

Oh my God, I know. What a rock star she is. And I think they were the only, there was some chart about how men voted in these swing states and North Carolina men represented. She said, you should all come here to find yourself a husband. I already have one and you already are a husband. So if you're watching and you need a husband, go to North Carolina. There are good men there.

Thank you, everyone.

Okay, bye.

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