Suffering From Success

0:00Support is available 24-7 with VerboCare. We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help, because a great trip starts with the right support. Welcome to Real Clear Politics. On the Megan Kelly Channel, Syria's XM-111. Welcome to Real Clear Politics. On the series XM-13, September 3rd, I'm Andrew Waldworth. Joining me is our RCP President and co-founder Tom Pavin and RCP Washington and Bureau Chief Karl Cannon. Gentlemen, some interesting numbers. The Center for Immigration Studies has released these new figures on the U.S. immigrant population. Now, this is a group that favors strict immigration enforcement. But they say this.

1:00They say that since President Trump took office, the illegal population in America has actually declined by 2.3 million. The legal immigrant population is down 600,000. And as a result, the total U.S. population is, at least in their view, likely to show an overall decline. This is a first U.S. population has never in history actually gone down year to year. So potentially big news. The Washington Post has an op-ed by Stuart Anderson and Mark Reget of the National Foundation for American Policy. And they say this. Quote, this is a quote, killing the labor force. They conclude in their article by saying, a declining labor supply is new territory for America. Unless Trump recognizes that immigration is key to reviving the workforce, he will leave the economy worse than he found it. So Tom, this is a kind of a wrinkle on this debate we've been having for years about immigration.

2:00But is it possible that we've actually reached the point where Trump's immigration policy is hurting the economy? I don't know. I read that article. I didn't. It seemed very unpersplacive to me. You're talking about the post article. You're talking about the column. Yeah. The column. That so many flourishes when we have unlimited immigration. So let's just bring in everybody. Throw open the borders and the economy is going to be great. I don't think that actually is the case. In fact, it helps to depress wages, and we've seen with all the folks who have come here and gotten on food stamps and other programs, overwhelming the medical system, the education system, etc. So I don't buy that. Well, there was also, they talked about the fact that the, that ice is now arresting more people who are here illegally, but have not committed any other crimes.

3:00They've reached that stage. And I was thinking to myself, first of all, none of this would be happening if Joe Biden and the Democrats hadn't thrown up in the borders and then pretended like they didn't and gaslit the American people for like three years about what was going on. I do wish that, you know, that the, that ice would, if in a perfect world that you would be able to egg it, criminals out first and then be get everybody who came in over the last four years, right? Who abused the, the asylum system that those are the people that could get sent back first and say, listen, this was, this was not proper and you've got to, you know, go to the end of the line and, you know, come across the right way because instead of going after people who may have been here for 10 years or 20 years, yes, they're all still illegal. They're here illegally and that is a crime, but, but optically, I think it, you know, it's different. And Carl's mentioned this. We've had a couple of instances where, you know, folks who've been here for 25 years

4:03and have kids and all that are getting rounded up and, and deported. Maybe a lot better if the people who just came in, we could just sort of roll that whole tied back. And that was something like what, 11 million. So there's still, even according to this report, there's still 8 million people or so that came in over the last four years who are somewhere in the country. Carl, what do you make of this? I'm skeptical of the 600,000 legal immigrants. I don't know what quite what that means that the fewer of those that the Center for Immigration Studies is a reputable group. You're right conservative. They favor limited immigration and enforcement of the border, but their data is pretty good. But that, that number is a little murky. We don't know. I think that's the self deportation is what they're referring to. No, but that's how I'm, well, I don't know what they're talking about. It's what I'm saying, but they, or people who are just, they, they left for a while or, legal immigration is down from what it year over year.

5:05But the, but the 2.3 million illegal people who've been deported. I, I've said this before in time, just said, I won't repeat what he said, but, you know, are we deporting the people that we should be deporting is the question. There's no way to know that one thing is, most of these, the overwhelming majority, according to this data, of people have not committed crimes here. Now, Stephen Miller, if he was on the show, he would say, well, they committed a crime by coming here, but let's leave that aside, that aside, they haven't committed crimes, violent crimes, theft. They haven't been criminals in the United States. And so, so then the question turns, do we need these people for the workforce? I'm, I'm skeptical of that argument as well, like Tom, the unemployment rate in this country is now 4.1%. And that's, doesn't mean 4% of the people aren't working. Those numbers, if they can be relied on, the government statistics have been pretty wild the last few years. But those are people actively looking for jobs, presumably American citizens who haven't found,

6:09who can't find a job or can't find a job that suits them. And there are many more people when we learned this in the last 10 years, who have sort of dropped out of the workforce, AIS, you know, making a whole new generation of college graduates and, and recent high school graduates and nervous about finding employment. I'm just exceedingly skeptical that, that what Trump's done is, is hurt the US labor market. There's no real evidence for that, you know, I view. Yeah, I, I, I, that's, that's what I thought too. And I was reading this because that you also have this sort of secular decline in the birth rate and aging the population. There's so many other factors other than immigration that would be affecting an AI, as you said, that would be affecting the, the job market to, to, to, to, to sing aloud this as being sort of a, you know, a truly causative factor seems to me a, a bit of a stretch. But I'm also interested in the politics this time because, you know, it raises this question

7:12in the, in the real clear, uh, average polls. Trump's immigration policy is down. It is, uh, the disapproval versus approvals, 53.4 to 43.6%. Um, so he's underwater on this issue, which was a major, uh, part of his campaign and, you know, many would argue would be one of the main reasons he won the White House. Um, is he a victim of his success in that we, he's, deported so many people that people don't think it's an issue anymore, or is he a victim of his excess in that he has, it's the way he went about doing this. In other words, it's the, it's the tactics, not the policy that are the problem. Could be both, you know, there's also an element there of, of a certain percentage of Republicans who probably say they disapprove of, you know, this policy because, because he's taken his foot off the gas and he's, you know, he's not deporting enough people

8:12still, um, because that's what they voted for. So it's hard to parse out those numbers and what's exactly behind them. I mean, his overall approval rating, obviously, is, is at about 40%. And so this number, it's actually his second best number. His best approval rating is on crime, which is at about 44.5%. Immigration is at about 43, as you mentioned, 43.5. Um, and then you get down to his overall approval and then you get down to, you know, the economy and inflation, where inflation, he's in the 20s, the high 20s. So, um, I do think this, you know, this is what he promised to do. This is a reaction to what we experienced under the previous administration for four years. And it has, I think, predictably run into all of the, um, you know, has it been a completely smooth process? No, have there been tragedies involved? Yes. Have the media sort of, you know, put their thumb on the scale and when they've reported

9:14on some of these things, yes, of course, uh, has it unified Democrats? Yes. Has it, uh, you know, split Republicans, maybe a little bit. So it's not, um, I don't think it's a political loser for him. When, again, it depends on how you ask the question and what we're, what we're talking about. There still is majority support for, for deporting people who are here, uh, illegally who have committed crimes. Right. Beyond that, the numbers go down and to Carl's point. As I think they've, they've gotten away from, you know, gotten more into deporting people who have only crossed the border illegally, but have not committed a crime in their United States, it becomes a little less popular. Well, Andy, here's the other thing though. I don't know. This idea that America doesn't have enough people seems so counterintuitive as to be species. I mean, you have census bureaus, current population, uh, as of today, they have a running chart is a 342 million 825,861 people that, that number changed while I was speaking.

10:15There's a new birth every eight seconds. There's a new death every 11 seconds. Uh, we're still knitting, uh, according to the census bureau, uh, migrants, um, every seven, uh, 97 seconds, but they say there's naked one person, it's the, uh, census bureau, every 29 seconds in the United States is the third largest country in the world, of course, China, China and India, but, you know, one point that's fine. That's fine, Tom. One point, but the, but the, but the, but the, the, I think the argument is that that, that, that trend is slowing, slowing, slowing and it will reverse. I think with or without immigration, probably in the next, over the next five years, those, the, the, the country, will start to shrink and that will be a new thing. That's never happened before. These, you know, well, okay, but I'm skeptical of all those predictions because according to Al Gore, um, the, the, the, the sea coast was basically near, where Tom is in Chicago right now. Remember the global warming predictions.

11:16Uh, oh, wait, wait, how about Paul Erlich? Mass starvation. All right. Yeah, these, these predictions are, well, they're pretty much always wrong. Okay. Well, on that happy note, I want to move on to Democratic House leader, Hakeem Jeffries. Uh, he's reacting to what the Hill, uh, magazine, uh, has called a stunning defection of two centrist Democrats, two who voted on Tuesday to support this procedural vote, uh, that allowed the, uh, this Republican bill to pass. It's a little inside baseball here, but just so you get the context, five Republicans voted against this bill to protest what Mike Johnson was doing with the budget. So these procedural bill was not going to, they weren't able to get these bills to that to the House floor. Two Democrats, Jared Golden of Maine and Mary, uh, Gluzincam Perez, uh, Washington voted yes. So that upset Jeffries who would like to be speaker of the House, uh, in the next, uh, Congress. Here he is with Donald Lemmon talking about the vote.

12:17Listen, we achieved a statement yesterday that was pretty clear from House Democratic leadership indicating, uh, that we viewed the fact that we were blindsided by two of our colleagues, uh, as a significant breach of trust, with respect to a procedural vote that was on its way to failing had everybody remain unified and every single Democrat who was present, but two voted against the rule. And we have referred the matter to the committee on caucus rules of a further discussion and action. So it's now a crime to vote your conscience. Oh, yeah. So what they're talking about, Carl, is stripping these two of their key committee assignments. Doesn't really sound like a big tent, uh, to me, but, um, it's a big, it's a big tent if you're on the left. It goes as far to left field as possible. Right field is a little narrow, right.

13:19Funny how that, like Finway Park and reverse. Yeah. Right. So, um, but, you know, nonetheless, he's getting a lot of pressure to do something about these two, uh, two of his colleagues, one of whom is retiring, uh, and the other one is in a very competitive district. Uh, so, um, what's, what's the up against here? Well, he, I, I don't, I think there's some performative, um, aspect of what he's doing. He's under pressure to punish people. Yeah. You're going to punish a person who's leaving Congress, uh, Jared, Jared Golden, I mean, he's leaving Congress for this reason because he thinks Congress is ineffective, hyperpartisan and salt posturing and BS. Um, this underscores what he doesn't like about Congress. Uh, the other one, um, re-glucing Camp Perez is, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, because it runs in a district in Washington state where she's, um, you know, she's up against it. So I guess the, these Democrats would be happier. She, you know, lost her race. Then they'd lose the seat all together. They'd never get her vote. So it's on its face kind of stupid, but a team Jeffries is not stupid.

14:21So what's he doing there? He's trying to show that he can be Nancy Pelosi's successor. Right. She was the first woman speaker. He would be the first African-American speaker. Uh, he wants the job. He wants Democrats wanting to have it, but she, boy, she kept that whatever he's, what everything in Nancy Pelosi, she kept her conference together. Yeah. Jeffries trying to show he can do that, but I, I'm with you and two defections. One of them was guys already leaving. The other was a seat fighting for her life. Those, I think you would have been better if not even commenting on it, um, and drawing attention to it because most people didn't understand it. And the other thing is I don't even think the Democrats are right. You had, remember, we're hoping to still have a majority. You know, you know, you know, us two votes. There were four, five Republicans who voted against their leadership because they were squabbling. I think that Mike Johnson would have gotten a couple of them if he needed them. So I don't even think this matters. And I know what Jeffries is trying to do, but sometimes, you know, less is more to quote Jerry Brown. Sometimes you just, just move on. Right.

15:22Well, uh, what makes it hard for him to move on in part is Tom is Nancy Pelosi, who does not believe in me to help him. This is she said this. She said, I as Speaker never, we didn't even consider that anybody would do that. She said, uh, we never had that problem. So I'm disappointed that they did that. And she's disappointed in those two members. But let's face it, that's a, that's a swipe at the, uh, at Jeffries. Oh, I mean, maybe, I mean, maybe she's saying it's a, maybe she's just bragging. Yeah, she might be bragging. She might be reinforcing the idea. I mean, part of the problem is, right? These procedural votes usually are always partisan, long partisan lines. And the other thing is Jeffries mentioned is that they were blindsided. They didn't tell anybody in advance that they were going to do this. And so that made it, I think that much more of a sort of shocking slap in the face and got people, you know, riled up to, to exact some, some revenge. But I agree with Carl. I mean, you know, Jeffries is, he, he just had a vote in the house where 33

16:24Democrats broke from the majority of the caucus to vote for this, this measure on Israel. Right. And you can just imagine that, you know, if he wins, if Democrats win the house majority and they've got, you know, a bunch of new members that are DSA, I mean, he needs to, you know, he needs to, as you can say, hike up his skirt and like, you know, man up and, and manage his caucus. I mean, he, he, he can't be bowing to the sort of, you know, the extremists in the caucus. If he wants to run that place, it's when Nancy Pelosi, remember when AOC came to town and she like did this like sit in their office over like the green new deal and Nancy Pelosi was like, you know, get the F out of here. What are you doing? You know, she just kind of dismissed her. And I think really put her in her place. And I think Kim Jeffries has to, he's going to have to do something that if he, if he, if he doesn't, he's going to end up in a really, really tough spot and he's going to be,

17:26he's going to get shredded. Yeah. Well, Tom, do you think, I mean, Carl, do you think he can satisfy the people to his left? I mean, isn't that part of the problem here? Is it, hey, you know, the squad will be bigger. They will be more organized and they will be even more radical because AOC will appear to be sort of, you know, slightly too moderate for the, for the new, new crowd coming in. Yeah. Well, let's go to 20 or 25 members, but there'll be five or six of them will be committed Marxists, right? And, and, you know, they, but who do they want to speak? They want somebody else other than Jeffries. My guess is they'll make him speaker and then be devil him. And it depends, you know, for the, you know, for the next two years, my, so when you get, let's say the House goes Democratic, we don't know how much, we don't even know that that will happen. We're going to talk to Henry Olson about that next segment. But if it does, how big is the margin? If he's got a big enough margin, he doesn't need the five Marxists, he's going to be happier.

18:27If he needs them, what should be looking at is what happened when some of these freedom caucus guys came in to get the Kevin McCarthy treatment. Yeah. In the team party movement. And you had these guys, these right wingers, when, when Kevin McCarthy was there and John Boehner and Paul Ryan and, and Paul Ryan, they would, they were so purest, they would vote with the Republicans. Now, excuse me, the Democrats, these right wingers. And so who was running the House was for a while there in any given vote was a coalition of unified Democratic party. And five guys who are so conservative, they went against and margin Taylor Green. Right. All right. So you'll have this, the mirror image of that. And what's, it'll be nice to, what'll be, I'm curious to find out is whether the Marxists will be more pragmatic than the freedom caucus people. Well, one of the reasons Republicans found themselves in that position is because one of the compromises that was made to become speaker was to lower the threshold for the voter no confidence, right? Right. And I don't know the Democrats will do that. I don't think they'll fall for that. I hope.

19:28I mean, if history is any guide, you have to look at that and be like, I'm not doing that. That's insane. All right. Guys, we're going to take a break right now because Henry Olson is in the wings. He's going to join us in the next segment. And we're going to talk more about what he sees ahead and his thoughts about how large or how small or if the Democrats will have a majority after midterm. So don't go away. Henry Olson's coming up next online at realclearpolitics.com. On air on serious XM channel 111, it's real clear politics on the Megan Kelly channel. So if you've ever furnished a restaurant, hotel or an office, you know the trail. Five vendors, five invoices, five delivery windows. But there's a better way to do this. Creighton Barrel contract is a business to business program that covers three brands. Creighton Barrel CB2 and Creighton Kids with one account, one order, one delivery. They've got durable plates and glasses, contract grade furniture and lighting that looks custom that's built for the wear of busy space

20:31actually takes. And the best part is you're not doing it alone. A dedicated rep handles your project end to end from volume orders to design curation. Plus members get 20% off tax exempt checkout and flexible payment with no minimums. Learn more at Creightonbarrel.com slash podcast. That's Creightonbarrel.com slash podcast. And forming you on the important issues of the day. Welcome back to real clear politics on the Megan Kelly channel. Serious XM 111. Welcome back to real clear politics on serious XM. I'm Andrew Wallworth. I've got Carl and Tom with me and we are joined now as promised by Henry Olson. He's a columnist to the Washington Post senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center in Washington DC. And he's the author of margin of victory, which is a free newsletter you can get in your inbox. I highly commend it to you. Henry, you wrote in your newsletter this the other day.

21:33President Trump's low job approval ratings coupled with large democratic leads in generic congressional polling have most analysts expecting the house to flip to team blue in November. That's still the most likely outcome, but a seat by seat analysis reveals a tougher challenge for Democrats than the overall picture suggests. So let's get into it. Why do you think most folks are wrong about the Democrats and how they'll do in the midterms? Yeah, well, let me just say I don't think they're wrong that the Democrats will take the house, but it's just that the number of seats that they have to pick up while small goes through Trump 2024 voter territory. There's only 200 of the 435 seats that Kamala Harris carried in order to get to 218, let's give them a one seat majority. That seat, the 218th seat is a seat that Trump carried by almost five percentage points. And if anything goes wrong below that, they then have to pick up seats where Trump won by six, seven, eight, nine points.

22:38They've only won five seats where Trump won by five more or more points in the last few years. It's a very difficult map for them. They really need everything to go their way to get more than a one seat majority. Right now they might have the wind at their sales, but anything can change in the last two months. So what? So I'm going to ask you a question. I asked this one. So could Max Miller be the difference? Theoretically, but Max Miller is a seat that Trump won by more than 10 points. No, he eats where if it was a close race. Yeah, I mean, a close seat. I could say, yeah, his personal problem's sinking him. But it's such a republicans seat that he can run six or seven points behind Trump. And he can still pull out a narrow victory. But yes, Max Miller, she could be the difference. Henry, you know, we talked about the Senate the other day. And I do want to talk about maybe we have a new poll in Iowa, but, you know, three of the three of the Senate seats that Republicans are defending in Texas and Alaska and Iowa,

23:43Trump won by more than double digits in 2024. And we've seen in these special election after special election where Democrats have managed to move the needle by, I don't know, any, you know, up to 20, 20 plus points in some of these special election. Now, those are special elections. This is obviously going to be different. But, um, and you said, I think Democrats are leading by about six and a half points in our in our RCP generic congressional ballot. So, um, it seems like all the ingredients are there. But as you point out, we're, what, we're in September 3rd. So there's still eight weeks left or so. But, um, if the election were held today, what do you think? The election were held today would be a coin flip whether Republicans hold the Senate. The Senate map is even tougher for the Democrats than it is in the House. But the fact is they have strong candidates, both Sherrod Brown and Mary Peltola, Brown and Ohio, Peltola and Alaska. Have a proven record of pulling above the Democratic baseline, even in bad years for Democrats. Couple that with a good year for Democrats, which is showing up to be.

24:45And that's why those seats could be flipped. And then you have the problem in Texas with James Talleriko, who is fatially a good candidate for Democrats and Ken Paxton, who is a weak candidate for Republicans, plus a Hispanic shift to Democrats, which every poll is showing. And you can say, or even Texas could fall. But the fact is it's still a situation that is in flux. If the Republicans improve their standing by even a couple of points, you know, like Trump goes from 40% to 43% and the, in the job approval or the generic ballot shrinks to five points, then I think the Senate is going to be a really hard poll for Democrats. And what would, what would it take for Republicans to make those gains for Trump to make those gains over the next eight weeks? Well, you know, one gas price is going down. Yeah, but that's not going to happen. The Islamic Republic is not going to surrender. And absent its rent, not surrendering the gas prices aren't going to go down appreciably.

25:45You know, I think what it's going to take is people beginning to look at the balance of things and say, you know, look, things aren't great, but there are things that Trump is done. I feel a little bit better than I did before. More importantly, I think it's those people who mildly disapprove of Trump probably voted for a couple of years ago, deciding on balance. I'm not happy with Trump, but I'm more unhappy with the Democrats. I would expect that to be the likelier campaign thrust over the last eight weeks. And it's those trust that work for Biden in 2022 is job approval rating for as low or lower than Trump saw right now, but he made the election. Do you want mega Republicans? Or are you willing to give me two more years? Enough voters are willing to give him two more years that the losses in the House were minimal and they actually gained in the Senate. Yeah, we should remember that. That was the red wave, which never came. Hey, we had Carl Rove on the program a while ago and in Tevye Troy, two people, pretty smart, but they disagreed on something. And I want your review on this.

26:46Carl Rove indicated that he thought that Trump would hurt if he got out on the campaign trail, that he would hurt the GOP and that he should stay home. That was his advice. Tevye sought the other way around. Tevye said that he turns out, Trump turns out the base and that's going to be important in any midterm election. Where do you come down? Is Trump a help or a hindrance for the GOP in the midterms? Yeah, I think on balanced Trump is a help. I think Republicans have an enthusiasm problem, which is normal with the party that's in. Usually the party that's out of the White House and the midterm has a better rate of turnout. And I think we need to have a Republican turnout if Republicans are going to do well. It does matter, though, what Trump says, you know, if Trump goes on the trail and he doesn't have the sort of disciplined message that he had on the trail in his presidential campaign, then he may turn out the base, but he may alienate some of those swing voters that you need, the people who voted for Biden in 2020,

27:51voted for Trump in 2024 and right now are kind of in the balance. He needs to be out on the trail. I disagree with Carl. I agree with Tevye, but it also matters what he says. And of course with Donald Trump, that's the $64,000 question. Well, Henry, that reminds me, you know, when he, when he lost the first time, he still says he didn't lose, but you had these two Georgia Senate races in question. They had a runoff that was after the presidential election because they're a peculiar system. And he went down there and he made things worse. He did what you're talking about. He didn't stay on message. He didn't talk about the centers. He talked about himself and how he really won the alienated the governor and the secretary of state. He made a mess of it. And I think, you know, that's the risk. I think that's what I think Carl Rob is thinking about is that Trump won't be able to stay on message. And it, and it's, you know, it reminds me when, when built, and Carl, over and I talked about this before previously in another context, when, when Bill Clinton, when Al Gore ran for president and Bill Clinton was leaving office term limited and the,

28:56the people in the White House were unhappy that, that Gore wasn't sending remote most places. But what the Gore campaign found is that when they sent Bill Clinton into a swing state, two things happen. One is it did increase Democrats, especially African-American. Sure. People remember that. Yeah, they like Bill Clinton, but it decreased energy for George Douglas, even more. And I wonder if that's sort of what's going on with Trump is that he made increased Republican turnout, but he may even gin up the Trump haters, even more. Is that a possibility? Yeah. I just don't think that how am I? The Trump haters are already up to 11, even Nigel. Wouldn't get the base. You know, these are people who are, we'll crawl over broken glass to vote to oppose anything associated with Donald Trump. I don't think it's, it's not 2000 anymore. You don't have those marginally attached, but interested voters who can get ginned up. You know, I do worry that if Trump doesn't stay on message, he can deliver a message that doesn't bring home the swing vote.

30:00You know, you need both. You need to have the base turnout in large numbers, Republican leaning voters, but you also need to have some of those people who aren't base voters, but will show up decide on balance. They prefer Republicans over Democrats. So that's what I'm worried more about than him ginning up people will already, you know, ginned up posting about it. I have Democrats in my Facebook feed, who's like every other day. It's another post of basically why they hate Trump. And it's like, you guys can't get more agitated than you are. But Henry, what, what is that message? I mean, you mentioned earlier, it seems like the Republicans are all in on, you know, bashing Talleriko saying he's out of the mainstream is radical. They're bashing Elsaid. You can't trust the sky. He shouldn't, you know, he's unfit for office, all of that. And, and they're going to dump hundreds of millions of dollars in those races and around the country. Trying to drive up the Democrats negatives and that, that will get them only so far, right?

31:02And so what's the positive message that they have to send out to people and say, look, this is what I'm going to do to help improve your lives, not just the other guys bad, but, and I guess that's the message that they each have to deliver individualist candidates. But then that's the message that Trump has to come in and deliver from the top as well. You know, I don't think Trump is going to deliver the positive message that needs to be delivered. The fact is that what Donald Trump is trying to do is create a revolution in economic and geopolitical affairs. And when Ronald Reagan tried to do that in 1980, he talked about it consistently before the election. He talked about it consistently after the election. So when he told voters in 1982, despite inflation still being high, although it was coming down despite massively rising unemployment, despite uncertain relations with the Soviet Union, it's going to stay the course, give me time because that meant that voters understood what they were giving time to. The president has never made a comprehensive case for what he's trying to do.

32:03And in the absence of that, the things they are doing, reminding people about closing the borders, reminding people about the tax cuts they're getting, I don't think are going to be sufficient, because people know about them and they already have decided they are unhappy with what the president is doing. So I don't think the positive message that they should be giving is possible to be given, because Donald Trump won't do it. I do think they need to talk about the negatives, and I think they need to do it in a partisan way. And the message should be simple, don't give the keys to the car back to the kids who wrecked it. And oh, by the way, the kid they put in the passenger seat in the last year, her initials are DSA. And you really don't want her back seat drive. We're talking to Henry Olson. He's a colonist at the Washington Post. He's senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and he's the author of Marginum Victory, which is a free newsletter you can get in your inbox if you just sign up for it. Henry, what about redistricting? Because you mentioned that in your article as well.

33:03Is that a strategy that's really paying off for the Republicans? Because if you, as I read your article, I was thinking, well, if these seats, which are now, reliably read, I guess, if they weren't there, this would certainly be looking like a different election than it will be. And maybe the difference between a very minor victory for the Democrats and could they kind of blow out that would make it easier for Hakeem Jeffries, since we were talking about him in the last segment, as Major Governor. Yeah. If it weren't for redistricting, Republicans would be dead in the house. They added somewhere between five and 10 seats, depending how you think some of these seats are going to go. It moved the median seat from Trump plus 3.1 to Trump plus 4.9 and shifted a lot of seats out of that marginal Trump category into a Trump more difficult. A great example of that is Marcy Capture. He said she represents Ohio 9, which is a Toledo-based seat.

34:06She barely won in a seat that Trump won by seven points and the redistricting made it three and a half points more red. Maybe the good year for Democrats will help her. Maybe it's finally a road too high or a wall too high to climb and that's what the redistricting has done in many states across the country. So without the redistricting, this would be, you know, a side-sealed and delivered for Hawking Jeffries. Can I follow up that question and you're right about this in your column and about these jury-manner districts? And it made me think that we're not going to... The country in California and some of these Democratic things did the same thing in reverse. So I don't know how many seats are. I don't know if you ever see another 63-points seat swing. And I'm wondering how many... Well, when I... So this is how far we've come. In the late 80s, I was a young regional reporter from California. I was interviewing Leon Panetta, who was a congressman then.

35:06His son Jimmy's now represents that seat in the house. And it was some bill that was long forgotten by me. And I asked a good government bill and I said, Leon, do you think this thing can pass? And he said, Carl, I don't know how many... I don't know if the center can hold anymore in this body. And I said, well, how many people are you talking about? We were talking about members of Congress of the 435 who would vote against their leadership in favor of their conscience or their district. That was sort of the center. That's what he meant by it. I said, well, how many people were talking about it? I said, oh, it's terrible, Carl. There's not more than 150 members. 150. My question to you now is, how many seats are we even talking about? Now, it's slightly different voting your conscience versus, you know, winning election. But how many votes are even... How many of these districts are really even in play? You know, there's only 21 toss-up seats in the Cook Political Reports, most recent analysis.

36:10When you take a look at the seats that would typically be considered in play, there are fewer than there have been in many, many years. And that's before the Democrats wreak their magic, as you know, they will try and do in some of these states in 2027 and 2028. What we're getting to is a situation where the votes don't matter because the redistricting has already set that stage. And I think that's a very bad development for democracy. I think that what you're doing is eventually moving in one of two directions. You're even moving toward a system of proportional representation by state, of course, because we have a federal system or you're moving towards a system where the Supreme Court reverses its ruling or the modifies its ruling, saying that partisan gerrymandering is not just visible and says, look, in light of what we've seen over the last decades, since we took it out of the purview of the courts, we're going to put it back in. Henry, we're running short on time,

37:10but I can't let you go with that asking about 2028. And this, you know, we've seen a few stories just in the last week about how, in particular, the gubernatorial Democratic candidate in Iowa and the Senate candidate, don't want Kamala Harris to come in anywhere near that race. What is that to? And then we saw, you know, AOC renewed her membership in the DSA, which apparently had been lapsed for seven years, which I didn't even know. What do you make of how things are shaping up for the Democrats and their standard bearer in 2028? Look, the Democratic party is nothing more, like the Republican party is nothing more than the collective sum of the will of their voters. And their voters are moving left. You take a look. And if I had to guess about half of the Democratic party, presidential primary voters want somebody who is an unabashed leftist in AOC, a Peggy Flan again of Minnesota,

38:11and about half want what the D.C. establishment want, which is somebody who is center left who plays footsie with the left, but also plays footsie with the center. What I don't know is how that's going to resolve itself. What I do know is that there is no strong, obvious candidate for the center left, and that there is no clear strategy for defaming the left. That strikes me as persuasive. They're gonna have a heck of a time in 2028. And this battle is gonna be like nothing we've seen since 1972, when it's the last time we saw an all-out establishment versus left battle in the Democratic primaries. I agree 100%. You think AOC will run? Do I think she, I know she should have run. I've written that. You're on record with that, Henry. Yeah. You're writing a big cast. I think frozen her eggs, she's running. Yeah. I think she's making the sort of decisions that one would make if one is preparing to run.

39:13And I think she's uneasy about it because she's aware of the risks, but on the other hand, I also think she believes herself to be a change agent. She believes in her cause. And I think you'll see a declaration before St. Patrick's Day. All right, good stuff. Always great to have you on. Hey, Henry, thanks for being here. That was Henry Olson. He's the columnist at the Washington Post. He's a senior fellow. He ethics public policy center and he's the author of Margin and Victory Free Newsletter. You can get it in your inbox. Henry, thanks for being here. I'm Andrew Woolworth. I've got Carl Cannon and Tom. And we'll be back right after this. Thanks for sticking around. Real clear politics. Get more at realclearpolitics.com. And on the Sirius XMF. This is the Megan Kelly channel on Sirius XM111. So if you've ever furnished a restaurant, hotel, or an office, you know the drill. Five vendors, five invoices, five delivery windows.

40:15But there's a better way to do this. Creighton Barrel Contract is a business to business program that covers three brands. Creighton Barrel, CB2, and Creighton Kids with one account, one order, one delivery. They've got durable plates and glasses, contract grade furniture, and lighting that looks custom that's built for the wear of busy space actually takes. And the best part is you're not doing it alone. A dedicated rep handles your project end to end from volume orders to design curation. Plus, members get 20% off. Tax exempt checkout and flexible payment with no minimums. Learn more at Creightonbarrel.com slash podcast. That's createandbarrel.com slash podcast. Real clear politics. Unsiria sex m111. Welcome back to Real clear politics. On serious sex m111. Welcome back to Real clear politics. On serious sex m, I'm Andrew Wahlworth.

41:15I've got Carl Cannon. Tom Bevin with me. And guys, Gloria Steinem, the writer and feminist activist, passed away the age of 92 yesterday Wednesday. She's a huge cultural figure in the 60s and 70s, especially. Really one of the seminal figures in the women's liberation movement. She wrote a piece back in 1963 with the headline, a bunny's tail about her time. She spent 11 days undercover as a waitress in a Playboy Nightclub. She was a founding editor of New York Magazine, launched Ms Magazine in 1972. Here she is talking to Glamour magazine back in 2011 about her thoughts on women's liberation and its legacy. Listen to this. The women's movement is a story of a woman's movement that has been all the great social justice movements. I have begun to remove labels from people and allow us to be the unique human beings we really are. I hope that young women feel supported in expressing their talents and understanding

42:16that they have the right to have choices. I don't want to make young women feel there are no obstacles. It's a lie. There are obstacles. It's a lie. It's a lie. There are obstacles. It's not so good when we say to kids, you can be anything you want because it's not true. Much better to say you should be able to become anything you want. And overcoming these obstacles is going to be so satisfying and so much fun and you're going to have so much company. So, Carl, a big figure in the culture and the cultural changes from the 60s and the 70s. What are you thinking about as you contemplated her passing? Just how extraordinary we affect if she was. She started the national health. We'll co-founded. There were others, National Women's Political Caucus. I think in the 70s, when she did that, there were 15 women in Congress. There was 150 today. And downstream state legislators,

43:18even more percentage growth. I think President Obama gave her the presidential middle freedom. He said something. He said, you know, and those ceremonies, you're really lauding the honor. He said, she changed that women thought of themselves. And that's pretty profound. That's a pretty profound change. It's hard to overstate her influence. Ms. Magazine, all the women's magazines, then they all is all about beauty and how to get a man. That magazine talked about abortion and lesbianism and civil rights, voting rights. She was a tour to force, just a force of nature. And she was also, and in the feminist movement, there was some awkwardness about talking about this, but Steinem knew it. She was uncommonly attractive. That's why she was able to go undercover and you have her saying. So, men couldn't dismiss her the way they did. You know, she can't get a man or she's a butcher. She's a no-bell-a-absog.

44:18Well, I try not to criticize people's appearances, but that's right. She could have been a movie star. And she just, you know, just the influence that she had. And I'm sure there's young Gen Z women today, you know, don't even know who she was, but a lot of what they're able to do is because of Gloria Steinem. Yeah. Tom, you know, I was, oh wait, one one thing. She's the inspiration behind the movie, I mean, we were talking about Dolly Parton earlier this week. Right. And that's Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda and I guess, Lily Tomlin. And then they make a monkey out of who is his, is Dabby Coleman Thomas. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we just flexed that recently. It was she, she was her influence in popular culture was enormous as well. Yeah. I was struck by this. And that quote brought it back to me. The way that the women's liberation sort of co-opted the language, and sort of more as Marxism, the whole, the raised fist, remember that.

45:18And this whole idea of liberation, as opposed to just equal rights, the importance of identity being sort of this marker of oppression. That's part of her legacy as well though, I think, because that sort of, that modern, the modern Marxism that we have today, which is all built around identity policy, identity politics. She contributed to that. And when she says in that quote, you know, it eliminated our differences quite the opposite. The whole idea is to sort of harp on people's differences in order to sort of create fissures in society based along identity. That's what identity politics is, Tom. Yeah. I mean, look, I agree with Carlishe, she's a hugely influential figure. I mean, you, you could struggle to, you know, find others who had as much influence singularly than she did over time. But the women's liberation movement,

46:18while it had many successes and there are many good things about it, it also had some, you know, some aspects of it that were, I don't want to say destructive, but certainly not as positive. And that was probably one of them. So, you know, it depends on, I guess, what side of it. And by the way, that quote you played, I tend to disagree with the, you know, her saying the reality is women can't do anything. And there are these barriers. Again, that was, that was a few years ago, what did you say it was 2011 or something like that? So it was, you know, it was a good 15 years ago. But I would like to, you know, and I hate it when I hear this thing about, you know, Hillary Clinton, you know, she hit the glass ceiling and she couldn't break the glass ceiling and, you know, women are, you know, nobody's, that the country's just not ready to vote for a woman for president. I fundamentally disagree with that. I think the right woman in the right time, well, now is the right time,

47:18but the right woman would absolutely win. I think there is, I think women can do anything in this day and age. And, you know, that's having a daughter myself. I think that's a great thing and a great message. Well, but wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I always jump in here to defend Hillary Clinton. She carried a popular vote. She wanted to plur, a plural of the Americans thought she was the right woman. Right? So, all right. Thank you for amplifying my point, Crawl. Yes, right. I appreciate that. But it was, the Alexa was stolen from her. Tom, remember her. I didn't go that far, but yeah. Well, she said it. She got more, look, she got more for the popular vote. Americans have been ready for a woman present for some time. All right. It's Thursday. We have not had a good media rant from Tom Bevin. Pretty late on the week for that. I've got to let him talk about this. Gotta let me cook, babe. In the head report that we talked about this morning, which you brought to my attention, which was pretty interesting. Tom, take it away. Well, listen, you know, there have been some stupid, you know,

48:20I every, look, I get up every morning and go to all these websites. And part of what I do is, you know, when gathering good columns to put on the front page, new stories. And invariably when you're serving, you know, the landscape of media outlets, including legacy media outlets, every day you'll come across one or two stories that just, you know, absolutely make you, you know, I don't want to say make your jaw drop because at this point you're used to it. You understand the media is biased, but this one by CNN, they put out this tweeter or the story, which is just outrageous. I mean, this was from someone who says, in January of 2025, the Trump administration cut off funding for a long running natural hazards program that aimed to identify and monitor landslide hotspots in Nepal while the, and this is the funny part, while the program, the administration cut, would not have been able to prevent the disaster that happened dot, dot, dot, I mean, the reflexive, the reflex of the media

49:26to take every story and filter it through this TDS, get Trump lens narrative is it's never ending. It's insatiable. They can't get enough of it. And so every natural disaster that happens around the world, every, every disaster that happens around the world is somehow linked to, you know, Donald Trump and his administration and it's his fault, even though they say that this wouldn't have had any effect on, and have anything to do with preventing what happened. I mean, it was, it's ridiculous. Yeah, that, that, that's the story. I was a little bit of a defense in any way. Yeah, all right. I don't think I will. Okay. I, I, I, I, I'm reminded. And by the way, I think they pulled that, I think they deleted that tweet and they might have actually pulled the story because it was so outrageous. It was up, it was up right before they may after the, the, the, we don't want to create a show. I'm not seeing it. And all these news, all these networks of media, this thing happened. They immediately blamed global warming and said, you know, global warming melted the iceberg.

50:26Well, but the scientists announced saying, no, the iceberg just went along for the ride. That there was some catastrophic event. It wasn't the melting, the, what the iceberg didn't cause it. So the reporting on this has been pretty knee jerk. You know, we should, we should remember that it's supposed to be the news business. Everybody wants to be first, but sometimes you need to take, take a breath. This has nothing to do with the reporting. Do some reversing, or figure out what happened and write about it. No, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm amplifying on your point, Tom. You made your point so well. I didn't need to comment on it directly. I'm making an ancillary point. My point is, you don't hate the media enough. Thank you for amplifying that point, girl. So the story as I understand it is that Trump cut funding for something that would have had nothing to do with preventing this. Event, but might in the sometime in the future, if that research continued someday, we might be able to know about this before it happens.

51:28All it was missing was a, was a reference to Doge and Elon Musk in the title. Don't give him any ideas for the trifecta there. I will see, we'll see if that article still up after they, they hear from Tom Bevin. Oh boy, yeah, I'm sure. Tom Bevin, next president to the end. I have that kind of influence, yeah. Well, that is our program for today. If you're listening on the podcast apps or watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe. Like, send us a comment. I'm Andrew Walworth. I'm behalf of everyone here at RCP, Tom, Carl. Gang, thanks for joining us. We'll be back here tomorrow, which is Friday, so you can not be serious. One big home for all these voices that you've come to really trust. The Megan Kelly channel, series XM 111. So, if you've ever furnished a restaurant, hotel or an office, you know the drill. Five vendors, five invoices, five delivery windows. But there's a better way to do this. Creighton Barrel Contract is a business to business program that covers three brands.

52:28Creighton Barrel, CB2, and Creighton Kids with one account, one order, one delivery. They've got durable plates and glasses, contract grade furniture, and lighting that looks custom that's built for the wear of busy space actually takes. And the best part is you're not doing it alone. A dedicated rep handles your project end to end. From volume orders to design curation, plus members get 20% off, tax exempt checkout, and flexible payment with no minimums. Learn more at CreightonBarrel.com slash podcast. That's CreightonBarrel.com slash podcast.