The Dispatch Podcast - The GOP's Grim Midterm Prospects

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Steve Hayes is joined by David Drucker, Mike Warren, and Jonathan Martin, Politico's politics bureau chief, to discuss the upcoming midterm elections and the Democrats' ongoing identity crisis.The Agenda:—The Trump effect on 2026 midterms—Partisan redistricting efforts—Scandals in state primaries—Democratic identity crisis—The GOP after 2028—NWYT: Meals with sourcesShow Notes:—On the Road with Jonathan Martin The Dispatch Podcast is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including access to all of our articles, members-only newsletters, and bonus podcast episodes—⁠click here⁠. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Amazing. Have it all with Blue on Disney Plus. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Steve Hayes on today's route table. We'll go all in on politics. The numbers for Republicans are grim months out from the 2026 midterms. What are their prospects? What's the likely outcome with the House?

Is it possible the Senate will go to the Democrats as well? Will partisan redistricting efforts matter? We'll also discuss the state of the Democratic Party in their ongoing identity crisis. And finally, for not worth your time, our most memorable meals with a source, either because of the food or the interviews, or both. I'm joined today by my dispatch colleagues, senior editor Mike Warren and senior writer David Drucker, as well as Jonathan Martin, Politico's Politics Bureau Chief and host of the new interview series on the road with Jonathan Martin.

Let's dive in. Gentlemen, welcome. There's a lot to get to today, so I want to jump right in. And I want to start on Donald Trump and the Republicans heading into the midterms. No matter how you look at Trump, whether you're talking about his approval, whether you're talking about right track, wrong track, whether you're talking about affordability, whether you're talking about popular approval of what he's calling this excursion in Iran, he looks like an anvil around the necks of the Republican Party. And we know that historically the president's party doesn't do well in these midterms.

Jonathan, I'll go first to you. Sure. Is there any reason that Republicans can feel anything but pessimistic about what they're looking at as they look forward to November? I mean, they could count on Democrats blowing it in a couple of primaries, but I don't think that's much to go on. And even that may not be enough. Look, we know that wave cycles typically sweep in candidates who otherwise wouldn't win. So I'm not even sure that, you know, getting their preferred candidates out of Democratic primaries is going to be enough if this is really a cat four or potentially even a cat five type political storm. And you just look at where Trump's priority has been. for the last month to six weeks.

He's not interested in moving legislation. Well, he's not moving in it. He's not interested in moving in any bills at all because he doesn't care about legislation or Congress. But the bill he does want to get done is a voter ID bill. So, Steve, if you're a member of Congress facing a tough race in 2026,

the leader of your party only wants to pass a bill on voter ID, which when gas is now above $4 a gallon headed north, that doesn't do much. for the average voter. It's a process issue, which matters a lot to folks who are incredibly online or watch like seven hours of Fox a day, but it just doesn't move the average voter. So there's not a lot of reason to be optimistic if you're a Republican going into the midterms right now. And yet, David, we don't see Republicans in part because we still have so many primaries to get through. Republicans are competitive in primaries. They want the president's support yet.

that they're still reluctant to really create any distance between themselves and Donald Trump. And let's be honest, we're what, seven plus months away from the general elections anyway. When you talk to voters and you go on the road and cover particularly these competitive general elections, what do you hear from Republican voters about how they feel about Trump, about the Republican prospects, both in House and Senate, gubernatorial races? What are you hearing from people you talk to? Well, listen, Republican voters still have a lot of faith in Trump and are giving him a lot of latitude. Yeah.

You know, the problem for Republicans in Congress is they're the ones on the ballot, not him. And so it's not just that, you know, your low propensity, meaning they don't show up that often kind of voter isn't going to show up because Trump's not on the ballot. They're blaming Republicans in Congress for things that are bothering them, whether it's inflation or gas prices or the fact that they won't blow up the filibuster using the, you know, the nuclear option. breaking the rules to change the rules to pass this Save America Act to impose national standards on voting. And they're giving Trump the benefit of the doubt as they always do. And that's fine so far as it goes until you get into these House districts and swing states where there are Senate races and independent voters are as about as sour as you can get on Republicans. Of course, Democrats are as energized to vote as ever. And as we've seen in all of these midterm elections and presidential

elections for that matter, but particularly midterm elections, so goes the independent vote, so goes the majority. And I mean, Republicans are just in a world of hurt with independence, and nothing that they are doing is even designed to assuage them because what Donald Trump is interested are things that are wholly different. So how big, Mike, how big a day could Democrats have given the much tighter gerrymandered districts that we're talking about in the House of Representatives. You know, you think back to 1994, you think back to 2010, these big, you know, Republican years in the Clinton first year midterm and then the Obama first year midterm. And you had, you know, dozens and dozens of Republicans swept into office in opposition to the president's party.

How many seats can Democrats realistically expect to get or to be competitive? And given that our maps are tightly gerrymandered now. Yeah, and there just aren't the number of, you know, sort of districts that have voted for president one way and vote for Congress another that Democrats can hope to flip. I mean, 2010 is the first year that I covered national politics. And I think about that election often because particularly throughout the southeast, there was just the sea change in 2010 where you had, I mean, you had a number of districts that were represented by white Democrats. And they were relatively moderate within their party, but they certainly weren't center right or anything. But those districts, there was like three in Tennessee or like three in North Carolina,

a couple in Mississippi, and they all went Republican in 2010. That was part of the wave. And they have not looked back since they are Republican, you know, for the foreseeable future. You know, 2018 was sort of like that with some districts that had, you know, suburban districts in kind of the northeast and the Midwest. and some parts of like the urban south that did flip from Republican. They had sort of been a part of that Republican surge in the suburbs in the late 80s and the early 90s. And they did flip Democratic with Trump.

But there were fewer of them than there were in 2010 of those white rural ones. So you're right. We don't have those kinds of districts anymore. But we do have a few of them left. And they're swinging now. Like they're swinging back and forth more frequently than those kinds of districts had been swinging. And say before 2010 or before 2018 or before 1994, the big ones that I think everybody's looking at, Drucker, you've written about this, the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, those sort of Hispanic

majority districts that have gone Republican, the last, and been trending Republican. I remember I was in Texas about 10 years ago down in a town called Edinburgh, and you've been there, J-Mart, recently, I know. Yes, recently, yeah. And the whole feeling in 2014 was, this is trending Republican. And they were right. That was the year of Wendy Davis was the Denver. Democratic nominee offered nothing to kind of rural working class Hispanic voters who Republicans

were starting to look more friendly to. And that seems to be the kind of district that Democrats could pick up. There's just not that many of them left. And so those margins are going to be small. But I mean, that will make a huge difference. We can see that every time a Republican member of Congress dies or resigns, Mike Johnson's majority gets perilously small. And so it only will take a few for Democrats to take back the majority. But it's just it may not be, may not be. It could be bigger than we think. I mean, J-Mart's right about the way these wave elections work.

But it won't take much. And Democrats are, I think, likely to be in the majority, even without those type of swing districts. Yeah. Mike, you wrote on Friday of this past week about redistricting in Virginia. Yeah. To what a fact, spend so much talk about redistricting and so much maneuvering between the parties in the different states. Where does this net out?

Who's going to end up benefiting from this? This is something Donald Trump was pushing. Your piece reports that to Republicans in Virginia may come to regret some of this and that they're not keen to even as they push back on the likely effects of this redistricting push nationwide. They don't want to blame Donald Trump. Help us just understand where do we net out on all of this? Where is this likely to lead?

Oh, man. It's just, it's one of those things where, like, you can see. see the car crash happening like a mile ahead. And we all just saw it. And the question was like, how bad is it going to be? Just the quick history of this, Donald Trump pressures Texas Republicans to do a mid-decade redistricting to give them essentially five gimme seats, five more gimmee seats in that House of Representatives to kind of basically as a bulwark against what he probably expected what

happened was a big Democratic here in 2026. and first of all, that has seemed to have backfired in Texas because it's not clear those five districts that they've gained by drawing out Democrats out of their districts, drawing some more Republican districts, that those will actually all go and be, give me Republican districts. But we should point out that this is unusual, this sort of mid-decade push for redistricting. It doesn't happen. It is true. I think that both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of playing politics with redistricting. It has been happening forever. That's true, but this is new, and this was a Trump push, I think exactly, Mike, because you say,

as you say, he wanted to shore up what looked to be a dwindling majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives and potentially keep control, in part to fight off what he anticipates will be a push to impeach him. Right. So the response from Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, is to put something on the ballot in 2025 that would offset those five new Republicans districts in Texas by drawing five new Democratic-leaning districts in California. And then, you know, the dominoes kept falling and there were different, I think, Missouri and North Carolina on the kind of Republican side pushed for some maps there. And then we saw Virginia, which I wrote about last week, they were talking about this

before Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic governor, was elected in November of 2025. But they are pushing this essentially a constitutional amendment for a one-time override of the constitutional amendment that allows for an independent redistricting commission to have the Democratic legislature in Virginia rewrite the map, redraw the map, and essentially go from about half and half with a one plus Democratic seat in the House delegation to basically giving Republicans one seat in the rural western part of Virginia. And Republicans are, I think, rightfully outraged by just there's some dishonesty in the way that the ballot initiative that's on the ballot next month has been written. You know, it's basically like, well, do you support fair maps for Virginia and fair

elections, then vote yes on this Democratic amendment? It's like they didn't throw in, you know, if you support the children and the puppy dogs as well, vote for this amendment, but they might as well have. And so Republicans are rightly outraged. The thing that I noticed, I spent several hours with Jason Mierrez, who's wanting to run for governor in 29 as a Republican. He was the AG, the state AG, who lost reelection last fall. And what's interesting is he can make a lot of. He made a lot of makes the whole argument very clearly about why this is unfair. It's drawing rural Virginians in the Shenandoah Valley into districts where they'll be represented by Arlington Democrats.

I mean, could you think of anything worse? Hey, I heard that. You and me, but when they were going after Fairfax County, I was like, hey, that's me, you know, we're okay in Fairfax. We play Little League. But the thing that Mierrez and Republicans won't say, they'll say it off record, like, they'll say it privately, is that this is all Donald Trump's fault. Like he started, he pushed that first domino and led to this point.

And you can see, I can see the fear on some of these Republican voters' eyes. They're like, I can't believe we're just kind of having our districts taken away from us. Who could have done this? And that's, I think, a legitimate concern. And yet nobody will say, well, the man that you all likely voted for is the reason this is happening to you. Well, how does it net out? I think it's probably a wash, maybe a slightly Republican advantage when you balance the states. Florida's got some districts that they're going to try to redraw here.

But I do think it's energized Democratic voters. Not that they needed more energizing, but I think it's added to the energy for Democratic voters who feel like Trump tried to change the rules in the middle of the game, and they're trying to fight back. Yeah, Jonathan, let's get into that a little bit. The Trump dynamic on the Republican side, whether it's ballot initiatives, whether it's something like this, whether it's the Republican primaries. I mean, he is still, you know, we're looking at Donald Trump being effectively a lame duck after these midterms, but until the midterms, he's this looming presence. And you have Republicans

who are afraid to, you know, not only take him on, not only criticize him after he, as he did this weekend, sent out a social media post celebrating the death of Robert Mueller. Republicans don't want to take him on. They don't want to criticize him, even if that's sort of the most basic kind of criticism you could level is, hey, don't be such an ass. Right. But he's still this presence. And I've been working on this piece about a district in southwest Florida, a House Republican primary in Florida 19, which is Byron Donald's seat. I sent this piece to these guys in advance. I turned in at 790,000 words, so we're probably not going to get posted any time. It's the Robert Carroll. It's the Robert Carroll of a Florida congressional primary pieces, you know. If only the quality

were Robert Carroll-esque, it's no power broker to be sure. And it's going to take some good editing. But hopefully we'll get it out at some point this week. But in that race, to take one example, I mean, it's a mega, it's a super MAGA district. Representative Byron Donald's is the Republican. He's retiring to run for Florida governor. And the field is now 10 Republicans. There was a candidate forum there in January. And six of the seven Republicans running, most likely to be elected, I would say, are from different places in the country. Many of them have run and lost. It's so interesting. In districts in like, you know, Jim Overwise. Jim Oberwise. I know. Overwise has run so many times. I know. I know.

Right. He's run. He's a dairy owner and he's run and lost so many times that his nickname is now the milk dud. But he ran and defeated another woman who was on the dais at this candidate forum in this Florida race sitting right next to him. They both ran against one another in Illinois. In Illinois. A few years ago. But it's, look, it's a super MAGA district. So in some senses, it's not representative of, you know, everywhere else in the country, but it is representative of a certain thing. And, you know, the thing I was looking for is I was talking to candidates and spending time on the websites and I went down there for a week and tried to cover events was, was anybody willing to say anything

that is not sort of totally down the line MAGA? Like, isn't there a case to Zig when everybody else is agging? And the very clear answer is no. Like, we're not saying anything against him. We are going to praise him, and as Jonah likes to say, praise his musk at every opportunity we can get. What's the dynamic? You were down in Texas covering John Cornyn and Ken Paxton and Cornyn. I have to say in your piece, and Drucker wrote a piece about the Republican primary in the Texas Senate race as well. Yeah, I was reading the things that Cornyn was saying to you. And my first thought was he doesn't believe half this stuff.

you know, up and down over the top praise of Trump. Yeah. And anyway, about the dynamic still on the Republican side. He believes the part where he told me he wants to come back to the Senate in part so he can work with President Trump by doing a big immigration deal. Well, it's like actually, I mean, points for honesty for John Corner who's running in a Texas Republican primary and trying to fend off a challenge from the insurgent, right? And he says part of the reason why he wants to come back is to do an immigration deal.

Like, that's a pretty honest. which tells you a lot about who John Cornyn is, but that's actually why he does want to come back. He wants to get shit done. He's a legislator. He wants to do stuff. I know. Anyways.

It's a really good point, though. I mean, there are some of them, I mean, when you look at these Republicans, some of them have this sort of distant, zombie-eyed stare where they've sort of stopped pretending that they have any soul and they really believe anything, and they're sort of not in there. But you do have people like Cornyn who I think. He's still in touch with reality enough that he's like,

this is not me. I'm going to say all these words. I'm going to praise Donald Trump up and down because I know I have to do that to get elected. But ultimately, like when you push him, he says he wants to come into operative immigration reform. Right.

Look, the lyrics are all there, but there's no music is the way I think of it. You know, they say the right things. But, you know, you can't hear the symphony because there isn't one, right? It's just words to survive a primary. But this is the life they've chosen. This is why so many of these guys have voted with their feet

quit, retired, or, you know, found some other line of work to go into because they are tired of faking you. Here's the easy way to understand the primary now. It's a single issue primary at every district and state around the country, but it's not an issue. It's Trump, right?

It's like he's the only issue that matters. Trump is the issue, yeah. Yeah, and so it's, I'm the Trumpiest, he likes me the most. It's total personality cult stuff. And, you know, what's so funny, Steve, you and I know a lot of consultants who, you know, personally either can't stand Trump or just exhausted with him, who every cycle, they still cut these ads and the ads are the same thing.

It's like, I'm the pro-Trump. My opponent is never Trump. The whole party has turned into a competition to see who can be the most loyal foot soldier to Trump. But not as part of any ideological project, right? It's not based upon like a five-point place. It's not like I'm for Trump's filling in the blank. At least like a decade ago, it was maybe build the wall or, you know, crack down on immigration.

It's just pure which side are you on now? I'm a Trump loyalist. My opponent wavered or was never for Trump or is never Trump or some version of that, right? You don't even hear necessarily that much about the policy. Because the policy is up for granted the policy is whatever Trump wants it to be, right? It's pure personality stuff now. the very same people who were running saying, I'm for Trump because he'll keep us out of Forever Wars,

are now saying I'm for Trump because he's fighting an important war in the Middle East. Sure, because it's the first part of the sentence that matters the most. Right, it's the first clause. I'm for Trump. Yeah. Right, right. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the dispatch podcast.

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You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. And we are back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump in. David, when you were down covering Texas, you know, we've got this very interesting race and feel free to give us some additional background, bring people up to speed. We talk about this stuff, you know, as if we know all the players and we know what's going on,

but a lot of people don't have the luxury or burden. Don't get paychecks for having to cover it as closely as we do this. And that's why they subscribe to the dispatch, exactly. But really interesting dynamic down in Texas with John Cornyn and Ken Paxton, Ken Paxton, and this sort of scandal riddled politician, almost to the point of, caricature. Like he's so many scandals over such a long period of time. It really defines his career more than anything else. And yet, he's basically running even with John Cornyn, who's being derided in the primary discussions down in Texas as this establishment rhino, you know, old school

Bush era Republican. What's the dynamic there? And what do you expect to see? We're now in this runoff phase where it's those two again. They had a third Republican who's now out of the race. What should we expect to see as we look at the Republican Senate primary in Texas? And what does that tell us about the way Republicans will be talking about Trump through November? Well, some really good questions there. First of all, my Republican sources in Texas believe that Paxton is favored and believe Paxton is more likely to win than not. And that fits historically with how these runoffs usually go with incumbents, right? I mean, even when the incumbent rolls into the runoff with a big advantage in round one,

they tend to lose round two. If you can't get over the top, 50% plus one the first time, it usually means that voters have gotten tired of you or have some other reason for not wanting you. And look, everything that you and Jemar were just talking to about Trump and how Republican candidates approach him and why is all spot on. But I would say there's, you know, there's sort of, of some underlayers there to what's going on in Texas that we see in a lot of contests around the

country, which is just sort of exhaustion with incumbents. And the fact that the electorates, and this is true on the Democratic side as well, but we're talking about Texas here. The electorate, the Republican electorate in Texas is different than the Republican electorate than initially elected and supported John Cornyn by wide margins. Right. John Cornyn has not changed. He's tried in the past, you know, a week or so to change. It's been really awesome. awkward. He's not good at it. Who John Cornyn is was more than enough for Republican voters in Texas when he was elected Attorney General in 1998, when then elected the Senate two plus more times. That Republican elected no longer wants John Corny's kind of Republican. They want a bomb thrower

in somebody who was going to fight, and they don't care if you have a personal scandal or if you misbehave or if you're a crook. They really don't. Now, not every, everybody gets the same leeway that Donald Trump gets. But I don't know about you guys. I don't know that I've ever covered a politician that's more scandal-ridden than Ken Paxton. I mean, just a fact. I mean, you just look at the laundry list of things that he is done wrong, alleged to have done wrong, that we know he's done wrong because of reporting. I don't know that I've ever covered somebody more scandal-ridden.

And, you know, that probably is why, you know, the race between him and Corning is a little bit close right now, depending on the poll you see. but nobody like Ken Paxton should even get into a runoff, right? It should have been, I'm exhausted with the incumbent I'm voting for Wesley Hunt. You know, we can get into resource issues, Hunt had, and other things. But my point is, this is where the Republican electorate is. And the reason Cornyn is bending over backwards to court Trump is because without Trump's endorsement, he's cooked. Now, if Trump never endorses, you know, you never say,

say never, because sometimes things happen. But if he endorses Paxton, this race is over. And that's just a fact because it's how Republican voters feel about Trump and Trump's style of politician. And the fact that Trump has made it very easy for Republican politicians with scandal to just blame it on the media and the Democrats and big business and anybody else and say, they're not really after me, they're after you, and I'm going to fight. And that's a microcosm of everything that is happening in the Republican primary today, although, as I was, you know, trying to emphasize here, there is a bit of exhaustion with incumbents and what they, you know, voters look at as the old way of doing things.

And finally what I'll say is legislation right now in legislating is completely devalued. Republican primary voters are not mad at John Cornyn because he has failed to legislate, which he has it. they're mad at him because they believe he has not fought Democrats hard enough. I talked to a Republican voter at a congressional forum in San Antonio. And he said, actually, you know, John Cornyn is great when Trump's in office or when Republicans are in office. The problem is when there's a Democratic president, he works with them and he doesn't fight them hard enough. And so it wasn't, oh, his record vis-a-vis Trump is bad. It was his record fighting Democrats is bad.

have we gotten to the point, Mike, that Republicans can almost campaign on their scandals? I mean, this, Paxton is not doing this yet, although he's certainly willing to play the victim and say, look, they're all coming after me. They're coming after me because I'm so effective. We obviously saw Trump do this to winning effect in 2024, right? I mean, he was, he wrote this through the Republican primaries, ultimately was elected. Again, in this race down in Florida, two of the candidates, who have moved to this sort of ruby red MAGA district in Florida from elsewhere,

served in Congress in other districts. One of them was Madison Cawthorne, who, like Ken Paxton, has been involved in virtually any kind of scandal you can imagine, whether it's like simulating, you know, sex with a male person on video in bed or being accused of sexual predation or being accused of insider trading or what have you. And then the other one, is Chris Collins, who served in Congress from Western New York

and was convicted of insider traded. Pleaded guilty to insider trading, copped to his behavior, admitted it in a tearful courtroom scene, said he was moving to Florida to get away from Western New York because he was so ashamed of his behavior. He couldn't look his constituents in the eye any longer. Moves to Florida waits a couple years. And now he says,

It's the Department of Injustice. The prosecutors came after me. The FBI entrapped me. I mean, he literally apologized to the FBI agents in his sentencing plea. And now he's accusing them of entrapping him. And one of the big questions in this Florida race is whether Chris Collins, who, you know, was pleaded guilty to insider trading and lying to the FBI and was ultimately pardoned by Donald Trump, will campaign on the pardon? as a way to show how close he is to Trump. So in normal circumstances,

you would never want to raise the fact that you're a convicted felon. You certainly want to have a campaign on it, but in this case, he might campaign on it. Oh, it's so good. So that he can say that he got the pardon because only one other candidate in the race has also gotten a pardon from Trump,

and that was a January 6th. Chris Collins, he fights so hard for you, he won't even follow the law. I mean, like, now I know why you filed like 40,000 words, Steve. This is a magnum opus. No, I mean, it's, it is, there's so much there. And I need, I'm an editor. Like, I need to do a better job of self-editing.

But it was like, yeah, heal by itself. I'm in the courtroom. I'm in the courtroom. Seems reading all these court documents and, you know, reading about him, she gets choked up again and again. He at one point says, I'm so glad that my mother passed away last year, so she couldn't see me disgrace the family name. and now he's giving interviews where he says,

you know, it's the Department of Injustice. They came after me. I was unfair. Anyway, are we at the point? I mean, one of the most interesting things about Trump's Republican Party is that judging by traditional standards, it's filled with crooks and grifters and what have you, which isn't say that there aren't some good people,

there still are, but it's, you know, a high percentage of crooks and grifters in the Republican Party. And judging by traditional standards, that would be a lot. liability. But it seems the only people who aren't welcome in Trump's Republican Party are the ones who still judge by those traditional standards and care about things like that. I mean, this is, we've been talking about this for a decade plus, right? This is the Trump corrupts, sort of absolutely element of the Trump era and Trump's influence on our politics. There was a specific lie that I think Trump has been very skilled at telling, which is that essentially the corruption, the crookedness, everything you just described, it's the way that everybody's doing it.

Everybody is a crook. And I'm the only one who's going to tell you that they are all crooks, first of all. And anything that I do is in service of rooting them out or sort of helping the country be great again and these sorts of things. So it's a weird kind of two-step dance here where he sort of says, everybody's a crook, kind of convinces voters to believe that, you know, I'm not saying there wasn't corruption in Washington before 2016. There obviously was. There are articles and books and histories written about all number of scandals and criminality,

but he's convinced that essentially the entire system is corrupt. And so don't worry about electing me, who may have some skeletons in my closet. They're not in the closet. I parade them out for everyone because I will tell it like it is. And I think the follow-on effect of that or the sort of the, what happens next, what has happened next, is that it has diluted the power of scandal or criminality, at least on the Republican side, to have any effect on voters.

Voters have this sense that, well, it's all, everybody's dirty, everybody's corrupt. Yeah, a couple of them get caught and that sort of thing. But our, I mean, our crooks are fighting for us and their crooks are fighting for the other people, whoever it is, the people we don't like, whether it's the immigrants who are taking our jobs or the, we're fighting for sort of political and monetary, you know, fiscal power, whether it's government spending or jobs or that sort of thing. Those crooks are fighting for them. Our crooks are fighting for us.

It's just tribalism, and it's not more complicated than that. And the moral is the moralizing by those few remaining politicians who like to point it out is a stark and embarrassing reminder that Republicans are so accepting of that criminality or that crookedness. And that's why people don't like it. It's not nice to be reminded that you're actually kind of supporting bad people. Yeah. So let's move on from Trump and the Republicans and the House of Representatives

and what we think is going to happen there and turn our attention to Democrats sort of broadly and some specific races that are taking place on the Democratic side of primaries for the Senate, thinking specifically here of Maine and Michigan, where you have Elizabeth Warren, leaning in over the past week, making some endorsements, hoping to give a boost to the most progressive candidates running. Iowa, Steve.

And in Iowa. She's also endorsed in Iowa. Yeah, good point. And in Iowa. Where are Democrats? How are they running, Jonathan? I mean, in some ways, this is sort of the mirror of the way that the fights that Republicans had internally when they were taking on Joe Biden.

And Mitch McConnell basically said, like, hey, we're the opposite of him. We don't need to put out a governing agenda. we're just not Joe Biden. He's unpopular. That's going to be enough. Is that where most Democrats are today? What's the debate inside the Democratic Party about how much to be the anti-Trump or the not Trump? And how much to say, hey, this is what we're going to do if we're elected? Well, look, the biggest force in the Democratic primaries, the biggest force in Republican primaries. Donald Trump, it's a single issue campaign for both parties because Trump is the dominant force in global politics and has been for years. So it's just the mayor, which is how hard are you going to fight against? against Trump rather than how undying is your loyalty to Trump. So, you know, Democrats want to show that they're going to fight harder. Now, the Democratic that sort of culture is also inflected Steve with the hangover of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the 2024 debacle. And I think that also shapes the fight against Trump because there's a culture in which

Democrats now believe that we were too complicit. We went along. the establishment failed us, and now it's not enough just to fight back against Trump, but we have to do it boldly and we can't sort of walk on eggshells like the old guard wants us to do. And I think that's where you see the tension playing out is, are we going to elect younger, more aggressive, bolder Democrats who will speak truth to power on Trump and a handful of issues around Trump, right? And you certainly see that playing out in a lot of Democratic races. So that's the tension on their side.

And, you know, Janet Mills, the governor of Maine is the most obvious example of somebody who is shouldering the sins of Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer. Because she happened to be 78 years old. She happens to be a sort of regular, if you will. She's a two-term governor of the state and is somebody who's sort of center left wing of the party. And, you know, her insurgent opponent is basically linking her to the Washington establishment and, you know, the old guard, which is not where you want to be. in this kind of a cycle. And with this, it's even worse, Steve, because now, you know, a hot war with Iran,

American service members being killed and injured every week, it's just going to further radicalize the Democratic primary voter in terms of what they expect from their nominees. So, Mike, her opponent, Janet Mills' opponent in the Democratic primary is this guy named Graham Platner, who has been the source of many, many interesting news stories since he sort of splashed on the scene.

J-Mart, I remember the piece that you wrote about him. I think you wrote about it. Democrats falling in love. Yeah. Yes, the culture of Democrats swooning for the next hot thing, which, by the way, Steve, it's extraordinary to me the coverage that the main race gets. I'd even add the Texas race,

given that Ohio and North Carolina are more promising than Texas, nearly as promising as Maine, but because Roy Cooper and she, Jared Brown, don't cut ice online. They're not big on Twitter.com. And therefore, like, oh, Jamart, it's X. Look at how old you are.

It's X. No, man. Stop trying to make X happen. It's not a flying disc, Eli. It's a Frisbee, man. We're all calling it a Frisbee. I'm sorry. It's Twitter.

Okay? It's not a flying disc. We're never calling it that. It's going to be called a Frisbee. It's always going to be Twitter. But it's the democratic culture is fascinating, right? You have two top tier recruits, a former government. or a former senator, you wouldn't know they exist, right?

I mean, if you ask, like, a lot of Democrats online, they can tell you the names of the two main Democratic candidates in the Senate race before they can tell you, like, the nominees in two other states, it's incredible. So what does that tell us? Mike, first to you and then to you, Drucker. First of all, what does that tell us about the state of the Democratic Party? I mean, is this a party that's sort of drawn to its online personas? Or are we guilty of paying too much attention to that?

because we are also spending a lot of time looking at what Democrats are doing online. I struggle with this as a reporter to sort of make sure that I'm not following that trend, but then it becomes this snowball problem where, like, if you're not covering the snow that's falling down and creating this giant snowball, then you've just missed the story.

Yes. And the attention that everybody pays attention to it makes it a bigger story. So I don't quite know how to do that. You also run the risk, which I have done many times, of going, oh, I'm in a zag where everyone zigs and cover this different candidate who's interesting to me or has a different message.

And then that candidate ends up going nowhere and you just kind of have egg on your face. The good thing is nobody remembers the story about the person that didn't go anywhere, but you remember it and you're like, oh, that was so embarrassing. Yes. I mean, I am interested in and probably maybe at some professional risk of going for looking at some

the different candidates in different states when it comes to like these Democratic primary. it doesn't quite cut in the progressive, not progressive enough battle lines, but there is a group, they're called the bench, this sort of loose group organized around Liz Smith, who's a Democratic strategist, who's sort of trying to give a boost to it. It's basically her clients, and they sort of organize them as a kind of a fundraising target. And there are very progressive candidates that are on this bench in Democratic primaries in the House and the Senate, a couple of governor's races, I think.

And there are sort of more center-left candidates. And there is, as much as there is a lot of online attention to the Graham Plattenors and I guess the Jasmine Crockets, although now James Talleyco is getting all of that online attention. So it doesn't even cut those even clear ways. There is also, I think, a desire in some of these quieter states. Ohio, Iowa is one I'm watching a lot, trying to go out and cover that race as well, where Democrats just want to win. They feel like we've got to win. And that electability factor can be sort of misinterpreted, and Democrats do vote with their heart.

But there is also, you get to a point where you lose so much in a state like Ohio or Iowa, where Democrats have been losing and losing and losing over the last decade, where you do reach a breaking point. And Democratic primary voters can be sophisticated. They're not always sophisticated, but when you lose a lot, you can either go into a, we're just voting for the one that makes us feel good, or we're voting for the one that can make us win. And I guess that's the dynamic I'm trying to cover a little bit over the next several months.

Where are Democratic primary voters actually going? It matters whether, you know, it's a big MS now viewing crowd in the Democratic primary or whether it's like, you know, farmers, blue collar or black voters. You know, black voters and Democratic primers are as a sort of group much more practical in terms of who they're voting for. And so those are just dynamics I'm interested in watching. But you know, you do have to pay attention to the ones that are going to crash and burn because that's just what the attention demands.

I mean, there's a couple things to pick out from their first. Lines not often spoken. A large group of MS Now viewers. I don't know. Do they exist? They gather very closely together. They're all in Brookline. And then second, I think Jay Martin and I probably both recognize that the real reason you want to go cover Iowa

is so that you can get back to Lamar's and get a steak at Archie's wayside. We will get to campaign food. I don't even know that place. We'll get to campaign food in a moment. Let's do it, Steve. I can't wait. Let's do it. I'm starving.

I'd like to get back out on the road. David, let's get back to Maine and to Graham Platner. He's this guy. He was a bartender at the tune in on Capitol Hill and suddenly decided he was going to run as an outsider, oyster farmer in Maine. He first sort of was surrounded by controversy because of a Nazi tattoo that he has on his chest, which he said he got in, I think it was Croatia. He didn't know what it meant. Okay. He's had it for 20 years. Now he's gotten it covered up. That seems to not be a big problem, but I'm certain that Elizabeth Warren would not be for him if he were a Republican who had a Nazi

tattoo. She'd be saying very different things. But he's also somebody, and this is just, the kind of thing that happens in our times, who has a long history of controversial statements online going back more than a decade. He's a self-declared communist at one point. He has, at times, seem to justify violence against his opponents, talking about the need for progressives to have AR-15s and assault weapons to take on fascism. Yet he's very popular. among the kind of people who you would think would be quick to condemn that language or those patterns, those tattoos, if they were on the right. How do we square that circle? That politicians are hypocrites and they don't think things through very well all the time.

Look, Steve, kidding aside here, I think part of what's going out, Graham Platner, I think can be understood in a sort of global sense that Democrats are belatedly having their post-Obama moment, right? Because Obama was a unique figure in the Democratic Party who could unite all factions of the party, and enthusiastically so. And then Obama is turned out, but hatred and fear of Trump keeps the Democratic Party together largely. I mean, obviously, there were a lot of Obama-Trump voters, but it kept the party focused on winning and it kept them unified. And what we got after 2024 was finally, you know, party crackup that parties always have, you know, after a Reagan or after a Clinton, after some unifying figure fades from the scene one way or the other. And they try to figure out

who they want to be when they grow up. One of the conclusions Democrats have been making some Democrats, but many of them, many strategists to say nothing of candidates, is that populism is in. So they've watched Trump and this sort of MAGA coalition. And they criticize it on the one hand, but they admire it and see it as the path forward on the other hand. And so Graham Platner represents for them the outsider who's willing to take on everybody, who's a little bit crass and crude, but he doesn't follow all the rules. He doesn't look like politicians are supposed to look. And that's the kind of fresh youth and energy and something different that we need to get back

in charge. And who wants to get back in charge anyway if we're just going to be going to get along? I mean, this is one of the reasons why John Fetterman won his Democratic primary in 2022. Of course, they didn't know who he was going to turn out to be, which was basically center-left, a center-left guy who wants to get things done and is willing to work with the other side. Compared to Conor Lamb and the rest, here was the guy who, you know, wore the hoodie and chased down criminals in Braddock and, you know, was friends with Bernie Sanders. He was different.

He was a populist. So this is what Democrats are doing. And, you know, the only difference between them and the Republicans is, well, I'd say that actually there's not that much of a difference in that it's just been so far in the past now. You know, when Trump first rose to the top of the party, there was a lot of, well, Republicans were for family values or Republicans didn't like sex scandals or this or whatever it was, right? And they've just long since gotten over it. So now we're in the period of, well, Democrats, you know, have criticized this when Trump does it or when the Republicans do it. But, you know, give it another five or ten years and we'll get over it and forget about it. And it'll just be that's where politics is.

And so I think that's the best way to understand Graham Platner. It's not what he's for. It's not even what he's against. It's what he represents compared to the alternative in that race. And that is somebody who's been a fine governor, but she's a normal politician who plays by the rules. And we just don't think that works anymore. Yep.

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lifetime membership, all of the perks and privileges of the premium membership forever. I want to give a shout out to Robert Rich, who joined us as a member in 2022, upgraded to premium, and recently took the leap to a lifetime membership. Thanks, Robert, for your support. Okay, we'll be right back. Welcome back. Let's return to our discussion. So before we get to not worth your time and a discussion about Jonathan's new show,

previewed here for a dispatch podcast, listening. about three or four months ago, I want to spend a beat on the post-midterm political environment. Obviously, the day after the midterms, I mean, really, the presidential races have already begun, this sort of shadow primaries. But after the midterms, we'll be looking at a different political landscape, we'll have a better understanding of where voters are, and we'll see both parties in earnest really take up the fight to see who's going to be their standard bears heading into the 28 presidential elections. John, to start with you, where are Democrats in that?

It seems to me that Democrats have had a leadership vacuum for a long time, and I include in that time the Biden presidency. I don't think he was a very serious leader of the Democratic Party. He certainly didn't bring people together and push them forward in any kind of a way. Where are Democrats these days? You've written about Kamala Harris recently. You have Gavin Newsom on your new show. You've been looking at this carefully.

Where are they? What does it, what do Democrats even stand for these days? Oh, I mean, that's easy. They're against Trump. I mean, David alluded to this earlier. Trump is the greatest force for organization, motivation, motivation, fundraising, and most important coherence in the Democratic coalition. He's what unifies a coalition that ranges from, you know, literal socialist to, you know, disaffected, you know, Republicans of the Bush country club sort. That's a pretty wide-ranging coalition.

They don't have a lot in common, not exactly like doing movie nights together, Steve. But what they do have in common is they're united as people of Earth against the asteroid coming as they see it, right? And that's the biggest priority. It's not, you know, where are you on health care and this five-point plan?

It's Trump is wrecking our democracy. Everybody, everybody get on board. Like, we've got to put sandbags out to stop this thing. And that's worked. And it's worked really well in mid-term and non-presidential cycles for 10 years. The challenge is how does it work in presidential cycles? Well, it's harder.

Trump's won two of the three. Never with a majority, but he's still won two of the three. What we don't know is, Steve, what does the Trump coalition look like without Trump on top of the ticket in a presidential cycle? And can Democrats call that play one last time? That's the key question, I think. And Gavin Newsom's theory of the case,

and I just talked to him over some lovely crab cakes of the dungeon-ass sort in San Francisco. stay tuned for the road show on that. And we don't have to choose. Like we don't have to choose. We can be a big tent party, and we don't have to necessarily shoot between running against Trump one more time or having a vision for the future.

We can do both things. But the most animating force in American life right now is stopping Trump. And that is going to shape the primary in 27, 28, even though Trump's not going to be on the ballot in 28. And so what that tells me, Steve, is that there is going to be a divide in 20. between the folks who are really trying to get beyond Trump and those who are saying Trumpism is still the central question

in American life and are being against that is still the most animating element of our primary. Yeah, boy, I think it'll be an interesting experiment if Democrats run in 28, assuming Trump is not trying, and he's not actually running for a third term as Lindsay Graham wants him to do, and they still are trying to run against him. Jonathan, I will say, and we'll get to this more in a moment,

I'm a little disappointed that you didn't take Gavin Newsom back to French laundry, which would have been the perfect place given. Oh, that's good. He snuck there during COVID. Yeah, we couldn't yell in the lighting. You might have got, unless you're McKay Coppins and have a $10,000 gambling budget, I'm not sure Politico would have sprung for the cost of the meal. I would have sprung for the cost of that meal.

That would have been, that would have been something. You guys ever read the FT lunch with? Yes. My favorite lunch with the FTA is where the guest tries to, like, max out the FTA credit card. He was like, what's the most expensive bottle of wine a guest has ever gotten during lunch with the FD? Yeah, no, that's my goal for the road show, on the road with Jonathan Martin is like, just how high can I push the tab here? You're not doing it, Ryan, if you're not doing that. That's good.

If you need a producer, I'm happy to be on the road producer for at least some of those meals. So before we go full into the on the road and food can. campaign talk. Mike, what about the Republican side of this after the 2026 midterms? We have been talking now for more than a decade about a post-Trump Republican Party. Now, it seems to be on the horizon. You know, assuming Trump doesn't run again and I'm not willing to rule anything out, there will be this sort of post-Trump battle in the Republican Party. Is there going to be a battle or is that really just the way that, you know, zombie Reaganites like me, hope this will play out. And in fact, the battle's already taken place and people who believe in

small government and fiscal conservatism and strong national defense with coherence and a worldview, we've already lost that battle. Well, there's some guy, some reporter named David Drucker who would say, you're wrong, right? This is Vance is to lose. J.D. Vance is to lose. There's not going to be a battle. I'm simplifying Drucker's reporting. It's been great reporting. I'm a lot. I'm a lot. I'm a little skeptical that we can declare, and I'm putting words in your mouth trucker, but that we can declare this like J.D. Vance's race to lose, although all of the sort of institutions of the current Republican Party are oriented in a way to allow J.D. Vance to kind of walk to the Republican nomination in 2028, pretty unimpeded. That said, I find as a political force, I find J.D. Vance

underwhelming. And, you know, he got through that 2022 primary for the United States Senate by the skin of his teeth and a $10 million infusion of cash from Peter Thiel and a last-minute endorsement for Donald Trump. He really underperformed in the general election in 2022, which is a pretty good year for Republicans considering in Ohio. The governor was reelected Mike DeWine by like, you know, 20-something points and J.D. Vance was elected by like six. and so he's sort of unimpressive as just a political candidate. It doesn't mean he can't win. But if I can see that, I have to think that other want-to-be Republican presidential

candidates can also see that. They can smell that sort of thing. And they see that opportunity. I mean... You know who else can see it? Who's that? Donald Trump. Well, there's no bigger TV critic.

There's no bigger pundit than Donald Trump himself. And Trump has already said it privately. I'm sure he'll blurt it out loud at some. point that Marco is the better talent, right? I mean, he's already leading that way. He's hinted at it. You guys know it's a matter of time before he says it out loud. It's Trump, of course, he will.

Absolutely. And he's already said as much when sort of pressed, when given the opportunity to say, I hereby dub J.D. Vance, my successor, which, of course, Donald Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., has already done. Yes. There's been all these opportunities. He said, he said Marco or J.D. or somebody, you know, I mean,

he's not taken that. opportunity. He always cites the two. He always cites the two of them. I think that tells you everything. So I don't think it's over. And I think this is so cliche, but there is a lot of time, a lot of things can happen. Who would have predicted this war with Iran like a year ago could have an effect on like how Republican primary voters feel about their 2028 options? Just think politicians who want to run see those opportunities. And they are not. willing to just say, well, it's his and walk away. They weren't willing to do that in 2024. Yes, Donald Trump was diminished and all those sort of things. But like if you had been

sort of looking at the odds, you would have thought, why challenge Donald Trump for the nomination? Of course, it ended up not working out, but they tried. And I think J.D. Vance in 28, much, much, much weaker than Donald Trump in 2024. Okay, Drucker, you have lightning round time to defend your JD Vance. So my, my, of course, you know, Things do change, and I reported this in the fall. My reporting, first of all, I have to say, we're not going to be in a post-Trump atmosphere in the 2028 race. He's going to loom over everything, and Republicans are going to cross him at their peril, which means they're not going to cross him. So he will influence the race, both the primary and the general election, in that way in terms of how the Republican nominee behaves himself and talks about policy.

Would you say, David, that it will be taking place in Trump's shadow? That's the name of his book, people. say that it, I'd say that it would. That part of my book will hold up. The other thing I would say is that my theory, which I stand by, is predicated on Vance running with Trump's blessing, because I don't believe a Republican of real substance from the center Reaganite right, because you won't out populist him, but from the center Reaganite right of substance is going to run against the Trump machine. Because even though it won't be Trump on the ballot, They saw what happened in 2024, and there is a lot of hesitancy to take on what many will feel to be a losing battle.

Now we have to see, in light of, and Mike was right to point this out, in light of the Iran war and the rise of Rubio as a real force in the cabinet and in the party because of where Trump has gone with Venezuela and Iran and foreign policy in general, does Vance still run? If he still runs, does he have Trump's blessing? or does Trump tell everybody, I'm just opening this whole thing up. Nobody has my blessing, and he's not talked out of it by Donald Trump Jr., Tucker Carlson, and a whole bunch of forces on the populist right

who are going to be screaming into Trump's year. It's got to be Vance, because otherwise your whole project will come undone. So now we have to see what happens. All right, thank you, David. Now, too, not worth your time, something that we've all been waiting for for this entire discussion.

As I'm on top of the show, starving for us. I see what you did there. As I mentioned in the introduction, we're always happy to have Jonathan Martin with us on the Dispatch podcast. We're particularly happy to have him this week because he has a new show called On the Road with Jonathan Martin at Politico. Great production values, by the way, off to a very promising start. I'm going to give you a minute to tell us what it's all about and sort of what the theory is, but I do want to, before you do that, I'm just going to take preemptive credit here for launching the show because when you were on the dispatch podcast maybe three months ago, we had a big discussion about politics, not unlike the one that we had here today. And then we went into campaign eating. And I think this was very popular with some of our listeners. And I think a bunch of our listeners just clicked off. We talked about some of our favorite places to stop on the campaign trail. And we mentioned Archie's Wayside and the Mars Island.

which we alluded to a little bit earlier. And the next thing I know, there's this huge politico announcement and it's a big show and you look like you've got network television budget behind it. I mean, it's like a big deal thing. I'm taking credit for it.

You should. Though, look, I think a lot of people heard us talking about where we like to eat on the campaign trail and I got notes, why don't you do this? You know, you should be doing a show on this, which, you know,

we talked about this for years. People have been encouraging. made, I didn't want to do, no offense, one more podcast because there's already a lot of podcasts. Here we are having a chat on a podcast. And so I told our folks, you know, Annie Allen, who's the great creator of this at Politico, said, I just, I'm game to do something. I don't want to do one more podcast. The world doesn't need more podcasts. So you love traveling, you love eating, you have all these meals on the road that we're paying for anyways with politicians. Why don't we just send a camera crew along with you? And so, you know, my view was, can you have something

approximating a real conversation with a politician at a restaurant over a meal and like we're giving it a try. We had Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas at barbecue joint Little Rock for the first week. I just had a great seafood meal, a place called Sam's Grill in San Francisco with Governor Gavin Newsma, California. We're coming back to the East Coast here soon. And the idea, Steve, is basically, you know, one part, Anthony Bourdain, one part lunch with the financial times, a great weekly segment in the weekend FT. And one part, you know, all monact of American politics,

where we sort of nerd out and go deep in the weeds about politics and place and history. Because, you know, every city, every state's got its own fascinating political history and nuance and tradition and culture. So that's the idea. And no, we have a great team. And so you can watch it as a YouTube show.

It's on YouTube. Now, that's kind of the PG-13 version, guys, because there is going to be eating. So, you know, sugar warning. that includes me and hopefully politician eating. If you don't want to see us eating, which is understandable, the PG version you can just get

as a podcast and listen to like you want any podcast in the car on the treadmill or wherever else. So we are platform agnostic. You want to watch it, how bad you want to listen to it. That's cool too. But the point is... He's even got the jargon down. Let's go. This side jargon down. Wow. Platform agnostic. We're amphibious, baby.

We're amphibia. So let me ask you a question about what's your goal, as you go into each of these interviews, is your goal to get them to talk about the meals so that people get a more personal glimpse at who these politicians are? Is it to provide kind of depth and understanding about their lives and these places that you're visiting? Or are you hoping to make news? I mean, you have Gavin Newsomon.

Are you pushing him to say something that's, that'll make news, that'll advance the story? Or is it all the above? It's all of the above. And take Governor Newsom, he has a book out that's actually for a politician's book, like Bracingly Honest, about his family and his background, in part because he wants to get this stuff out in his terms, but also because I think he is trying to figure out who he is and where he comes from. It's a search for identity in somebody whose life has been oriented around his parents'

divorce and his, you know, largely absentee father in these two worlds he was in. So we talked a lot about his upbringing in Marin and San Francisco. his dad, you know, his dad and grandfather were both kind of backstage political fixers in California politics for years, very well connected. His grandfather was Pat Brown's, Pat Brown's right-hand man which was known as Boss Newsom. And so talk about that. But also, yeah, talk about, you know, the governor's race in California, the 2028, his choice on 28, how much his own parents' divorce story shapes his choice when it comes to running for president or not. And then, of course, we're talking about issues like, you know, Israel, questions about Taiwan and China, big tech, AI, you know, gay rights, trans issues, all of that stuff we get to.

But the point is, you do it in a real way in which you have a conversation. It's not just, here's question three, sir, blah, blah, blah. It's actually a conversation in which you float around. And also, we speak like normal human beings. Like, we cuss occasionally, you know, we interrupt. It's hopefully something that's really. real. My hope, Steve, is if you were to read that lunch with the FT segment, it'd be like that, but with a camera there, right? Like, the camera just happens to be on a real conversation.

It's sort of a hope, you know? Well, I watched the Sarah Hugby Sanders one. I thought it was great, eager to see Gavin Newsom and eager to follow this in part because I'm claiming, whether it's true or not, we are claiming of prominence here at the dispatch podcast. Yes. Okay, so question for you, actually, question for you all not worth your time this week, picking up on that theme, a little variation of what we talked about last time you were here, Jay Martin. I'll go first to you, Drucker. Is there a meal that you have had over the course of your reporting career that stands out as particularly memorable? And it can be memorable because you sat down with a politician who made a ton of news and you didn't expect it. Or it can be memorable because you really advanced a story that you'd

been working on forever. Or it could be memorable because you squirted lobster on the politician's and messed up her shirt. What's the most memorable political meal you've had? Yeah, so I had to think about this for a second. And you alluded to my book earlier, and I think what I'm going to go with is the meal that I had at Mar-a-Lago on the patio after I interviewed President Trump for my book. Now, the way this happens is they stick me in a room because he's running late

because Mark Walker is trying to convince him to give an endorsement he never got. Now, this was back in 2021, right? So just a few months after January 6th. And so I hear the staff planning the meal for the night. It was Cinco de Mayo. We're not doing any themed food, which made me think of the Taco Bowl at Trump Tower. And there was the family that owns Nolets. They're going to be here.

They want Nolets gin, not the normal gin we have. Anyway, I interviewed Trump. And for what I wanted for the book and how hard I worked to get the interview and went really well. And he's like, Margo, do you want to stay for dinner? You can stay at Margo. get him a table. I'm like, Margo, I need to pay for this. Can I pay for this? She's like, yes. I'm like, okay, then I'm staying. So the patio is full. It's like the last bash of the season before he has to go to New Jersey because they shut it down for the summer. First, I'm at a bar on the side outside, but I'm fine. All of a sudden, somebody comes over and says, come with me, sir, and I get a corner table where I can see the entire patio.

And right next to me is Pam Bondi and Donald Trump Jr. and a whole bunch of other people that probably now work in the administration. at some table. I get to see, and I had heard about this, President Trump comes out with Melania, and when he comes out to eat at his cordoned off table, everybody stops what they're doing, stands up and applauds.

And I'm thinking, why does this guy want to be president again? This is perfect. What is it? And then I don't even ask for it, and a bowl of french fries shows up. And that's like what happens to you at Marilago if he knows you're there

and he's taking care of you. A bowl of french fries show up. So, anyway, I go, it's buffet night. I do the buffet. I don't really remember what I had to eat. I just remember drinking a lot of bourbon and taking notes that I'm going to use for my book and I'm so thrilled. And finally, I'm like, okay, I've had a lot of bourbon. I cannot eat any more.

And I've seen all there is to see. I'm pretty sure. So I motioned for my server who did a really great job. And I said, okay, I need the bill. He's like, no, no, it's on the house. I said, no, you don't understand. I need the bill. Like, I have to pay for this. And he says, He motions to Trump. If I bring you a bill, he'll fire me. I'm like, oh, too good. So I felt like I was cornered, but I came up with a quick solution in my brain, which I did, and I wrote about in the book, which is I estimated the cost of the meal and the drinks somewhere near around $500. And I donated to you alone?

It was just me. Oh, my gosh. Well, I figured it's a good thing you carry. You're the money clip guy, so you've always. got 10 hindoes in your money clip. So you could just like throw the cash on the table? No. How the story ends? I didn't throw any cash on the table. I left and I said, Jenny and my wife is a fundraiser and she knows a lot of people. I said, do you know anybody with a charity in South Florida? Somewhere where I can donate. And she did. And I donated to a very

reputable charity for breast cancer run by Nancy Brinker, who's a donor who gives to both sides, is involved with it. J-Mart may know about Nancy. Anyway, and I wrote a about this in the book and I laid it all out and I thought if Trump hates the book, he'll say he bought me a meal and I turned on him and then it'll be like, you're a journalist, why are you taking free meals? But I was in between a baguette and a hard place and I didn't know what to do. So this is how I solved that. That's why that's my most memorable meal. So I read your book and ever since I read your book, I have had my children do for me what Donald Trump has the Mar-a-Lago patrons do for him. My children all stand and applaud.

I walk in and come to the table for dinner every time. They're a will train. All right, Mike, Mike, what do you got? So I'll quickly take through some honorable mentions because I was thinking about this. So Sullivan's on Castle Island in South Boston. I had a lobster roll there. It's basically like a lobster shack. I was covering Scott Brown's reelection campaign where he lost Elizabeth Warren.

But I had a lobster role there while he was like greeting people. And there was some guy, some also tall guy, Scott Brown's a tall guy, who played high school basketball with Scott Brown, and they locked in and were just like bringing up people that they had played against in other schools. And it was this moment where I was like, he's going to lose because this is Massachusetts, and he won that race in a fluke.

But like, you can kind of see where, like, how he won that fluke race. And if this were maybe a little more politically balanced, state of Republican like Scott Brown could win again. So that was a great meal. I went to a meal in Messia, New Mexico, at a restaurant called La Posto de Messia with Susanna Martinez, who is the governor of New Mexico, and it is the restaurant in which she claims she was first recruited to run for governor,

and I had lunch with her there, and it was, I mean, New Mexico and hatch chilies and all that, like, how can you go wrong? But the most memorable political meal with a source I had was with a source that I don't mind mentioning. You guys all know him, I believe, Rob Stutzman from California. several years ago, I was out in California. I was up in Sacramento. We got together and he recommended we go to this place

called Mulvaney's B&L. And it was, it's a meal that like he and I will occasionally text each other about just out of the blue. Just to, hey, remember that? And, you know, no other context, no other other reason to even communicate with each other. But, you know, Sacramento, for people don't know,

Sacramento is kind of a big foodie town. And because it's so close to, it's got all of the sort of farm to table stuff. Yeah, it's close to the valley. Yeah. Exactly. And UC Davis and all that stuff.

So, like, the tomatoes was like, it was like August. It was like tomato season. And these tomatoes that came out, you know, just like as big as my head. And they were the most delicious tomatoes, not mealy at all. It was great. And on his recommendation, on Rob's recommendation, I believe, or maybe it was the owner who came by and stopped by to say hi, they had all these great steaks on the menu. But the recommendation was get the pork chop.

And if somebody like at a place like that that serves lots of steak says, get the pork chop. I do feel like you get the pork chop. And this pork chop came out and no joke. It's like anybody who can't see just listening to this, it's like a good two and a half, three inches thick. I mean, it is huge and just this big fat cap. And it was, like Rob and I are cracking up at how absurdly large this pork chop is. And I probably finished it. I don't know. We had two great wine as well. So that is a memorable meal. I learned a lot from Rob on in that discussion. But the meal was just outstanding and I still dream about it. J-Mart.

I can't sit here in New Orleans and not mention my favorite place to eat, which is Mosca's, which is a roadhouse looking joint across the Mississippi River that is legendary. It was sort of made famous by Calvin Trillen. I've had tons of meals there over the years, but memorable ones with James Carville. The accent there is, it's not just a New Orleans accent. It's a different variation of the world's accent. But most importantly, The garlic is to die for them.

They have a couple of dishes, chicken al-La gron, which is this great baked chicken, and then oysters Mosca, which is their oyster casserole, both of which are just next level. So Mosca's is my rider die in New Orleans. Now, beyond that, Steve, I think of a dinner you were supposed to be at a mutual favorite of ours, Archie's Wayside in Lamar's that was memorable, both for the meal in for the conversation, but we can't go too deep into that right now. I'll say this. maybe the most exotic or like the most holy shi moment was betsy and i were in

Tokyo a couple years ago betsy's your wife my wife betsy there was a guy there who is the ambassador to japan you may have heard of they've rama manual and we went to dinner with rama and his wife amy at a place in which they literally brought out a massive side of tuna now i say side of tuna because it looked more like a side of beef than a piece of fish. And they give you the thing raw. And you are then handed an oyster shell, one side of an oyster shell, as your scraper. And you take the oyster shell, the one side of the oyster shell, and you use it as an instrument, and you take the side of tuna and you actually scrape down the sort of like ribs of the tuna to get the meat off. And it comes off like sushi grade level that it is. And it is. And it,

is with that sharp oyster shell, half an oyster show. It's like beyond. And of course the tuna was out of this world, but just the fact they walk over like a side of tuna, give you your half and oyster shell as your tool and just scrape off your dinner. And it's just to die for tuna. Very hard to replicate. So, so good.

Did Rahme eat it as well? Absolutely. I mean, everybody is doing the whole scrape thing with the oyster, with the clamshell to get their tuna. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've seen that. I'd like to do that. So I'll mention an honorable mention as well. It was with then-governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, and I took him to the state fair. And there's a new sort of it food that's all the buzz at the Wisconsin State Fair every summer.

And this summer, it was a crispy cream donut cheeseburger. So I took him, we each had a spotted cow, which is a famous Nugleris. beer in Wisconsin. Really great beer. May have had a couple. And then we went and did a crispy cream cheeseburger. And he was a very good sport about it. I took a picture of him eating it with my phone that ended up running in the weekly standard. I think his wife said, later said to him, probably shouldn't have let them take that picture of you.

He's sort of stuffing his face with the cheeseburger. But my most memorable actually was not a political meal per se, but a follow-up on some reporting I had done before, during, after the Iraq war, I wrote a fair amount about Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism of the jihadist variety, including al-Qaeda. And I spoke to sort of everybody I could speak to in the intel community, at the Pentagon, everywhere else. And a few years passed, and I got a note out of the blue from somebody who had been working on those issues in the intel community, but whom I had not been able to connect with. And this was the white whale. I wanted to talk to him.

He never would talk to me. He was now out of government, and he proposed that we get together at Charterly Palmer's Steakhouse on Capitol Hill. And we went there. I had done a long, like a three-hour bike ride in the heat that morning, show up. I get the tuna tar. He orders a drink at lunch, so I get a glass of white wine to go with the tuna tar-tar. And he proceeds to walk me through, I think being careful not to violate any promises he'd made about confidentiality. The areas in which she had been reading my reporting and where I got things right and, of course, pointed out things that I didn't get right as well. But it was this sort of moment like I'd been waiting for, you know, the entire time I'd done this stuff was to have this guy sort of walk me through it and ended up having a couple glasses of fethin, unoaked chardonnay on an empty stomach, which I don't recommend. But I enjoyed the meal. Otherwise, it was a long, it was a three-hour lunch.

Fantastic. Fantastic. All right, Jay Mart. Thanks so much. check out On the Road with Jonathan Martin if you haven't yet. And if you're still listening at this point, that's your kind of show. If you're on Instagram, you can follow my account dedicated to the On the Road show at J-Mart Road. At J-M-A-R-T Road.

J-Mart Road is the Instagram account. Last Dispatch podcast, we talked about the prediction markets. I think we should see if we can get a prediction market bet on how many shows it will take for J-Mart. to spill something gross all down the front of him. Because I got like three, I think. But I oppose gambling. Anyway, thanks all. Finally, if you like what we're doing here,

there are a few easy ways to support us. You can rate, review, and subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice. That helps new listeners find us, so take a break, hit pause. Go rate and review right now. As always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns or corrections, you can email us at Roundtable at the Dispatch.com.

We read everything, even the ones from people who don't like all the food talk. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in. And a big thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode possible, Noah Hickey and Peter Bonovich. Thanks again for listening. Please join us next time. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything.

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