Trump's plan to save midterms? Voter ID law

0:00Now, with the Home Depot, receive 12 months special financing and free basic installation on carpet projects with life proof, life proof with petproof technology, home decorators collection, and traffic master carpets. Bring a new look to your floors, or give them a durable surface that stands up to life's tough messes. Get 12 months special financing on installed carpet projects, right now, at the Home Depot. Offer Bell at March 12th, or March 29th, 2026, exclusions and additional charges may apply for licenses, see Home Depot.com slash license numbers. Good Tuesday morning, I'm Anna Palmer, and I'm Jake Sherman. And welcome to The Daily Punch, brought to you by Punchville News, it's Tuesday, March 10th, 2026. Let's get into the mix here, or your Washington headlines of the day. Number one, Trump's plan for the midterms, the Save America Act. Number two, Trump plays chicken with the economy. And number three, Punchville News' second annual conference is today.

1:00We are going to break it all down, all right, Jake? We are leading off this morning's Punchville News AM with a report out of Florida by our very own Max Cohen, who's down at the Republican Retreat House members are there. So was President Donald Trump, and a lot of information to take in the focus of the Save America Act, how Republicans are trying to position the 2026 midterms and their efforts to basically dispel what a lot of people think could be a really tough election cycle for them. What are your top takeaways? My top takeaways are that if I'm a rehouse for Republican and I listened to Donald Trump last night, maybe I'm jazzed up, by the way, let me say this, there's not a lot of, from my conversations, I'm obviously not there, I would have been there. If not for our big conference today, there are a lot of vulnerable House Republicans who are not there, at least from my conversations with people over the last couple of days. And if you're Donald Trump and you think passing the Save America Act is going to save

2:02you for the midterms, you might be the only person, not the only person. I don't know that I agree with that analysis of the situation. It is a House Republican conference that's eager for vision, eager for a way to combat Democrats who say they've driven up prices. And Donald Trump said, and again, affordability is not a real problem. It's something that they've made up when he got into office and he doesn't hear much of it anymore. He said he knew that he was going to drive up oil prices when he attacked Iran. Although oil prices have gone way back down the swing as wild, and he was 110 yesterday. Now it's back to the 80s. I'll just be honest with you. If I, if I'm listening to this and I'm a House Republican, you know, I think I could go my own way on some issues. Let me put it that way, right? And I'm looking to save my own political career rather than just sticking all my fortunes in with the president and the House Republican leadership. Yeah. I mean, I think that the big buy takeaway, right? When you talk to folks and kind of what Max's report showcases is one, I mean, it seems

3:05like Trump first it was redistricting. That was going to be the thing that was going to save the midterms, focusing on that, trying to figure it a way to game the system, figure it a way to get more Republican seats. That has not worked out the way that he wanted to. Now it's, he's latched on to the Save America Act. That's going to be the thing that's going to change the way that, you know, all of a sudden they're going to kind of limit the ability for mail-in voting. And that's going to be the thing that he is going to, you know, focus on now. But to your point, there is not a sweeping or aggressive or legislative or, you know, kind of push even a slogan, right, that we're hearing about, okay, this is going to be the thing that all of the Republicans should be campaigning on. So it's not affordability, right? He says there's no detail plan to talk about cost of living, you know, kind of the administration is all over the map on length, time, purpose of the war in Iran. And I mean, Democrats are going to latch on to this idea that he is acknowledging that he knew oil prices were going to go up. That's going to be an ads across the country if oil prices indeed continue to go up.

4:09Completely agree. And you make a good point, right? First was the one big, beautiful bills going to save the majority than it, and Trump still does think that the one big, beautiful bill in some of the House Republicans. They think that the one big, beautiful bill is going to be the, the savior. And it's not being talked about enough. People need to talk more about how deductibility for auto loans, a whole host of things. And then it was redistricting you, you make a good point, you know, it's just the shifting, kind of the shifting explanations. I want to just talk about one more thing on oil prices. This morning, Saudi Aramco, the world's largest exporter of oil said there will be catastrophic consequences. If the straight of hormones remain shut, I've been hearing this from a lot of people over the last couple of days. The straight of hormones is a key pathway to global markets. And although prices have fallen for now, and it's just like with Trump and with this war, we'll just, we'll see what happens today. You know what I mean? Like it's just, you don't know what's going to happen on a day to day basis. Every day is a new day. I think the other thing, just important and Max notice in the item along with Laura Weiss,

5:1335 House Republicans have announced their retirement. It is only March 10th, the most recent of which representative Darrell Issa, the Republican for California. So that continues to make things difficult. Listen, it's not all glowing for Democrats. They're going to have their own challenges, which we've broken down. Certainly the GOP money advantage, Supreme Court of Returning, section two of the voting rights acts. Well, potential for that would be a major boost for Republicans. We've got messy primaries. I mean, there's a lot on both sides, but obviously we're focusing on Republicans here because they are down in Florida together. Other big point. I just think it's important. Senator Mark Wayne Mullins, nomination to leave the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans moving very quickly here, Jake, to try to get this, this dentist fast as possible. Yeah. I don't think he'll have a problem, but as long as his paperwork is complete, he will have a confirmation hearing March 18th, which is I guess eight days from today. All right. And after the break, we are going to be talking about Trump and the Republicans playing chicken on the economic follow-up from the Iran War.

6:18Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now, and they're up to 60 percent off. Stock up and save on Ragnbonne made well. Vince, all sings in more of your favorites. How did I not know Rack has a dentist? Why do we rock? For the hottest still. Just so many good brands. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. I take tone of the number two story of the morning, our very own Brendan Peterson, has a report out this morning from The Vault, our financial services tax and trade policy coverage. He writes, the world economy is still digesting the risks and implications of the wide ranging U.S. Israeli war with Iran. Financial markets are inert to put it mildly while Democrats are apoplectic. I mean, listen, this goes to what we were saying in the top, right? I mean, Republicans just believe that costs are going to come down precipitously.

7:21Oil costs are going to come down precipitously. And Trump said he's going to protect the straight-of-form moves. You know, I've seen a couple of comments in the last couple days that ships should just traverse the straight-of-form moves and see what happens. Like, that ain't happening, and I'm not an oil market expert. No, you're not. No, I don't know if I'm an expert in much. But what I've read over the last couple days and what I've listened to is if there is any break in the oil supply chain, it just has huge impacts. So that's why you see people saying if this lasts another week, we're going to be in trouble. If this lasts another couple days, we're going to be in trouble. This system can take blows, but it can't take a sustained blow. So anyway, I think this economic story is going to be one of the huge stories over the next couple months. And you know, it's amazing because Trump says, and Max talked about this in the top, and we could kind of combine items here in his sense. But Trump says yesterday the war's almost over. And then in the same speech or just after that in the speech to House Republicans, he says,

8:25we've already won in many ways, but we haven't won enough. You know, it's just, the message is just all over the place. I think the other thing I just think is important, you know, we've talked a lot about how, you know, I go, you go back to a way, you go back to some of the other kind of Washington crises. And at that time, the market would spike or drop or all this thing, and the dysfunction in Washington has continued. But some of what this past year seemed almost like it's been baked in, the market just government shut down. There wasn't a big massive sell-off or something. But this is one where you really see the actual impact of the war in real time, right? And that kind of the spikes and the, and you know, kind of what is happening here is something that certainly this administration and business leaders are paying really close attention. Because it's not just oil prices. I mean, this impacts everything, it impacts the price of flights, it impacts the, you know, what the, the economy or people going to travel or people going to, I mean, all kinds of things are impacted by this that have really wide-ranging, just the tentacles

9:26here and the kind of direct line between what's happening in this White House and the decisions that are happening there with what happens on Wall Street. We are seeing in real time. Yes, absolutely. All right, let's move on to the number three story of the morning. The conference shake, we are super excited. This is our second annual conference and our invite only summit. We kicked things off last night. The Waldorf Astoria with a VIP dinner, Electronic Payment Scholarship and Managing Director Nick Simpson gave remarks as well as myself. And this was really a celebration of our power list. It was really fun. We had a ton of staffers from the Hill, as well as the White House and people for the private sector kind of joining in. The power list is really our push to focus on the people behind the people, right? This isn't about lawmakers and cabinet secretaries. It's about the folks that are day in and day out really wielding a lot of power behind the scenes. Yeah, it was a great dinner. The power list is awesome. It's awesome every year. It was awesome last year. It's really awesome this year. I think we have a good cohort and we had a bunch of power list alums at the dinner last

10:31night. I do want to talk, Anna, for a second, about the conference, which is today and all the people who are speaking and people that you'll hear about over the next couple of days on the podcast. And in the, in the addition, we have a sat minority leader Chuck Schumer, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Senators Pete Ricketts, Tammy Baldwin, Angus King, Adam Schiff, Josh Holley, and Congressman Don Byer, a lot of CEOs, Anna, just too many to name right now. Or you could name them if you want. And we will have a great panel with Zach Moffitt and Josh Lasto of leading the future. That is the AI Super PAC. And we'll talk about AI spending, crypto spending, a live fly out day recording with Amy Walter of the political report with Amy Walter and Ali Mutnik. And as we've said before, a future of sports panel with several big figures in the sports world. DC sports world. It's going to be, it's going to be a great day. I think the biggest thing for us, we often kind of policy focus, but this is our real look at how does the business world interact with Washington's political elite?

11:35We've got CEOs from health care, pharmaceuticals, to financial services, to the fence world, to travel and transportation, to hospitals, betting and gaming, all kinds of folks. So really excited for that and a big thank you to our presenting sponsor, Johnson and Johnson. If you are not going to be there in person, we have a link. You can watch the live stream of that link is going to be in the newsletter. It starts at 9 a.m. Would love for you to tune in. We will obviously be talking more about it tomorrow. So thanks so much for listening. We appreciate it. Hope you had a great listen this morning. As always, please share the daily punch with your friends and family. It's the best way for folks to find out about us and you can go deeper on all things punchable news, that punchable.News, have a great day and stay safe, everybody.