Republicans kick off "midterm convention" in Dallas

0:00Now, you can watch Ali Velchee five nights a week in prime time on MS now, as he takes command of the 11th hour. The Justice Department is facing its own legal obstacles over this case, putting today's stories in perspective. This one is perhaps one of the more interesting surprises. And tomorrow's headlines in focus. Economists are warning that American consumers are soon going to feel the hurt. The 11th hour with Ali Velchee, week nights at 11 PM Eastern on MS now. The 11th hour starts now. Tonight, we've been watching the RNC's Trump Apollosa in Dallas, so you don't have to. Plus, I'll be joined by Bobby Polito, the Texas Tejano star turned Democratic challenger who's giving an incumbent House Republican a real run for her money. And why Donald Trump's convenient claim that his war on Iran will end right after the midterms is not just another bit of Trumpian bluster, but part of a dangerous pattern of delusion that's becoming a signature of his second term foreign policy.

1:06It is Wednesday, September the 9th, 55 days until the midterm elections and the Republican Party is trying to rally its base in hopes of avoiding an embarrassing loss in November as their chances of keeping control of Congress slip away. Just minutes ago, Donald Trump finished up a full hour and 45 minute speech at the kickoff evening of the RNC's unusual and unprecedented midterm convention. And the place where they chose to host it is not a place you'd normally think of Republicans needing to work hard to defend. Texas has undeniably been a Republican stronghold for decades. The state has an elected Democratic Senator since 1988, nor a Democratic governor since 1990. Republicans have held the majority in the state Senate since 1997 and in the state House since 2003. That's not a state Republican should be concerned about it all in this year's election cycle, but most signs now show that the state is fully in play for Democrats. The Democratic Senate candidate James Tallerico has a real shot this year of beating the Republican candidate Ken Paxton, who, how do you say this?

2:10Comes with a lot of baggage. Tallerico has been polling ahead of Paxton in recent polls, including the latest one from Univision and UGov, which has Tallerico up by five points, 48 to 43. MS now considers the race a toss up, especially when you factor in the financial advantage that Tallerico has over Paxton and the shift that we've seen among Latino voters favoring Democrats in recent special elections. On top of that, Democratic primary voters outnumbered Republican primary voters this year for the first time in 24 years, in Texas. And even though Texas Republicans pushed through a new gerrymandered map explicitly designed to gain them five extra seats without winning more votes, in two of those five races, polling shows that the Democrat is competitive. And the reason that the Republican Party is even in this vulnerable position in Texas this year is Donald Trump. He's the one who endorsed and encouraged Texans to choose Ken Paxton in the primary over the four term Senator John Cornin, who is also Trump who demanded states change their

3:12electoral maps, and it was Trump who wanted to host the convention in the first place. And to put himself at the center of all of it, even though he doesn't appear on any ballots this year. Yes, indeed, they don't laugh at us anymore. And that bit about asking folks to pretend he's on the ballot is a trifle dubious. Trump's job approval rating is pretty bad. He's fallen to 33% in the latest poll by the financial times and focal data, consistent

4:14with the results of many other recent polls. Joining me now from Dallas, Texas is MS now senior White House reporter Vaughn Hillier. Vaughn, you did the work so we didn't have to hour and 45 minutes. That was quite something. By the way, this is not his last appearance at this event. He's doing it again tomorrow. How do you correct? Allie, they don't want to go on. What did you do? Did you get to live? What's happening? We got a little operative to finish us off here, Allie. After you said almost a two hour speech and get this Allie. So tonight was supposed to be his keynote remarks. Tomorrow night they are touting his remarks tomorrow night as an unforgettable closing remarks. Quote unforgettable closing remarks. So you went almost two hours and I don't know exactly what it's planned tomorrow, but you played a good chunk of it there. And the fact is that the president of the United States, he talks about crowd size over the course of 10 years. And I've kind of never been super into the Congo, but at the same time, he's the one that brings it up all the time. And tonight, he brought it up four different times, saying repeatedly that it's packed

5:18in here. It's packed in here as he looked up in the upper deck. The venue is maybe 60 percent full. We're in the heart of downtown Dallas, Allie. And I bring this up because there was already skepticism and questions of Republican lawmakers and donors and allies about what the objective of having this in the first place was and what was going to be the end result for the Republicans that showed up. And for the Republican candidates that were here today, they had a pretty laxidazical subdued crowd and an empty arena that was just frankly kind of a head turner here. And so the president, he hit remarks from tariffs, the Iran War, which operatives around the Republican Party don't want their candidates talking about because the data and the polling shows that they're so far underwater on those issues. But President Trump talked about those. He talked about the ballroom too. And so this really I think is a moment here of reckoning that the Republican Party built for themselves. Donald Trump is their leader. He is going to be the frontman. And he is the one that they are relying on also turn out a base of support that brought

6:23him to power in the first place. So this is where they find themselves here heading into November of 2026, Allie. This is all very interesting stuff, but I can't get past the fact that from now on every time you're on the air, I'm going to ask my control room to have a soundtrack of hallelujah playing in the background. It's quite something different. I mean, it adds a whole layer of stuff to you. But it's been my life the last 11 years, Allie. If I'm mad and that thing's bad, I'm just saying this has been my life. God bless you. You are wonderful and a lovely tribute to Leonard Cohen tonight with our friend, Von Hillier. Good to see you, my friend. Von Hillier, this MS now Senior White House reporter. All right. Joining me now is Jim Acosta, veteran White House correspondent. Now host of the Jim Acosta show on Substack is the author of New York Times Best Cellar, the enemy of the people, a dangerous time to tell the truth in America. It's also joining me. Stuart says, anybody here have, in term music, Stuart Stevens is a senior advisor at the Lincoln Project. He was also the chief strategist for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. He's the author of, it was all a lie. How the Republican Party became Donald Trump, which seems weirdly relevant tonight in this

7:27thing that we were just watching in Dallas. Jim Acosta, I just have to ask you because you're a newsman. I need to ask you this before we get to anything else. Donald Trump said in this speech, here's my promise that the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them because it's their tremendous strength and success. I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000. Yada, yada, yada. I'm not a campaign finance expert. I think you could do that. Yeah, I think that's called rivalry, Ali. But who's going to prosecute that? Todd Blanche, he was speaking at the convention tonight. I mean, I don't think so. I think the only thing that Donald Trump's speech was missing was him asking the question, why would I deceive you? A lot of Elizabeth Holmes. I think that was the only thing that speech was missing tonight. No, I mean, you know, that was, I think that was probably a tell from Donald Trump. He has a lot on these days and that was a sign of desperation. He knows that he is in massive trouble right now and they tried the whole dear leader convention

8:33tonight. All of the cabinet members came out. They basically did what they do around the cabinet room. They tried to puff him up and then they sent him out there to give this speech and all he really had to deliver in terms of headlines was a bribery attempt to the American people. And of course, all of us, we can do the math. It would be like what, $1.3 trillion to give everybody in America $5,000. I mean, I guess he would then finally bankrupt the country like he has with his casinos. Stuart, you can really just throw in any words you want and I can ask you a question about it because this was such an all over the place speech. But here he brought out another one of his favorites. He says, let's play, let's play number five about tariff. He's always better to hear it in his voice. Oh, okay, we don't have that, so I'm going to read it to you. Trump says you've heard this before, Stuart, tariffs are my favorite word. It's going to make America rich. It's making us much richer than we ever thought possible. We're taking in trillions of dollars. I said tariffs is my favorite word and the fake news went crazy.

9:34They said, what about love? What about wife? What about God, religion, family? So I moved tariff down to fifth and now I'm okay, now I'm okay. So I moved tariff down to fifth. I'm okay. Yeah, look, I mean, that's not a well man who says that stuff. And there's this sort of need that we have to pretend that Donald Trump is not somebody who's in serious mental decline. A guy who goes up there and gives this sort of Castro-linked speech, rambling on, promises to brought Americans. I mean, first of all, $5,000 is not enough. I mean, this is going to have to be a lot more than that for them to win the selection. So this is just the nightmare for Republicans, but it's the deal they made. Donald Trump came in and said, look, the party that I worked in, if you banned in every belief you ever had and worked diametrically opposed to it, I will give you power. And Republicans, to my horror and a lot of his horror said, what's the catch?

10:36We'll do it. So here you are. We've been in a series of change elections. The 16 election was a change election. 20 was a change election, 24. And this is going to be a change election. And the Republicans are running Washington. And you look at that 33% approval or something. It's really sort of a falsely optimistic number because when you look at his very favorable, which is really what matters in politics, very favorable, you're very unfavorable. It's only like 15% and is very unfavorable is like over 50%. I don't know when I've ever seen a delta like that. So there are certain moves and politics you would make to get out of this mess. And that is to say, I know things aren't great. We've made some mistakes, but we've listened to you. We've heard. We're going to course correct. Give us another chance. That doesn't always work, but it begins to work.

11:36It gives you maybe some basis to begin a discussion with voters. And what Trump, he just can't do that. And none of these candidates can do it. And I don't think there's a lot of Republican campaign managers in operatives who are looking at this, thinking this was great for their candidates. Jim, you and I talked, I don't know, six hours ago or something like that. And there was a lot of news when you and I talked on your show. Just then, there's been a new development and I want to play it for you. A big room of Republicans in Dallas. Yes, I'm Senator John Fetterman, Pennsylvania. Yes, I'm a Democrat. Why am I here talking to you today? Because, well, I'm a common sense Democrat. I'm always going to stand with America. I'm always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life. And McCormick is the kind of Senator that gets the job done. We'll work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life right here

12:40in the steel valley. What do you make of that, Jim? As John Fetterman, the Democratic Senator from Pennsylvania, although a lot of people are not sure that he's a Democrat anymore, and he's implied that he may not be a Democrat very soon. But to record a video introducing the Republican Senator from Pennsylvania at Trump of Paloza struck me as odd even for our times. Yeah, totally, Ali. And there's been some reporting, I think just recently, that has basically delivered the message that John Fetterman has been kind of phoning it in as a Senator. He hasn't really been doing his job as a Senator. And he sort of phoned in that speech to the Republican convention. So it's sort of, I guess, in line with where he is right now. I will say, I think I saw there was some reporting earlier this evening that John Fetterman put out a statement saying that he will continue to be a Democrat, no matter what happens with the upcoming midterms. But if you're Democratic strategist right now over the DNC and you're looking at that

13:43battleground map of all of these Senate seats that are up for grabs, you've got to be thinking that you've got to win, plus one, plus John Fetterman. If you need four or five seats to take control of the Senate, you're going to need five or six seats to take control of the Senate. Because of this Doomsday scenario that a lot of Democrats are worried about right now, that John Fetterman would simply flip over the Republican side if the Democrats take control. He's saying he's not going to do that. But just to pick up on what Stu was saying a few moments ago, Donald Trump tonight was also engaging in some magical thinking. Maybe the magical thinking includes getting John Fetterman. But the other thing Donald Trump was saying tonight was that the war is going to end after the midterms. And that gas earlier today was saying gas prices are going to come down after the midterms. This is like taking us back to COVID when he was saying it's a miracle it's going to disappear any day now. There's a lot of magical thinking tonight. They're hoping John Fetterman switches over. That's the magical thinking I think on the Republican side right now.

14:46And that looked, that's a piece of math everybody should have in their head, right? Because we've got these past to the Senate control that don't include a Democratic Senator becoming a Republican Senator. I understand what he said, but John Fetterman has changed his views on a lot of things over the last couple of years. Stuart, this business about the war is going to end or the gas prices are going to go down right after the midterms. Normally I understand the construct that Donald Trump came up with there, but at some point, Donald Trump said the war was ending. He said a few weeks ago, mission accomplished. He put out a thing in which he said that. He's discussed the fact that America is in full control of the state of hormones when we know that not to be true. And if you don't know that to be true, just take a look at your gas prices and it'll help you figure it out. Again, maybe there's that 15% that are strongly in favor of him. Are the other 60, 75, 85% of Americans falling for this nonsense? Or do they just not have to fill up their gas tanks? Now look, I mean, we've watched this extraordinary spectacle of America losing a war every 60 days

15:47and Trump is saying the thing is over repeatedly. Look, this is an absolute disaster for Republicans because the pressure point, there were sort of two principles here that really difficult to understand how much this was the sort of foundation of what it meant to be a Maga Republican. Prosecute the Epstein class and no more foreign wars. So we've had no prosecutions on the Epstein class and we're in a foreign war and a foreign war that unlike the other foreign wars that we've been in recently, which were tragic and had a tremendous impact on a small minority of the country who are in our military. Most Americans didn't feel the pain of Iran about Afghanistan. Every American feels the pain of this disastrous war that we've lost in Iran or with Iran. And that you pay everything that you're paying at the pump. Diesel is headed to $6 a gallon. You're paying more for food because of it.

16:49So look, you can't talk people out of that. You can't say you didn't really spend $80 to fill up your car this morning. And if you are, I'm going to end this. If he could end it, he wouldn't end it now. Why wait till after the election? It doesn't make sense. You know, this move so fast, Jim, that he can't keep track of it. But on Friday, it's the 25th anniversary of 9-11. And again, Donald Trump was saying things that weren't true about where he was on 9-11 and what his involvement was with the whole thing. And then he was sort of making jokes about Howard Lutnik, whose brother and most of his staff was lost in 9-11. He was saying he should thank his wife for making him take his kid to school because he got to watch it from the West Side Highway instead of being dead in it. He just, it's been a week like that for Donald Trump. Every day is a lie or getting caught in a lie or having to explain to the press about why they're the enemy of the people. That's just this week and we're Wednesday.

17:49You know, it's so true, Oli. And I feel like when I heard Donald Trump tell those lies about 9-11 the other day, I felt like I was transported into one of the chapters in Stu's book in which the party just completely sells its soul to a madman. And that is something that we saw earlier this week when Donald Trump told those lies about 9-11. And you know, there are disgraceful lies, there are despicable lies, and then there's this kind of lie to lie about being there on 9-11 to lie about it. It's still lie about it. And pulled out of the rubble by firefighters. You know, we're all old enough to remember what took place during that time period and how, you know, I reported from, you know, ground zero and the weeks that followed and saw the men on the pile and what they went through. And we all remember the phrase when others rushed out, they rushed in. Yeah. For Donald Trump to even just try to paint this just ridiculous lie that he is somehow in that category is just one of the more despicable things that any human being could say, let alone

18:53the president of the United States. And it's a shame. It is a uniquely shameful moment for Donald Trump to pedal that lie. And then he attacked the New York Times and attacked Maggie Herberman for calling him out on that lie. And it's something that all Americans should be embarrassed about. The Donald Trump was telling that lie this week. And thank God he's not going to be in New York for 9-11 on Friday. He should be nowhere near New York City on that day. Stuart, Ken Paxson, I don't know why Donald Trump couldn't see this coming, but this is unfolding exactly the way most of us thought it would unfold if Ken Paxson got the nomination in Texas, right? I mean, Jim Calatallarico may be a great candidate. I don't know, but it sure helps that he's running, it helps him that he's running against Ken Paxson. Yeah. And look, you know, somebody who worked a lot in Texas, I worked for Governor Bush, I worked for Senator Cornyn. It's shouldn't be underestimated, the degree to which there is a part of the Republican Party that loads Ken Paxson.

19:55The Bush Wing of this party which still does exist, the Cornyn Wing, it still exists out there. You know, John Cornyn, one of the tragedies of his career, his life, is he lost to a guy who when he was Attorney General, he would have put in jail. And that's what he got for supporting Donald Trump. He got Donald Trump's gratitude to support this crook. So look, I think there's a very good chance Calatallarico is going to win. And I will say that once Democrats start winning Texas, Republicans are going to start calling for the abolishment of the electoral college, because I've sat in these rooms and it's hard to get there if you don't carry Texas. And that's going to become pretty apparent to Republicans. Guys, I appreciate you kicking us off tonight. It's always a pleasure to have you both, Jim Acosta and Stuart Stevens. Thank you. All right, coming up, we're going to talk to a Democratic Congressional candidate in Texas, whose campaign is defying the state's pro-Republican Congressional maps. But first, I got to stop at the big board because Rhode Island has its primary elections today,

21:00and there's something of an upset in the governor's race. Helena folks, a former CVS executive won the Democratic nomination, defeating the incumbent governor, Dan McKee. That makes McKee the first sitting governor to lose a primary in Rhode Island in more than 30 years. McKee has taken over the job, had taken over the job when his predecessor, Gina Raimondo, left in 2021 to become the Commerce Secretary in the Biden administration. I say all politics is local. This might be the case study. McKee faced widespread criticism over the renovation of a major bridge in Providence, which has seen years of delays. The lagging project clogged up the commute in the nation's smallest state and dragged his own approval rating down. Now, you can watch Ali Valshi five nights a week in prime time on MSNow as he takes command of the 11th hour. The Justice Department is facing its own legal obstacles over this case, putting today's stories in perspective.

22:00This one is perhaps one of the more interesting surprises and tomorrow's headlines in focus. Economists are warning that American consumers are soon going to feel the hurt the 11th hour with Ali Valshi, week nights at 11 PM Easter, not MSNow. As Republicans gather for their Trump-A-Pollusa Convention in Texas, we should note that the state is also home to a competitive house race that we're watching closely. The 15th Congressional District, look at this thing. It's a thin slice of land east of San Antonio that stretches all the way south into the Rio Grand Valley. It's a majority Hispanic district that's currently represented by the two-term Republican Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz. She won her most recent Congressional race in 2024 by 14 points. And now she's facing a formidable Democratic challenger in this man, Bobby Polito. It's made a name for himself in South Texas as a legendary award-winning Tejano music superstar

23:01whose music I was just listening to before the show started. He's giving De La Cruz a hell of a fight in a district of President Trump won by 18 points. The 15th District is even more Republican leading now, at least in theory, after Texas Republicans gerrymandered their state's Congressional Districts last year. However, Polito has been gaining in the polls. In July, the Cook Political Report changed its rating for the race from likely Republican to Leans Republican. And then in August 26, Larry Sabano's Crystal Ball changed its rating from Leans Republican to Tossup. Now a Texas Southern University poll from late August shows Bobby Polito up five points over Monica De La Cruz, 50 to 45%. Now, that is with 5% undecided and that result is within the margin of error. But remember, Monica De La Cruz won her last race by 14 points and the district's been redistricted to make it more Republican. The trajectory of this race is clear. Larry Mander or not, Texas Republicans have got a real race on their hands.

24:03Joining me now is Bobby Polito, Democrat, Accantate for Congress in Texas's 15th District. Bobby, nice to see you again. Thank you for being with us. Likewise, Ali, thanks for having me. I've been a real fan of your music, by the way. I have no Tehano music expert, but it's fun. I appreciate that. Thanks. Tell me what's going on here, district. That's what's happening here, district. They took a Republican district and made it more Republican and now you're in striking distance. They changed the district around, so 65% of the district is new. But we've seen five polls, Ali, and all five polls we're winning. So, it's not just that one poll. Look, it's a dog fight, I'd say it's a toss up. But we've been working really hard on the ground since last year. I've gone to every single county. We've gone to the Redis and Redis of counties. We drew 2,750 people in Beavill, Texas, which is a town of 70% that voted for Trump. And we're looking really strong right now. Talk to me about your opponent. I think is speaking or was speaking at this Trump-A-Polusa thing, which is a whole mystery

25:07this Trump-A-Polusa. Like why they're doing it, why they have to do it in Texas, Ken Paxton, and that what that race is looking like. I was speaking to Gina Hone, you know, so recently, across the board in Texas, things are looking substantially brighter for Democrats who by design, Republicans by design created a situation with Donald Trump where you would all be at a disadvantage and yet somehow you're at less of a disadvantage for some reason. Well, I think the irony in all of this is I'm in the music business, right? And today, her brother was the first one that opened and she was the second one. And I think there was over 35 speakers that spoke today. That shows you how important she is to them. I think South Texas is tired of getting used and they want somebody to stand up and fight for them. And I'm in the music business, so I get it. When they put you in that lineup, I don't think they think much of her to be honest with you. What do you make of why when you said in South Texas people are getting used to being taken advantage of? What do you mean by that? What are people taking for granted for?

26:08I think they took for granted the Latino vote. I think they thought that that was something, listen, they get us all wrong. And the truth of the matter is, it's for a long time, they were making little bits of gains, little bits of gains, little bits of gains. But right now, they've lied. And down here, we don't like people to lie to us. They told us that there was going to be no new wars and there's wars. They told us that the economy was going to get better and it got worse. And there was tariffs that are making things more expensive. And now they said they were going to get rid of the bad people and it turns out that they're deporting gardeners and grandmas with nothing on their record. People do not like that. We don't like getting lied to. Bobby, talk to me about how the conversations go with people who voted for Donald Trump and your opponent. Because you are going, as you said, you're going to the reddest of red counties. What's the conversation like? You know, the thing that I hear the most is that people don't, they don't believe and they don't say that they were really big fans of Trump. They didn't like what us as Democrats were putting on, we're selling.

27:12They didn't like the message. They didn't like the messengers. We didn't do our part and resonate. You know, I never blame people for not liking the song. I just need to write a better song. And so at the end of the day, I think if you go and you talk to them, people down here are very reasonable. And if you give them a good, solid message on what you want to go fight for and they look in the eye and they see, well, okay, you're telling me the truth. I think that's how you turn people. It's not really hard. I don't believe in shaming people for how they voted. I don't like to go backwards and revisit 2024. It's looking to the future as far as what do we need to do to help the people and what do we need to work on. And right now, you know, healthcare is a bit concerned and, you know, we got to do something with the immigration issue because right now we don't have a workforce down here and there's lots of people living in fear and it's not good. And we do have to work on making life more affordable for everybody because, you know, everybody's complaining about how the economy's doing really poorly and down here. This is the poorest area in the district and it actually in the state of Texas. So, you know, all of these cuts really hurt.

28:15And at the end of the day, you know, Monica La Cruz has not done anything about it. She's afraid to stand up to her party. She's up on TV. There's plenty of lots of money right now. She was on TV in mid July because they know that they're behind. You can go donate. We need all the help we can get in Bobby Polito for Texas.com. Bobby, nice to see you as always. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Ali. Bobby Polito is a Democratic candidate for Congress in Texas is 15th district. All right, coming up, Trump's war of choice with Iran is going from bad to worse with no plan negotiations and no end in sight. But he says it will magically be over after the midterms. In 1979, in the middle of a revolution, Iranian student militants seized the US Embassy in Tehran and held 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days. The crisis was a contributing factor to then President Jimmy Carter's defeat.

29:17And in a calculated insult to Carter, the hostages were not released until the very moment. Noon on January 20, 1981 that Ronald Reagan was sworn into office. He became one of the enduring images of that transition. The planes taking off from Iran as Reagan took his oath of office in Washington. Perhaps channeling this history, President Trump had this to say about the ongoing war with Iran. Now, there's a lot in there, but as far as calculating what another country will do, Donald Trump has made basically the same calculated prediction twice before and twice before he's been wrong, but in opposite directions of severity. After returning to office in 2025, Trump hit Canada with tariffs. He expected a quick win, but he ended up resetting the deadline time and again for an entire

30:18year. In February of 2026, the Supreme Court gutted the legal basis for his tariffs. And the new set of tariffs he came out with last month saw him giving up ground, targeting specific goods rather than a blanket tariff on everything imported from Canada. And that's because the Canadians refused to cave to Trump's blackmail the way he expected. And then there's the case of Trump's supposed deal-making with North Korea. Trump's miscalculation there was even worse. The 2018 Singapore summit with Kim Jong-un was a personal win for Trump. The Secretary of State promised a nuclear-free North Korea by January of 2021, the end of Trump's first term. That deadline came and went, and in the years since North Korea has built even more nuclear weapons, not dismantled them. Now in Trump's second term, he's negotiating from a much weaker position and Kim is now saying he'll only talk if the United States drops to the man for denuclearization entirely. Yet now Trump is making the same kind of prediction about Iran. Iran will negotiate, but they can't hold out any longer on a clock that is somehow tied

31:23to the midterms. The interesting thing is his own quotes don't even agree with each other. He says Iran wants a weaker Congress out of this election, which implies that Iran thinks it's winning something by waiting Trump out. But then in the same breath, he says the war ends right after the election, regardless because they're too exhausted to fight. He's developing a habit of underestimating his adversary's threshold for pain. I'm going to take a quick break when I come back Bobby Gosha is going to join me to unpack what this dangerous new foreign policy fostering could be. Do you know what I mean? Bobby Gosha columnist and geopolitics analyst Bobby nice to see you.

32:24The reason this is in the news today is because Donald Trump said this thing will end after the midterm election. Does anybody's guess us to why he thinks so or what he said? But he's not been in control of when it starts and when it ends because the other guys get a vote. Yeah, and he is completely and consistently underestimated the other guy. He simply does not seem to understand how Iran works. He has midterm elections. The Iranian regime does not. He has to worry about public opinion polls. The Iranian regime does not. He thinks that the Iranians are feeling pain and that is true, but it's not true for the people with whom he's negotiating or trying to negotiate the people who make the decisions. Ordinary Iranians, the vast majority of ordinary Iranians are feeling pain and will feel even greater pain. But the people running that country don't feel the pain and they care as little about ordinary Iranians as Donald Trump does. So he's completely unable to wrap his head around this reality that he's dealing with

33:30the regime that does not feel the pain he's trying to inflict. And his theory, I think if I can make sense of these two different things that he said today is that the regime is at the point of breaking because of the economic pain and they're only hoping so that they can land one last political punch. And what is that political blow they can land? They can hurt Donald Trump in the middle of the world. Of course, oil prices are high because the straight up hormones is not open. Yeah. Meanwhile, we know that Donald Trump is sort of down in the polls for all kinds of reasons, including the war in Iran. But he's trying to put together this idea that they're trying to do him harm, but they're at the point of collapse and that they'll take this last punch and then they'll collapse under the ground. And it'll be a big win from him. And the moment that happens, oil prices will suddenly come down, which is why he's saying the day after elections or immediately after the midterm elections, oil prices will collapse. So you've articulated that very well.

34:31There's no basis for that being true. None at all. You've translated what Trump might be trying to say. This is pure dream land. This is pure fantasy and this is as real as this $5,000 check that's now promising to give all Americans. Which again, where in other places that would be called a bribe. Yeah. And by the way, also, I'm still waiting for the $5,000 dose check that we are still waiting. I'm still waiting for the 2000 or the $3,000 tariff check that we're supposed to get. There was a $1,000 check for something else that I forget what it was. There's a lot of checks, O.D. There's a lot of that, the president owes me like $10,000 already. So you know, I'm not holding my breath. So he just has not been able to fathom what goes on. And the people around him are either as clueless or he is. As he is or they are simply unable to break through his wall of ignorance and communicate this to him. And he's transmitting that that lack of understanding to his base in those speeches that he makes

35:34in those promises that he makes. And the polling suggests that they don't believe him either. Ordinary Americans, including many people in the places of the country that voted for him in very large margins, they're listening to what he's saying and they're paying $80 to fill their gas tax on their 150. It's cognitive dissonance. It's cognitive dissonance and the dollars don't lie. The fake checks are alive, but the dollars the money you're actually paying out, that doesn't lie. So let's try, if Trump were to realize how bad this is and we're not sure because we don't know whether he sees the real polls or whatever the case is, it could do one of two things. One is he could do like George H.W. Bush did and create an international blockade of Iran. It didn't work. He didn't even try, by the way. He just kind of went into this and hoped everybody would join him. That didn't work. So the thing he could say is, all right, I understand this is bad. We're going to work toward a negotiated settlement. But he's just kind of hoping. He's fantasizing that this will just end a couple of weeks ago.

36:34We had that AI thing that he posted, that said, mission accomplished, right? So this is Stuart Stevens who was saying earlier, we keep losing this war every 60 days. It keeps telling you where we've won. He keeps telling you where in control of the straight of hormones and then you suddenly learn that we're not and oil is back above $100 a barrel. Yeah, and the other problem is, of course, that the strategy that is designed to inflict pain on Iran, this blockade, is not a short term strategy. If he were to communicate to an American audience and say, look, these guys are bad guys. We've got to do damage. It'll take us some time. Here's what I'm planning to do. I can't get this done in six months. I can't promise it'll get done in a year. But over a period of time, I will eliminate the danger that Iran represents. And let's not kid ourselves. Iran represents a danger. But he can't communicate that because he wants instant results. He has repeatedly promised he'll get this done in a matter of days or that it's already done or that it's on the verge of being doing their desperate.

37:35They want to deal. They're begging for a deal. They're calling me and saying, sir, please make a deal. So these two things, just this square into that circle, simply will not go. He can't execute this strategy and expect that outcome. Just not going to happen. It's nice to see you, my friend. Thank you for coming in tonight. Any time. Bobby Gosh is a columnist and geopolitics analyst. All right, coming up. One of my favorite things about this job is talking to people, hearing and telling their stories. Over the years, I have reported from every corner of the United States, well over a dozen other countries. And what I'm not traveling, I've always tried to find other ways to connect with viewers. So after the break, I'm going to tell you about a new project we're working on here at MSNOW that's going to help you connect with me and with a whole community of other people who care about democracy as much as you do. So some of you will remember this before I came to the 11th hour when I had my weekend

38:36show. We had an email address that we'd share on air. People would send me their thoughts on a story that we'd covered whether they loved it or hated it or they'd tell us stories about their own experiences and how the stories we were covering affected them personally. We came across some incredible stories this way. That's how we came to know the then 100 year old Grace Lynn who wrote to tell me about the quilt she was making, which featured the covers of band and challenge books. And she thought it would be interesting because of our work with the Belchee Band Book Club. We absolutely were interested and Grace joined us on the show after turning up at her local school board meeting in Florida to speak up against book bands. But then the email address that brought us Grace Lynn's story and so many others followed the familiar path of so many hot mail and AOL accounts of yesterday year. It is now digitally feral, overrun with spam and fishing schemes. And that's why I'm actually really earnestly excited to talk to you about a new project here at MSNow that's going to make it very easy for you to connect with me to ask us questions to tell us what you love and hate about the show and to find other people to chat and share

39:39ideas with. The MSNow membership is our new experience that lets you participate in real time daily discussions and find a community that cares about democracy as much as you do. You can scan the QR code on your screen or as you probably gleaned if you hate QR codes as much as I do, you can just go to MS.now slash membership to become a member. Here's what you're going to see for me specifically. We're going to see stuff from all my colleagues. But for me specifically, first of all, I'm reunited with my old pal Stephanie Rule for a live Q&A every Wednesday at 12 p.m. Eastern. We kicked it off today. We've got a ton of great questions from folks who've already become members. We answered them live in real time. Welcome to Full Disclosure with Velshiet Rule. We're live on this brand new MSNow app. So for those of you who are joining us here for the first time, thank you. Nice to see you all. And hi buddy. Are you wearing a tie for this momentous occasion? Yeah, that's a big deal. People always say that. It's like why don't you get the show banned back together. It's like, well, this is a better way to do it because we're not just talking about

40:40stuff. We're answering specific questions. So let's get right to it. We've got a lot of them today and we really, really appreciate them. I want to start with Jonathan. And he said in the spirit of behavioral economics, can you shed light on why you think investors react so strongly to fluctuations in oil prices and fed monetary policy when in actual actuality most investors are in it for the long term. What a great, great, great kickoff question for us because first of all, Jonathan, you're 100 percent right. First investors, people who are not professionals who don't do this for a living, should be invested for a long term. Okay, so that's Stephanie and me. We're taking your questions together every Wednesday at 12 PM Eastern. That's not all. You'll also be able to watch my exclusive new series off the charts. We're each week, I'll dive into the latest polls and election data at the big board. This week's episode is a deep dive into a real world example of the chaos and confusion that's happening in one gerrymandered state that you probably haven't been following all that closely. And there's a special community discussion spot for members to connect with us and with

41:43each other. We're going to use that space to bring the Valshi Band Book Club to life. It's going to be, it's going to feel like a real club now. And maybe it's where we'll find the next grace, Lynn. All right, tonight's 11th hour is done. Tomorrow starts right now. There's a lot of news to cover. Money. Time for the business. All eyes on the new Fed chair. The economic fallout from the war is a temporary power. The president is now a major crypto industry operator is this White House for sale. Politics. Is there an energy to respond to this aggressive gerrymandering? It has never been more important to be informed and engaged. Money-powered politics with Stephanie Roo, weekdays at 9 a.m. Eastern on MSNow and find

42:44more on the MSNow app.