District Club: RNC Takes Dallas: Day 1

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1:14Hello everyone and welcome to a special live edition of the Districts Club. I'm Tim Rice and the guys Dallas is absolutely a buzz. The question on everybody's minds, will Republicans leave this convention with a more unified message and the boost that they need to get through November? Or will this unconventional setup backfire? We're also wondering what's going on in Texas's increasingly messy and important Senate race. And of course, what is Donald Trump going to say tonight at his prime time address here in Dallas? So joining me as always to talk about all this and more are my co-hosts, Mary Margaret Olahan and Ben Domenich. And we are thrilled to be joined today by Tara Paul Mary and trepid journalist host of the Tara Paul Mary show and author of the red letter. Tara, I want to start with you. You're on the ground here with us in Dallas. You've been here for a little bit. What do you think and what's the vibe? Is this going to go well for Republicans? I don't know. I mean, to me, I feel like this is a Trumpapalooza. You've all heard it.

2:14But Trump is the present and past of the party. And that is not the future of the Republican party. He is the only unifying personality that they have right now. And a lot of Republicans, they're not here. Reporting shows that there's only about a hundred lawmakers and candidates that are here. Many of them do not want to be associated with him right now. And he is the only unifying principle in terms of their policies. They haven't figured out the future. And this whole Republican midterm convention RMC, is that what we're supposed to call it? Sure. Yeah, I mean, I don't get it. It's weird. It's a glorifies him. And I know for sure, there are a few topics we're not going to be hitting on. And one of them is the war in Iran. If they're going to call it a war, I doubt we're ever going to hear the word war. What do you think? I don't know about that. I think the war in Iran will absolutely come up because the president is actually very proud of where he is right now. Yeah, many Americans may not totally agree with him on that. But Trump, he's proud to talk about his success with the war. He's proud to talk about all these other wars and

3:15peace that he's brought throughout the world. And I would actually argue, Tara, that there's going to be so many eyes on this RMC, RMC because even the people who aren't here, even the people who opted not to come are going to be watching it on Twitter. They're going to be talking about it. They're going to be engaging with it. They're going to be talking about it on the networks. But why? They're all in battleground states right now. They don't want Trump there. I don't think they want this. That's amazing. They're back here. It was useful for Texas. Okay, Pakistan's in a lot of trouble. They wouldn't have just given them $10 million. He's running against Talleriko and you know, Democrats are delusional and every year they every cycle. They spend a ton of money in Texas, but they've got a flawed candidate. And we know that a lot of money from Republicans were spent against Pakistan. So maybe having Trump here is useful for one race and that is the center race. So maybe it's worth it. So can I disagree with I want to disagree with Tara on a couple of points. One is I think that one of the interesting dynamics that we currently see at least in the analysis of polling at this point. Decision desk HQ, which is a place that I trust,

4:16did just ran through there midterm analysis of the different Trump carried states where the candidate is lagging him. And the truth is in Trump carried states, the candidate is lagging him in every single one of them, including Texas except for Iowa. Iowa is the only one. And so for the truth is for those people, they're not even matching up with where he was. And that to me is a real question going forward. Maybe he does need to be more out on the trail. Maybe he does need to be there. I don't know that that helps you in any of these competitive battleground new house districts or things like that. But when it comes to the Senate races, in Ohio, in Alaska, in North Carolina, in Michigan, which he obviously carried, those are all situations where I think the Trump effect is really kind of untested at this stage. Well, 20% of Trump voters, according to a recent poll, regret voting for him. So I think those same voters might feel differently today, especially in places like Michigan and Alaska. I think I wouldn't send Trump there. I think even

5:17like leaving the Trump of it all. Trump in Alaska would be fun though. If we, I think you could even set the Trump of it all a little bit aside, though, because one of the things that you were saying, Tara, that I think, right, there's something very weird about this. And I'm saying weird, not right wrong or indifferent. But I mean, look, right, this is a convention. It feels like a presidential nominate convention. You can hear the band outside. I mean, the vibe in Dallas is electric. Like the supporters came out. People are here. People are excited. And again, I think it's a really interesting gambit for the party because obviously a midterm election, a very important and tight midterm election is not the same as announcing a presidential nomination that's already been sewn up. But I do think that there's a really good chance that the downstream effects of the kind of like team build that coming together. Maybe that even more than the Trump of it all will help energize voters. Maybe it'll get people out. But what is it that they're going to say tonight and tomorrow that's going to get Trump out? Like granted, I'll give it to you. Trump being on stage tonight

6:20if he has a cohesive normal speech, which I haven't seen in a really long time. We'll get picked up on Good Morning America. We'll get it picked up on the broadcast network. Flex win as long as he's not being torn apart. And if it happens a second night, that's good. You control the airwaves, especially the local ones in Dallas and in Texas. Like I talked about, I don't get what the unifying message is right now. That's like, that's my thing. I mean, look, there's this legacy media narrative right now that God forbid Trump is aligned with any Republican because they won't win. And I think that's a little naive. And I think it's a little manipulative to be frank because all of these Republicans who are currently in office, most of them are in office because of the president. There are just many of their constituents love the president and the president loves them. And so when we talk about what's the message tonight, well, the message that the president has said he's going to say is look at your options. You have us and the progress we've made and then you have the radical Democrats and their socialist compadreys. You have the choice here between this and that.

7:20That makes a lot more sense to me. I mean, run a campaign on radical Democrats. That's a selling message. Don't run the campaign on a president who's in 38% approval rating. But Kate, is it possible that you can do vote right? I think Morton Mary Margaret saying, and I think you're right, is that if the president, if the president sticks to that message and doesn't go off and talk about the ballroom or, you know, Jimmy Kimmel or whatever else, if the president and the vice president too, let's also not forget the vice president. Or how he was president. Well, the firefighter had the rubble in 9-11. That was the latest. If the president and the vice president get up and, you know, say, and I like socialist compadreys, I'm going to start saying that more like, that's the choice. Then yeah, maybe then Trump becomes a messenger for that effective message. I think I think I think they're kind of two theories of the case for this thing. And I completely agree, Tara, this is a weird thing. I mean, the whole thing seems a little weird, especially considering it's a convention where nothing is really actually officially happening. No one's being nominated. It's also weird to me. The GOP of all nights to choose for a major political

8:22event would choose the premiere of the NFL season. No, it's so anyway. That's who's playing. We, in a way, he's handing this over to the press to cover it the way that they want, right? Yeah, so weird. This is the thing. I think that it's a mistake to think that weird and weird necessarily means bad. It might. It very well might. But again, I look at this. It's American politics, guys. Like, this is not the first time that someone that a party or a group or a candidate has done something really weird in the height of an election season. It would not be the first time if a weird gambit like this pull up like, play, maybe I've never done anything like this. Nothing like this, but I'm saying again, like I'm saying, like, it's this is not the first time something weird has happened in electoral politics. But how weird is this? We have the president of the United States bringing all of his top Republicans together to combat Democrats in the midterms. In the term, like, in the world of weirdness, that's not that weird to me. That seems like a very smart thing. It's weird because no one's done it before. But like, they raised $40 million for this alone.

9:22I mean, there are a lot of people who move $400 million. They have a $400 million war chest. This is all about money, right? I mean, Republicans are not money. I feel like on one level, this is just the president kind of reinserting himself into the political election battle when he's been focused on a lot of things that had nothing to do with that actual election fight. And to a certain extent, I think that what Republicans want to hear, what they want to see from this event, is the president layout his case. And the vice president who gave you his elevator pitch just this past week, you know, in the briefing room, I think that they need to kind of model the behavior that these Republican candidates should imitate on the campaign trail. If they're going to hit that narrative that you spoke about, Tara, that is more impactful of saying these radical Democrats, this is our narrative now. This is what we're pushing back to try to activate the base. Yeah. Well, I'd also argue that, you know, there's a lot of suggestions right now that Trump shouldn't be talking about his administration. Like, I think you suggested that if the president

10:24is talking about the war in Iran or the ballroom and things like that, that that's perhaps a negative for Republicans, I would actually argue, know that a very classic Trumpian speech here would be to build on the successes that he can praise from his administration to remind the public, yeah, you're upset with the war or you're upset with, you know, higher prices at the gas pump or the grocery store, but don't forget, we made America great again. Don't forget all the good things we've done. Wait, I thought it was supposed to be great right now. A lot of people voted against wars. They said no new wars and that was a big, big motivator for people to vote for president Trump over Kamala Harris. It's true because during the Biden administration, we saw Russia just eat Ukraine, okay? And people were tired of it and they and Trump promised, what did he say, 48 hours? I'll get that war done. It was, it's still going on right now. We're in a full, really think, the war in Iran. And 48 hours. He also said that he would lower the price of goods. I mean, whether you can control inflation or not, it's still your problem. It's no longer by dynamics anymore.

11:27We've been in this 18 months now and it's expensive and every single to I'm a driver, I don't know if you're a driver, but every time I go to the pump and I've got to pay $5, you know who's face I see? All right, so let's hold on. Let's, let's game this out because I think we know we've done a good job of establishing how this could backfire, right? If, if it puts, if the president takes, you know, ties himself to competitive candidates for whom it might not help. If it renews a focus on things like war and affordability, if it just sort of everyone just goes away thinking this was weird and why did we do it? All right, fine. What is, how does this, I'm the cock-eyed optimist, how does this work out, right? What are, how, what are some ways, is it possible for this to help Republicans, right? I mean, is there a unifying message? Is there a surge in fundraising in Get Out The Vote? What do you guys think? Like, I mean, is it, what's the, what's the, the blue sky? We leave here on Friday and think, wow, Tim was right. This turned out great for Republicans because why? I mean, I don't know what all this doom-er-ism is about. We have a $400 million dollar war chest. The president

12:31is just dipping into the presidency or the vice-presidents here. All these Republicans are here. I'm not subscribing to the doom-er-ism. I think this is a huge opportunity for Republicans to rally around the same message and they're going to do that and like the vice president told me last week, as Ben was saying, there's a message here and that is we've been doing great. You can continue to do great with us or you can go to these radical Democrats and you can see the country just spin out and unwind again and subscribe to socialism. So again, I don't think that we should be subscribing to this kind of legacy media narrative that we're at the strange convention and think they're going to go really badly. It's not. Now, maybe I'm wrong and we see things paying out differently but right now, and I don't think that any of that is legitimate. I just think they have so many problems right now. They need to get $67 billion from Republican senators to pay for a war and Pete Heggseth cannot get $67 billion from 14 Republicans in the House Armed Services Committee right now. That's a problem and they're out here right now. They're running

13:36out of munitions. We're out here in Dallas. Like, there are so many problems right now in Washington. The best thing that could happen for Trump is if he actually announced a true ceasefire and Iran did not bomb him the next day right before the war. I think the best case scenario for Republicans is that this is a reassertion of the fact that they need to stop fighting and squabbling amongst each other. I think that the past several months have been really fractus in terms of the relationship on Capitol Hill with the White House. The tension between John Thune and the and the president has been readily apparent. You mentioned the difficulty that he's had, especially with some of these retiring Republicans or people who've lost their primaries, etc. Or would have lost them if they decided to run again. I think that the ideal blue sky thing for this is, hey, you got to get your act together and be on the same team. John Corning stopped complaining about Ken Paxson. Tom Tillis stopped me. That's what I was looking for. Don't you also think that Trump

14:38just played his cards all wrong? Didn't he realize that by messing in Corning's primary? Whatever you think about John Corning, he is paying the price for it. Clashing with Tillis over and over again, he is paying the price for it. The million dollars they spent in Joni Ernst back yard to get a head-cept confirmed. They are paying the price for it. He does not care about the House Incident. He's even made it clear. And the latest thing, the craziest thing of all, is that they are now pro-data centers. That is one of the strongest talking points for Democrats. I've ever heard in my life. I mean, I have never heard a stronger talking. Let me just tell you that. The show always comes back to data centers. Daily wire. Daily wire viewers know that a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. I worked for John Corning so they know how I feel about him. The situation though here in Texas, the one thing I would say is Ken Paxson as it ended up didn't need Trump's endorsement to beat John Corning. He would have won anyway. You think so.

15:38Trump makes it bigger, but still the thing though that I think is really critical, I mean, is you've got to be on the same team guys because this narrative only works if you're saying these, L-siet is an existential threat to the country. He represents a change that is far away from the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton and the like. We are the line of defense against that. And that only works if the other Republicans are along for that idea as opposed to complaining all the time. And it only works if you're saying that and then not immediately turning around and saying, and you know what the only thing worse than L-siet, the Islamofascist is, is Tom Tillis. Okay, but okay, at the same time, I'm totally right. Imagine if the Democrats held a convention right now around L-siet and then everything he said was clipped and used by Republicans around the country, which they're already doing. They don't even need to hold a convention, but now they have another opportunity for Trump to say something and then for them to clip it and to use it. But I think that's exactly the way they want this to be the Trump election. They want this to be a referendum on Trump because frankly they

16:40don't have a lot of ideas themselves. They don't have a unifying figure. They're also an actually, frankly, the same situation that Republicans will be in unless they all coalesce around JD. And that is very much contingent on the popularity of President Trump. Let's face it. If President Trump is popular, fine. But right now, it's not. Well, I think we're skipping a couple other things here. For one thing, the President has said that after this convention and in the days leading up to the elections, he's going to be out campaigning in the 35 most important states. It's also going to be giving money to all these candidates. He's going to be out there on the road the way he was before the last election cycle, just campaigning non-stop. So to suggest that the President isn't, he's somehow going to negatively impact all these races. I think it's a little foolish when we look at what a massive impact he can have on these races, how much money he has to give you up between them. But he's not giving that money up. They made that pretty clear. Yes he is. He's giving $10 million to Paxton, but he's not giving the money up. He's saving it for his library and other activities. That's completely an act. No, he's not going to hold a $400 million war test. What else do you use it for?

17:47Again, but to make sure that you don't increase your next Congress. There's a lot of should burn through every all $400, $400 million. He should. There's a lot of time left to spend a lot of money. He could spend a lot of money. He could already put it out in a statement. I know, but I think, and I know I get what you're coming from. I do think though, I think that Trump cares a little bit more about congressional races than it seems. I think he likes to win. He wants to win. He doesn't see Congress as a reflection of himself. I know what he wants. I know he can, but I think he sees the term, especially, we've really seen him step into, maybe in the most traditional way, but I am the leader of the Republican Party. I think you're not getting enough credit. If they lose, will he own that? No, that's the thing. Again, it's still Trump. If they lose, it's going to be their fault, but if they win, it's going to be for him. Again, we're not here to adjudicate. Do you think he thinks this is a referendum on him? He's been repeated. That's why we're here.

18:50This is a referendum on him. I don't think anyone has denying this. That might be why. That's what Republicans have accepted. I don't think anybody in the world is denying that this race, like everything you said, everything else in the past 10 years in politics on the Republican side, is always. At that point, why not have a party? I don't know, because it wouldn't be ready to highlight the flaws of your opponents rather than give them a referendum, which is easy when they're riled up. Democrats are in the out. Well, but is this campaign, is in the president with whatever amount of that word, Chester, he ends up spending? He seems to want it to be a referendum on him. I mean, the ads that he's cutting are all things are going great. I don't know if you've seen that they're not hammering away this message that has been gifted to Republicans about Democrat radicalism, which is truly, I think, something that is of a level that we haven't seen before. It represents something before you had the spot shots of the AOC, the random primary winners,

19:51the stuff like that. This is a true movement that Bernie Sanders is the head of and that all these other people now have their own independent or the titular head of and they all now have their own independent fundraising mechanisms. They all have their own organizations. They have the ability to be independent of a Kim Jeffries in a way you never had the squad be independent of Pelosi. These people are going to have an effect on policy in in Washington regardless of the outcome of some of these elections just because there are so many of them are likely to win. And instead of like leaning into that, they're leaning into everything is great. You should be really proud, you know, America's 250 is just going awesome. You know, don't pay no attention to the price of gas. That kind of thing. I don't know if they're saying, pay no attention to the price of gas, but more. Yeah, we're in a war. So the gas is high and it'll be it'll be high when we're in a war. What do you think to elected Republicans is the ceiling for the amount of gas we should pay for a war in Iran? Well, this is classic, Tara, because this is a very- No, I mean, I'm just wondering. I spend $6. $7. $8. $9.

20:52I spend $8 at the White House with legacy reporters. This is exactly what everyone does. They're like, all right, let's give the president a limit. And he can't go past it. And as soon as he does, we're going to got you him on it. I want to know, because I'm for planning purposes for my life, I would like to know when I'm budgeting my next year, how much is it going to cost for me to keep myself cool? You obviously should have bought a Tesla. I just want to know what is the messaging on AI right now, because that's huge. I just saw this tweet last night from this guy who just quit in Thropick and he's like, everyone inside the company is talking about how AI is going to cause the end of civilization by the next decade, which seemed a bit alarmist and terrifying, but then another one of his colleagues also confirmed that this is the conversation within their building. And we're being told, don't worry about data centers. It's all going to be great. It doesn't feel like this is a priority for our government. It doesn't feel like they're catching up with what is actually happening. And it's all about the race against China, right? I mean, that is what we're being told. Let us let us beat China to this game. But what if the people

21:56inside are laughing and knowing that there's really a race to the bottom and our government just isn't catching up? In fact, instead, our president says, you guys are a bunch of losers if you think that you shouldn't let AI data centers come into your backyard. You're losers if you're not up on AI. I mean, he's not, he's in his 80s. Who knows how long he'll live. Maybe he will survive the end of times. I just like the cause by AI. But what is the messaging around that right now? That is a huge motivator for Democrats to go out. It's not even just Democrats. It's just regular people. They have such a strong message around gas and AI. They really do. And the world. As a resident data center hater on this panel, I think the big messaging around AI right now, or at least the points that I'm seeing is that Republicans know we have to keep up with China as it pertains to AI. But they also know they have a messaging problem when it comes to data centers. We talked about this a lot. There's this attitude. I think on both sides of the aisle a little bit,

22:57but Republicans are struggling with it. The suggestion that everyone should shut up and just listen to the experts on AI, which is not very Republican considering what we went through with COVID, how we learned the hard way that you should not trust the experts. But I think Republicans are slowly coming around on that messaging. Vance talked about it. I think it was last week about the need for innovation, the need for more jobs and how these data centers are actually going to be good for the country. The anthropic story is very scary. Those were terrifying. It's terrible. It's very scary. But I would caution there as someone who's ready to believe anything crazy about AI because this did come out last night. This is to employees that are no longer with the company. I believe they're no longer with the company. I think that's something we should take with a grain of salt, bearing it in mind. In fact, no. I don't think most of the people in politics right now fully understand the implications of AI or how far it can go. There has been, we're about five years in. Maybe not even a five years. We're three years in to people quitting AI companies and saying that I'm quitting because AI is going to end humanity in the next year. I think it's

24:01happening right now. I'm saying to Mary Margaret's point. To Mary Margaret's point, this is a thing that happens where someone quits open AI and says we're all going to die and then we don't die. We just saw agents have a weird interaction with each other around. What was it called? I can't explain it. I'm not AI fluent, but they, AI agents created a community. They're like social network. They created their own social network and they talked to each other, these chat bots and then they got it organized and they worked towards the collective good and they created, they hacked into things. They created a lot of methods. Where is government right now? What are they doing? I think that, let me put this in more tangible terms because I understand the broad AI concerns that exist within the community and that have now been a little unfairly connected to the data center issue, which I actually think is more of a nimbi issue, especially if you look at the polling, it's more about what it's going to do to your power bill, what it's going to do to your water. Those are all the proximity things. What about your kids and what jobs they're going to get?

25:04Well, but this is the thing that I think people are kind of missing. If you look at Anthropic, for instance, and they're a study of the people who are most exposed to AI taking their jobs, right off the bat, you have customer service for obvious reasons. The immediate next here is actually hospital workers and bureaucrats. Not your doctor, not your nurse, not the people who actually take care of you, the people who handle your insurance coding, the people who go after and look at all the different things inside, and that has an exposure level of nearly 70% job loss in their prediction. There are on average- So we're supposed to fight with agents? No, no, no. The point is there are on average 14 hospitals in every congressional district in America, and in every congressional district you have between 2 and 3% of employment currently by those jobs. So what's going to happen for you when you see the kind of numbers that are going to hit the jobs and your congressional district, because AI is basically going to say, we can do this job better

26:05than this group of bureaucrats basically who work within the hospital system that no one likes anyway because they mostly are there to deny you service and claim. But are we supposed to then fight with agents and they're going to deny a service or or what will happen is to Ben's point, right? Because the hospital, the hospital lobby is obviously very powerful. What if what gets Congress to finally act and regulate AI is defending the broken hospital system that everyone hates, that will be the most American politics thing to ever have been the creative destruction. And then we'll go and repeal a little bomb of care because it's actually what saved us from the AI. You're going to roll out a bunch of rivets around the AI agents. You love to fire people. I'm going to call you whenever I'm wake up in a bad mood because you are the most optimistic person I've ever met with. No, but I think the overarching issue with AI on both sides of the aisle is that politicians need to be paying attention to the concerns of Americans. The legitimate concerns about AI should not just be swept under the rug. We should not be told.

27:07I agree that the president's message so far on AI that you're stupid if you don't want it. It is not the correct way to reach the American people. The American people are very smart. They have concerns. They have families. They see how all of this is going. So to just sweep their concerns under the rug, it's foolish and I think there does need to be more messaging on that front, whether it's data centers, whether it's anything to do with AI, but we appreciate your concerns. We understand the important. But AI runs Washington. They are one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. The technocrats, if you look at any Washington newsletter, it is sponsored by OpenAI. It's sponsored by Anthropic. It's sponsored Meta. They run Washington. Tell Schumer's dog five years ago, you could have said the same thing about pharma and then COVID happened. And now everyone, it's the only bipartisan issue it was hating Big Pharma. I know what you're saying. It's happening now. Everybody is working for the AI company. Ben said something before that I want to follow up. They're super interesting. I think you're right.

28:12That separating positioning data centers is an imbi issue or an imbi issue. I don't want you to build this ugly, loud building in my neighborhood versus AI and sort of what Tara is going to add right a little bit more of like, is this an existential threat and or going to take jobs. Do you think there's a way for either party to kind of latch on to differentiating them? Is there a winning message maybe for Republicans in there? Because for Democrats, it's maybe putting it together. Is there a way for like maybe Republicans say we hear you on the threat of AI, but also here's why that's not data centers are also powering like your Fitbit. You know what I mean? I think that that's a little bit too much to ask for this Republican party to execute in time for this election. In the long term, if this is an argument that we can have over the next couple of years, then I think that they could probably make those distinctions because a lot of the biggest concerns about AI, quite frankly I think are either misdirected or they're not looking at kind of the, I'm more concerned about the immediate job losses is going to happen, which I think

29:13people are underestimating in terms of how quickly it's coming. But when it comes to the data center thing, it is interesting. The Wall Street Journal have this cover article today about all these different states, Republican states mostly, that lean so heavily into it, gave these places tax breaks, gave them sweetheart deals. They don't need those sweetheart deals. They have plenty of money. You know, they should be paying for the schools and the roads and the energy that is going on there. They need to be building their own power plants. They need to be dealing with any of these, and the truth is that's why I think these data centers will ultimately prevail because they'll do things like they just did in Frederick, Maryland, where they basically said we're going to pay for every single thing your town wants for the next 10 years to be able to put one here. And that I think is what it's going to take. But I think in the immediate as a political matter, Republicans have enough trouble not tripping over their own, you know what's. But it was, it was President Trump who essentially said, it was like Bidenomics creating that word. He basically tripped over himself. He said, well, it's not a problem right now. You know, that's what Biden said. We've got inflation under control. Everything's great. And this is the problem when you become the president.

30:17You live in a bubble. You live in a house and you're surrounded by yes people and everyone tells you everything is great. And so you actually don't know. You can't feel the anxieties of the people that you are leading. And this was an example of it, the idea that we're all supposed to be fine and we're losers for caring. I don't know. I think there's a balance here because the president actually has been very good at understanding the pain that Americans feel. That's actually why he's president because he understood the real concerns of Americans in the past several elections. And that's why he was out there. He did. And I just don't know that he does now. So can I ask you a question about that? Because this leads me to the concern that I have that I was talking about yesterday, Mary Margaret. I think about the list of speakers that they have for this convention. When they initially were kind of talking about this convention, they were talking about highlighting some of the people who benefited the most from the president's policies. You know, average people, normal Americans, and you know, people who've experienced, you know,

31:18let's say the criminal effects of a flood of migrants across the border during Biden that the president shut down. You know, let's put these people out front and center. I see this list of speakers and it's all a bunch of people you can see on the C-SPANN at every day. I think they're going to work in. What do you mean by that? Well, it means politicians, right? They're all politicians. Yeah, they're all politicians. They're not like we're not highlighting like normal people who've benefited from the president's successes such as the man. Well, actually, there's going to be some interesting people mixed in there. For example, Vanessa Savage, who is one of the people targeted by the Biden DOJ for exposing transgender procedures for children here in Texas. She's going to be speaking here. There's a number of people like that. I know a number of families who have lost loved ones to illegal immigrant crime. People like that who are going to be worked into different scheduling and programming throughout the day to share their stories. But Ben is right that

32:20a lot of the politicians that will be highlighted in prime time, for example. Yeah, these are classic DC figures. But based on what I've seen and what the RNC has told me, they are going to work a lot of smaller, smaller stories of Americans who have been impacted by weaponization, for example, or Americans who have been impacted by illegal crime or different things like that. They will be here this weekend or this week and they will be sharing their stories as well. There's a real, don't go ahead. I was just going to say who's actually doing rolling coverage of this? That's the other thing. I mean, a lot of people, they say it really daily wire. That's what the daily wire. Oh yeah, sorry. I think this sort of goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning, which is that there's this can go one of two ways, right? Because if you look at the roster of speakers and you think, right, it's you got pretty much the entire cabinet, right? So if Pete Hegseth comes out and talks about, oh, he's not, right? But if not, you know, if they come out and they, you know, talk about immigration, they talk about, you know, if Kennedy or Dr. Oz, I think, is on the list, right? Talks about how we're making food safe, right? If they talk about the

33:22things that voters care about, instead of if they come out and say, how good is this president guys, right? It's just because even if it's not necessarily that kind of traditional lineup of, you know, average folks and things like that, they can still act as, like we were saying with Trump earlier, they can still act as messengers of a message that will benefit these candidates. Or of course, they could just come out and say, we love Donald Trump. Tara, are you surprised that Todd Blanche is speaking? Hegseth is not. Todd Blanche. Oh, no, I didn't see him on the manifest. I saw Scott Besson, which I thought was interesting. He is a pretty effective messenger considering the state of the economy. I do think he's pretty, he's pretty good. At least I see him when I see him on the round tables. They have RFK Jr. who keeps the maha moms happy, I guess. I don't know that they're entirely happy. Apparently, they've been courting AOC because they don't think he's done enough. Then there is Dr. Mementos, another great American showman and doctor. And there is Caroline Levitts, she's back. And Donald Trump Jr., which makes me think that he will have a presence in the future

34:29of this party, that he will be a standard bearer, JD Vance obviously. But no, we don't have Marco Rubio and we do not have Pete Hegseth. And I think because they are reminders of the issues that we have abroad. Or because they both have been rumored to have presidential ambitions. And JD Vance is speaking tomorrow night. That's true. And he is the rumored favorite of the Trump administration right now. That's a great point. I thought that Trump liked Rubio though. I think he loves Rubio. I don't think you should dismiss Rubio, yeah. I think I'm not saying we just missed him, but Vance is the favorite. I think Donald Trump loves winners. Yeah. Yeah, no. And I mean, the president got moved to tonight as opposed to tomorrow night. Now Vance speaks tomorrow night. And I think the president is closing out. But I particularly noticed that Rubio wasn't speaking in the, especially in these prime time slots. That'll be very interesting. But I do want to add a note that you know, we talk about who will be covering this, who will be actually covering it. Let's not forget that the legacy media and every conservative network,

35:32their favorite thing to cover is Donald Trump because he makes the best news. So we can talk about whether this, this R&C is going to be a success or not. But let's not pretend it's not going to get massive media coverage because it will. Everything that happens this week is going to be a story. Every reporter that is anyone is here covering this because this is the biggest news of the month, potentially, of the fall. I don't know about that actually. I think he'll get a, they'll get a three minute spot. I worked in at ABC News as a White House correspondent. They'll get three minutes. In the morning. Well, where are you here? That's a three minute spot. It's pretty good. CBS will probably give them a little bit more. Maybe NBC gives them three minutes. I bet CNN will cut in and out. I don't, they're not doing any live shows from here. And MS now, that's already a lost cause. Fox, yeah, probably Fox has a whole set up over here. I think the cable networks will be pretty, pretty heavily covered. I think you're right about the big three. I don't, no, they're not, they're not hosting any shows live from here. This isn't like a convention convention where they have a set up and they're going to be on. But they will be covering and Trump's, yeah, they'll,

36:36they'll dip in and out because what else to cover? I think that I mean this, this is the biggest news. I guess, but that's the same place though, right? Like, right. Break through and dominate local news channels and, uh, and broadcast, which is where the majority of people actually get their news. I mean, even you actually look at the cable numbers compared to broadcast, broadcast gets as much as 24 million, 24 million viewers. Cable gets a million. I think it's overestimated when you look at it. Like, we think cable news matters because we live in the bubble. It doesn't matter. Well, I think I think that's a daily, why I actually only think that new media matters like sub-stats. I agree. I mean, that's why I'm here in New Media land. But, obviously, I think, I think that one thing that we should appreciate though about this is that what the Republicans are kind of thinking, circling back to that blue sky question that Tim had is, we really need a reset to get the base to focus on this election in a way that they have. They have felt, I mean, one of the most interesting things you talked earlier about the gas prices and things like that, the split that's going on. One of the most interesting data points that was

37:39the Wall Street Journal report about earlier this year is the difference of opinion between older Americans and younger Americans about the state of the economy and how things are going. Older Americans who've experienced a stock market boom, they overwhelmingly think the economy is good to excellent. They're going to retire soon with their 401k. They own all the pauses. So, of course, they're happy. And then if you're basically the cutoff is around 45 and younger, you think everything sucks. Totally. So, I think a big part of this is trying to say to those people who are happy with things, you need to wake up because this is a base election and the only way that we're going to be able to hold power in Washington and keep Donald Trump from being impeached and keep his agenda rolling is if you actually wake up to the fact there are a bunch of people who are mad about what's going on in the country. And those people who are mad, and let's be honest, young people don't typically vote unless they're really, really mad. And older voters, older people vote, their home, their watching TV, their scared, everything is world is the disaster. And yes,

38:42they're either in retirement or they're about to collect their 401ks and they're invested in the sock market, whereas most young people aren't because they've been struggling for the past few decades. It's beyond most, a lot of millennials don't have stocks. They still don't own homes. It's because of all the avocado toast. Yeah, that's true. Avocado toast is really, it's really bad for us. Really set us back. If you wanted to run a real campaign, he would run on the cost of avocados and how we'll bring it down. But yeah, I think if you're heavily invested in the sock market, you love this administration. You think this is great. But if you're a person who lives day to day, cares about the price of gas, it's not heavily invested in sock market, does not own a home, does not have a lot of assets. And you're probably not just super happy right now. I have my family, they're very conservative. And I went home and I'm after around Easter, after the, obviously, we went into Iran, I saw my brother who's younger than me. He's about 10 years younger than me.

39:45He's got a family, he's got kids, he's got a job, he lives, you know, I don't want to say where he lives because he'll kill me. But you know, then they live in a in a red state and and he felt betrayed by President Trump. And I think a lot of people did because of this war. And that was one of the things that they really believe in. And he's a JD dance isolationist, I would say. And maybe JD Vance can somehow bring that spirit back. But I don't see that happening in this election. It's not totally gone, though. I know what you're talking about because I was just speaking with someone the other day who's not from DC, who's not from, you know, the political world. And I was kind of trying to get a gauge of how he feels and his friends feel about what's going on in politics and how they feel about the president who they've always supported. And the message I got from him and I've gotten from others that I've talked to in the same sphere is they're ready for the war to end. They want gas prices to go back down, but they're not done with Donald Trump. They're annoyed that this is going the way it is, but they're not done with him at all. And I think we shouldn't be underestimating the fervor of the American people, especially the MAGA movement that yes gets annoyed

40:49with the president about this issue or that issue. That doesn't mean they're done with that. Do I think that he would go out and vote for Kamala Harris again? No, I don't think so. No, I don't know. There's a bit of buyers or more. It would be a very good moment. I think everyone sort of circled around this point. It would be a great moment for the president or the vice president to get out and do a little politics of anger, a little. I acknowledge that this thing sucks or this thing is bad. And it's very hard to impossible to imagine Trump or Vance doing that. I mean, Vance maybe when he's free, maybe when Vance actually wants to put your prediction market bet now. Of course, it's not going to happen, but I think that's an interesting thing to think about. This would be a good moment to steer into the skin. What will be very interesting is if after this election, the Republican Congress, and I just I can see it coming, if the Republican Congress, let's say they at least lose the House, maybe they lose the Senate,

41:49they are going to try to put all of this on the president's decision to go into the war in Iran. They are going to try to put all of it on that. That that was a gamble, that he did it because he thought it was important, but that it put their political careers at risk and that that's the reason that they lost, which will ignore the fact that this Congress has sucked. They have really gotten very, very little done. They have they have they have they were out for okay, they were out for how many weeks exactly why aren't you doing your job? Maybe if you did your job, then people would want to send back to the Congress. Oh no, no, no, Congress doing its job is up there with Donald Trump saying that the economy is bad in terms of things that we can hold our breath for. I just want to rewind for a second. So Congress obviously has the lowest approval rating ever, lower than Trumps. And in the summer of 2025, Pam Bondi says case closed. A bunch of Republicans say let's get the Epstein files out. Mike Johnson keeps Congress out for an entire summer, a whole summer of no

42:52of zero legislation. And yeah, they didn't get anything done, but who did he do that for? Mike Johnson didn't do that for himself. He did that for President Trump. So again, this is, you know, this is his own mess. He's got a sentence. He hasn't actually played congressional politics well. He's just not. He's just not great at it either. I don't think he cares. He's Donald Trump show. And all of these people, they're just the players. His world, we're just living in it. Very Margaret. I mean, look, I have so many frustrations with Congress that that's why I cover the White House because I can't deal with all of those lawmakers over on the Hill. But look, they are very much at the pleasure of the President currently. Many of them do not have the backbone to stand up to him. Um, partially because they know that Trump runs Washington. And so, the way that Congress works right now is Mike Johnson tries to get congressional lawmakers on board with the President's plan and often doesn't succeed in that, though in the same way. But, uh, I don't know.

43:52I think the Epstein situation was much larger than the short synopsis you're making it out to be. But at the end of the day, why were they out? Why were they out? At the end of the day, we got a very long recess where they all on vacation. Do you have they doing? I mean, Terri, you have the Episiles now. I think they've reached the point where, look, I had a text from a member of Congress this morning just out of nowhere. We hadn't been talking about anything. It was just everything is stupid. Well, they're all retiring. That's the other thing too. I mean, what's the point? It really is. It's gotten to be a complete joke. There's so many retirements. They want to work for AI as obvious. That's the only way to survive. Well, and no one wants that we were talking about this on the last week. Like, there's no incentive to Congress has been flailing and failing for decades now and everyone talks about it. This is what keeps things in business as complaining about how Congress is abdicated its responsibility. But especially in recent years, thanks to the rise of social media and just the continued explosive power of the presidency, there's no incentive for anyone to like not

44:56just do it. No one wants to be the minority whip. No one wants to be, we were talking about, you know, congressional leaders. So yeah, it's like they're going to do it. They get their name. They run from president. They go become influencers. They go work for Anthrop. Yeah, they're better off becoming influencers, but they are majority in the majority right now. They have the house. They have the Senate. Oh, yeah. Every complaint about Congress is like, okay, well, you guys have all three. Guys, right. What are you doing here? I know it's a thin majority, but ultimately, you still have it. And you have to be able to pluck off a few Democrats, right? But there was so much. You think. You think. But I'm excited for the tonight. I'm looking forward to President's remarks. I'm looking forward to hearing this unifying message. And I'm looking forward to hearing and seeing all of these networks covering the RNC that they said wasn't cool enough for them to talk about. So. We're about to run in a time here, but before we wrap, let's do a quick round robin parting thoughts. What do we think the president's going to talk about tonight? Ben Domenic. I think that the president is going to set out in agenda that we've heard before, but haven't

45:59heard him do on this kind of stage in a long time. And I think it's actually going to serve as basically resetting the talking points, resetting the sort of priorities for candidates across the country. They're going to start echoing him. It's basically marching orders. It's just happening from a stage. But what are they? Just do you have a preview? I mean, I think it's going to be the same things that we heard from him before. He's going to talk about Trump accounts. He's going to talk about assets that they've been able to play. He's going to talk about the aspects of shutting down the border. He's going to talk about the dangers of socialism. And he's going to talk about, you know, that some of the crazy things that some of these socialist candidates believe. Yeah, exactly. I think that's what we're going to hear from the president tonight. Also, Steven Chung is teasing a surprise announcement. The president actually teased that as well. So something in that spirit we'll be here about tonight. But look, I think it's going to be look what we've done so far. We have made the country greater again. Do you want us to continue making this progress? Vote for us if you don't vote for the radicals. And he'll talk about why Democrats are radical. But I don't know if we often talk about enough under President Joe Biden. We had child gender transition surgeries

47:04being not only performed, but promoted as a good thing, as a medically necessary thing under the former HHS, the weaponization of the government. He'll talk about all of that under President Joe Biden and say, look what I fixed. Look how far we've come. And frankly, you know, for the people saying that that's a message that we don't need to hear anymore, I think it's actually very unifying message for Republicans to remind them, this is what could happen if you elect Democrats. Sarah. I've heard that there isn't a lot of control over what he's going to say. So it's whatever comes from his mouth. But I do think he'll overinflate the state of our country. I think it'll be a lot like a state of the Union. And it'll be a very positive one like you've heard before. And I think you're right. He'll talk about transgenders and he'll talk about the border wall. And he will talk about his accomplishments. I wonder if he'll touch the third rail, touch AI, touch the war or whatever he's calling it. That's what I'm looking out for if he'll actually talk about those

48:06things. And he might just do it because that's what he does. And that'll be interesting to me. And I'm kind of interested to hear a new story that I haven't heard before. Killer windmills. I'm kind of over that. Well, at least one of you is going to be partially right. We will see you tonight, Tara. Thank you so much for joining us, Ben Mary Margaret. It's always a pleasure. This has been a special live edition of the District Club here in Dallas, Texas. Tim Rice, thank you for watching The Daily Wire. We'll see you guys soon.