Which gets to the third thing. Oh. And that third thing is –– I forgot we had a third thing. We have a third thing. That third thing. He’s not Rick Perry. He remembers all three things. Absolutely there’s not going to be an oops moment, I understand. I’m Michelle Cottle, I cover national politics for New York Times Opinion. And this week, We’ve got the band back together. I’ve got my fabulous colleagues, David French, coming to us from Chicago and our man in Charlottesville, Jamelle Bouie. Guys, good to see you as always. Hey, Michelle. Hey, David. All right. Today we’re going to talk about the center of the electoral universe in the coming week. Texas and the emerging cracks in Trump’s coalition. Usual caveat. We are recording this on Thursday, and Trump is set to head to Texas on Friday ahead of the state’s primary elections next week. So anything goes. But as for the current known knowns, Trump is hitting the Lone Star trail to spread his message of economic victory prosperity. Now, of course, this past Tuesday, he had an even bigger platform from which to tout his economic record during the marathon State of the Union. So how did he do on that front. I’m astonished that I managed to sit through the whole two hours. Hey good endurance. Very impressive. But the things that stuck out to me, I mean, the two big things that stuck out to me. The first was really the level of truly lurid and virulent racism, especially against Somali Americans. I think people have gotten desensitized to this kind of public performance of bigotry, and they shouldn’t because it’s truly extraordinary. It’s not as if my all-American past American presidents, or even most American presidents have ever been racial egalitarians. But there is a recognition that public bigotry of that kind was just not acceptable. It’s not a thing that was O.K because the president is supposed to represent all Americans and at best try to represent all Americans at their highest aspirations. And that gets to the second thing that was striking to me about the State of the Union, which is that there are no aspirations here. It’s the most base kind of emotions and attitudes and feelings a crude instinct to dominate others. And that’s all that Trump has to offer to the public. So he was supposed to be going in there to focus on the economy and make America feel like he understands their concerns. Now, he started off with a list, a laundry list of all the magical things he feels that he has done for the country, and that included some plans or moves he’s made, although they were creatively spun, how he has lifted so many people up off of food stamps, by which he means he has slashed the number of people who are receiving food stamps. So I’m not sure that even in that small chunk of time where he talked about the economy and economic achievements, that it would necessarily resonate with a public that clearly doesn’t think that the economic problems have been solved. And I just wanted to get your thoughts on that specific part of this, because that’s so important to the party in November, this is a really important point. And I think it’s something that both parties really they’re doing what they only thing they can do when voters experiences are sour. So what Trump did is boast about things in a completely false way to say, everything’s better now. Everything’s great. But vote. You cannot lie your way out of voters actual experiences. So if voters are experiencing a job crunch, if they’re experiencing higher prices and key goods and services that they want if their interest rates aren’t as low as they want can talk and boast all you want. And it’s going. It’s not going to land. And this is something the Democrats kind of learned in the 2024 race is that even though inflation had come way down, people were still behind where they’d been in 2018, 2019, etc. and saying, here are the statistics, aren’t they great, wasn’t effective to Trump people’s experiences. And now Trump is coming out and he’s upped the ante and saying, well, I’ll make up statistics. I’ll make things up and tell you how great everything is. But again, you just can’t lie your way out of voters actual experiences. So, Jamelle, what do you think in terms of looking at the midterm, they know what he needs to do, or they have a sense of what he needs to do. How did he approach. I mean, I don’t think this was particularly successful. We have actually as David kind of alluded we have an example of a elderly, declining president trying to tell people that things are good when they feel otherwise. Just a disaster didn’t work out well for him Yeah it’s just so in fairness to lawmakers, I’ll say in fairness to people in politics, there is a bit of a conundrum here, because macroeconomic indicators up until recently were showing a pretty strong American economy. Like something that was humming along. And even in the midst of that, even in the midst of at least what appeared to be wage growth, what appeared to be high employment growth, people were still very dissatisfied. The vibe was off. People didn’t feel as if they were living in a prosperous society, even though the indicators seem to say that they were. And that’s like a hard problem to solve. So that’s me being fair to the political problem here. But the Trump administration and Donald Trump have done nothing to try to really reach people where they are. Cutting food stamps, cutting A.C.A. subsidies, cutting direct assistance to people. Recent analyses say that the tariffs have cost the typical American household about $1,000. That’s the low end, higher end. The Democratic minority in Congress put out a report higher end, around $1,700. So somewhere between 1,000 and $1,700, between a little less than $100 a month and a little more than $100 a month. Americans have lost due to tariffs. And that’s real money. So the president, the president going before the country and trying to browbeat people into believing that things are all good. I don’t think it’s going to be very effective. And I actually want to make one just quick observation. It’s 2026. We are 10 years removed, just about from when we had a president who could deliver a good to exceptional oratory. Neither Trump nor Biden, even young Biden, not a particularly good public speaker, neither Trump nor Biden have really that kind of rhetorical command. But, politics is rhetoric, and we are living at a time when the high arts of rhetoric are just in such short supply. We got to get to Texas next. But I want to jump on that because I am fascinated by that, because one of the things that Trump’s supporters have always bragged about is that he speaks on a fourth grade level. And so I’m wondering how much of this is that. We have dumbed down society to the point that if you talk at too high a level, you’re just going to lose everybody who is going to think you’re snooty or whatever. And Trump has absolutely kind of embraced this whole Democrats bad. I’m good. Biggest, baddest ever. Whatever so I am fascinated by the idea of what would happen if we did have somebody who actually knew how to give a good old stemwinder anymore. I don’t know. Would it play. It’s a great question. And I think we’ve always had a vulnerability to just the lowest common denominator politics. But I think for me, when I was growing up, if you watched the way people interacted with each other, the arguments and the conversations that they had, it was fundamentally different, and we just didn’t know what we had when we had it. And it really has brought home to me when I teach undergrads. One time asked some of my students to watch the 2012 first debate between Romney and Obama, and I can’t remember if I’ve told this story before. The overwhelming sentiment that these students took from it was, I didn’t realize they were friends, or I didn’t realize how civil this could be. And I remember that 2012 first debate in particular is pretty tense. But you look at it now, it’s just fundamentally different. And I know there are Republicans out there. And he lost. Well, there are lots of examples of Republicans who won without being like Trump. So can we just dispense with the idea that that’s the only way to win. Well, it’s interesting that you have brought up civility and integrity and character, because that is indeed the perfect pivot to Texas. So in the Republican Senate primary. We are seeing very different political models fighting for the nomination down there. I spent some time down there going to various events, talking with people. Always a good time. Love it. What we’re looking at right now in the Senate race, a highly divisive MAGA warrior, state attorney General Ken Paxton, who we have talked much about on this show because what perhaps defines him more than his politics is his huge pile of scandals that he carries around with him. In this corner, we have representative Wesley Hunt, a young, charismatic, conservative military vet who would be Texas’s first Black Senator. And over here, the four term incumbent, John Cornyn, who is seen as too establishment and not nearly Trumpy enough by many in his party’s base. So what kind of champion does the party need this cycle to keep Texas deep red, but also maybe to start moving the party into dare we dream a post-Trump era. I am so all about this primary. I love your enthusiasm, I do. Yeah, some folks reached out to me recently and they were asking, O.K, what races are you paying attention to. And I said, three total like in the primary world and the I’m interested in the overall results. But when you’re talking about the granular results, my own congressional district and then the races in Texas, both primaries because this is such it is American national politics and our choice in a microcosm with Ken Paxton, it might be fair to say that he could be the most corrupt politician in America not named Donald Trump. It’s quite possible the charges against him. Look, there are personal friends of mine who used to work in his AG’s office and quit in protest as a result, because of the conduct in this office. It was insiders. And when I tell you insiders, I’m not talking like squishy Republicans or whatever, but people are very thoughtful senior hardcore staffers, senior very thoughtful, very conservative Texans said no. I mean, he almost was. He was impeached, almost convicted. And then you have John Cornyn, who I don’t think anyone would call him a squish. I mean, there’s some resentment that he signed onto a gun control bill, but he signed on to measures that were extremely popular, just extremely popular. And so, the idea that John Cornyn says squish and he needs to be supplanted by the most corrupt politician not named Donald Trump in America. It’s absurd. And then I think with the Democrats, you almost have. It’s like the platonic form of the choice. How do you fight Trumpism. Is it going to be the populist, pugilistic the Jasmine Crockett. I’m going to walk out there and punch you in the face rhetorically, or is it going to be like the walking TED Talk. James Talarico, who is – A seminarian, no less. They’re very contrasting styles, very contrasting. And here’s the interesting thing. If Ken Paxton wins, I think Talarico could probably beat him. And I think Jasmine Crockett might be able to beat him. I think if Cornyn wins, then the dynamic shifts very dramatically. But it really is one of it’s just what. Which way. Primary voter. Which way. Jamelle, what are you thinking. Ultimately, what happens in the Texas Senate race in terms of who wins the actual Senate seat in November is going to be shaped by national conditions. If Trump is just hideously unpopular, if they’ve done something terrible and egregious that got national attention, then I would very much agree that even if it’s Cornyn and Crockett, then I would say Jasmine Crockett has a decent chance of winning that race. It’s all national conditions. You raised this question, Michelle, of whether there would be like for the Republicans is to the extent that this race might chart a post-Trump course forward. And I come to the view that first, as long as Donald Trump is alive, there will not be a post-ztrump Republican Party. I think he’s like a gravity well, and there’s no real escaping. There’s no real escaping his influence in that way. So I’m not certain that there is any way for Republican to truly distance themselves from Trump, even in the interest of trying to win elections. And this gets back to our previous discussion, which is this, which is just what Republican primary voters seem to believe is necessary to win elections. And they seem to believe that what is necessary is a level of aggression and contempt for decency that really does advantage a guy like Paxton. So one of the things we’re looking at with Texas in particular, is how the party is holding on to or not holding on to the gains that it has made among Hispanic voters who make up about a third of the electorate in the state. So in 2024, with Trump on the ballot, we saw a significant shift of Latino men specifically toward the G.O.P. Now that support seems to be slipping away. And again, it’s always different when Trump is not on the ballot. And I know that I’ve done reporting at the border about the Republican Party trying to woo Latino voters up and down the ballot. Even in years when Trump wasn’t there. But observers in the state note that the Trump policies have not been all that Latino voters were hoping for. So one question in this race, what does the party do to stop the slippage among this demographic, or is there anything. I don’t think there’s anything that can be done. So after the 2024 election and after, Trump more or less replicated George W. Bush’s 2004 performance with Latinos and even Black Americans, it should have begun to reconstitute that Bush coalition. There was a lot of I would say, crowing among Republicans like, oh, we are now this multiracial, working class coalition. But it’s important to distinguish between an electoral coalition and a durable party coalition. A durable party coalition is pieced together through all kinds of moves, through all kinds of actions over time. So the Roosevelt F.D.R. New Deal coalition wasn’t just the 1932 election or the 1936 election. It was a product of the New Deal. It was a product of a set of policies, a set of political approaches that didn’t just win votes, but that binded a number of different communities and different groups of Americans to a particular political order. Trump was able to assemble an electoral coalition that put him over the top. But the administration equated that, equated that with having bound those voters to the political project. And that’s not what happened. It could have happened. There was a path to do that. But what happened instead was operating under the assumption that the battle had been won. The Trump administration and the Republican allies in Congress just began to pursue every single ideological hobbyhorse and bugaboo that they have. And the result has been that this nascent coalition immediately began to fall apart because a bunch of these voters weren’t voting for snatch and grabs of Brown people off the streets. They were voting for maybe another stimulus check. I mean, in the polling shows this among Black voters, among Latino voters, among young voters, young men in particular. Every gain Trump made in 2024 hasn’t just reversed itself, but has gone basically fleeing in the other direction. David so when you think about the Trump coalition, if you looked at the commercials that Trump was blanketing the airwaves with they were inflation, the economy, too much immigration, just very mainstream messages. But if you went to the rallies, if you saw the rallies, it was wild just wild down every conspiracy rabbit hole you can imagine. And so the question was, who’s going to govern commercial Trump or rally Trump. Well, it wasn’t even really a question. It was going to be rally Trump. And so you put the wildest, most extreme people in charge of some of the most delicate and important policies in the United States of America. And what you’re going to see is you’re going to see extremism and you’re going to see brutality. And when you combine extremism and brutality, especially when you overlay that with the reality that a lot of Black and Hispanic Americans, depending on where they are in this country, can’t feel like they can walk down the street without necessarily having to show me your papers. And even if they show, their papers can sometimes be seized anyway. And when you do that are you can’t build a multiracial coalition around that. That is just not possible. And so he just took he’s taken a sledgehammer to his coalition literally from day one. Well, I had been wondering, when you are focusing so much on low propensity voters and obviously the Trump administration went. I mean, the Trump campaign went all in on whipping voters to the polls who don’t like politics, who don’t pay. I remember watching people from the campaign or related to the campaign going out and interviewing folks on college campuses, and you’d see these young guys in particular. They were just so excited about the vibe of this campaign. They were expecting it to be so much fun and whatever else got accomplished, it was just this pro wrestling, let’s get out there and do this. Well, but Trump didn’t get out there and do the things that people were really interested in with the economy. And I do think to Jamelle’s point, if he had really dug in and made changes to how people’s lives were going, then he could have gotten more of a pass on some of his other crazy, most extreme policies. But he didn’t deliver on what people cared about. And they see him focused on stuff that they’re really. This is what we got. So you remove all those low propensity voters from the equation and suddenly you have a very different landscape. And I’m not and I’m not sure that the party can do much to change that between now and November. It’s just my thought. I mean, the other thing is that these voters weren’t voting for the Republican Party. They were voting for Donald Trump. And so if Donald Trump is not on the ballot, the electoral problem the Republican Party has always had in the age of Trump is this that Trump has built a strange cult of personality around himself. People, low propensity voters come out in 2016 and 2020 and 24 to vote for the Trump vibe. They don’t know anything about what a Trump administration might look like. They’re not. I remember saying to people, in the 2024, hey, you’re not just voting for Donald Trump, you’re voting for Stephen Miller. And these are people who don’t care about this. It means nothing to them. They’re voting for Trump. The fun uncle or Trump, the star of the “Apprentice,” the lively dancer, the lively dancer. They’re voting for Trump. Kind of the big. It’d be funny to have a big joke in office. Like, that’s the whole Trump deal, a big joke. Who is a good businessman or something. And very manly. So manly. And somehow people think he’s like, very masculine. I find I still find that very strange, but that’s what they’re voting for. And so the challenge for Republicans has always been to how can they convert people who vote for Trump into reliable Republicans. And they just haven’t been able to do it. And so what happens was Democrats who have converted activated a bunch of high propensity voters, college educated voters, moderate to high income voters who would have voted for Republicans, who voted for George W. Bush, right. Who voted who, if they’re old enough and voted for Bob Dole and John McCain. So many suburban moms, people who would have voted for Republicans are like, I don’t like all this chaos. You could call them anti-chaos voters. I don’t like chaos. All I want to do is make my money, raise my family not have to think about this shit. Those people have started voting for Democrats. You have everywhere in the country these voters who just like, don’t. It’s exhausting to have to pay attention to this stuff all the time. It’s exhausting for us. And this is our job. The New York Times pays us money to do this. And I’m still tired, and I don’t feel like –– We’re all tired. We’re tired of it. So if you’re not being paid money to do it, I can imagine that it’s very frustrating to experience. And I don’t see the Republican Party having any real strategy for dealing with that. All right. So last thing before we end. So what message do you think is most useful for Democrats in this cycle and in Texas. Let me just say that we focus on the top of the ticket. But as my eternal hobbyhorse is that’s not all that’s at stake, especially this year, where Trump has tried to rig the system to get himself more house votes. I think all up and down the ballot, you’re fighting for something important in Texas. So I just want people to think about that. This is not just about one Senate race, but going forward, kind of. What message do you think is most important for the Democratic Party in this cycle. I mean, I’m very much of the view that I don’t people should tailor messages to their particular states and communities and circumstances. But one thing that does seem to resonate, in part because it kind of reflects the two sides of where Trump has become very unpopular is. And I saw Ruben Gallego on CNN or something a couple of days ago say something to the effect of they took $75 billion from Medicaid to give to ICE, So I think that actually is the message. It’s both people are angry about the health care cuts. They’re angry about the ways that the administration has been kind of indifferent to their material circumstance. And they don’t like ICE agents shooting people in the streets. So that to me, is the message the broad generic message that would probably resonate in every single congressional district in the country. They took $75 billion from Medicaid to give to ICE and to give to people who are violating your rights. All right. David O.K. So have you all seen the Netflix movie “The Rip“? Ben Affleck, Matt Damon. Yes really good. Yes, I do highly recommend. Remember how Matt Damon has the two tattoos which are acronyms for are we the good guys. And we are, and we always will be. It’s a cool part of the movie. Yep but I’m thinking of different tattoos Michelle. So I’m thinking on the left hand the Democrats should have S.T.M. – stop the madness and on the right hand it should be F.O.Y. Focus on you. So there are the two elements here. We have to stop the madness. Stop Trump from wrecking our society. Wrecking the Constitution so that we can do what both parties should have been doing for a long time. Which is why focus on you. So I think of it that way. It’s two things at once. And I feel like to stop the madness pulls in both the Talarico, super polished mainstream Democrat and the more pugilistic Jasmine Crockett. Because to stop the madness, you got to be somewhat pugilistic. You’re going to have to stand up. You’re going to have to have courage to stop the madness. But it’s got to be also focused on you, because we’ve got to break out of this thermostatic cycle where everybody’s being elected every two to four years to stop the other side. And so who’s going to break this logjam. Stop the other side and then actually deliver. That’s going to be the person who starts to deliver an enduring coalition and enduring governing structure Yeah that strikes me as right. And it’s what I’ve heard from Democratic lawmakers, including Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, which is that you’ve got to connect those dots between the issues that are keeping people up at night and the chaos and madness and corruption of the current administration, which is that because they’re doing X, your health care costs more, your schools are worse. housing is more unstable. They did illegal tariffs. And now if there are refunds you’re not going to get them back. You’re not going to you’ll never see that money again. Like the tariff thing I find fascinating because as we’ve talked about, people don’t pay a lot of attention to economic details and policies and macro trends. But at some point in time and tariffs can be complicated. It’s not entirely clear that Trump understands tariffs a lot of the time he doesn’t know what they are. But the American people at some point decided they really hate tariffs. If you look in the polls and that’s it. It doesn’t matter what Trump says, which is why it’s fascinating and probably gave a few Republican lawmakers a migraine that he just drilled down on that during the State of the Union and intends to just keep doubling and tripling down. I’d like to land this plane there so that we can get time for everyone’s favorite piece of the show. And what that is. Recommendations. Jamelle, go first. What do I need to know. Sure thing. And this has been the theme for my recommendations this month. Just like watching Black history movies, movies from Black directors, movies about the subjects related to Black History. So I watched a 2021 documentary, “MLK/FBI,” which is more or less about the F.B.I.‘s long surveillance of M.L.K. during his life. It’s fascinating stuff, has a lot of great commentary from historians and people who knew King who are still living. So I really recommend it. And you can actually do a double feature with another documentary that’s a little older than that from 2018 called “King in the wilderness,” which is about King’s last years alive, the year 66 to 68. So both two great documentaries on maybe the darker parts of King’s experience in King’s life during those years. And I’ve also read a book by the historian Thomas Ricks, “Waging a Good War,” about the Civil Rights movement. And one thing I’ve taken away from this somewhat immersion in all of this is just how extraordinary that struggle was the people involved in that struggle. And how I do think that in addition to how our national mythologizing of the movement and its participants kind of sands away the radicalism, I think it also sands away the really extraordinary heroism at great cost to health and lives. And many, many movement veterans did not go on to live long lives because of the stress they endured in those years. So are worth watching. Excellent aforementioned documentaries and worth just thinking about the period less in terms of again, mythology and more in terms of the level of not just organization and dedication, but internal strength it took to stand against an entire social system. All right. David? O.K. So Jamelle really should have gone after me because I’m going to be so trite compared to that. I’m here for it. I’m here for it. O.K, so. One of the great things about every New Year is you restart the nerd cycle, which means that you have a series of fantasy and sci-fi, new seasons, new series that restart every year. And for those of us who ride that nerd cycle with glee, there was much anticipation and nervousness about this show. New “Game of Thrones” show, “Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” and it freaking delivers. I’m still not caught up with the finale, so don’t say anything, listeners, but it’s really good. And this is going to be weird to say in connection with anything related to “Game of Thrones,” but this actually has lots of moments of delight and fun. It’s a fun show to watch now it’s still “Game of Thrones,” it’s still HBO. Some people might have to avert their eyes at some points, but it is. There is blood very well. There’s lots of blood. There is lots of blood. And the two lead actors. The whole thing. So I’m not going to say anything. You’re behind. And the two main actors, Duncan the Tall and Egg are just great. They’re just great together. And how old is the child actor. I don’t but 9 or 10 kid performance is hard. And this is a very, very hard performance. I have to say. Yes very hard. Absolutely all right. Michelle, I’m glad you’re picking up what I’m laying down. O.K absolutely. I’m going to go with a book. I will periodically go to the recommendations from the times for fiction, nonfiction, whatever I picked up “There Is No Place for Us,” which is a book about the working homeless by Brian Goldstone. And what it does is it charts five families living in Atlanta, lanta. We’re talking about Covid era, so very contemporary, and it’s just kind of looking at this very particular subset, this subculture of people who they’re not like on the street you think of when you talk about the homeless population, it’s more people who couch surf from relatives floors to sometimes they’re in their cars. But a lot of times they’re at these extended stay hotels, which is just another way to exploit the poor and working class. And I actually I had a friend who passed away a couple of years ago, but her family got caught in this cycle with these extended stay hotels. And it’s really appalling. So they paint this with so much compassion and just the different families all have these different challenges that they’re working with. And I’m only about halfway through so already I think. Highly recommend. So both of you guys: Justice, mercy, courage, sacrifice. Me: Swords, dragons. That has to be a piece of this. David you –– You have to have swords and you’ve got to have an occasional dragon. Occasional dragon. The occasional dragon. I have questions we’ll talk about these offline about the targaryens in this. But we’re going to say goodbye for the week. Thank you so much, as always, for helping me solve the world’s troubles. Always a pleasure. Thanks, Michelle.
