WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.240 Welcome to the deep dive. Today, we're going 00:00:03.240 --> 00:00:05.459 to push past all the noise from the recent headlines 00:00:05.459 --> 00:00:09.199 and really look at the strategic shifts, both 00:00:09.199 --> 00:00:12.060 political and legal, that are shaping what comes 00:00:12.060 --> 00:00:14.259 next. Exactly. We're not just looking at who 00:00:14.259 --> 00:00:16.100 won the last round. We're asking who's being 00:00:16.100 --> 00:00:18.989 set up to win the next one. That's the key. And 00:00:18.989 --> 00:00:21.309 our sources today are pretty varied. We're covering 00:00:21.309 --> 00:00:23.710 the fallout from the government shutdown, some 00:00:23.710 --> 00:00:26.370 truly explosive political revelations, and even 00:00:26.370 --> 00:00:28.510 a surge in new candidates. And we're setting 00:00:28.510 --> 00:00:30.730 all of that against a pretty stark historical 00:00:30.730 --> 00:00:33.810 warning for the 2026 midterms. So our mission 00:00:33.810 --> 00:00:35.969 for you is to pull out those essential nuggets 00:00:35.969 --> 00:00:38.649 of strategy and risk. We want you to see the 00:00:38.649 --> 00:00:40.990 machinery working behind the scenes. Let's start 00:00:40.990 --> 00:00:44.409 with the end of that marathon 43 -day government 00:00:44.409 --> 00:00:46.840 shutdown. Right. And the vote that ended it, 00:00:46.939 --> 00:00:49.759 hashtag, tag, tag, I, the aftermath of the government 00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:52.520 shutdown. So the stopgap bill, it passed the 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:55.840 House 222 to 209. And if you look at the vote 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:57.320 breakdown, you can immediately see where the 00:00:57.320 --> 00:00:59.179 pressure points are. Let's start with the Democrats. 00:00:59.539 --> 00:01:01.960 The six Democrats who crossed the aisle to vote 00:01:01.960 --> 00:01:04.739 with Republicans. Yeah, these are people like. 00:01:05.500 --> 00:01:09.120 Henry Kuehler from Texas or Marie Lusencamp Perez 00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:11.480 from Washington. And they represent, you know, 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:14.299 the real front lines of competitive politics. 00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:16.780 And what's the common thread there? It's their 00:01:16.780 --> 00:01:19.420 districts. Every single one has a partisan voter 00:01:19.420 --> 00:01:23.099 index or PBI rating of R plus one to R plus four. 00:01:23.159 --> 00:01:25.060 So they're Democrats operating in territory that 00:01:25.060 --> 00:01:27.900 leans Republican. Constantly. So for them, a 00:01:27.900 --> 00:01:30.239 vote like this is about showing independence 00:01:30.239 --> 00:01:33.439 from the party on spending. It's a survival tactic. 00:01:33.659 --> 00:01:35.400 And then you have the flip side, which is maybe 00:01:35.400 --> 00:01:38.019 even more interesting. Two Republicans crossed 00:01:38.019 --> 00:01:40.260 over to vote with the Democrats. Which is highly 00:01:40.260 --> 00:01:42.620 unusual on a big spending bill like this. One 00:01:42.620 --> 00:01:45.299 was Thomas Massey, who, you know, is a known 00:01:45.299 --> 00:01:48.680 iconoclast. He votes against almost all big spending. 00:01:48.760 --> 00:01:50.939 Right. That's his brand. But the other one. The 00:01:50.939 --> 00:01:53.969 other was Greg Stube. a conservative from a super 00:01:53.969 --> 00:01:57.629 red R plus 11 district in Florida. He had zero 00:01:57.629 --> 00:01:59.969 electoral reason to vote no. So what was his 00:01:59.969 --> 00:02:02.030 motivation? It wasn't about the spending in general. 00:02:02.469 --> 00:02:04.409 No, he was very specific. He said he was opposing 00:02:04.409 --> 00:02:08.449 a self -indulgent provision that he felt allowed 00:02:08.449 --> 00:02:10.669 certain senators to sue the Justice Department 00:02:10.669 --> 00:02:13.009 using taxpayer money. He called it. Garbage. 00:02:13.189 --> 00:02:15.229 And the reaction from his own side. Oh, it was 00:02:15.229 --> 00:02:17.930 immediate and intense. The online vitriol was 00:02:17.930 --> 00:02:20.990 incredible. He was called a rhino, a traitor. 00:02:21.530 --> 00:02:23.629 The whole playbook. Which really says a lot about 00:02:23.629 --> 00:02:25.930 the internal party dynamics right now. It does. 00:02:26.189 --> 00:02:28.270 They were even attacking him for a Senate race 00:02:28.270 --> 00:02:30.009 he isn't running in. I mean, he's a member of 00:02:30.009 --> 00:02:32.650 the House. It just showed how detached some of 00:02:32.650 --> 00:02:35.889 the outrage was. OK, so all this internal fracturing 00:02:35.889 --> 00:02:38.569 sets the stage for the big strategic question. 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:41.740 Why do the Democrats ultimately surrender and 00:02:41.740 --> 00:02:44.520 end the shutdown? Some sources say that was the 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:47.400 real victory. Right. This brings us to what Jonathan 00:02:47.400 --> 00:02:50.360 V. Last calls the touch the stove theory. I like 00:02:50.360 --> 00:02:52.379 the sound of that. It's really smart political 00:02:52.379 --> 00:02:54.960 thinking. JVL, who is a Republican critic of 00:02:54.960 --> 00:02:57.159 Trump, he argued that the absolute worst thing 00:02:57.159 --> 00:02:59.900 for Democrats would have been to win a big concession, 00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:02.419 like restoring health insurance subsidies until 00:03:02.419 --> 00:03:06.199 2026. Wait, hang on. Preventing huge health care 00:03:06.199 --> 00:03:09.889 hikes. How is that a bad outcome for Democrats? 00:03:10.030 --> 00:03:12.550 That feels counterintuitive. It is, but think 00:03:12.550 --> 00:03:15.150 about it. If you prevent a bad thing from happening, 00:03:15.669 --> 00:03:17.949 do voters give you credit for the crisis that 00:03:17.949 --> 00:03:20.400 didn't happen? Rarely. They just take the stability 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:22.879 for granted. Exactly. By ending the shutdown 00:03:22.879 --> 00:03:25.879 without those subsidies, Trump and the GOP now 00:03:25.879 --> 00:03:28.979 have to own what comes next. And what comes next 00:03:28.979 --> 00:03:32.740 is rising health care costs for everyone. So 00:03:32.740 --> 00:03:34.740 the idea is that you only get political credit 00:03:34.740 --> 00:03:37.000 when voters actually feel the pain. Precisely. 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:39.460 By the time the next midterms roll around, voters 00:03:39.460 --> 00:03:41.580 could have been paying way higher premiums for 00:03:41.580 --> 00:03:43.740 nearly a year. That pain, you know, touching 00:03:43.740 --> 00:03:46.240 that hot stove. That's what mobilizes your base 00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:48.120 and gives the other side a really difficult issue 00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:50.740 to defend. Hashtag tag two, the Epstein documents 00:03:50.740 --> 00:03:53.719 and legislative momentum. So just as the shutdown 00:03:53.719 --> 00:03:57.030 drama was fading. This absolute bombshell drops 00:03:57.030 --> 00:03:58.490 from House Democrats. We're talking about the 00:03:58.490 --> 00:04:00.569 Jeffrey Epstein emails. And the information in 00:04:00.569 --> 00:04:03.409 them was, well, it was staggering. The sources 00:04:03.409 --> 00:04:05.610 detail emails where Epstein wrote that Donald 00:04:05.610 --> 00:04:08.370 Trump knew about the girls. And that Trump spent 00:04:08.370 --> 00:04:11.610 hours at his house with Virginia Jeffrey. Right. 00:04:11.990 --> 00:04:14.610 And maybe the most damaging part, Epstein apparently 00:04:14.610 --> 00:04:17.600 remarked to Ghislaine Maxwell that it was amazing, 00:04:18.100 --> 00:04:20.540 no one had connected Trump to his whole operation. 00:04:21.019 --> 00:04:23.800 If that stands up, it changes the entire political 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:26.720 landscape. And we saw an immediate legislative 00:04:26.720 --> 00:04:28.680 consequence, didn't we? Immediately. Yeah. This 00:04:28.680 --> 00:04:31.100 news just completely took over. It provided the 00:04:31.100 --> 00:04:35.379 political cover and the energy needed for the 00:04:35.379 --> 00:04:37.660 Massey bill discharge petition. And for anyone 00:04:37.660 --> 00:04:39.680 listening, a discharge petition is basically 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:42.399 a way for members to force a vote on a bill that 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:44.399 leadership is blocking. And that's what happened. 00:04:44.660 --> 00:04:47.759 A Democrat, a deleter - Alva cast her first ever 00:04:47.759 --> 00:04:51.199 vote, and it was the 218th signature needed. 00:04:51.439 --> 00:04:53.459 It forced the issue. So what's the outlook for 00:04:53.459 --> 00:04:55.639 that bill now? Well, under the rules, the petition 00:04:55.639 --> 00:04:58.839 has to ripen for seven legislative days. But 00:04:58.839 --> 00:05:00.879 Speaker Mike Johnson has already said he's going 00:05:00.879 --> 00:05:02.839 to schedule the vote quickly. So he's going to 00:05:02.839 --> 00:05:04.779 rip the Band -Aid off, so to speak. Why not just 00:05:04.779 --> 00:05:07.019 let it sit there? Because the longer he waits, 00:05:07.519 --> 00:05:10.360 the more the story hurts his party. And there's 00:05:10.360 --> 00:05:12.600 always the risk that more documents could leak. 00:05:12.779 --> 00:05:15.480 I mean, they have 23 ,000 pages from Epstein's 00:05:15.480 --> 00:05:18.660 lawyers. Wow. So by scheduling the vote, he manages 00:05:18.660 --> 00:05:21.240 the damage and gets it over with. House passage 00:05:21.240 --> 00:05:23.660 seems, I think, inevitable now. You'll probably 00:05:23.660 --> 00:05:25.800 see dozens of Republicans join in. But that's 00:05:25.800 --> 00:05:27.180 where it stops, right? It goes to the Senate 00:05:27.180 --> 00:05:29.060 and the majority leader soon doesn't have to 00:05:29.060 --> 00:05:31.540 bring it up for a vote. Correct. And even if 00:05:31.540 --> 00:05:34.079 it passed, the chance of Trump signing it is, 00:05:34.079 --> 00:05:37.459 as one source put it, approximately 0 .00 percent. 00:05:37.759 --> 00:05:39.920 So what's the real significance here if it's 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:42.139 not going to become law? The significance is 00:05:42.139 --> 00:05:45.100 the political shift. Six months ago, the idea 00:05:45.100 --> 00:05:47.279 of the House passing this bill was pure fantasy. 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:49.800 The fact that a few emails could force a vote 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:52.740 this quickly, it just shows how fragile the whole 00:05:52.740 --> 00:05:55.319 system is to these kinds of revelations. This 00:05:55.319 --> 00:05:57.860 story is definitely not over. Hashtag tag tag 00:05:57.860 --> 00:06:00.480 three, the grassroots surge and new candidates. 00:06:01.060 --> 00:06:02.759 And that volatility we're talking about is being 00:06:02.759 --> 00:06:05.060 mirrored at the grassroots level. Our sources 00:06:05.060 --> 00:06:06.819 are pointing to something called the Momdani 00:06:06.819 --> 00:06:09.819 effect. Yeah, this is inspired by Zoran Mamdani's 00:06:09.819 --> 00:06:12.420 election as mayor of New York City, and the reason 00:06:12.420 --> 00:06:15.259 it was so galvanizing is the scale of the victory. 00:06:15.500 --> 00:06:17.920 Right, he's not just a mayor. He's overseeing 00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:21.660 an organization with 280 ,000 employees and, 00:06:21.660 --> 00:06:24.420 what, a $110 billion budget? A budget bigger 00:06:24.420 --> 00:06:27.360 than Target or Disney. It showed that a young, 00:06:27.519 --> 00:06:30.319 unconventional progressive could win a massive, 00:06:30.660 --> 00:06:33.339 powerful executive position. It made that kind 00:06:33.339 --> 00:06:35.660 of success feel viable. And the numbers back 00:06:35.660 --> 00:06:38.139 that up. Oh, absolutely. An organization called 00:06:38.139 --> 00:06:40.600 Run for Something, which helps young progressives, 00:06:40.899 --> 00:06:43.660 saw over 4 ,000 people sign up to run for office 00:06:43.660 --> 00:06:46.100 right after Mom Donnie's win. And that's on top 00:06:46.100 --> 00:06:48.939 of a surge of 10 ,000 earlier in the year. That's 00:06:48.939 --> 00:06:51.740 a huge wave of new energy. It is. But there is 00:06:51.740 --> 00:06:54.300 a cautionary note in the sources. One strategist 00:06:54.300 --> 00:06:56.319 warned you can't just clone Mom Donnie's campaign 00:06:56.319 --> 00:06:58.699 and drop it in, say, rural South Carolina. The 00:06:58.699 --> 00:07:00.939 message has to fit the place. Exactly. But the 00:07:00.939 --> 00:07:02.860 universal theme, the thing that seems to work 00:07:02.860 --> 00:07:05.360 everywhere, is this idea that the country is 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:08.019 on the wrong track and current leaders are failing 00:07:08.019 --> 00:07:10.360 the people. And why is that specific message 00:07:10.360 --> 00:07:13.089 so powerful right now? Because it taps into this 00:07:13.089 --> 00:07:15.930 shared frustration with institutions. It doesn't 00:07:15.930 --> 00:07:17.810 matter if you're worried about health care costs 00:07:17.810 --> 00:07:21.029 in a city or the economy in a small town. It's 00:07:21.029 --> 00:07:23.629 an anti -establishment message that lets a candidate 00:07:23.629 --> 00:07:26.250 harness that national anger and apply it to local 00:07:26.250 --> 00:07:29.250 problems. Speaking of new energy, we have a huge 00:07:29.250 --> 00:07:32.230 new name entering the scene. John Bouvier Kennedy 00:07:32.230 --> 00:07:35.509 Schlossberg, JFK's grandson, is apparently running 00:07:35.509 --> 00:07:38.629 for Congress in New York. Right. And at 32, he 00:07:38.629 --> 00:07:41.589 gets compared to Mamdani, young, progressive, 00:07:41.870 --> 00:07:44.129 good on social media. But he comes with these 00:07:44.129 --> 00:07:46.670 incredible built -in advantages. The name, for 00:07:46.670 --> 00:07:49.250 one. The name, the Yale and Harvard law background, 00:07:49.410 --> 00:07:52.250 and crucially, access to basically every major 00:07:52.250 --> 00:07:55.170 Democratic donor in the country. He has the history 00:07:55.170 --> 00:07:57.350 and the momentum of the new guard all at once. 00:07:57.550 --> 00:07:59.870 He's a formidable candidate from day one. Right. 00:07:59.930 --> 00:08:02.129 Let's pivot to the next big election cycle, the 00:08:02.129 --> 00:08:05.310 2026 midterms and some of the risks brewing under 00:08:05.310 --> 00:08:08.019 the surface. The sources draw a really striking 00:08:08.019 --> 00:08:10.879 parallel to the 1894 midterms. What happened 00:08:10.879 --> 00:08:13.920 then? NC94 was a complete political bloodbath 00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:16.660 for the Democrats. They lost 114 house seats. 00:08:16.699 --> 00:08:19.699 That's 32 % of their entire caucus. Wow. Was 00:08:19.699 --> 00:08:21.959 that just the economy? The economy was a factor, 00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:24.579 sure, but the losses were made so much worse 00:08:24.579 --> 00:08:27.379 because Democrats had been, as the sources say, 00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:30.339 too greedy with their gerrymandering. They created 00:08:30.339 --> 00:08:32.980 what's called a dummymander. A dummymander. So 00:08:32.980 --> 00:08:34.899 the problem wasn't that the districts were bad. 00:08:35.179 --> 00:08:38.299 but that they were too perfect, too aggressive. 00:08:38.460 --> 00:08:40.720 That's the trap. They drew tons of districts 00:08:40.720 --> 00:08:44.539 with really thin margins like 53 % or 55 % to 00:08:44.539 --> 00:08:46.980 maximize their number of seats. But when the 00:08:46.980 --> 00:08:49.519 national mood shifted just a little bit, those 00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:52.159 thin margins collapsed everywhere all at once. 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:54.720 Like a house of cards. Precisely. And the sources 00:08:54.720 --> 00:08:58.980 warn that 2026 could, well, it could rhyme with 00:08:58.980 --> 00:09:01.860 1894. What are the factors that are aligning 00:09:01.860 --> 00:09:04.500 to create that risk? It's sort of a four part 00:09:04.500 --> 00:09:07.669 problem. One. aggressive mid -decade gerrymandering, 00:09:08.049 --> 00:09:10.289 two, using bad data that doesn't account for 00:09:10.289 --> 00:09:13.049 shifting voter behavior, three, a very energized 00:09:13.049 --> 00:09:14.870 base, in this case, driven by negative feelings 00:09:14.870 --> 00:09:17.909 about Trump, and four, a weak economy. It's a 00:09:17.909 --> 00:09:19.690 dangerous mix. And we're already seeing some 00:09:19.690 --> 00:09:21.950 pushback against that aggressive map drawing, 00:09:22.409 --> 00:09:25.830 right, in Kansas? Yes, exactly. In Kansas, the 00:09:25.830 --> 00:09:28.549 GOP leadership tried to redraw the map to target 00:09:28.549 --> 00:09:31.389 Sharice David's D plus two district, but they 00:09:31.389 --> 00:09:34.389 needed a special session, and at least 10 Republicans 00:09:34.389 --> 00:09:37.250 refused. to go along with it. And there were 00:09:37.250 --> 00:09:39.590 consequences for that dissent. Big consequences. 00:09:40.190 --> 00:09:42.250 Leadership immediately stripped them of their 00:09:42.250 --> 00:09:44.809 committee chairmanships. One of them, Representative 00:09:44.809 --> 00:09:47.409 Clark Sanders, warned that the whole stunt just 00:09:47.409 --> 00:09:49.990 gives Democrats a club to beat us over the head 00:09:49.990 --> 00:09:53.450 with. It shows how high stakes the strategy is. 00:09:53.870 --> 00:09:56.389 Finally, let's look at the Supreme Court. They've 00:09:56.389 --> 00:09:59.169 agreed to hear a case out of Mississippi about 00:09:59.169 --> 00:10:01.960 late arriving absentee ballots. What are the 00:10:01.960 --> 00:10:04.419 stakes here? So, granting cert means the case 00:10:04.419 --> 00:10:08.179 is on, and the stakes are huge. The RNC is arguing 00:10:08.179 --> 00:10:10.419 that election day means all ballots have to be 00:10:10.419 --> 00:10:12.539 received by that day, even if they were postmarked 00:10:12.539 --> 00:10:14.500 earlier. And if the court agrees with that? It 00:10:14.500 --> 00:10:16.879 would upend voting procedures in more than a 00:10:16.879 --> 00:10:18.919 dozen states. It would invalidate millions of 00:10:18.919 --> 00:10:20.620 votes that are currently counted. And this is 00:10:20.620 --> 00:10:23.059 where overseas voters, especially the military, 00:10:23.440 --> 00:10:26.360 become a huge factor. A crucial factor. International 00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:29.919 mail can take weeks. You have active duty soldiers 00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:32.980 whose ballots, even if mailed on time, might 00:10:32.980 --> 00:10:35.580 not arrive until after Election Day. And taking 00:10:35.580 --> 00:10:37.580 away the right to vote from active duty soldiers 00:10:37.580 --> 00:10:40.919 is. It's a politically toxic look, to say the 00:10:40.919 --> 00:10:42.600 least. That's a point that will almost certainly 00:10:42.600 --> 00:10:45.080 come up in oral arguments and could really influence 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:47.299 the court's thinking. So we've connected the 00:10:47.299 --> 00:10:49.759 dots. The fallout from the shutdown is creating 00:10:49.759 --> 00:10:52.620 future political pain. These document leaks are 00:10:52.620 --> 00:10:55.629 forcing immediate legislative action and new 00:10:55.629 --> 00:10:57.830 candidates are furnishing all this grassroots 00:10:57.830 --> 00:11:00.549 energy. And it's all happening against this backdrop 00:11:00.549 --> 00:11:03.649 of major structural risks like the Dummymander 00:11:03.649 --> 00:11:06.490 and these potential Supreme Court rulings. What's 00:11:06.490 --> 00:11:09.009 the final takeaway for you, our listener? The 00:11:09.009 --> 00:11:11.529 takeaway is this incredible convergence of volatility. 00:11:11.649 --> 00:11:14.750 You have these thinly drawn gerrymandered districts 00:11:14.750 --> 00:11:17.429 and you combine that with either super high voter 00:11:17.429 --> 00:11:19.850 turnout or voter suppression from a court ruling. 00:11:20.169 --> 00:11:22.710 Small shifts in sentiment could lead to massive 00:11:22.710 --> 00:11:25.250 unexpected outcomes. We could see another political 00:11:25.250 --> 00:11:27.970 shock, just like in 1894. Which leaves us with 00:11:27.970 --> 00:11:30.769 a final question for you to think about. If that 00:11:30.769 --> 00:11:33.409 political climate does shift dramatically, will 00:11:33.409 --> 00:11:35.830 these aggressive gerrymandering strategies we've 00:11:35.830 --> 00:11:38.830 talked about be seen, in hindsight, as the ultimate 00:11:38.830 --> 00:11:41.250 dummymander, the very thing that set the stage 00:11:41.250 --> 00:11:44.029 for a spectacular political collapse? Something 00:11:44.029 --> 00:11:45.110 for you to research further.