Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Trump’s Epstein Scandal Blows Up (ft. Galen Druke)

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

Will the new Epstein documents affect Republican candidates in next year’s midterms? Jessica Tarlov is joined by political journalist Galen Druke to talk through it, and to analyze some deeper insights from last week’s election results. Plus — whether the redistricting efforts in Texas and other states will wind up backfiring, whether Democrats will see ramifications from the long government shutdown, and early predictions for the 2028 presidential race. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, The Downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide.

Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Welcome to Raging Month. I'm Jessica Tarlov. And my return guest today is Galen Droke, backed by Popular Demand. He's the host of GD Politics, here to make some sense of a huge newsweek. I feel like we didn't really have big newsweeks for a little while. It was just like shutdown mania. And then, you know, when it rains, it pours.

Gailen, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks so much for having me. When it rains, it pours, indeed. We got what? Like the end of the shutdown, the Jeffrey Epstein files, election results, more We're gerrymandering news. I mean, it's truly a data nerd heaven. Absolutely. And also, Robin's new single is out. We were talking about that beforehand. We don't have to play it.

Hugely important news. It is. And you loved it? Yes. Any thoughts? Will she, like, tour again? I mean, I never saw Robin on tour, but I can't believe that there are people who don't know Robin, because you met some of them yesterday.

Yeah, I was recording a podcast when her single dropped, and I was on, in the recording. studio with three people who are roughly my age who didn't know who Robin was. It was kind of shocking for me, but a live version of one of those bubble quizzes that you take where you realize how much in your own world you are. But it was an experience for me to get out of that world and realize that there are, in fact, young people who don't know Robin as somebody who's seen her twice live, once in Millennium Park in Chicago and once in Barclays and Brooklyn, hard for me to imagine. But, you know, part of being a good analyst is putting yourself in other people's shoes and trying to understand the world beyond yourself.

So maybe we'll try to do a little bit of that today. Okay. All right. I'm down and would be excited if Robin came back to Millennium Park or Barclays. But let's go Epstein Files first. You know, there was, started with House Oversight Dems on Wednesday, leaking out some new emails. There's a lot of back and forth, right, you know, saying you rejected a name. We know who that is.

One of the victims, Virginia Jafray, who said that Donald Trump was never untoward, towards her. So they basically said this is a big nothing burger. Then they dropped like 20,000 emails later in the day. How are you making sense of the Epstein drama? Yeah. So my perspective on things like this is to generally try to figure out how much Americans care about it and therefore how much it might impact politics. And, you know, we just had a set of elections last week. And so we got exit polls where voters revealed what was motivating them to go. to the polls and turn out, and you'll probably be unsurprised to hear that the Epstein files did not rank on any of those lists. You know, highest on those list was economic concerns or pocketbook

issues. Further down on the list were things like immigration or crime, but, you know, affordability was the takeaway message from the evening. So I don't think that this is going to be a political earthquake, at least so far as the information we have. But I do think the Epstein files play an important role in the political dynamic between the two parties. Issues can punch above their weight when they divide one party and unify the other party. I mean, a good example of this would be the Israel-Gaza issue during the 2024 election for Democrats, right? It was something that divided Democrats, so Republicans wanted to talk about it basically as much as possible to provoke infighting and whatnot. Now the shoe is on the other foot

when it comes to the Epstein files. This has been a Republican issue. Republicans have been talking about the Epstein files for much of Biden's presidency. And now there is some clear division, both within the Republican caucus in Washington, and also amongst Republican voters when you look at polls. So in some recent polling, about 70% of Americans say that they are paying at least some attention to the Jeffrey Epstein story. And of those folks, you know, two-thirds of Americans and say they disapprove of how Trump is handling the issue. Now, again, that doesn't mean that it all of a sudden supplants affordability concerns, but it does mean that Democrats have every incentive to keep bringing this issue up to, you know, further try to tarnish Trump. His approval rating

right now is pretty bad. It's close to the lowest it's been during his second term, you know, a net negative 12 points. And if we're talking about the Jeffrey Epstein files, at the very least, what we're not talking about is any attempts that Trump may be making to ameliorate, you know, Americans' economic circumstances. Yeah, I mean, there's reporting that he is going to start touring, doing a domestic tour, to talk about the economy. And I want to get to that. But before we move on from Epstein, I wanted to run this argument that Democrats have

been making, and I certainly have been talking about it. And I think that it's effective to use Epstein as part of this broader argument that Donald Trump is betraying his voters, right? He promised all of these things, whether that's to lower your cost or to release the Epstein files. And Rokano was giving an interview yesterday and used the term Epstein class. And to include Donald Trump in this, because, well, it certainly hasn't been exposed that he did anything untoward with a young woman who was part of Epstein's disgusting pedophile ring. He clearly knew the guy very well and knew exactly what was going on. And we've seen that from the birthday book to these emails. Do you think that that argument that Donald Trump

is part of this cabal of rich and powerful people that are screwing innocence over everyone from young girls to people that just thought that he was going to help them get ahead is something that's resonant with the American public? I think so. I mean, I think there is at this point we can say pretty confidently that the president has a floor. Maybe. Maybe. it's 33% of Americans or something like that, with whom they're going to approve of his performance almost no matter what. You know, these are the people who stuck by Trump post-January 6th and the like. But I think in many Democrats' imagination, he has this hold over all Republican voters and they're immovable. The reality is that a lot of people vote for Trump,

voted for Trump because they didn't have an alternative that they liked in either sort of Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris, right? And so we're heading into a midterm cycle right now where voters aren't really forced to think about a big name alternative in some kind of Democrat at the top of the ticket. In a midterm environment, people are thinking mostly about who's in power right now. Do I like them or do I not like them? And if I don't like them, I'm going to vote for the alternative. And maybe the alternative is somebody I don't even know. A lot of people don't even really know their own Congress people, but they know that if they don't like what Trump is doing, they won't be voting for Republicans. And so I think this is an

environment where that kind of argument really works. You're being screwed over. You should be pissed off. And therefore, you should turn out in 2026 to deliver that message. You know, I think perhaps the last time I was on this podcast, I said something along the lines of voters don't turn out to say thank you. They turn out to say, fuck you. And this kind of message, I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on this podcast. Feel free to leave me. I love it. I was the best thing that's happened so far besides a little Robin discussion.

So, yeah. Fabulous. Okay, so I'll keep swearing. But this is the exact kind of message you want to deliver to people, which is you're being taken for a ride. And, you know, the sort of pro-democracy message that you hear on MSNBC and the like, that works for a segment of the population, which is the highly politically engaged, generally college-educated, quite a bit older part of the electorate that has been in the resistance

for a decade at this point. But you're getting screwed over. You're getting screwed over because of this vast conspiracy. You're getting screwed over because of prices. You're getting screwed over because, you know, the administration is doing the bidding of the billionaires. And the same goes for sort of the crypto and AI industries and relationships with Qatar and whatnot. You know, that maybe gets sort of under the skin a little bit more of a part of the electorate that isn't just automatically going to turn out because Trump is breaking democratic norms. Last week's elections, which I kind of want to get your top line, obviously, you said the glitzy word affordability already. But what did you see in the election results that maybe, you know,

we haven't touched on so far? And what do you think it portends for the midterms? It portends bad news for Republicans at the midterms. So I should say up first, run. I also liked when you said that. I liked to say, fuck you and it portends bad things for the Republicans in the midterms. Yeah. So this is something we can say pretty reliably. Going back to the early 90s, the relationship between overperforming in the year immediately following a presidential election and overperforming two years later in the midterms is basically a perfect relationship. The party that overperforms in the off off year almost always, basically always performs, overperforms then in the midterms. Now, by what margin is harder to say,

the relationship there is a little more muddled, but here's what we can say about what happened last Tuesday. So in New Jersey and Virginia, Harris won by just six percentage points in 24. In the most recent election, in New Jersey, Mikey Sherrill, the Democrat, won by 14 percentage points. And in Virginia, the Democrat Abigail Spanberger won by 15 percentage points. So that's a nine point and an eight point overperformance from where those states were in 2024. Now, I would be skeptical to say that it's going to be an environment in 26 where Democrats will overperform by quite that much from where they were in 2024. You know, these off-year elections do attract still a more politically engaged electorate, a bit sort of better educated, a bit wealthier,

an electorate that just because of the demographic trends that we see in the country tends to favor Democrats a bit more. But turnout was pretty high. It's not like this was a low turnout election and the only people turning out were MSNBC viewers. I mean, in New Jersey, for example, the turnout was higher in 2025 than it was in 2022. So let me repeat that. it was higher in an off-off-year gubernatorial election than it was in the last midterm cycle.

So I think that that tells us that what we saw on Tuesday night could be to some approximation replicated next year. Now, the last time we were in this situation, Republicans did really well in 2021. Then the Dobbs decision came out the summer before the midterms, and that shook everything sort of upside down. Something akin to that could happen again. It's hard for me to see what particular case at the Supreme Court could do something like that, even if the Supreme Court says that Trump's tariffs are unconstitutional. I don't think that reshapes the American electorate quite to the degree that Dobbs would. Although, you know, if suddenly everything becomes very affordable as a result, never say never. There are two more parts of the electorate that I really

want to sort of highlight here when we talk about what we saw in these off-off year elections, which is young voters and Hispanic voters. That was the big takeaway from one of the big takeaways from 2024, which is that Democrats bled so much support amongst those groups. I wrote down these numbers, so I could cite them exactly. So looking at New Jersey in particular, which is more diverse and in some ways more representative of the country as a whole than Virginia, Harris won Latino voters there by five points. And in New Jersey, Harris won voters under the age of 30 by 11 points.

in the election on Tuesday, Mikey Cheryl won Latino voters by 37 points, right? A 32 point shift. Cheryl won voters under the age of 30 by 38 points. So the snapback amongst that group of voters. Now, some of that is a turnout differential in that sort of the more republicantly inclined young voters and Latino voters

weren't showing up to the polls. But we know from looking at the exit polls that there is a big chunk of people who turned out this fall, who voted for Trump last year, and then voted for a Democrat this year. And so what I would say is there's been a lot of talk about a realignment, and this realignment may still be in the works because there's going to be some snapback and some stop and start and whatever. But I would think of these groups of voters that have swung a lot in recent years as not

realigned but unaligned. These are people who don't feel a strong connection to either party, and can be one over in one direction or another. And so I think it's sort of incumbent on us in the political chattering classes to maybe reimagine what a swing voter is. Not this kind of like white college-educated New Hampshire, right, who turns out to every single election and sort of marks like, well, I like this one policy, but I don't like this other policy

and sort of the caricature of the person in the diner just trying to make up their mind. It's somebody who is not all that interested in politics, does not pay a ton of attention. is strongly affected by pocketbook issues and won't turn out in every election. And, you know, we're on the podcast raging moderates. And so I assume that people like the idea of some kind of moderation or at least competition between the two parties. And, you know, each party is going to celebrate when these unaligned voters fall into their column.

But I think the bigger message is these voters are in play and a sort of competitive politics that tries to geared policy solutions and messages towards, you know, unaligned voters who are up for the taking is kind of good news for the competition that is American politics. That's interesting and switching the jargon from swing to unaligned. I will definitely take that into consideration when I'm talking about these issues. We're going to take a quick break. Stay with us. Dejardin, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure growth and expansion advice, and we can talk your ear off about transferring your

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How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma at other people? I don't even know how to answer that question. Allison after Nexium from CBC's Uncover is available now on Spotify. Having a smart home is a cool idea, but kind of a daunting prospect. You have to figure out which devices to buy, how to connect them all together. It's all just a lot. But for two weeks on the Vergecast, we're trying to simplify all of it. We're going to spend some time answering all of your questions about the smart home,

and then we're going to go room by room through a real house, my real house, and try to figure out how to make it smart and how to make all of that smart makes sense. All of that and much more on the Vergecast wherever you get podcasts. This special series is presented by the Home Depot. Welcome back. I wanted to stay on Latino voters and then also talk about the fact that black men who had swung at least a bit towards Trump in the 2024 election came back to the more traditional baseline about 85, 86 percent support for the Democratic candidate. And I was curious if you could talk to me about what that means for the Republicans' gerrymandering plan. because one of the big narratives of the last week has been, you know, Prop 50, which overperformed

massively. And I think, you know, people weren't silly when they were saying that the biggest winners of the night were, you know, Abigail Spamberer, Michael Sherrill and Zoran Mamdani, of course, but maybe Gavin Newsome above all else because he's also, you know, shot to the top of the 2028 primary discussion, which I want to do with you as well. But, you know, this is such a massive blow to Donald Trump's plan to gerrymander the country so that they could have a better midterms. And Latino voters meeting the 2024 threshold was such a key component of how the Republicans move in Texas would bear out that, like, what does it say that Latinos are at least, you know, shifting back towards Democrats or maybe part of this unaligned cohort and are not going to,

you know, fall in line like the Republicans thought. Yeah. So I think what we're getting at here is a term that us nerds like to call a dummymander, which is when you get so greedy with your gerrymandering that you end up making the districts that you were hoping to put in your own column competitive because the other party is performing so well. So I will say from the start that if we are in territory where Texas Republicans have created a dummymander, particularly maybe in the second. southwestern part of the state. This is an environment in which Democrats were walking away with the midterms anyway. And so it's more of a question of, is the margin, you know, is the margin in Democrats' favor in terms of how many seats they pick up, you know, two to three seats more than an other already good night?

So in some ways, you know, the jerry, the dummymander question is more of a technicality, although it would be, I guess, for some folks, sweet revenge to, up picking up the seats that were designed for Republicans to win in any case. I totally agree with your assessment that one of the winners on Tuesday night was Gavin Newsom, right? I mean, I back in the spring did a Democratic, far too early, 28 Democratic primary draft with my former colleague Nate Silver. And I, you know, I won the coin toss. So I went first in choosing the person I thought was likeliest to win the nomination. and I chose AOC, and this is sort of choosing who you think is likeliest to win the nomination,

not who you think is likeliest to win the presidency or has the best shot of winning the presidency or even what my own personal views are. And at the time, I don't think Gavin Newsom was chosen until sort of like we went back and forth five times. And he was still a little bit of like a butt of jokes. He had just started a podcast and, you know, talked to Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon and folks were a little bit like, what is this? this guy actually doing here? But he clearly seized an opportunity in once Texas Republicans gerrymandered to sort of both say, I'm, you know, in an environment where Democrats felt like

their own party was not fighting enough, take the opportunity to bring the fight to Republicans and, you know, gerrymander California. One of the trends that we saw during Trump's ascendance within the Republican Party in polls was that one of the most important things Republicans said they were looking for in choosing a presidential candidate was somebody who fights for people like me. Now, during that time, a lot of polling suggested that Democrats were very focused on being, you know, supporting a candidate who would be supported by the majority of Americans. They just wanted the electable candidate. Increasingly, Democrats no longer feel that way.

They want somebody who fights for people like them, who shares their values more than just sort of necessarily brings more people into the tent. And in an environment like that, Gavin Newsom's posture can be pretty appealing. And the other thing is, that posture gets beyond policy debates, right? Like, I'm going to fight for you is something that's quite emotional and personal. and doesn't sort of bog you down in the weeds necessarily of like what exactly is your health care policy going to be? Do you want single payer or do you want a public option? And how exactly would you handle illegal immigration or whatnot? You know, having that kind of being a fighter for

you can be an incredibly powerful sort of moniker or label to take on in an environment like this. Definitely. It feels like the electorate or the Democratic electorate has just kind of like boomeranged away from the feelings right after Trump got elected when majorities were saying, like, let's give him a chance. Let's see how Washington operates under Trump 2.0. And now they're just like, absolutely not. I would rather that nothing get done if it means that Donald Trump's agenda is blocked. And I'm curious as to whether you think that the Democratic Party has squandered all of that goodwill. I'm not saying that suddenly Democrats loved leadership, but it was certainly trending in the right direction from record lows during the shutdown fight, which had kind of galvanized a base

together to say, okay, we're the party of health care, we're fighting for something explicit. And then these eight Democratic senators voted with the Republicans to reopen the government. And there are some very smart people, including like Tim Miller, I had him on to talk about it. He thinks Democrats won the shutdown, that there was no way out, actually, and now Republicans have to own this health care issue. but how do you see the politics of the shutdown? Yeah. So as somebody who spends a lot of time looking at polls,

it's going to be hard for me to discern how Democratic voters ended up were made to feel by the end of the shutdown because two things happened at the same time, which as Democrats did really well in the elections and the shutdown ended. And, you know, I think it would be reasonable to expect that Democrats' view of their own party improved significantly after performing well.

I mean, nothing begets good feelings like success, right? And so whatever issues you may have had, whatever dislike, hatred, frustration you may have had towards the leaders in your own party, after Tuesday night, Democrats just feel better about being Democrats. And when it comes to the actual shutdown, this is, no matter how you feel about it,

it's extremely par for the course. basically no party that has provoked a shutdown going back decades has gotten big, significant policy wins. You know, things around the edges promises of a vote like they got this time around or maybe even very marginal policy changes like back in 2013, but like so marginal as to be almost irrelevant. But the idea that Republicans were going to fund enhanced subsidies for Obamacare, a law that they have railed against at this point for over a decade was always pretty far-fetched. And then the other things were even more far-fetched, like undoing parts of the One Big Dutiful Bill Act, for example. So there was always probably, and even after Trump said,

the shutdown is redounding to our deficit. We probably performed worse in these elections because the government was shut down. Americans are blaming us. Like, he was, was acknowledging that. His response was not, okay, let's compromise with Democrats. His response was, let's blow up the filibuster. Um, and he would have to sign whatever bill was ultimately passed. And so if he was unwilling to sign a compromise, that was simply off the table. So maybe one of the possibilities that you could argue for was maybe Democrats do want to blow up the filibuster and let Republicans take the first hack at it. So then it's blown up, you know, by the time they get back in power again.

I guess different people could debate the value of that, but Democrats should have the conversation amongst themselves and be clear-eyed about the fact that without the filibuster, there's all kinds of relatively popular policies that Trump could sign into law right now, like national voter ID and the like. And so if Democrats wanted to push this all the way to blowing up the filibuster,

maybe that could have been an option, but they would have also had other prices to pay. I'll say one more thing here, which is, you know, again, to the name of the podcast, Raging Moderates, maybe some of the people listening to this podcast like norms and institutions. Plus the filibuster, which the moderates that ended up voting for it, you know, it was something that many of them had been on record for a very long time talking about how important it is to keep it. And then there were folks like John Federman, who was an OG, you know, open up the government. But he said for a while, just get rid of the filibuster. and then maybe we could actually get some things done and it'll be their turn and then it'll be our turn to be able to do it.

But that feels like a major motivating factor that people are not talking about nearly enough in the norms department. Yeah. And I'll also say that, you know, of course, it was only eight people. It was eight lawmakers who aren't up for re-election in 2026. Two of them are retiring. In some ways you can look at those people as the sacrificial lambs. Yeah. There were probably more Democrats amongst the Senate caucus who wanted to reopen the government but didn't want to get on the wrong side of the highly activated base that's mad as hell and wanted to keep the government shut down until those enhanced Obamacost subsidies get funded. Like these are people who could take the heat, aren't going to be facing, you know,

a primary challenger next year and therefore could cast the vote for the thing that probably needed to get done. And again, as Tim Miller, I probably discussed with you, when it comes to the actual politics of things, had Republicans acquiesced to Democrats demands, it would have taken away a pretty powerful argument that Democrats will have going into the midterms, which is Republicans are defunding your health care and cutting off certain benefits that are very popular in America. I wanted to, I guess I hopped off of 2028, and I want to hop back on, you know, you talked about Gavin Newsom, kind of, you know, thrusting himself to the top of the heap there. What are the other Democratic names that you think are going to be kind of in that top five?

And then I'm also curious what you think about the Republican side, because their discussion has felt more coalesced around a JD Vance, but it feels like it's really going to be up for grabs, especially if Donald Trump is not dug in about it. And if they get, like, totally obliterated in the 20, 26 midterms, maybe there's an argument for we need someone who appeals to the MAGA base, but we need to go in a different direction. Yeah. Jesse, tough question, honestly. I, you know, when it comes to analyzing the historical data, easy.

When it comes to looking into my crystal ball, my crystal ball tends to break periodically. So it's a little bit harder. But I would say that people who are well positioned in 2028 on the Democratic side include, you know, as we mentioned, Gavin Newsom. I think when it comes to the progressive side of things that Bernie Sanders is likely to throw his support behind AOC. That would be my guess. And if it is like a clown car of a primary where there's 20 plus people running, being, able to consolidate a progressive support behind one person could be pretty powerful, right?

If moderates have the ability to choose between Gavin Newsom and Josh Shapiro and John Ossoff and Gretchen Whitmer and Ruben Gallego, that could really splinter sort of the moderate or pragmatic or even angry moderate vote in a way that if progressives all line up behind AOC, it won't be divided. The Democratic primary works a little bit differently from the Republican presidential primary, so whereas Trump could easily get the nomination, relatively easily get the nomination in 2016,

even though he only got like 33% support in those early states. It's a bit harder for the Democrat because in the Democratic presidential primary, it's so proportional. So, you know, if the vote ends up being super, super splintered and it takes a long time for Democrats to consolidate the field down to two options, not to start the speculation or like, you know, news cycle early, but maybe we'll finally get a contested convention. You never know.

But anyway, I mentioned sort of AOC, I think, is going to become the standard bear for progressives. But I also think that how Democrats view AOC will be in some ways shaped by how effective and successful Zoran Mamdani is, because he's kind of the first opportunity progressives. have on a really high sort of prominent level to show off what progressive governance looks like. And if he shits the bed, I think that does make AOC's job in the 28 primary a lot harder, right? Like, does he turn into Brendan Johnson, the mayor of Chicago, who is very progressive and deeply unpopular? Or does he turn into Michelle Wu, who is probably too progressive for many folks nationally, but seen as very effective on, at least within her own. realm in Boston.

Yeah. So, you know, I think those are some questions surrounding the progressive side of things. Obviously, the bench for moderates is deep, but I've already mentioned them like John Osop, Josh Shapiro, Ruben Gallego, Gretchen Whitmer. I'm sure I'm forgetting some people here and you're welcome to toss some names. I am I'm not forgetting, but I am consciously omitting. No, there are a lot of them. Yeah.

Westmore. No. I actually, I don't think that's happening. I think that she will not do that. I think she'll get the hint, right? Because she would really embarrass herself by getting in the race and then losing in a way similar

to how she lost in the 2020 primary. And so I think if she realizes that it's just not in the cards as we get closer to 2027, that she'll sort of decide to do something more graceful. I think those are the terms that she likes to use when she talks about it. You know, wish are the best,

but it's not a, it's not a mouth. made in heaven for 2028. My two sons there and hoping for my own safety at work that it doesn't happen either. Jesse, we're all praying for you. Yeah, I appreciate the circle of uplift that I get from others who understand how bad it is when I have to watch Kamala Harris clips all the time and talk about it. Do you have any thoughts on the GOP side? If you don't, I know it's early and kind of weird, but.

You know, I think the specific way in which Trump's presidency ends is going to say a lot about what comes next. That's so trite as to be almost meaningless. But if in, say, 2027, we have a situation that looks something akin to George W. Bush in 2007, that's going to create an opening for somebody who, which to just to say, I mean, his approval rating was around, you know, 25% just massively low after sort of the financial crisis and the failures in Iraq and the like. And so if the bottom truly does fall out, which, you know, it obviously hasn't yet. But if the bottom truly does fall out for Trump, I think that creates openings for people like maybe a Glenn Yonkin or something like that. I don't want to say not to just like bring Nikki Haley back to it, but like, you know, not specifically. Like Nikki Haley, but like someone in that vein like a Glenn Yonkin, it creates an opening in the same way that John McCain in some ways had to run for a different version of the Republican Party than probably somebody who would have run for like a third term of George W. Bush's presidency.

If, you know, he ends up succeeding if prices come down, you know, he bullies the Fed into lowering interest rates and people are sort of happy about how that all goes. goes, and it doesn't provoke inflation or maybe the Supreme Court, you know, rules his tariffs unconstitutional and the cost of goods goes down if peace sticks in the Middle East and, you know, you know, drug overdoses are down massively in America. And like, you know, there are different versions of what success could look like for the president. But if he is perceived as succeeding or outright succeeds, you know, I think it's hard not to see J.D. Vance. as the obvious successor. I mean, he, there's some critiques to be made of that analysis, too,

which is that he's got, like, he's strong on ideology and weak on charisma. You know, like Donald Trump is, however people feel about him, and I'm sure people have heard folks like me say this a million times, like, he is funny, he gets laughs, he's an entertainer, like, people see him as a celebrity and as a businessman, and people don't see J.D. Vance as any of those things. He is good in debates, and he's good on the sort of creating the rationale behind the Trumpism, that sort of assignment. And he's not going to be able to be an insurgent outsider because he will have been vice president for four years. So there are real challenges that he faces.

It's just hard for me to imagine the other people in the Republican Party in that same vein, like Christy Noem or somebody like that who would be like an obvious alternative. You're killing me with a Christy Knoe. I was like Marco Rubio, I could stand, you saying. But a Christy Knoem presidential campaign would be end of days for me. But I'm sure it's possible. You know? That's really generous. But I think, yeah, Marco Rubio is a good choice.

I mean, you know, I'm sure Ron DeSantis learned a lot from his failed campaign in 2023. probably one of the things he learned was talk to everyone and be more charming on social media, which is sort of what he's trying to do. Yeah, I think so. Also be more charming in person, but most of all don't run against Donald Trump. And everyone will have that opportunity. I do think Pete Higgseth, our Secretary of War, will also be interested if this, you know, door gets kind of knocked wide open in trying that out.

But totally with you on J.D. Vance. very good kind of academically not good in the charming department though whoever does his social sometimes gets the memes right and I do like that he's leaned into people making fun of him that I have a soft spot for that but otherwise pretty negative ratings from my my side what about uh jessie what about rfk junior I mean Galen you're trying to give me a heart attack like I do you think he wants No, I honestly don't. I think that he wanted, he didn't think Joe Biden could do it. And so that's why he got in on the Democratic side.

And I think that he wants to, you know, get all the dyes out of our foods and make it so that no one can have a vaccine. I think those are his aspirations. She's also older. You know, if you were young, I'm sure if this was like RFK Jr. of 60 versus RFK Jr. of 70. If he were, you know, Jack Schlossberg, do we live in the same district? He's running to be my congressman. I'm Dan Goldman, which it could get also spicy. I feel like everybody, like I like Richie Torres a lot.

Now he has two challenges. It's going to be like a wild scene in New York. It's going to be a really wild ride. It's going to be crazy. I look forward to many more Maureen Dowd articles about Jack Schlossberg with the fancy photos. The campaign slogan, Jack for New York, could really be taken in some very weird directions, which is like nil for New York or something quite different that I know we're allowed to swear on this podcast, but I won't sort of spell out that innuendo in great detail. But interesting choice. I'm picking up what you're putting down.

Yeah. And also the reporting that his mom apparently doesn't want him to be running, which is like internal Kennedy Dynamics, which I'm always fascinated by. Galen, this was awesome. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you'll come again soon. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah.