Morning Wire - District Club: GOP's Midterm Anxiety and Democrats' Leadership Battle

Episode Date: September 6, 2026

As Republicans prepare for their national convention, the party manages concerns over tight races for congressional seats it historically won handedly. Meanwhile, House Democrats battle over leadership posts, as their party reckons with an identity crisis. District Club Ep. 1 - - - Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: https://dailywire.com/subscribe 🎆 🇺🇸 Celebrate America 250 with 3-Months of DailyWire for just $17.76 📜 📲 Download the free Daily Wire app today on iPhone, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, and more. - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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you can find her substack, the inner circle. The inner circle. Yes. And you can watch her as a co-host on the huddle, which is an excellent show that gives you the inside perspective from Washington, which is what we're going to bring you today, hopefully. This has been an interesting week in Washington for a lot of different reasons, but I think the big thing that's kind of looming over all of it is this upcoming Texas midterm convention, which Rachel is really unprecedented. It's not the kind of thing that you see a party do. And the thing that I think is really unclear about this is, is this just about the Texas Senate race and Ken Paxton and concerns that Republicans have

about whether he's going to be able to pull off a critical win in a red state against James Hallorico, or do you really think that it means that the GOP is going to have some kind of reset that Buck's historical trends headed into the fall that, you know, kind of really gives Republicans momentum and, you know, for a GOP that's been infighting, it brings the party back together in time?

Yeah, I think, look, a lot of Republicans are asking, themselves one question and that is why you have a lot of vulnerable Republicans who frankly just don't want to go to this right they think their time is better spent back home in their districts campaigning doing events you know fundraising with donors etc they have to spend money to go to this 25,000 dollars and right now we are in crunch time in the midterms well I mean people need money hanging out with Trump is not something you do for free Rachel okay the money in theory guys right should be flowing the other way at this point, right?

Maga Inc. has $400 million. The president has said they're going to spend. His team has said they're going to spend. Where's that money? This is the thing, right? And I think this is also like, we can try to search for any number of reasons for why we're doing this, why their party is doing this convention, right? Why is it happening?

And there's one answer, and it's Trump. And it's Trump wants to do it. And Trump wants to have an event. And I mean, again, it's who are the, they haven't announced any of the lineup yet. We know exactly two people who are speaking. And it's Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. two people who are famously not up for election in this midterm cycle and not members of the legislative branch.

And that's, again, I think if you start thinking about it less as anything that's actually going to help anybody, right? I mean, nationalizing the midterm election is probably a terrible idea if you're one of these vulnerable Republicans, but it's the Trump show. Well, yeah, and I mean, the president is always going to want to be kingmaker. That is his favorite title as of late. He wants the world and especially Republicans to acknowledge that he's the one that decides who wins or who loses when it comes to Republicans.

Yeah, Kristen Welk learned that the hard way, man. And he's not going to give that up. So I think this is just another opportunity for the president to remind Republicans. We still have two more years of the Trump-Vance administration, and you all need to fall in line. But is that good? Right? Like, I think you're right, Mary Margaret, but like, is that good for the Republican Party? They're freaking out about this.

I mean, right? This notion that beyond this convention that they're having next week, this notion that, and you're starting to see it in some of the ads that they're cutting, The president putting himself front and center in the midterms. You have vulnerable members who are really worried about it. So let me ask you about those ads because I think we saw those start to roll out this week. Those ads are just, I'm Donald Trump and everything's awesome. Like, I mean, that's the way that I read that. It's just Ron Ward's going great.

The economy's banging. The stock market's up. You know, I'm sure they'll add the jobs number from this week to it. You know, if I'm a vulnerable Republican, it feels like, This is just all about him. It's not about whether you should actually go to the poll and cast a vote to send someone back to the house. It's also a change in strategy from the Trump operation in recent months. I mean, go back to, I don't know, six months ago, I remember hearing from the Trump political orbit that they did not want this to be a referendum on the president, right?

Midterms are usually a referendum on the person in power. They wanted to make this a choice, right? It's a choice between Republicans, the progress they've made so far, the progress that they're promising to make. and Democrats who are increasingly socialistic, who want to get rid of the Senate, who want to get rid of the Supreme Court, et cetera. But the president has come in, again, wanting to be front and center,

totally changing that strategy with these ads, with what's going to go on next week in terms of the convention. It's a total pivot from what his team has tried to do for six months. But not opening up the checkbook, which you said earlier, and I think that's also right, that's the key. Mary Margaret. So he wants to be front and center, but not necessarily taking,

that final leap of, well, I'm going to take the reins inside. Mary Margaret, you got an answer from the vice president this week when he was doing the briefing, which I think, you know, he misses Caroline Levitt a little bit. He performed great, but you asked him to give his elevator pitch for why people should vote Republican in this election. What did you think about his answer? Well, you know, you and I were talking about how this elevator pitch was kind of long for an elevator pitch. It just took a skyscraper. Yeah. But I think it was really interesting and it did encapsulate a lot of the points that we've heard the Trump administration make and heard Vance make in recent months. But the big thesis statement of it was you're choosing between common sense and radical policies and measures that will transform our country. And that's really the point that the vice president wants to drive home. And I think it's the point that on the president's team wants to drive home. We'll see whether that fully makes it into his speech. You know, the art of the weave. He likes to get a lot in there. But I do think that's what we're

we'll hear from Vance on the first night of the RNC and hopefully from the president as well, because it is at least a cohesive message. You know, they're battling a lot of Democrat candidates who, you know, have these very radical policies. We have the DSA. We have Democrats who are panicking, trying to figure out whether they want to align with these socialist candidates in their party. That's a very easy layup for Republicans to message on.

Sure. But so let me ask you about that. And I'm curious, everyone, you know, what you think about this. My own perspective is Republicans were handed a narrative. by the outcome of these primaries that they didn't have at the beginning of this year. And it's an untested sort of thing to say on a national scale

we're seeing this type of radicalism. It's one thing to pick out big city mayors or AOC or something like that. But to see this kind of widespread success of the DSA is not something that we have a precedent for. And we have this Michigan race now being one that every Democrat has to answer for in the same way that Republicans had to answer

for Todd Aiken or for something. some of these other nominees in the past. Do you all think that's going to work? Well, look, can Republicans keep the focus on that? And again, this gets back to, like, can they keep the choice front and center? Or is Trump going to make this about himself? Because, like, the DSA stuff is scary. I mean, the numbers, the number of socialists in the House

that are going to be elected into the House next year is going to more than double. I mean, they're talking about capitalism being racist. I mean, like, this stuff is crazy. It is an easy layup, as you said, for Republicans. But the problem is they need to keep the focus on that. And they just, a lot of times, you know, it fears off script. And they've struggled with that.

Does the Louis G. Mangione, like, angle of the Democratic Party? Is that something Republicans can kind of lean into? I mean, I think they have to, right? And I think obviously they are. And it would be ridiculous if they didn't. But as to the question of whether or not that works for them, I mean, Abdul Al-Sayed is going to win in Michigan, I think. I'll put my marker down right now.

Wow. Okay. I think Abdul al-Saiad, he's going to win in Michigan. Place your calci, that's now. I think it's interesting sort of to watch, like, him is the avatar of the socialists, the sort of the rising socialist in this election in the Democratic Party. And I think that we almost might get to a point where attacking him as this sort of avatar allows a lot of Republicans to win in the House, but then he still wins in the Senate.

But so then I don't know how good of a long-term strategy that is, right? Because it'll get, maybe get, yeah, sure, maybe it gets a couple of congressmen elected. Maybe it helps Ken Pax then eke it out over James Tala Rico. But if the big baddie gets elected, all of a sudden going into 2028, that's a very different. I think Tim just got over the mark on that because of the Tucker Carlson endorsement. That's what got him there. Well, I think we're underestimating the power of the Talafico here when we have, you know, the president who will get up on that stage this week. And he will be telling the whole world that James Tolarico is a freak,

which he is repeatedly said on many occasions. Apparently is bulimic when it comes to. That was a new line from him about the ability to eat meat. He's really not a fan of this candidate. And we're going to hear a lot from the president on this this week. So I wouldn't count out the fact that Donald Trump understands the conservative ecosystem. He understands, first of all, that he will always make himself first and foremost. He's in a very legacy building phase.

That's what we see at the White House. That's what we see in how he's messaging to the rest of the world. But at the same time, he still cares about Republicans. He actually hosted an event at the White House earlier this week where he brought in all these Republican lawmakers and told them how to message and told them he was going to support them. I believe he said he's going to 35 different states during the next period up until the election.

And he did say, and I thought this was worth noting, that it's going to be the way it was when he was leading up to his own election. He said he didn't really sleep. He went to four or five rallies in those last couple days. And that's what he's planning to do for Republicans. So he's getting ready to do his all-out campaign. He's been focused on other stuff, whether it's Iran or the ballroom. But now it is going to be about Republicans.

The one thing that I think is a risky aspect of this for Republicans is they basically are trusting that he can carry them over the finish line, even if he's not on the ballot. And they made the decision this week, Thomas Massie. he won his polymarket bet or whatever, they would leave town without doing a lot of things that critics, including people like Larry Kudlow, had been asking them to do in the run-up to the election to actually have a Republican congressional agenda

or experience to run on beyond what they've been sort of talking about for the last six months. I feel like that's a really risky bet. You mean not to stay in and actually do their job? What? How dare you? I mean, look, they have a narrow majority. And clearly, Speaker Johnson, that I'm not justifying this by any means, they should be doing their job.

Determined that they're not going to be able to pass a lot of these bills. I mean, they could be doing a ton of show votes, to your point. Affordability, housing, health care. Like, sure, they're not going to make it to the president's desk, but, like, staying in and trying to get something done. But, I mean, just think about the housing bill, they tried to pass the summer. Housing affordability, they tried to pass the summer. They ended up passing it. The president said he was going to veto it unless he got the SAVE Act through.

like it ended up being a huge drama. They lost the talking point on that. Like they could have passed it, been unified, and gone back and told voters what they did. And instead, like, it ended up being an infighting mess. So this is his calculation. It's like nothing good is going to happen here, go home campaign. Right.

But the other thing is that, right, I mean, this week, we saw an infighting mess on the Democratic side. I mean, Akeem Jeffries, you know, having this rule vote loss out of nowhere that, you know, involved Democrats, you know, Jared Golden and MGP, who, you know, crossed over and saved Republicans, you know, in a way that was apparently unexpected by Democrat

leadership. There's all sorts of infighting about the, you know, committee assignments that they've been making in anticipation of this ESA wave. Mary Margaret, what do you think about the, you know, the possibility that Republicans are kind of missing out on something by not staying in town when Democrats look like in there in a moment of weakness? I think that this R&C is bigger than that. I think this is more important. Look, we're all heading down to Texas. We're all going to be there. Donald Trump's going to be there. He's going to be in attendance both nights, which, you know, he did this at the last RNC, although I believe he had a bandage on his year from an recent assassination attempt, which carried a little more weight. But we're all going to be down there. And this is

an opportunity for Republicans to unite, an opportunity for the president to unite everyone behind the same message. So I think that I wouldn't worry too much about that if I were Trump or other Republican strategists. But I do think this is, you know, this is a good opportunity to switch gears a little bit to the way Democrats are handling their leadership. the way, you know, Hakeem Jeffries is struggling right now. His meeting with Jared Kushner recently, the way he was lambasted by other Democrats, the influencers, all these activists on social media.

It's such an example of how Democrats are struggling to figure out their identity. So I'm curious, Tim, maybe you can lead us off on this one. Do Democrats still have control of their own party, or are things dramatically shifting towards that DSA leadership? I think that they have shifted, right? Like I think the, and I think one of the issues that we're seeing with Jeffries, right, is this isn't two years ago where it was, oh, no, it's the squad versus, you know, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and whoever. It's, what's happening now is that the vibe, to use a word, right, has shifted. But they're not, they're not there yet, right?

The DSA guys are not there yet. They haven't been elected. They haven't gotten their committee assignments. And so Jeffries, I think, is walking this almost impossible tightrope of he knows that six months from now. he's going to have a very different caucus. So it's like, it's not just the establishment leaders versus the new guard. It's Hakeem Jeffries, who's always sort of been in the middle,

now trying to navigate who's there now, who's coming. It's like somehow worse than that for him. The headache for him goes beyond just DSA. It is a lack of respect from a lot of Democrats across the political spectrum for Hakeem Jeffries. I mean, if he becomes speaker, he's gonna be limping into that speaker. That looked like a hostage video.

Yes. Yes, we talked about that on the huddle and how it looked like a hostage video. But like the Kushner thing, just take the example of Mom Dani, for example. Okay, so Mom Dani, super far left, Democratic Socialists, goes to the White House, meets with the president, someone he has attacked personally, makes friends with him and the base cheers and is like, yeah, good for you. You like, you know, you found a way to go and sort of, you know, get him to do what you want. Hakeem meets with Kushner and the blowback is universal from Democrats. It's just a meeting.

I mean, literally they're talking about are there ways to work together if Democrats flip the house? Could they work with the administration in some fashion? And he got routinely just mocked for that, tried to do, again, an apology video didn't turn out well. Losing the rule vote like this week where two Democrats voted with Republicans to advance a rule, you just don't do that. And to not even give your leadership.

Heads up. This is lack of respect, okay? So it's not just DSA. It's like the pod save America bros who are criticizing him. It just, it shows that he does not have the muscle that, not even close to the muscle that Speaker Pelosi had, but he's got a real leadership challenge here. Has he ever had that muscle, though? Has he ever had the respect that Pelosi had? Pelosi, to be fair, she had like years to sort of, you know, build those muscles. And she enacted revenge on people. She, you know, if you crossed her, you wouldn't get a committee assignment, your bill wouldn't be advanced. She had time to like create that optic, right? He's new to this. And I don't think he, I mean, he's been watching her for years, but it's not like she was teaching him

how to do this stuff. I do think one thing to watch is how he treats those two members who turned against him last week. Is there revenge? Like can he actually make sure that they are punished in in some fashion because he really needs to do that to flex in some fashion. I feel like one of the things too, just to the point of him never having that muscle, is that, you know, with Pelosi, she was battling against a group of people who were pretty disparate and also politically inexperienced. You know, people who hadn't really been around for a very long time, it's not like they won accidentally, but it's more that they came in without having that type of structure and

organization and their own independent fundraising that the DSA weighing. now has. And I think that that's the difference between what Jeffrey's faces in terms of a challenge versus what Pelosi faces. He now is a situation where basically people can say, we don't need leadership to fundraise. In fact, we can fundraise better than you can. And that's something that's very dangerous for a leader to face because of the power of the purse and the ability to prevent, you know, people from winning in some of these primaries just by dint of being able to spend that money. What should his move be then? I wonder. Like, I genuinely don't know. But like, what, if you're Hakeem Jeffries, what do you do?

I think it's revenge. Like Rachel is saying, you have to be stronger there. You got to put some muscle into that. And the figure that always emerges in my mind when I think of Democrats who have muscle, who have, you know, the scary factor to make others listen is Akazio Cortez. She's still in there. She's very active in the game. She's got a lot of light on her right now.

She's got a lot of attention from her recent social media. I don't know what you call them, gambits. her new IVF push, her engagement ending, all of these different things, which maybe you can say they're coordinated, maybe you can say they're not. She's really got the limelight on her right now. And I think that she's very excited to put that to something to maybe a presidential run soon. But she's got the focus on her, and I think she's excited to use that. I think one of the things that we're also going to see is a lot of people driven out of the Democratic Coalition, just in the way that we saw people driven out of the Republican.

coalition over who were viewed as breaking too far from this DSA insurgency. And I don't think that anybody is a bigger name in that front than John Federman, who we saw you know people going after this week. Rachel, what were your thoughts? I know Tim has a ton of thoughts on the Wall Street Journal story that broke on Friday. Oh, Tim, that story was brutal. Brutal. I mean, like for those who haven't read it, details about him skipping constituents.

meetings, having meetings with, like, paralyzed veterans that he skipped then to go to, like, a Fox News interview. I mean, the whole thrust of the story was that he doesn't care about constituents, doesn't want to do his job, but he just wants to be a, like, you know, a star for conservative media, right? But I, and Tim, like, I want to get, I want to hear your take on this for sure, because I think you're like, welcome to the Senate. Spoiler.

Like, to me, when I read this story, I was like, okay, this is, again, a good example of Democrats pushing out the center, pushing out more centrist Democrats, because, like, they cooperated with that. His own aides cooperated with that. There were screenshots. This was an internal hit job. And as soon as the story came out, immediately there was a reaction to it, you know, from all these different Democrat operatives and other people tweeting it out, amplifying it, etc. Tim, this is your favorite story of the week. What did you think about it? Oh, no. You United States Senator doesn't want to meet with constituents who want to talk about Medicaid funding and better than disability funding and instead wants to hang out by himself and go on cable news.

This is, oh my God, this is crazy. I'm shocked that gambling's going on here. No, I mean, it's that it's the fact that ever since, look, I think that the Federman situation is more nuanced than just, you know, Federman likes Israel so everyone hates him, although that's obviously part of it. But the October 7th split between him and his staff, there has been, like, the Federman team in exile has been working to undermine him this whole time, which is obviously where this story came from. And I will also say, look, I obviously, I agree with John Federman on the Israel stuff. I think that to your point, the Democrats are wrong to sideline a popular moderate in their caucus like this.

Well, but. Popular with Republican. Sure. And independence. But I will also just say that for all the Democrats are hand-wringing now, maybe they shouldn't have pushed and pushed and pushed. and untested guy who had just had a stroke. And every, and remember, I mean, it was, you weren't allowed to say that.

It was, if you opposed, it was, it was like, oh my God, that's so bad. Of course, we need to get him. He's the most important person we can have elected to the Senate. And now it's like, you played, I'm not even gonna say stupid games, but play this game win this prize. I just, I mean, I appreciate your acknowledgement

of the actual level of work that senators like to do. It's a time honored tradition in the same vein, as the old line from a very famous magazine profile that summer didn't begin until Ted Kennedy had driven on the sidewalk. So the thing that I think is the thing that I think is actually hard though for Democrats on this point is to a certain extent, Fetterman acts as a lightning rod. And a lightning rod is actually useful. A lightning rod absorbs the energy that might be directed at other people.

And so there are a lot of people, I think, who are still generally pro-Israel in the Democratic coalition or conference. There are a lot of people who are still kind of where John Federman is if they're not as vocal about it. And he attracts attention away from that. And if he wasn't getting that attention, I mean, would Elisa Slotkin be getting that attention? Would be some of these other people who are sort of not that much different from him? Would they be getting all that heat? I just wonder if essentially he's useful. to them on something. Yeah. It's interesting. I think

absolutely he's drawing a lot of the fire like you're saying that other people could be receiving. One thing that I noticed from that story, and I caught this when I was getting ready, it was a screenshot of a conversation he had with a staff member. And I didn't get to verify this. I'm sorry, that's ridiculous. That's crazy. I saw that. Rachel, I know you said that. That's ridiculous.

I know, I thought that person now knows, the Federman knows that that person leaked that to everyone. And it was, I believe it was about a very big funeral that happened recently. Did anyone else see this? Yes. really upsetting and he was talking about how he didn't want to sit there for three hours and how that would be a non-starter. It was so bad. Yeah.

So, I mean, we've seen this a lot, though, on Capitol Hill of staffers recently who are taking matters into their own hands. I think most recently, perhaps with Nancy Mace, where her team just got so sick of her that they went straight to the press with real screenshots. And that's kind of a page turner to me indicating that we're in a different place on Capitol Hill than we were before. I was going to say you should always treat everyone, treat them with respect in Washington because the intern is someday going to be your boss or they're going to leak this. But also, hold on, I just, I think this might be a good thing because congressional staff sizes have ballooned so much and it's so ridiculous. And maybe now, maybe now these lawmakers will sit back and realize, well, I could either have just like a body man and a press secretary

or I could staff my office with a bunch of scheming viziers who are eventually going to leak my emails to the Wall Street Journal. Maybe this will rain things in on Capitol Hill. It's the equivalent, though, of me texting Tim and telling him I don't want to go to a specific event and him leaking that to a publication. I do leak all of our text messages, though. That does happen.

Careful. The thing, I'll push back against the idea that you have to show respect to these traitors' interns. Breeder is interns. Listen to you. They're going to be leaking. his text very quickly. I'd like to be nice everyone,

I'd like to take the anti-intern. So, so, so, but what, Hey, look, I was, I was an intern at the White House. I was an intern on Capitol Hill. I was, I've been, you know, but the, if you, if you do something like that, you should be fired and you should be fired immediately. Well, yeah. See, you know about it.

And you should not get the opportunities that, and I think that part of this is this assumption among a lot of, of the younger people within the Democratic coalition, in particular, because they're less sort of structured than the Republican side, that they know better than the olds. The Democrats have an age problem. The whole country obviously has this octogenarian leadership problem, but it's been worse on the Democratic side. And the reason is just that they held back.

They didn't have the term limits for the different chairman. They didn't have the kind of turnover that you've necessarily seen. And I think that there are a lot of these younger people who came in with the DSA and they're like, enough. get these guys out of here. We know better. And from their perspective, that's, that is something that they see completely endorsed and bolstered by everything that they see on TikTok, everything they see on Instagram,

everything that they see surrounding the most exciting campaigns. They want their boss to be out there with El Sayed, with Asan Piker, et cetera. They don't want them to be saying, oh, well, you know, it's just some California streamer. Well, it's because attention is the currency that they value the most, this newer class of consultants or staff, and they don't understand a world without social media. And honestly, a lot of older Democrats don't understand a world with it.

And the law, I think there's no incentive for anybody on the Democrat side, whether it's a lawmaker or their staffers, to do, to play within the bounds of what used to be done. I was thinking about this, Mary Margaret, when you were talking about, you know, AOC, she's blown up on social media. She's got the news cycle. She's doing all these interviews.

And at no point, I don't think, did any of us think, and she's going to use that to make a bid for speaker or try to be the Democratic whip. Of course not. If you're Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, if you're a rising star, you have two goals, and it's either the White House

or just general social media influence and fame. And so, of course, if that's what the principles in the Democratic Party are doing, of course, that's how their staff is going to act, why would anybody want to be minority whip? Right? I mean, no one wants to put in the work.

No one wants to... I think she do it. I think she do it if she couldn't have president. I think if she saw that the stars were not aligned for her presidential bid. I disagree. That's a different game. The leadership, the congressional leadership ladder, that is an inside game

of making friends with all the members versus the, as you said, the social group. And your losses are public and your wins are quiet. But you guys think she runs? You think she runs? Oh, I think she runs. I do too. I think this is her moment. I think she would be so foolish not to? She wants to run against Jody

Vance and she has made that very clear. She loves the thought of being up against. She loves the childless cat ladies theme to run against. She's prepping her whole social media and her whole aura, has the kids say, for this moment. And honestly, I think she deserves the moment. She was smart. She was the only smart member of the squad.

She knew when to pull away, when to double down. I, like, she is good at this. She is good at this. And it's- She can appeal to that wonderful combo of of Lindsay Clancy TikTok and Hassan Piker viewers, which is the, you know, basis of the Democratic energy right now and run away with the fact. And yet still kind of paint herself as a moderate, I think.

Yeah. Well, she never be considered a moderate, but you're right. She's played, she has tried to play the inside game in a way that is much smarter than I think a lot of people expected when she came to Washington. I mean, a lot of Democrats hated her because they were jealous of her power, jealous of her fame. And she has made friends with a number of House Democrats that you would think she never would have. Yeah.

There's an interesting dynamic that's going on in the election right now, which is that we have some things, and just to shift a little bit, that have popped up basically as issues this year that have been unexpected. We always expect that, you know, a midterm election is going to be about the economy. It's going to be about, you know, whether gas prices are going up or down. It's going to be about, you know, how optimistic people feel about their job or about losing it, that kind of thing. And connected to that, we've seen two things come up as really, you know, astonishing, I think,

a little bit unexpected political issues, perhaps earlier than they were going to be. One, of course, is AI, which is related to the job loss question. And the other is this conversation around data centers. Tim, we saw this week Democrats using kind of a new angle of attack on Republicans on data centers related to opportunity zones. I did not expect that to happen. I don't know about you. What's the situation there and what's their argument?

I don't think anybody expected it. It's kind of, it's both smart and stupid. I mean, the opportunity zones are probably the one of the things that Republicans have done the best that they've gotten the least amount of credit for, right? And so anyone who you'll be forgiven, Ben Carson will forgive you if you don't remember what an opportunity zone is. This is a program. It's administered primarily through housing and urban development. 2017 tax cuts and job acts. Basically, developers get massive tax incentives to go build in underdeveloped areas. It's mostly been focused in urban areas, right? So you've seen building up hotels, apartments, things like that.

at the big beautiful bill, they sort of doubled, they re-incentivize the opportunity zones to fix on wider rural areas, right? And so now what's something that everyone wants to build in rural areas data centers? So you, Democrats are saying they want to put a data center in your backyard, which is, I don't know. It's a smart, yeah, okay, Margo. It's a, it's a smart tactic. It's a weird, it's like a very disingenuous line, I think, but it's smart to get there. Like a Democrats, Republicans want to put data centers in your backyard. It's a very smart line. And actually, Ben and I were talking about this the other day because I was in this briefing

with J.D. Vance. And we were both saying, this is a great opportunity to ask him about this because Republicans have failed so badly at messaging on data centers, in part due to how the president is messaging on this. And I think this is so interesting because Trump is no man's fool. He is a very effective messenger. But on data centers, he's not really reading the room.

What they're saying is these will create jobs and they're going to be good. for the country and just kind of plowing forward, well, there's a whole lot of Americans. And if you're opposed to them, you're pro-China. You're dumb. You're a dummy. You're a dummy is what he said, right? But there's also this whole condescending crowd that's like, oh, the only people that hate data centers are influenced by Chinese propaganda, which I, you know, as someone who has

paid a lot of attention to this conversation, I don't think that is accurate. So, you know, Vance, when we, I was thinking about asking him, someone asked him before me, he didn't really take the road that I thought he would. he aligned with the president pretty strongly on data centers and talked about how they'd be good for communities. I believe he said maybe I'm messing this up that they should be listening to communities, but there wasn't the tone, which, you know, as an outsider on this messaging fight, I probably would have talked about, you know, the interests of Americans and why they should be listened to and their homes in town should be protected, things along these lines that I think

Republicans are just missing out on. The thing that I think is interesting about this is a challenge for J.D. Vance, you were talking about how smart aOC has been. What AOC is doing and what Bernie Sanders is doing on this AI slash data center front, and there are separate issues. Like, I don't believe in the whole, like, it's all about AI fear. I think it's actually a lot more nimbly, you know, costs of power, costs of electricity, you know, cost of, you know, water, et cetera, those concerns.

But the thing that I think is interesting about it is we know that J.D. is very close with the tech industry. He's very much, you know, sort of a forward-looking guy in that area, but he also has these rural roots. And I think that it would be really helpful to the Republican Party if someone with his background and his connections who understands these issues could vocalize, make the case, make the case in a way that would be beneficial to a lot of these House and Senate candidates who seem to just run away from the issue because they're worried about fending the president. Absolutely. I mean, honestly, and I think, someone asking the question to Vance, for example, can you speak to the people of a rural town in Ohio who feel like their town is going to be destroyed, putting the vice president in the mindset of one of those people, rather than just how are you supporting the president's message on this? I think that would make a big difference too.

Yeah. I mean, look, you guys are all saying, like, Democrats smart to seize on this issue because there is this widespread fear of the AI and data centers what it means for people's pocketbooks. But I also, I am concerned about long-term what that is. I mean, I just feel. like a race to the bottom right now on the data centers. And like if we're going to be competing for the future, if we're going to beat China, yeah, we have to be number one in AI. Like period, we have to. And you can't just say that, right? There is a nuance to this. And, you know, as an elected official, you're right, Jady Vance, he would be the perfect sort of person to make this case, being from having his rural roots, understanding the concerns of a small town America, but also like, you know, smart regulations, right? And then finding a way to make sure

that we are number one, but also hearing the concerns of rural America at the same time. There was an interesting sort of story this week about the fact that in Frederick Maryland, where they wanted to build a data center, they basically just through everything and a lot, you know, and plus cake and icing with, with, in terms of investing in the community, you know, they're going to build new parks, they're going to give money to the schools, they're going to do all these different things in order to basically buy off the community. The reason why I think...

Smart. Yeah. I actually think it's... I do think it's smart too. I think that's why the data center thing, I think they're ultimately going to prevail because they have the money. They do.

They have the money question. Sponsor every single Little League baseball team you can. Exactly. We will pay for your travel team. I think what's happening is that the political dust up really kind of took everyone by surprise. Yes.

And it's, like, to your point, Rachel, about the long-term effects, right? Usually these things sort of, you know, you get development backlash kind of of coterminists, and then it's really just a matter of who's going to pull ahead right at the end. What I think happened here was like the data center, they just kind of started their initial push

and everyone objected so quickly that then the parties were scrambling, and that's why you have these very blunt force. It started with, we're pro, we're anti. Now we're starting to see a little bit of nuance, right? We're sort of doing it from the inside out. Democrats are going to have this nuanced thing. Maybe now this pushes Republicans to get

the vice president or somebody else out there and then eventually right i think the the development then is going to catch up to the rhetoric as the rhetoric kind of slows down i wonder what just circling back to where we started this conversation i wonder what we're going to hear from the stage if anything uh in dallas about this issue because obviously yeah i mean greggabit came out and said yes it is uh great abit came out and said that he wanted texas to lead the country in ai and data centers and then called for it's not really a moratorium. It's more like a slowdown in terms of development. You know, we also saw things being said about this from Ron DeSantis and from Josh Shapiro. So this is a bipartisan thing where people thought it was just going to be a pro-business,

yeah, yeah, yeah. And now they have concerns. I'm wondering if the kind of thing you're talking about, Mary Margaret, if that's something that we hear from the stage, from somebody to try to make this. I mean, I certainly hope so. But if you think about it, the president certainly won't be saying anything like that. And Vance is not really in a position to do that. I mean, maybe privately he agrees with what we're talking about here, but publicly he's going to align with the president, and that's what he's always done. But I was talking about this with the group of my friends the other day, and some of them were saying, look, this is an issue where sometimes government officials, the president, know better than the public, and they have to

just carry the day and make this happen. And I thought to myself, that is what Republicans think right now. They're kind of trying to push this against the will of the people. And it's so contrary to everything that MAGA has stood for. You know, MAGA is a group that listens to the people. Maga, well, you know, they posture is listening to the people, right? This is what MAGA is built on. We care about the people. Democrats don't care about you. Maga is for you. Democrats are for them. They them. And that's how MAGA has really positioned itself. So in this situation, I think Republicans really need to take a beat and think about how to message in a way that data centers, are for you and we're going to make them exist in a way that only helps you. Otherwise,

it's going to be a huge issue in the 28 elections. And I think we're already seeing that crop up. I think you're right about the messaging thing, really. I think obviously it's just it's clear that in this instance just sort of hammering saying we know better, trust the experts is not going to work. But I wonder though, if I actually think that this is less of a, less of a sidestep for the Trump administration and for the MAGA movement broadly than it has been read. There are a lot of instances. where the president just sort of decides where he wants to be on a policy

and plants his side. So that with the beef thing. Yeah, the beef. Iran. I mean, honestly, a lot of the stuff or the lack thereof on abortion and IVF, right? I mean, he's sort of kind of planted his flag outside the party on that one.

And it's either sometimes they rally around him. Sometimes it's just like, let's not talk about it. Yeah, but this is different. I know it's different, but I'm just saying I'm not shocked that the president is not like, well, let's listen to the people. on this or that MAGA Inc broadly is not. I think the question is which people, you know,

the thing that I still think about is the, you know, the first inaugural, you know, he has, he quotes Bain and he says, I give it back to you, the people. And because I know who wrote that speech, that was a Bain quote. And it got past them. But the thing that I think is interesting is that the second inaugural, he is surrounded by all these tech guys

who have come around and who are there to pay, you know, sort of homage to him. And that means that they have his ear, way more than they did in the first term. And so, I mean, I think that this is a big question. And it's one that I don't think that we're going to, you know, see resolved, certainly not in Dallas. We don't always know what the main storyline is going to be of the next week when it comes to a political party. In this instance, we actually do have the advantage of knowing that. I'd love to hear from you, just as an exit question to all of you, what do you think the headline is going to be coming out of Dallas?

how many vulnerable Republicans actually go? I think like everybody's going to be literally like counting. How many Republicans actually show up to this thing? What do you think? Well, it depends on who you're reading, Ben. If it's a daily wire, we might actually tell you what happened there. If it's legacy news, it'll probably be something negative. What do you think?

What do you think? I think it's going to be about how Trump's three-hour midnight speech is either going to, will it help or hurt the vulnerable Republicans who did or didn't show up? Also, are they going to actually start spending? Where's the money, guys? I think that's where the war chest opened. I actually think that that is going to be the headline, which is going to be Republicans talking behind the scenes. Hey, he's got this money. We need it if we're going to keep our jobs. You've been watching the inaugural edition of the District Club. I want to thank you for tuning in

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