Breaking News from Pod Save America - A Completely Normal Republican Midterm Convention

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

Alex Wagner and Pod Save America's Jon Favreau dive into the biggest — and weirdest — moments from the Republican Midterm Convention. Trump promises $5,000 checks if Republicans hold Congress and even Fox News has questions, JD Vance's awkward encounter with a protester, and Republicans attempting to tie Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to 9/11. This this really the GOP's strategy heading into the midterms? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. You know, sometimes you think that a Friday is just going to be like a humdrum kind of day. And then a message lands in your Slack inbox, aka your Slack. And they say Favs is available to do a rapid response. And you're like, this Friday just took off on Eagles wings. I have been at this microphone now for maybe 24 hours. I know.

You haven't left. And I feel bad. You have like Kornacki syndrome. where you start getting like blisters and corns maybe from just being, I guess you didn't get horns. I'm sitting at least. Bed sores, like something like that. Yeah, there's other people doing real jobs in the world. Right.

They're doing some backbreaking work. I'm just sitting in talking. Listen, the woolly mammoths that power your operation must be so tired. I am thrilled to have you here to talk about what just transpired in our national body politic. I want to remind everybody that I will be in Los Angeles hanging out with one of the crooked guys for my book tour next week. If you haven't got tickets, please do. It's in conjunction with writers' block. And that other guy is John Lovett.

And it's going to be super fun. And you should get like to-ins. But really, what you should do is click subscribe because what follows this from- And by Alex's book. And by my book, The Steel, Four right-wing hardliners, one Republican presidency, and the raid on a America's courts. Yes. I like forgot to plug that, but thank you, John. Of course. Monavis. Okay. All right. Here's where we begin. Trumpapalooza officially wrapped up yesterday. And its impact, much like Trump's promised $5,000 bribes, is yet to be seen. Favs, I know you've

talked about this a lot, so I'm going to try and find some new territory. Let's just first, I am interested in your thoughts on this Laura Ingram interview with Donald Trump, wherein she asked the question, we've all been wondering, here's the, here's the exchange. Why not just give the money now? If you have the money, why don't give it now? Because they can't, I'll tell you what, because the Democrats can't do it. Because with them it's negative growth. With us, it's so positive. What? Okay, so Ingram's asking about these promised $5,000 bribes and why Americans need to wait until Republicans have held the House and Senate, since they already hold those two chambers. And his response is what? Because the Democrats, because the Democrats,

Democrats won't do it because it's negative growth? Do you understand what he's saying, John? No, and neither does he. It's a policy proposal, policy proposal that didn't survive a single follow-up. Not even one. Not even one, which was the most, you know, I was going to say, like, good for Laura Ingram, but it was the most obvious question. It's like you're saying, if Republicans win, you'll do this. Republicans did win in 2024, as did you. You control Washington with an iron fist, more so than probably any president in memory. If you wanted to do the dividend checks, why haven't you done them yet?

You promised a doge dividend check of $5,000, then you promised some tariff tariff dividend checks. I think you promised some Obamacare dividend checks, whatever, not called dividend checks. But you promised a lot of money to people in the form of checks, haven't done any of it, have had control of Congress for years makes no sense. I am of a mind that because of all the reasons you listed, which is he's failed to deliver on these check, these cash bribes time and time again, that I actually wonder whether this promise, hollow as it is expected to be, actually pisses people off more. Like, I think the assertion that he made at Trumpapalooza that he is bringing prices down way, way low as they are doing the very opposite. And by the way, like, we'll continue to get more

elevated because diesel's $6 a gallon and everything we get in this country is shipped in one form or another and usually ends up on the back of a truck somewhere. I just, I feel like people are angry and like the worst thing you can do to an angry person is like make more empty promises on the topic that is most painful to them. I don't know. Maybe I'm over extending the level of anger that people are feeling, but I don't know. I just think this could backfire? Well, I think first of all, most people won't know that he even made the promise because it's not going to get a ton of coverage because people don't think it's serious. So I think you've got to sit aside most people never hearing about it. So now let's talk about the

people who've heard about it. I think their intention here, the Trump administration, or just Donald Trump maybe, was, okay, there's a bunch of people who don't pay attention to any of this shit and maybe if they just see a headline or a Kiron on a news channel or on their screen that says Trump promises $5,000, they won't bother to ask why or look anything up or Google or anything. And, you know, maybe they'll vote for a Republican. Who cares?

What do we get to lose? What do we get to lose? So they are, I think their bet is that people would believe this just sight unseen. And it's a bad bet. I think it's a bad bet. because most people are primed not to believe politicians in general or cynical about government, particularly about him. His approval ratings are in the tank. So is the Republican Congress.

People also live their lives. They can see that nothing has improved, that the president hasn't done anything or the Republicans haven't done anything to make their life more affordable. So who is really going to believe that this will happen? Some number of people will. for sure, but like, is it going to make someone vote Republican? Yeah, I mean, well, I think if you are believing in it and you do accept it at face value, you probably were already going to vote for Trump anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

The vast majority of people, it's like, you know, the failure to deliver on one of his key promises, no more new wars is playing out, like, as we speak. So why would you believe him on something like this? Speaking of Trump and his failed promises and his lackeys that surround him, I do want to get you, like, I want to get you. Like, I want to get your thoughts on two clips from our vice president, J.D. Vance. Let's play them first,

and then I will have some thoughts for you on the back end. We just had a protester interrupting us and waving the Mexican flag. Well, my friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there. I'll buy you the plane ticket. If you ever feeling down about our country, ladies and gentlemen, just take a look at the beautiful ladies

right behind me. Ladies, I'd like to know what you have. had to drink because I'll take two of them when I'm done. Has, do you think J.D. Vance has ever hit on a woman before? I mean, having seen the content where he sits down with his wife

I mean. And like, and, and, and, and, pats her on the knee. I would say no. They made babies. I, I just, like, is he, like, paraphrasing the woman in When Harry Met Sally, who's like, all have what she's

Like, what even is that line? I talked about this with Fyfer for today's POSA of America. And I, like, everything about him is so forced and phony. I think he wrote that line. By the way, I think he wrote those lines. I think they were in prompter. Well, so that's, I was wondering that about the, because I don't, you know, I'm not a conspiracy person and I do not want to allege that the protester was a plant, right?

Well, no, I was talking about the bad, like, bar line about, like, I'll have two. Like, I think that's literally in the script. But the Mexican protest that we're going to get to in a moment. Yes, continue. My thought is even lines that may genuinely have been ad libed by J.D. Vance, he cannot make seem like they are authentic or real adlibs because he is incapable of, like, genuine human interaction. Like, I just think he doesn't know who. he is. And we talk, you know, I've criticized a lot of Democrats for this for like reading the stage directions and just getting the message delivered to them in their poll and then saying it and not

seeming real or authentic. And he and, you know, there's a lot of like, you know, front of the class Democrats who are just like they're going to study their way to the presidency and they're going to do everything right and say all the right messages. And he is of everyone in the Republican Party who could be president or could be nominated for president at that party. He is at the top of the list of people who just, he feels like he's going, he thinks he's going to study his way to the presidency and it just, there's not an authentic bone in his body. No, it's because the aliens are controlling his brain, like in men and black. I think J.D. Vance has actually proved that there are aliens already on Earth, and he's one of them. I kind of wonder, like, I listened to his speech. I did

myself the disservice of listening to his speech after the fact because I refuse to watch this live. And I wonder if you think it's possible because he's really trying to position himself as a family, a family guy. That was my take. Yeah. Can't, well, see, look at a hive mind. He's positioning himself as a family guy, but also as a xenophob and a blood and soil nationalist. Do those two things go together in the 21st century? Can you do that? Can you be the aw shucks, love you kids, family guy and then also get off my fucking front lawn? No. And you articulated what I was trying to articulate to Dan on the pod today, and you did it much better, which is like the blood, to the extent that he does believe something deeply, it is the blood and soil

nationalism. He is also a smart person. And so I think he is now aware that the blood and soil nationalism, hard-edged as it is, does not sell beyond a fraction of the MAGA base, of the Republican base. And so he is trying to put a family-friendly sheen on it, just sand. off the edges and try to make it more about like, you know, conservative family values and nationalism, but like a friendly nationalism. And I just, I don't think it can work because who he is and what he actually believes is so much harsher than what he's trying to communicate to

people. Well, I also, I will keep bringing this up till I'm like 90, but like his own family is an example of why blood and soil nationalism is reductive and outmoded. Like, he has second generation Americans who are his children. Like, his in-laws are immigrants. His children are mixed race. Like, if he truly believes that the identity of American is white, Christian, and probably male, but sometimes female, what does that mean for Alec, his newborn? What does that mean for Vivek? He has a child named Vivek Vance. And to me, it's like if the family is the central unit that needs to be preserved, look at your own family, dude. Look at the choices you made to expand it to make it multicultural and multi-religious. Like, how do you square the reality you live with the words

and the ideology that you've adopted? It's like it doesn't track for me. And I genuinely think the Magabase has been fed a diet of such straight racism for so long. I genuinely think it's a problem for him to go up there with his brown wife and his brown children. I don't know. Like, do, will Maga, will Maga accept a first lady named Usha Vance? I know we talk about Melania. She's also an immigrant, but she is not as dark as Usha Vance. The children do not look immediately mixed race because they're not. But, you know, like, I'm talking about the Trumps. The vanses are a much different face of America. And it just, and yet, J.D. has adopted blood and soil nationalism and xenophobic, like, you know, jingo-wisdic rhetoric, thinking that nobody's

going to actually look at who he is. So I've thought about this a lot, and I've had a lot of conversations about this with people. And I think this is how J.D. Vance would square the circle. You heard the end of the speech where he goes after Abdul, El-Said, for a tweet where he was like, oh, because J.D. Vance was talking about his papa, his grandfather, and how he wouldn't recognize the party of Abdul and the party of communist and the Democratic Party today, right, all this kind of bullshit. And Abdul was like, oh, would you bring Ushah to Papa? And, you know, he was annoyed by it. And I get it. It's like, we don't know what Papa's politics were. Maybe they were better than J.D. Vance's, right? But anyway, so he gets really angry. And he's like, in the

that he wouldn't like Usha just because she's not white is like offensive and racist. I think what he thinks and what some of these Nat cons, the national conservatives and the blood and soil nationals people think is, no, there are good minorities and there are good immigrants. And the good minorities and the good immigrants assimilate and are grateful every day. don't criticize the America JD Vance can criticize America

because he is seven generations you know buried in Kentucky but someone who has just arrived at the country and who is a new citizen should never criticize the country this is I mean he basically

when he gave his what I think is the blood and soil national speech at Claremont a couple years ago year ago I don't know the time he specifically went after Mamdani for this. And he was like, how dare he on the 4th of July?

And Mamdani had like a very nice message on the 4th of July two years ago, this wasn't even this year. And then also said like, but our journey's not done and the union's not perfect yet. Like something very benign. And he went after him for it and be like, how dare he an immigrant to this country criticize it? So if Usha

is conservative and has assimilated and believes what he believes and doesn't complain about the country, then Ushah's great and he of course he loves Usha and of course he loves his children but like other people that he doesn't know who just came here be careful right know your place boy did he refer to momdani as boy i mean because that's you know it is that's a subtext i will just say there is a candidate there was a candidate a republican gubernatorial candidate in the state of tennessee who was trying to outlaw hinduism and islam in the state of tennessee this year and believe

that the tennessee state constitution would allow that that. J.D. Vance may have figured out a workaround. Nobody else in the Republican Party, like the virulently racist, xenophobic, blood and soil nationalist that now make up a core subset of the Republican base do not see a need for workarounds. There is no need to accept people who practice Hinduism, which again would include the second lady of the United States and her family. And that is the problem. They have unleashed the hounds of like darkness within their party as a means to an end. And now there's no getting them back. There's no putting that genie back in the bottle. And therefore, like, I just, this is what I'm, like,

J.D, I don't know how he, I truly don't know how. He like wakes up and is a father to these children and then goes out and says the stuff that he does, knowing that children that look just like them are going to be punished by people who believe in the shit J.D. Bants is saying, setting that aside, if he is going to be the nominee in 2028, he's going to have to speak to rooms full of people who support the outlawing of certain religions in this United States, in these United States, one of which is practiced by his wife. I'm just saying, good luck to you. And again, this is much like Trump getting the question from Laura Ingram. This is a tightrope that he's walking that does not survive contact to mix the metaphors

with like even one question about it, right? Because all I could think about when he was so outraged about, you know, Abdul's racism against his family is like, okay, just a quick reminder of how this went. A couple, you know, in the Biden administration, they allowed legally a bunch of Haitians to come to America fleeing from a country that is still maybe one of the most violent places on earth. What has gotten worse? Has gotten worse. And so legally allowed a couple hundred thousand Haitian immigrants into the country, many of them settled in Springfield, Ohio, where by all accounts from people in Springfield, Ohio, they're hard workers, part of the community.

And then, like, you know, there were like a few driving incidents and this, you know, like, and then the right wing media took those incidents and made them a big thing. And then, and then people started spreading rumors, conspiracies, that they were eating people's pets, which the current president of the United States decided to push. and then J.D. Vance supported. Defended. And when asked about it was said, well, if we have to push around a few memes just to get, draw attention to an issue, then we should do it. Knowing that like he's putting people in danger by saying that they eat pets, that these human beings who are just wanted to like live in this city and work and raise their families and be safe or eating pets who are now.

in ankle monitors and being deported because of all this. Or committing suicide because of the humiliation and shame that's been visited upon them. And you're so fucking outraged that anyone would dare accuse you of racism or xenophobia. My dander is up. I know. Makes me mad. I don't like him. I actually, I don't like him. I don't care for him. We did an episode on, we spoke to one of the Haitian residents of this country who's about to be deported on runaway country. and she has a child here who's five, who's an American. Like, it is so wrenching what is happening to communities across the country.

And we don't pay enough attention to it. And when you do pay attention to it, it's just like so appalling. It makes your eyes bleed. Hey, it's John. Last year, 2,500 people joined us at CricketCon for conversations with some of the smartest organizers, least annoying politicians, and most interesting voices in politics about how to fix this mess.

We're doing it again, November 5th through the 7th in Washington, D.C. with even more podcast panels and workshops. Plus, there will be drinks, which we'll need after the midterms, no matter which way they go. Get your tickets at cricketcon.com, where we'll also announce the lineup. If you're a friends of the pod subscriber,

a limited number of discounted tickets are still available. Get them before they run out. See you at cricket con. Before we go, I want to just talk about the strange, the unbearable lightness of being Mike Rogers. What the fuck is Mike Rogers doing? What was he doing here? Let's just first hear what he had to say.

Mike Rogers, I'm going to call it a closing argument because it's after Labor Day. Why everyone should be terrified of Abdul Al-Sayed? I know what they're capable of. And I know what happens when America becomes afraid to call evil by its name. September 11th isn't something that we deserved, no matter what Abdul's buddies say. Abdul's is funding his campaign with money from terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. He wants to represent Palestine. I want to represent Michigan.

Let's just say, like, it's important to note that sitting Senator Ron Johnson is a 9-11 truther. Like, let's just be clear. If anybody is officially out there undermining the grief and the, I think, the morning that continues this day to victims of 9-11, it is Ron Johnson, who is in the Republican Party. So just like put that in your pipe. smoke it for a moment. Islamophobia as a closing argument. First of all, John, what would you like to see Abdul do like with this? I would like him, I mean, if he's asked about it, I would say

nothing about it unless he was asked about it and he'll probably be asked about it. And then I would be like, I'm just shocked that Mike Rogers had a six-minute speech opportunity to communicate and said absolutely nothing about the struggles of families in Michigan who cannot afford anything right now and gave a speech that had he not mentioned the words Abdul or Hassan Piker could have been delivered

in a 2002 midterm race after 9-11 or the Tommy was saying it's like the 2004 convention in New York, the Republic Convention in New York like it was very what are you I realize that it's the 25th anniversary of 9-11 but there

the clips you showed there was nothing else to the speed. It was six minutes of 9-11 national security, what he, his role in this, he was the FBI, going after terrorists, all this stuff. And it's like, what? It's 2026, dude. What are you talking about? There's a whole bunch of problems. There's a war going on in Iran right now. There's a trade war with Canada, which borders the state that you want to represent in Congress. You had you had nothing to say about any of that at your convention appearance. Insane. Yeah, to me, my takeaway was they got two things. They got transphobia and Islamophobia. And I guess, communistophobia, whatever it is. Like, red scare. Red scare. Right. Yes, exactly. It's an official thing. Like, it's no, absolutely no addressing of the matters at hand. And in that way, I think it was like, and I don't, I mean, of course, I'm pre-death. I'm, I am someone who was going to think it was a failure no matter what. was said just by virtue of the people convening in that room. But the fact that there's no line

about affordability except that it's a it's a confection of the Biden era. And it's the reason prices are high is because we're climbing out of the hole that Joe Biden dug is like it's shot. I mean, but nobody's home in this Republican party. No, I had the same thought. I was like, okay, I mean, what would have scared me from the Republican midterm convention? Like what would I have seen that have been like, oh, no, they got a good argument here. And like, if they had made the whole thing about, like, you know, look at the Democratic Socialist plans and look what they'll do if the Democrats take over Congress and they'll shut down the government, there'll be investigations that they don't care about you and their plans are all going to raise your taxes

and look at the positions that some of them have taken on crime and immigration. Like, there's stuff to work with where you make an argument where Democrats would be like, yeah, they got us there. and we're on the wrong side of popular opinion there, but like they didn't do anything of that. No, like you said, they just went for lowest common denominator as online as possible in the weeds of fucking maga swamps possible.

With a couple shots of a naked Hassan Piker. Right. You might better call Hassan Pecker. Can't believe I haven't heard that. I just came up with that. That's great. Like they're obsessed with him. And that they had nudes.

They had Hassan Piker nudes. That's like where we're at right now. Yeah. So they're like, sorry you can't. They blurred the speedo. They blurred whatever. That's Hassan Pecker. I'm sticking with it.

They had, there are people that can't afford gas. They can't put food on the table. Their health care costs are skyrocketing. And they have naked pictures of Hassan Piker. Ladies and gentlemen, your modern day grand old party. Congratulations. Out of gas. Well, so am I, and I know you are, Favs.

Sorry to make you keep talking, but we love the takes. No, I'm going right from here to ads, and then I got another thing to record. Jesus. Listen, that's why you're L. Hafei. That's why you're El Hafei. That's why you're El Hafei. And also, we had, like, the same takes. We haven't even talked about it ahead of time, but we were like mind melt here.

I think it's hive mind group think. Some others might call it. But we're on different coasts, so they can't really accuse us. Exactly. We're both just brilliant in our now. analysis. Thank you for doing this. If you are not subscribed to runaway country, please do, because you won't get awesome stuff like this. And if you haven't bought a copy of my book, The Steel, which is available for pre-order now, please do that too. It will give you insight into

how the Supreme Court got so goddamn radicalized. It's a heist novel. Get into it. Get into it. John Fevreau, you are an American hero. Remember, people avoid bed source by rotating frequently. So if you've been in the chair too long, just stand up, do some stretches, keep the blood moving. And I'll see you next week. You sure will. In the meantime, Godspeed. Thank you all.