Morning Joe - Joe: People were out on a Saturday because they love America

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Joe: People were out on a Saturday because they love America Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mr. President, do you think that the government shutdown is all about this rally that's happening this weekend, the no king's rally? No, I mean, some people say they want to delay it for the king. It's more than that. You know, they're saying they're referring to me as a king. I'm not a king. President Trump on Fox News yesterday morning, responding to the massive rallies across America over the weekend. We'll show you some of the scenes and speeches in major cities.

Also ahead, we'll go through new polling on President Trump's approval rating as well as his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. It comes as there appears to be cracks in the ceasefire deal. We'll bring you the latest from the Middle East, plus a major update on a major outage involving Amazon Web services, which includes cloud services for many top companies. Noticing that. Good morning. and welcome to Morning, Joe. It's Monday, October 20th. With us, we have the co-host of our fourth hour, staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. Special Correspondent for BBC News and the host of the rest is politics podcast, Caddy Kay, columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post, David Ignatius,

is with us, senior writer for The Dispatch, and a columnist for Bloomberg opinion, David Drucker, and managing editor, out the bulwark. Sam Stein is with us. And Joe, I lost you to the tide this weekend. The tide took you. It did. Two things can be true at once. I mean, I've always been, you know, Saturdays belong to the tide. You know that.

But if anybody got lost in the tide, it would be the volunteers this weekend, right? Tennessee. The vaults just got swept away. No, I got to go down. to Tuscaloosa with Jack. It had been a very long time since we'd been able to get to a game and went down there

and showed Jack the campus and it's just extraordinary what's... It's just extraordinary what's happened there. You know, when I went to Alabama, there were 14,000 students. There are 42,000 students there now. The buildings, the facilities are just nothing short of extraordinary. There are places where I actually get

lost and disoriented students saying oh man get out of the street but it was it was a great time and it is it is really amazing what the president muller's done at the university and and the students just so so impressive and you know ameer the game wasn't bad either i mean of course no it was not we never lost faith There were a lot of people after Alabama had a horrible season last year and looked like a JV team the first week against FSU that people were saying ugly thing, but none of us. None of us.

But, man, they've beaten four ranked teams in the top 15 and looking like a real powerhouse right now. But yeah, we need to go. I need to take you to an Alabama game. Oh, I'd love to do that next year. I'm serious. Nothing. I mean, really, I've been to a lot of sporting events. I just forgot. There's just nothing quite, nothing quite like an Alabama game. Yeah, SAC football on my bucket list. I've never done it.

That'd be great. But yeah, you're right. The Scarborough House never lost faith in the Crimson Tide. But this was an impressive one, 37 to 20 over the number 11 ranked Tennessee. As you said, it's their fourth win in a row against a ranked team. And they, you know, including a nine-or-reception return, 99 yards, which is the key play there. But yeah, they are rolling and peaking, you know, mid-season here, which is what you want to do. You want to try to get the old back when Bill Belichick was a good coach, that's

what he would always say. If you want to get a little better each and every week, it seems like Alabama's doing that. And I helped by sitting right in my exact puzzle position when they started winning. And I stayed there until well after 11. Well done me, you're welcome. I would say we're very superstitious. I was sitting next to Jack and Joey and Catherine next to me. And we, after the first Alabama touchdown, I said, hey, Jack, let switch so I can sit next to Joey. We can talk about the game and everything. as he scored, Jack Taps me, he goes, you can have quality time with Joey later. Get back in your seat and, you know, we've got to win this thing. The Patriots, so we got a lot of stuff to

talk about today. The rallies were absolutely extraordinary this weekend. We'll get to that in a second. But we have to talk about your New England Patriots, man. I'll tell you what, Drake May for president at a lot of those rallies in the Northeast. I'm sure they were holding those signs up. You have promised me no retribution of Drake, is, in fact, an ex-president. And I reminded you that actually the first person that would be prosecuted would probably be one Bill Belichick. But other than that, other than that, a very impressive come from behind win for the

Patriots who remain in first place. Yeah, Drake May would sweep the six New England states at the very least. Yeah, he looked great. He was 21 of 23. They went in, you know, the Titans aren't a great team, but they just fired their coach. That gave them a lift. It was competitive for a stretch. May, 21 of 3.

23 passing. The Patriots rolled in the second half. They are now five and two. They are in first place. The half came up on the bills who had a buy. Yeah, it was a great sports weekend. We'll have to get into how the Giants lost at some point later. We also, of course, have a baseball game seven tonight. But yes, Drake May was front and center in my house, to be sure. Yeah, I mean, the Giants loss was a heartbreak. And I will say, I just don't care about the New York Giants. I never have. It's kind of like, you know, they're kind of like Microsoft for me, looking at the Giants. It's just, you know, but I will say yesterday, you looked at that team. It's a heartbreaking loss.

I will say this, though, with Jackson Dart there and some of the other guys they have playing on that team. They actually look like winners. They look like a team that knew how to win and could win. They just now need to keep the lead when they have it and figure out. out how to kick extra points. But here's no doubt. This is, yeah, go ahead. Here's the stat.

Here's the stat. You're right. Jackson Dart, there's a lot of hope in the organization, but here's the stat. NFL teams had won 1,600,600 consecutive games when leading by 18 or more points in the final six minutes. 1600. That streak ended yesterday. Yeah.

But, you know, but again, you look at not just at the result yesterday, but as Mika always says to me, Joe, it's just like political polling. You never look at the number. You look at the trend lines. And Mika was saying to me last night, she's just getting to the end of that cigar. She's still chomping on it from the Tennessee win. Spits it out and then she goes,

the trend lines for this Giants team pretty good. And so I think Mika, I agree with you. Got to talk about the Blue Jays. Once we get past news, the Blue Jays are taking the ALCS to seven. games. So we have a Canadian team and a team that is vaguely Canadian, but still, how do you not cheer for these Blue Jays? They're an exciting team. Okay. They also have a great panel standing by, so we'll get to more sports later and our top story now this morning. Organizers say with

more than 7 million people gathered at nearly 3,000 events across the country over the weekend for the so-called no-kings rallies in a largely peaceful show of force against the Trump administration's policies. That is two million more people than the first no-kings day back in June. Protesters flooded the streets, squares and parks in both big cities and small towns chanting no kings in America and carrying signs with slogans like democracy, not monarchy, and make America good again. In Boston, organizers say more than 100,000 rallygoers convened at the historic Boston Common, America's oldest park. In Washington, D.C., protesters, including federal employees, filled the streets near the U.S. Capitol as the government remains shut down. In New York City, people stretched for many blocks with rallies spanning across all five boroughs.

The protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, with many participants. wearing costumes, waving American flags and dancing, despite Republicans referring to the events as hate America rallies in recent days. Many elected officials and public figures joined protesters at the rally, slamming the Trump administration and celebrating the day's events. Tyranny requires your fear, your silence, and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. And tyranny depends on good people doing nothing. It requires us to accept the unacceptable, to rationalize the irrational, to normalize

the abnormal. But tyranny also fails when ordinary people refuse to cooperate, when they say no kings and they mean it. Mike Johnson. The Republican Speaker of the House call these rallies hate America events. Boy, does he have it wrong? Millions of Americans are coming out today

not because they hate America, we're here because we love America. Joe, that's when a lot of protesters were making because I think that the key takeaway from the weekend is how peaceful these were making exactly the point Bernie Sanders was talking about. Well, people were out on a Saturday instead of watching Alabama Crimson Tide Roll. I mean, that was quite a sacrifice. People were out on a Saturday because they love America because they love this. country. They love the Constitution. They have a different view of America than say

maybe some people who are in the MAGA movement. But even the MAGA movement is divided right now over getting health care to working Americans and stopping billionaires from getting all of these tax cuts. So there's a big divide on issues. But David Ignatius, one of the things We've been around long enough to know, and we, you know, there's not the first time people have tried to do things like this, but we've been around long enough to know. That's just, it's a very sad thing when you have one party that says, agree with us on everything, are you hate America? And so when you have the Speaker of the House and people at the White House saying, oh, these people hate America, they're all, their base is Hamas, their base. you know, or our flag burning Haiti. You know, it's, you know, as Jonathan Martin said the other day,

you look at that crowd, there are an awful lot of NPR tote bag grandmas in that crowd. And really, for those who say, you know, for those in the MAGA community that says, oh, no, no, we're not a cult, we're not a cult. I mean, can you imagine they strip it down to loving America or hating America based on who you vote for. And so since a lot of these people didn't vote for Donald Trump, then the Speaker of the House and the majority whip, I believe, also,

said that since all these people are not in the MAGA movement, they hate America. Not they must hate America, they might hate America. They're saying that these people that are getting out on Saturday, to defend what they believe is best in America, must hate America. You know, Bill Clinton didn't say that when we get out for the Million Man March. The religious march, I forget, back in 95.

And certainly, Barack Obama didn't say that when they're pro-life marches out there. You know, there are people that believe in things, and they get out in March. The Tea Party marches. I didn't hear Barack Obama is saying, oh, these people hate America. This is what, it's the First Amendment. It's okay. And Mike Johnson, I really hope he sees the error in his way

because, you know, these are the same people who freaked out when Hillary Clinton called Republicans, half of them deplorables. And they melted down for like six years. Now Republicans are just coming out saying these people who are protesting, like just saying they protest, hate America. It's, I mean, talk about that and we've got to pull back from that.

You know, I think you described this exactly right. The Republicans have tried to describe people who disagree with their policies with the very disruptive agenda that the MAGA movement, President Trump, have had, that those people, hate America. They're not protesting the authoritarian policies or some of the immigration policies. They hate America. And maybe that's a sign that they're nervous. To use that kind of extreme rhetoric is a sign that you feel you have to characterize the opposition in a different way. But it was striking from all the footage I can see. These were ordinary folks. They were determined to be peaceful to carrying flags talking about their love of the country, not their hatred

of it. And I think it's indicative of finally Democrats and critics of Trump beginning to be able to articulate what it is that they're angry about. It's, you know, people say, what's the Democrats' agenda? If you say our agenda is no kings, that's pretty limited. That's a good start, though. And it did seem to bring people in the streets in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, not a, again, the characterization was, this is Antifa. These are people who mean to do violence and harm. They hate the country. Look at the pictures. I mean, these are pretty ordinary folks. And I think that's really the message from Saturday. I mean, come on. And they have IKEA on their posters, me, this, this is about a, not a, not a

frightening crowd. No, not at all. And the Washington Post editorial board has a new piece entitled Like the Tea Party of 2009, No King's protests are a warning to Trump, and it reads in part, quote, the Democratic establishment dismissed the Tea Party movement in 2009. Now Republican leaders are making the same mistake as they dismiss millions of demonstrators around the country as little more than pawns of George Soros, the billionaire, financier, and Democratic donor. It is politically perilous to blame propaganda or malign foreign influence for authentic passion in a country as polarized as the United States. Speech and protests are safety valves for angry Americans to let off steam between election. They are also a warning for those in charge.

After Obama's landslide victory back in 2008, Democrats diluted themselves with the idea that they could hold a large majorities for years to come. They plowed ahead with unpopular laws that most of the country disliked and were punished with a generational rebuke in the 2010 midterms. Trump and his supporters might consider whether they are making the same mistake ahead of 2026. and David Drucker, again, the protests were peaceful. And what we're hearing from the White House, from the Speaker of the House, even from the top guy himself, that these people don't matter. These people are in some way nefarious. These people somehow don't like America or hate America, as they put it.

That's a lot of people to invalidate, I'll say. Yeah, and it kind of reminds me of the old saying, you know, can anybody play this game? Instead of running to the right wing or to the left wing, and of course, in this case, with the Republicans, constantly playing to the base, you might try playing to the 51%. And it might do you some good. And I think what we saw with these protests this weekend, I was very curious, by the way, to see what the turnout was going to be and what it was going to look like. I spent a lot of time along the coast in southern Delaware, for the past six, seven months, and I've talked to a lot of these people, a few hundred protesters have showed up every weekend waving signs of traffic. A lot of them are retirees, right? I mean, these are not people

dressed in black causing mayhem. And what you found is a lot of concern about executive overreach. So here I saw that sort of supersized. And what you saw was a lot of energy, a lot of concern. And when you can get this many people into the streets to do a quintessentially American thing, which is protest the government, our entire system was designed so that you were allowed to protest the government. It shows you that a lot of people are paying attention and that a lot of people are going to vote next year. Now, you know, we can talk about messaging and policy and what most voters are concerned about. And that matters, right? And that's things, you know, bread and butter issues like inflation and affordability and things of that nature.

But when you get this many people that come out in this way, it shows you that something is going on. Can it be sustained over the next 12 months? Will it be sustained? A lot of this will depend on what happens in Washington, how people feel what Republicans do, what Democrats do. But what this shows you is the sort of beginning of something that could turn into quite an election next year because, you know, as you guys were referencing, it's a mirror of what we have seen in the past that led to some pretty big elections. And there was real focus on keeping this peaceful. There had been some of the White House who wondered if there had been perhaps some violence that could be used as reasoned for more federal involvement, National Guard or the

like. That, of course, did not happen. So we've got some new polling to get to, starting with how Americans view President Trump's handling of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. According to the latest APNNRC poll, 47% approve on how Trump is handling the conflict overseas. That's up 10 points from last month. That poll was conducted after the ceasefire deal was announced, but before the hostages and prisoners were actually freed. Still, when it comes to Trump's overall job performance, the poll shows that just 37% approve versus 61% who disapprove. 30% say the country is on the right track. 69 say it's heading in the wrong direction.

Those are some pretty stark numbers, Joe. The Israel Hamas part will get to later. You know, we see cracks in that ceasefire. Real worries, worris and developments the last couple of days. But in terms of how Americans are feeling about this country, those are pretty low numbers for President Trump, and particularly that right track, Ron track. That's stark and got to worry Republicans ahead of next year.

Right. Well, first of all, on any time you're talking about the Middle East, those numbers are usually, they're going to be difficult. They're going to be tough. Again, if you look at trend lines, the president's up 10 points there. As far as the president's own poll numbers go, they've gone from 37% to 44%. You know, he's probably sitting in most, you know, I know the economist has him at 40. I think real clear politics has him around 4%. 44 percent. He, of course, despite the constant trolling, is not running again. So, but, but I say all that just to say, caddy, the real number that, you know, whether it's Donald Trump or Joe Biden or whether it was President Obama or Bill Clinton or whomever, they look at right track, wrong track. And that wrong track is staying low. It's been low. It was low under Biden. It's low now. It doesn't help that people turn on the TV and they're constantly seeing, you know, people being dragged out and beaten up. It looks like they're getting beaten up and thrown into unmarked vans by unmarked people. I mean, that has a real divisive effect. And people just don't want to see that every day on their television. But we go back to affordability.

And it's affordability in homes, affordability, whether you can pay your groceries, whether you can pay your rent, whether you can fill up a gas tank or whether people are having to fill it up halfway because they just don't have enough money to fill it up the entire way. Just that affordability issue, which is driving the New York mayor's race, is going to be driving a lot of other races over the next year and a half. Yeah. I mean, the biggest question I keep getting asked, Joe, about America right now is what is happening with the American economy? And you see the stock market booming driven by AI. But there are clearly signs. And I think some of what you saw on the streets with 7 million people turning out are the signs that things are not great, that there are cracks in the American economy, the affordability issue. Farmers can't sell their soy beans. The tariffs are starting to bite on businesses, on small. businesses and on consumers. People who are growing citrus are worried about whether they're going to have enough workers to collect their crops over the course of the winter. And, you know, you take a whole range of issues. Rents are too high for people. Young people are not able to get jobs. The unemployment number is ticking up. The inflation number is okay, but not great. Growth is less than it would have been. There are a whole range of issues on which the American economy looks

fragile, whatever the stock market is saying. And that is what people are feeling. You had them turn out for democracy here, Sam. But I think there are other issues that people are concerned about, too, across the country. And this question of affordability is something that Democrats are also, right, trying to latch onto ahead of the midterm elections. Well, yeah. I mean, it's the basis of the government shutdown that's the backdrop to the No King's protest, right? It's this idea that the Obamacare extended subsidies are going to like. and that people are going to see thousands, dollars more, and health care insurance premiums. And in fact, you're starting to see that sticker shock already as the numbers have gone out.

And, you know, by November 1st, it's going to really hit home. So, yes, affordability is central to all this. And then you combine that with what is the sort of core matter of the No King's protest, which is executive overreach, and Joe referenced it, you know, ice raids that are just tearing communities apart, executive overreach, disregard for laws, things that maybe aren't front and center of voter minds, but clearly you see in the news, you know, bombing, fishing boats in the Caribbean saying their drug cartels, you know, things like that, where it's like, well, are things careening a little bit off here? Is Trump need, do we need checks and balances?

I do think there's some potency to that. I know Democrats all the time debate whether or not they should focus on institutional decay and democracy and threats to the Constitution. But I do think for engaged voters, which is really the midterm electorate as engaged voters, these things do matter. And clearly, when you have 7 million people coming out midday on a Saturday, not just in big cities, too. I mean, we were talking to people in small towns, small cities. They're seeing huge amounts of numbers. When you see that, you have to conclude that people are engaged on a whole host of different fronts,

one of which is, of course, affordability. But the other one is, of course, threats to democracy itself. So coming up on you, you look at all of those, those people that are out there. Yes, they're out on a lot of those issues that will drive the base to get out and vote. But at the end of the day, what were we told after President Trump beat Kamala Harris? You guys missed the big story. The big story was affordability. The big story was inflation. The big story was that the economy may have been doing great on a macro level, but it sure as hell wasn't doing well for working Americans and middle class Americans. They felt like they were falling further behind. mind. They stopped believing that the kids were going to do better than them. Well, you look where we are right now, Mika, and you look at affordability. And as I've been saying, shut down or no shutdown? Health care like tax credit or no health care tax credit. We all know. Health care costs are exploding. Your insurance is costing you more. Your denials are coming at Americans fast and furious. Things are not getting covered. And people are falling further and further in debt

because of health care debts right now. And it does not help for Republicans that there's the one saying, oh, well, we have a clean CR. So let's just let the health care costs continue exploding. And I've got to say, finally, me, because something, and this is, this is a sleeper issue. People have to worry about. If you're a Republican, there are millions and millions of parents across America who have children who worked hard through school. They played by the rules. They're graduating from college and because of AI. And we've heard this from Maxis. We've heard it from Jim Vanda High. You have a lot of CEOs that are just saying, we're not hiring anybody. We're not going to fire people because of AI, but we're going to let them just sort of go off

our employment roles by attrition. When they quit, we'll let them go. We don't fill it. But we're not going to fill that position. This is a generational threat. And right now, Republicans have to come up with an answer. You have all of these stupid fights, all of these stupid arguments, all of these, all of these phony, phony battles that they're setting up on cultural issues. We've got a real one I had for Republicans and Democrats to work on. And that is AI taking jobs. away from young Americans who were just trying to come into the workforce. This is only going to get worse.

And it's only going to get worse for Republicans and for Democrats. But Republicans are in charge right now. So maybe they give up on the exaggerations and all these foe wars and saying we're going to declare war on cities. And why don't we all come up with a solution on getting children who graduate from college or graduate from high school or graduate from, well, If they graduate from vocational schools, they'll get jobs. But the other ones, not going to get jobs right now the way they used to.

And the American dream, which is my child will always do better than I did. Yeah. That's vanishing in America. And whatever party figures out how to answer that is the party that wins. Right. And I would argue that even specific graduate vocational degrees, are coming up against AI replacing those jobs. I mean, it is a real crisis. Jobs, housing, affordability, and the Republicans will have been in charge for two years. It's going to be a big

problem for them unless they come up with some solutions. And coming up on Morning Joe, as we head closer to November, political ads are flooding the airwaves. We'll discuss what they reveal about the state of the Democratic Party. Plus, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo joins the conversation to discuss his bid for mayor of New York City. And a reminder that the Morning Joe podcast is available each weekday featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back.

Before past the hour, time now for a look at some of the other stories. is making headlines this morning. President Trump says the U.S. will no longer send financially to Colombia after accusing the nation's president of failing to stop drug production. In a truth social post announcing the cut yesterday, Trump called Colombian President Gustavo Petro an illegal drug leader and accused him of encouraging the increase in drug production and trafficking. The cut comes after President Petro accused the U.S. U.S. of homicide after a Colombian man was killed in an airstrike on a boat last month. The U.S. has ramped up its effort to fight alleged drug trafficking in recent weeks by striking

vessels the Trump administration believes originated from Venezuela, raising a lot of questions about that. Disgraced former Congressman George Santos is a free man this morning, released for prison on Friday after a surprise commutation by President Trump. The president announced the move in a post on Truth Social, writing that Santos had the, quote, courage, conviction, and intelligence to always vote Republican. Santos was just three months into a seven-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was expelled from the House of Representatives in December of 2023.

after the Ethics Committee found substantial evidence that he violated federal law. And hundreds of websites and apps have been experiencing outages this morning after Amazon Web Services went offline. The widespread Internet disruption has affected popular gaming websites, including Roblox and Fortnite, apps like Snapchat and Venmo, ring doorbell service. service, Amazon and Prime Video, plus many others. A short time ago, Amazon Web Services says it was seeing significant signs of recovery and that most services are back up, Joe. Well, I mean, that sounds like Grandpa, but it really does show you how interconnected.

We are tying ourselves so much to these systems, these computer systems. You hack the wrong two or three, and you really, you know. Nothing works, yeah. It's something the government understands that. And it can be cure chaos. Speaking of chaos, I mean, the president says a quiet part out loud, which is on the George Santos commutation, there's absolutely no reason to do that. If you vote Republican, you can commit wire fraud and walk.

That's what the president said in his truth social post. He voted Republican. So he walks because he committed wire fraud and voted Republican. David Ignatius, this doesn't happen often, but the New York Times and the Washington boasts leads. Both start with the same three words, which is Israel hits Gaza. What's it mean? I mean, you know, I know there are going to be people that are going to be screaming in the yelling, oh, we knew this would do.

I kind of always knew this was going to happen. Like, it's going to take a little while to, you know, to clean out a lot of the men. mess, but where are we in cleaning this mess up? The honest answer is just getting started. It was a terrible feeling reading those headlines, Joe, nine days into the ceasefire that we, you know, I think excited and cheered everybody. Trump may have gone overboard saying it was the first time in 3,000 years that we had decent tranquility, but even so, it was an important breakthrough.

And nine days later, the Hamas and Israel, are back in military conflict. There were reports that 39 Palestinians had been killed in this fighting. So it will take a while to settle down. The concern that I have, Joe, I can just state very simply, everybody's wondered what happens the day after the fighting stops. And what we've seen after nine days is there isn't yet a plan

to stabilize Gaza the day after fighting stops. So the fighting starts up again. And that's part of what we're seeing. There's a battle for control in the areas where the IDF is not stationed between Hamas and gangs that want to have the power to distribute aid. One of the saddest things that happened after this new outbreak of fighting

was that it appears humanitarian aid, which was going to be rushed into Gaza to relieve the immense suffering of the people after two years, that that has been slowed, if not stopped. So it's a time when I hope President Trump having such an investment in peace will think hard about how to get it back on track, how to move toward the transitional governance in Gaza

that would make it finally on the road to greater stability in the kind of world that both Israel and the Palestinians need. Well, it certainly seems to me that the White House, Qatar, our allies throughout the Middle East, going to have to figure out a way to disarm Hamas and get them out of power. That is the $64,000 question. And until that happens, I'm afraid we're going to keep having flare-ups like this. I want to ask you about Ukraine.

The president met with President Zelensky. They're talking about long-range missiles that would be able to strike deep into Russia, the president's saying, and again, not an unreasonable thing to say, well, you know, before we start giving you the missiles to strike deep into Russia, We'll do it, but I sure would prefer this war to end. And again, any president, we all understand presidents' odd relationship with Vladimir Putin through the years. But I think we can say right here, any president would be hesitant about giving weapons to a country that would strike deep into the heart of another country that has more nuclear weapons than anybody else. The president will do it, but again, probably not his top priority.

I'm curious your take about what we heard during and after that meeting and also this proposed meeting with Vladimir Putin in Hungary. We saw what happened in Anchorage. Donald Trump took a lot of guff for that. I'm wondering, is Hungary possibly, are you hearing? Is that possibly Vladimir Putin's last chance to take the offer that Donald Trump is giving him? And just caveat for our viewers, oil's in the low 60s right now. Not a great position for Russia to be bargaining from anyway. So, Joe, I think part of the plan for Budapest was that this week or early next,

you'd finally get passage of the Russia sanctions bill that Lindsey, Senator Lindsey Graham, drafted many months ago and that is overwhelming bipartisan. support in Congress so the President Trump could go to Budapest with that arrow in his quiver in effect to say the big sanctions are coming if you don't finally make peace the negotiations seem to be boiling down to a basic question which is does Russia get all of Donetsk province yours may not think what's Donetsk province well it's it's it's the battleground now for 11 years between Russians and Ukrainians. And Russians want it because they see it as the key to being able to move further west

toward Kyiv. But David, he hasn't been able to get to Nask for years. He has been trying for over a decade to get control over and he can't do it. So why in the world would any country give up land that Putin has failed miserably militarily getting for over a decade? No sensible country would do so, and the Ukrainians are fighting, you know, paying blood every day to resist. But I think the point that's worth making here is that President Trump, when he began his peacemaking, appeared to accept Russia's demand that it get the four provinces in dispute, and Donetska is the most important one. He's now come back off

that, and he's saying, I want to ceasefire in place. Russia, you haven't taken all of it. in that skin 11 years. And we're just going to have a ceasefire along the line of conflict. That's what Ukraine, I think, would accept at this point so that Russia doesn't capture this strategic Western point. Putin apparently resisted it. There's a wonderful Financial Times report this morning, which describes a shouting match in the Oval Office between Zelensky and Trump, as Trump conveyed Putin's desire to, you know, get a deal or smash Ukraine and Zelensky, again, resisting. But I think it's really, it's come down to this. Final point, as I said on the show on Friday, it's said that Senator Rubio, the Secretary of State,

accepts Ukraine's argument that it needs to keep part of Donetsk. And if that's true, and Rubio can convince Trump that that's important, then, you know, we may have a stronger position going to Budapest than he might think. Yeah, Ukrainians, though, in my own reporting, pretty disappointed with how Friday played out. I mean, Volensky got on the plane on Thursday thinking that Tomahawks were in the offing for him. And the Putin phone call, the surprise Putin phone call, while Zelensky was in the air, sort of submarine that, there are no Tomahawks on the way, at least not now. And as David just said, the President Trump seemed to take Putin's side here in terms of territorial demands. And the, the, the, the, the, the,

oval office meeting between Zelensky and Trump did get pretty heated. Now, it was off camera. We all saw it in February when it got really bad for the world to see. I'm told it wasn't quite that angry, but not far off. But everyone afterwards, like, tried to play it cool. Zelensky gave a news conference after outside the White House, you know, saying that he still thinks President Trump will eventually get to where Ukraine wants him to be. But in terms of where the war stands now, It's status quo. Putin showing no signs of budging. Maybe that will have to change down the road. But right now, he's not. You know, at the same time, the U.S. has not cut military, you know, sending weapons to Europe, that Europe can then reroute to Ukraine. That hasn't been cut. Still sharing intel. So it seems to be more of the same. But as I wrote, Mika, you know, the situation in Gaza got resolved, at least his tentative ceasefire because President Trump finally stepped in and really exerted full pressure on both sides, including the Israelis. He has yet to exert full pressure on President Putin, and there's the sense that people I've talked to is this won't go to a ceasefire in Ukraine unless he finally does. All right. The Washington Post, David Ignatius, as always, thank you so much for coming on this morning.

So it's 2025 and Democrats are still running against Trump. We'll explain that headline from the New York Times and talk about it. We're back in 90 seconds. Welcome back at 47 past the hour, a new piece in the New York Times entitled It's 2025 and Democrats are still running against Trump focuses on this year's key gubernatorial races for Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia. Voters in those states have been inundated with ads linking the Republican candidates to President Trump. But some Democratic strategists tell the Times they see a missed opportunity to promote. a more positive message. Joining us now, the author of that piece,

New York Times, National Political Correspondent, Shane Goldmacher. And Sam, I'll let you have the first question. I wonder, though, Sam, is the dynamic different this time around? Because this time around, Republicans are in charge. And we're going to have a jobs crisis. We have an affordability crisis. Nobody can buy a house.

The list goes on. So I think you can establish a positive message and run against Trump? Well, I guess my question is, Shane, what's there to be positive about, right? Right. I guess the other question to Shane is beyond that. Yeah, I understand why, you know, maybe a more positive message would inspire more voters. But one of the problems that Democrats tend to have, and maybe you could speak to this,

is that there's just an avalanche of crises or supposed crises and problems that are falling on their feat, essentially, to pick from. So it could be affordability, it could be threats to democracy, could be ice raids, for instance. And each of those messages may work differently in different districts. So is it possible that there's just never going to be one singular unified message in this climate? Or are they making, in your estimation, a mistake and not trying to hone it on one? I mean, I don't think that it's clearly a mistake to focus on Donald Trump in these particular races, right? Donald Trump lost New Jersey. He lost Virginia. And their ads are also running in California over this redistricting measure.

I think the question that's come up is, can the Democratic Party find its own message beyond just opposing Donald Trump? Donald Trump is unpopular, right? Donald Trump is not somebody who voters like overall in the country. You just saw some of those polling numbers, 37% approval rating by AP. But can Democrats offer something else, right?

If you're a voter in New Jersey and you're unhappy, do you blame Donald Trump, or do you also blame the Democratic governor of New Jersey? You're electing his replacement as well. And so there's a real conversation, what can the Democratic Party do to sell voters on their own plan? Because as Trump's numbers have gone down and they have gone down and they are low, so have the Democratic Party's numbers. And so the idea from talking to Democratic strategists involved in this race, not involved in these races and Republicans is, look, the Democrats don't have their own proactive message to sell people on why their party is the solution right now to people's problems. I mean, you're bringing up great point.

I mean, Donald Trump's numbers may be lower, but the Democratic Party's approval ratings are even lower than that. And you talk about Mikey Sherrill's race, she's running ad after ad after ad that talks about Donald Trump. I mean, it's something we've talked about here for months now. If a Democrat is running a campaign attacking Donald Trump, that is white noise. It just is. I mean, they've run against Donald Trump since 2016. At some point, voters like, okay, okay, I get it. You don't like Donald Trump.

What are you going to do so I can. actually afford to send my kids off to college? Yeah, these are the challenges. Look, the Cheryl campaign has advertised on some smaller issues they've talked about dealing with the electricity prices and utility costs in New Jersey. You know, the same thing by the Spanberger campaign in Virginia. It's not that they have no message, but it is that the unifying message for Democrats in these key races this year is running against Trump because they know that's what works.

And it is what has worked for the party in a lot of these races. But it probably isn't enough to win back to the Senate. It works in the primaries. I mean, we're talking about general elections now. That works in the primary. It would be, you know, I'm sure it'd be pretty dumb if you're a Democrat. And you don't run against the sitting president, especially if it's Donald Trump, in a primary. But they're in a general election now.

And by the way, you know, New Jersey and Virginia used to be safe seats, but not if you're running against Donald Trump. Or are they both within like five points in 2024? The New Jersey governor's race is expected to be close. Look, the last New Jersey governor's race was also close. Also, look, these aren't the only races on the bout this year. In New York City, you have a mayor's race, and you have a candidate in Zoran Mamdani, who in the primary and in the general election hasn't run so explicitly against Donald Trump, right?

Folks have a sense of what he would want to do, and it's divisive, and it's not necessarily popular in the whole country, right? Mamdani's agenda would not sell in a lot of red states, but at least he's given voters here a sense of what he would like to do and an alternative that people can proactively Peck. David, when you look at the Democratic field at the moment, and they seem to have had a little bit of success around the shutdown by focusing on health care, they feel that that is an issue that works well for them in the midterms. Do you see a strategy for Democrats? And is the strategy for the midterms focusing on an issue going to be quantifiably different from the strategy for

2028, which is really going to depend on whoever their chosen candidate is. Yeah, I mean, 2028 is a little hard to gauge because it's going to revolve around the nominee. These things always do. I think you need to look at why winning candidates win, right? And this is not rocket science, and there's a pattern here. And that is one, you run against the thing people don't like, right? And Donald Trump's numbers give you something to shoot at. But you have to tell them what you're going to do. And not just that.

You have to tell them what you're going to do about the thing they care about the most, right? So if you've got a plan to build AI data centers, who cares? People care about affordability. They might like your plan. For widgets, they don't care if they're focused on affordability and things like that. There's a reason why in 2010, House then Republican leader John Boehner's message was, where are the jobs? Four words. Everywhere he went, where are the jobs? There's a reason why in 2018 the Democratic message was about saving Obamacare,

because that was primarily what voters cared about most. I remember talking to Democrats in 2018, strategist, operatives. what about the Russia issue? Because back then, it was super salient. And they said, that's in the oxygen. People know about that. We need to tell people what we're going to do. And I think for Democrats, 10 years into Trump, the danger or the thing to look out for is not to get so caught up in important issues like executive overreach and other things that they don't focus on what they're going to do about affordability. and what voters care about most. One danger, one danger sign in a CBS news poll earlier this month, Donald Trump had a 32% approval rating with independents. Independence are king in these elections. You know what the Democratic Party's approval rating was on that poll?

25%. So the Democrats have some work to do, even though there's a lot of political opportunity. The new piece is available to read online right now. New York Times National Political Correspondent. Shane Goldmacher, thank you. much for coming on the show this morning. And David Drucker and Sam Stein, thank you both as well.