District Club: RNC Takes Dallas: Day 1

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Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for a 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. Hello, everyone, and welcome to a special live edition of the District Club. I'm Tim Rice. And, guys, Dallas is absolutely abuzz. The question on everybody's minds, will Republicans leave this convention with a more unified message? And the boost that they need to get through November? Or will this unconventional setup backfire? We're also wondering what's going on in Texas's increasingly messy and important Senate race. And, of course, what is Donald Trump going to say tonight at his primetime address here in Dallas? So joining me, as always, to talk about all this and more are my co-hosts, Mary Margaret Olihan and Ben Dominich. And we are thrilled to be joined today by Tara Palmieri, intrepid journalist, host of The Tara Palmieri Show, and author of The Red Letter. Tara, I want to start with you. You're on the ground here with us in Dallas. You've been here for a little bit. What are you thinking? What's the vibe? Is this going to go well for Republicans? I don't know. I mean, to me, I feel like this is a Trumpapalooza. You've all heard it. But Trump is the present and past of the party. And that is not the future of the Republican Party. He is the only unifying personality that they have right now. And a lot of Republicans, they're not here. And reporting shows that there's only about 100 lawmakers and candidates that are here. Many of them do not want to be associated with him right now. And he is the only unifying principle in terms of their policies. They haven't figured out the future. And this whole Republican midterm convention, RMC, is that what we're supposed to call it? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I don't get it. It's weird. It glorifies him. And I know for sure there are a few topics we're not going to be hitting on. And one of them is the war in Iran. If they're going to call it a war. I doubt we're ever going to hear the word war. What do you think? I don't know about that. I think the war in Iran will absolutely come up because the president is actually very proud of where he is right now. Many Americans may not totally agree with him on that. But Trump, he's proud to talk about his success with the war. He's proud to talk about all these other wars and peace that he's brought throughout the world. And I would actually argue, Tara, that there's going to be so many eyes on this RMC, RNC, because even the people who aren't here, even the people who opted not to come, are going to be watching it on Twitter. They're going to be talking about it. They're going to be engaging with it. They're going to be talking about it on the networks. But why? They're all in battleground states right now. They don't want Trump there. I don't think they want this playing in their backyard. It was useful for Texas, okay? Paxton's in a lot of trouble. They wouldn't have just given him $10 million. He's running against Tallarico. And, you know, Democrats are delusional. And every year, every cycle, they spend a ton of money in Texas. But they've got a flawed candidate. And we know that a lot of money from her. Republicans were spent against Paxton. So maybe having Trump here is useful for one race, and that is the Senate race. And Texas, maybe it's worth it. So can I disagree with – I want to disagree with Tara on a couple of points. One is I think that one of the interesting dynamics that we currently see, at least in the analysis of polling at this point, Decision Desk HQ, which is a place that I trust, just ran through their midterm analysis of the different Trump-carried states where the candidate is lagging him. And the truth is, in Trump-carried states, the candidate is lagging him in every single one of them, including Texas, except for Iowa. Iowa is the only one. And so the truth is, for those people, they're not even matching up with, you know, where he was. You know, and that, to me, is a real question going forward. Maybe he does need to be more out on the trail. Maybe he does need to be there. I don't know that that helps you in any of these competitive battleground new House districts or things like that. But when it comes to the Senate races, you know, in Ohio, in Alaska, in North Carolina, in Michigan, which he obviously carried, those are all, you know, situations where I think the Trump effect is really kind of untested at this stage. Well, 20% of Trump voters, according to a recent poll, regret voting for him. So I think those same voters might feel differently today, especially in places like Michigan and Alaska. I wouldn't send Trump there. I think even, like, leaving the Trump of it all— Trump in Alaska would be fun, though. It would be insane. I think you could even set the Trump of it all a little bit aside, though, because one of the things that you were saying, Tara, that I think, right, there's something very weird about this. And I'm saying weird, not right, wrong, or indifferent. But I mean, look, right, this is a convention. It feels like a presidential nominating convention. You can hear the band outside. I mean, the vibe in Dallas is electric. Like, the supporters came out. People are here. People are excited. And again, I think it's a really interesting gambit for the party because, obviously, a midterm election, a very important and tight midterm election, is not the same as— announcing a presidential nomination that's already been sewn up. But I do think that there's a really good chance that the downstream effects of the kind of, like, team building, coming together, maybe that even more than the Trump of it all will help energize voters. Maybe it'll get people out. But what is it that they're going to say tonight and tomorrow that's going to get Trump out? Like, granted, I'll give it to you. Trump being on stage tonight, if he has a cohesive, normal speech, which I haven't seen in a really long time, we'll get picked up on Good Morning America. We'll get it picked up on the broadcast networks. That's a win, as long as he's not being torn apart. And if it happens a second night, that's good. You control the airwaves, especially the local ones in Dallas and Texas, like I talked about. But I don't get what the unifying message is right now. That's my thing. Well, I mean, look, there's this legacy media narrative right now that, God forbid, Trump is aligned with any Republican because they won't win. And I think that's a little naive, and I think it's a little manipulative, to be frank, because, all of these Republicans who are currently in office, most of them are in office because of the president. They're dis—many of their constituents love the president, and the president loves them. And so when we talk about what's the message tonight, well, the message that the president has said he's going to say is, look at your options. You have us and the progress we've made, and then you have the radical Democrats and their socialist compadres. You have a choice here between this and that. Well, that makes a lot more sense to me. I mean, run a campaign on radical Democrats. That's the best-selling message. Don't run a campaign on a president who's in 38 percent approval rating. But, Kate, isn't it possible that you can do both? Right? I think what Mary Margaret's saying, and I think you're right, is that if the president sticks to that message and doesn't go off and talk about the ballroom or Jimmy Kimmel or whatever else, if the president and the vice president, too, let's also not forget— Or how he was pulled from firefighters out of the rubble in 9/11. That was the latest. If the president and the vice president get up and say—and I like socialist compadres. I'm not saying that more. That's the choice. Then, yeah, maybe then Trump becomes a messenger for that effective message, right? I think there are kind of two theories of the case for this thing. And I completely agree, Tara. This is a weird thing. I mean, the whole thing seems a little weird, especially considering it's a convention where nothing is really actually officially happening. No one's being nominated. No voting. It's also weird to me that the GOP of all nights to choose for a major political event would choose the premier of the NFL season. No pass, right? Yeah. So, anyway— I'm told that's who's playing. In a way, he's handing this over to the press to cover it the way that they want, right? You know what's weird? This is the thing. I think that it's a mistake to think that weird and weird necessarily means bad. It might. It very well might. But again, it's American politics, guys. This is not the first time that a party or a group or a candidate has done something really weird in the height of an election season. It would not be the first time if a weird gambit like this— Have they ever done anything like this before? Well, no, nothing like this, but I'm saying, again, this is not the first time something weird has happened in electoral politics. But how weird is this? We have the President of the United States bringing all of his top Republicans together to combat Democrats in the midterms. In the world of weirdness, that's not that weird to me. That seems like a very smart thing to do. It's weird because no one's done it before. They raised $40 million for this alone. There are a lot of people who could use that money. $40 million war chest. This is all about money, right? I mean, Republicans are not— Everything's about money. Everything's about money. I feel like on one level, this is just the President kind of reinserting himself into the political election battle when he's been focused on a lot of things that had nothing to do with that actual election fight. And to a certain extent, I think that what Republicans want to hear, what they want to see from this event is the President lay out his case and the Vice President, who gave you his elevator pitch— Yeah. —just this past week in the briefing room, I think that they need to kind of model the behavior that these Republican candidates should imitate on the campaign trail if they're going to hit that narrative that you spoke about, Tara, that is more impactful of saying these radical Democrats, this is our narrative now. This is what we're pushing back to try to activate the base. Yeah. Well, I'd also argue that, you know, there's a lot of suggestions right now that Trump shouldn't be talking about his administration. Like I think you suggested that if the president is talking about the war in Iran or the ballroom or things like that, that that's perhaps a negative for Republicans. I would actually argue, no, that a very classic Trumpian speech here would be to build on the successes that he can praise from his administration to remind the public, yeah, you're upset with the war or you're upset with, you know, higher prices at the gas pump or the grocery store. But don't forget, we made America great again. Don't forget all the good things we've done. Wait, I thought it was supposed to be great right now. A lot of people voted against wars. They said no new wars. And that was a big, big motivator for people, to vote for President Trump over Kamala Harris. It's true, because during the Biden administration, we saw Russia just eat Ukraine. OK, and people were tired of it. And they and Trump promised. What did he say? Forty eight hours. I'll get that war done. It was it's still going on right now. We're in a really war in Iran over in 48 hours. He also said that he would lower the price of goods. I mean, whether you can control inflation or not, it's still your problem. It's no longer Bidenomics anymore. We've been in. This 18 months now. And it's expensive. And every single time a driver. I don't know if you're a driver, but every time I go to the pump and I've got to pay five dollars, you know, whose face I see. All right. So let's go on. Let's let's game this out, because I think we know we've done a good job of establishing how this could backfire. Right. If if it if it puts if the president takes, you know, ties himself to competitive candidates for whom it might not help, if it renews a focus on things like war and affordability, if it just sort of. Everyone just goes away thinking this was weird and why did we do it? All right. Fine. What is how does this I'm the cock eyed optimist. How does this work out? Right. What are how what are some ways? Is it possible for this to help Republicans? Right. I mean, is there a unifying message? Is there a surge in fundraising in get out the vote? What do you guys think? Like, I mean, is it what what's the what's the the blue sky? We leave here on Friday and think, wow, Tim was right. This turned out great for Republicans because why? I mean, I don't know what all this doomerism is about. We have a four hundred million dollar war chest. The president is just dipping into the presidency or the vice presidents here. All these Republicans are here. I'm not subscribing to the doomerism. I think this is a huge opportunity for Republicans to rally around the same message. And they're going to do that. And like the vice president told me last week, as Ben was saying, there's a message here. And that is we've been doing great. You can continue to do great with us or you can go to these radical Democrats and you can see the country just spin out and unwind again and subscribe. To socialism. So, again, I don't think that we should be subscribing to this kind of legacy media narrative that we're at this strange convention and things are going to go really badly. It's not now. Maybe I'm wrong and we see things pan out differently. But right now, I don't think that any of that is legitimate. I just think they have so many problems right now. They need to get sixty seven billion dollars from Republican senators to pay for a war. And Pete Hegseth cannot get sixty seven billion dollars. From fourteen Republicans in the House Armed Services Committee right now. That's a problem. And they're out here right now. They're running out of munitions. We're out here in Dallas like there are so many problems right now in Washington. The best thing that could happen for Trump is if he actually announced a true ceasefire and Iran did not bomb him the next day right before the war. I think the best case scenario for Republicans is that this is a reassertion of the fact that they need to stop fighting and squabbling amongst each other. I think that the past several months have been really fractious in terms of the relationship on Capitol Hill with the White House. The tension between John Thune and the and the president has been readily apparent. You mentioned the difficulty that he's had, especially with some of these retiring Republicans or people who've lost their primaries, et cetera, or would have lost them if they decided to run again. I think that the ideal blue sky thing for this is, hey, guys, you've got to get your act together and be on the same team. John Cornyn, stop complaining about Ken Paxton. Tom Tillis, stop being-- That's what I was looking for. But don't you also think that Trump just played his cards all wrong? Didn't he realize that by messing in Cornyn's primary, whatever you think about John Cornyn, he is paying the price for it. Clashing with Tillis over and over again, he is paying the price for it. The million dollars they spent in Joni Ernst's backyard to get Hegseth confirmed, they are paying the price for it. He does not care about the House and Senate. He's even made it clear. And the latest thing, the craziest thing of all, is that they are now pro data centers. That is one of the strongest talking points for Democrats I've ever heard in my life. I mean, I have never heard a stronger talking point for Democrats. I love that the show always comes back to data centers. Daily Wire viewers know that a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I worked for John Cornyn, so they know how I feel. The situation though here in Texas, the one thing I would say is Ken Paxton, as it ended up, didn't need Trump's endorsement to beat John Cornyn. He would have won anyway. You think so. Trump makes it bigger, but still. The thing though that I think is really critical, I mean, is you've got to be on the same team, guys, because this narrative only works if you're saying El-Sayed is an existential threat to the country. He represents a change that is far away from the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party of the United States. He's an existential threat to the nation and the like. We are the line of defense against that, and that only works if the other Republicans are along for that idea as opposed to complaining all the time. And it only works if you're saying that and then not immediately turning around and saying, "And you know what? The only thing worse than El-Sayed, the Islamofascist is, is Tom Tillis." Okay, but at the same time, imagine if the Democrats held a convention right now around El-Sayed, and then everything he said was clipped and used by Republicans around the country, which there is already doing anyway. They don't even need to hold a convention. But now they have another opportunity for Trump to say something and then for them to clip it and to use it. But I think that's exactly what I mean. They want this to be the Trump election. They want this to be a referendum on Trump because, frankly, they don't have a lot of other ideas themselves. They don't have a unifying figure. They're also actually, frankly, the same situation that Republicans will be in unless they all coalesce around J.D., and that is very much contingent on the popularity of President Trump, let's face it. If President Trump is popular, fine. But right now, he's not. Well, I think we're skipping a couple other things here. For one thing, the president has said that after this convention and in the days leading up to the elections, he's going to be out campaigning in the 35 most important states. He's also going to be giving money to all these candidates. He's going to be out there on the road the way he was before the last election cycle, just campaigning nonstop. So to suggest that the president isn't -- he's somehow going to negatively impact all these races, I think, is a little foolish when we look at what a massive impact he can have on these races. But he's not giving that money up. They made that pretty clear that he's giving $10 million to Paxton, but he's not giving the money up. He's saving it for his library and other activities. That's completely inaccurate. He didn't make that clear last week. No, he's not going to hold a $400 million war chest. But what else do you use it for? What else? He's not running again. What else? But to make sure that you're not impeached in the next Congress. There's a lot of -- He should burn through all $400 million. He should. There's a lot of time left to spend a lot of money. He can spend the money. But he's already put it out in a statement. I know, but I think -- and I get where you're coming from. You're like, "I don't." No, I understand where you're coming from. I do think, though, I think that Trump cares a little bit more about congressional races than it seems. A lot more. Because I think he likes to win. He wants to win. He's been getting involved. He actually doesn't see Congress as a reflection of himself. I know, but he wants -- He can separate. He can separate it. I know he can, but I think he sees -- He doesn't care. I think this term, especially, we've really seen him step into not -- maybe not -- maybe in the most traditional way, but in a, like, "I am the leader of the Republican Party." I think -- I think -- I think you're not giving him enough credit on this. So, what if -- and if they lose, will he own that? No, well, that's -- I think that's the thing. That's -- again, it's -- look, it's still Trump, right? If they lose, it's going to be their fault, but if they win, it's going to be for him. And I'm not -- again, we're not here to -- I'm not here to adjudicate, you know, -- Do you think he thinks this is a referendum on him? He's said repeatedly that -- Okay, that's why we're here, because this is a referendum on him. I think that might be what the Democrats want. I don't think anyone's denying this. That might be why -- That's what Democrats want. But I think that's what Republicans have just accepted, too. I don't think anybody in the world is denying that this race, like every -- like you said, everything else in the past ten years in politics on the Republican side -- It's always -- It's always. So, at that point, why not have -- why not have a party? I don't know, because it wouldn't be ready to highlight the flaws of your opponents rather than give them a referendum, which is easy when they're riled up. Democrats are obviously out. Well, but see, isn't this -- isn't this campaign, isn't the -- isn't the president with whatever amount of that war chest he ends up spending? He seems to want it to be a referendum on him. I mean, the ads that he's cutting are all -- things are going great. Like, I mean, I don't know if you've seen -- they're not, you know, sort of hammering away this message that has been gifted to Republicans about Democrat radicalism, which is truly, I think, something that is of a level that we haven't seen before. It represents something -- before you had the spot shots of the AOCs, the random primary winners, the stuff like that. Right. Right. And that Bernie Sanders is the head of, and that all these other people now have their own independent -- or the titular head of. And they all now have their own independent fundraising mechanisms. They all have their own organizations. They have the ability to be independent of Hakeem Jeffries in a way you never had the squad be independent of Pelosi. These people are going to have an effect on policy in Washington, regardless of the outcome of some of these elections, just because so many of them are likely to win. And instead of like leaning into that, they're leaning into everything is great. You should be really proud. You know, America's 250th is going awesome. You know, don't pay no attention to the price of gas, that kind of thing. I don't know if they're saying pay no attention to the price of gas, but more. Yeah, we're in a war. So the gas is high and it'll be it'll be high. What's like what do you think to elected Republicans is the ceiling for the amount of gas we should pay for a war in Iran? Well, this is classic terror because this is a very I mean, I'm just wondering, like, is it six dollars? Is it seven dollars? Is it eight dollars? I know at the White House with legacy reporters, this is exactly what everyone does. They're like, all right, let's go. Let's give the president a limit and he can't go past it. And as soon as he does, we're going to gotcha him on it. I want to know because I'm for planning purposes for my life. I would like to know when I'm budgeting my next year, like how much is it going to cost for me to keep myself cool? You obviously just need to buy a Tesla. No, I just OK. And I also want to know what is what is the messaging on AI right now? Because that's huge. I just saw this tweet last night from this guy who just quit Anthropic. And he's like, everyone inside the company is talking about how AI is going. It caused the end of civilization by the next decade, which seemed a bit alarmist and terrifying. But then another one of his colleagues also confirmed that this is the conversation within their building. And we're being told, don't worry about data centers. It's all going to be great. It doesn't feel like it doesn't feel like this is a priority for our government. It doesn't feel like they're catching up with what is actually happening. And it's all about the race against China. Right. I mean, that is what we're being told. Let us let us beat China to this game. But what if the people inside. Are laughing and knowing that there's really a race to the bottom and our government just isn't catching up. In fact, instead, our president says, you guys are a bunch of losers. If you think that you shouldn't let a data centers come into your backyard, you're losers if you're not up on AI. I mean, he's not. I mean, he's in his 80s. Who knows how long he'll live? Maybe he will survive the end of times. I just like the AI. But what is the messaging around that right now? That is a huge motivator for Democrats. To go out. It's not even just Democrats. It's just regular people. They have such a strong message around gas and AI. They really do. And the war. I mean, as the resident data center hater on this panel, I think the big messaging around AI right now, or at least the points that I'm seeing, is that Republicans know we have to keep up with China as it pertains to AI. But they also know they have a messaging problem when it comes to data centers. We talked about this a lot, how, you know, there's this attitude, I think, on both sides of the aisle. A little bit. But Republicans are struggling with it. The suggestion that everyone should shut up and just listen to the experts on AI, which is not very Republican, considering what we went through with COVID, how we learned the hard way that you should not trust the experts. But I think Republicans are slowly coming around on that messaging. Vance talked about it. I think it was last week about the need for innovation, the need for more jobs and how these data centers are actually going to be good for the country. The anthropic story is very scary. Those terrifying ways. It's very scary. But I would caution there, as someone who is ready to believe anything crazy about AI, because this did come out last night, this is two employees that are no longer with the company. I believe they're no longer with the company, right? Yeah. I think that's something we should take with a grain of salt, bearing it in mind, the fact that, no, I don't think most of the people in politics right now fully understand the implications of AI or how far it can go. There has been, we're about five years into this, maybe not five years, we're three years into people quitting AI companies and saying that, "I'm quitting because AI is going to end humanity in the next year." I think it's happening right now. I'm just saying, to Mary Margaret's point, to Mary Margaret's point, this is a thing that happens where someone quits OpenAI and says, "We're all going to die," and then we don't die. We just saw agents have a weird interaction with each other around, what was it called, they had, I can't explain it all because I'm not AI fluent, but AI agents created a community. Oh, yeah, they're like social networks. They created their own social network, and they talked to each other, these chat bots, and then they got it organized, and they worked towards the collective good, and they hacked into things, they created a lot of mess, and where is government right now? What are they doing? I think that, let me put this in more tangible terms, because I understand the broad AI concerns that exist within the community, and that have now been a little unfairly connected to the data center issue, which I actually think is more of a NIMBY issue, especially if you look at the polling, it's more about what it's going to do. What it's going to do to your power bill, what it's going to do to your water, those are all the proximity thing. What about your kids and what jobs they're going to get? Well, but this is the thing that I think people are kind of missing. If you look at Anthropic, for instance, and their study of the people who were most exposed to AI taking their jobs, right off the bat, you have customer service for obvious reasons. Yes. The immediate next tier is actually hospital workers and bureaucrats, not your doctor, not your nurse. Not the people who actually take care of you, the people who handle your insurance coding, the people who go after and look at all the different things inside, and that has an exposure level of nearly 70% job loss in their prediction. So we're supposed to fight with the agents? No, no, no, the point is, there are on average 14 hospitals in every congressional district in America, and in every congressional district, you have between 2% and 3% of employment currently by those jobs. What will happen for you when you see the kind of numbers that are going to hit the jobs in your congressional district, because AI is basically going to say, we can do this job better than this group of bureaucrats, basically, who work within the hospital system that no one likes anyway, because they mostly are there to deny you service and claims? But are we supposed to then fight with agents, and they're going to deny us service? Or what will happen is, to Ben's point, right, because the hospital lobby is obviously very powerful. But are we supposed to then fight with agents, and they're going to deny us service, because they mostly are there to deny us service. But I think what I think about AI on both sides of the aisle is that politicians need to be paying attention to the concerns of Americans. The legitimate concerns about AI should not just be swept under the rug. We should not be told, I agree that the president's message so far on AI that you're stupid if you don't want it is not the correct way to reach the American people. I think the American people are very smart. They have concerns. They have families. They see how all of this is going. So to just sweep their concerns under the rug, it's foolish. And I think there does need to be more messaging on that front, whether it's data centers. Whether it's, you know, anything to do with AI. We appreciate your concerns. We understand the importance of all of it. But AI runs Washington. They are one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. The technocrats, if you look at any Washington newsletter, it is sponsored by OpenAI. It's sponsored by Anthropic. It's sponsored Meta. They run Washington. Chuck Schumer's daughter. Five years ago, you could have said the same thing about pharma, and then COVID happened, and now everyone. The only bipartisan issue is hating big pharma. I know what you're saying. I'm just like -- I mean, it's happening now. And everybody is working for the AI companies on both sides. Ben said something before that I want to -- I have a follow-up, because it was super interesting, and I think you're right, that separating kind of positioning data centers as a YIMBY issue or an NIMBY issue, like I don't want you to build this ugly, loud building in my neighborhood, versus AI and sort of what Tara is getting at, right, a little bit more of like is this an existential threat? Is there a way for either party to kind of latch onto differentiating them? Is there a winning message maybe for Republicans in there? Because for Democrats, it's maybe putting it together. Is there a way for like maybe Republicans say we hear you on the threat of AI, but also here's why that's not -- data centers are also powering like your Fitbit. You know what I mean? Sure. I think that that's a little bit too much to ask for this Republican Party to execute in time for this election. Well, maybe not even -- In the long term, if this is an argument that we can have over the next couple of years, then I think that they could probably make those distinctions, because a lot of the biggest concerns about AI, quite frankly, I think, are either misdirected or they're not looking at kind of the -- I'm more concerned about the immediate job losses that's going to happen, which I think people are underestimating in terms of how quickly it's coming. But when it comes to the data center thing, it is interesting. The Wall Street Journal had this cover article today about all these different states, Republican states mostly, that leaned so heavily into it, gave these places tax breaks. Gave them sweetheart deals. They don't need those sweetheart deals. They have plenty of money. You know, they should be paying for the schools and the roads and the energy that is going on there. They need to be building their own power plants. They need to be dealing with any of these -- and the truth is that's why I think these data centers will ultimately prevail, because they'll do things like they just did in Frederick, Maryland, where they basically said, "We're going to pay for every single thing your town wants for the next 10 years to be able to put one here." And that, I think, is what it's going to take. But I think in the immediate, as a political matter -- Republicans have enough trouble not tripping over their own you-know-whats. But it was it was President Trump who essentially said it was like Bidenomics creating that word. He basically tripped over himself. He said, well, it's not a problem right now. You know, that's what Biden said. We've got inflation under control. Everything's great. And this is the problem when you become the president. You live in a bubble. You live in a you live in a house and you're surrounded by yes people and everyone tells you everything is great. And so you you actually don't know. You can't feel the anxieties of the people that you are leading. And this was an example of it. The idea that we're all supposed to be fine and we're losers for caring. I don't know. I think there's a balance here because the president actually has been very good at understanding the pain that Americans feel. That's actually why he's president, because he understood the real concerns of Americans in the past several elections. And that's why he was out there. He did. And I just don't know that he does now. So can I ask you a question about that? Because this leads me to the concern that I have that I was talking to you about. Yesterday, Mary Margaret, I think about the list of speakers that they have for this convention. When they initially were kind of talking about this convention, they were talking about highlighting some of the people who've benefited the most from the president's policies. You know, average people, normal Americans and people who've experienced, you know, let's say the criminal effects of a flood of migrants across the border during Biden that the president shut down. You know, let's put these people out front and center. I see this list of speakers. And it's all a bunch of people you can see on C-SPAN every day. I think they're going to work in. What do you mean? What do you mean by that? Well, it means politicians, right? They're all politicians. They're not like we're not highlighting like normal people who've benefited from the president's successes such as. Right. Well, actually, there's going to be some there's going to be some interesting people mixed in there. For example, Vanessa Savage, who is one of the people targeted by the Biden DOJ for exposure. She's going to be proposing transgenderism, transgender procedures for children here in Texas. She's going to be speaking here. There's a number of people like that. I know a number of families who have lost loved ones to illegal immigrant crime, people like that who are going to be worked into different scheduling and programming throughout the day to share their stories. But Ben is right that a lot of the politicians that will be highlighted in primetime, for example. Yeah, these are classic D.C. figures. But based on what I've seen, what the RNC has told me, they are going to work a lot of smaller. Smaller stories of Americans who have been impacted by weaponization, for example, or Americans who have been impacted by illegal crime or different things like that. They will be here this weekend or this week, and they will be sharing their stories as well. But there's a real don't go ahead. I was just going to say, who's actually doing rolling coverage of this? That's the other thing. I mean, a lot. So it really is a daily wire. That's right. The daily. Oh, yeah. I think I think this sort of goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning. Right. Which is that there's this can go one of two ways. Right. Because if you look at the roster of speakers and you think, right, it's you got pretty much the entire cabinet. Right. So if Pete Hegseth comes out and he's not. Oh, he's not. Right. But if you know, if that's just what is he if not, if they come out and they talk about immigration, they talk about, you know, if Kennedy or Dr. Ross, I think, is on the list. Right. Talks about how we're making food safe. Right. If they talk about the things that voters care about instead of if they come out and say, how good is this president, guys? Right. It's just because even if it's not necessarily that kind of traditional lineup of, you know, average folks and things like that, they can still act as like we were saying with Trump earlier, they can still act as messengers of a message that will benefit these candidates. Or, of course, they could just come out and say, we love Donald Trump. Tara, are you surprised that Todd Blanch is speaking? Hegseth is not. Todd Blanch. Oh, no, I didn't see him on the manifest. I saw Scott Besson, which I thought was interesting. He is a pretty effective messenger considering the state of the economy. I do think he's pretty. He's pretty good. At least I see him when I see him on the roundtables. They have RFK Jr., who keeps the Maha moms happy, I guess. I don't know that they're entirely happy. Apparently they've been courting AOC because they don't think he's done enough. Then there is Dr. Mehmet Oz, another great American showman and doctor. And there is Caroline Leavitt. She's back. And Donald Trump Jr., which makes me think that he will have a presence in the future of this party, that he will be a standard bearer. J.D. Vance, obviously. But no, we don't have Marco Rubio and we do not have Pete Hegseth. And I think because they are reminders of the issues that we have abroad. Or because they both have been rumored to have presidential ambitions. And J.D. Vance is speaking tomorrow night. That's true. And he is the rumored favorite of the Trump administration right now. That's a great point. I thought that Trump liked Rubio, though. I think. He likes Rubio. He loves Rubio. I don't think you should dismiss Rubio. Yeah, I think. I'm not saying we dismiss him, but Vance is the favorite. I think Donald Trump loves winners. Yeah, yeah, no. And I mean, the president got moved to tonight as opposed to tomorrow night. Now Vance is speaking tomorrow night and I think the president is closing out. But I particularly noticed that Rubio wasn't speaking in the especially in these primetime slots. That'll be very interesting. But I do want to add a note that, you know, we talk about who will be covering this, who will be actually covering it. Let's not forget that the legacy. Media and every conservative network, their favorite thing to cover is Donald Trump because he makes the best news. So we can talk about whether this this RNC is going to be a success or not. But let's not pretend it's not going to get massive media coverage because it will. Everything that happens this week is going to be a story. Every reporter that is anyone is here covering this because this is the biggest news of the month, potentially of the fall. I don't know about that, actually. I think he'll get a they'll get a three minute spot. I worked in at ABC News. As a White House correspondent, they'll get three minutes in the morning. Well, why are you here? That's a three minute, three minute spot. It's pretty good. CBS will probably give them a little bit more. Maybe NBC gives them three minutes. I bet CNN will cut in and out. I don't they're not doing any live shows from here. And MSNOW that that's already a lost cause. Fox. Yeah, probably. Fox has a whole set set up over here. I think cable networks will be pretty, pretty heavily covered. I think you're right about the big three. I don't know. They're not they're not hosting any shows. Live from here. This isn't like a convention convention where they have a set up and they're going to be on. But they will be covering and Trump. Yeah, they'll they'll they'll dip in and out because what else to cover? I think that I mean, this this is the biggest I guess. But I don't see why it's going to break through and dominate local news channels and certainly broadcast, which is where the majority of people actually get their news. I mean, if you actually look at the cable numbers compared to broadcast broadcast gets as much as twenty four million, twenty four million viewers. Cable gets a million. I think it's overestimated when you look at it like we think cable news matters because we live in the bubble. It doesn't matter. Well, I think that's a daily. I actually only think that new media matters like substance. I agree. I mean, that's why I'm here in new media land. But obviously, I think I think that one thing that we should appreciate, though, about this is that what the Republicans are kind of thinking, circling back to that blue sky question that Tim had is we really need a reset to get the base to focus on this election in a way that they. They have. They have. I mean, one of the most interesting things you talked earlier about the gas prices and things like that, the split that's going on. One of the most interesting data points that was the Wall Street Journal reported about earlier this year is the difference of opinion between older Americans and younger Americans about the state of the economy and how things are going. Older Americans who've experienced this stock market boom, they overwhelmingly think the economy is good to excellent. OK, they're going to retire with their four and they own all the houses. So, of course, they're happy. And then if you're basically the cutoff is around forty five and younger, you think everything sucks. Totally. So I think a big part of this is trying to say to those people who are happy with things, you need to wake up because this is a base election. And the only way that we're going to be able to hold hold power in Washington and keep Donald Trump from being impeached again and keep his agenda rolling is if you actually wake up to the fact there are a bunch of people who are mad about what's going on in the. And those people who are mad and let's be honest. Young people don't typically vote unless they're really, really mad and older voters, older people vote their rap, their home. They're watching TV. They're scared. Everything is world is a disaster. And yes, they're either in retirement or they're about to collect their 401ks and they're invested in the stock market, whereas most young people aren't because they've been struggling for the past few decades. It's beyond most a lot of millennials don't have stocks. They still don't. They still don't own homes. It's because of all the avocado toast. Yeah, that's true. Avocado toast is really, really bad for us, really set us back. He wanted to run a real campaign. He would run on the cost of avocados and how we'll bring it down. But yeah, I think if you're heavily invested in the stock market, you love this administration. You think this is great. But if you're a person who lives day to day, cares about the price of gas, is not heavily invested in stock market, does not own a home, does not have a lot of assets. Yeah. And. Not just super happy right now. I my family is they're very conservative and I went home and after around Easter, after the obviously we went into Iran, I saw my brother who's younger than me, is about ten years younger than me. He's got a family, he's got kids, he's got a job, he lives, you know, I don't want to say where he lives because he'll kill me. But, you know, then they live in a in a red state and and he felt betrayed by President Trump. and I think think a lot of people did because of this war. And that was one of the things that they really believe in. And he's a JD Vance isolationist, I would say. And maybe JD Vance can somehow bring that spirit back. But I don't see that happening in this election. It's not totally gone, though. I know what you're talking about, because I was just speaking with someone the other day who's not from D.C., who's not from, you know, the political world. And I was kind of trying to get a gauge of how he feels and his friends feel about what's going on in politics and how they feel about the president, who they've always supported. And the message I got from him and I've gotten from others that I've talked to in the same sphere is they're ready for the war to end. They want gas prices to go back down, but they're not done with Donald Trump. They're annoyed that this is going the way it is, but they're not done with him at all. And I think we shouldn't be underestimating the fervor of the American people, especially the MAGA movement, that, yes, gets annoyed with the president about this issue or that issue. That doesn't mean they're done with Do I think that he would go out and vote for Kamala Harris again? No, I don't think so. Yeah, no way. I don't know. There's a bit of buyer's remorse right now. It would be a very good moment. I think everyone's sort of circled around this point. It would be a great moment for the president or the vice president to get out and do a little politics of anger, a little, I acknowledge that this thing sucks or this thing is bad. And it's very hard to impossible to imagine Trump or Vance doing that. I mean, Vance, maybe when he's free, maybe when Vance actually launched. Put your prediction market bet now. Of course, it's not going to happen. But I think that's an interesting thing to think about. This would be a good moment to steer into the skid. What will be very interesting is if after this election, the Republican Congress, and I can see it coming, if the Republican Congress, let's say they at least lose the House, maybe they lose the Senate. They are going to try to put all of this on the president's decision to go into the war in Iran. They are going to try to put all of it on that. It was a gamble that he did it because he thought it was important, but that it put their political careers at risk and that that's the reason that they lost, which will ignore the fact that this Congress has sucked. They have really gotten very, very little done. They have not. Yeah, but they were out for, okay, they were out for how many weeks? Exactly. During the Epstein. Why aren't you doing your job? Maybe if you did your job, then people would want to send you back to do it again. Well, Congress doing its job is up there with Donald Trump saying that the, the economy is bad in terms of things that we can hold our breath for. I just want to rewind for a second. So Congress obviously has the lowest approval rating ever, lower than Trump's. And in the summer of 2025, Pam Bondi says case closed. A bunch of Republicans say, let's get the Epstein files out. Mike Johnson keeps Congress out for an entire summer, a whole summer of no, of zero legislation. And yeah, they didn't get anything done, but who did he do that for? Mike Johnson didn't do that for him. He did that for President Trump. So again, this is, you know, this is, this is his own mess. He's got to sit in it. He hasn't actually played congressional politics. Well, he's just not, he's just not great at it either. I don't think he cares. It's a Donald Trump show and all of these people, they're just the players. His world. We're just living in it. Mary Margaret. I mean, look, I, I have so many frustrations with Congress that that's why I cover the White House because I can't deal with all of those lawmakers. Over on the Hill. But look, they are very much at the pleasure of the president. Currently, many of them do not have the backbone to stand up to him. I'm partially because they know that Trump runs Washington. And so the way that Congress works right now is Mike Johnson tries to get congressional lawmakers on board with the president's plan and often doesn't succeed in that doing the same way. But I don't know. I think the Epstein situation was much larger than the, the short synopsis you're making it out to be, but, but why were they out? Why were they at the end of the day? Why were they on a very long recess? Were they all on vacation? What were they doing? I mean, Tara, you have the Epstein files now. You know what? I think they've reached the point where, look, I had a text from a member of Congress this morning, just out of nowhere. We hadn't been talking about anything. It was just, everything is stupid. Well, they're all retiring. That's the other thing too. I mean, what's the point? It really is. It's gotten to be a complete joke. There's so many retirements. They want to work for AI is obvious. That's the only way to survive. Well, and no one wants that. We were talking about this on the last week. Like there's no incentive to Congress has been flailing and failing for decades now. And everyone talks about it. This is what keeps think tanks and businesses complaining about how Congress has abdicated its responsibility. But especially in recent years, thanks to the rise of social media and just the continued explosive power of the presidency, there's no incentive for anyone to not just do anything. No one wants to be the minority. Whip. No one wants to be, we were talking about, you know, congressional leaders. So yeah, it's like they're going to do it. They get their name. They run for president. They go become influencers. They go work for anthro. Yeah. They're better off becoming influencers, but they are majority in the majority right now. They have the house, they have the Senate. Oh yeah. Every complaint about Congress. It's like, okay, well you guys have all three guys. What are you doing here? I know them. I know it's a thin majority, but ultimately you still have it. And you have to be able to pluck off a few Democrats, right? But there was so much, you would think, but I'm excited for this tonight. I'm looking forward to president's remarks. I'm looking forward to hearing this unifying message and I'm looking forward to hearing and seeing all of these networks covering the RNC that they said wasn't cool enough for them to talk about. So we're, we're about to run out of time here, but before we wrap, let's do a quick round Robin parting thoughts. What do we think the president's going to talk about tonight? Ben Dominic. Uh, I think that the president is going to set out an agenda that we've, we've heard before, but haven't heard him do on this kind of, uh, stage in a long time. And I think it's actually going to serve as basically resetting the talking points, resetting the, the sort of priorities for candidates across the country. They're going to start echoing him. It's basically marching orders. It's just happening from a stage. But what are they just, do you have a preview? I mean, I think it's going to be the same things that we heard from, heard from him before. He's going to talk about Trump accounts. He's going to talk about aspects of the big, big global bill. He's going to talk about the aspects of shutting down the border. He's going to talk about the dangers of socialism and he's going to talk about, you know, the, some of the crazy things that some of these socialist candidates believe. Yeah, exactly. I think that's what we're going to hear from the president tonight. Also, Steven Chung is teasing a surprise announcement. A president actually teased that as well. So something in that sphere that we'll be here about tonight. But look, I think it's going to be, look what we've done so far. We have made the country greater again. Do you want us to continue making this progress? Vote for us. If you don't vote for the radicals and he'll talk about why Democrats are radicals. I don't know if we often talk about enough under president Joe Biden. We had child gender transition surgeries being not only performed, but promoted as a good thing as a medically necessary thing under the former HHS, the weaponization of the government. He'll talk about all of that under president Joe Biden and say, look what I fixed. Look how far we've come. And frankly, you know, for the people saying that that's a message that we don't need to hear anymore. I think it's actually a very unifying message for Republicans to remind them. This is what could happen. If you elect Democrats, Sarah, I've heard that there isn't a lot of control over what he's going to say. So it's whatever comes from his mouth. But I do think he'll over inflate the state of our country. I think it'll be a lot like a state of the union and it'll be a very positive one like you've heard before. And I think you're right. Well, he'll talk about transgenders and he'll talk about the border wall and he will talk about his accomplishments. I wonder if he'll touch the third rail. Touch AI, touch the war or whatever he's calling it. That's what I'm looking out for. If he'll actually talk about those things and he might just do it because that's what he does. And that'll be interesting to me. And I'm kind of interested to hear a new story that I haven't heard before. You know, like killer windmills. I'm kind of over that. You know, I'm interested to hear that. At least one of you is going to be partially right. We will see tonight. Tara, thank you so much. For joining us, Ben, Mary, Margaret. It's always a pleasure. This has been a special live edition of the District Club here in Dallas, Texas. I'm Tim Rice. Thank you for watching The Daily Wire. We'll see you guys soon.