Pod Save America - Trump’s 4th Threesome

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

Trump kicks off his Fourth of July celebration at the Theodore Roosevelt Library, where he muses about giving his two sons and himself the Medal of Honor — describing doing so as a "threesome." Jon and Dan react to Trump's plans for Independence Day, including a Guinness World Records fireworks display, a marathon speech in 107-degree heat, and a plan for "250 pardons for 250 years." Then, the guys discuss the administration's desire to ban pregnant tourists from entering the country, Tuesday's progressive primary wins in Colorado, and the new New York Times/Siena poll that shows Democrats effectively tied in the states needed to retake the Senate.For a transcript of this episode of Pod Save America, please email [e-mail].

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long weekend. Long week for me. I'm heading to Maine for vacation to see if I can get some of those Harris Collins voters back on side. You know, you pod boys saying nice things about Platner. I'm just going to try to go to Maine and get it done myself, you know? If there's any group we have a lot of sway with, it is older women Susan Collins voters in Maine. I mean, I'm telling you, I'm going to where I'm going. That is the place. That's right. I understand. Emily's been on the ground for weeks. I know. She's been trying to improve grand partners.

I know. I'm bringing in reinforcements. What are you guys up to for the fourth? Are you sticking around? We're sticking around. We're having a bunch of people over. We're very chill forth. You're not going to...

Very patriotic, but chill forth. You're not going to check out the California exhibit at the Great State Fair in D.C. And listen to Trump speech? We are going to listen to Trump speech. We're going to gather everyone around the TV. We're going to watch it together as a family as one, as anyone who loves America would do. Perfect. Perfect.

The kids will always remember how they spent their two, the America's 250 with their half-century old dad. I mean, I heard that. I heard that's what your kids are calling you. That's what my, that's what Kyle keeps saying to me. She's like, dad, you're now a half a century old. That is brutal. That hit me hard, mainly because I'm only a couple years away.

Well, I will, trust me, I will make sure that your children call you a half century in five years or whatever it is. Yeah, you could probably get Charlie going on that now. All right, we got some news to cover before we take off for the break. Trump making $2 billion since taking office. The right wing freak out over birthright citizenship, more progressive primary wins in Colorado, and you and I are going to nerd the hell out

over some brand new New York Times polls on all the biggest Senate races. Fun. But first, let's talk about how our president is celebrating America's 250th birthday by jumping on his brand new Katari Palace in the sky, formerly known as Air Force One, which touched down in the Dakotas,

for the opening of Teddy Roosevelt's presidential library and a fireworks show at Mount Rushmore, even though people there were worried it might start a wildfire. The Vee-iest thing ever. Trump then jets back to D.C. for what he's calling, quote, the most spectacular Trump rally of the mall, which will reportedly include over 800,000 fireworks in an attempt to set the Guinness World Record,

Trump seems to be going for another record as well. He said, quote, it's going to be approximately 107 degrees out, and I'm going to make a really long speech just to show that I can do anything. Yeah. That is the American spirit. That is the American spirit.

This is apparently why the fireworks aren't starting until after 11 p.m. Eastern. Very cool, very considerate. Trump's really been on one this week. Here he is talking about and to Teddy Roosevelt at the opening of the museum this week. Theodore Roosevelt, he had great passion.

The colonel, they called him, was an American man. He was really a great he man. They say it was 40 pounds of muscle. I don't know how the hell that happened. They didn't have modern day drugs. Of course, the modern day drugs don't do that either, do they? In fact, they actually take away the muscle. That's not good.

The sun was bred. You know, it's like the racehorse theory. They're the only father and son pair to receive our nation's highest military award for courage, above and beyond. Now as I see my two beautiful sons sitting there, I think I'm going to give one to myself, one to them, and we'll have a threesome, okay? I even had a conversation with Theodore Roosevelt. I said, what did you think about the Panama Canal? Do you consider that your greatest achievement? How do you feel about the fact?

the fact that the Democrats gave the Panama Canal away to Panama for $1. Keep your nerve and remember the nation comes first, you get through. I know you know that healing this out. Well, I appreciate those words. Those words are fantastic. And I just want to say it's an honor to be with you today. And we are making a little bit of a tour. There he is.

There he is. jacked AI Teddy Roosevelt, all muscle. He and his son, big winners and maybe Trump and his son can also be winners and have a threesome. What do you think? It just doesn't seem to me like Trump fully understands what's happening in the conversation of the AI, Teddy Roosevelt. No, I don't know that.

Does he think he's talking to Teddy Roosevelt? Does he understand how an AI chatbot hologram works? Yeah, I'm sure. Should we be doing more of this? Should we do, should Democrats have a AI? Ronald Reagan at our convention to talk about how Trump is not a Republican. I mean, there are all kinds of things you do here. Yeah, Trump was deep in the weeds on the executive order to lift the export controls on Fable and mythos, the Claude LLMs. He was, he's deep in the weeds there because

he has a lot of thoughts on those models. So I'm sure. Speaking of AI, did you see this morning that Open AI offered the U.S. government a 5% stake in the company? Yes. You know, that's also a an idea on the left, by the way, that some have proposed. I believe Roe, Kana has proposed that. It is. Now the challenge is, and Bernie has proposed that too. The idea is the government gets a stake of it, and then the government distributes, like, on the upside of these AI companies, the government distributes that to people as like an oil royalty for our age. Of course, the challenge is what happens when Donald Trump is in charge or another Donald Trump is in charge, right?

Like you'd want to have that kind of power in the hands of a president who's into redistribution. Well, you'd have to write, you'd have to write a law that, like the oil royalties in Alaska. Yes. That's in the here. And all that's neither here nor there. Trump's talking to AI, Teddy Roosevelt, talking about threesomes with his kids. Do you think he caught that? Do you think afterwards someone was like, hey, people are laughing because you did talk up,

because the word threesome usually doesn't just mean you and your son's having. medals. Yeah, I mean, I suspect that Trump, as someone who's lived the life he's lived, is very familiar with threesomes. You think he's that generous? Maybe he, maybe, I mean, I, I, I, I, I think that, I think three, three cents, a three thing of, three. You see.

A sign of selfishness is my guess. Also, we're, poor baron. I know. Didn't, didn't, didn't make the familial threesome. That kid caught a lucky break, I guess. Larger question for you. How do you think all these Trump-organized America 250 events are landing with people who aren't MAGA fans or whiny America hating libs like us?

You think most people are seeing all this? I kind of presume they're not seeing it. It's just it's not really breaking through in any way, shape, or form. None of it's exciting. None of it's interesting. People are pretty busy. they have a million options for how to spend their limited attention. To the extent they hear anything, Trump is, Trump has made it all political.

And so there's a whole group of people, like people like us will either make fun of it or ignore it. And then the people who don't really care about politics or don't, or to actively avoid politics, we immediately turn it, turn away from. Like, you can see a world potentially where a different president does something different that is more in the theoretical spirit of America, that is more bipartisan. You know, you can see a world where a dead. Democratic president or even a different Republican president who comes from a different Republican

Party in an alternative universe has on stage the Obamas, the Bidens, the Clintons, the Bushes, and we're, you know, basically the Obama library opening. But, you know, I just, I went back and looked a lot of like what happened in 1976. And so much of it, A, it happened in an election year, which is notable. But also just so much of the attention to it also had a lot to do with the fact that we lived in a world where there were three TV station channels and you had to watch it. And so you couldn't, it just, it was like beamed into the brains of America people. People did get kind of involved. Like I saw the whole thing about how people decorated all their painted all the fire hydrants,

red, white and blue. Some of them turned into like very funny like Abe Lincoln fire hydrants and things like that. But just in this day and age, it's like, it's hard to get people's attention like that. And Trump is not trying to actually do that. He's trying to make it about himself. And that was doomed to fail. Yeah. The attention of the country is pretty much World, World Cup is America.

Yeah, that's like the 250 celebration was last night in the World Cup game where everyone came together and one and now wants to throw tea in the pool of the referee who gave us the red card. He asked to be the appropriate colonial response. Find this pool. Just dump it with dump some tea in it. Yeah, no, I've been really into some of like the, you know, opinion pieces on this. I was like watching that. Netflix has a good doc, the American experiment that I was. Have you been watching that?

I was, I was watching that. I'm a sucker for like revolutionary war history. And but then I was and I was like thinking about it a lot. I thought I was maybe going to write something about it. I'm like, really? This is just a small circle of people talking to each other who already talk to each other on substack and other places. Hey, don't do not knock that.

Do not knock a small circle people talk to each other at various platforms. And like Atlantic readers and New York Times readers and podcasts. I'm like it is you know the people trying to get most of the country to pay attention to the 250 anniversary seems like a tall order when Donald Trump is president and everything else is going on. I just want to caution you that if your new logic is, it's only going to reach a small group of people talking to each other. You're going to stop doing all things. Well, I would talk to people about other issues. Okay, fair enough.

What am I trying to convince people of that this is what America is really about? Yeah, like that's, we're all on board. All right. Few other Trump items to discuss. Lest you think he's trying to make this anniversary all about himself, Trump is reportedly considering an idea described as, 250 pardons for 250 years. That's how a person close to the White House described it to the Atlantic in an effort to, quote, reinforce an image he has long sought to cultivate, Trump the Merciful.

Yeah, he's really been working hard on that. I don't know how much progress he's made. The piece goes on to say, quote, the prospect of a mass pardon has set off an international frenzy of lobbying and dealmaking, in which even slight proximity to the president can be monetized. No shit. And speaking of monetizing the president, Trump's 2025 financial disclosure just came out and shows that the president of the United States

raked in at least $2.2 billion last year while in office with at least $1.4 billion of that coming from his family's cryptocurrency business slash Ponzi scheme. What better way for a president to celebrate America's 250th than by using his office to make $2 billion off a Ponzi scheme and then also. pardon all of his rich criminal friends. I must have missed the announcement from the Republican Congress that they will be launching impeachment hearings over this. Did you catch it? No, I must have missed it too. I was so busy taking in the sites of the Great American State Fair that I might have missed this. The 250 partings thing is so funny because there's

a line in the story which says, I'm going to read it here, one advisor said there had been polling that suggested a mass pardon could benefit the president. I caught that. I caught that. Where do you think? No. How do you think they asked that? Yeah. So you know who commissioned that poll? A bunch of criminals or a bunch of people making money off the criminals. Like that's who commissioned that poll. There is no poll that suggests a mass pardon of frankly anyone. Like, pardons can be good, commuting people's sentences who were have unfair drug sentences. All the other. Like there's good use of the pardon power. Even that is never popular. A mass pardon is not popular. It's an insane thing. It's something that someone told. Trump in order to get him to pardon people that has hired this advisor to do.

I was honestly trying to think of how the question would be worded to get a good result. And it would be like, do you think the president should reduce the sentences of people who've been unfairly imprisoned by a weaponized justice? Wrongly convicted. Are you, would you approve or disapprove of the president releasing people, innocent people from prison? Like that. That is probably, yeah, that probably. probably showed that he was going to give him a little boost.

Now, on the corruption thing, it is, I mean, the about of money Trump's made is truly unbelievable. And the thing that makes it so much worse than it could possibly be, and it's hard to imagine it could be worse than that, is it's not like Trump just picked a bunch of smart stocks or even got inside information or inside access to some IPO that took off or even did some sweetheart real estate deals. Which he was trying to say yesterday when asked about it, He was like, well, everyone's profiting because the S&P is up. It's like, no, that's not what's happening. Yeah, no, that's not exactly what happened there.

And most of his money is not, although he does do a lot of day trading. What is most of the money here is from the crypto money. And that is a very specific Ponzi scheme run against his most loyal supporters. He took money for he, he weaponized their adoration for him and their trust in him, got them to buy bogus crypto coins, essentially pulled the rug out from underneath them and sold a chunk of the company to an Emirati fund, perhaps in exchange for selling America's most valuable technology to the Emirates. The story about this in the Times, as you said, yeah, the cryptocurrency coin created

by World Liberty Financial has sunk to less than six cents, a more than 80% drop from its peak, generating enormous losses for investors who bought it at a higher price. And Trump made money on all, it's not just the value of the coin. He also was making money off the sale of all the coins as well. Yeah, just a total grift. I mean, what do you think about this? Like, it's, I mentioned the Republican Congress because, you know, we're going to talk about this in a bit with the polls, but it's like, yeah, people think that Trump is corrupt,

message delivered. And, but we're not trying to beat Trump in the midterms. We are trying to beat the Republican Congress. And these people could do something about it. They could be like, hey, the president is profiting off a Ponzi scheme while in office. There's all this kinds of corrupt dealings going on. There's all kinds of foreign entanglements, as you mentioned, and potentially foreign corruption, foreign influence that he's working on.

Nothing. I mean, Tommy and I talked about this a little bit in Only Friends yesterday, but I think the corruption stuff is already it's already priced into the baseline here. In two ways. One, people think Trump always believe Trump was corrupt in so many to perform. And they also think most politicians are corrupt. Trump just dips his beak a little deeper. than everyone else.

But he is suffering from the full weight of all of these things. I mean, his approval is at 37%. Like, how much lower do we expect it to go? And is it just because of the corruption? No. Is there one more piece of corruption that's going to come out that's going to drive them to 32? No. But the way I think about all these things is they are all affordability related.

This is just all the shit he's doing that's not helping you. And that stuff hit different when prices were low. it, and it's much worse for Trump when prices are high. And so people do care, maybe not as much as we want them to care, but it does hurt him politically. It absolutely does. And we're already seeing that in the polls. No, my point is that we got to get some of that stink on the Republican Congress. Yeah. I mean, they're, yes, yes. And you see that in. Because you're right. No, I completely agree with everything. You said, like, we can't, like, we did it. People know that he's a bad president. You look poll after poll after poll, like he is losing that argument. But he is also,

a lame dog president who is not on the ballot this November. Yeah. And there's a question about whether that is putting the stink. We'll talk about this in the next section. Whether that's putting the stink on the Republicans or taking the stink off the Democrats is the best route to doing that. Right. Plenty of-

Or a more likely combination of the two. Plenty of stink to go around. I should say that hiring also slowed to 57,000 jobs added last month. The jobs numbers came out way below expectations. And the last two months that they were celebrating, of course, have been revised down. So not a great economy unless you're Donald Trump and you have a crypto scheme that you're profiting off of. Even the Wall Street Journal, by the way, you see, there's a Wall Street Journal editorial. How did I miss this?

About Donald Trump's corruption, which is notable because I know you and Tommy talked about the New York Post did an editorial just criticizing Trump's corruption and now Wall Street Journal. So all the Murdoch properties, except for Fox. They even said yowsers, yowsers, the Wall Street Journal said. The main difference between Hunter Biden's foreign dealings and the Trump projects are that the Trumps are brazenly open about theirs, but there will be political costs for Republicans. If Democrats take back the House or Senate, they will have a field day probing the Trump family deals.

Chargers of GOP corruption will resound through 2028. This will feed the left's class warfare and narrative that billionaire oligarchs are getting rich off government. Will it feed that narrative? I wonder why, probably because it's a true. narrative. Yes. Would it tell people what's happening?

Yes, that's what would happen. Anyway, that's from your liberal friends at the Wall Street Journal. Potsave America is brought you by Quince. When summer finally arrives, you don't want to spend precious time agonizing over what to wear. You want to have great comfortable clothes to wear in the summer when it's hot, you know? That's why you got to keep coming back to Quince. They focus on really well-made clothes that will become like everyday staples that you use

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by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution after slavery was abolished more than 150 years ago. The court struck down Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship via executive order. But the president's reaction to this was pretty mild compared to Trump allies like the Daily Wires Matt Walsh, who said that America's committing suicide and the fact that his children are having their birthright destroyed, quote, fills me with rage so deep I can't describe it. Sean Davis, co-founder of the Federalist, tweeted out some potential remedies that include denying entry to the U.S. to all female foreigners, all pregnant women, and requiring sterilization. of all foreign visitors prior to entry.

And you know who says he's looking into these ideas? Stephen Miller, who has been absolutely hysterical about this. He's talking about national suicide, national self-abliteration, and quote, a deep knife wound in the heart of the American Republic. All right, what do you make of the reaction? And specifically, what do you make of Stephen Miller and other White House officials considering this crackdown on pregnant women entering the country. I can't believe I had to say those words.

And these people are just disgusting, opportunistic, delusional ghouls. Like, it is, it's just so stupid. And it is so, like, just think about this, right? In 2018, Republican, like, there is some political in their head, I try to, like, sometimes try to put myself in their heads, pretend that they are quasi-rational political actors. Like, I think Stephen Miller is doing this from a just purely sincere, deeply held racial, racial animus.

100%. I think other people in the Maga World are looking at this. While they certainly share some of that racial animus, they are also looking this politically in their mind. I think Sean Davis and Matt Walsh are absolutely genuine. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. But I think they look at this and say, we're getting killed on all the, on affordability, all these other issues.

What is the one issue where Trump is not 20,000 leagues underwater? and that is border security. And so can we move the conversation back to border security? Now, the flaw in this plan is that in 2018, when Republicans were getting ready to lose in midterms, they concocted a fake story about a caravan of MS-13 members marching to America. And the 2026 version of that is a bunch of pregnant with tourists. It's just so fucking, it's the grossest thing. Yeah.

It's just so stupid. It's also so stupid. Like, dude, you really, it means just so painfully dumb and gross. It's all dumb and gross, which I guess is kind of the theme of the entire area in which we're living. The Center for Immigration Studies, which is the far right immigration organization, they, because their whole argument here, Trump's argument, Miller's argument is this like birth tourism, right? that people are coming here illegally and then they're having kids so they can be American citizens and then, you know, I guess then the whole country falls apart. But even they say that this is, they put birth tourism at roughly 20,000 cases a year. There were about 3.61 million births

in the United States every year. So that is well under 1%. And that number, the 20,000, is contested. by just about everyone because this is a right-wing organization. Some people think it's far, far less, like a couple thousand. But even if you go by their arguments, it is like it is just, again, much like their voter fraud shit, completely made up argument. It is the danger, like, it seems absurd to us. The danger of it is you take the most egregious, outlandish, rarest, if possibly non-exist an example and you use it to take down an entire system. Like this is Ronald Reagan and the welfare queens all over again, where this is a way to try to undo birthright citizenship, which as you and I

talked about on YouTube after the hearing, you know, you have a potential Supreme Court majority or near majority at this point who would suggest that that could be done statutorily. And so you kind of understand, like I understand the short term political argument there. The longer term thing is to try to make people think this is something that's really happening when it's not actually happening. Yeah. And then the flip side of that from picking the most egregious example is basically what John Roberts argued about the dissent in this case, which was the dissent was like, well, the word domicile should mean where the parents have allegiance to. And if the parents were born in some other country and have allegiance to that country and owe something to that country,

then, you know, then we shouldn't, then the child shouldn't be a U.S. citizen. And Roberts was like, okay, well, what about foreign nationals who are legal permanent residents in this country? And if you're a foreign national, if you have dual citizenship, or even if you just have a, you know, you're a legal permanent resident in this country and you're still a citizen of another country, you do have some allegiance to that other country, and you are still to pay some taxes to that other country. And so now we're saying that all foreign-born people in this country who have children here, those children aren't American citizens.

And then at that point, who gets to decide who's a citizen? Trump, Trump and Stephen Miller get to decide who's a citizen. They get that power. The government gets to decide. That's their argument. And I think that is the argument that most people in this country would not get behind, that your citizenship is determined not by your birth, not by where your parents are from, but by Donald Trump and Stephen Miller.

Yeah, that's right. All right. Let's talk about what's happening with the people who are trying to bounce these jokers out of office. On Tuesday, Colorado held its primaries and once again, progressive candidates won the day. In the first district, which is basically the heart of Metro Denver, 29-year-old immigrant turned lawyer, turned insurgent DSA candidate. Milat Kuros beat Diana DeGette, a 15-term incumbent by about 10 points. Kuros is a Ph.D. student who lost her job at a prominent law firm in 2023. After refusing to take down an open letter, she wrote about what she's,

saw as a crackdown on criticism of Israel. How did she manage to beat an entrenched incumbent like Diana DeGette, in part because of exchanges like this from a debate in early June? And when we have that opportunity again, we have to pass Medicare for all, cancel all medical debt, and break up big medicine to drive back competition in the healthcare industry. If we do that, then whatever sycophant fills the shoes of Donald Trump in the 232 presidential election who tries blame on our most vulnerable communities for a rigged system, it's looking hollow to the voters. Because as a party, we can point to what we accomplished in achieving healthcare for all and say, this is what Democrats achieved for working people. This is how we delivered.

Pretty good. It's very good. It's not just policy where Kuros has managed to draw a sharp distinction. Here's a question she got in a local news interview a week ago about an ad she reposted from a super PAC supporting her. I believe that the ad also suggested that centrist Democrats suck shit. Is that relief as well? Okay. Just hearing him, just hearing the interviewer to say that was enjoyable. Because of the makeup of the district,

Kyrus is almost certainly to win the general election, and she has said she won't vote for Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker if he takes corporate PAC money. In the primary for the state's eighth district, northeast of Denver, progressive state representative Manny Rutnell defeated a more moderate Democrat by 28 points. He will take on vulnerable Republican Gabe Evans, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the country, a big frontline race.

And in the governor's race, the progressive but not DSA state attorney general, Phil Weiser, beat out Senator Michael Bennett by about 12 points. No, you and Tommy talked about this on Potsave America Only Friends, but what were your thoughts on Colorado and where it fits in with the New York results and what's to come? So I think the Kiroz race against DeGette fits very squarely in the narrative coming out of New York. We have a progressive insurgent candidate running against a long entrenched Democratic establishment figure. And like in New York, the Democrat is not a moderate per se, but is, I mean, DeGette's a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Now, more moderate than Kiros and maybe more moderate than some of the voters of the state. district that Kamala Harris won by 56 points. And so this district, I know it's in Colorado, and so we think of it differently. It is just about as democratic as the three in New York.

Yeah, that's a very important point. Harris won by more than 50 points in all of them. And it, you know, it speaks to the very real anger that exists within the party towards the democratic establishment, the status quo, and the system. And we talk about what we talk, you and I in the New York, we talked about the New York races just last week. I think, talked about the ways in which there's anger manifest itself. And Keros ran a great race. She won by double digits. And so that fits in that narrative.

The other two races don't fit exactly in that narrative. What is true of the Wiser Bennett race, like I guess it is fair to say that Wiser is a progressive, but Bennett, but he's not that much more notably progressive than Bennett. and he is not an insurgent. He is the two-term Attorney General of the state who worked for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. What he did do was he did weaponize that anger against the establishment in one of the elements of it, which is Bennett's been in Washington for a couple decades now, or almost two decades. He was appointed in 2009, I believe, to replace Ken Salazar. But he attacked him for not fighting hard enough against Trump, being part of establishment. that let Trump win and then ran on all the things that Wiser had done as a very good attorney general

fighting back against Trump with lawsuits and other sorts of things. And so, but it's not, he's not remember the DSA. It's different. He also was someone with, he as good of name ID and probably more like recent depth of knowledge relationship with the voters than Bennett because he's the attorney. He's a high profile attorney general in the state and Bennett's been in Washington. And then the Rutnell Shannon Bird Race is interesting. and kind of speaks to how progressive candidates, I think, will win in these frontline districts if they're running is.

Routnell did not run to the left. No. He ran to the center. He ran to the center. He even denounce his own former veganism. And he, but he did attack. Unlike, unlike Tala Rico, he really, he really was a vegan. Yes, he actually was a vegan.

He was a PETA activist in one of the top farm districts in the country and has walked away from that. He sort of walked away from Medicare for all, also. Yes, and being a DSA member. But where he went after, which is I think also interesting note, it was where he went after Byrd was on ice because Byrd had had a vote or two in the state legislatures that was suggested. I think it was like cooperating. It was like state cooperation. Wise cooperations, yes. Wasn't like she was endorsing ice or wearing like ice t-shirts, but that was a major issue in the race. And so these are all different. They do speak to the fact that you really don't want to be, particularly in the wiser and.

and Kuros race. You really don't want to be a longtime Democratic establishment figure like that. Yes. You're a vulnerable way, but you've never been before. And that the voter anger at the establishment and specifically the fact that the establishment has not done enough to improve the lives of working people in this country or enough to beat back Donald Trump and Republicans is probably at least what the primaries are telling us, probably even more powerful than anger at Democrats for being too centrist or too moderate.

Yes, yes. I think the issue that— And it's race dependent, of course. Yeah. But clearly in the Bennett race, in the rutinal race, in some of the other ones we're seeing, like that is a factor that is a factor that is uniting all of this, all of this anti-establishment fervor. The ideological thing is hard to parse because it's talked about.

one way by the pundits analyzing the race, and I think it's viewed by voters in a different way. Yeah. Like, and I think a big issue in a lot of these races is obviously Israel and Gaza. Yes. And it's played itself in different ways. It was obviously a central part of Kuros's race and her political identity and her entry into politics was because of her views on Israel and Gaza. And it does represent the issue where there's the greatest distance between the party

establishment and the voter. And particularly the Democratic primary. voter and the most active Democratic primary voters. And I think that issue, it's ideological, what's also a litmus test of sorts in the sense that it says, if you were unwilling to, in the minds of voters, call what is what everyone is seeing with their eyes genocide or to react to it in the right way. It says something about who you are and who you stand for. And so, like, is it, I think it's too easy to say that it's like just, people want to say it's all about being more progressive than being not progressive and it's more complicated in that. It's also,

I think, more complicated than being just like, who's a fighter? Like, you definitely want to be a fighter. Like, not being a fighter is bad. Like, like, there aren't a lot of what, there aren't a lot of people waving the white flag who are winning these primaries or in elections in general. But it, it just, I always find myself struggling with this because it's the conversation is more complicated and dynamic than the, than the terms in which we generally try to have the talk about it and sort of how votes it. Because when people say moderate, liberal, progressive, there's like an umbrella over all the issues. And in reality, it's issue by issue for different voters and in different parts of the country. And in different races, right? Because- And these aren't moderates who are losing,

with the exception of Goldman against Lander. And Goldman, particularly the issue where Golden was most moderate was Israel. But espiat, not a moderate. To get not a moderate. No. But been there a while. Yes. There's a generational element to this too. Coming attractions, you see AOC endorsed Abdul El-Said in Michigan. So there's the Michigan primary where obviously the Senate race is the marquee race. I believe there's also like a house race there as well. Shreith Anadar is a Democratic congressman there who's facing a primary challenge. There's a few more.

Do you have any? Do you know who the other? Yeah, there's Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Oh, yeah. against Elijah Manly and apparently Luther Campbell, formerly of two live crew, which I did not realize until I read the New York Times story of it. Really? She is not, she is running in a district that's not hers because it was redrawn. So it's a little bit more like the Al Green and Julie Johnson losses earlier this cycle. Stephen Lynch in Massachusetts. Stephen Lynch in Massachusetts. Been there forever. Ed Markey in Massachusetts. John Larson in Connecticut, Wesley Bell, who beat Cory Bush two years ago. This is not a generational one. This is

more of a moderate progressive one, but Corey Bush is now, and he won in large part because of Apex spending in that race. He was a, their candidate. And so Cory Bush is now running for her seat again. That's one in Missouri, which comes up in August, I believe. Yeah. So we got, we got a, we got there is plenty of time for panic and overly hot takes and a nuanced takes about all of these things going forward. Can't wait. Pod Save America is brought you by blinds.com. There's a version of your home you haven't lived in yet where the light behaves just as you want, where the rooms feel finished, where the rooms feel finished, where you sleep until you decide to wake up, not when the sun does.

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Free shipping, free returns, and a 30-night trial so you can test it out. Dream big and wake up better. The headlines will still be there in the morning. You might as well wake up ready for them. Did you see Steve Bannon's comments in Playbook this morning? I, AI, Steve Bannon would have said that. Like, I could have told you exactly what that was going to be. He basically said that Republicans ignore or mock the election of DSA candidates and progressive candidates at their peril.

He said, quote, they campaign as anti-establishment very smartly. They're not really even campaigning on Trump. He gets a mention, but they're very much like the Tea Party, like old Breitbart. They're going against the Democratic establishment. The reason we have problems is not Trump. It's the people that should be stopping Trump are actually co-opted by. him. It's very sophisticated and it clearly resonates. What do you think about that? I think, I mean, it's like an overly facile, self-serving. I mean, basically what he's saying is,

like how smart these people are. They're doing exactly what I did 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And he's like a populist, you know? Yeah. I mean, sort of, yeah. Well, no, I think, I think with Bannon, he's a populist in that, in all the wrong ways, in all the like xenophobic, terrible ways. But he's also a genuine populist on economic stuff that he has, he has like always pushed Trump to actually do populist economic shit. And then Trump has never done it in two terms. Yes. I think he genuinely believes that populism is the best politics. Yes.

For the Republican Party that I agree with, which is why he has been so skeptical of big tech. I mean, he takes a lot of money from billionaires for a populist. But his argument was for a populist, for Maga to be a populist working class movement. And he sees Democrats trying to do something similar and being willing to take on their own in order to do it. So I think it's notable. On the subject of DSA momentum, I don't know if you saw Axios had a report on Wednesday that Kamala Harris has quietly been reaching out to Zora and Mamdani, AOC, and the leaders of the uncommitted movement, indicating that she's making plans potentially for a 2028 run and perhaps another ideological reinvention. What did you think about that? So we are getting more and more evidence that Kamala Harris is seriously thinking about running.

If you'd ask me six months ago, I would have bet a fair amount of money that she was not going to run. But she keeps doing things that suggest she's at least seriously thinking about it. You and I have heard lots of rumors of her talking to all kinds of different people in the party. I think if she is running and is being smart about it, there is no path for her to the nomination that does not involve a massive pivotal way from Biden's Israel and Gaza policy. And so having some conversations about how you would do that and how that would be received by people in the community, particularly when she clearly did not engage with that community enough to fully understand the power of the issue in 2024 is what you would be doing. Will that work? Will she be able to pull it off? That was going to be my next

question. How much, how much credibility do you think she gets? I think it would depend on how she delivers it and how if she were to do it, she cannot be, she cannot hedge her word. She cannot worry about Joe Biden's reaction to her words. She cannot worry about whether she's going to anger people in the national security world or the Biden national security team. She has to do what, you know, what people around her were saying during the campaign was like this legitimate, very real empathy for the Palestinians and anger at the Israelis that she was never willing to say.

out loud on the campaign and made a bunch of, I think, really tactical mistakes. Like in the end, the idea that you couldn't give one slot at the convention to a speaker who would talk about what was going on in Gaza is a just seems so crazy now in hindsight. So it would have to be, for her to pull it off, it would have to be just as, I mean, it'd have to be with a level of authenticity and visceral emotion and legitimate anger at what happened before. and that you could not miss it, but you can't, you can't focus group,

but you can't hem your words, you can't worry about Joe Biden. I also think two other things. You have to own some responsibility around that. 100%. Like it has to be like, and not, well,

I was vice president and out, so I wasn't supposed to say anything. Like a genuine, like I was wrong or I made a mistake or I came to this too late. Like, yeah. And I think that it has, like,

she has to demonstrate that she, actually cares about this and it's actually angered her and she's actually regretful for how it was handled and not that she's doing all the things she needs to do to check the boxes to become the Democratic nominee that the Democratic electorate wants right now, which is like always my concern about her. You know, it's like I want to, I want to know if Kamala Harris wants to run again, why she wants to run again and why she wants to be president. And you can already tell like since she since she lost since the campaign, she's like trying out a little like, well, I'm sort of an

outsider. I've always been an outsider. And it's like, yeah, there's anti-establishment forever right now. I'm going to jump on that train. That looks good. And I'm not saying that this is exactly what she believes, because I don't know. But it could very easily come across like that. And my advice to her would be, what do you actually want to run for president? What do you really believe? What's really angering you about the last four years. Talk about that. And if people, you know, if people believe that and people find that persuasive, then you'll be the nominee. And if not, they won't. But like, you just don't, don't look at the, the Democratic electorate as a, I got to get all the pieces together. And this is what I have to say and do. And if I press all the right buttons, then suddenly

I'll get the nomination. You know, I just, that's, and I, that goes for any candidate, for sure. But I think she has a particular challenge there. Can I tell you something that I think you're going to find perhaps very disturbing and potentially exciting? If we follow by the calendars of the previous cycles, one year from right about now will be the first Democratic primary debate. Oh. Just getting nauseous.

Yeah. It usually happens in the summer of the year prior to the election. It's going to be so bad. I'm just telling you. I feel like the, the, the. opening skirmishes. We'll be with that attitude. The opening skirmishes of the great democratic war of 2028 have already begun. And so far, they haven't been going well. I'm still like, we have, we have just this, this is like the fucking tip of the iceberg. It is

going to get so, it's going to make 2020 look like a fucking field day. I don't, I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure. I'm not saying it's going to be great. I'm not saying it's going to be great. I think the, there obviously there have to be points of difference in discussion and debate. And those will be painful because a lot of times people agree on so much that you, you really are slicing the salami so thin to get to that difference. I mean, as it was with the Obama, other than the Iraq war, on all the issues with Obama and Clinton, like we agreed on a lot of stuff. And so like policy stuff, like approach of politics was very different.

But on policy stuff, you know, you're fighting over the individual mandate was the main point of dispute. Point to Hillary on that one. Yes. And so we'll see. We want to talk about this now. You have a plan to catch. I have a lot to say about the poll. So we'll keep going.

We'll keep going. Speaking of the fall elections, we are now just four months out from these midterm elections. Forget about the primary debates. And our America 250 gift, Dan, was a full round of Times-Sienna Senate polls that were released Wednesday morning, which showed Democrats effectively tied, but definitely not ahead, in the effort to flip Republican-held Senate seats. In Alaska, they have Mary Peltolla just two points behind Dan Sullivan. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown is down three to John Hustead. in Iowa, Josh Turrick is two behind Ashley Hinson. In their polls of Maine and Texas released over the last few days, they have Graham Platner up two points on Susan Collins and James Tala Rico and Ken Paxton Tide.

The only clear leader is Democrat Roy Cooper in North Carolina. They have him up seven on Michael Watley. There were also new Fox News polls out this week that have Platner down three to Susan Collins and Turich up for on Hinson and Iowa. Any big picture thoughts before we get into some of the specific races? These polls are a somewhat painful reality check of just how tough the Senate map is. When you dig into these, as everyone knows, we got to win Maine. We have to win North Carolina. We have to win two of Alaska, Texas, Iowa, Ohio.

These are very Republican states. Trump won those four by at least double digits. When you look on the insides of the polls, majorities in all those states think the Democratic Party is too far of the left. This is a group of people. We think about how much. 53% too far to the left, 8% too far to the right, 35% neither. Yeah, not great. You, like we talk about how angry people are at Trump.

His approval rating in these states is all pretty good, like low 40s in most cases. In the, they, Republicans lead the generic ballot in all these states by at least six points. They want Republican control of Senate by at least six points. Except in Maine. Except in Maine. Let's put Maine aside in North Carolina. Yeah, let's put, yeah, that's right. Which is, we should talk about that because Roy Cooper is doing well, but the generic ballot in North Carolina is also D plus six, I believe, which is crazy.

North Carolina is performing like a pretty Democratic state in this environment. It's D plus six. They want Democrats to control the Senate. It is, I mean, people are talking a lot about how great Roy Cooper is doing. He's doing great. He's doing great candidate. But he's actually only overperforming the generic ballot by one point. Yes.

And a lot of these candidates in the more Republican states are overperforming the generic ballot by. three to eight points in some cases. You know, and so it's the point is we have a shot in all of these races. And that is something that you could not have said six to eight months ago, but it is very hard. And it's also other than in Texas, Republicans have actually nominated fine candidates. Ashley Hinson, John Hughes said are generic Republicans. And Dan Sullivan's like a maybe a little bit worse than generic Republican, but basically

a generic Republican. We have great candidates, but is it going to be enough? So this is what I was getting at a little earlier is my take, my overall take on these polls. And again, New York Times polls aren't perfect, but they are as close to perfect as we have. You know, they were off again in 2024, but like, again, the purpose of a poll is not to nail the exact result. I know that's, that might sound shocking, but it's true. It gets you within the ballpark. And in terms of within the ballpark, no one does it better than New York Times, which is why we take these seriously and dig in on them.

So my take overall, if you set all the candidates aside, we have done a great job persuading people, even people in red states that Donald Trump is doing a terrible job as president. I know you said like 43, it's 43 percent. That's not a great approval rating in red states. Like I would have, you know, that's pretty bad. And I know now we're getting used to because some of these national polls have them in like the high 30s. We're getting used to that. But like for any 43 is bad. It's enough to lose, right, if he was running in those states. we have not done a good job persuading people that the Republicans in Congress are the primary reason that Trump has been able to make their lives worse. That's my larger takeaway because you would think that the Republican, I mean, and the generic ballot, right? Like if you take the candidates out of it, because people want to talk about like, this candidate's more stronger, this one's weaker. And if you take all the candidates out of it, you just look at, you know, who do you want to control Congress? You ask that question of the voters, which they did. the generic ballot is just very positive for Republicans in most of these red states, even

as Donald Trump's approval rating in those same states is well under 50%. And that's why do you think that is? Because people don't like Democrats. Like all these candidates are doing great. They are outperforming. Except Platterner. Well, I want to, I'll like all the candidates in the four red states. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. I'm going to put Roy Cooper, Platner aside. Great. We're only talking about these for now. And I'd actually put Texas aside in a little bit here, but in Alaska, Iowa and Ohio. Yeah, those are, that's a good model. That's a good group for talking about this. They are, these are very Republican states. In Iowa and Ohio, the hardest part here is these, where Trump has lost ground is mostly with younger voters and Latino voters. And these are very white, very old states. Yeah. They are whiter than the national average. they are older than national average.

And so there's just less, the voters who are leaving Trump and coming to our side, there's just fewer of them. And it's a more static electorate. Alaska's more confusing. Alaska is not actually a white state, but it is not, but it obviously has a very low Latino and black population as a native population, which just is a little bit different. Texas is interesting because Texas is a majority minority state and has a huge Latino vote, which is why Tala Rico is tied in that race.

Though I was surprised in Texas that the generic ballot is still Republican plus six if most of the gains are younger voters and Latino voters because Texas has plenty of both of those. Yeah. I mean, it's six in a state that Trump won by 13. Oh, okay. Okay. I forgot that he won by that much. Yeah. In every one of these states, Trump won by at least 11 points.

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on why the methodology and the Alaska sample might be a little weird and different, and we're not going to nerd out on that. but the upside is the Alaska results could be actually better than it appears here. Iowa and Ohio, I think, more fit the issue with, it's just white voters everywhere. But I do think what's notable is we have all of our candidates in those states, like you said, are outrunning the generic ballot. So the Democrats are viewed, the Democratic candidates are viewed as less extreme than the national party, and they're more liked than average. And the Republican candidates in those states, though, are also have a higher favorability rating than average. So I do think in those three states especially, so it's Dan Sullivan, John Hustead, and Ashley Hinson, who's also in Congress, she's not a senator, but she's a rep.

I think, like, there's a lot of work to be done on pinning the last couple years of Donald Trump on those three incumbents who are in Washington. We are in an anti-establishment, anti-incumbent mood. those people have been voting for Trump and voting for in helping Trump 100% not stopping him. So it feels like there's just a lot of work to be done there. Is that what do you agree? Yeah, I would say that. It's tricky because what are you moving? Like in doing that, are you like the question that's interesting.

You're trying to find in those states, in according to this polls, there are a bunch of Trump disapprovers. Don't like Donald Trump. Yep. who are nonetheless inclined to vote for a Republican candidate for Senate. And I think those are the people that you want to get. Yeah, I agree with that. The thing that is, the generic ballot is interesting in these races. The question that's more interesting, which kind of lines up the generic ballot,

but is who do you want to control the Senate? Right. And Republicans have a big advantage on that. It's basically akin to the generic ballot. It's 11 in Alaska. They didn't ask a generic ballot question in Alaska because there's only one member of Congress, so they just asked about that race. And that's not, I think, immediately transferable to the political environment because it's a known quantity.

Right. In Nick Begich there. But it, you know, that is hard. Like they're going to make the race be about you vote. A vote for Mary Paltoll is a vote to make Chuck Schumer and a bunch of, you know, DSA people or whatever in charge of the Senate. Yeah. And so you need 11, you need 11% of them to say, no, we will take Mary Patel anyway. Like, like, that's hard.

I think Ohio is, Ohio is indicative of the larger challenge here, which is Sherrod Brown has a plus eight favorite. rating in a Trump state that Trump won by 11. A majority of Ohioans do not think that Sherrod Brown is too far of the left. Although a majority of Ohioans think that the Democratic Party is too far the left. If the goal is to not be a typical Democrat, Sherrod Brown has fucking nailed it. Yep. He has a relationship with the voters. They like him.

They think he's different than the Democrats. They hate. And he hasn't moderated his views on anything, by the way. No. Like he was just at our house doing a fundraiser a couple of weeks ago. And he sounds exactly the same as he has for the last several decades. Well, now he's down four. Great.

Thanks for telling everyone that. But what's interesting is if you compare the results of this poll to the exit poll of the Ohio Senate race in 2024, he is doing exactly the same as he was in that race. Exactly. And his percentage of the white non-college vote, which is a majority of the basically half the vote in Ohio. is exactly the same. And he's doing no better than Kamala Harris did essentially nationally with that. He's getting 36%. What do we do about that? I mean, this is why Ohio is such a hard fucking state. Now, can he convince some, like there are places where he can make gains. He can make gains with black voters. And that's that you can check up black turnout.

He can do better with younger. Like, there are places to get there. But this is why he's down three. And this is why these states are so hard. Because even though he is well liked, he is not extreme. people, he is not getting more votes than he did four years ago. Two years ago. That's a hard part about running Sherrod Brown two years later. You're going to need some people who voted for Houston to either stay home or voted for Bernie Moreno over Sherrod Brown to either change their vote or stay home. And that's not that's not super easy.

He was the difference is, and this is one of the reasons these polls sort of brought me back down to earth in a serious way is two years ago he was running in a presidential electorate, which is obviously going to be harder for a Democrat in a state like Ohio. I guess I assumed that a midterm electorate would be better for Democrats than it is in these polls. And I always thought that Sherrod's chance, and I still do, the shared chance to win this time versus last time is the fact that he's just going to be running in a different electorate where there's fewer non-college educated white voters who turn out to vote in a midterm than there are in a presidential. Well, the problem is Ohio is an older white non-college turnout state and those people voted a higher rate. And as Nate Cohn pointed out in his analysis of the polls, a lot of the voters who have left Trump don't vote in midterms. Right.

And that is going to be more true in a state like Ohio, which is it just a like... That's interesting. Ohio is just this state that because this seems crazy people who've only been watching politics for the last couple of presidential elections, but prior to that, it was the election, the state that decided the presidency in basically every election. And it has been registered and organized within an inch of its life. And one of the reason why it was felt hard for Obama was we always felt like we could do best in states that have large unregistered populations of potential Democrats. North Carolina, Florida. Texas. That was a dream about Texas over the years.

And Ohio just had, there were no no votes to get. Young people were leaving. And so it's a, it's a hard, it's a hard state. Can he still win it? Absolutely. He can. But I think it just speaks to how, like, why this is hard. It's doable. It's doable in all these states, but these are harsh states.

And by the way, it's why North Carolina and Texas are states that not just this cycle, but many cycles into the future, Democrats just have to win at some point. Because you don't run into the same older white voters and no new voters issue in those states because so many people have been moving to them over the last decade. They're becoming more diverse. They're becoming younger. And so on paper, they should be states that Democrats have a better chance in than places like Ohio and Iowa long term, long term. I am interested in why the generic ballot in North Carolina is so good. Well, it is a thing about it this way. It's a state that Trump won by two points, I think. I think two points.

Yeah, it was very close. He barely won it by less than a point in 2020. And so if you think the generic ballot is plus seven or eight nationally, that it kind of gets you to a plus six. Yeah. Yeah. And so there's, and that's Roy Cooper there is just, you know, he's just trucking through and not really getting any national attention and the race is kind of quiet and it's benefiting them. That's, it's probably a state where getting attention is a bad thing. Well, he doesn't need attention because he has high name ID and voters like him. Right, right. So he does not need to be doing TikTok dances. And then before we get to Maine, because Texas is sort of

the opposite issue, which is, I do think in Texas, um, obviously, James Taylor, he goes a strong candidate. We've talked about that a lot. And there's been a shift in the ballot, the generic ballot in Texas. But I think it's fair to say that Ken Paxton as the candidate

and his problems and issues are hurting him in these polls. Yes. People, it's a little bit like Maine. That's right. Yeah, that's right. It's the opposite.

It's absolutely hurting him. What is interesting is, I find this impossible to believe, and it may be the factory that ends linear political television advertising forever. which is the Texas primary was the most expensive primary in history. Ungodly amounts of money were spent by John Cornyn and Cornyn Super PACs.

Most of that money was spent by the Cornyn side telling people about what a corrupt dickhead Ken Paxson is. And only 38% of voters. Dude, that was wild. Hearing a lot about it. And yet when you go to Maine, most voters have heard about Grand Platner stuff. Nearly nine and 10 voters have heard about Grand Platner stuff. Now, part of this is Maine is a small.

smaller state, much smaller state. And I think it's word travels fast there and people know. And I think that, you know, there's opportunities there as well for Plattenor. But I think it does say something about the sort of the gap between when there's a right wing boogeyman and a left wing boogeyman. Yeah, but it is. The thing is is that there was the entire Republican Party infrastructure was spending hundreds of millions of dollars to tell people this about Ken Paxton and people still haven't heard it. Yeah. So maybe they were doing it in the wrong way. I think you're right. I think it's TV stuff. It's like, and online, like, we weren't talking about all of Ken Paxton's problems until it was, you know, time to vote. It just didn't, it didn't break through in the last

year the way that Graham Platner stuff broke through. Let's talk about Maine. So Democratic Party machinery is getting behind Platner, grudgeonly or otherwise. The Senate focus packed majority forward. Is that what their first attack at on Susan Collins? Let's take a look and then we'll talk about the polling there. 30 years living the Washington, D.C. lifestyle. style changes people. Getting rich from insider trading should be illegal. But Susan Collins doesn't think so. Susan Collins is trying to keep it so senators can get rich playing the stock market.

They're making millions of dollars. While we can't even afford groceries and gas, we need to tell Susan Collins to stop the congressional stock trading. Okay. What do you think of that ad? What do you think of that message? and then your take on the polling in Maine. I want you to do an Oscar style music, play me off the stage if you have to go catch a flight

because I honestly could talk about all these polls for five straight hours. I can do a podcast on every one of the polls. I think I'm good. It is about an hour to LAX. I should make it. Okay. All right.

Just don't let me miss your flight because I will never hear the end of it from your wife. She will know now. Yes, yes, she will know. I don't think she listens to this podcast. That's fine. What am I talking about? Yeah. My wife might tell her. That's the problem. That is true. So the logic of that ad, because it's always like you look at this ad sucks or the massive strategy of this ad is bad. Then you remember, they're very smart people with a ton of data that you and I don't have who make these decisions. So I imagine the strategy of this ad is to say, you have a lot of people who voted for Susan Collins in 2020 and in previous elections. Like Susan Collins overperformed. She won by nine when Biden was winning Maine by almost nine. So like a 17, 18 point overperformance. This is this. This is a is a stunning stat. In 2008, she won by 23 points when Obama was winning Maine by 17.

Wow. She's overperformed by 40 points. Oh, my God. So you've got a lot of people who voted for Susan Collins. So one way to do that is that you want to create a permission structure to them to say, I did this thing before. She's changed. She's changed. So that's the argument. But if you look at the New York Times poll, and it's one poll, and it's a public poll. That seems like a bad strategy. because in this poll, two-thirds of voters think that Susan Collins has good character and morals. So it seems hard you're going to convince even a lot of people are voting for Grand Platner thinks Susan Collins is a good person. And so it seems hard that you're going to convince them all of a sudden that she is corrupt. And it seems to me your better argument is to look at the fact that by a margin of I think 12 points,

I'm just left time ahead, Democrats, people in Maine want the Democrats to control the Senate. And so there should never be an ad run that is not Susan Collins standing. in the Oval Office holding that Maga Hat. Yeah, that's, that's probably the more potent argument, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I think that's why, and you see, Plattner was doing this in his primary night speech and elsewhere, the Brett Kavanaugh vote feels like a potent attack on her because it is a place where she was basically, you know, I'm doing what Trump wants me to do and it's going to be fine and then it's not fine.

And that's probably an easier argument than, oh, this person that has, that you think has brought home federal money to the state and has good characters actually a crook. Yeah. In that in the poll, in the poll, 57% of independence and the majority of all Mainers, which I believe is the appropriate term, think that Susan Collins would be too supportive of Donald Trump. Yeah. Like that is like there is a, there is a world for the Platner campaign that existed a year ago with none of these revelations, I think it's happened, where it's like, we are. we are running a campaign to change American politics and reshape the coalitions. This poll suggests that those days are over, although there are some places where Planner is doing better than Sir Rydion did, which is why he's winning and she lost by nine points.

And also why comparing this poll to the 2020 polls of where Sarah Gideon was at this point is not a great idea since those polls were all wrong. Yeah, that that drives me insane. You cannot, even Nate Cohn would say that poll was very, very well. Of course. The best thing you compare it to is the 2020 exit poll. because they actually exit pulled this race in 2020. And Grand Platten, if you look at that,

Graham Platner is doing exactly one point better than Sarah Gideon did with white working class voters, which in Maine were 98% of the voters are white, I believe, is just working class voters. So, and basically the same number that Kamala Harris did in 2024 with working class white voters according to catalyst data. Where he is doing better,

which is why he is winning in Saragin, being was losing by a lot is he's doing much better with young voters and he's doing better with men. Yeah. The challenge the reason why he's not up by more is pretty simple. Susan Collins is getting 10% of Kamala Harris voters. Although Plattner to his credit is getting 4% older white women, which is exactly what Ron Brinstein has been saying and said on this pod that his his biggest concern is. Like I know we all want it like I will stipulate that Graham Platner is being weighed down in some way shape or form by the things that have come out like that that is definitely true. He is underperforming all these other Democrats are about are overperforming the generic ballot. He's underperforming it

by eight points, I think. Yeah, because it's right. It's 11, right? It's 11. So it's nine points. He's underperform by nine points. That is significant. Now, the idea that we were going to be Susan Collins by 10 points or even five points, I think probably was fanciful because there's definitely some grand plan underperformance. There is no question about I am not disputing it. There is definitely Susan Collins overperformance too. Well, yeah. And also because his approval is 4550, which, isn't great, but is not horrible, right? You can win at 45% approval, which is just look at Donald Trump. And hers is 4851.

Hers was much, I was less surprised. Actually, I was surprised by both of them. I thought that his favorability might be worse after everything. And then I thought hers would, but I thought hers would be worse. 4851, this seems quite good if you're an incumbent in an anti-incumbent wave and you've been there forever in yours oldest Susan Collins is. Like that, that's surprise me. There is this misreading of the polls where, like, they ask people not to compare Plattner and Collins on characters and morals.

They just ask them if having good characters or good morals to scrap them. So Susan Collins says these incredible numbers on, you know, in the 60s on character and morals. And Platner seems like his numbers are much lower, but they're still in the mid-40s. Yeah. So he's getting 48% of the vote. So there's like 4% of people who are voting for, who don't think Platner necessarily has great character. morals and are voting for him anyway. There are 18% of people in some cases who think that Susan Collins is a good person or voting against her anyway. Yeah. I will also say that both Susan Collins

and Graham Platner are more popular in this poll than Janet Mills. Yeah. This is the other takeaway. Like is it possible that like a John Baldacci or a Hannah Pingree if they had run as a generic Democrat would be doing better than Grand Platner? Probably. Maybe. Maybe even probably. Maybe even probably. They chose not to. They chose not to. In some cases, in some of these candidates, were encouraged not to by Chuck Schumer according to some reports. But the idea that this poll has a fair amount of evidence that Janet Mills would be doing worse than Grand Platner.

Certainly not better than Grand Planner. And the bigger thing is not just her favorability rating because that's somewhat dragged down by Platner people who don't like her. The bigger issue is that more than eight and 10 main voters think the main economy is bad. I know. Those numbers. And when the economy is the number one issue in the election, she, like, she actually would be someone who was being, like, it would be as much a referendum on her as opposed to referenda on the Trump economy. And so that would be a very, very tough order. Yeah.

No, I think, look, clearly all of the revelations about Plattner have heard him and he has a lot of work to do. I don't think anything in this poll shows that, like, what's happened is fatal. No. I'm very concerned if other revelations come out. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. For sure. I do think if these, because then some people will argue, well, the Republicans haven't even spent all their money yet, making sure that everyone knows about everything that's come out already.

On that, I would say, like, most of the voters in this poll, what, 80% have heard about his problems and his issues. So, like, I don't know that there's much more education to do on that front. I think what their hope has to be is that there's more stuff coming out on the Republican side that they can use. The thing that I worry more than the character and stuff and the moral stuff is that Platner is seen as more extreme than Susan Collins. And that's where I think, that's the ads I think are more, would be more concerning. Susan Collins, very much people do not think she's extreme. Right. Yeah.

And it's going to be, that's not pushing on an open door on that. It is, it's much easier to say like, oh, well, she's just, just look at the record. She goes along with Trump and you don't like Trump. There you go. Just vote for Susan Collins. is a vote for Donald Trump Senate. Vote for Susan Collins is a vote to confirm another Trump Supreme Court just. A vote for Susan Collins is Trump, Trump.

It's not that complicated. It should just be everything. Do not overthink this people. Like you need a bunch of people who want the Democrats control the Senate to vote for Grand Platon. If you do that, you will win. Yep. All right. That's our show for today.

Everyone have a happy fourth and a great holiday weekend. Tommy and Love it will be back with a new show on Tuesday. And I'll be back a week from Tuesday. Bye everyone. Bye everyone. Have a great fourth. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher,

Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari with Reed Jirlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethkoe, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kiral Pellev, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.