Rick Wilson

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to Behind the Numbers. I'm Rick Wilson,
as always your host, and as always on every Friday,
I'm joined by my son, Andrew Wilson. We are here
to pull back the curtain on the polling this week
and talk to you a little bit about what the
numbers mean and whether Donald Trump is up, down, or indifferent,
or sideways or sliding into another universe of polling altogether,
which I think I think we can decided to say

(00:21):
that now. First off, folks, I just want to tell
you his overall approval ratings. Andrew, there's not a single
poll that shows his approval ratings are going up right now.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I think maybe aside from Rasmussen, well that's not a.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Poll is a love letter question. This one we talked
about this morning about how unbelievable this swing has been.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, I think I would maybe describe this as a
disillusioning I mean it's, yeah, you know, from the election
environment where eighteen to twenty nine year olds are saying,
you know, Trump's really the only choice to deal with
something like inflation because it's hurting them the most, right
and they feel the sting of the lie that he

(01:03):
sold them more than anybody else, right, I mean, maybe
maybe seniors on Medicare and Medicaid feel it just right.
Certainly eighteen nine year olds feel like they were and.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, they were promised a golden age of wildly expanding
job growth and higher wages and no tax on tips
and no tax on overtime. And it turns out even
those even those things, like in the in the Big
Bad Bill of no tax on tips was very limited
and no tax and overtime was very limited. It wasn't real.

(01:36):
And and inflation has been driving up and up and up.
But I don't think I've seen a swing in a
in a four month period that is comparable a five
month period that is comparable to this on almost anything.
I mean, you'd almost have to go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
It's the big question for me is are you know
this is this is an incredible thing to see. I mean,
it is really a massive swing. You're right about that.
Are Democrats taking advantage of this sea change in these
eighteen twenty nine year olds? Do you see that?

Speaker 1 (02:06):
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
I'm not sure that.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
I mean, I don't. I don't think I've seen anything
about that. Look, and I think they were conventionally correct
in focusing on Medicare Medicaid cuts right as the Big
Bad Bill passed through. Right, I think that was I
don't I don't think that was wrong of them to do.

(02:28):
But I think this does open a window into into
cutting out one of those groups that Trump overperformed with
in twenty twenty four. Yeah, and and in and in
changing the flow and the and the directionality of where
that group is going. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
I think there's there's there's often a dynamic with with
elections that you know, there's there's one demographic that's really
in play, and the whole election sort of hinges around
at that demographic that's in play. And you know, we
saw it with Mom Donnie. You know, this is the
demographic that that people are for. And I do think

(03:10):
to speak to the speak to democrats, you know, I
think they've been like your point was that they're doing
better on messaging for Medicare and medican I think they
did a decent job with the Big Bat Bill. But
now the real test to see is to see if
they can they can pivot and be agile with their messaging,
especially towards eighteen twenty nine ers. I know they're traditionally

(03:30):
more popular with younger people, but they've done a lot
in recent history to to sort of isolate and alienate.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah. And you know, there was this long running belief
in the Democratic Party that I heard from I'm going
to say, from the early for the mid two thousands,
what's for the mid two thousands until last year I
heard Democrats say going to be over and over again,
young people, all they care about is the trans issue.
All they care about is climate change, All they care

(03:59):
about is gun control. All they care about is is LGBT.
What we saw in the exits was they cared about
the economy, right, they cared about their their economic prospects,
and and and you know Scott Galloway was talking about
recently and a lot of other folks have focused on lately,

(04:20):
Democrats telling young men that they are monsters, as I
like to say, always choosing the bear and and literally
having no message for them at all about economics. Uh.
In the last election led them to say, Okay, fuck you,
I'll vote for Trump, right, Okay, fuck you, because if
I if I don't have if I don't see a

(04:42):
future for myself, and and a lot of the anxiety
in this group democrats, listen, listen closely. Is because they
you ask questions like why aren't you politically engaged? Why
aren't you starting a family, Why aren't you starting a
small business, Why aren't you buying a house? Why aren't
you doing this? Why aren't you? Because they can't.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
They can't, they don't have the capital, they can't.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
They've been locked by a big system that has fucked them. Yeah,
and and uh, you know, I'm gonna beat this horse
until it until it comes back to life if you
keep treating young men like they are monsters. When you
treat someone like they're the villain, long enough, they will
become the villain you think they are. Now this moment,
what you're seeing here in these numbers, democrats, is that

(05:23):
you have a chance, You have a window, You have
something where there's an audience that's prepared to listen to
you again for the first time in a while. And
you better talk. You better get on that ship and
and and do not walk in that room with your
focus group bullshit of Benetton. You know LGBT, gay rights,
gun rights, trans rights, you know all that shit talk

(05:45):
about the economy. You can believe in all those other
things that's fine. I'm not making any qualitative judgments about
those at all on this On this show, I'm telling you,
these people want to hear about the economy.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
I mean they were offered something by Trump. Yeah, that's
why they voted for him. They were offered that aspirational
you know, American prosperity. You can buy a house, right,
enough money, Golden age. Maybe that's not what Democrats offered.
They didn't offer really anything. They sort of spoken platitudes

(06:17):
about that social issue. It just doesn't it It doesn't
feel like an exchange. It feels like you're just you
have to follow along.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Right, and it's not something in return, and it's not
in this data, but it is. You know. I spoke
to an African American activist the other day from uh
a swing state, who said to me, he goes, listen,
they got young black men because they went to them
and said, hey, we'll make your ship better. Not vote

(06:50):
for us. That's what you're supposed to do. Get in line, right. Yeah, Well,
speaking of of of you know, people who don't get
what's going on around them. Donald Trump's having a phenomenal
week with the Epstein files. How's that going on?

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Andrew, it's not going well for him. I would say
that most people are not happy with his handling of
the the Epstein files. And I always want to I
always want to like couch this in. I don't know
if Epstein's going to be anyone's biggest issue for the
right elections, but the fact that it makes Donald Trump
nervous and it makes him RANTI and throw little tantrums

(07:28):
when he gets asked about it makes me happy. So
you know, even among Maga Republicans, yeah, three percent are
saying they strongly are somewhat disapprove of this. That would
be a fracture in Maga that would be really dangerous
for Trump to get because, I mean, he's been riding

(07:49):
on this base. He's been relying on this base so
heavily since twenty sixteen, and they haven't. They haven't. I've
never seen an issue that that Republicans were like this on.
I have never seen a Trump issue that they were
so upset about. It's it's just not come across. I mean,
after everything.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
After so much of our analytics and so much of
our work finding things that split off people, I mean folks.
In twenty twenty four, we worked on a couple of
message lo kai what we call the Dobbs dads, you know,
girl dads who were upset about the Dobbs decision for
on behalf of their children, and Red Dawns who were

(08:32):
upset about Ukraine. These were narrow, itty bitty, little, tiny,
tiny slices, and we we were affected in persuading those people,
but there just weren't that many of them. There weren't
enough to offset fifteen million votes that the Harris lost definitely,
So I think we got about a million people something
like that. This one is this is the gold right

(08:58):
of his own part. Thinks he's fucking covering it up.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
It's just incredible, I mean, and not that Republicans I
don't think. I don't think seventy three percent of Republicans
are gonna act on this. Like I think it's important
to keep reinforcing that, but at the same time introduces
doubt and suspicion, and whenever there is whenever you can
inject that into into Trump's world, that's where the Lincoln
project plays. You know, when there's doubt and suspicion among Republicans,

(09:27):
that is our drive, which were to drive that way.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Sam. Can we hop back to the prior slide for
a second. Let's go back to that four once ago. Okay,
so this number that strikes me very clearly. You've got
twenty three percent of MAGA voters, folks, of the core,
of the hard core is telling you they're they disapprove
of the way he's doing this. You go up to

(09:51):
that first tick of twenty two percent of US citizens approve.
I think you're finding the low water mark for or
the low watermark for MAGA. So if we look at
this and say they're losing twenty percent of the MAGA
base just ballpark it even cut that number in half,
and it's ten percent that could be game changing in

(10:14):
the way the party hangs together in the coming election cycle.
Right again, I think you're right, Andrew. I don't think
people are going to say Epstein's my only issue.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Right, but it does put Republicans in twenty twenty six
in a really risky situation. MAGA voters typically don't come
out to vote when Trump's not on the ballot anyway, right,
and they're going to be extra double depressed from this
whole Epstein saga, which of course we're going to keep
no unping the wound every day on never ends. It

(10:46):
will never end for them. It's I think that is
going to shrink the already small MAGA block that's going
to vote in midterm elections without Trump on the ballot.
This does enormous damage to the Republican coalition, and not
just to Trump.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Let's pop back to the cover upside for one more second.
I want to look at that one more time. And
dependents are behaviorally closer to Democrats than they are to
Republicans now.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Which is is contrary to the trend you've seen in
almost every other issue.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
That was my next question is isn't that different than
what we've been watching for a long time now?

Speaker 2 (11:24):
It is, and particularly with the culture issues, independents have
been much closer to Republicans then with Democrats. And you know,
I don't know if you would categorize this as a
culture issue, but it certainly speaks to a sort of
change in the national narrative. I think that is part
of what you're seeing. You know, for years and years

(11:47):
and years it was, I mean, since twenty sixteen, it's
been Republicans who sort of had the agency in the
national narrative and Democrats who are sort of having to
give answers and response. I think things have changed since
Trump has come into office for his second term, I think,
and it's steady, but you'll probably see more issues where

(12:08):
independence are closer to Democrats than Republicans. And that's true
now in immigration as well.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
Right, well, let's on the broader set of issues. I
want to say one thing about this before we jump
to the issue slide. As we've talked about for a
long time, Trump's always had a kind of free space
to play in when the economy was strong, and he's
always taken a lot of damage when his own actions

(12:36):
make the economy weak. In COVID, he fucked it up
and the economy responded appropriately by saying you're fucking it up,
and the economy went south. It wasn't just his fault,
but a lot of things he could have done and
things he chose not to do contributed to that. Right,
But now Trump was elected on one keep credicate in

(13:00):
the economic space. I'm going to bring down prices and inflation.
That's not going.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Andrew, it's not going well. Trump is deeply, deeply underwater
on inflation and prices. I think the polling sort of
reflects that people feel that Trump is more focused on
immigration and ice deportations than he is on prices, and
that is how he pulled in these extra demographics.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
I mean that means a thirty point actually I'm sorry,
excuse me, a thirty six point drop.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
That is Joe Biden's lowest number on inflation.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Since February.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
That is, that is the number that Joe Biden hit
as his lowest number on inflation on I don't think
the Trump is going to stop falling on this issue
because inflation is going up and up and up.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
You know, we have all because it's one of those
things that, no matter how much the bullshit machine tells
Republicans something, when they go to Publics or cost Co
or Safeway or or or Walmart or Target, the prices
are there, you're up.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, I mean if you are, you know, just imagine
you know, you're you're somebody buying a home, right, yeah,
think about the The product that has gone up the
most in cost is home housold appliances. Yeah, you know,
you have to think about those things and people, you know,

(14:29):
with the with price tags that are over one thousand dollars,
it's even much more obvious you know, you really see
the impact of inflation, uh with with things that are
already kind of expensive, and that the fact that you know,
we are at a Joe Biden level of disapproval of inflation, right,
that is going.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
To that That was a devastating political headwind for Biden
and then Harris in twenty four.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Right, and Republicans are not addressing inflation. They didn't inflation
in the big beautiful Bill and hope they spent a
bunch more money.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Right, which is going to drive up inflation shockingly. But
I mean a thirty point deficit, twenty nine point deficit
on inflation and prices is I think, folks, as we
blend out of Epstein in the in the political space
next year, I can promise you that number is going

(15:25):
to become a central attack line, right, and it is.
He's taking care of his rich friends, but he doesn't
give a shit about you. Look at what you're paying
in the grocery store, look at what you're paying at
the gas pump, look at what you're paying at Walmart,
and look and you look at the other part of
this on the directionality of this jobs in the economy,
which is I think probably pretty high r correlation on

(15:48):
the on the inflation thing is down twelve points? Is
that negative twelve? I mean, none of this strikes me
as a as a as a moment for him where
there's a strong comeback narrative.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
No, And you'll see on any of these other issue
pulling that another venera will do. The only thing that
he's ever up on right now is border security, and
they always break that out from immigration because whatever. But
you know, you can see his dip on immigration where
la was je sure can He's almost back down to

(16:23):
that number. He's ticking up just a little bit. But
I guarantee you the next time we see a video
of a fifty plus year old man getting beat up
on the ground by a bunch of ice, by a
bunch of ice thugs, we're gonna we're gonna see another
dip in this. I mean. And it's story after story.
There's abuse in the alligator Alcatraz. They're not feeding them,

(16:44):
they're putting them in a cold room for twelve hours
at a time.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Right, Yeah, the whole, the whole, the whole idea that
immigration is the is the number one base issue for Trump. Yes,
it is emostly powerful for the base, but they have
to go to Walmart, two helping grocery store between.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
It's slipping away from him in a way. I think
this is the I think when Epstein first started, right,
I thought I kind of put did a mental test
for myself, Like the most charitable interpretation of what's happening
with Epstein and Trump's reaction is that Trump is scared
to lose this leverage over his base. Yeah, he's terrified

(17:23):
that that if he does release the Epstein files and
it's a giant nothing burger, he loses a major piece
of leverage with his base and a major attack he
levied against Democrats for years and years. They didn't do
the immigration bill in Biden's term because they didn't want
to lose.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
The leverage for the election, right he ordered them not to.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
He's done so much on immigration now he's gone way overboard.
You know. I think the number I saw the other
day was seventy three percent of people who are detained
by ice right now are not criminals. They don't have
a criminal record. They are here illegally, but they don't
have a criminal record.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Right which is like having a traffic tick it.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Right here illegally and it's you know, he's done too much.
I mean, this is this is often the reaction to
the American public to really anything, you know, if you
especially with Congress, when Congress does too much before an election,
people react negatively to whoever is in the majority. And
this this is you know, yeah, he's breaking down stars.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
These are all ugly.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Numbers, terribly ugly numbers. And opposite to Epstein, I think
immigration is a bigger deal for people, and they will
vote on this in twenty twenty six. Now I think
inflation at prices will be the biggest deal.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
But don't you think also Democrats should be talking about
how at least as a sub theme, they should be
trying to find a way to say, the prices that
are rising, for you aren't just from the stupid tariff deals,
but they're because we can't get our food harvested economically,

(18:58):
we can't get construction done economical, we can't get all
these things that are wired deeply into our our prosperity.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
And and this is this speaks to something that that
you know, people are probably sick of hearing. But the
best way to connect those two issues is narrative building
around immigration in the economy. Yeah, and there used to
be a prevailing narrative that immigration was good for the economy. Sure,
it's someone coming back. You know, people are people are
switching a little bit. And this is the three big

(19:28):
stories in pulling right now I think are inflation, immigration,
and young people. But this, this is a this is
a great chart. So and this is something to watch.
Since February, ten percent of these US adults, it's increased
by ten percent from US adults saying Trump's gone too

(19:49):
far with his immigration policy. Anytime you reach the forties
on any issue, you're in trouble.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
Uh yeah, I mean going too far on this. As
as you said, it's like American voters do have a
reaction to over two over stepping right.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
And you know you see with even even legislation that's
that's intended to be you know, helpful for most people,
like the Affordable Care Act.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, they responded to.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
People respond negatively to to any major change, uh that
comes out of Congress or the or the Oval Office.
And this the deportation program is I can't think of
a comparable, you know, federal program that's been this big,
this controversy liftime. I mean maybe other than I I

(20:50):
honestly can't think of one. I mean, it's it's a
shocking and and you know, what he's done is taking
away the leverage that he had with his base by
not with his base with a lot of people who
weren't in his base, right, he drew in. He sort
of dissipated all the leverage that he had by actually

(21:12):
doing something about it. And you know, it is true
that he did shut down the border. There are there
are many fewer border crossings. Sure, it's one hundred percent true,
But people weren't interested in seeing you know, he promised criminals,
He promised you.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Know, sex traffickers and drug dealers and the fentanyl crisis
would end when he sealed the border.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
How's that working mattresses and construction workers.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
And gardeners and roofers and and you know, I just
to think, I think that this the immigration thing is
still going to be a a through line that we
can connect it economically to to Trump as a as
another economic mistake that he's made, right, another part of

(21:56):
the narrative that Trump is supporting. I mean, frankly, even
Epstein's about this. If you take the most insanely generous
interpretation of why he's protecting the file h as he said, Oh,
there are people in there, they might be caught up.
They might' have anything to do with it. Who are
those people? They're all billionaires. They're all New York the

(22:19):
wealthiest New York, you know, magnates and private equity guys
and Wall Street people and and and influential folks that
are not worried about the price of eggs and milk
at Walmart or at publics. They're worried about, you know,
whether they can deduct the cost of their private jet,

(22:40):
right which they which they did get this year. They
get they got a full full Accelerated appreciation is back.
If you buy a jet, you get it written off
your taxes that year.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Bone out. That's related news.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
I will be purchasing a fighter plane.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, I don't. I do think a lot of these
is are connected. And and I think one thing that's
really important is that Democrats tailor the issue to the
region of the district that they're going to be in.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yes, you know, California, immigration is going to be much
top more top of mind.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Right right, but in but in agricultural Central Valley California,
it's going to be about farm labor. But in LA
it's going to be about your neighbors. So you know
you have the personal and the economic message kind of
teed up for you there. And you know this this
speaks that that that would that would speak to what
we've been talking about a lot on this show is

(23:33):
you know, the Democrats need to act like a coalition,
and you can land on a message that is effective
with different subsets if you tailor it to those subsets.
I mean, for for farm owners and people who live
in rural areas, the farm labor issue is going to
be the impactful issue. And you know we have it. We
have it here in Florida. We have migrant farm labor

(23:56):
here in Florida. It's in Texas, Louisiana.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, our family, our family members are dealing with this
right now in different parts of our of our widespread
Wilson network, right.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
And his proposed solution for it is to put the
make the farmers.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Make those olds get out in the field. Gone, granny.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
It's just a terrible, terrible, terrible plan. I don't want
to see.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Your grandfather out picking oranges.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
No, that would be ideal to not have that be suboptimal.
And then you know it it. I remember I was
watching a congressional here the other day and Howard Lutnank
was saying, or one of those other goons he's got, saying,
you know, if you build in America, you know there's
no tariff. But we're talking about things like bananas. You

(24:47):
know you can't. You don't really build that here. It's
not like agriculture.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
You're not going to grow You're not going to grow
coffee at scale in the United States.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
No, And when you when you destroy the agricultural industry,
than this is a historical fact. If you cut undercut
the agricultural industry in any country.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Empire's fall.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
It's terribly bad. I mean, we are facing not I'm
not gonna say starvation, but it's you know, we have
all these we have.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
A lot of cash crops, as they like to say,
food insecurity.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a dangerous and scary situation.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
It's a bad it's a bad, bad, bad outcome. So well,
I do have one piece of poet that was that
was sent in at the last minute here, but as
we won't to wrap up the show, here is Trump
in the Epstein. Yes, yes, but in yellow and you know, I.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Said this the other day, we were having a conversation
about this. I know that that, like the Trump's whole cabinet,
his whole you know, cadre, they're cynical enough to cover
up whatever they feel like they need to cover up.
But that doesn't explain his reaction. No, it just doesn't.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
It does. It does not, It does not.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
He's so upset, he's so hurt when somebody brings up Epstein.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
I mean, yeah, read that Charlie Warzel piece in The
Atlantic about how how he's so off his game social
media wise that it's it's really noticeable how little control
he has over himself.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Right, And this is the way we're talking about it,
because he made it. He made this a problem for himself.
We've heard about Epstein for years, and you know, the
circulating rumor that Trump was in the Epstein files is
not a not ain't nothing new here, It's really not new.
But he is the one making this a problem. In
Pam BONDI of course kind of kind of caused her own.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Oh yeah, look, I think she's on desks door. I
think I think Todd blanche replaces her within three months. Yeah,
I mean he's going to turn out to be the
hero for Trump. He's going to come down here to
Tallahassee and sit with Maxwell and UH and basically say
either you die in prison or you sign an affidavit
saying Trump had nothing to do with it, and.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Then we're to pardon. I'm afraid that the that the
national cable news media is going to say.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
Well, well, we looked at those grand jury things and
I guess that's it.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
We ought to just listen to a glene Maxwell has
to say.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Right, yeah, a fucking child trafficker. You're gonna you're gonna
listen to a fucking child trafficker. Yeah, that's that's great news. MAGA,
Great work, media, good job. All right, folks, we are
coming up to the end of another edition of Behind
the Numbers. We will be back to see you again
next week with more devastating polling news for Donald Trump,
because ain't nothing pulling him out of this tailspin right now, Andrew,

(27:39):
thank you as always, and UH, and folks be sure
to tune into the various other Lincoln Square UH podcasts
and streaming shows. We've got the Lincoln Project podcast growing
like a weed. Really happy about that, folks, thank you
so much for that Got the Enemy's List podcast. We've
got a Q and a episode coming up this week
you are going to enjoy. On Fridays, shortly after this

(28:01):
show airs, you get see the Elephant in the Room
where I peel back the curtain on something going on
politically that with an angle you might not have thought about.
On Mondays you can also catch me with Molly john
Fast on Fast Politics, and on Tuesdays I host the
Strategy Session on Lincoln Square and on Thursdays I host
a breakdown with Mia May. So I'm not busy at all.

(28:23):
I'm only writing a book and posting about twenty thousand
words a week on Substack, and doing Lincoln project work
and traveling the country fundraising for twenty twenty six, which
we are doing at Lincoln right now aggressively, folks, because
we are going to go into twenty six races and
we are going to take that house back. And we
got a couple of Senate races now that are starting
to look a little less like long shots and a

(28:43):
little more like good assignments. All right, folks, Andrew, thanks
for joining us always. Everybody. We will see you again
next time. I'm behind the numbers. Thanks for watching Lincoln Square.
Thanks for all that you folks do to fight for
democracy and for this republic. We'll see again.