The Possibility of a Third Trump Term (feat. Kellyanne Conway)

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Welcome to Raging Moderates.

I'm Jessica Tarlove.

Scott's off today, but I've got a guest who knows the inner workings of Trump's world better than most.

She's been in the room.

She's seen how the machine operates and she's here to help us make sense of what's happening inside the current administration.

Kelly Ann Conway joins us today.

Welcome to the show, Kellyanne.

Thank you, Jess.

Nice to be with you.

It's nice to be with you off campus a bit.

I feel like, you know, we're always at Fox and you have like three minutes to speak.

And now we have an hour.

Let's dig in.

Let's dig in.

In today's episode of Raging Moderates, we're going to be talking about the biggest scandal to hit the Trump administration yet, Trump's immigration policies heading to the Supreme Court, and what a post-Trump world looks like for both Republicans and Democrats.

So last week, the biggest political story was by far and away Signalgate, and the fallout is still unfolding.

The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, somehow got added to a Signal group chat where top Trump administration officials were were talking about airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen.

The White House tried to push back, but once the Atlantic published the full transcript, things only got messier.

Now Congress is looking into it.

Republicans are in damage control mode and national security concerns are piling up.

Kellyanne, what's your kind of top line feeling about so-called SignalGate?

What did you think when you saw the story?

Do you feel any differently than you did on day one?

Well, clearly it was a mistake and a mistake has been admitted and rectified.

Nobody was purposely inviting a reporter, let alone Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, to this group chat where the Secretary of Defense predominantly was giving an update to the national security team and others like the chief of staff and deputy chief of staff for policy and the like on what was about to happen in Yemen.

And when I hear he was invited, he wasn't invited.

I don't have Jeffrey Goldberg in my contacts.

I can't add him to anything on my phone, certainly for many of the reasons that President Trump has actually articulated himself.

I think this is one thing that a big bone that the media will continue to gnaw on though, because it seems like the very first time they can truly sink their teeth into the administration.

And President Trump said as much.

Jessica, people tried it with the January 6th pardons.

They tried it with the Dogecuts.

They're trying it by torching and burning down the dealerships of innocent Tesla dealers and sellers and owners.

They're trying everything they can, but I would really echo what Governor Gavin Newsom said over the weekend, if not not previously, which is that the Democrats are suffering a big image and messaging problem now.

It's not about another messenger, it's about a message.

And I think if the entire party is really centered on how can we screw Trump and the American president and by extension, America herself, then

this signal

event that was revealed one week ago today, Jessica, will be probably the best and highest hope.

But it's a distraction away from the volume and velocity with which President Trump and his administration are operating.

If you look at the CBS YouGov poll over the weekend, you look at other polling, people are fairly

giving Donald Trump the space and the grace this time to build an economy, to stop the illegal border crossings, to stop these wars that he inherited in Ukraine and the Middle East, and to get energy production back online.

I don't know why we had a war on fossil fuels and fracking and why President Biden paused the LNG permits, but all these things that President Trump is doing that Americans do like cannot be subsumed by something that was accidental, unintentional, and a mistake.

Yeah, so there was a lot in there, and I want to try to pick most of it apart, but there were...

A ton of specifics in the conversation, most coming from Secretary Hegsteth, some coming from National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, that are not just casual conversation.

People have said this is obviously classified.

If someone of a lower rank had done something like this, they would be out of a job and maybe going before a military tribunal.

The American public knows how serious this is.

YouGov did some polling on it.

53% say that this is a serious problem.

And conversely, for instance, Trump's classified documents case was less, as a percentage, less serious, Clinton's emails, as well as Biden's classified documents.

So the American public understands that this is very serious and and is not something to brush over.

And I don't think the administration is going to be able to, even if you want to paint this as something of a media obsession.

Aaron Trevor Browns, well, it certainly is a media obsession.

53% of Americans, you're saying based on the way a particular poll question was asked in a particular poll say this is serious, but 99% of the mainstream media says it is.

So there's a disconnect there as usual.

But look, I'm glad you admitted that the Donald Trump documents case in Mar-a-Lago was thin.

That's all obviously been litigated.

I disagree completely that President Biden

housing his classified documents next to an old Corvette in a garage that his son also had access to and his myriad problems.

I do think that's serious.

And frankly, the country rejected Hillary Clinton for many reasons, but in part because they didn't trust her.

They shot, if you look at the Washington Post polling right before the election in 2016, Jessica, people didn't think she was honest or trustworthy, ABC News, Washington Post poll and others.

And part of it was because of the way she had handled her emails, the way she had handled, I don't know, dozens or a dozen or so phones and bleach bidding and all of that.

So I think this is important just because

thank God no damage was done.

And thank God that the mission was successful.

And people are about production and delivery.

I think the Democrats only want to be about process when they think it benefits them.

And I know Trump derangement syndrome is real.

I know it starts at stage five.

I know there's no vaccine vaccine cure or therapeutic for it.

But in this case,

it was a successful mission and people will focus on that.

They will wonder why the facts that under Biden's watch, there were 174 attacks in our Navy warships, that

these terrorists and these pirates were disrupting regular routes so that you could not have safe and efficient passage in these routes.

And now this is all being turned around because you actually have bold leadership in the White House and in the national defense team.

So people should look at the success of the mission.

I believe they will.

And again, when mistakes are made, I think the most important thing to do in life and in politics and anywhere else in the national security team is to admit the mistake, figure out how it happened, promise that it will never happen again.

If mistakes were made in Afghanistan,

then I've yet to hear President Biden or Vice President Harris say it.

The most energy that President Biden seemed to exert after 13 service members were senselessly killed because he went against the advice of most of his national security team and his generals and withdrew out of Afghanistan on a dime almost immediately.

The most energy he exerted was looking at his watch while the grief-stricken families were just looking for a little bit of grace and recognition from the commander-in-chief.

That is something Democrats have been very critical of, leaving Bagram Air Force Base in the wingspan of China, leaving the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan.

I mean, really, Jessica, what's the point that we had a female vice president who wanted to be the first female president of the United States in Kamala Harris if the women in Afghanistan have fewer rights and are less free now because of the policy prescriptions and the decisions that she and her boss made?

And so if we're going to talk about relative circumstances and consequences, I think the more relevant ones are letting just millions in here across the board.

I think it's going to be a very rough week and month of April for the Biden team, Biden-Harris team, with respect to all these books coming out where you've got Biden people talking on the record and unattributed about Biden's compromised capacity.

So if we're going to talk about relative things, I think this is very important.

The fact that these books say that Kamala Harris's AIDS were preparing for Joe Biden to die in his first term is like, what?

I actually think that that was just responsible, frankly.

If you have the oldest president in history, you should be open to the fact that he might pass away.

But listen, I know that I'm going to have a very bad April on the five.

I am prepared for it.

We're going to be talking about this ad nauseum.

But I'm not trying to do a comparison.

I'm trying to have a conversation about this as a scandal in and of itself.

And I do want to note that the Trump's classified documents case, it wasn't adjudicated.

It was dismissed because Donald Trump won.

Eileen Cannon just did what he wanted.

And Hillary Clinton was investigated by the FBI, the State Department, and Congress over that.

And as you said, she ended up losing the election.

So using those as comps, I don't think is really fair in this circumstance.

And it seems quite clear from the Wall Street Journal's reporting that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz used information that we got from the Israelis, so an ally of ours, an incredibly important one, about the missile expert who was heading into his girlfriend's house, which they ended up striking.

And the Israelis are apparently very upset about this, expressing to the White House that sources and methods were compromised.

And it seems like a pretty clear line between sources and methods and something being classified.

And if we are to grow from this, do you feel like the administration should open themselves up to investigations?

There should be a DOJ investigation.

I know we're going to get the Senate Armed Services looking into it.

Roger Wicker is on board with that and Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat as well.

But do you think that that's deserved or that we're going to move forward with legitimate and earnest investigations investigations into how something like this could happen and why they were on some of them personal phones and using an unsecured app.

Because you know, if those phones were hacked by the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, they don't need to have someone's password to get into Signal, they can just see everything that's happening on the phone.

So, Jessica, there's much to unpack there.

I, like you, am aware of the public reports that the Senate Armed Services Committee intends to investigate what happened and why and how and the like.

That's probably the most appropriate form.

This country seems super fatigued from Department of Justice investigations, particularly in this last Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, and all the law firms now

paying some of the ultimate prices and frankly capitulating immediately because of their involvement.

But look, I take national security very seriously.

I was not a national security official, but I had a TSSI when I was in the White House.

And I will tell you, I don't have Signal on my phone.

I don't have Jeffrey Goldberg in my contacts.

Why not?

Well, just

I would note that in the first Trump administration, the first time I even learned about Signal, one of the people who worked there who liked to call everybody else a leaker seemed to live on Signal.

So I get it.

But in this case, I do take very seriously the sworn testimony almost a week ago, Jessica, of John Ratcliffe,

formerly of...

DNI, ODNI, now our CIA director.

And he swore under oath to the Senate last week that one of the first things things that he was told, which you know the rest of the team would have been told when he became the CIA director two months ago, is that signal

was installed on his computer and that it was an acceptable way of communicating.

If that's the CIA director talking, I'm going to give that the legitimacy and credence.

that it deserves.

So, yes,

I think if you're going to have investigations, the legislative branch wanted to look at what the executive branch did is probably the way this is going to go.

But again, and I like the fact that President Trump, as is his practice, very unique and typical for him, was forward-facing about this, saying, I don't know what happened.

I don't use signal.

I wasn't part of that.

But we're going to take a look at it.

I've asked Mike Waltz to take a look at it.

He's a good man.

Then, you know, he admitted it came from his team or him himself, put the group together, accidentally added someone.

And the like.

You've had two national security officials

on two different days last week testify under oath, Tulsi Gabbard or ODNI, and of course the aforementioned CIA director John Radcliffe.

Yeah, well, Tulsi had to correct herself from the day before.

She had a bit of brain fog.

And yeah, signal was installed and it was Biden-era guidance, but you were supposed to use it for ordinary text messaging.

You were not supposed to use it for classified information.

But you touched on something that is always as an outsider.

who's very interested on the inside of what goes on in Trump world, this tension between

how Trump feels about the media and especially someone like Jeffrey Goldberg, who he has been mad at, to say the least, for several years now because of the suckers and losers story.

Okay, yeah, we're certainly not going to litigate that today, but we know what Jeffrey Goldberg means to Trump.

But do you think that the bigger sin in the president's mind is the fact that someone was clearly in contact with Jeffrey Goldberg, maybe obviously unintentionally putting him in that chat and this whole thesis of he got quote unquote sucked in is obviously ridiculous.

Or is what his top national security heads were doing the bigger sin?

So is it the, you know, maybe you're a leaker, you're talking to the press, or is it the sharing of classified information and being in that group chat?

That's all hypothetical.

And the president, I think, himself has said, others have said there was nothing classified in there.

But look, I think there's just too much, too many hypotheticals in there for me to make

a credible

judgment until we know all of the facts.

But I will say it's not just Jeffrey Goldberg.

I mean, sure, The Atlantic was first out there, perhaps saying impeach him.

I don't know.

I think the Washington Post at 12.15, 15 minutes after President Trump was born in on January 20th, 2017, the Washington Post said, now, you know, it's time to impeach.

It may be a different post now, but that was the post then.

Let's not even want an American president to succeed or america to succeed and that's been look jessica that the mainstream media's job in the trump era too often has not been to get the story but to get the president and i think it helped him win this time frankly i think it has absolutely helped president trump who is seen as resilient and a survivor and gotten the biggest second chance i've ever seen for anyone in this um second term eight years before after he was first elected.

That I think that the mainstream media's overall approval rating going way down and there, there's sort of this sort of elite effete way of telling everybody, this is what's important to you as a consumer of news and information, as a voter, as an American.

And we're going to tell you what's best for you.

And if you disagree, you're racist, xenophobic, uneducated, hillbilly, wearing a red MAGA hat.

I mean, look at this ridiculous, crazed woman who committed crimes on video just from this weekend on New York City subway.

It's in the New York Post today.

She's like, she's she's wagging her finger in a guy's face because he has on a red MAGA hat and she's calling him all these names.

Um, I like to call her names too, but why would I dignify her?

Except that what happens is she chases him off the platform and face plants.

I mean, people just have to stop.

You have to stop committing violence at Tesla dealerships.

You have to stop wagging your finger in front of people's faces.

And, you know, part of me, as Trump's campaign manager in 2016 and then counsel the president from day one, I had 24-7 Secret Service when we first arrived in Washington.

And inside my house was a seven-year-old, eight-year-old, a 12-year-old, and a 12-year-old.

That is a disgrace.

And that's only because of the threats of violence.

So sure, we can talk about this, that, and the other, but what the media have done, them direct messaging my 14, 15-year-old daughter at the time, disgrace should be held to account.

So I don't lump everybody in there.

But this whole notion that the job is to, quote, stop Trump, get Trump rather than get the story, that's why when things like Signal happened last week, sure, people were held to account.

The president had a special meeting, had the cameras in there, as he always does.

What a difference from Biden Harris, has the cameras in there, is answering the questions, is saying Mike Waltz took responsibility and or is going to further investigate it.

So at least he's engaging in the media.

It's not particular to any one reporter.

It's his entire ethos.

George Stephanopoulos, ABC News, has had to pay $15 million.

He was repeatedly told, don't call Donald Trump, don't refer to him by that word, and kept doing it anyway.

You've got all these other places like Meta now giving money to President Trump's library.

I mean, people are having silenced and shadow banned and censored, not just of the former President of the United States at the time, but his supporters too.

Couldn't you argue, though, that they're doing that because they're afraid of President Trump and what he might do versus that they genuinely feel some sort of affection for him or they've seen the light?

Like with Mark Zuckerberg, I think that that's quite clear what's going on.

He doesn't want to be investigated.

He already has a case that's coming up.

So

I don't know.

You think everyone just woke up one day and were like, oh, you know, I've been blind to how incredible President Trump is and what a huge victim he is?

Or people are trying to be smart business folks.

Whatever combination it is of what you suggested, let me suggest an alternative to that, which is many of them have said, wow, that was a really overwrought, unfair reaction to what was happening, where we're shadow banning, censoring, and silencing websites.

I mean, people looked at the New York Post losing its Twitter feed for two weeks before the 2020 elections because they dared to tell the truth that no one else would, that Hunter Biden's laptop is real.

And there's discussion on there that's actually relevant to voters in making the decision between Trump and Biden in 2020.

They'd want to know about all this money flowing to the Biden family from Ukraine, from China, this guy, Hunter Biden.

I mean, Joe Biden may have no energy, but Hunter Biden had no energy experience and he's on the border buryma and so on and so forth.

And he's talking to the big guy and he's, so that was all relevant, but it was shut down by Jack Mercy on Twitter.

And so was the New York Post and then 51 intelligence officers, et cetera.

Like this is all, this makes people feel that there's not just two tiers, two-tiered system of justice, Jessica, but a two-tiered system of media allowances.

Like the First Amendment somehow applies less to people because they like or vote for Donald Trump.

And that's just not fair.

And I think there's been a big come-up in that way.

I totally agree with you.

Listen,

our colleagues feel similarly to you.

I talk about this on an almost daily basis.

I wouldn't know what the laptop story that was down for 24 hours.

And Donald Trump was the one in office when this was going on and coordinated with social media companies for quote-unquote censorship, certainly about COVID, just the same as any Democrat would have.

But, you know, I tend to think the election was not going to get swayed on Hunter Biden's dick pics.

And that was what was the main concern of his father, which were on that laptop.

But listen.

What's done is done.

And frankly, I think Democrats would have been better off if Trump had won in 2020 versus won this time.

And I know a lot of people in his orbit who feel the same way that he had those four years to prepare for this new administration and is doing things obviously very differently.

And in some ways, getting higher marks.

His approval is up, his approval on immigration.

That's the only area that he is above water.

And I want to get into talking about that.

But, you know, the American public seems to be broadly behind him in that.

So

I

always appreciate how quickly you can get to the points that you want to make as someone who tries to do this for a living.

I'm always like, I should be more like Kelly and I could get there faster.

But

before we get off of SignalGate, do you feel that they are going to stop using this app for these kinds of conversations?

That there will be a lesson learned?

Because I do think, in general, that the American public is forgiving and they want to hear that there has been responsibility taken and that there are going to be changes made.

And I know that, I mean, it was public reporting, so you could say that it was inaccurate, but that apparently Susie Wiles and Marco Rubio, J.D.

Vance wanted Trump to get rid of Mike Waltz, that Pete Hagseth is safe in all of this, even though he was sharing the specifics in enormous detail that everyone who has served has said couldn't be anything but classified.

But do you think there is going to be a change of direction in terms of how they communicate about these matters?

Perhaps.

But, and look, the ideally, and this is not, and I think President Trump made this clear, as did others, over the weekend, if not last week, Jessica.

Even ideally, you'd want to be in a skiff altogether physically.

You can't be.

And so I think that when things are happening in real time and you're trying to keep people apprised, I appreciate the fact actually that there were 18 people, 19, unfortunately, but we're gaffer there, that there were 18 people in the know.

That's always been my experience as an advisor to President Trump, as his counselor in the White House is like, there is more and not fewer.

And I appreciate that because you should have, you know, even the Bible says there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors, quite literally.

So I appreciate that.

Again, as opposed to a Secretary of Defense who has ambulances coming to his house and they brush it under the rug, we don't know who's in charge.

The president, the commander-in-chief doesn't know his secretary of defense is under anesthesia.

He's at the hospital.

All this is, I think I use it as an example because it's exhibit A of endless exhibits of how secretive and furtive.

And just, I think, presuming that we, the...

people are so stupid and unworthy of truth and transparency in the last administration that this is so refreshing.

So you're even asking questions that are held to a higher standard automatically because of how public-facing and available and accessible President Trump and his team have been to the media, to the public, and the like.

I just wanted to correct one thing.

I may have misheard you, that the report in the Wall Street Journal, you said that the chief of staff and the vice president and others wanted to

reported that.

Politico, I don't know.

I had read the Wall Street Journal piece where the president had allegedly been asking people what they thought, something I'm familiar with, and that folks just felt, you know,

keep things as they are.

I know President Trump also,

Mike Flynn, his first national security advisor, I was there, was gone within a month of the inauguration.

And I know there's, you know, a certain sensitivity that was much more serious, frankly.

But in any event, meaning what the president was saying and was considering, because he was very nice about Mike Flynn.

He sent me on TV that morning, called me at 6.04 a.m.

and said, who's on TV?

And I say, well, we took ourselves off because, you know, of what happened with General Flynn last night.

And you're going to have a press conference today at two o'clock on something totally different.

You'll be asked about this.

I didn't want to get ahead of you.

He was like, no, no, no, go out there.

So I went on some morning shows.

And, you know, we weren't saying a number of things.

But I just say this because

remember that those who, I'll give you this analogy.

Lots of people saying right now, we did not vote for Elon Musk, didn't vote for Donald Trump either.

So they should check themselves a little bit.

Same thing here.

Those saying, you must fire your national security advisor just want a scalp on the wall.

It's just another way to hurt President Trump and by extension, hurt America.

Why, when we have these successful strikes against the Houthis, who, for whatever insane reason, Jessica, and I've talked about it before, insane, incomprehensible reason, you're smart and you're honest.

So tell us why, in the very first week, within days of being sworn in president, Biden would delist the Houthis from the FTO, the foreign terrorist organization.

This makes no sense to anyone.

They are foreign terrorists.

So Trump puts them back on.

We have successful strikes.

That's great.

We also are trying to deal with this Russian-Ukraine war.

He's trying to bring the rest of the hostages out and home

and get peace in the Middle East, some kind of deal in the Middle East.

So why, when all that's happening, should the President of the United States shake up his national security team because of an unintentional mistake?

I do think it's a lot bigger than that.

And my foundational question is about it just being fully investigated in the same way that the Hillary Clinton server was or the classified documents cases on either side with Biden and Trump, though that was cut prematurely short by his win.

And to your points about the Biden administration and the you know, withdrawal from Afghanistan, they lost, right?

So using this example or trying to go back in time and using it as a comp,

Biden-Harris lost, or Harris Walls, which was the extension of Biden-Harris.

And the American public did largely feel the same way as you.

But Biden's approval rating dropped after the Afghanistan withdrawal and it never recovered.

At some points, it went even lower.

I think the lowest in history.

And especially among independence, I think Biden really never recaptured any kind of footing with independence.

Let me just say, I'm not concerned about the political consequences at all.

And so the fact that biden harris lost because they had not one but two uninspiring

not particularly compelling or great speakers as their candidate as their nominees uh the electoral consequences that that election was gosh 40 40 months 39 months after about third you know late august 2021 early november 2024 so over three years jessica after the afghanistan withdrawal i'm not talking about electoral consequences or political fallout because the immediate fallout in afghanistan was was what I said.

We left billions of dollars worth of technology and equipment at Bagram Air Force Base, which I remember the late, God rest his soul, Senator Joe Lieberman, had said at the time, like, gee, this is something I helped negotiate too.

Lots of Democrats, lots of Republicans felt Bagram was the right place.

You know, this was the right place to negotiate an airstrip.

And, you know, leaving Afghanistan in the hands of the Taliban, I mean, it just washed away all the work that these three administrations had done.

So I just, I'm not worried about political consequences so much as what does this all mean?

And if we do, if we assess it that way, then we say this was a mistake.

It is being corrected, should not be repeated.

And

most importantly, the whole, the mission was successful.

That I feel like every American should be able to applaud and appreciate, no matter how they feel about President Trump, his national security team, or the use of Signal and the accidental inclusion of any reporter, by the way, let alone a hostile one.

Yeah, well, I do have to.

Scott isn't here to say it for himself, but someone who gets pulled over for a DUI has on average done it 80 times.

So that is the larger issue here.

I am thrilled that the mission was successful.

You know, fist pump, American flag, fire emoji, all of the things.

I just think that

we need to be more careful about this and, you know, really get to the bottom of how often this is going on, especially with a group that big that doesn't usually involve Jeffrey Goldberg.

But we have more to talk about, so let's take a quick break.

Stay with us.

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Hello, Daisy speaking.

Hello, Daisy.

This is Phoebe Judge from the IRS.

Oh, bless, that does sound serious.

I wouldn't want to end up in any sort of trouble.

This September on Criminal, we've been thinking a lot about scams.

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Welcome back.

I want to talk about immigration, but if we can quickly touch on tariffs, because I don't think I've actually heard you speak about quote-unquote Liberation Day, which is coming up on Wednesday, when we're going to shake up the world trade order and make sure that Americans are quote unquote treated fairly.

Where do you stand on this?

I've noticed that Howard Luttnick, who has been on TV a lot, has now seemingly been banned from the Sunday shows, or at least he was last weekend, probably after he made that comment about his 94-year-old mother-in-law who doesn't care about her social security check.

But

what's your temperature on the use of tariffs?

Because we know the American public is not into them, and that's strong majorities across all are polling, including the Fox poll.

On that one, 69% said it's going to make products more expensive for us.

It's by far and away Trump's weakest point.

So where are you on the tariffs?

Well, a few things, Jessica.

First of all, Secretary Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce, was also given in his portfolio.

almost immediately and certainly publicly by President-elect Trump trade as well.

So we have the USTR trade representative Jameson Greer, served all four years as chief of staff to the U.S.

Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer, Ambassador to Bob Lighthiser in the first term, very seasoned, very experienced.

Luttnick was I think that was the JG that was supposed to be in the chat, by the way.

The Jeffrey Goldberg was the

Jameson Greer.

I had read that.

That makes some sense, yes.

And so

I say this because Luttnick, you know, continues to be a very key player in this administration, along with Secretary Besson and others with respect to tariffs and trade.

Now, here's the thing with tariffs.

Every Secretary of the Treasury, from Alexander Hamilton to Scott Besson, should, not that they all would, but they should admit, acknowledge that the main purpose of tariffs is twofold.

One is to raise revenue.

for this country, and the second is to protect vital American industries and its workers, and really America and American security herself.

And national security piece of this is very much on President Trump's mind.

President Trump has added a third rationale for tariffs.

It is either, Jessica, to compel or incentivize transformative changes in behavior by countries or companies or collections of countries, EU, I'm looking at you, on matters that either affect goods and services.

For example, let's rebalance this export-import non-reciprocal, unfair, imbalanced trade relationship on automobiles, on spirits, on other goods and services.

But when President Trump started the tariff conversation in November, pre-Thanksgiving, it was about Mexico and Canada.

And I want you to avoid tariffs.

You must get your, quote, criminals and drugs out of our country.

And

Trudeau

lately of the prime ministership of Canada ran down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president.

President-elect Claudia Scheinbaum, the fairly newly elected at that time, Mexican president, called the president several times.

They had conversations.

But fast forward in office, when President Trump threatened it again, or not even threatened, stated it again, not as a negotiating tool, but as a tool in and of itself.

Lo and behold, both Canada and Mexico find 10,000 robust, fully trained, healthy males to

go on the front lines and help with border security.

Each of them comes up with a billion or more with a B.

And

in the case of Canada, they come up with a fentanyl czar to help with that.

But since I was the point person for the drug crisis in the first term in the White House, I will tell you 1%

is 50% too much because that represents a lot of death and destruction in our nation.

And then, of course, the Mexican president, who seems to be forging a decent working relationship with President Trump, Jessica, she also

is doing more to work with our border control and other national security team members components.

So that's all working.

I would just say this.

My favorite t-shirt of the winter was,

that had to do with politics and governance was, I survived the global trade war, February 3rd, 2025 to February 3rd, 2025.

That was roughly nine weeks ago or 10 weeks ago or so.

And it was,

it was, everybody freaked out the weekend before this, that, and the other is going to happen.

You can't do this.

It'll explode prices.

And it didn't last that long because people sort of either negotiated or capitulated.

You can see whatever, you can use whatever term you want, depending on the circumstances.

Donald Trump would also tell people, President Trump would tell people, Jessica, tariffs are your choice, not his.

That if you want to avoid tariffs, start making more here.

So, Mercedes-Benz says that they are the largest net exporter in the whole state of Georgia.

I'm like, wow, I had to read it three times.

Really?

They make a lot of Mercedes here, but they're net exporters.

They're making Mercedes in the United States of America and exporting them somewhere else.

Same thing with Toyota, BMW.

You saw the deal that the leader of Hyundai made with Governor Landry, Jeff Landry, at the White House last week announcing more.

So you can't stand up a new factory or a facility tomorrow, but you sure the heck can have a blueprint that's real.

And you can also take advantage of something else.

President Trump in mid to late September was at a Georgia town hall and it was about manufacturing and he was flanked by two banners, Jessica.

One said made in the USA and the other one said 15% corporate tax rate.

Now, when Donald Trump got there, when we were there eight years ago, the corporate tax rate was 35%.

Thank you.

President Obama with the Nobel Peace Prize.

It wasn't for taxes, I guess, 35%, which had led to 100 corporate incursions.

That's U.S.-based companies legally.

parking their wealth and their and their headquarters overseas because they literally can't afford to do business in the US of A.

Those corporate incursions were reversed.

We repatriated billions of dollars that had trillions that had been parked legally overseas.

The corporate tax rate went from 35%, the highest in the OECD at the time, to 21% lower than the OECD average of 23%.

Now here comes President Trump saying, well, if you can get 15% corporate tax rate, lots of corporations say, how do I do that?

Read Banner One, made in the USA.

He has since said, if you, if your company wants to invest 1 billion, and most of these companies are investing many billions or could and should if you invest one billion president trump's team will give you the white glove treatment and you will they will accelerate permitting and approval processes he has said this publicly in in um social media posts and he has said it since so there are ways to avoid tariffs without whining about higher prices you got to make more in this country and tariffs is a long-term play i think nobody should be surprised build the wall 2016 is like tariffs and trade 2024 he promised to do this it's about American investment, American manufacturing, American jobs, American industry, American national security, and America herself.

This is a long-term play.

Last point.

This country knows, and every smart, honest Democrat knows that we had persistent, punishing, high prices on almost everything, including basics like fuel and groceries for four years.

And we didn't have these tariffs.

So folks know that poor economic policy coming out of a White House or Washington, D.C.

at the time under Biden-Harris leads to higher prices.

They're giving, I think they're more likely to give Trump the space and the grace for a while longer to get us back to the 2019 levels of wage growth, of job production, of interest rates, and that rising tie lifting all boats pre-pandemic.

You did say, build the wall, but the wall didn't get built.

So maybe the lesson is that the the tariffs just aren't going to happen because you're right.

February 3rd, they were coming on and then they were taken off.

And Claudia Scheinbaum basically repackaged something that was already happening.

Those troops were promised under the Biden administration.

And as you mentioned, and any death from fentanyl,

but fentanyl is not our problem with the Canadians.

And Trump was the one who negotiated the USMCA if he has such huge problems with it.

But

my concern is for the American public.

They know that this is going to hurt them.

We've heard from Peter Navarro, Secretary Luttnick, et cetera, that there would be some short-term pain.

Even President Trump has said it, and J.D.

Vance has said it.

And I don't know if the American public deserves that when they, you know, took a big leap of faith, a lot of these voters, and went with Trump, people who were traditionally Democratic voters or who might have sat out and they thought that their lives were going to get economically better on day one because that's what they were promised.

Tariffs, I'm not saying they can't be used.

Obviously, we kept the China tariffs that Trump implemented under Biden, even extended them, I think, threefold.

But it's a very risky gamble for this grand bargain that he's going after, the Mar-a-Lago Accords or whatever we're going to end up having.

I think with Trump, you also have to price in other macroeconomic factors when it comes to tariffs.

So, again, if we can balance the whole trade relationship on specific categories of goods and services, Jessica, as goes other countries or collections of countries and even some companies, that's going to help.

If they extend, if not expand, the Tax Cut and Jobs Act from 2017, which we've all been living under, whether people realize it or not, if you lose some of those benefits, you're going to feel it.

So if that gets extended and expanded, that like no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, et cetera, then

And even the ECCA, the Educational Choice for Children Act that President Trump has clearly said he wants to be part of reconciliation.

I have no idea to this moment, zero, how Democrats can be against school choice.

I have no idea why we're trapping kids of all backgrounds

in some of the failing schools when their parents can exercise a choice as to where they go to school and what is taught there.

So there's a lot going on in reconciliation.

I think you also have to price in the D-Reg agenda.

We had more regulation under Biden-Harris.

We're going to have fewer regulation, less regulation.

You have to price in the energy production that's going to happen.

So I feel like there are other component parts to the macroeconomy.

These things take time.

And you said something at the beginning, which is important.

And I'm going to give you a rationale for it.

You said something like, look, President Trump is doing things a little bit differently this time and he's got high marks and everything.

This time, he's getting us back to where we were in 2019, but he also is undoing some of the grievous, grave damage that was done in the last four years.

And it's not even, they're not even pulling things out root and branch.

There are some seedlings, as I've told them, planted above the soil that you just have to blow down, like all these ridiculous new programs and expenditures that are mind-blowing to people.

I think even a smaller federal government footprint and less government spending, whatever that ends up looking like, you have to price all of that in and not just look at tariffs in,

not you, everybody in isolation.

Totally.

I'm happy to do that.

And I know that there are some smart people on my side of the aisle who think that we do need the higher levels of tariffs, like the Bernie Sanders and the Sherrod Browns of the world, Tim Ryan.

But, you know, when I look at the larger picture, and this will get us to immigration as well, but we have a 35% chance now, Goldman Sachs says, of going into a recession, which we did not have.

We have slow GDP growth.

Consumer confidence is falling at a rapid pace.

So It's not as rosy as one would or that you were painting it.

And I get it, you you know, progress is slow, but certain.

But when you look at the reconciliation bill and the fact that they want to jam through these tax cuts for people, not just the high earners and what we thought of it of people earning over $400,000, but $700,000, and they're going to offset that with cuts to Medicaid up to $880 billion,

you know.

That's going to be inflationary.

And that's just like a payout also to your friends.

And how are you also going to avoid huge inflation with the deportations?

And that's how I want to get us into this immigration conversation because, you know, ICE is doing what ICE that they were going to.

We know that it is inflationary to have, what, half the workforce that you are going to have, not just when we stop getting our goods from Canada that funds the hotel industry, you know, all our lumber, cement, et cetera.

But how do you square those things?

Deporting some of these criminals?

It's more than that.

And you know, well, you know that it's more than that.

I do want to talk about the criminal part of it and the fact that there are, at least that we know of, a few innocents that have been sent to this El Salvadorian prison camp for having tattoos that no one paid attention to, like what they actually were, like the autism awareness tattoo or a crown with mom written on it.

But yeah, if he does do a deportation force, which was one of his promises and certainly what Tom Holman wants,

what is the outcome of that going to be?

Well, the outcome in many ways is to make sure that we mitigate the chances of another Rachel Morin or Jocelyn Nagorne

or Lake and Riley, all of whom were murdered and then case of two of them brutally raped where they were murdered.

Jocelyn Nagarney is a 12-year-old girl, raped for two hours

under a bridge and then murdered by two people who should not have been here, who were here illegally.

And so that doesn't mean everybody is like that.

Of course not.

What it means means is they're like that and they shouldn't be here.

And you know what, Jessica, I feel like the last four years, the biggest epidemic, even though more people died from COVID under Biden than Trump, but the biggest epidemic, certainly that we don't discuss, is the epidemic of looking the other way, of pretending that we don't see someone's pain, that we don't see what's happening.

And to allow upwards of 10 million people here illegally, and then once they're here, people can turn on Fox News, probably not much else.

That's why it's the highest rated by by far of any of the cable stations or open up their phones and see,

see,

the same people who just got here illegally in New York City get free cell phones, clothing, hotel rooms in New York City, cash, debit cards.

Your kids see in a New York City classroom.

And people are looking at that saying, that's not fair.

Oh, you're a racist.

Actually, I'm an African-American 28-year-old male who says, that's not fair.

Where's my cell phone upgrade?

Where's my free clothing?

When was the last time I could take my kids to a hotel room in New York City

because I live in this condition or I'm temporarily homeless, temporarily homeless.

So people just said that's not fair.

And fairness over wokeness, but really over unfairness was a huge reason why Trump got elected.

Strength over weakness and fairness over awokeness slash unfairness, which is slightly different.

So I don't think there's a reason that President Trump's approval rating, as you said out at the beginning of your podcast, is today is highest on on immigration.

Yep.

Because he does see himself keeping the promises.

And some of the wall was built.

Biden had to spitefully take some of that down and let the stuff rot there because a lot was done on spite, not even ideological differences.

But the premise is the same, which is it all got worse in the last four years.

And all of a sudden, Jessica, an issue that was mired in low single digits, illegal immigration, border security, mired in low single digits and trade and tariffs was hardly even an asterisk in our polling and everybody else's polling 10 years ago.

An asterisk means less than 1% mention as most important problem.

10 years ago, right about now, when a guy named Donald J.

Trump said, I'm going to run for president, but here's what I'm going to talk about.

He elevated these issues into the national consciousness to international criticism and ridicule.

His company lost contracts and his name on buildings.

And I'm like, oh my God, look what he's doing.

And fast forward, the fall of 2024, 2024, thanks to his first term and Biden's only term,

that immigration, border security was now the number two issue in all seven swing states and in all the national polling.

It had risen that high because people started to see for themselves that they live in a border state no matter where they live.

So I feel like, again, talking about space and grace, people will give it.

And if there are folks who are unfairly, unnecessarily swept up in some of this,

they will do, I'm sure that they are doing probably free counsel from some of these groups.

They will make a claim about that and that will be adjudicated more likely than not.

But I wanted to say something else.

You know, these students, well, the guy's 30 years old.

He lives in university housing at Columbia, but he's was a graduate student there a while ago, I guess.

The 30-year-old who wants to

be a poster child.

And the other one,

I think she's at Columbia, but she, you know, she's another one,

She was here since she was seven, et cetera, complaining.

If you read, you know,

what you have to do if you're here on a student visa, I mean, this is, you know, if you look at student visa, if you look at criminal activity, national security or public safety concerns, revocation of visa, you know, it says the State Department can revoke a student visa at its discretion, often without prior notice, if it believes a student's presence conflicts with U.S.

interests.

And I think that Marco Rubio, our Secretary of State, is making that very clear.

He said recently, quote, every day I find another one of these lunatics and revoke their visa.

What are they doing?

Well, we see what they're doing.

The same two eyes that sees the debit cards, cell phones, cash, clothing, hotel rooms, your kids' seat in the New York City classroom sees these folks.

They're so bold.

They're wary.

They're all masked up.

So we can't see them.

We see them protesting.

I think inciting violence, making people feel uncomfortable.

I know students at Columbia right now as we speak, and they feel uncomfortable.

And the Jewish ones feel completely uncomfortable.

They feel threatened, threatened.

Nobody should, that should not be an occupational hazard of being at Columbia or any other campus in this country.

And so if you look at the national security or public safety concerns, a lot of this could fit under there easily.

You know, the Trump administration's current stance, as articulated by Secretary of State Rubio, has expanded this national security and public safety concern to target students, you know, to cover students involved in some of these anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, Israel activism, you know, citing some foreign policy implications.

But I just can't believe anybody can argue the fact that these kids can't go to campus, they miss their final exams, they have to, you know, shelter in place in their dorms because you've got some of these folks.

And then what did their big, bold acting president do,

not to be confused with the former president of Columbia University, who also resigned, but the new acting president resigned because she capitulated to President Trump.

All of a sudden, her favorite color is not red or blue, it's green.

And she's so worried about losing the $400 million in federal funding that we fork over to Columbia University so that we can see this nonsense on the campus that she capitulated about a mask mandate.

It's fascinating to watch.

It's not just the tech companies giving to the president's library.

It's not just the big law firms, big law that was against him a year ago and for the preceding seven years.

It is giving hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono work to issues he cares about.

I hope the drug crisis is one of them.

And veterans and school choice.

Those are great causes for a big law to fund if they can't see their way to fund it themselves.

And now you have university presidents who were

were allowing this to happen, who were greenlighting it, who Elise Stefanik, at the time, the number three in the House of Representatives, she just embarrassed them into oblivion in the case of two or three of them because they just, they're lying under oath.

They don't know, they don't know if anti-Semitism is anti-Semitism when the rest of us do.

And so I think there's a lot going on here, but if you read the, if you actually read the student visa piece

of

there is a lot of latitude for the country.

If you feel like somebody is here on a student visa, which is a privilege, by the way, not a right.

Not a right, then there's a lot of latitude for this administration.

Yeah, understood.

Mahmoud Khalil is here on a green card, which is a much higher threshold than just a student visa.

And the student that you're referring to from Colombia, I believe her first name is Chung, she's been here since she was seven from South Korea.

So, and I think, at least based on the reporting that I've seen, that she just participated in a sit-in.

And now we don't, her lawyers know where she is, but we don't know where she is at this point.

And I'm, you know, I was very outspoken about the protests on campus.

I did think that the university presidents were clearly not doing enough.

And if you had slotted in any other protected class for Jew, this never would have been allowed to proliferate if you had been blocking trans kids or black kids from going to classes or going to Chabad.

But it does feel like this administration is really overreaching in terms of regulating the First Amendment, which is something that they claim to be celebrating during the campaign and trying to make it out like we were the party that couldn't take it, that couldn't listen to people who have divergent viewpoints.

And I'm concerned about that.

And I'm concerned about how they're going after big law firms.

I mean, some of these law firms that they're targeting are just guilty of, you know, representing people.

with cases that the Trump administration didn't like or having anything to do with Jack Smith.

And I think the ones that are capitulating, as you said, offering $40 million, $100 million of quote-unquote pro bono work are just kind of laying down for Trump.

And I'm glad to see that there are other law firms that are standing with the Perkins Cooeys of the world and standing up to them.

We have one more topic, though.

We got to take a quick break.

Stay with us.

Welcome back.

I'm still here with Kelly Ann, who has been so gracious with her time.

I think this is probably going to be your favorite conversation because I'm opening myself up to democratic criticism, or at least I'm inviting it versus you're always good at getting it, even when I don't ask for it.

But we're only two months into the administration.

I would love, I mean, it sounds like you do think that it has been going really well thus far.

And Democrats are scrambling.

We know this, especially, I think, on the Senate side, in the House.

I think Jakeen Jeffries has been doing a good job.

But, you know, where do you think things stand in terms of the Democratic reboot or what we have to do?

The New York Times editorial board was out this weekend with an op-ed that basically said that Democrats are in denialism of the message from 2024.

And then I also want to get your take and maybe actually do this one first on what life after Trump looks like for the Republican Party.

He called Kristen Welker over the weekend and basically said that a third term was a possibility, that there are methods to do it.

But for the purpose of this conversation, you know, let's say that he is going to leave office when his term is up.

Where do you think the Republican Party goes?

It's a great question.

And I think we got a couple tea leaps about it, Jessica, in the 2024 down ballot elections.

So President Trump swept all seven swing states.

And along with him, Republicans flipped United States Senate seats in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

defeating long-term Democratic veterans who were winning by double digits in their reelections.

Previously, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Bob Casey Jr.

in Pennsylvania.

In addition, flipping the John Tester seat in Montana.

However, in four of the swing states that President Trump carried, Arizona by six points, Nevada handily, Wisconsin, Michigan, much smaller margins, those four Republican Senate candidates came up short.

And whereas President Trump was overly unfairly blamed for the midterm losses or the lack of a red wave in 2022, in 2024, he basically was a gift to all of these candidates.

He's got strength at the top of the ticket.

And all that means, plenty of money, plenty of personal visits inside the state by the nominee, President Trump, plenty of juice for these candidates, endorsing them, helping them.

And yet they came up short, which tells you something about the difference between Trump's strength within the electorate.

and some and all of the Republicans not named Donald J.

Trump.

So that's a little view into the future, a recent one.

And then we'll see what happens on Tuesday, on April 1st with these special elections in a couple of Florida seats.

I actually think, I hope those Republicans win and we keep the seats.

I actually think if they don't, it's not, everybody's going to rush and say the same thing as the lemmings always do.

Oh my God, it shows that Trump's not popular.

He doesn't have the juice.

His administration's over.

Signal, signal, signal.

I actually think it's the opposite.

It shows what I just said yet again, which is if you're not him and you're not at the top of the ticket, then there's something special about him where people gravitate toward him, turn out for him, whether it's at rallies, whether in the bleeding sun or the pouring rain for days to wait just to see him and be part of it.

That's something that the party will need to grapple with.

I don't think we're going to go back to being this sort of globalist amnesty,

maybe some higher taxes, maybe not a lot of D reg.

Maybe Beba, restrain this, restrain that kind of party that was a losing model for Mitt Romney, for John McCain.

I think that along with Ronald Reagan 1980, Newt Gingrich and the contract with America 94, Trump 2016, those are like the three most transformative party changing, coalition shifting elections in my lifetime.

And so in many of our lifetimes.

So I feel like he'll still have his mark.

on the party.

There is no obvious heir apparent.

Obviously, his vice president would have a good chance, but the president himself said he's not endorsing his president Mance or anyone else right now, which is smart because he needs to do a lot of stuff.

You can't talk about politics in 2028.

You got to do policy in 2025.

So that's smart.

On the Democratic side, I think it's the worst I've seen the Democratic Party in a very, very long time.

It just seems rudderless, shiftless, overly angry, without direction, probably a lot of internal fighting that we don't even see.

And it's, you know, in any 12-step program, Jessica, even if you reduce it to eight, nine, or expand it to 20 steps, the first one must be acknowledgement.

And I haven't seen that yet, let alone getting to acceptance.

I haven't seen acknowledging the fact

that Kamala Harris had everything she wanted.

Stop with the, she only had 100 days or whatnot.

What would she have done on day 108 or 109?

Same stuff.

I mean, she had all the king's horses, all the king's men, the mainstream media, academia, plenty of money, excitement, history on her side, et cetera, making history on our side.

That wasn't the right model.

And I think even some of these governors and folks in the House

who could be rising up as Democratic spokespeople are physiologically incapable of answering a question or declaring a sentence without saying Trump, Trump, Trump four times in it.

So unless and until somebody can get him out of their mind and stop pretending that the best antidote to Trump is anti-Trump, that's just not it.

But until the party, you know, the Democratic Party, the worst thing that's happened to it, in my view, is ceding CED, ING, some of these core Democratic constituencies to President Trump.

So he won more Jewish Americans, more women than he should have, against a female candidate.

I agree.

People.

He won more Hispanics, African Americans, union households.

He won more political independence.

And this was the election, Jessica.

This is what the Democrats, I think, don't seem to grasp yet.

2024 at the presidential level marked the election where Americans said, that's it.

I've had enough.

No more will you tell me who I am, what to think, and how to vote based on my age, my gender, my race, my religion, my union membership, whether I'm married or not, whether I have kids at home or not, my sexual orientation.

I mean, all of the, and even my political registration.

And or my past voting preferences, people are like, excuse me, this is the one time when I can exercise my own judgment, make my own choices.

And I'm going to do that irrespective of Barack Obama wagging his finger at young African-American men and saying, I'm telling you to do this.

You got to do this for me.

And then goes back to his compound

or in the golf course or in

Martha's Vineyard or whatnot, which he's welcome to have.

But then you can't wonder, though, why the Obama coalition of 2012 is now Trump country.

And if you look at the migration of voters from Obama 12 to Trump 2024, it is nothing but startling.

The Democratic Party I grew up around, half Irish, half Italian, a house full of women.

My father left, you know, feminist movement, Roe versus Wade movement, women in the workforce, including my own mom, Reluctantly movement.

You had, we, every man in my, every man in my family to this moment is in a, is in a union, a private trade.

That Democratic Party looks so distant now.

And it's just been subsumed by this.

odd stew of liberal overreach and academia and Hollywood and media and frankly just losing touch with if not outright ridiculing people who work for a living people who don't have fancy degrees and most of this country is that and most of the Democratic Party right now is not

yeah I mean listen I'm not one of the ones who's in denial about what happened and I think there's a lot of truth to what you were saying but if Donald Trump is the guy, right, he is the heart and soul of this party, and he will not be on the ballot in 2028.

I'm going to mark you down for the he knows that he has to go category.

Right.

I didn't say that.

I just said that.

Well, Kelly, yeah.

Yes, that.

He's, listen, there's, he hears that from other people.

That's nice.

I mean, crazy people talk to all of us.

I mean, entrance out of that.

Well, it also comes from.

But you're not a crazy.

I mean, you were.

People didn't vote for him the first few times, Jessica.

I think you mentioned some of them earlier.

But you were, I mean, you were a standout in 2020 amongst people who were close to him, who never bought into the big lie.

You said, Mr.

President, you lost the election and, you know, you got to move out.

So

are you saying the door is open to a third term?

No, I'm saying that when there's talk of it again, when you're colleagues in the media,

this is him on the phone with Kristen Welker.

I'm not, this isn't colleagues in the media.

It's in his own voice.

Well, but again, he's hearing that from people.

There's so what?

I've heard that I'm the most beautiful woman in the world.

I know it's not true.

Sure you are.

Definitely too.

Thank you.

You're a good friend.

Come on here.

Absolutely.

But no, I think it's beside the point right now when he's got too much to do.

But it does, it does tell you one thing that no matter, you know, assassin's bullet, all these indictments, court cases, impeachments, everything else, 2020, et cetera, January 6th, and so on and so forth, that President Trump is seen as a guy who can overcome all that and have a critical mass, in this case, many, tens of millions of Americans, highest ever for a Republican in many ways, focus on him and vote for him.

I think it shows you, and it wasn't for lack of trying.

I mean, one of the biggest mistakes the Democrats made, in my view, I'm glad they made it, but in 2023 and 2024 was sort of dismissing all types of Democratic primary opponents against President Biden, including one RFK Jr., now the Secretary of HHS under a Republican president Trump.

I think the lack of primaries hurt.

And I was a huge voice, often criticized within my own party for saying this about my Republican party.

This nonsense of clearing the field based on electability.

Thank God I haven't heard the word electability in a very long time.

And that's important because this whole matter that you rob the people of their voice and their choice months, if not years before an election is folly.

Let the people decide.

And it wasn't for lack of trying.

Gosh, eight, nine, I don't know how many, many Republicans ran for president in 2024, as did President Trump.

And he won decisively, embarrassingly, in all of their states, beating them handily.

So he's sort of earned this, but I think that it's not so.

Well, he hasn't earned the right to violate the Constitution.

No, no, no, no, no, I didn't say that.

I said he's earned.

No, no, no.

I said he's earned the presidency now, meaning he had, no, no, no, please don't misquote me.

I haven't said anything about that.

I believe in the Constitution.

The president knows that

presidents are term limited.

He is hearing from everybody.

What can we do about that?

You know, blah, blah, blah.

No, he's going to focus

on policy.

But I just want to say this about it.

It does tell you that he's got more of...

He's got much more prominence in the Republican Party and the conservative movement, which is different than the Republican Party.

People always trying to criticize him and tear him down with, oh, it's just a base, a basic base, like these dopes Nepo babies on the left who now consider themselves reporters.

And you know who I'm talking about.

They're probably watching now.

I know so much Trump and his base.

What base?

It's a base plus.

The guy won all seven swing states.

He won the popular popular vote.

It's base plus, plus, plus, plus.

I say this for a very simple reason.

The Democratic Party, for whatever else, I think still could rely upon one Barack Obama and occasionally his wife, although we see her pop up every four years to come to a convention and criticize Trump and now on a podcast to insult her husband.

But we don't, you know, the Obamas, the Clintons, you could always count on a few super popular stand the test of time Democrats to raise money, to raise hackles, to get out there and do stuff for the party.

I don't think that's true.

I think, if anything, the rising people in your party, Jessica, in the Democratic Party, are scary socialists.

You know, Bernie Sanders has 15,000 people in Arizona recently.

Elizabeth Warren's always on the rise.

AOC and the squad that doesn't do squad, as Nancy Pelosi said, quote, she said, and I'll quote Nancy Pelosi, quote, this glass of water could have won in their districts.

Really, I think, going roughshod on the squad at the time, saying they're all in safe seats.

How could they have not won?

And so there's just a lot of generational tension, ideological tension.

I think the difference between do we go back and try to recapture the working class of America versus are there enough elite effete like us in the Democratic Party in the hierarchy to win elections?

There's so much hand-wringing, white-knuckle hand-wringing now of everybody so nervous in the Democratic Party, where I think the answers are pretty simple, which is you can't tell people who they are, how to think and how to vote and what's good for them.

They need to tell you.

That is, as you know, that's polling 101.

That's voting 101.

It's politics 101.

People have a funny way of telling you what's important to them.

You can't tell them.

But as for this, it's just another way of, oh, look at Donald Trump.

He wants to be president for life.

He's hearing that from other people.

He respects the Constitution, but there's no question the most important person in 2026 in the midterms and 2028 is Donald J.

Trump.

Okay.

We've got to leave it there.

And if we talk more, I want to talk about Josh Shapiro and Wesmore because they are not Democratic socialists.

And I think they're doing a pretty good job.

But I take all the criticism.

I'm into the South flagellation about what happened.

I want to thank you, especially Kelly Ann, for being here with me and everyone for listening to Raging Moderates.

Our producers are David Toledo and Shine Onike.

Our technical director is Drew Burroughs.

You can now find Raging Moderates on its own feed every Tuesday.

That's right, its own feed.

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This week, I'll be talking with Senator Brian Schatz from Hawaii.

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And thank you for being here, Kellyanne.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Penny, Jessica.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I'll see you at work.

Yeah, that's right.

Take care.

You too.