GOP IN CHAOS: Vance Turns on Trump After "Extinction-Level" Election

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It's the Cool Ants Club in their natural habitat of giving the trendiest gifts. It's the Deal Hunters Club. No sudden movements. They smell value a mile away. Whatever holiday club you're in, Sam's Club helps you make the most of your holidays. Come join us. Sam's Club. Hey, Jess. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Good. Where are you? Are you in Midtown? No, I'm in the Midtown of Indianapolis. I don't know if it's actually Midtown. I'm in Indianapolis. It's lovely. They love their basketball here. They do. Caitlin Clark's everywhere. The Pacers. It's really fun. So I went to college with one of their heroes, Reggie Miller. I didn't know you went to college with Reggie Miller. I did. He was the star of UCLA. When I went to college, I was an athlete. Granted, I was on the road. I was on the rowing team, which wasn't the highest of high-profile sports. You were the Reggie Miller of the rowing team, though. Oh, no. There's a guy named Dave Williams, and thank God for Dave, because rowing is all about metrics, your ergs, your running time, your lift, everything. They're very metric-driven. And there was 32 men on the rowing team, and I came in 31st every time. And thank God for Dave Williams, because he always came in 32nd, and is so much less psychologically damaged. It's challenging to come in second to last versus last every time. Jess will be live-streaming. Notice how I turned this to me. Let's go back to you. Who are you speaking to or in front of? What are you speaking at? I'm doing, like, a Republican and Democrat, like, point-counterpoint to talk about the midterms. Well, I don't know how you're going to fare on stage with Republicans who are hostile. You're not very good at that. You're not very well-practiced. This is a normal Republican, though. It's going to be really good, because it's going to be about, hopefully, rebirth and renewal for that dead population. So, before we get started, Jess will be live-streaming with Aaron Parnas, our friend, tomorrow, 1 p.m., Eastern Time, to break down this wild week and get his perspective. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss it. All right, let's bust right into it. The GOP's blame game is underway as the party faces what could be an extinction-level political moment. I love that. Extinction-level political moment. The Democratic gains are still coming in, Jess. Democrats flipped three more House seats, putting them on track. To win at least 250 seats in Mississippi, Democrats got Column. Am I saying that right? Is it Column? Column. I think so. If you were both saying it wrong, then. Okay, we're good. It could be Column. I think it's Column. As long as we're wrong together. It's so difficult to get people to learn how to pronounce my last name. It's not Column. It's Column. Like, Column, Column. Mr. Column is also leading Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by just over 1,000 votes. I mean, could anything go more our way right now with thousands of ballots still outstanding? My understanding also is that the ballots due, the provisional ballots or the absentee ballots, whatever they call it, tend to skew blue. So it's looking pretty good. I think Kelshi had him at 93% at this point. After an election that was too big to rig, Republicans are being forced to reckon with just how badly things went wrong or just how wrong they went. J.D. Vance went rogue yesterday. He cornered Trump to admit it was the Iran war that was the reason Republicans lost. Today, we also got news that Secretary Rubio is now preparing to jump ship and resign from Trump's cabinet. Think about that. Wow. And Ron DeSantis, who Kelshi puts at a 17% chance of winning the next Republican presidential nomination, was also weighing in on the party's future and his own prospects. Let's take a listen. Are you considering running for president in 2028? To be part of that ideas debate? You know, I haven't planned anything. I have a job to do. The midterms was an important marker because you need to see what the political environment is going to do. I got some more things I got to do, and I'll be a free man come January 5th. Not that I'm counting down to that. And then we'll look to see the landscape. I mean, I think there's two things that last night would be something people should consider. One is the viability of the Republican brand nationally in 2028. The reality is last. Last night, if we ran George Washington, if he had an R by his name, he would have lost. We really got blasted into oblivion. And Florida is kind of the last one standing because Texas had been our other big anchor. Florida and Texas, certainly for the last 20, 25 years. And now we are really the last one. That's not enough to win a national election. George Washington would have lost. And like, maybe, actually. Yeah, it's really one. One of the things I've started thinking about today, and I'm curious to get your thoughts, is that, OK, so when you think about who is likely, I mean, the Democratic bench is just so deep right now. You could go six or seven people deep on Kalshi or Pugh and find the person who's eighth most likely to be the nominee on the Democratic side. And I think a lot of people think, well, that person's probably a viable candidate. On the Republican side, it's been Rubio, Vance, occasionally Vance, Rubio. And then the seven dwarves and like, OK, maybe Tucker Carlson or maybe. Yesterday shuffles the deck for who is likely. I mean, I think everyone's going to, if not break, distance themselves from Trump. But I would argue that DeSantis was a big winner yesterday because he's done a pretty good job of distancing himself from Trump. He ran a respectable campaign, if a bit underwhelming. But he has that party infrastructure or the out-of-election infrastructure. I do think you learn a lot. It's like, it's combat training, right? Who do? Who Navy SEALs pick for their missions? Whoever has already has combat experience. He has run a presidential campaign. He's done a good job distancing himself. He's one of the few governors that can legitimately say, I held, I held red here down here. You know, I'm I did my part and he's got the infrastructure is from a big state. He's a young man. You know, it doesn't index that high on the likability component. But I would argue he was if there was a Republican or if there were Republicans who were winners, yesterday, he was one of them. What what are your thoughts? Who is number? Who will who will all of a sudden bubble up now that Vance and Rubio, quite frankly, might just be a little too close to the Chernobyl political reactor here? Well, Rubio could get out in time. I think that is still feasible for him. J.D. Vance has to he's handcuffed to Donald Trump for the next two years, whatever he writes on Twitter or not. Those golden cuffs that he was so excited to sell his soul for are going to be bound pretty tight. But I said this yesterday. I was on with our pal Liz Klayman. And she said, who do you think if you were a Republican strategist? So I did. Some weird stuff to myself to get myself in that headspace. But like, who would you want to run? And I said, Ron DeSantis, for a lot of the reasons that you just listed and adding to that, that he said, not only ran a campaign, but he managed to run against Donald Trump and not end up in the crosshairs somehow. Like Donald Trump doesn't hate him, even though he challenged him the last time around. And I think that that's a really big deal. Also, he is the Donald Trump's governor. Donald Trump is in Washington, but his real home isn't Mar-a-Lago. He's going to be a resident of DeSantis's home state when all of this is happening. I imagine that he'll increasingly be snowboarding. Anyway, and spending less and less time in D.C. I think all of that would work to DeSantis's advantage. And he has been completely unleashed the last day and a half since people have been really calculating the results and talking about them. And he's gone after after everything, not only the hard policies that the administration has taken, especially the war in Iran, ignoring people's cost of living concerns, but also going after the culture war approach. And saying you just can't yell trans at everything and think that people are going to take you seriously or want to turn out and vote for you. So I think that his stock has dramatically gone up in all of this. And I imagine that there are folks like Don Bacon, who is retiring, and I'm sure he's thinking there might be a place for me in this party going forward. Or would there even be a place for a Republican like a Don Bacon in a Democratic administration? You know, I think that things are going to get really scrambled now. Rob Sand has already spoken about the fact that if he won the governor's mansion, which he did, that he would consider appointing Republicans to important positions. And I think that's, you know, I'm sure there are going to be some folks in the comments right now say absolutely not like they don't deserve any of this. But there are some Republicans who are decent human beings who actually, you know, stood up for their values and bucked Trump when it mattered. Like Adam Kinzinger. Yeah. But I mean, once you also continued to serve and voted against him and would continue to do interviews and speak out against him. I think that there's the resist never Trump generation. And then there's something else going on now. People who continue to be in office and figure out a way to chart a path where they still cared about democracy and norms and the Constitution. But weren't just on the interview circuit or working to win elections for Democrats, because a lot of these folks are still Republicans. Right. Who, like you said, we were leasing or renting votes for this election. We certainly don't own them. And, you know, they assume like a rural South Carolina voter is going to be looking to the Republican ticket for some sort of salvation from this. Maybe they'll end up loving Senator Annie Andrews. I hope that is the case. But you don't. You don't change who you are. You know, you're 70 years old and you wake up one day and suddenly you're a lib. That doesn't really happen. But let's go. OK, so that's one. DeSantis is what about a Brian Kemp, a Tom Tillis? He seems to be jonesing for every camera that'll that'll get in front of him. A young Ken. I don't know if he's still in the mix. Let's let's take Rubio and Vance off the table. I don't personally see how Secretary Rubio resigns. And it seems to me he just alienates everybody. He does that. But anyways, that's I'm sure he's game steering it out right now with his aides. Distinct taking Vance and Rubio off the table. And we talked about one DeSantis. It's got to be deeper than that. There's got to be a lot of Republicans thinking this is my moment. Have you thought about who is number three, four and five on the list? I think Brian Kemp is certainly an interesting one, you know, like held to values, but also a good Republican. I'm sure there are. Some folks who lost their elections this time that might be thinking about what the future holds. Maybe that's Greg Abbott, who would want to get back into politics after Gina and your host is upset when I don't know, it feels too early to have a comprehensive list of this because I feel like basically everybody is sitting there thinking now this is a wide open field at this point. And yes, Donald Trump will be a factor and you'll need his endorsement. To some degree, but that people are clearly interested in hearing something different. And I do think, you know, you had Nate Silver on the Prof G pod. He was also with Ezra Klein, you know, talking about the end of the Trump era. And I saw that headline and kind of thought, like, no, that's not possible. Right. Like the last 10 years have been so overwhelming that you think it couldn't be. And then you look at the wreckage from the midterms and how Donald. Trump can do nothing but say, I'd like to work with Democrats. And here I am talking about my ballroom. And you think, yeah, actually, maybe this is the end of the Trump era. It does feel it. There's definitely like it's not only turned into a lame duck, it's turned into a duck that's already two feet underwater. Vance cornering Trump on the war is the first fault line. People, I think, would argue of 2028. But parties typically don't go extinct. They're hard to kill. They lost in 2006 and 08 and then picked up 63 House seats in 2010. The question is, who's. But they were the Tea Party then. I mean, like, it'll still be the R. Right. But what does that look like in this rebrand? And it's interesting to me to look at, you know, Vance's big statement. Ted Cruz had a big autopsy as well that he put out. You listen to Ron DeSantis and they're all sounding like Ivy League graduates again. Right. They're returning to their roots. Of who they actually are versus who they became in this Trump era where everything was, you know, memes and insults and put downs. And I, for one, I'm excited to at least see that side of this again. But there's such an enormous 180 from how they were behaving just last week that, you know, that this is seismic for them. No doubt. But my sense of parties is I see all these articles around GOP imploding. I get it. I feel like there is no GOP. They're just MAGA. Yeah. MAGA's imploding. But if you look at history, typically parties don't die. They just change landlords. There's a vacuum here and someone's going to fill it and reimagine, I think, the Republican Party or the GOP. And anyways, I think rumors of the death of the GOP or I do think MAGA is probably at an extinction level of that. But the rumors of the death of the GOP, in my opinion, have been greatly exaggerated. Let's move on and talk about the fallout from the election, which could reach all the way. To the Pentagon, Trump has been privately asking advisers whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should keep his job following Republicans' catastrophic losses. And the House vote could be as soon as next week to impeach Hegseth. Rep. Thomas Massey, a Republican from Kentucky, is even calling for the impeachment, claiming, There is one contingency in which I won't reintroduce the articles of impeachment. Hegseth resigns. Though Trump publicly insists he has full confidence in him. By the way, typically full confidence. Is a metaphor or is code for you should start packing your boxes in Washington when they have to respond. I love what you said the other day, that when you're explaining, you're losing or you're defending. And when you're forced to say you have full confidence in someone, that's pretty much a negative forward-looking indicator. What do you think happens with Hegseth, Jess? Well, we know, historically speaking, that once Trump starts asking his panel of advisers, everyone from, you know, Miles to Natalie Harp to other cabinet secretaries what they think about Pete Hegseth, that he is almost there in thinking this guy has got to go. I don't think that he'll ever fire in that way. I mean, Kristi Noem is still, isn't she the shield of America or something like that, like our disco ball? So I'm not sure exactly how this will happen, but I think that they know that it is unsustainable for Pete Hegseth to carry on as, as the defense secretary. And that was one of the considerations or rumors previously that a Ron DeSantis would be considered for secretary of defense. But how he's behaving and how tarnished the administration is, you can see that it gives him no advantage to come and be the secretary of defense if he's thinking I could actually end up being president in this. So I do not think that Pete Hegseth will resign, certainly on Thomas Massey's clock, because Massey only has a couple months left in office anyway. I don't think it's going to move that quickly. And we've been covering earlier this week that there is more going on in the Middle East than we have enough ink to spill about. And folks have been, you know, really focused on the election here. So haven't been necessarily paying as much attention to the fact that Iran is not quiet. What's going on there? And that we're still getting more information about how much damage they've been doing to U.S. bases and to our troops, the numbers of folks getting wounded. Going up and up. So my guess would be right now that they are going to bring the articles of impeachment. He's not going to get his head on a stick. Yeah, it feels as if that at a minimum, the market wants a blood offering and Trump needs to show that maybe it's it just strikes me. I mean, what's the over under? Do you think Hegseth is still around in 90 days? 90? I don't know. I don't I don't think he's long for this world. I'm not good. You love predictions. And you also relish being wrong. Sometimes I'm still like a little nervous about that. So I can't give it a time stamp on this. You know, like the day before the election when you were like tsunami and I was like, it's going to be a good night. I think Pete Hegseth goes, but I I don't know if it's that quickly. And I'm not sure exactly. I mean, there are going to be so many Democrats in the House after this. Massey will be gone. But once everyone is. The majority is going to be so enormous that you won't need that many Republicans. But I could see like, do you think Tom Tillis would love anything more than on his way out to get to vote to impeach Pete Hegseth? Yeah, I think he would enjoy that. That's his gold watch going away party. Support for the show comes from Quo. This time of year, something's always going wrong at the worst possible moment. And your customer. Customers don't care who fixes it, just who answers first. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O. The business phone built so you never miss a call or a customer. Ever had a lead call or text at 10 p.m.? Quo's AI agent can handle either, 24-7. It answers questions, gets the details, and can text them a link to book an appointment. By morning, you've got the summary and can jump right in. I'll call you back is how things get missed. Quo writes up your calls and one click turns any of them into a task with a name and a date. 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So last night we were in Minneapolis doing a live pivot and our guest was Senator and Governor-elect Amy Klobuchar. By the way, I can't. I literally. Everyone saw the moon's lineup. To be in Minneapolis last night, yesterday, was just. I can't. I said this. I can't imagine, and a lot of it was just happenstance. I was trying to take a lot of pictures because I'm like, this is. It's one of those moments where you're like, there's no place I'd rather be in the world at this moment than here right now. It was so wonderful. And I made this big speech about how the markets have realized that democratic policies are good for the markets. And good for the economy. And look what the markets did yesterday. Brent crude down 8%. The NASDAQ up 1.5%. The S&P up 2.5%. And wow, speaking of predictions, where I got a sobering reminder that I get it wrong all the time. And granted, two trading days is not a pattern yet. But the political fallout is already hitting Wall Street, particularly the AI sector. After Wednesday's rally, the S&P plunged more than 3% Thursday. And the NASDAQ fell 5%. NVIDIA dropped 7%. It was investors braced for tougher AI regulation and a potential slowdown in data center expansion under democratic control. There were something like 45 data center moratorium or initiatives on the ballot to constrain data center growth. And 44 of the 45 passed. And if there's one kind of signal that the market seems to be taking today as it's had some time to digest what took place on Tuesday, it's that, OK, compute. Microsoft and Apple. Have had great days. The people using compute have done OK with diversified businesses. The people selling compute seem to be getting whacked. The neocloud companies, NVIDIA got whacked pretty hard. And if you tried to put an explanation on what happened yesterday versus today, it's that there's been a rotation out of the pure play levered AI guys. Because a quarter weave is a levered AI play. Massive debt focused on compute. To the more diversified companies that are also getting some of the great taste of AI. But if this ends up being like the railroads or the electricity grid where there's an overinvestment and a correction, they have PowerPoint and YouTube and Google search. And they're, you know, Amazon's retail. They have so many unbelievably diversified businesses that there might be. It seems like there's a bit of a flight from risk around. Well, what if the Democrats get in the way of AI growth? Do you think, Jess, that a democratic control? Congress is going to pump the brakes on the AI boom or maybe even bring it to a bit of a screeching halt? I wouldn't go with screeching halt, but there are a lot of folks who campaigned on this, certainly on data center moratoriums and then going as far as, you know, Bernie Sanders out there with his super intelligence band, not general AI, which Trump calls super intelligence, but like actual super intelligence. I thought it was interesting that the one. Yes, on the continuing with data centers came from Nebraska. I misspoke. It was not Nebraska. It was North Dakota. So my argument still stands not in a place that I would expect. Certainly the way that it was being discussed that, you know, was showing up and taking over more rural places and the quality of life, you know, fear of taking jobs. What happens in the economy? And I think that it's going to be up to leaders. Like if you look at the more nuanced positions. And that Governor Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania has taken on this where you kind of marry up folks concerns, which are very real and not this isn't about just pacifying them with the fact that we can't surrender to China, essentially in this AI race. This is also part of the reason that I think having these enormous majorities is going to really help Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. And I'm sure we're going to talk about a lot, you know, leadership. There are going to be any sort of changes. I do not see that happening in the House, much more likely in the Senate that that's pushed. But it's going to have to be a middle ground position, even if you have these ballot initiatives to have moratoriums on data centers. And that's what I wanted to ask you. You know, I was talking yesterday to a progressive commentator who was like, yeah, stop it all. And I was like, what does that really mean? Like, how does that work? This idea that you can just. Put a big flashing red button and say, no, no, no, no more AI. Like, you can't magically go back to a life from two decades ago. We've already litigated that. Remember the coal miners conversations that we were having in the 2016 election. So what do you think that means to people when they go in there and they vote yes on this moratorium on data centers in practical terms that someone in government can legislate on? Well, if it happens, it means we have less capital formation, less economic growth and less tax revenue to pay for food stamps. And I think this is a mistake that Democrats make over and over. And that is we would rather tickle the emotional sensors of upper middle class Democrats than actually focus on the hard decisions around economic growth that help pay for the social services that low income households need. Nobody wants the factory, the chicken processing plant or the nuclear power reactor near them. But thoughtful regulation around, all right, it's got to be closed loop water. It can't raise electricity prices or the data center is on the hook for any perceived increase in electricity prices. It needs to be in an area where there is less environmental impact. But to just slow down, I mean, in all of our economic growth, our economy, unfortunately, maybe this is the wrong move, but our economy has become sort of a giant bet on AI. And to not one of the questions I asked soon to be Governor Klobuchar. Last night in Minnesota was, OK, look at Minnesota. If you were to describe migration where people go, the economy goes. So goes people. So goes the economy. Generally speaking, the way you would reductively describe migration in the U.S. over the last 30 years, 20 years has been people are leaving high tax cold states and moving to warm, low tax states. And Minnesota is no different. They've had some good growth recently, but they have lost people and they've lost. Economic growth. And I said to Governor Klobuchar, you know, this pop, these populist movements feel good. But at the end of the day, you have to have a plan for economic growth. And when I look at Minnesota, it's cold. They have a shit ton of land and they have access to a lot of power. You know, don't you want some of that AI mojo? Don't you want some of that trillion dollars in CapEx? Isn't this the perfect state for data centers? Because the state, the state that has the most data centers, Virginia, and they love them and thoughtfully legislated, protected, responsible approval of data centers. They don't call the cops. They don't call the fire department. They pay property taxes. They don't create a lot of employment, but they do create employment. I interviewed the deputy prime minister, the former deputy prime minister of Canada, and I said, why would you run data centers all along the border with the U.S.? Around the industrial manufacturing hubs in the Midwest and the financial centers on the East Coast. But something, again, I worry about with Democrats is that we need to be more than the party of indignance. We need to be a pro-growth party. Now, should there be, there's good legislation and moratorium saying no NDAs, no under the table deals, you know, fine. But I think it's a real mistake for Democrats. I think the worst thing Texas can do. Could do right now is to turn hostile on data centers or turn hostile on SpaceX. You need to be thoughtful. You need to be sure that the benefits to the local community far outweigh the downside and the costs. But I, I already feel like this. I mean, the problem is data centers have become a vessel for our frustrations around income inequality and our mistrust of big tech. And all of those sentiments are valid. But I worry that unless we, it's great to stand up and say, I'm putting up a moratorium. against all data centers. It's like, okay, They'll find another home. And if it's not in the South or a red state, they'll find it in another country or, you know, Netherlands, that out-of-control red place, their economy has done really well. They're a bright spot in Europe because they have welcomed compute and data centers. So I think some of this rhetoric, thoughtful regulation that ensures local communities are winners, hands down. But what Democrats never want to acknowledge is that without growth, we can't pay for tax credits for new housing. We can't pay for food stamps. So I'm of the mind that this populism as expressed through a moratorium on data centers is not good for Democrats and that I hope that a lot of these new Democratic governors recognize and more generally that we hold on. We go from dating to a marriage with some of these swing voters who are very economically minded, specifically young men, and say, look, we are a responsible party. We're about accountability. We're about ethics. We're about ensuring that we put people first. But we need growth. And AI, quite frankly, a trillion dollars in CapEx, we're going to push that to the red states or offshore. Anyways, I think this is a sister soldier moment for a newly elected Democratic governor to say, we are pro-growth, we are pro-business, and we are going to responsibly embrace the growth that AI offers. Your thoughts? Yes, I wonder. Also, David Crowley, newly elected governor in Wisconsin, a good opportunity for him. And then I have an aside question, which might get us a tiny bit off track. So just quickly, do you get the sense that Amy Klobuchar is disappointed that, well, I'm sure she's disappointed she didn't become president since she ran for president. But how do you feel like she's feeling about going home, right? Like she's been in Washington and very high profile. You know, really well respected, accomplished a ton in D.C. And now coming back to Minnesota to be governor. Yeah, we asked her and she said that she wanted to leave on a high note and she loves Minnesota. Look, the cynic in me is that she's coming back to be governor to run for president or hoping she gets drafted because an executive role, it's much easier to run for president or we've drafted much more presidential candidates from governorships than from the Senate, right? I think. It's actually fairly unusual to elect a senator president, is my understanding. She did seem genuine about wanting to return home and focus on Minnesota. She comes at an opportune moment because unfortunately, Minnesota's brand used to be cold weather and nice people. And now it's cold weather, nice people and fraud. So she has an opportunity to come in and, quite frankly, clean it up a little bit. So I think it's a good platform for her. My guess is she's probably exhausted by the partisanship that she has. But she's had to endure and the lack of power. You know, she was one of the few people that really understood antitrust. And she just ran up against a wall of PAC giving and big tech lobbyists. She got almost nothing done despite heroic efforts. Despite—she wrote a book on antitrust. I tried to read it. I got through two chapters, which was pretty impressive. It was like the Musk documentary. I'm super interested in it. I just can't go that long. But she was a really thoughtful, robust, you know, respected senator. She's coming home to be governor. I can't help it. I think all of these people wake up in the morning, Jess, and look in the mirror and say, Hello, Madam President. I think they all, from the time they were five years old and they were told you can be president, they believed it. So I don't—and I got—I think the senator is very good. She's pretty vague. We asked a lot of questions. We got a lot of just populist, you know, the great people of Minnesota. So she's a good populist. She's a good politician. Yeah. A lot of applause lines. Not a lot of what I'll call hard-hitting, honest answers. So this is a long-winded way of saying, I don't know. What do you think is on Senator Klobuchar's mind? I haven't thought about that, actually, like her trying again. Because I just feel like, especially looking at the midterm results, that people are not going to be going backwards. You know, the midterms was a terrible result for Kamala Harris. The idea that we are going to revisit something, especially something that didn't end up winning, I think is now completely out the door. So I hadn't thought about Senator Klobuchar, Governor-elect Klobuchar, going back there to then be able to mount her presidential campaign. I thought it was— Let me just edit that. I think she's positioning herself to be a top three candidate for Veep. Okay. I can go with that. Yeah. It strikes me. And that's—and she's still young enough. That would be a path to presidency for, I don't know, or maybe she just wants to be home. Maybe she just misses the warm weather. There you go. It is a great city, though. Wow, Minneapolis is a great city. The vibe there yesterday was just— I mean, literally people— They're having a moment. You've never seen so many white people high-fiving each other. It just—it was the streets were—people seemed so happy. It was really—I went to the Alex Preddy— there's a bunch of memorials for them. And I went to one of them, and there were a ton of people there. And it was just really a nice moment in Minnesota. Anyways, as Republicans point fingers, Bernie Sanders is taking a victory lap, arguing Democrats have a second chance to win back working-class voters. Sanders-backed candidates from Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan to James Tallarico in Texas won on affordability, economic populism, and taking on billionaires. AOC also had a viral message for Gen Z. Let's take a listen. Also, a note for Gen Z. If you want to understand millennials, millennial cringe, what you all call millennial cringe, this earnestness, imagine all the seats we flipped last night. That feeling, plus, on top of it, electing the first Black president ever, and on top of that, you did it the first time you ever voted, that hit— that hits generationally. Like, you are chasing that feeling ever since. And because you did it the first time you ever voted, you're like, yeah, we can change the world. Like, yeah, why not? Like, we did it the first time. Let's just do it again. Yeah, exactly that. Exactly that. Yeah, I mean, AOC is a good communicator. Have you ever heard that before? But I was glad that she said it, because every week when you do the Raging Perspective with Aaron, I feel so old, because that's how I think about politics, and Aaron only knows Donald Trump and Joe Biden, which doesn't make you that enthusiastic about the chance of something magical being possible or feeling like you're a part of something revolutionary. So I was glad that she put it in those terms, and I hope that young people are— feeling their power, because the role that young people played on Tuesday night is massive in all of this. And now they're a key player. They're not just a cohort that's part of a Democratic coalition. They'll get 2024 and 2026, and you're a swing category. That matters a lot to politicians, to the consultants that are going to make bazillions of dollars from those politicians and all of their donors trying to— track you and trap you to some degree, and you're a difference maker. And there's an enormous amount of power that comes from that and an enormous amount of positivity and possibility that comes out of it, too. So I loved how she put it, as an elder millennial myself. Well, there really was— not only did youth show up, but youth won yesterday. I'll say it. I think it's 42. His opponent was in the 60s, Tallarico. John Ossoff. John Ossoff. All these people in their 30s and 40s, basically beat all these people in their 60s. People have said, you know, throw mama from the train, if you will, or we're done with Weekend at Bernie's. And one of the most exciting things about the election yesterday is our electorate, the people who represent the people, are actually starting to look, smell, and feel like the people. We have doctors. We have the first openly gay senator. We have the first Native American governor. We've had a total of three Black governors in history. Now we have five serving concurrently. I mean, there really are a ton of— a lot of veterans, a lot of veterans, youth. You're going to see, and it's overdue and it's wonderful, the following theme, and it's an important theme that's overdue, and that is, for the first time in our nation's history, a 30-year-old is not as successful as his or her parents were at 30, and that needs to end. And we need to reduce or reverse the flow of the river from owners to earners and consumers. We need to reverse those flows. There's a percentage of GDP, corporate profits have never been higher, and wages have never been lower, and we need to reverse that. And also, you have to give Bernie props. He was talking about the billionaire class a decade ago and said that this fetish of billionaires has gone way too far, and they're sucking the oxygen out of the room. And at the time, that seemed crazy left, and a lot of Republicans, a lot of Republicans have embraced that message. And I think that was a big part of the reason we had such an overwhelming, an overwhelming win last night. What's interesting, though, also, is that the proposition in the tax on billionaire proposition in California looks like it's not going to happen. Essentially, affordability populism wins, but wealth tax populism is harder. And so voters like take on billionaires, but balk at specific what feels like class warfare against them. Voters will still cheer the eat the rich, but they'll still vote against them being on, if you will, the menu, if you will. Any thoughts on Bernie's impact? Yeah, Politico did a big piece on this that I thought was really smart. And as someone who was, you know, so in Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016 and carries around some degree of grudges about how Bernie talked about Hillary and Trump as, you know, two sides of the same coin and making this argument against, you know, corporatist politicians versus grassroots politicians. I stand corrected to some degree. Obviously, not in my 2016 stance. I think it would have been better for all of us if Hillary had been able to pull that out. And I do think it caused damage. But the way that he's seeing the world and at the top versus bottom, the elites versus the everyday, you know, Joes and Janes is definitely spot on. And it was in everybody's campaigns. And I think it's really healthy. And I know we're going to talk about this in a little while to get rid of these buckets and saying this is about moderates versus progressives because these candidates are so heterodox, right? When you look at what James Tallarico's platform is and how he's, you know, defending the oil and gas industry or Al-Sayed talking about the border, how John Ossoff, you know, is one of a few Dems that votes for the Lake and Riley Act, for instance. So they're all over the place. But what I wanted to say on AOC's point that I don't think that, you know, we really even discussed much about yesterday in our first recap is how much the 2008 election felt like a moment in civil rights history with our first Black president and then how much this election was about civil rights, especially in the South. And democracy and corruption were, you know, number two issue for a lot of folks. And it relates directly to this. But I just wanted to highlight that, you know, the Cal-A decision, the Supreme Court decision for Louisiana. There was also a Supreme Court decision that messed with a district in Alabama. And Hakeem Jeffries made his last battleground district visit to Alabama with Shamari Figures, whose dad was a civil rights attorney. And his district was gerrymandered. He ended up holding onto it. But the gravity of that moment certainly wasn't lost on Hakeem. Or the congressman, you know, where they're going to the place where the civil rights movement originated, you know, Dr. King and Rosa Parks and how meaningful that is. And then I was watching an interview with an elderly Black woman voting in Mississippi talking about how she remembers paying a poll tax, that she used to pay $2 to be able to vote, whereas white people paid nothing. And that they are now hopefully sending Scott Collum to the House of Representatives. I went to the United States Senate as the first Black senator since Reconstruction. And I was, you know, watching the votes come in and which counties were going. And he just won Forest County, named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, who founded the KKK. And the symbolism of that is just. I feel like I could explode from it. You know, that we're still doing this, that this fight continues. And sometimes I'm rough on electeds for using, quote-unquote, you know, Jim Crow language in discussing what's happening when the Supreme Court rules on something. And I say, okay, you know, we don't need to be hyperbolic. But you look at things like this and you realize that it's actually an apt description of some of the actions that have been taken to disenfranchise Black voters in this country and how exciting all of this is. And I wanted to add also to the list from yesterday, we were talking about investing in Florida and how that was a missed opportunity. But Jamie Davis in Louisiana came within 1.8 points of winning that Senate seat and was not getting money from Washington down the stretch. And, I mean, we could have had Florida, we could have had Louisiana. And, I don't know, big missed opportunities. And I just wanted to highlight how important this election was from a civil rights perspective. Well, you know, hindsight's 20-20. But the mistake we did around capital allocation was, quite frankly, we put too much money into what we thought were going to be swing states. We overinvested and we underinvested in reach states. And because we're like a dog that's been, you know, that's skittish because it's been hit so many times, we just couldn't believe. When we saw the poll said Tallarica was up by eight, we didn't believe it. And we kept allocating capital there, not recognizing that, you know, Angie Nixon, am I getting her name right? Right. She actually had a shot. And so, look, it's easy to go back and say where we went wrong in terms of underinvesting and overinvesting. One thing that I think is misleading is that I think Fox, look, the media is like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. It's drawn to movement and violence, and it wants friction. And when it sees people on the far left kind of embracing what are typically seen as more socialist values or saying fairly what feel like incendiary things or having, what feels like almost anti-Semitism as a litmus test for whether you're qualified to be on the far, far left, the media just eats it up. And my sense is, if you really look at what happened yesterday in terms of this democratic wave, I would argue it was very much a wave towards the middle. And that is, while voters overwhelmingly backed abortion rights in states like Virginia and Nevada, passing protections by at least 24 points. I mean, this was a good day for bodily autonomy. They also supported more conservative positions on other issues. Affirming voter ID requirements in Ohio, Nevada, and restricting transgender rights in Arizona and Washington state. And in California, again, the proposed billionaire tax was behind by 11 points. So it feels like it is what the exit polls say. In the exit polls yesterday, 60% of respondents consider themselves moderate. So I think the media has very much dramatized the quote unquote takeover of the Democratic Party. My sense is this was a pivot towards the middle. And while a lot of energy and a lot of youth and quite frankly, some of the more attractive candidates are from what is considered the progressive left or the DSA, I think they have some of the most energy, some of the most compelling candidates. If you look at actually who was elected yesterday, I would argue that this was a moderate, this is what I'd call not an incandescent blue wave, it was a, I don't know, I don't want to call them powder blue, but a nice, a nice moderate. A sensible Navy. A sensible Navy. I agree with you. And I've looked at every chart that has existed that's been produced thus far on where people were ideologically. And, you know, everybody's putting out their statements depending on what kind of think tank they are. That's like, we had the best night. We had the best night. Part of this is wanting to be in a healthier place. In the way that we make this big tent work. And I don't think slinging arrows around moderate versus progressive is the way to get there. And, you know, we say this as people with a podcast called Raging Moderates. We have the rage in there. We also have the moderates part of it. But yes, that's certainly the big wins of the night did not come from people, you know, on the left, on the far left. I mean, Abdul won in Michigan. Troy Jackson in Maine. But Troy Jackson either underperformed or Susan Collins overperformed, I think is a better way to say that considering the tide against the Republican Party. And it was an enormous night for like the Roy Coopers of the world and the James Tallaricos and John Ossoff. You know, if you're talking about winning by double digits in these purple and red states. So the cohorts in Congress, the moderate ones, are getting a lot fuller. The Blue Dogs, the New Democrat Coalition, the Problem Solvers Caucus. But people also now have, they participate in a bunch of different caucuses and they can be part of the Progressive Caucus and they can also be part of the New Democrat Coalition. And that's just fine. And I don't want to have these fights anymore. I want us to continue to pick the best candidates for the constituency and to not live in this situation. This framework that I think is exceptionally limiting considering how heterodox these candidates are. Like I was saying, Al-Sayed, tough on the border, Tallarico, pro-oil and gas. Annie Andrews is a deficit hawk. Reverend Hamilton is a mega church pastor who also on, after October 7th, released a statement talking about Palestinian kids and, you know, what's happening to them. So we need to be a lot bigger and bolder in the way that we think, about this. And we know that economic populism is what works. We also know that some degree of. cultural conservatism, if you want to call that on, you know, voter ID, transgender athletes is also necessary to be able to win. And I think the billionaire's tax thing, because, you know, Gavin Newsom is in for it. And part of that is looking at, you know, how much money comes is in his state and how many people are going to leave from it. But the problem with billionaire taxes is they fail. Look at all the wealth taxes across Europe that they've had to get rid of because people leave and they don't even generate money from it. Tickling censors and ending up with less money to enact the policies that we claim are important to us. So get peace of mind knowing your loved ones are protected. With Progressive's accident response. Because there's hope in hard work. Versus six to seven for placebo. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. 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Another earthquake, if you will, and there's so many here we haven't had time to look at, but at least six Democratic health care professionals flipped Republican seats, including two physicians who won Senate races, Annie Andrews in South Carolina and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. An exit poll showed 58% of voters said the Trump administration's policies have made the health and well-being of people in the U.S. worse. If there's one movement I'm more, you know, don't let the door hit you on the way out, even more so than MAGA, I hope that MAHA becomes a trivia question as of yesterday. The Make America Measles Again is a movement. And essentially, I think of the 21 MAHA-backed Republicans, only five of them were elected. I think this is a wonderful thing. Any thoughts on this before we go to questions? No, I love it. And I think it's really important. It's not just the doctors at the top of those big Senate races, but nurses getting elected all over the country. Lauren Underwood, who I think is one of the most under-discussed, fantastic Democratic representatives in Congress, you know, a nurse. Those are the good, the best people, the ones who take care of the sick. And I love that. I love that Annie Andrews is going to be the first pediatrician. I think that's super cool. That's fantastic. Let's move to questions. Oh, I love this question. At Bruce Goldish asks, can you talk about the odds of passing the National Popular Vote Compact in time for the 2028 election? This is the biggest story that people aren't talking about. And that is the National Popular Vote Compact basically does away with the Electoral College. What it says is that a state signs up that whoever wins the popular vote gets their electoral votes. Democracy has been perverted to a small number of states and even a small number of counties in those states, meaning that to a certain extent, your vote in, you know, your vote in Alabama and California don't mean a lot in federal elections because they're going reliably red or blue. This is an attempt to say, OK, one person, one vote. And the way it works, is my understanding, is that approximately 220 of whatever it is, the 540 electoral votes as represented by states have said, we'll sign up for this. You need 270. And a lot of Republican states have said, no way, because in 2016, while Hillary won the popular vote, the Electoral College nominated the Republican or elected the Republican, seated the Republican, Donald Trump. Last night, the three Republican states that went all blue in terms of their legislature and their governor needed to go over 270 elected Democrats across the board, meaning, meaning the Electoral College may have died yesterday and we may find ourselves in a position, sooner rather than later, where the election for the president of the United States is actually one person, one vote, regardless of where you are. And we stop obsessing over and spending $3,000 for every soccer mom in some town in Wisconsin. Any thoughts here, Jess? My thoughts are that they had one popular vote win recently, and that was Donald Trump in 2024. He's very proud of that. I cannot see a world in which they're able to pull that off again. So I expect an enormous opposition to this. But these kinds of questions, and there are tons of groups working on this, so that a lot of money is being spent to move towards this. But this is going in the reforms conversation about, you know, Electoral College, Supreme Court, D.C. and Puerto Rico, and it will be a real test for the folks running for president on the Democratic side, how open they are to this kind of sweeping changes to our system. But I think it seems great. And it's also logical, which would be a good thing to be able to be logical in the way that we elect people. Question number two, Primal Life says, can we talk about how Jeffries and Schumer are not the leadership of the party? Let's talk about what needs to happen to get them replaced. Thoughts, Jess? I'm seeing this a lot. It's all over our comments, because we have a clip up from yesterday's show about this. Everything is no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I happen to think that there is a difference between the support that Leader Schumer would have versus Hakeem Jeffries. Yeah. And it's going to be Speaker Jeffries. Yes, it is going to be Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries. And, you know, he's already out there talking about his administration. He's going to be Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries. And, you know, he's already out there talking about which I think is, you know, smart stuff that we need to do, rolling back tariffs, restoring the ACA subsidies, the cuts to Medicaid. That's the real governance stuff that people told Democrats that they wanted them to go to Washington and to do. But like Abdul Al-Sayed is in New York today doing interviews. He said, I'm for Chris Van Hollen, who seems to be the more progressive choice in terms of leader on the Senate side. And I think that Chuck Schumer is going to have a battle. On his hands here. But I actually wouldn't even expect from the left flank of the party on the House side that folks are going to say that it shouldn't be Hakeem Jeffries. And whatever you think of his dynamicism, you know, especially compared to a Nancy Pelosi, this is an enormous win. And I think that he very much has. Yeah. And Schumer does, too, for the candidates that he went and recruited. You've got a lot of pushback. When we said that Schumer deserved credit, a lot of people have said Schumer did not. Nothing. I don't. I think the key distinction you just made, I think Speaker Jeffries is not the person who's going to get the ire of the Democrats need to shed their skin. And I think it's going to be Schumer that there's also an age differential. I mean, it's just totally different lives. And what you're going to say, you're not going to have like the first black speaker of the House of Representatives after this kind of election with what we've ticked through of, you know, the mobilization of the black vote. I'm not saying, you know, black people, only like black people to be in positions of powers. But this is history happening. And Chuck Schumer has been leader before. And he's in his 70s. And there's questions of whether he would even run for reelection for a Senate seat and whether AOC is nipping at his heels. I think that they're very different. And I'm sorry that we piss you guys off with this. But he went he flew to Ohio several times to personally get Sherrod Brown to run. He got Mary Potola to run. He got Roy Cooper to run. He's been obsessed with Mississippi, by the way. Like who would have thought, oh, we're going to win Mississippi or we even have a chance in Mississippi. And Chuck Schumer was like, we can do this. That has to be worth something to you. I'm not saying it has to be that he stays and is Senate majority leader, but it's it's a big deal. And all the money, I mean, sending tens of millions of dollars. All right. We're almost out of time here. Chris asked, would Anthony Scaramucci consider throwing his hat in the ring for president? I'm friends with Anthony. And I, absolutely think he would. And I think that he would be, you know, he still hasn't lost a lot lot of that Mooch kind of, I don't want to, there are a few people who've had a greater brand renaissance than Anthony Scaramucci. He was literally a punchline whenever it was, I don't know, eight years. 2017, right? 2017, yeah. He's thoughtful. He's well-read. I think he's, now, whether or not, I personally don't think business people should be president, but, you know, my attitude is when people are saying, oh, Kamala Harris shouldn't run again for president, that would be a disaster. My attitude is the primary process in America, the electoral process, is Navy SEALs training. It's just, it just produces warriors. And my attitude is, let everyone cook. I think the more voices in it and see how they respond to trying to eat a fried Snickers at a fair in Iowa and how they fare on stage with Fox reporters and if they're able to get traction. You know, Rahm Emanuel yesterday had a real, had a really powerful moment, I thought, on Fox. Let these people cook. And I think Anthony, I've gotten to know Anthony, and I find him to be very thoughtful, very pragmatic. I think he has almost no shot, but I think he'd be a great voice in the race. And I won't, what I would say is the following. Almost every man who hears somebody say, I think you should run for president, is inclined to believe them. And so I don't, I think if Anthony gets any momentum or a donor who calls him, I think he would probably consider running. I don't think he should run as a Democrat. I think he should run as a Republican. Again, the GOP needs a new landlord. I think he could be an interesting voice around restoring the GOP. But would he consider? Oh, absolutely. I think Anthony. I think he's already considered. I would love it. I'm a big Anthony fan. He has a fantastic American story. Real, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. So gives back to his community. His friends from growing up are still the ones who are his best friends. He openly talks about his marriage and what happened to it as a result of being part of the Trump presidency for 11 days. And I would say that his wife is not going to be up for a presidential run. But, you know, the way that he talks about and thinks about the Republican Party, the old version of it, I think would be a gift to the discourse in the reframing, of the future of the Republicans. And he would just be a shit ton of fun. So, Anthony, run. Yeah. Have at it, baby. Let's leave it there, Jess. Make sure to tune in tomorrow, 1 p.m. Eastern Time, live on YouTube and Substack to catch Jess with Aaron Parnas and subscribe to stay up to date with all of our coverage. I'll be back next week, but tune in tomorrow for Jess and Aaron. Thanks, everybody. Let's keep these good vibes going. It happens. So isn't it nice? This is nice. It's it's a new morning in America. Jess is in Indiana. I am in Los Angeles again, where it is spectacular out. Absolutely spectacular. Oh, I do love it there. And you guys have a night off, right? Yeah, I got a night out. I think I'm going to go to In-N-Out Burger. I may go to the Polo Lounge. I'm going to do breakfast at the counter tomorrow. I may roll the Pacific PCH and just stare at the ocean and contemplate life. I'm just so thrilled to be here. I may walk around UCLA. So good to be here. Anyways, Jess, thanks. And we'll see everyone tomorrow and next week. All right. See you later. The secret society of semi-homemade? Listen up. Sam's Club has pre-made dishes for a Thanksgiving feast that's ready in two weeks. And don't forget to two hours, all while tasting suspiciously homemade. Come join us. Sam's Club. Individual oven times may vary. You're listening to a quick ad. You know what else is quick? Selling your car on Carvana. Just put in your vehicle information and we'll give you an offer. Done. 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