Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump Loses The Plot At Truly Insane Rally

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

Alex Wagner is joined by Brian Tyler Cohen to discuss President Trump's recent speech during a rally at a General Motors plant in Michigan, where he teased a possible third term, touted the economy, compared the Iran War to playing a banjo, and rambled about losing weight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Great to see you, man. Alex, so good to see you too. Let's do this. Oh my God. Okay. There's a reason Trump has not been hitting the road to stump for endangered Republican candidates in the midterms. And we saw it on full display today this afternoon in Michigan. He went on about blue cities and trans youth and Democrats and mispronounced Barack Obama's name. He shouted out the reflecting pool. But I think at the top of my list of most alarming comments that he made was this, which I think is a suggestion that he may run for a third term.

I'm a little bit upset because in two and a half years you may have a different president, may. And that president will be saying how great the economy is doing. Look at all the jobs that he predict. Now, Brian, it's bad when he suggests he might run for a third term, but it's coming on the heels of him trying to push a mail-in sort of voter ID law through the Supreme court today, that we're courting this on Monday. It's coming on the heels of him trying to get the Senate to stay in Washington instead of going to August recess because he wants a save act to be passed. Tinkering with elections is the order of the day for Donald Trump. How concerned are you when you hear things like that? Look, it would be impossible not to be concerned about what Trump's

going to try to do about the upcoming election because there is no empirical evidence whatsoever to suggest that he's not interested in doing exactly that. He's tried to pass the, the, the of order banning mail-in ballots. That was blocked. Now he's trying to resuscitate that. He is suing 30 different states and the DOJ is 0 in 16 or 17 in these lawsuits to get the voter rolls handed over to the Department of Justice. Obviously refuses to rule out the possibility of sending ice to the polls. And now he's using all of his political capital to try and get the Save America Act pass, which is basically a federal takeover of state-run elections. And so clearly this is his only priority. And the irony of it is.

of this is like, you've got full control of government. And so he's not making a case right now for what Republican governance actually looks like. There are no Democrats to gum up the works in the House or the Senate or the White House. And so this is unapologetic, unbridled Republican governance. And what do you have to show for it? What is the, what is the case on the merits that you're making to people? Because we have less affordable health care, less affordable food assistance. We have higher prices, higher gas costs, and a war in the Middle least that you swore would never happen. And the Epstein files are still suppressed. Yeah. So I don't know what the case is. And I guess that really is the point. There is no case on the merits to vote for these

people. And so all you have left is just to rig the rules of the game in your favor. I mean, what is stunning to me is that when he does try and weigh in on something that is factually happening, unlike his great shepherding of the American economy, which didn't happen. The economy is not better since he has taken the helm. When he weighs in on the war in Iran, which is factually still happening. His assessment of it is so delusional and so at odds with reality that it really, I mean,

here's Trump speaking about the war in Iran, which continues to elevate gas prices and create geopolitical turmoil to say nothing of economic chaos. When the fuel comes down, which it did for a little while, then they didn't behave and I had to go back and now they're behaving again.

You know, it's like playing a banjo. It's like playing a banjo. I think that pretty much sums it up perfectly. It's like playing banjo, you know. Like what? Are we meant to believe that he's playing the IRGC like a banjo? I mean, clearly, we've spent, what, $130 billion. Gas prices are higher.

The president's approval rating is in the toilet. I think this issue specifically has something like less than a third of the country approves in the way that the world. in Iran is being handled, and yet Trump is out here claiming that he's somehow playing another country? I mean, if you can explain that logic to me, I'm all ears. But again, this is part of his fiction. I think he claimed today that Iran is at 8% of their military capacity that they were that they were before. Okay, so they're at 8% and yet here we are still allowing this thing to continue to persist day after day after day, causing us more economic turmoil. It's keeping

our gas prices high here at home, costing the United States billions of dollars to continue prolonging this thing. And so, again, if it was as much of a done deal as he claims it is, why would they continue to allow the pain that comes as the result of this to continue beating us over the heads? Trump's own intelligence analysts, his own CIA said last week, Hey, bro, the bombing strategy you're using is not going to move Iran off its negotiation, to a different negotiating strategy. The theater of war now extends from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. He's expanded it, which is making gas exports even more pricey than they were at the outside

of this war. He has lost, I don't know, the numbers out of the Pentagon change and are occasionally updated and then unupdated, but we have lost scores of American soldiers to say, nothing of the civilians that have been killed in Iran and Lebanon. It is the cost of this pegged at $37 billion by our Secretary of War, as you say, is closer to $130 billion. It is tanking his party's midterm chances less than 100 days before the election. If this is what playing a banjo looks like, then my six-year-old is Chikovsky. Look, I think it's also worth noting that there are members of the president's own family

who stand to benefit financially from the continuation of this war. Don Jr. and Eric are heavily invested in a bunch of military defense contractors. So as long as this continues to persist, they continue to make more money off of this. And so when we ask the question, why would he engage in this type of activity that is so aggressively unpopular and that's weighing the rest of his party down? It's because the one thing that Trump puts above everything else is his ability to make money for himself and his family. And so I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason that this thing is persisting is because one family in the United States stands to make money from the fact that this doesn't end, but expressly keeps going.

I do think that's why all the corruption stories that we've had and the reporting that we've had in the last week about how much the Trump family is cashing in and how their fortunes have quadrupled and quintupled. And I don't know the Latinate phrases for the orders of magnitude by which they've enriched themselves. But it hits harder as Americans can't afford. health care and can't afford hamburger meat and can't afford to fill up their gas tanks. And Trump is like dithering around as this war spirals on as the death count goes up and as

it becomes, you know, trench warfare, basically. We're on, we're off, we're on, we're off. Incremental change, but no meaningful difference. POTSafe America Breaking News is brought to you by Act Blue. With so much at stake, campaigns need the right foundation. For over two decades, Act Blue has been the go-to platform powering Democratic candidates across the ballot by providing the digital tools to fundraise, organize, and win. And this year, they've launched an organizing platform built specifically for the people

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What astounds me is the degree to which Trump has hollowed out the GOP. I mean, he's here in Michigan, presumably doing a rally to bring in, or at least electrify the broader Republican base. And yet, when he goes up there, Trump himself is obsessed with conspiracies and race-baiting. And the Republican candidates, because Trump is in their midst, equally have to be obsessed with conspiracy theories and election interference. This is the Republican gubernatorial candidate, John James, suggesting that Trump won Michigan in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Here's a hint. He did not. He did not win Michigan in 2020. Take a listen. Well, again, thank you, Mr. President, for coming back to Michigan where you've won three times. We very much appreciate your leadership.

He didn't. He won in 2016 and he won in 2024, but he lost in 2020. Yeah. This is, I mean, this is one of those things that's like, are you not humiliated? And don't you realize that this could be a major turnoff for people who are otherwise considering you for office? But I think that that's the thing. Like, this is expressly not about appealing to regular people.

The whole point of engaging in election denialism is to give himself a pretext, thin and ridiculous though it may be so that he can engage in further election interference. The whole thing is because they're not interested in reaching out to regular people. And so of course this is going to be a turnoff. Like imagine, imagine you're talking about the World Cup and you just have, you know, Argentina who's like, no, actually we did win. And we're and we're and we're the World Cup champions and that's it. We're tired of that, Argentina. Enough. Nothing you say is going to change our mind. We won the World Cup. It would be, I mean, they would look like clowns. And of course, Of course they look like clowns. What Trump is doing, he looks like a clown to the rest of the country.

Of course what these other Republicans who he has debased themselves on his behalf look like clowns as well. But the whole point is that they don't have a regular path to reach out to people on their policy platform. The economy is doing worse. Healthcare is less accessible. Food assistance has been gutted. The Iran war continues to rage. The Epstein files are suppressed. Gas prices are higher.

And so that's why they have to engage in this stuff. And so this is, this is, you know, every time we hear another Republican say it, it's because they've given up that much more on actually trying to appeal to regular people and are solely focused on throwing on throwing their hat in the ring just to engage in election denialism. Yeah, it's so embarrassing. Like, it's like they have to, they have to harp on three things. And I don't think we have the sound from this. But Trump goes after trans kids.

He goes after they sort of tout 2020 election denialism. They race bait Obama. He was talking about, you know, once again, sort of race baiting around Obama's name and denigrating Obama's legacy. I mean, look, you can go after Obama on policy all you want. But he bastardizes his record so extraordinarily that it's, you know, it's unlinked to, it's untethered to actual reality. It's also worth noting, like, Obama is the most popular politician in America. And so of all the people, like, why don't you just attack like puppies and, you know, at that point? It's like, it's not even a winner.

It's like, what has become- Obama won Michigan three times. Like, that's the person that you're gonna, that you're gonna pin as like the boogeyman of the 2026 election cycle? Yeah, won it twice because he didn't have to run for a third term because he won both of his elections. Bing, bang, boom.

I am, you know, but like it is such, that what remains in a Republican Party is such a hollow, sad core. And it's like there, there is no self-reflection. And even in this moment where it's politically expeditious to create some distance between yourself and this president, who is just catastrophically bad, as you said, with like a 36% approval rating, they still can't do it.

And so they're left trotting out these stale ideas and conspiracy theories. And there's no, I mean, there's no there as Trump, you know, levies a 50% tariff on Michigan's biggest trading partner, the country of Canada, because he's convinced that wind patterns have been manipulated by the tinfoil hatters up in, you know, Ottawa and put the wildfire smoke, in our backyards. I mean, the man doesn't understand how the weather works, and so he's going to make Michiganers feel the pain. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive.

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NGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. And I think that, coupled with the fact that a lot of these Democratic candidates who are emerging right now are younger, are more tech savvy, are more articulate and charismatic than the Democrats that we've had for so long, who've refused to offer up a bridge to the generation. So when you have this dichotomy between a new Democratic class of elected officials who are able to appeal so much better to the place. that they represent. I mean, you know, we're talking about the Midwest. Rob Sand is a great example of somebody who's surging in the polls right now and who has bipartisan appeal. When you have a class of people who've grown up in this era who know what it takes to win and especially to win over a lot of these disaffected dissolution voters coupled with the fact that what's left of this Republican party is like this barren husk of just groveling sycophants and obsequious yes men for Donald Trump

as he engages in this like never-ending string of of just self-owns and humiliations and claiming that the water pressure and showers is is bad. And I mean, just like, you know, all of the stuff that we have collectively had to endure as a country listening to him go through the throes of like dementia or whatever diseases he's contending with. I mean, that dichotomy between the two parties, I think is going to be so stark as we had past 2026 into. 2028 and and and I'm looking forward to it. I'm glad you brought up the president's constitution because

it's clear that the reporting about how ailing he is has really gotten to him and I do want to end with this little nugget. Remember just a primer the president likes to eat McDonald's and drink Diet Coke counter to the advice of literally everyone. Yeah. And he has now had three medical checkups in the last 13 months at Walter Reed. I think his last one he had like 22 specialists looking at him, which is a new record for presidential attention. Who among us doesn't have three annual physicals per year with 22,000? Like, is there enough body on us to be examined by 22 people? Like, anyway, I digress.

There is enough body on Donald Trump to be examined by 22 people. I guess so. I guess so. It's clear that he doesn't like the fact that people have been paying attention to his bruised, made up hands and his, you know, his weight and his diet. because I think it comes, you know, every announcement is a confession, every accusation is a confession, but every kind of piece of braggadocio is also a kind of confession.

This is what he had to say about his BMI, if you will. And I apologize for the air conditioning, but this room was not built for thousands of people. This room was built for a few people making cars, not for thousands of people. And it is a little warm up here, but I love that because every time I make a speech, I lose weight. It's wonderful. It's a wonderful way to lose weight. In there is a tacit acknowledgement

that maybe he does need to lose weight. There's also the suggestion that he's doing this all the time and is losing weight, even though this is like one of his first domestic rallies in months. And we see why they don't happen that often. I don't know. I felt a little sad for him in that moment insofar as I can summon that kind of empathy for Donald Trump at this point. He kind of broadcasts where his insecurities lie when he when he pushes back on certain things. I don't think he would say certain things if it didn't kind of get under his skin. And I think the fact that he has had so much attention on his physical state and he's like he's got like necrotic hands. Like they're just they're just like dying off before our eyes. And you know that

it hurts him because his principal line of attack against Joe Biden was his age and his failing mental state. And now you've got Donald Trump who's going in and taking these like getting a administered dementia tests on like a monthly basis, that's not something you generally need to do unless there is some concern that you're in the throes of dementia. And again, like, this is something that he leveled against Joe Biden. It's it was the biggest attack that he had against Joe Biden's, what he made, it's what he used to compensate. Well, and doesn't it give a new context? I feel like it's like he's a, he was, he was obsessed with a, uh, Biden's age and infirmity because he himself is terrified of aging and becoming infirm. And now we are witnessing it all the time every day to the

degree that we wonder if he'll even have hands by the end of his term. Yeah. Well, we'll either go through all of the foundation that there is in Washington, D.C., or he'll just not have hands left. So either way, it's going to be big changes on the hand front coming up. Brian Tyler Cohen, bringing the phrase necrotic hands into the lexicon. We thank you for your time and brilliance, as always, but especially for that little turn of phrase that's going to stick with me for the entire week. How's that for some nightmare fuel? Thank you.

Thank you, dude. I didn't have enough. If you are not already subscribed to our YouTube channel, what are you doing? And if you're not already subscribed to Brian's YouTube channel, I mean, you don't exist because everybody already is. But subscribe to both of them, please, because you get awesome stuff like this. Thank you, Brian Tyler Cohen for being the best as always. Thanks, Alex.

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