The President's Red-State Rush: Can He Save the GOP Majority?

0:00How can we help make stronger communities happen? Well, at JP Morgan Chase, we invest in what's working. Because when businesses can grow, that growth means more jobs for more people. And more goods that can go to more restaurants and main streets in the schools in the communities we love. Make the green grass grow all around all around. Make the green grass grow all around. Make momentum happen. Learn more at JP Morgan Chase.com slash impact. Chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life. Botox, on a botch alignum toxin A, prevents headaches and adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alerture doctor right away is difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and

1:01headache. Alerture reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lugeric's disease, Myasthenia Gravis, or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botch alineum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxCronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44 Botox to learn more. I'm Charles Payne. I'm Emily Componio. I'm Greg Jarrett, and this is The Fox News rundown. Thursday, October 1st, 2026, I'm Aisha Hasne. President Trump hits the road in these final few weeks before the midterm elections. Is it going to be enough to steal a GOP win? His goal pretty much everywhere is to make sure the 2024 coalition and Republican voting base doesn't sit out and isn't tempted by Democrats in a lot of these races. I'm Jessica Rosenthal. School choice has become a hot button issue across many states ahead of midterms and critical

2:02races for governor. As one activist publicly realizes, she should not have kept her daughter in a low performing school after all. I find the priorities here to be perfectly mystifying. You have a childless to go to her parent and say, could you please let me go to a school where I can be actually educated? And I'm David Marcus. I've got the final word on The Fox News rundown. The midterm elections are just a few weeks away, and President Trump is embarking on a campaign blitz across the country. The travel schedule takes the president to key Senate battlegrounds, but also a surprising number of deep red states like Oklahoma, Alabama and Texas. Vice President J.D. Vance kicking the travel blitz off yesterday, visiting a $3.2 billion shipyard project in South Texas. And I just want to say, as you guys break ground on this facility, as you build it up to great heights, and of course, as you start seeing ships roll off the lines, know that

3:06the president of the United States, the vice president of the United States, we're proud of you. We're thankful for the work that you're doing. We're rooting for you. And you will be our champion here in Brownsville, Texas, and we will be your champion in Washington, D.C. The trip comes out of time when Texas GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton is reportedly questioning if the president's polling is dragging candidates like him down. So as the president pops up around the country, what is the strategy? Well, it's definitely a leave no stone unturned campaign. Matt Whitlock is a senior vice president with CRC advisors and host of the 10 minute drill podcasts. He's also a former senior advisor with the National Republican Senateorial Committee. And one theme that you might remember from the midterm convention just a few weeks ago was pretend I'm on the ballot, pretend that I am here because one thing he and Speaker Johnson have both been pretty open about is the fact that when president Trump himself isn't on the ballot, getting his unique coalition of voters, particularly those lower

4:07propensity Republican voters to engage and turn out is sometimes an uphill battle. And so he's taking it upon himself, putting things on his back in these red states to try and make sure that we've got the energy and enthusiasm we need in some of these places, where again, in the past we've seen, if it's not him that they're voting for, there are some people who are just less engaged. And so I think that was a big theme of that convention. It was a big purpose of that convention to try and activate a part of the Republican base that up to this point had not seen as engaged as we'd like them to be. And so in my mind, it's valuable. Let's get all our players on the field, turn out as many people as possible. Well, let's talk about that midterm convention because there is some news out this week about Ken Paxton, New York Times report that there's leaked audio where he is sort of not happy with the midterm convention. And I think he says something like, you know, everybody's numbers dropped after that event according to this audio. What do you make of that?

5:08So what I expect will happen is we'll probably get a little bit more pushback in context from the Paxton team because I listened to it myself. And when you have the bit of context that the New York Times did include, the fact that this is coming from somebody who is against Paxton, opposed to Paxton, and we're not getting really a full picture of the conversation there. I have a lot of questions just because I spent time with Paxton at the convention. It seemed like he was getting a lot out of it because he was meeting with donors. He was getting an opportunity to do a lot of local media that was positive. That's been hard to come by in this very difficult primary season. And I think of all the people in that entire convention, he would make a pretty good argument that he got as much out of it as anybody in a positive sense. And I think the president was very positive about him. But also his relationship with John Thune and Senate leadership fund, they fundraised together in Dallas. John Thune held a great donor cattle call for him that I know Paxton was grateful for, because Thune aligned groups with the Senate leadership fund and now the top spenders in Texas. So I would just have so many questions about the larger context of that recording because

6:11it doesn't really jade with what I've heard from Paxton's team with how they felt the convention went, how they felt it contributed, but also the president's role there. And it knows that the president has played a pretty active role both in getting him through the primary, but also up to this point. And it seems like he's been very grateful for it. So I just think there's a lot more to it than we've heard so far. I mean, you could argue that he's come this far because of the president. I mean, he got that endorsement over John Corne. You know, the president didn't have to do that. And that really like sealed his fate because that was a pretty competitive primary. And then, you know, you're right, like the midterm convention was in his home state. He had got so much attention, so much media and press out of that. So let me put it this way to you. If Ken Paxton does not win the Senate seat in November, whose fault is it? I mean, I think that, you know, I'm not ready to engage in that hypothetical because I'm fairly confident that Paxton is going to win this. We've seen numbers that show that, you know, Talleriko's numbers over the last month were

7:13very soft. So all the money going into that state right now is helping define Talleriko in ways that are really, really helpful. I think that, you know, the president made his choice with Ken Paxton knowing all the different factors into this. The fact that John Corne is a prolific fundraiser himself and it would have taken that issue off. But he also endorsed him knowing that Ken Paxton's experience as attorney general was incredibly effective to president Trump's own priorities. And so I think at this point, I don't think there's a lot of regret about, you know, getting on board together and pushing through this, but there also was a time you might remember at the beginning of the process where I believe it had gone down to just two in the primary. And President Trump posted on Truth Social, he's preparing for an endorsement and whoever he doesn't endorse, he expects to drop out. The rumor was very heavily at the time he was planning on endorsing Senator Corne. And when he didn't endorse him at that time, every day it got less and less likely that it would be Corne. And so I think, you know, the diet has been cast. It is Paxton. And I think Republicans have a lot of reason right now to feel like with the tools they have

8:17right now, it is a winnable race, but it still has to go pretty much perfect between now and election day. Okay, let's get back to the travel here because, you know, it's not just about getting out the base and getting people to come out. The numbers, you know, obviously the Trump camp always talks about this. That's all about getting the turnout out. But it's also about the message, right? And what the president says, because it is a little bit of a referendum, at least Democrats are trying to make it that way on the president in terms usually are. So I understand, you know, why he's going to certain states where the Senate races are very competitive. Oklahoma, I'm having a hard time understanding because it is such a Republican stronghold. You can help me understand that. And also what the president needs to say to these people, because when he goes to Nebraska, there are farmers out there. I'm not happy with his beef policy. No, I think that's a very good question. I think he has made the argument that where he's specifically going in Oklahoma also covers

9:18portions of Texas media markets, and so he's able to kind of do a two for one there. But I also think that this creates the kind of content and media coverage and momentum building message that I think is helpful to Republicans everywhere. And so I think his hope is kicking it off in a place where there will be a lot of strong raw raw sharing will be incredibly helpful as he then goes to places that are a little bit more complicated like Iowa, where we know there's a lot of conversation about both the Senate race and the gubernatorial race. There's more spending now going in there, just announced, I believe, another 10 million behind Ashley Henson, because they do have very real questions. I think, you know, their questions about things like diesel, things about, you know, tariffs and their impact on agriculture, things like that. And the president needs to make sure that Republicans come home there and that they don't get tempted by Democrats, saying the president will make the case. These are radical far left Democrats who don't have your interests at heart. In a way that only he can, that will be helpful for that certain group of people that in 2020 was incredibly important to Joni Ernst to make sure that Republicans come home that there's

10:18not any, you know, people sitting out or people in the middle that are tempted by a Democrat that might actually be a little bit more progressive than they're putting their money behind right now in messaging. And so I do think the president will have a different message wherever he goes, but his goal pretty much everywhere is to make sure the 2024 coalition and Republican voting base doesn't sit out and isn't tempted by Democrats in a lot of these races. Okay, I've got a little bit of time left, Matt. I got to ask, I just really want to pick your brain about this. There are some reports that Eric Schmidt, Senator Eric Schmidt, was being touted as JD Vance's potential running mate in 2028. You're so far away from this, but we can't help it. We can't help ourselves. But then he had this, that's a great moment during a Senate hearing this week when he's trying to go after Jack Smith and kind of backfires on him because he gets his, you know, basketball game wrong. Does that hurt him? And what do you just even think about, you know, people talking about a potential running

11:22mate for JD Vance at this point? I think that the conversation about a potential running mate does feel premature. I think we've got a long way to go. And I also think it's not necessarily helpful to the vice president himself to talk about it like it's a done deal because we've seen what these coronations can do to people. We saw what it did to Kamala Harris. And so a primary is helpful for everybody. And I think I have a lot of sympathy for Senator Schmidt and everything that happened as a long time Senate staffer. We've seen things like that kind of blow up in your face a little bit. And I think his argument after was I had a line of questioning. I wanted to suss something out. I got the answers that I needed. And then he tried to kind of make a joke of it later on and be a little bit self deprecating and saying, you know, who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlin Clark fan in that kind of situation. I think that's the best you can do is say, you know, basically, me and Culpa, you know, I got something wrong there. And I think, you know, that was unfortunate. I feel bad for the staff there that it was such a high profile little misstep. I don't think that it will necessarily be remembered six months from now. I probably won't factor in.

12:23Because Schmidt is a very good Senator. He's very popular with Republicans with the base with the president. He's also brilliant former attorney general who brings a lot of value to that Senate judiciary committee. Murders row of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Josh Holly, these guys who are constitutional scholars. And I don't think it'll necessarily impact him in the long term. Well, as a former Senate staffer, you know that that Senate staffer will never make that mistake again. Probably not having a great great week this week. Hey, Matt, thank you so much for joining us. So great to see you. You're the best. Safe travels. How can we help make stronger communities happen? Well, at JPMorgan Chase, we invest in what's working in businesses that create more jobs in hospitals delivering care where it's needed the most in workers building new buildings, bridges and roads, connecting what we need to where we live. Make the green grass grow all around all around. Make the green grass grow all around. Make momentum happen.

13:24Learn more at jpmorganchase.com slash impact. Precise, personal, powerful. It's America's weather team in the palm of your hands. Get Fox weather updates throughout your busy day. Every day, subscribe and listen now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is David Marcus with your Fox News commentary coming up. In a recent essay, the founder of the 1619 project, Nicole Hanna Jones admitted she regrets sending her daughter, Najia, to a lower performing school in Brooklyn as part of an effort against what she called school segregation. She wrote, this girl, my only child, looked to me to protect her and I had not chosen her. As Najia grew older, she insisted on being sent to a better school as she realized she wasn't being challenged. The two spoke together on a this American life podcast. Our lives are the products of people who didn't just say we think segregation is wrong, we think injustice is wrong, like they were willing to put themselves, their families, their children on the line for that.

14:26So you put me on the line to help a school, but it didn't work. I put, yeah, I put you on the line, but it helps. Even when you're making a change. This revelation comes as school choice programs in several states become a focus in midterm governor races across the country, including in Texas. McGregg Abbott told Fox News this past February how popular school choice seemed to be in his state this year after he signed a bill last year creating universal school vouchers known as the Texas Education Freedom Accounts. There was a record number of parents signing up and applying for school choice programs more than 42,000 and as of today, they're now more than 100,000 families that have signed up for school choice, making it the largest rollout of school choice in America. But since then, Democrats have argued the money spent on giving families access to school choice has hurt public schools. It's been a focus on the campaign trail and in the ads of Abbott's opponent in the governor's race, former Austin School Board President Gina Inohosa. Governor, you have taken hostages and those hostages are arguments.

15:29Public education is where our public tax dollars belong. The people that have shown up here represent thousands of people that don't want our tax dollars subsidizing a fluid private school. The issue has been a top focus in Florida, Iowa and Arizona as well. It's not surprising that school vouchers has become central to the midterm elections given the great distance of the two parties on the issue. George Washington University Law Professor and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley. School vouchers is something that unites a majority of Americans. My family has always believed in public school education. I sent my kids to public school and we have a very good district in Northern Virginia. But I changed my views on vouchers. I grew up in Chicago. My parents created an organization to try to keep families in the public school system precisely to guarantee that it remains this diverse and successful system.

16:34I believe in that mission wholeheartedly. But a few years ago I changed my view on vouchers. The reason is what I've called the education cartel because that's how teacher unions and politicians are currently running these schools into the ground. We've had decades of failure and the costs of those years of failure are born by kids in urban cities who have watched their future just frittered away by politicians and unions who have done nothing to give them an opportunity for a better life. It is an American tragedy. Unions have opposed school vouchers for an obvious reason. They don't want the competition. That's precisely why some of us have changed our views on vouchers. None of this is going to change until we have a choice that parents can make.

17:41Currently, these families are like a captive audience. They don't have a choice. They can't afford to go to private school. And when you have no competition, it's not surprising that there's less pressure to change this ruinous record that public schools have. We see people in Arizona and Iowa and to some extent Texas and Florida where they do have school voucher programs. They're saying that these programs have spent money in a way that's resulted in public schools closing. Do you think there's a better way to strike a balance in how money is spent on these programs in these states or is this precisely the point that schools would close when you offer parents a choice? That's by design. Well, it's precisely the point in that the better schools are surviving. What we have not had is any competition to allow parents to support schools that are going back to basics, teaching their children how to read and write and do math and do science.

18:44That's why these public schools are failing because they're just simply not offering parents to think that they're looking for, which is a future for their children. And it is really maddening to see the same public school officials, the same politicians arguing for a system that has literally failed generations, has failed for decades. We have spent more and more per student. You've got some school districts that are spending tens of thousands of dollars per student. And the scores are getting worse every single year. I wrote a column a years ago about a mother in Baltimore who was told that her son was graduating in the top half of his class. And when she looked at his transcript, she found out that he had flunked all but three classes. And I put him in the top 50% of that Baltimore public school.

19:44And she was legitimately outraged and said, you've not educated my son. You're just basically getting him out of your system and you're going on to the next generation. I felt really profoundly for that mother. That's one of the reasons I changed my view on vouchers. You have this cartel where people are making a lot of money in a system that has utterly failed. And we've seen this before. Things don't go well when there's no competition and no accountability in these inter cities. There's no change in terms of the party and control. There's no change in terms of the unions. Right to the contrary, these unions get these massive contracts from politicians in these cities, including pensions that have almost bankrupted some states. And then they turn around and give massive amounts of political contributions back to the

20:47politicians. And you've got this cycle. That's why it has the characteristics of a cartel. The only people who are not active players in that who have no voice are the students and their parents. This conversation, Professor, as you know, is dovetailing with a story right now about the 1619 project founder, Nicole Hannah Jones. She says she regrets now keeping her teenage daughter in a low performing school for years in Brooklyn. At the time she said she thought she was making the just decision that middle class families enrolling their kids in lower performing schools could help improve them. But it left her daughter unprepared. And her daughter recently told her that she chose other kids over her. How powerful is this realization? Do you think for this debate, especially through your lens and what your family went through? You know, this is someone who teaches at a university and she's expressing her dissatisfaction that her child is undoing her quote's life's work by asking the go to Harvard and go to

21:54a private school for better education. I have four kids. They are my life's work. There's nothing more important in my life than my four kids. I'm sure that is true with Jones's daughter as well. But I find the priorities here to be perfectly mystifying. You have a child who has to go to her parent and say, could you please let me go to a school where I can be actually educated? Now Jones is very well off. She had the ability to send her kids to any of these schools. Most parents don't have that choice. That's what's so insidious about this debate. Jones and I have the ability to send our children to private schools. I was fortunate to have my kids in a public school system that I thought was very good. But if it wasn't, I wouldn't have hesitated to send them to a private school. Parents don't have that option. They are captives to this system.

22:56Are there nuances here? Professor, Arizona spends a billion dollars on their program. Florida spends even more than that annually on these programs. Should there be more limits in certain states on wealthier residents? How much they can qualify for in these voucher programs? Well, we can. The problem is working out those logistics. We can create those types of equitable distinctions. The key here is that we have to break the cycle. And I have worked on this for years. I am a huge believer in my parents' mission, which was to try to preserve the public school's system in Chicago and public schools around the country. I believe wholeheartedly that public schools are really the beating heart of our civics education to have children who go to school in a diverse, you know, in common curriculum. That is a great goal.

23:57But we have got to break this cartel. The only way to do it is to fund an alternative so that these teacher unions are going to be faced with parents who are voting with their feet and they're going to better schools. So they can either have empty schools or they can start to actually teach the way these other schools teach that is prioritizing actual education in history, English, science, and to put aside all this agenda. You know, in Chicago, the Chicago Teachers Union forced the city to actually give them a time off so they could protest the Trump administration and to fund buses so that they and their students could take the day to protest. This isn't the first such incident. We've seen the same thing in New York. These are systems that are failing their students. And all these teachers can think of is I want to make sure that I don't miss a protest

25:00against the Trump administration. That's the type of nonsense that we have to stop and to make these students the priority again that's not going to happen until we break this cycle. And it's going to be expensive. But we can tweak these issues. We can create greater equity. But the important thing is parents need a choice to get their kids out of this cycle. Finally, Professor, a lot of this is still news. So we don't have clear data yet that schools with broad school choice and voucher programs have better test scores yet or anything. If it turns out that didn't result in better educated kids, what should a reassessment look like? Well, that's important for us to learn. But we do have some data that indicate that these schools do perform better. If you look at Arkansas, for example, they just released a massive increase in scores in performance of their students, they introduced a voucher system.

26:00They also introduced a system that directly tied teachers' benefits to the performance in their schools. All of those things are needed to give an incentive. I think that in the end, we're going to have to have a system much like Arkansas and other states that has a mix of these incentives. Professor Terley, thank you so much for joining us. It's my great pleasure. Thank you. How can we help make stronger communities happen? Well, at JPMorgan Chase, we invest in what's working. Because when businesses can grow, that growth means more jobs for more people and more goods that can go to more restaurants and main streets in the schools in the communities we love. Make the green grass grow all around all around. Make the green grass grow all around. Make momentum happen. Learn more at jpmorganchase.com slash impact.

27:20What's on your mind? Three weeks ago, in Dallas, at the midterm convention, Republicans chose to put vice president JD Vance in the spotlight to lead the troops to November. His speech about the future of the nation could have been addressed directly to the town of St. Cloud, Minnesota, and its environs. In those remarks, referring to the future of his own kids, Vance said, quote, I want whether they work in tech or manufacturing American businesses to hire American workers to rely on American people and to ensure that we build the next generation of great American products with American hands. In St. Cloud, you can almost hear those words echoing around the historic downtown of 19th century red brick. And it's a bit of a puzzle, because usually it's fairly obvious whether a city of this size, about 80,000 souls, is ascending or descending. But St. Cloud seems, well, stuck in the middle. On the positive side of the civic ledger is the fact that the businesses that are open seem to be thriving. It's not in every minor metro downtown that you see packed restaurants for lunch on a Tuesday.

28:21There were also volunteers outpainting the planters that line the sidewalk, another very positive sign of civic engagement. On the downside, almost half of the available commercial space is empty. And foot traffic, at least for now, is not heavy enough to support many more retailers. Rob, who's now in his 40s, went to college at the nearby university back in the early 2000s, and his old fox news digital it. Back then, downtown was packed every night. You could barely move. I don't think it's ever getting back to that. When I asked how he thought the time was doing, he said, better these days, better since COVID, but it's kind of plateaued. And he was not the only person I spoke to who used that particular word. One that can also be applied to much of the broader nation. Ultimately, this is why Vance's mission to reshore manufacturing and reward firms that stay in America is such a perfect fit for St. Cloud. Honestly, a handful of businesses with a few thousand jobs could easily bring some of the hustle and bustle back. The biggest concerns you hear in St. Cloud surround the Somali immigrant community, firmly

29:23in the vice president's portfolio, the massive fraud scandal. Even on the ride back to the airport, Lynn, who works in the beauty industry, told me of a ride she had given recently, where an immigrant woman was bragging to her friend that she had just secured government subsidized housing. But since her boyfriend already had it, they were going to rent hers out for cash. I could see Lynn's knuckles whiteen on the steering wheel as she said, it just makes me so mad. I want to help the poor, but this can't be the way. In these towns like St. Cloud, and there are hundreds, Vance's message is a perfect fit. His blend of America first and reshoring jobs to small communities truly does resonate and makes sense. Just as Vance and his muscular populist message kicked off the midterms for the GOP, it must carry it through. In other words, Mr. Vice President, are you ready for your close up? Is this David Marcus? Fox News Digital Columnist and author of Shared, the COVID Lies that Crushed a Nation. You've been listening to the Fox News rundown, and now stay up to date by subscribing to

30:24this podcast at FoxNewsPodcasts.com. Listen to AdFree on Fox News Podcasts plus on Apple Podcasts, and prime members can listen to the show AdFree on Amazon Music. And for up to the minute news, go to FoxNews.com. Sweet Greens Fall Harvest is back on the menu, and the season's most overlooked little green vegetable is dressed to be devoured. You know what to do. Order on the Sweet Green app.