Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump Just Made The Midterms Even Harder for Republicans

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

Trump’s latest comments could spell trouble for Republicans ahead of the midterms, while a Republican Senator’s attack on Jack Smith goes spectacularly wrong. Tommy Vietor and Brian Tyler Cohen break down the latest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brian, we have some monumental news about artificial intelligence. This comes directly from the president of the United States. Let's watch. We've changed the name, Steve, officially, to SI, okay? Size, like, side, S.I instead of AI. You know what that means? Super Intelligence. Paul, super. He looks like he has, like, broomstick legs.

Can we talk about the legs for a second? The posture is preposterous. It's preposterous. Is it just because he's standing in a weird angle? I have never seen a human being stand like that. I don't know what to make of it. My first thought is like that it might be indicative of like some neurological issue. I want you know there's a much better clip with a longer answer with way better audio. And I was like, no.

It's preposterous. I don't think those are his legs somehow. Does he have lifts that it's like pushing him up and over? Legs are locked out. Because like I try not to engage in this kind of slop. You see it on Twitter all the time. But just watching it there really struck me just the posture. It feels like you should be falling down at all times.

First day with legs. He'll get the hang of it for sure. But on the actual merits of what he said, isn't it crazy that like we're faced with this technology that everybody's saying may or may not usher in the end of humanity? Or change everything. He's like, we've rebranded. That's the only thing he cares about. He's literally surrounded by all the CEOs of the most important artificial intelligence

companies in the world, just days after meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, and he's like sticking with this stupid rebranding thing. Yeah. But that's what he does. I mean, he doesn't know how to actually do anything. He just slaps his name onto things or the name that he's decided to give something. It's just like a licensing deal. Like that's what he knows how to do.

He's not actually, I mean, even more broadly, he's 30,000 foot view. Like, he's not governing. He's good at like just rebranding things. He's good at building his vanity projects. All he wants to talk about is granite. And so and the ballroom and like building these projects and the helipad and the reflecting pool and the triumphal arch and like this is what he wants to do. He just wants to do the one thing he knows how to do, which is like brand things. Can we watch that clip one more time?

I just really, I just want to see how he's staying up. It feels like he should be losing his balance. That's the thing that struck me as well. Right? Like how is he not falling forward at all times? His legs look. Are they crossed? His.

No, just the pants look kind of weird. The pants look weird, but his toes are facing like a full, almost 180 degrees different direction from his face. It's just so straight. Navidia CEO, Jensen Wong, tweeted that data centers are now called, or said the data centers are now called superintelligence centers. You can tell someone in the AI industry got to him and said, yeah, AI has a bad rap, it's all branding, blah, blah, blah. But here's something. Hold, let me let me tell you the punchline here. Ron DeSantis tweets.

So Jensen Wong calls them super intelligence factories. Ron DeSantis, of all people, quote tweets it and says, Super Intelligence Factories equals surveillance centers. It doesn't seem like the rebrand is going well within their GOP. Well, you know that that's Ron DeSantis's forced foray into 2028. Like that's him dipping his toes in the water. Speaking of Grin. Meatball Ron.

Yeah, Meatball Ron suddenly starting out the gate early to try and help himself. No, but I mean, look, like he's, in his defense, like he's the only person that's looked at basic polling on this issue and has decided, hey, maybe instead of just changing what we call this terrible fucking thing, we just take the side of regular Americans. Yeah. Well, yeah, there has been a lot of talk about polling about data centers. We're seeing politicians, like you said, across the political spectrum, run screaming away from their previous positions where they were offering like tax break to bring them to their states. Let's again see if Trump has sort of a handle on the political moment here.

This clip caught my eye too, Brian. It's just the same clip of him standing. The data centers are incredible. And by the way, I'm very good at real estate. Some of those buildings are absolutely beautiful. They're big and they're, you know, big, strong, powerful buildings, but they're beautiful. And they add greatly to a community.

It started with a false narrative, mostly by, Mike, I would say Democrats, that data centers are bad. So data centers are bringing a tremendous amount of money into the community. Ah, I see he's going with the data centers are bad as a hoax line of things, four and a half weeks out from the election. Like, we've all seen data centers in our community with like flying buttresses and beautiful stained glass. You know, the nave is really well-constru. Like, what does he talk? They look like Amazon warehouses.

No, no, you're looking at the wrong ones. Colonial style columns. They're beautiful. They're beautiful. What's the column he likes? It's the like Corinthian or something. Yeah. I love hearing the constant never-ending din of what sounds like I'm in the inside of a beehive.

Yes. All day, every day. I like it when the big structure near my home is so loud that my community thinks it's the reason cows aren't giving birth and animals are dying, which is a thing I literally heard when I was in Texas. I want to turn on my faucet and water not come out. Or to be like yellow. Worthy Brown. And by the way, like, we were just in Texas. I was talking to Gina, you know, host his team

was running for governor down there. Like the two ways they're trying to reach Republican voters is one through education because Abbott did a bunch of terrible things that pissed off people with charter schools. Yeah. And the second is data centers because there's all these like rock rib Republicans never voted for a lib in their life, probably watching Newsmax and Fox News. They are furious about these data centers coming to their community and they're like willing to vote Democrat to send a message. But look, this is a testament to like the extent to which Trump has

given up on even pretending to be a populace. Or the midterms. Or the midterms. This is like a 90-10 issue. Everybody across the country hates these things, left, right and center. It's the one issue that is bridging the partisan divide virtually unlike anything else. And Trump is like he is just locked in on the side of these billionaires who stand to benefit from, like this tiny little 10% faction of people who are actually pro-data center.

By the way, did you see the DC data center? Oh my God, dude. It was so bad. For those who don't know, I think someone, some AstroTurf group, through a pro data center party, they clearly like paid a bunch of influencers to show up, right? And then they were doing interviews about why they liked data centers and they were going around Twitter and it was just like, it made you want to just crawl up and die. It was, it was really bad. I mean, it was really bad. Let's see if we can, if we can throw a clip in here. Drop one in. I'm at DC's pro data center party and I'm asking why people love data centers.

Because I love the internet and it allows me to be on the internet. They're going to power the future. Kind of necessary infrastructure, it's ridiculous to be against them and I'd rather have them here than in China. I love data centers so I can stream sports and then cry about my sports teams for better or for worse. But yeah, I love streaming sports and that's why I love data centers. Let's go! I love data centers because America is on the verge of one of the most incredible scientific and technological revolutions. Oh my god, I can't watch anymore of this. Yeah.

Yeah. Those people didn't believe a word they said. I can tell. Their hearts were not in it. They like the free booze. That's it. A couple of them are absolutely ripped in that video. Speaking of superintelligence, Brian,

please subscribe to POTSafe America here on YouTube. We're trying to build a progressive counterweight to all the right wing crap that you see on YouTube that we're going to talk about in a bit. So subscribe to Potsave America. Subscribe to Brian Tyler Cohen's channel. It really helps us. If you want to see some real super intelligence,

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To your point earlier about how he's giving up on everything, the midterms and everything else, how do you think this message about the economy is going to speak to people? Do you think it's going to kind of bring people back and make them feel heard? Let me, let's watch. I've done a very bad job of explaining how good the country is doing. We're doing better than any country in the world economically. Do you feel like that's meeting the moment? Like, it's just every day he does something like that.

think that's okay. Yeah. I think I think that explains it. Look, this is, in a way, this is what every president has to contend with, but it's not, but I mean, he's full of shit here because it's not that he's done a poor job explaining. It's that he's, that despite his efforts to explain, everybody has eyes and everybody has ears, everybody could see what their grocery bills look like, their gas bills, their utility bills, their clothing bills, their toy bill, like, whatever it is that they spend money on. They can see that it's all more expensive. They can see inflation's gone up. They can see interest rates are rising. They can see that the Epsine files haven't been released. They can see that, you know, fertilizer costs and gas prices at the

result of the Iran war are going up. So it's not that he's done a poor job explaining. It's that despite his best efforts to gaslight people, people can see the reality. Yeah, I think he's done a very good job explaining. It's the governing that's not going so good. I mean, I think that election, like we spend so much time and effort and money on polling and research. Like, I think this election is going to be so simple. If Democrats do well, just look at when the price of gas started skyrocketing up. And that was 100% tied to the Iran war and his disastrous decision to launch a war that he promised he would not start. Yeah.

I mean, it does kind of put the whole game on display that he thinks, you know, that he thinks he's not getting credit for something that doesn't exist. Like, I would love for somebody to ask him, like, what is it exactly that you think that people aren't? Like, what metric? What data point? What price can you point to that would suggest that you're doing better? I think it's entirely the stock market because he is cocooned in rich people. Like the clips we just watched, how many trillion dollars do you think was around him? There's like 20 people. All of them.

Virtually all of the trillions of dollars in that room. Well, they is like all the Mar-a-Lago people he sees are just rich people. And so they're pumped, right? Like they're just all their monies in stocks. They are ripping. They run a hedge fund or whatever. Like those people are psyched. It's like literally everyone else.

else in the country that is pissed because when, you know, gas goes from $3 a gallon to $5 a gallon, like, they get killed. Yeah. Brutal. Okay. Speaking of getting killed, let's turn to Capitol Hill, Brian, because I'm not exaggerating when I say that I think this was like the single most embarrassing thing I've ever witnessed in the U.S. Senate, like, period.

So here's the background. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing this week that was entirely focused on Jack Smith, the special counsel who investigated Trump. I think it was January 6th. and for leaving classified information by the shitter, right? Those were like his cases of the shitter Mar-a-Lago. Senator Eric Schmidt, not the Google guy. I'm just kidding.

I knew that. Senator Eric Schmidt, Republican from Missouri, came into the hearing thinking that he was about to be a hero, that he had found a smoking gun. Oh, yeah. That was going to take Jack Smith down once and for all. Even had a chart. Pressing the chart.

And then things went disastrously wrong. Okay, this clip is a little longer than the clips we usually throw to, but it's going to give you the full arc of this nightmare. Let's watch. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting.

An IG private wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks on February 3rd, 2024? I have no recollection of that. Okay, is it your testimony that you were not in Atlanta on February 3rd, 2024?

I don't think you know that we have this stuff. So I'll give you a second to process it so you don't, you know, perjure yourself. I recall going to a university of Maryland basketball game where Caitlin Clark was playing, right around that time. You may think you're a hero in this story, but let me tell you something.

You're the villain. You've done so much damage. As a former prosecutor, I can say there's so much damage the trust and faith people have in our system. You have weaponized the Department of Justice against political enemies to an extent that has never happened in the history of this country. You will go down as a total dirtbag.

Could it then be that you, University of Iowa is the Hawkeyes. Could that be it? And maybe before we show this kind of thing, that might be the confusion over the names of the team, but perhaps you should have looked at it more carefully. Who's questioning is this, by the way, Mr. Chairman? Are you using your time, Senator? Is this what this is? No. Are we just having like an open session here? I will begin my questions. I just, I'm just glad you're trying to rehabilitate the witness. Rehabilitate. We are calling a witness a dirt bag and showing him. I presented him with text messages.

about him wanting to meet with people that could have obviously been related to the prosecution that was coordinated with his office in Atlanta. I'm going to begin my questions now, but I think that people should have their facts straight before they accuse someone of being a dirt bag and not get the team wrong. I stand by that statement.

She goes, before we start putting things up like that, hmm? I've never loved Amy Klobuchar more than in this moment. So just in case folks were confused. So Schmidt has his staff hold up this chart. Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana. Oh, he wanted it in on that too. So he's holding onto the chart. It shows some text messages from some people we don't know who they are.

And then they immediately put it down. And what it turns out, the suggestion was that Jack Smith went to an Atlanta Hawks game in Atlanta in February of 2024. And he's trying to say that that is like an aha moment because if he was in Atlanta, he must have met with Atlanta prosecutor Fawney Willis around that time. Yeah. Even if he was in Atlanta, it wouldn't make any sense.

Right. But then immediately everyone's like, what are you talking about? And Jack Smith is like, I went to a Iowa Hawkeyes game. So someone must have referred to the Hawkeyes as the Hawks, which is something they do in Iowa. And you can see like the life drain out of Senator Schmidt and the two staffers behind him who are clearly responsible for making this chart and bringing this evidence. Glorious. But then Schmidt says he stands by calling Smith a dirtbag. And he left.

Not only that, TMZ caught up with him after that and asked him. And they were like, hey, do you have anything to say about that shit that just went down? He's like, what? Oh, oh, the Jack Smith? No, I'm like, I'm just asking questions. That's my whole job. It's like, dude, you claimed that he perjured himself because you thought you had a gotcha that was just so hard. And there was no there there.

But he's, look, he's kind of adopted this Trumpian mantra, this ethos of like never admit fault. Never back down. And it makes him look like even more of a fucking clown. Because now you have somebody who was dead wrong, who just embarrassed himself and has to double down because that's how it goes. Did you see, okay, so I was like hoovering down this content last night because it was so funny. This clip of Alabama Senator Katie Britt. Oh yeah. Her face during this exchange.

Someone did a zoom in on it. We have to watch it. It's so funny. We watch that now. I recall going to a University of Maryland basketball game where Caitlin. Clark was playing right around that time. And the Marshal Service was there with me. You could check if that was the exact date.

It was Maryland playing Iowa, I think February of 2024. But again, you can check that out if that's what we're talking about. Her face says, you fucking. Which is ironic because it's not like that woman is exactly the pinnacle for self-awareness. She was the one who did the Republican response to. months to, but like. It was very overperformed and overreacted. But her husband, she went to the University of Alabama, I believe, and I think her husband

played on the football team. So I think she's probably thinking, like, how do you idiots, not know like the bare minimum of a fucking sports? You know how there was that whole discourse about how after Troy Jackson posted the video of himself drinking the boba tea and everyone was like, oh, Democratic campaigns need to hire straight guys. Now somebody tweeted in response to this, Republican campaigns need to hire straight guys. Guys, nobody knows what the basketballs been called.

I thought that was very funny. Yeah, the whole like Bobati discourse, I was like, do I like this video? No. Do I understand it? No. Do I care at all? Yeah. Absolutely not.

Yeah. I think that like the thing that I've learned as of late is that like everything has to eventually become a discourse. Yes. And everybody has to have their take. Rage me. And then everything is rage and then takes on top of takes, takes in response to takes. And eventually it dies out and we'll find something to be a something else.

Look, my advice for people online is like, if it doesn't help the overall goal of making sure that Trump and Republicans lose in four and a half weeks from now, then don't waste your breath. Yeah, it's just like, I don't know. I guess my take was like, I don't know, you think this video is bad and you want the campaign to course correct? Like, okay, you think this video is great and it's exciting. Okay. Yeah. It's just like it's a dumb video of a guy. It's a dumb video.

Correct. Bobati is fine. Bobati is like a hot new thing? I've been around for a long time. Look, I remember Boba T being around like 15 years ago. That's what I'm saying. It's like been around forever. The whole thing made no sense.

Finally, to your point though about like Schmidt just being shameless and not backing down at all, the reason he can do that, it's not just Trump kind of setting the precedent. It is the utterly shameless maga media world that will lie for him and prop him up. So check out this is like the what used to be called the Charlie Kirk Show, his podcast. Which is still called the Charlie Kirk Show. Which is weird. So this is still called the Charlie Kirk Show. The Kirk Show. It's a TPSA's podcast. I think the host is named Andrew Colvitt. Then there's some other

silent bozo, but I didn't care to learn about. But watch the way they talk about the moment we all just witnessed there, this humiliation for Schmidt. All right. Well, Jack Smith is a total dirtbag. And you caught him out on this NBA game, too, by the way, in Atlanta. I want to make sure we get to everything we're supposed to get to here, Senator. But it was a great moment. Is that a University of Missouri football helmet behind him? Shouldn't you like, is he trying to, no sports then?

Is he trying to bolster his bona fides now? The real question is whether that football helmet is always behind him. That's a very good question. I have no idea. I don't know anything about Eric Schmidt's background. It's just like,

obviously this is a partisan show. Like, I'm on team Democrat. But like, if I just interviewed someone who had humiliated themselves like that, I might at least acknowledge reality as it is and not like the manufactured fake one

or ignore it. Right, or don't mention it. Or don't mention it. Or don't mention it. Or don't mention it, but to mention it as if it went exactly according to plan, look, that's a testament to the fact that they exist in a hermetically sealed bubble. And there are people who will look at Benny Johnson's tweet. Benny Johnson had this like preset tweet where he was obviously fed, fed instructions beforehand, where he knew that Eric Schmidt was like going to land

this killer gotcha on Jack Smith. And so he laid it all out where he basically said, you know, Jack Smith, Jack Smith was asked about, you know, these, about going to this basketball game. He was stunned into silence. Like, you know,

Eric Schmidt got him. And everyone was like, dude, the reason he was stunned was because you didn't know what the fuck. You know what the fuck Eric Schmidt was talking about. Yeah.

But he didn't, he like left it up all day. He eventually deleted it. Yeah. But he left it up all day. And like, there is, there is this ecosystem where they will just,

they will live within, within the confines of the reality that they create. And if they want to say that Eric Schmidt crushed it and nailed Jack Smith and now Jack Smith has to be arrested or whatever crime they've decided he's guilty of, now they think they have a basis for it. And there's going to be people

in that ecosystem who read what Benny Johnson said or who see what they said on the Charlie Kirk show and think that Eric Schmidt like landed some, you know, killer gotcha on the guy. I guess it's shocking still to me. I guess it shouldn't surprise us since Trump still says he won the 2020 election.

Yeah. Lots of people like follow his lead. But it is like, it is pathetic. Like those guys, this interview is just one of the sad, as lame as things. The craziest thing is like, is like there will come, there comes, there has to come a point where these people have to like put their head on a pillow at night. Look in the mirror. Yeah. Like, look in the mirror.

Like, you've got, you've got Ted Cruz who in the aftermath of the Jack Smith thing was like, why were, he was questioning Jack Smith. He was like, why were there only Democrats whose, whose phone records? were looked into and he thinks he landed it as some like big like oh only Republicans were targeted. How many Democrats were involved in trying to over the turn in the 2020 election? If there were Democrats who were doing it

then maybe they would look into those people too but the weirdest thing is to be like oh the only people who were investigated for this crime were the people of one particular subset who partook in the crime. Ted Gurus goes, is it illegal to be a Republican now? It's like no obviously not

you dumb ass but you guys where the ones fucking Donald Trump was calling to help overturn the results. He actually wasn't calling John Fetterman. Right. I know you wish he was. Anyway, it's just, politics sucks.

Thank you for watching this episode of Pod Save America here on YouTube. We'll do better than those TPSA, Boso's.