Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And I just want to get right to it.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I rarely start the show with a guest, but when
the best political analyst in America is available at a
particular time, you take him, despite the fact that he
likes pink blue cheese saladdressing. Chris Steierwalt is the political
editor at News Nation and hosts a great Sunday show
called The Hill Sunday. And I do think he's the
best political analyst in America. I say it even when
(00:22):
he can't hear me. Good morning, Chris.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I don't need this kind of heat, man. I don't
need to start my Wednesday with this kind of heat. Brother.
I can't take the pressure. It's too much. I can't
do it all right.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
There are lots of things I could ask you, but
we got like eight minutes, so I'm gonna jump to
I'm gonna jump to this. Does the Epstein thing? And
I'm not dragging you into the nuts and bolts the
Epstein thing. Does the Epstein thing, along with a few
other things that are that are going on right now,
suggest to you that Donald Trump is losing his grip
(00:56):
on something, as so many breathless headlines seem to be
saying right now, in the usual sorts of media outlets,
or is that just what those media outlets hope is
the case.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Well, there's a new Marits pole out today that says
that Democrats, who hadn't had a significant lead in the
generic ballot for control of Congress next year, in three years, I.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Have a fourteen point lead.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
You can say it's ebscene files. You can say it's affordability.
I hate that word. You can say it's corruption, you
can say it's the East wind, you can say whatever
you want. But it's just the too much, right, It's
just too much. There's just too many things. And I
think that the problem of the imaginary Trump, in which Republicans,
(01:57):
after four years of Joe Biden and Tom Harris were like,
you know, we said things, he said things, but really
the good times were actually very good, but they forgot
as we do. You know, our capacity to forget pain
is extraordinary, otherwise there would be no second children. And
(02:21):
Republicans said, this is so terrible. Donald Trump couldn't be
worse than that. He gets in and for the first
I don't know when do we mark the moment. It's
before the asking files. Every president has it. For Biden,
it turned out that it was in September of his
first year with the Afghanistan debacle. But the honeymoon's over,
(02:47):
the do is off the lily, and now you're onto like, Okay,
what have you done for me lately? And that moment
for Trump came pretty early, right because he.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Was Liberation Day.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, that definitely was a big part of it, right,
So I think it's more like that, yes, April April May,
and then people are like, okay, what have you done
for me lately? And the answer has been an extraordinarily
distracted Like if you think about the government shutdown, the
(03:19):
Republicans can say that they won in the sense that
the Democrats eventually knuckled under and there were enough Senate
Democrats to reopen the government until January, But in the
larger scheme, what did we do? How did people feel
about the direction of things? How did people feel about
how it was going? And they felt bad and it
(03:42):
wasn't good for the economy, and it was more uncertainty,
and it was all of that stuff. So it's been
a very rough runt.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So you and I both don't like the word affordability,
but whatever word we would like to use, or no,
word at all. It is still the main thing people
vote on most of the time, unless you're like at
the beginning of a big shooting war. And it seems
to me that Trump is making the same mistake Joe
Biden did, which is denying what people are experiencing every
(04:08):
time they walk into the supermarket. And also that the
one policy he is overtly aggressively engaged in, namely the
terroriffs everybody knows, actually raises costs rather than lower. So
is this of his many achilles heels. If a guy
can have nine heels, is his biggest one, his riskiest one.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I work in Washington, so I know a lot of heels,
But the economy. People's attitude about the economy is not specific.
So remember, just for your for your frame, you have
a third of the people who would vote for Donald
Trump if he bludgeoned a baby seal to death in
(04:58):
the Oval office with the gold bar are that the
Swiss brought him and they would say that steal deserved it.
You have a third of the people that would have
voted for Joe Biden right if they would have if
they would have brought Joe Biden out out of gurney
and they would have said, Yep, I'm still voting for him.
(05:18):
How elections get decided are the people in the governing
third the people in between. And for those people, they're
not that ideological, and many of them are not following
the news that closely. Probably people who pay attention to
stuff that I say, whether they are Republicans or Democrats,
(05:39):
they're paying attention and they probably have strong opinions. The
people who make up who choose and decide the elections
are getting their news. And I say this with no
intended denigration of the Today Show, but they're like getting
their news from the Today Show, right, They're like, oh, Okay,
I heard something happen today, how do I feel about it?
(06:00):
Which is all a very long way of answering your question. Yes,
that people base their perceptions of how things are going
by how they're going in their own lives.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
We're talking with Chris Steierwolf, political editor and anchor of
The Hill Sunday on News Nation. Got about two minutes left.
I want to go back to a slightly different version
of my first question because I think it's important and interesting,
and so I'll reword it this way, and I'll make
this sort of a two parter, but it's really the
same thing. How close is Donald Trump to being a
(06:32):
lame duck? And how soon do you think it will
be that we start seeing members of Congress beyond just
the very strong personality, people like MTG and Thomas Massey
kind of tiptoeing away from Trump as part of their
own effort at self preservation for next year's elections.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, the primary election season begins. Filing periods are already open,
and primary election season will begin in earnest in February,
and the shank of primary elections February to let's say July.
There are some late ones, but it's a spring in
(07:12):
summer mostly where you have primary elections. Donald Trump's approval
rating currently is at forty percent or below on average.
We have new polls out and I haven't done the
new numbers, but he's not pontular with the broader electric
He's still eighty whatever percent with Republicans and the politicians
(07:33):
who oppose him. So take Thomas Matthew. Thomas Matthey has
to treat Donald Trump as a credible threat. Thomas Matthew's
district is like eighty percent Republicans. That means that eighty
percent of eighty percent of people in his district probably
really like Donald Trump. And so the moment where Donald
(07:56):
Trump becomes a lame duck is I don't know, fourth
of July something like that. You've got to get through
the primary where Trump will exercise his power. Now, whether
or not he becomes a lamb duck or how soon
he becomes a lamb duck will depend on how his
candidates do in primaries. Does he beat Massey, does he
(08:19):
beat Marjorie Taylor Green? Can he deliver in Georgia? Where
are the places where Donald Trump picks candidates and wins,
especially when he can beat incumbents. If he does a
bunch of that, then he's still got plenty of cloud.
If he has a bad run and Thomas Massey stays
and Derrek Duley wins down in Georgia, a bunch of
(08:40):
other stuff like that, then Republicans will move into the
general election and they will say, Okay, we got to
have distance from because even if things go back to
how they were five months ago for Donald Trump, there'll
still be a liability in the general election, and it'll
be in the interests of a big chunk of Republicans
to have more distance.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Chris Steierwalt, political editor and anchor of the Hill Sunday
on News Nation best political analysts in America, despite his
taste and sala addressing, thanks for making time for us,
my friend.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I always appreciate it. Heck yeah, I enjoyed it. Have
a great day, all right, YouTube Chris
And I just want to get right to it.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I rarely start the show with a guest, but when
the best political analyst in America is available at a
particular time, you take him, despite the fact that he
likes pink blue cheese saladdressing. Chris Steierwalt is the political
editor at News Nation and hosts a great Sunday show
called The Hill Sunday. And I do think he's the
best political analyst in America. I say it even when
(00:22):
he can't hear me. Good morning, Chris.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I don't need this kind of heat, man. I don't
need to start my Wednesday with this kind of heat. Brother.
I can't take the pressure. It's too much. I can't
do it all right.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
There are lots of things I could ask you, but
we got like eight minutes, so I'm gonna jump to
I'm gonna jump to this. Does the Epstein thing? And
I'm not dragging you into the nuts and bolts the
Epstein thing. Does the Epstein thing, along with a few
other things that are that are going on right now,
suggest to you that Donald Trump is losing his grip
(00:56):
on something, as so many breathless headlines seem to be
saying right now, in the usual sorts of media outlets,
or is that just what those media outlets hope is
the case.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Well, there's a new Marits pole out today that says
that Democrats, who hadn't had a significant lead in the
generic ballot for control of Congress next year, in three years, I.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Have a fourteen point lead.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
You can say it's ebscene files. You can say it's affordability.
I hate that word. You can say it's corruption, you
can say it's the East wind, you can say whatever
you want. But it's just the too much, right, It's
just too much. There's just too many things. And I
think that the problem of the imaginary Trump, in which Republicans,
(01:57):
after four years of Joe Biden and Tom Harris were like,
you know, we said things, he said things, but really
the good times were actually very good, but they forgot
as we do. You know, our capacity to forget pain
is extraordinary, otherwise there would be no second children. And
(02:21):
Republicans said, this is so terrible. Donald Trump couldn't be
worse than that. He gets in and for the first
I don't know when do we mark the moment. It's
before the asking files. Every president has it. For Biden,
it turned out that it was in September of his
first year with the Afghanistan debacle. But the honeymoon's over,
(02:47):
the do is off the lily, and now you're onto like, Okay,
what have you done for me lately? And that moment
for Trump came pretty early, right because he.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Was Liberation Day.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, that definitely was a big part of it, right,
So I think it's more like that, yes, April April May,
and then people are like, okay, what have you done
for me lately? And the answer has been an extraordinarily
distracted Like if you think about the government shutdown, the
(03:19):
Republicans can say that they won in the sense that
the Democrats eventually knuckled under and there were enough Senate
Democrats to reopen the government until January, But in the
larger scheme, what did we do? How did people feel
about the direction of things? How did people feel about
how it was going? And they felt bad and it
(03:42):
wasn't good for the economy, and it was more uncertainty,
and it was all of that stuff. So it's been
a very rough runt.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So you and I both don't like the word affordability,
but whatever word we would like to use, or no,
word at all. It is still the main thing people
vote on most of the time, unless you're like at
the beginning of a big shooting war. And it seems
to me that Trump is making the same mistake Joe
Biden did, which is denying what people are experiencing every
(04:08):
time they walk into the supermarket. And also that the
one policy he is overtly aggressively engaged in, namely the
terroriffs everybody knows, actually raises costs rather than lower. So
is this of his many achilles heels. If a guy
can have nine heels, is his biggest one, his riskiest one.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I work in Washington, so I know a lot of heels,
But the economy. People's attitude about the economy is not specific.
So remember, just for your for your frame, you have
a third of the people who would vote for Donald
Trump if he bludgeoned a baby seal to death in
(04:58):
the Oval office with the gold bar are that the
Swiss brought him and they would say that steal deserved it.
You have a third of the people that would have
voted for Joe Biden right if they would have if
they would have brought Joe Biden out out of gurney
and they would have said, Yep, I'm still voting for him.
(05:18):
How elections get decided are the people in the governing
third the people in between. And for those people, they're
not that ideological, and many of them are not following
the news that closely. Probably people who pay attention to
stuff that I say, whether they are Republicans or Democrats,
(05:39):
they're paying attention and they probably have strong opinions. The
people who make up who choose and decide the elections
are getting their news. And I say this with no
intended denigration of the Today Show, but they're like getting
their news from the Today Show, right, They're like, oh, Okay,
I heard something happen today, how do I feel about it?
(06:00):
Which is all a very long way of answering your question. Yes,
that people base their perceptions of how things are going
by how they're going in their own lives.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
We're talking with Chris Steierwolf, political editor and anchor of
The Hill Sunday on News Nation. Got about two minutes left.
I want to go back to a slightly different version
of my first question because I think it's important and interesting,
and so I'll reword it this way, and I'll make
this sort of a two parter, but it's really the
same thing. How close is Donald Trump to being a
(06:32):
lame duck? And how soon do you think it will
be that we start seeing members of Congress beyond just
the very strong personality, people like MTG and Thomas Massey
kind of tiptoeing away from Trump as part of their
own effort at self preservation for next year's elections.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, the primary election season begins. Filing periods are already open,
and primary election season will begin in earnest in February,
and the shank of primary elections February to let's say July.
There are some late ones, but it's a spring in
(07:12):
summer mostly where you have primary elections. Donald Trump's approval
rating currently is at forty percent or below on average.
We have new polls out and I haven't done the
new numbers, but he's not pontular with the broader electric
He's still eighty whatever percent with Republicans and the politicians
(07:33):
who oppose him. So take Thomas Matthew. Thomas Matthey has
to treat Donald Trump as a credible threat. Thomas Matthew's
district is like eighty percent Republicans. That means that eighty
percent of eighty percent of people in his district probably
really like Donald Trump. And so the moment where Donald
(07:56):
Trump becomes a lame duck is I don't know, fourth
of July something like that. You've got to get through
the primary where Trump will exercise his power. Now, whether
or not he becomes a lamb duck or how soon
he becomes a lamb duck will depend on how his
candidates do in primaries. Does he beat Massey, does he
(08:19):
beat Marjorie Taylor Green? Can he deliver in Georgia? Where
are the places where Donald Trump picks candidates and wins,
especially when he can beat incumbents. If he does a
bunch of that, then he's still got plenty of cloud.
If he has a bad run and Thomas Massey stays
and Derrek Duley wins down in Georgia, a bunch of
(08:40):
other stuff like that, then Republicans will move into the
general election and they will say, Okay, we got to
have distance from because even if things go back to
how they were five months ago for Donald Trump, there'll
still be a liability in the general election, and it'll
be in the interests of a big chunk of Republicans
to have more distance.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Chris Steierwalt, political editor and anchor of the Hill Sunday
on News Nation best political analysts in America, despite his
taste and sala addressing, thanks for making time for us,
my friend.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I always appreciate it. Heck yeah, I enjoyed it. Have
a great day, all right, YouTube Chris
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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