Fourcast Episode 8: Not a Red Wave - a Red Typhoon

the numbers are stunning because it is not just from people it is third fourth fifth generation Democrat Trump is certainly broken out of the gate very quickly there's no question about it if this were a horse race he would be several lengths ahead of the rest of the field one for long into the [Music] race welcome to the forecast where four from pundits talk politics meet the allstar lineup I'm benam Rose mishak magazine editor at large I'm Mor litwak teach Coalition CEO and political Insider I'm Stu loer longtime Democratic communication strategist and I'm Ellie Steinberg conservative commentator okay so let's get down to politics all right welcome to the forecast this is a special postelection edition for those listeners who've been following throughout the election elections are I don't know how else to explain them sometimes I compare them to a football game or some sport gend sometimes it's a marathon sometimes it's a Sprint it just depends on your analogy that what you want to use but the game is over it's very clear after this election that it was a Red Wave some of us predicted a red wave I don't think anyone any of us saw this red typhoon unprecedented results which we're going to talk about at the top of the hour I think what we want to start and do is that I don't think there's a listener or someone who cares about politics in America who is not opining over the last weeks if you're a republican you're saying we told you so this is what we thought was going to happen and we told you so and if you are a member of the democratic party you're probably going one or two ways you're probably even saying to yourself that this a disaster and there were warning signs and we have to fix the warning signs or you saying look ra won overwhelmingly and then four years later and then years later you know see change we saw as we saw and all that um and so politics is cyclical and we'll wait our turn and we'll see what happens so this these some of the ruminations and other things that are happening here I for one think that it is a I think it's extremely important for the Democratic party to have sort of a gut check and figure out what went wrong what went right Etc and right now I mean as there's sort of a bipartisan consensus in American political history where I think it was MIT McConnell said elections had consequences Nancy Peli said something similar as well the Republicans are Riding High I mean they won so let's get it and kick it off right off the bat let's hear from St to start stew what are your post electric thoughts as we go around the horn here so what I think you're right and wrong Mory I think you are right uh that politics is cycal 100% of the time when one party controls all three houses both houses of Congress and the White House they end up overplaying their hand the Democrats have definitely done it the Republicans have done it uh even when they only have two parties even when one when one party only has two of The Big Three they overplay their hand so it is absolutely cyclical in that the Republicans their danger is doing doing things that are not what regular Americans want to do but rather Niche core issues that are important for the Republican base I'm saying this is a Democrat do not be overly concerned about Niche issues uh in a base if you do you will overplay your hand and there will be a future look get another second if I could Mory um disagree with your idea that nobody saw it coming because I think listeners to this podcast heard a lot of what was coming we have talked about time and time again the importance of the immigration issue how is the most powerful issue Donald Trump has I kept on making fun of him insulting him pointing out that when he had the chance to hammer kamla Harris On the Border he didn't in the debate that was obviously a de dividing issue and we talked a lot about split party voting and as it turns out as you can see in places where the Democratic Senate candidates over performed KLA Harris and there are places where the Republican candidate underperformed Trump what think voting is still a real thing b y You' spoken a lot about this and you've talked about in your column also which is the idea that this is not the Democratic party that that you grew up with is not the Democratic party that you once witnessed Etc do you think that's part of what happened here it's definitely part of what happened here but I've also talked about how the Democratic voters have turned to the left and to the progressive side of things over the last few years so I'm not surprised that they came up with a candidate like kamla Harris who I don't think was a strong candidate to begin with and it seems like they're trying to make some moves to the center you've heard Gretchen Whitmer the governor of Michigan who was a a definite Prospect for 2028 for the Democrats addressing a pro-israel rally I'm not sure that that uh momentum is going to last but it's a move in the right direction I do want to add one thing and I did write this in my column for this week that uh back in 1976 after Watergate Nixon resigned and Jerry Ford's two mediocre years in the White House they they had a poll that showed that only 22% of Americans identified with the Republican party and people were talking about the Republican party was dead four years later guess what Carter did a lousy job as president from 76 to 80 for the Democrats and Ronald Reagan came in and he won 489 electoral votes 1980 so we can't count but as far as uh the Republicans and Trump is concerned he's going full force he is he's in the 16 it took him nine days to make his first cabinet appointment uh now I think he's made about nine cabinet appointments in his first seven days so he's working faster he's working harder he's picking people who uh have the same political ideology as he does some of his picks are out of the box Pete Heth for uh secretary of defense is is is a bit of a heads scratcher I I like Pete I've interviewed him here when he's been here uh is he going to be able to manage a trillion dollar budget and the whole defense establishment I'm not sure I think Alise stefanic is a fantastic pick for un Ambassador we don't know about Rubio yet at press time it seems like he's going to get the nomination but it hasn't been 100% announced by Trump officially he's making good FS he's working hard and uh if he accomplishes with the team that he's putting together what the voters expect from him uh we might see something that we don't usually see normally in uh midterms 2026 we would expect the Republican the governing party to lose seats in the Congress that might not happen they might be able to increase the lead if they're able to uh get the agenda going and people like the way it's going I want to turn over to Ellie Ellie I I happen to have here with me my special rosecolor glasses that I wear depending on whether or not there's a red wave or not right so there's one way I can look up it and I could say okay this is a red wave and everything is hunky dory the other hand seemingly there's some more of those there was Senate splits there were seats that the Republicans could have won that they didn't the house is extremely close as well so you can look at it one way or you can say to yourself wait a second from the Republican party's perspective was this such an overwhelming success are there trouble is it trouble up ahead because I know some of those set of seats they definitely should have won and some of those House Seats they should have won as well it shouldn't be as closed as it is if there truly was a red weight so I'm I'm just wearing the different kind of glasses I have Ellie what do you think yeah I have the same I think I have the same rosecolor glasses as you do it's hard not to be um happy after such a performance I want to say a few things about this election the first thing that I think we need to understand when we see the results of this election is I heard Ben Dominic say it on uitt he said this is a buyers remor election 2020 things were things were out of control in the country generally and people looked what was in front of them they had a promise of let's put the grown-ups back in trou Char and they went for it did they get the grown-ups in charge no they didn't get the grown-ups in charge they got a couple of years that of kind of insane results um so that's the first thing the the thing that Trump has working for him going forward you know we talk about already anticipating we're very forward-looking here on the forecast we're already looking forward to the midterms even though he wasn't even sworn in yet but the thing that he has working for him which I think previous candidates and previous presidents did not is Trump's promises were very unambiguous a lot of times traditional presidential candidates come in with sort of this fluffy touchy feely sort of stuff that they say they're going to do like opportunity economy like opportunity economy you know um and that kind of thing but it's very hard for them to turn that into what what it is that people want Trump promised Mass deportations there's not a single person just to pick one thing as an example probably what's going to be the most what what you see already the media is conting on and it's going to be the most controversial part of his plank he promised that people know he promised that and he has no choice but to deliver it now the second thing that W see has going for him is that in the midterms the Senate map very very favorable for the Republicans of course we all know two years out it doesn't mean that much the the last thing I want to say in this and then we can get to talking about the cabinet more you know more specifically we know that K Harris ran a god- awful campaign we know now a lot of the stories coming out less interesting to me the stories you know that she had a billion dollars and she's ending in debt and where she spent the money um at a certain point you know you get to a certain point you have enough money that you're you're overspending just because you have to spend it down do I think that it's smart to pay Oprah a million dollars no do I think it's smart to spend $100,000 on a set for a podcast no but Stu is right when Stu said that if kamla Harris would lose the Democrats will be debating the sizes of the tables because that's where they're holding now the Democrats can't figure out which part they want to you know of of this debate they want to focus on I want to divide into three different topics I want to talk about the Democratic party and Harris campaign I want to talk about Trump's first 100 days and then I want to talk about Jewish voters and some of the panel things let's kick it off right at the top with the Harris campaign and sort of Segway from what Ellie was talking about I'll kick it off I start with ban is is did she run a particularly bad campaign or was it impossible for any Democrat to beat Trump in this election which was it I'm not sure that the campaign was so bad it certainly wasn't impossible for a Democrat to beat Trump we see the race really was close maybe not in the Electoral College at the end but uh even in all the swing states that Trump did win and by the way kudos to Ellie for predicting a few weeks ago that uh Trump would win every single swing state my doubts on one or two of them the race really was fairly close I I think the candidate was weak I don't think that the campaign was so terrible I do think though that what really harmed Harris was those first few weeks after well of the joy and all of the hope and all of the hype uh out of the democratic convention that uh she waited weeks to give any kind of serious interviews and then when she did uh she fluffed a lot of them you know everyone talks about the phrase word salad but it's really true if you listen to some of the ass's students she just talked and she didn't say anything specific or anything particularly Lucid I think the final analysis that's what lost the race for her so bman believes it's it's really the can at the end of the day and there could could have been stew I always I said for a long time that in in I've never seen a candidate in almost any election win with 100 days it's unprecedented so so did you tend to agree with Benyamin that it's the candidate do you believe it's the time frame for the campaign do you believe another Democrat could have beaten Trump I believe that existentially it is very hard for incumbents anywhere I believe that immigration is a hard issue if there is a perception that the uh borders are open and people are coming here not working not playing by the same rules as everyone else and getting ahead that is extremely dangerous perception student perception I'm being kind and saying this is a perception the fact that it the fact that Joe Biden took the action to close the border in June 3rd I think it was shows that there was a a in in addition to all the problems that incumbents have everywhere the Border was a particular problem because it spoke to it spoke against Bill Clinton's formulation of we are here the people who work hard and play by the rule that is a fundamental problem I would also argue that like I mean we all have nits to pick I don't like I don't do this full time I don't really do keans full time when the Democrats talk about drug prescription drugs they win houses of Congress when the Democrats we talked about a lot of things we did not talk about $35 insulin all that much it certainly didn't break through we had the money to have it break through Ellie 30 seconds Also let's get what what do you think here which was it was it was it Harris or was it just she's up against incumbency she's up against an impossible scenario and then maybe it's the Harris biding thing isoss maybe if it would have been a Nome or Whitmer someone else it would have been a different campaign the answer to your question is yes it was the candidate it was the campaign it was um you know what's going on in the entire world but make no mistake it was a winnable race um it's not like Trump really is this Juggernaut who couldn't have been that thought um but along at any point you could turn to any single decision and say oh well was this a decision that caused to race like demat are trying to do now like oh if Joe Biden would have decided not to run free election then all would have been fine no all wouldn't have been fine he still had it would been a messy primary it would have been a messy primary and messy Democratic primary like we always did blooded each other up you can't keep people TCH in more than three months it should only be a 90-day race like any I mean we can get into this like at a later point the Cress needs to be reformed but at the point is she did yes she ran an awful campaign the very smart guy said to me on Election night to differ brilliant campaign and not brilliant Campa the brilliant campaign is the one that wins and the a r a r who said an important CL R matter of fact the most cluster of all people on this podcast Ellie is the one who said it to me a brilliant campaign is a winning campaign and a terrible campaign is a losing campaign and she ran an awful campaign because she did not win she did not win correct let's move to Trump he has a 100 days he has 200 days he has 300 days he has 50 days how long does he have to enact the mandates and things like that that he believes that he has and that is currently I mean right now it is a sea change in terms of how he's being perceived in the media how he's being talked about Etc Ste how long does he have before they start talking about the midterms already and they say hey we're going to we're I mean the the Democrat is Democrat Party is the opposition party now how long does the Trump team have you think well the was right when he pointed out how long it took Trump last time to appoint cabinet members that was very quick by standard I don't know if if if you have SM or not so I want to categorize that of me Mory and Ellie at least Ellie is the biggest RV here but getting back to G getting back look he's already putting points on the board and the game hasn't started 100 days we're we are it's not thanks you will likely have a cabinet named not even before Thanksgiving but the week before Thanksgiving usually you don't have a cabinet members the goal is to have a Cabinet member before Thanksgiving he is playing the clock well he is ready B what do you think you think you you agree with Ste you think that he has a lot of time here you think that it it starts to to shift very quickly and the scrutiny and the attention and like again I I tend to think he doesn't have as much time as Stu does with this I agree he's playing the clock well right now but I tend to think this shifts very quickly and the Democrats pick themselves to back up and become the opposition party very quickly Trump is certainly broken out of the gauge very quickly there's no question about it if this were a horse race he would be several LS ahead of the rest of the field one furong into the race uh as far as transition is concerned the 100 days that everybody talks about is overrated because a smart transition has several plans they have plans for day one what the man's going to do at 12:00 when he enters the Oval Office after this wearing in his is done they'll have a plan for the first week for the first 10 days for the first month for the first two months for the first 100 days then for the next uh uh three months after that so there are multiple plans 100 day Mark is is a nice thing that's the idea that okay so uh Congress will give a president a certain amount of Grace during that period of time I don't think that's true anymore I don't think the public will give any politician any Grace anymore the politics in the US so polarized that I don't think they'll give him one minute or one hour's Grace to do anything so again as as I said a moment ago with uh Trump is planning the transition right he he's got his day one plan he's got his week one plan month one plan and uh we're going to see him rolling it out as quickly as he possibly can Ellie um yeah I think it's very different than than eight years ago and very different from a traditional um obviously very different traditional um presidency Trump has time Trump the the clock is on his side now he's using like Stu said the clock to his benefit um and he's you know just pushing things out as quickly as possible I think things are very different than they were in the past um specifically in in the fact is he's not relying on other people to make any of these decisions for him I think he's definitely listening to other people telling him who he should not pick he's not Outsourcing who he should pick so that's why you're not ending up let's say with Rex Tillerson but you're ending up with people who he feels comfortable with and if he made the decision which he obviously did after his first you know after the way his first her went that he wants a cabinet with of people that he wants around him he's going to be much quicker to pull the trigger on who he wants and and that's very simple the other thing that's very different is is that last time around if you remember Trump was kind of the Insurgent in the Republican Party he came in a lot of people in the Senate and even in the house were you know not quite so sure how they're supposed to feel about this guy that's not the case right now Trump owns the party he um you know whether we could talk about um leaning into to my designation as as R here from stu um we we can debate whether or not this was a simar a siba um for for those who want to know that's if it's quisitive or indicative Trump has remade the Party In His Image so the the Senate is not going to hold up his picks we bman referenced Pete hesketh he probably shouldn't but he's not going to run into to any any trouble in the that's a that's a whole another debate but but the last thing I want to say just about this about the media picking up is that the media hasn't learned the lesson of this election which is that people don't you know they're not going to be able to cause a moral Panic every any anymore every time they throw their arms up and say oh my gosh this is what Trump is doing it's crazy we're all going to die it's not happening anymore that they're going crazy about about some of his piics and people are just strugging their shoulders and saying no no that's what you say you know who is Jim aasta anyway anymore all right so so so I want to finish with with the Jewish voters and the Jewish vote in general I put in my column this week about this study that was done by Democrat pollster that I've used previously we did exit polling on the day of the election then the the day after the election also we specific speically were're looking at whether not not the traditional ex poles which look at all Jews Across America we were looking spe looking specifically at Philadelphia and Pennsylvania which is a swing area and the New York swing Coral District to see what Abit of the Jewish Community actually has in competitive races and how do they look at it Etc and the polling was pretty conclusive that the they voted for Harris at under 50% and they voted for Trump so that difference is about six to eight points depending on the state but seemingly the Jewish vote is up for grabs now it's also important to note that I got attacked immediately for doing it people saying well you're from and it's obviously you just got from voters but that wasn't just a from voter a poll I mean we we released it like you could see it's it's it's across multiple parts of the Jewish community and I think that the the it seems to me very clear that that something is happened and something has shifted post October 7th and there's a little bit no going back on that and we talked a lot about if you tune in to our electri life uh coverage we talked about what happened in Jackson where like 90% of the of the community came out to vote this preing data we have which I'm sure Ellie will share in other parts of the community but again not just in the from Community but beyond the from Community there's the way that people are turning out to V and they're also shifting their vote they're saying I'm going to vote in the Republican party or I'm very uncomfortable voting with parts of the democratic party it seemed like there's a SE change here and I just wanted to point it out and talk about it briefly in just 30 seconds each and just give people's thoughts on this let's start with Ellie because I know he has the data and then go to B and wrap it up with Stu here yeah I dug into Lakewood because I also wanted to find uh a significant sample of from Jews and see what the numbers would tell us and I sent it around last night to a few of my buddies involved in politics more nationally to see if they can get a read on like what they guessed the number would be spoiler alert everybody underestimated what the margin was and you can understand that because in the 20 precincts with room yiden um Trump won by 97% to 2% um the joke was just paraphrasing old Leno joke you know we're investigating who the 500 people were who voted for Harris um but the the the he he he won with on 22 and change thousand votes he has a margin of over 21,000 votes I mean from Community um has has shown I think what it is that when there's aligned values and aligned interests will we can vote a certain way I want to shift over B yel because I think we going to agree that the fir Community shifts more to the right b y I want to talk more about the Jewish Community overall here what we're seeing because you looked at these numbers also b y I did look at the numbers and I was impressed with the work that you did and I think it's very important and if it hasn't already been conveyed to Trump and the Trump team it needs to be uh one of the focuses that I've tried to work on for many elections here in Israel is to get a good read on exactly how many exp Pates there are here in Israel there's a lot of wild estimat out there uh anywhere is from 300,000 to 500,000 eligible voters but there are no good stati SS are no good followup I've talked to a lot of people about this over the years and it's something that really needs to be done we really need to uh get exact numbers on the American expit community in Israel and the voting patterns so if you know anyone who's willing to put that time and investment into Israel there you go a call to action a call to action yeah absolutely it needs to be done 20 seconds more bam give us your your final thoughts on this I want to turn over to St just I'll just continue on what I was saying before that just in my own Circle and and I have Wide Circle we've lived in a lot of places here in AR Isel we have a lot of friends and relatives from all walks of life and from all states and uh I would say that you know if if I had to take an informal poll that I think that the people I know voted in the same proportion for Trump over Harris like you saw un like wood I think it's easily 90% for Trump let's do final thoughts here you know I I reporters called me about it I said to them that there was a clear erosion in the Democratic party within the Jewish vote overall what are your thoughts B talks about all walks of life I also looked at your numbers I've also worked with this pollster on Democratic campaigns on Mike Bloomberg's campaign a real Democratic poster who previously worked for a a leading Democratic firm before he branched out his own almost all of his I don't think he has any Republican clients the numbers are stunning because it is not just from people it is people who are concerned about Israel concerned about anti- Zim concerned about their future third fourth fifth generation Dem rat people whose Grandparents were FDR Democrats whose parents were Kennedy Democrats and who were Clinton Democrats who are voting it it's people who go to sadar who go to aadar Every PESA oh every Passover but probably never say havala because they don't keep shabas it's not from people only and the numbers really bear out how it also Bears out and maybe this should be our closing thought our last thought collectively as a team before we broke for the election was the importance of Israel not being a one party issue of Jews letting themselves be taken for granted by one party or the other we all agreed Ellie agree that Israel cannot be a one party issue and we cannot let Jewish votes and pro-israel votes be taken for granted by anyone and you approve that more you've proven that you cannot take it you proved it for the Democrats the Republicans which is not what I was talking about I was talking about for the Republicans not the Democrats but you have proven that our votes matter you have to listen to our issues the issues that we laid out in this podcast are the issues that decided elections in important States so thank you for our voters thank you for our listeners thank you and well we'll close with that I really think that we're very grateful for everyone who went out to vote we're very grateful for everyone who paid attention to that I think people have been buzzing in Ellie's ear and B's year and Stu's year and my year saying something happened within the Jewish Community the Jewish vote is election like no other so we're very grateful for all that and we're very grateful to our forecast listeners I want to thank you to our producer here I want to thank you m Buffa I want to thank our our amazing co-hosts here and I also want to thank Cole for their amazing electron night coverage and everything they did to make that possible we had an unbelievable unprecedented all these tens of thousands of people watching it so we're very excited about all that as always agree with us disagree with us have comments and thoughts have opinions on the future have opinions on 2028 please email podcast mb.com again podcast mb.com and we will answer you live here on the program thank you you'd be listening to forecast and election season podcast from mbaka as this season wraps up thank you to The A Team of commentary thank you to all listeners and stay tuned for more political coverage in the pages of mishbah magazine