Why Trump’s Spell Broke With Ultimate Humiliation

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offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when work is busy see terms when an intruder approaches a home they expect a camera what they don't expect stop this is simply safe police are on the way using smart ai cameras live us-based agents help deter intruders in under 30 seconds don't just record a break-in stop it from ever happening plan starting around a dollar a day right now get 70 off your new system with professional monitoring at simply safe.com spotify 30 seconds response time requires monitoring plan with outdoor protection starting at 49.99 a month visit simply safe.com the balloon has been punctured the spell has been broken the next two years he's gonna try to stumble back to his palace in mar-a-lago and everybody is going to be noticing more and more that he's got no clothes it's an ugly thought actually it was all a bluff it was all bs like it is politically he's finished i'm joanna coles this is the daily beast podcast it's the night after the night after the tsunami the bloodbath for the republicans and who's been traversing the country trying to figure out the pulse of the country none other than terry moran we spoke to him last night when he was in texas with james talarico's campaign he's back with us this evening just telling us what he saw and giving us his impression of what well what's underneath this revolution that happened last night terry is the former chief political correspondent for abc news of course but he then got fired by abc after saying that stephen miller was a hater a world-class hater he said that last year he's since set up on his own he's fully independent at this point and well he's just bursting with energy over last night's result as i know you are too so don't forget please subscribe to the daily beast podcast we are independent media it's why we love having conversations with people like terry moran and michael wolf and antony scarimucci and mary trump and dr john gartner but we love your support so please like and subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends with your neighbors with your children and with your enemies let's get into it with terry moran who is in well i don't know if you can hear me but i'm sure you can he's in the fulcrum of the revolution he's in texas if the person diffusing a bomb said red wire blue wire i'm feeling lucky you'd set a personal record in the hundred yard dash experience gets a lot more appealing when guessing isn't an option that's why so many people turn to morgan and morgan making it america's largest injury law firm morgan and morgan has a proven track record of fighting for the people for over 35 years and with over 35 billion recovered for their clients morgan and morgan knows a thing or two about fighting to get you the compensation you deserve they've got more than 1 000 lawyers and 100 offices nationwide so if your car gets totaled you get hurt at work or somebody else's bad decision becomes your very expensive problem you can check out morgan and morgan if you're ever injured you can check out morgan and morgan morgan and morgan fights to get their clients the best results and their fee is free unless they win to see if you have a case you can go to for the people.com daily beast terry moran wonderful to see you i know you are in texas tell me truthfully how much sleep did you get last night terry well i think uh after we left the talarico event we had a little event of our own so i think i got about oh four hours four okay that's not bad no problem that's not bad that's not bad so just take us to the moment when it became clear that james talarico had beaten ken paxton the pen stealer as i think of him the pen thief um the the man who got divorced by his wife on biblical grounds the man who managed to get 15 houses won five houses in his period in texas politics tell us about the moment what was it like it was an incredible moment johanna really was and partly because of the catalog you just recited of ken paxton's obvious flaws as a candidate you'd think it wouldn't have been such a release such a deliverance for people but it was i went up there in the area where people were gathering to watch the jumbotron events we had our our camera a little off to the side with the rest of the of the cameras i think i was the only independent journalist over there that you know the campaigns are increasingly taking care of us which is nice but i was up there and i saw a fella wearing a flag of texas shirt right big star on one side red white and blue or however however it goes so i said i'll see how he's feeling and he said i feel like charlie brown and lucy he says i don't believe it's going to happen because so many times that ball has been taken from us and charlie brown you know would go flying back they didn't they didn't trust it and there's something about a talarico crowd um you know every organization takes its personality its tenor and tone from the top right and uh trump's white house is nasty uh dishonest cruel gleefully cruel uh because the guy because the boss is all right obama's white house was very very courteous they didn't always tell you a lot but they were very very courteous and talarico's crowd as you might imagine is is decent and um open unafraid of of a conversation with people and so hopeful so bang the moment comes and we were up there and you've seen the pictures people weeping but it's been a long time a few hours ago there was not a single statewide office in texas that was held by a democrat and there hadn't been a statewide office held by a democrat for 32 years and now all of the executive statewide offices in texas that's that's governor lieutenant governor attorney general railroad commissioner agriculture commissioner there are others every single one of them is is held by democrats by large margins it's extraordinary and of course we shouldn't leave out uh the elbowing off the stage of greg abbott who's been there for three terms and gina hinojosa coming in i mean again an incredible achievement james talarico has sucked up a lot of oxygen of attention in this particular race but it's a huge victory for her too this is this really does feel like change is afoot it really doesn't gina hinojosa was as much if not more of an underdog uh then james teller as james talarico you know he talked about david and goliath and he was david and you know his supporters were the the slingshot well gina hinojosa in some way she's a she's a hispanic woman in an era when you know ice is and border patrol are out there hunting down brown people regardless of their immigration status we've seen it again and again some of them are getting killed at that that man in in houston uh uh sebastian guerrero who was here you know working to build houston for 35 years so that's the climate that gina hinojosa stepped forward and said no i'm i'm gonna run the state so in some ways it was an even it was an even bigger upset and abbott had no clue it was it was going to come his way he looked at ken paxton there's a loser candidate foisted on my party on the texas democratic party my buddy john cornyn got got elbowed out it's it's no good but i'm okay and then you could see in the final days what was happening to him you could see it around his eyes election night check it out there's an interview he did i believe i maybe it was local you might be able to see it but it was an interview he did i believe it was local be able to find it on social media where he's literally wide-eyed he and he said no there's a lot of vote coming in and because you could see he he's been around texas politics a long time he could read the writing on the wall, and you could see it written in his face. And for those of whom, for those people who are not supporters and who see him, you know, as a character who changed, like Trump, changed the nature of the executive office to meet his own ends. He's not a corrupt man as far as I know. But, you know, what he did to the public schools, what he did after Uvalde, which is openly lie about the cowardice of the local police, and he had all the state troopers and everybody standing around him. That was the deliverance. It was an extraordinary upset. And she brings a commitment to public education, expertise. You know, she has served in various positions and is ready for the job. And Texas is going to be governed by a Latina. Still can't believe it. It's incredible. And of course, the Latino vote was super important in Texas. Can you just talk a little bit more about that? We saw a very early enthusiastic vote by the Hispanics. Community. Just tell us a little bit more. I mean, this is just of such historic proportions, Terry. I couldn't believe it. You seemed ecstatic last night when you joined us on our live. I mean, and it was also wonderful to see you out of the constraints of ABC, which I know you love that job. You did a brilliant job for them. You had a fantastic run there. You did all the big jobs. You were based in London. You were chief political correspondent. We made sure that you had a good job. You met years and years ago on the Louise Woodward trial, the trial of the British nanny, which was almost 30 years ago, 20, 29 years ago. But I can tell as someone who's observed your career that you're having the time of your life as an independent journalist. I am, Joanna. Thank you for saying that. It's so true. I loved working for ABC. I have no hard feelings. I had a great career. I went to travel the world and all that stuff. And yet now this day, I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. I'm a journalist. This dimension, this medium, which is the next chapter of American journalism, I feel lucky to be in. Is it hard? It's hard. It's real hard. It can get discouraging. And yet that ability to be what I consider to be a whole journalist. I can bring all of my faculties, my reporting, my heart and mind, my opinions to some degree. But the point is to get the story right and not shy away from value judgments. Right. I mean, that's why I got fired at ABC. I thought, you know, you got to tell the truth and tell it whole and it can get you in trouble. Not here. And yes, last night it was it was to be in in that environment, to see people who had worked so hard for so long for a cause that they understood as just. And the Hispanic community, as you mentioned, down along the southern border of Texas and throughout this state. Right. This is this on the state. Capitol grounds. Over the last 15, 20 years, they've added two monuments, one finally to black Americans, to black Texans and second to Latino Texans. And they're great monuments. If you ever the Capitol is an amazing place. And this was their moment, too. Now, why? Hispanic voters have been the swing voters recently. Democrats kind of took them for granted. Democrats had a habit of thought, which is, OK, well, they're brown and they're white. And so therefore they're in this category of race. Right. And that our original sin in this country was, you know, chattel slavery based on racial lines. And so we'll kind of pack them into our understanding that way. Of course, that was I'm simplifying it. But there was a strong element of that. So they these are people who have a completely different culture and different interests and felt taken for granted by the Democratic Party. Trump comes forward. He has a strong sense of pride in the country. Democrats also at times felt embarrassed. It seemed to me there's an obligatory. Well, yeah, you know, America sucks or whatever before you get to you. But we're trying hard or whatever. And that doesn't square with Texas. That's for sure. And so two years ago, they swung really hard to Trump, helped deliver Trump the popular vote. And if you look at the Washington Post, there's an amazing animation of of the shift in votes among Hispanic voters. It's astonishing because they opened. They could see what they see in front of themselves. They thought that this immigration enforcement was wrong, morally wrong. It hurt their people. It hurt them, relatives. And and they were looked at differently by law enforcement. And by some of their neighbors who had the white supremacy virus in them and also nothing's working. Schools are working. The economy is not working. Health care is not working. So just like everybody else, they're like, we need to change. And it was it was amazing to see it is with a lot of Hispanic voters. 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You've been in Maine. I know you were in Iowa. We talked about that a month ago. To what extent did you feel in Texas last night that this was a rebuke of Donald Trump? Oh, hugely, hugely traveling in various states in Ohio last weekend. Trump voters are different. Most of them. Look, there's the hardcore. Those rallies got smaller and smaller and smaller and quieter and quieter and quieter. He's not as good. But also, he was clearly all about himself. I mean, he always has been to a lot of observers mean him included dangerously all about himself. But his patriotic patter pseudo patriotic patter is promise. We're all going to get rich. You know, I think a lot of people went along with it now. So felt problems with the Democrats, national Democrats, which you still hear about. But there's no question the sense of real disappointment and betrayal among Trump voters. Well, in Medina, Ohio, I said to me, I she's right. I admit it. I voted for him three times. And it's and I never will again. You know, she was very upset here in Texas. You talk to people also disappointed. The spell is broken, completely broken. And he broke it. He had an opportunity to do something very dangerous to the country. You know, he had behind the wind in his sails to become a genuinely authoritarian kind of leader like we haven't seen. And he's not smart enough. He's too selfish. So it was. But it was more than a rejection of the man is a rejection of the idea. And this, I think, is where the gigantic wave comes in. Americans are not ideologues. We don't have some grand theory of the case. Right. We have the French. We're pragmatists. We like what works. And so there are all these Republicans, J.D. Vance, right at the front of the line who have some huge theory about American nationalism. There's the Catholic integralists. There's Elon Musk and his wacky ideas. There's the techno futurists. They've all got some ideas. You know, they read Ayn Rand at some point, alas, and mix it up with some other stuff. That's not the way most people are. They look at their vote as an opportunity for course correction for their own lives. I like to say American voters are very smart, really smart, really intelligent about their own lives and their interests and what they need. in this moment. And the increasing prerogative parade of this, what, this kind of Ruritanian, you know, I mean, the weirdness about a different kind of America than anything we were, this was a rejection of the very idea that we are anything but what we have always been, you know, a promise that needs to be fulfilled in practical ways. And this idea that you're going to reinvent the presidency and the constitution and who we are in the world, alas, you have the power to do that, was just alien to people. And this is a rebuke of Trumpism and anything that, any ism that purports to redefine that kind of three steps forward, two steps back, pragmatic democratic process of this country. Terry, I love your idea that the spell is broken and it was Donald Trump who broke his own spell as well, because certainly here at the Daily Beast and certainly on Inside Trump's Head. Another podcast I co-host with Michael Wolff, Michael has always made the point that just as Trump has the seeds of victory, he also has the seeds of defeat, which he manages to sprinkle all over himself almost by default and unintentionally. And that's, I think, what you saw last night, but I love your description. He cast the spell, Americans fell for it, amazingly a second time, but that he's broken it. So, I would not have called Texas, I was in Texas 10 days ago, and I certainly wouldn't have called it for the Democrats. I don't think you would have done either when we last spoke. I know you've been in Maine, you spent some time with Troy Jackson. Did you see Susan Collins' concession speech coming, I think at 11.30 last night? I did. Incredibly early. Yes. I think partly that is she could read the writing. On the one, she's an institutionalist, and she isn't a Trump Republican. She's from a generation where you did stuff like that. You didn't drag it out. You didn't lie about it. You didn't, what did Graham, Darlene Graham, said her opponent was, quote, bat shit crazy, the person she was conceding to. That's the last 10 years. That's, and I thought when I actually tweeted something out about her, whatever, posted saying, this kind of politics died. Right. And also, there are many things that you could say about Annie Andrews. She's a pediatrician. Bat shit crazy ain't one of them. What you could say is she ran a fantastic campaign. I'm still mourning my brother. Thank you for the opportunity, South Carolina. Yeah. And exit gracefully. And Susan Collins, it was the opposite of that, right? She's an old pro. That was her calling card with Maine voters. She delivered the goods. She got them, you know, the lobster fishermen from under the Biden regulations about how you fit, how you catch lobsters and various things like that. And everybody had a story like that. And yet health care, rural health care is collapsing in Maine and other things like that. So I think she understood what was happening. I don't think she feels she has a future. I mean, she's had 30 years in public office. I think that's sufficient. Maybe she does, too, somewhere in her. And Troy Jackson, you know. One thing I heard and it really bothered me, Joanna. It was really something that bothered me that there was a refrain about Troy Jackson that I heard in the Cook Report on CNN plundered. It kind of became a talking point. Candidate quality. Like he didn't have a good. And I think it's because he spoke the way he speaks. Fifth generation logger from part of Maine with pretty thick part that that part of Maine accent, right? It's Malagash. I'm up in the county. And as they say, Aroostook County. And, you know, when I interviewed him, the first thing I asked him, I said, it wasn't the first thing we had a little talk. And then I and then I asked him, I said, look, these things sound like they sound like you're sad about them. They're like, there's a moral dimension to. And he looks at me where there's a bunch of people standing around. We're rolling. He says, fucking right. I am. And, you know, he's he's working, man. And that notion that somebody who speaks like that, like my dad, who's from the South Side of Chicago. And we talked about the D's, Dems and Do's guys, the D's guys, Dem guys and Do's guys, the Chicago accent, which he had kind of dropped that that that's who Troy Jackson is. But you could hear that the kind of rough passion in him for progressive ideals and justice. You know, he wasn't as as full of eloquence or rough eloquence as Graham Plattner, but he couldn't. He came from the same political place in many ways. And I think I think people missed how good a candidate he was. People trusted him. That's what it was. Wasn't trying to be anything else but what he was. And that matters. Every day, your personal information is exposed somewhere online, your email address, financial details, even your health information. It's not about being careful anymore. It's about the hundreds of data brokers who collect data. They collect and sell your data without your consent. They can't harm you, however, if they can't find you. And that's where Incogni comes in. Incogni automatically sends removal requests and follows up across more than 420 harmful sites, helping get your personal information removed from places you may not even know exist. Incogni can find where your information appears online and recurring removals help keep it from coming back. You can also track your. Progress, get monthly risk assessments and reach 24/7 live chat support to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan. Go to incogni.com/beast or click the link in the episode description. That's incogni.com/beast. You said when we talked about him, I remember you saying very specifically he was authentic and he's been a state senator. So he knows the Senate. So he has a sense of being a public servant. He had none of the terrible allegations that Graham Plattner had against him. And he had almost no time to mount a campaign. I mean, he didn't have the name recognition that Susan Collins did. As you said, he didn't have, I guess, the kind of performance sophistication that perhaps Susan Collins has figured out over her 30 years in politics. But nevertheless, he caught the attention and the imagination of people who just want someone to come in and be competent, someone to do the job. If I could just add one more detail, he, and this was minor, but he talked about, his fellow senators gave him one of the most thankless jobs in, he was, he ran the building, like logistically, like the contractors and made sure the staffers bathrooms were working or we, he ran the building. And. Um. Um, that showed, I think, uh, a degree of trust and confidence in him. And, you know, he had a kind of practical fifth generation loggers understanding of, you know, what you can do and what you can't do on the budget of taking care of that grand old building. So I, I think people connected with him in a, in that practical way that I think, uh, American voters have. All right. So now take us to Iowa, because that was a state that again, was an absolute nail biter. You did a phenomenal documentary. Uh, you talked extensively to Josh Turek. We saw him in his wheelchair playing basketball. Uh, tell us about that race against, he was up against Ashley Hinson. Uh, and it was very close. It was only in the last couple of days that he appeared to pull away. And even last night, it wasn't for granted when Michael Wolff and I did our predictions. We both thought Ashley Hinson would, would win. We. Both thought that Iowa would be Republican, and this is an upset too. It is Rob Sand in the governor's office too. The Democrat running for governor who has presidential ambitions, it seems, and kind of scorns the party system. So I had to belong to one party. He thinks, uh, you know, that Americans are naturally independent voters. Now he was saying that in, in Iowa, I think for, for a reason, but it seems authentic for him. And so watch, watch that space. Josh Turek. Well, I want to, I want to come on. Uh, uh, a bit later on and talk about presidential ambitions because today is the day that they all start leaking out. I think when you said he's got presidential ambitions, I'm thinking, well, he's not the only one, but let's just stick to staying with the Senate race for a moment. Tell us what you saw. Well, you know, I thought that Ashley Hinson might win and Pat in the last few days as you could feel that wave building towards this cascading, you could, you could feel it. Everything was turning in one direction. But I kind of thought Ashley Hinson was not a Trumpy candidate. Now she had promised to be Trump's best ally in the Senate, uh, w which, you know, ended up hurting her, especially with, with, you know, world populations who in Iowa had it up to here with the tariffs and the war and everything else. But she, you know, she's TV anchor, local, former local TV anchor. People knew her. So she had that kind of, you know, uh, affect that TV anchors have, you know, they can communicate through the camera. Uh, at a nice temperature, right? She didn't, she wasn't nasty and scornful. And she tried to run a campaign that wasn't full of that, where she criticized Democrats and ended up more and more on the trans issue and other issues where Republicans think Democrats are vulnerable. But I thought Turek would have a hard time beating her because she wasn't Darlene Graham, because she wasn't Ken Paxton. She was a tougher challenger, I thought. And Iowa has been pretty red. But I'll tell you what, I asked him how it was going. He's in a wheelchair, of course, from spina bifida when he was a kid. And I said, this guy, this guy, this guy be hard. And he said, I've faced harder, right? He had 21 surgeries before he was 12 years old. And he said, this is really hard. And he was honest. He's a two-time, three-time Paralympian, two gold medals in basketball. And he said, this is harder than anything I've ever done. Do I want to go to the next town? Or what? Or whatever. He says, it's difficult. And he said, but I know nothing is ever going to be harder than being that kid alone in a hospital in Minnesota, recovering from surgery number 19 or whatever. Yeah, he had 19 surgeries before he was 12, 21 surgeries before he was, whatever it was. And he said, nothing's going to be harder than that. So he worked. He worked. And it had nothing to do with whether he was in a wheelchair or not. That guy worked. He doesn't have a big, sunshiny personality. Once again, he's got a very true personality. And he's got very progressive instincts. You can feel the struggle in the way he speaks. You know, you can feel it in him. He's a kind man. There's no indicator that. But you remember Bob Dole? He could kind of, he had a sharp edge to him. But you could also feel the struggle in him as well. And I think Iowans connected with that. If you've been through that and you have good ideas and you've already demonstrated in government your abilities and you come from home, he's from Council Bluffs, not a big town, way out in Western Iowa, which is, you know, hard for Democrats to win votes in, it was enough to carry him over. I want to take your point and get you to expand on it about this idea of American voters actually being pretty independent. And in theory, everybody's, you know, what, you know, everybody's, you know, everybody's you're a Republican, you're an independent, or you're a Democrat. But in fact, there's a sort of huge swirling mass in the middle. And I think if you talk to a lot of people, they would say they're independent. Adam Hamilton in Kansas, the first Democrat to win since 1932, just a phenomenal, a phenomenal win there. And he ran almost as an independent. I mean, he ran as a man of faith. He's a pastor there. I mean, I listened to several interviews with him. And he just sounded like, you know what, I was watching what was going on. I didn't like it. I thought the only way to solve this is to get into the race. He's in his early 60s. I think he's not a young man looking to make politics his career, though I suspect he may now have presidential ambitions after a couple of years. And he'd certainly be younger than the last couple of presidents we've had. But talk a little bit about that feeling. Of independence and that Americans, to your earlier point, aren't ideologues. They want something that democracy itself is not an end point. Democracy is the vehicle to deliver the promise of the Constitution, the promise of the American dream to allow people to leave, live independent lives where they can do what they want, have their families, have work and have big, honest lives. That's it. Exactly. That is it. Exactly. And that's what defeated Donald Trump, the very practical sense that that's none of that is happening, especially for young people. And Adam Hamilton, you know, one of the things he's got going for him is that he's been hugely successful. He's a pastor. He's the pastor of the largest Methodist church in Kansas and brings that organizational understanding, how to get things done. And he walks the walk of his faith. Everybody around him has said he could feel it in his campaign. That's good for Democrats. Democrats and my that's good. You know, whatever you wherever you are on that spectrum, faith, no faith, this faith, that faith, whatever. We're all equal as voters. But a lot of people want to know where you come from. What is it that that makes you tick? So what is it makes Donald Trump tick? Well, his own glorification and money. And he's kind of frank about it. I think that's one of the reasons people forgave him for, you know, indulged him in it because it was obvious he's an egomaniac and he's greedy. And they thought, well, we can ride that gravy train a little bit. And Adam Hamilton and certainly James Tallarico and others are frank that what drives them are the values that they understand from from their faith traditions. And yet he's sharp. Boy, he's sharp. He's got, you know, you could feel their deal. Do you see those debates that he had with with Roger Marshall? You know, the temperature of Kansas debates is much lower. It's kind of Midwestern, plain spoken. There was none of this shouting, none of this. But but there were there were debating. But he's got this very even keel as well. And I think people after after the volcanic personalities, everybody imitating Trump's volcanic personalities and his crudeness and his rudeness and all of a sudden the F word is everywhere and the R word is back and everybody thinks they're smart because they can call you the R word and all the rest of it. You look at Adam Hamilton and it's like, all right, I don't have to. I can just relax with the with that guy in the Senate. And I do think that people feel the other way, the Trump way felt originally like he was going to bash down walls of privilege, liberal privilege, right? That were educational, public health authorities, whatever, and open opportunities for them. And they realized that it would that it was a sham or that it didn't work and pragmatic pragmatist. They are. They're like, let's calm down. This guy seems like he can actually do it step by step by step. He's not going to scream at me while he while he does. And you see that, you know, his competence making a comeback. Yeah, maybe. But I definitely think the temperature was lowered by the American people last night because the ranting, the J.D. Vance, I mean, J.D. Vance has embraced a politics that died last night. It's going to be. And Trump. One skin is nothing like your typical skincare brand. And that's why I keep coming back to the most anti-aging skincare is built to react, to smooth over lines and wrinkles after they show up. One skin started somewhere different, working to address how skin ages in the first place. Founded by four PhD longevity scientists, they studied skin at the cellular level and found that visible skin aging starts deeper when certain cells stop working the way they should and begin affecting the healthy cells around them. So they engineered OS1, their proprietary peptide. It works with the skin's biology, targeting those dysfunctional cells instead of just sitting on the surface. 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Usha, born here, she was a Gates scholar at Cambridge. She went to Yale, as, of course, did JD Vance. But they had very different journeys. I find their marriage confounding, except for you think back to 2016 when JD Vance called Trump America's Hitler. And then the next thing you know, he's done a 180, a swivel faster than The Exorcist. And he's up to Donald Trump as they take the RNC. What do you imagine J.D. Vance is thinking today, Terry? Oh, shit. I mean, I don't like to curse, but I couldn't resist. I have that habit for maybe saying I think it's a good habit. I just said we shouldn't do that so much, but I couldn't resist because J.D. Vance earns it. I mean, I think he knows the jig is up in some ways in this masquerade. Here's the thing. So what do they have in common? They probably shared relatively liberal values, although, you know, Usha may have a kind of traditional, slightly more conservative Indian cultural background and ethics. I don't know. But the secret of J.D. Vance, not the secret, we can all see it. The key to J.D. Vance. He's a weak man. He's a weak man. He's got an excellent mind. He's a very good writer. He's a really good writer. I spent some time with him when that book came out. I interviewed him for Nightline and got to know him in the 2016 election. He's there right next to me on the ABC News set when he was an anti-Trump guy, when Trump was, you know, terrible for his people. And Peter Thiel got a hold of him. It seems to me, and I almost don't hold it against him. All right. This is my understanding of his biography from what. From how he wrote it and from what I see. You know, he came from some dysfunction. There's a teacher that took him under his wing. Academic excellence, the way you go. He's kind of a dorky kid. Boom. He's at Ohio State, gets to Yale. Right. And all of a sudden he's a Yaley. He's a Yaley. He's got the, he's got kind of typical 19 or 2000s, you know, Yale attitudes and values. And, and he writes this book and it's, and it's well-received and he kind of stakes out some, some ground criticizing some of the habits and mores of the people that he came from. And then Peter Thiel gets a hold of him. There's a lot of money coming his way. And all of a sudden he's like, he's got like a different view of the world. And then Donald Trump gets a hold of him. And we, he's been openly racist. This man who was, who was not that. I find, I think he just, he moves to the, to the strongest person around. Let's hope that's Usha. He seems like a nice person, but, but he's a weak man. And I think Americans sniff that. And that's one thing you cannot afford in the presidency and people know it. I don't think he's got a, I don't think he's got a prayer. The only reason he's at the top of the, at that post is he's, he's, his name recognition. I've talked to voters, you know, people around in, in, in Ohio. I said, so what do you think of J.D. Vance? Yeah, J.D. Vance. Yeah. You know, I'd have to see more. And once, once they get the same sense that I do. And maybe I'm completely wrong and he's a Roman centurion of, of integrity. You know, then, then, you know, I think I don't see him as president of the United States. I'm pretty confident he's not a Roman centurion. And I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to my two sons who I forced to read Hillbilly Elegy, even though they both balked at it. And one of them kept complaining and I forced them to, to read. So, so let's move on to the Democrats for a moment. J.D. Vance, as you said, seems to be cooked. He's toast. He's probably in the fetal position right now, I would think. Or he's having to suck up to Donald Trump and say, it wasn't that bad, sir. Well, they shellacked us, sir, but you're, you're still great, sir. Let's move on to the Democrats. Incredible showing last night. Significantly, I think, John Ossoff, the senator from Georgia, was the first to come back. The first seat to be called. We've joked about this on, on the podcast before, but today really marks the starting gun for 2028 in both parties, right? And for any independent candidates out there who may step forward. John Ossoff seems like he's in a pretty good position. And interestingly, Gavin Newsom gives up power now. Gavin Newsom's done. I mean, I felt you didn't hear from Gavin Newsom last night. Because his power, at least in the governorship, has ebbed away. Who do you think we will be looking at for the Democratic leadership as the, as the Dems start taking their seats in, in Congress? Yeah, that's a fascinating question. It'll be, it'll be fascinating. I think, I think it depends. Okay. But I'll name some names. But right now, the most important thing, issue before the Democrats, they have this opportunity. People did not vote for the Democratic Party. They voted for fixing things. And Trump has said he wants to do deals. And I have no doubt that, you know, he wants to take credit. He'll, he'll, he'll, you know, he'll abandon his friends and shift over to, and sign something the Democrats put in front of him if he possibly can. Because he doesn't have to run again. And he'll, you know, he'll be great in his own mind. They, they can, they can manipulate him, actually. And they can, you know, they may impeach him. But all I know is that this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity for Democrats to define the next chapter. What does it look like? And one of the things that I would be looking for that I'm, as a voter, right, is, I think, for a long time now, since the financial crisis, before, many American voters have heard governments say to them again and again and again, we can't, we can't do that. We can't do that. We can't do that. Right? Whatever it is. child care, health care, certainly all that stuff. Barack Obama, yes, we can, was his man. And he passed Obamacare, which the Republicans have attacked, which was an unfinished product to begin with, as he acknowledged, and is now disintegrating before our eyes, plunging millions of Americans into a crisis, a health care crisis. And so, if anything, it's an opportunity. But it'll be the Democrats who step forward and say, we can do, we are a can-do, pragmatic people. That's who we are. Let's build a barn together, whatever, the whole American mythos, which has a grounding in fact. People come here to be something and to build something. And that's been the story of the country. And the last, what, the last almost generation, it feels like people have given up on that unless they're tech billionaires. That's why people resent them so much. You know? I mean, a big issue here, obviously, was data centers. And that was bipartisan. That was urban, suburban, and rural. Nobody asked. It's not working for us. And you expect us to pay for your electricity. You expect us to pay for the water that you're taking. No more of that. What the next chapter of can-do America looks like is what the Democrats should have. They don't have a contract for America or anything like that. And Republicans are already saying, well, they didn't win. An endorsement of any mandate. It's not a mandate because they didn't propose anything. But the Democrats who do step forward and offer things, and I'll offer a name. I'm interviewing him tomorrow on my podcast, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, who is head of the Democratic Governors Association and was happy to, you know, get out there, not take credit, but kind of take credit for, you know, Hossa and Rob Sand and other Democrats who won the governorship. And he's definitely running. One of his figures, you know, I'm the governor of Kentucky, and he's the first Democrat in a long time to do that. And he has a proposal out there, which he calls the Fix the Damn Country Constitutional Amendment, which is overturned Citizens United and term limits for the Supreme Court of the United States and no investment, no private investment in the stock market by Congress, I think. They're basically progressive, meaning like 1910 progressive reforms to give money out of politics to return the power to people's votes and not their checkbooks. And I think that kind of thing. Now, Beshear, you know, is he a serious candidate? He's an outside candidate, but I'm interviewing him and I figured I'd plug. The big names that occur to me, Ossoff is the political talent of the class right now. It's pretty clear. But what's he done? Gives a great speech. Looks great. What's he done? I kind of think governors have the edge in this one. And so, to me, maybe it was once again, because I'm from Chicago, J.B. Pritzker has been an extremely effective governor, I think, and a strong voice for democratic values. And he doesn't back down from them at all. And has, you know, has a great style of debate. Can he run on his track records as the governor of Illinois? You know, we'll see. You know, the other people I think are going to be running, I think, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an enormous political talent. She's got a huge following. And I think her secret weapon, and I've thought this since the moment she showed up in Washington, is she's a real patriot. She loves this country. And I think sometimes she expresses her progressive values in that vein. And I think that's her most effective vein. Now, she's been a member of the House of Representatives. You know, Henry Clay tried a bunch of times from that vein. It didn't work. So once again, what has she done? What has she delivered? I think Americans are looking for candidates who can deliver. Those tend to be governor. I don't think Newsom is out of it all. I mean, he's a remarkable talent. He's almost Too slick, of course, but he knows policy backwards and forwards and can distill it and advocate for it in language that everybody understands. He has that Clintonian gift a little bit, and that'll take him a ways. But look, the field is, I mean, Pete Buttigieg is a huge political talent and has a can-do attitude. They've got a deep bench. Those are just, I mean, a few of the names. What do you think? Well, I was going to ask you, you've mentioned all men there, all of whom seem plausible, although I don't know if America, is America ready for a gay president or an out gay president? I don't know. You didn't mention Kamala Harris. Gavin Newsom said that he wasn't going to run if Kamala ran, that, you know, that he wasn't going to do that to her. And he said that as he was fishing in, I think, somewhere in a sort of. Yeah. In a river. And he may have got himself into some hot water. That's a terrible sort of analogy, but whatever. Saying that because Kamala Harris is very much at the top of the name recognition, at least in terms of when you do the kind of polling, early, early polling. Gretchen Whitmer, I think, is probably going to put herself in the running. She's now got a bit of time as she leaves the governorship of Michigan. So it's sort of fascinating. I do think that John Ossoff. He's so good in in those Senate hearings when he said to Jay Clayton, isn't it humiliating for you not to be able to say that that Joe Biden won in 2020, that Donald Trump lost? Isn't that humiliating? And Clayton, who's an intelligent man, you know, run the Southern District of New York. Chief prosecutor just looked he looked embarrassed. He looked humiliated as well. He should have done. So I don't think one should should rule Ossoff out. In terms of what's he done, he's been very good. He was very good. Filleting Pete Hegseth in those in those committee hearings. But but it is a fascinating moment, I think, in American history as to who will emerge and what last night was about. And we haven't even talked about and I guess we've saved the most interesting one, possibly for last, Abdul El-Sayed and the Haley Stevens meltdown in in Michigan. But I think we're going to have to wait and see what happens in the next few weeks or so. Yeah, what a strange final chapter to that amazing election it was, I mean, the Republicans put forward a guy who was a serious and normal Republican, right? Mike Rogers had a long career in Congress. People knew him from before the Trump years. He is one of the reasons he lost is he wasn't true to himself, right? Just like Jay Clayton. He had to continue to put on more and more of the clothes of Trumpism. And it just didn't. They don't feel it. You know, they don't fit anyone, really, except for really nasty people and Donald Trump. People, I think that's one of the problems Republicans are going to have. They own it. They own this chapter. They they don't get a pass because the American people rescued them from the from their subservience, from their groveling, cowardly subservience to Donald Trump. They did that. They own it. I think voters are going to hold them accountable. They're going to hold them accountable going forward. And Mike Rogers got caught up in it at the absolute wrong time. He should have just been Mike Rogers, stayed Mike Rogers, and he might be a United States senator right now. And the Haley Stevens episode, look, you know, I don't think she's got a political future because of it. And for that reason, I thought if it was tactical, it was stupid. But I kind of think I don't know her at all, just from from observation. She kind of fell in love with a fella and he's very strong on the issue of Israel. And the meeting of minds and the meeting of hearts may have may have occasioned her to to say, you know, I can't go with Abdul El-Sayed because, you know, all the the cartoon version of Abdul El-Sayed is that he's, you know, he's going to he's he's a mass. He's dangerous to Israel. He's dangerous to the United States relationship to Israel, but he's not the cause of that. I mean, at all. He's a he's a fine spokesperson for the argument that the United States has has been far too close to Israel, especially Israel under Netanyahu, and that it is high time that we lived up to our own ideals. And and once again, you know, stood for a peace between two peoples who are living in their own countries, safe and legal and all the rest of it. Now, I don't think that's Abdul El-Sayed either, but he's he's not. He's not a demon on the issue. He's strong on it, as are a lot of people. I mean, Netanyahu is a absolute catastrophe to the U.S.-Israel relationship. Nobody under the age of 30 trusts Israel. No, no one. I mean, very, very few people except for. And that's got to be enormously painful to so many Israeli Jews who tied up their identity as Americans and the journey of this country with with the fate of Israel and the journey of that country born, you know, under. Similar ideals in some ways. And I know that's, you know, that that's an old fashioned way of looking at is more complex and a lot more and a lot and a lot sadder and more vicious in recent years. I don't think the United States, perhaps the U.S. relationship with Israel, was that we had shared their values as well as they they supported our interests in that part of the world. There was a sense that, you know, it was a refugee country. All that put aside, you know, I'm going to be I'm very. Very interested to see what kind of a senator Abdullah Sayed is going to be. He's got an edge to him and he's he's happy about it. But it comes off to me a little off putting. It's almost like he's insecure. He's got to put anybody who's disagreeing with him. He's got to put him down sharply. Or that's just his political talent, because there's nobody who who answers Vance and Trump. And I mean, it's hilarious. Right. You know, Bibi, you got to swear. Yeah. And Michigan won Ohio zero. And I mean, I love that. He's a performer, isn't he? He was a former podcaster. I mean, I know he's been a public health official and he's been very effective, I think, in Michigan, which is why people wanted to vote him in. But he's got edge. He's clearly going to be a challenge if Chuck Schumer ends up running the Senate again and being leader of the Senate. And that's still to be decided. I'm always in terms of Haley Stevens. I'm always a little nervous. I'm nervous about saying that women, especially a congresswoman who's been elected several times, has come under the spell of her of her fiance. But I do think she probably came under the spell of AIPAC, who financed her enormously in her in her primary against El-Sayed. And I wonder if they didn't come up to her and say, listen, we put a we put millions of dollars into this and you need to do something for us. But I was going to ask you a final question, Terry. You have covered politics for years. You were the chief political correspondent for ABC News. You know as well as I do, politicians are among the most cynical of us. Do we now see a revolt in the Republican Party against Donald Trump? We know that Mitch McConnell and one of the funniest jokes I got last night sent by friends was if only Mitch McConnell were alive to see this night, which is mean but funny, mean but funny. But we know. We know that Mitch McConnell hates Donald Trump. We know that the Republicans hate Donald Trump. They hate having been forced to bend the knee. To your point about J.D. Vance, it's full of, it turns out, weak politicians. Is this, however, the moment that they turn on Donald Trump? Is this when the bully is finally cornered by his own gang and they start pelting stones at him? Yes. Yes. Right? Don't you think? I mean. I mean, they're lining up. They're going to line up to bash him and to declare their independence. I mean, you know, it depends on their condition. But look at DeSantis last night. Ron DeSantis, first one out there, right? He wants to be president. So he's the first one out. I don't even think the polls were closed. And he was saying Trump did this. And, you know, he started. He promised he wouldn't start a foreign war. He started a foreign war. You know, he promised he'd get on top of the affordability crisis and everything is more expensive. He was bashing Trump last night before the polls had closed in Florida. And I think they're going to be lining up. Like, if you're in a real rural district, people will always. There are voters. There are Trump voters. When he dies, they'll line up. They'll line the railroad tracks for him. But there won't be anywhere near as many as you think. Trump did give people a sense of identity and an ugly identity. In my judgment, we're in charge. Our people. Our people have been here for generations. As J.D. Vance says all the time, like, you've been here for generations. You're better than. Which is essentially what he says. That's why I think he's an. Imposter and a weakling. And people see it. But that for for people who represent districts that where people feel that way, they're going to bash. But everybody else who wants a future in Republican politics, electoral policy, it's going to have to carve out their own identity. And more important, what's Trump going to do to him now? What's Trump going to do to them now? Exactly right. It's exactly right. The whole election was a repudiation of his argument that you got to vote for Republicans, right? Which is what he wanted. And he's got nothing. He's got nothing over him. If he says. If he says in a year or two, oh, I don't like this person who's running for Senate in wherever, I was going to say, so what? His endorsement is not really going to carry much weight because the balloon has been punctured. The spell has been broken. And to mix all the metaphors, the next few years, he's going to stumble, try to stumble back to his palace in Mar-a-Lago, and everybody is going to be noticing more and more that he's got no clothes. It's an ugly thought, actually. But it was all a bluff. It was all BS, like it is. And I think that, look, he's got the power of the presidency, still enormously powerful. But politically, he's finished. Oh, Terry Moran, it's always bracing to talk to you. It was excellent to talk to you last night in the Tallarico campaign. It was thrilling. Well, it was great. We'll be talking to you. We'll be talking to you again soon. Thank you for joining us. And, well, as you say, it was all a bluff. It was all a bluff. If only it had all been a dream, because the Democrats now have the next two years to try and dig out of the total incompetent mess that Donald Trump has created. But they've got some very capable new candidates who will bring new ideas and new approaches. And Donald Trump says he's ready to make some deals. So we'll see. Let's hope those deals aren't just deals with Putin. Terry Moran, thank you very much for joining us. We will talk again soon. Thanks, Joanne. Terry, I always love talking to you. And I think back to that time 29 years ago when we met in Boston on the Louise Woodward trial. A terrible story. There were no winners in that story. It centered around a dreadful story of a child who died. But I remember you as the voice of calm. And you seemed to me to be the quintessential American. You seemed to me to be the quintessential American. And then I discovered when we were talking recently that it was actually your first big story for ABC News. And it was my first big story for The Guardian when I arrived here as their bureau chief. Anyway, I always love talking to you. Thank you for giving us your perspective. Thank you if you have been for watching us. Write in the comments what you think of Terry's observations and his analysis of the situation. And that Trump, well, turned out to be all a bluff. The emperor. The emperor has no clothes. And the Republican politicians left, the little group of them that are left, will now turn upon the bully-in-chief. Many thanks to our production team who've put in stellar hours after the last 24 hours. Ryan Murray, John Romero, Benji Wilson, our addition. We're adding Benji to the team. He runs our social media here at The Daily Beast. Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro, and Neil Rosenhaus. And I'll be back tomorrow with Michael Wolff where we'll be inside Trump's head where I promise you there is a lot of short-circuiting going on. 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