“Keeping the slush fund is more important to Trump than Todd Blanche”

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Hi there, everyone. Happy Friday. It's 4 o'clock in the East. Donald Trump is saying the quiet part out loud today when it comes to exactly why. Todd Blanche still has not put an official end to be almost $1.8 million slush fund that could potentially award payouts to January 6 insurrectionists. With a stroke of a pen, Todd Blanche could clear the way to being confirmed as the Attorney General of the United States by simply meeting the demands of Republican senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn. and putting an end to the fund officially and in writing. But if there were any lingering open questions as to why he hasn't done that and where the resistance to doing that lies, Trump solved that mystery for us today. He made clear that keeping the fund alive is more important to him than getting his own completely sycophantic attorney general and former personal defense attorney confirmed by the United States Senate, writing this quote, John Cornyn never had a problem with the so-called fund, which will not benefit me, but rather the great American patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed until after I decided to endorse and support his Republican primary opponent in Texas, perhaps there has never been a group of people treated so badly in our nation's history. They are still suffering still. Many ruined, and I felt that they should be given compensation for what's been done to them. When pressed it in his cabinet meeting as to why he wouldn't put an end to the slush fund in writing in order to get his guy, Todd Blanche, confirmed, Trump tried to claim that Todd Blanche has repeatedly said the fund is dead. Penny added this. Well, it is dead. But, you know, I wish it weren't, to be honest with you. I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused. This has nothing to do with Todd. This was me. Horribly abused. And I'd like to see them compensated for the pain. I wasn't covered by that fund. I don't want to be covered by the fund. I probably was abused more than anybody in the history of our country. They went down for an innocent journey.

goes on of things that we could look at where I'm pretty sure those Americans were treated a lot worse off. And I look at the treatment of the January 6th defendants specifically. And I think that they got the treatment they deserved because they were criminals. They defiled the capital. They brutally beat police officers. And so you know what? Those are the real victims in this instance where you look at the 140 police officers who were brutally beaten that day. But Donald Trump doesn't see it that way. And for a party that likes to claim that they back the blue and law enforcement. It's really annoying to see only Thom Tillis and John Cornyn being the ones sticking their necks out on this issue. So I will give them credit where credits do. But shame on all of those other senators, particularly the ones who were in the Capitol that day, who aren't speaking up about this as well. Michael Feinberg, what does it do inside the department to have Donald Trump advocating for payouts for basically violent insurrectionists? In some instances, people convicted of seditious conspiracy. In any normal administration, in any normal time, there would be an immense uprising within the Department of Justice that Donald Trump was, and let's not mince words, financially rewarding crime. There's no other way to express what he's doing. But we're in an era where... DoJ has lost large percentages. I've seen some statements up to a quarter of its entire workforce because people realized long before this that it was not going to be true to its principles and its leadership was not going to be true to their oath of office and have already left. So I think you're going to have a lot of DOJ who is there trying to do the right thing. very much infuriated by this, but they've been infuriated for 18 months now. And the upper levels of DOJ, people like Todd Blanche and the cronies he's put into place to carry out Trump's political errands, they're going to see nothing wrong with it. If they saw nothing wrong with it, they would have advised him against starting the fund. If he insisted on continuing it, they would have resigned in principle. The people who are left in the nicest offices at the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. buildings are not one iota an improvement on the morality of Trump himself. Harry, I don't want to lose the larger sort of frame that the corrupt slush fund is plugged into. I mean, the senator should be equally upset about the... corrupt settlement. I mean, the judge has already said it may be illegal because you can't represent both sides. And it's not a settlement if both sides are on Trump's side.

Yeah, I mean, that's really not a close question, Nicole. Judge Williams did say it's collusive, and of course it's collusive when you're trading something worth zero for something worth $1.776 billion and then some. And I think it's understood that way within the department. It's also seen John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, I think we're offering a pretty easy way out. And this is a vivid demonstration of where Trump's priorities are. He cares more about this slush fund than he does about his attorney general. I think that won't go unnoticed within the department and it's sort of deflates. Todd Blanche somewhat. And then going forward, that's where the fight is not over Todd Blanche. And that just, I think, is really brought home to whoever remains in the department. And it would have been so straightforward. It's really telling that Trump is putting his foot down and saying, no, it's almost a ready made political commercial, right? These are the... the most hard people in the country, cut to the TV that we all saw with people storming the Capitol. He's all in on this narrative that just contradicts everything we all saw. You know, Sarah, I wonder if you can weigh in. I mean, here's just some of the instances. He did it today at a cabinet meeting. But here are all the instances where he finds it important. to defend, again, convicted felons in a lot of instances, the violent insurrectionist on January 6th. Those J6 warriors, they were warriors, but they were really more than anything else. They're victims of what happened. All they were doing is protesting a rigged election. That's what they were doing. And then the police say, go in, go in, go in. They were treated like the worst criminals in history. And you know what they were there for? They were protesting the vote because they knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote. Some of those people went down to the Capitol. I said, peacefully and patriotically. Nothing done wrong at all, nothing done wrong. We didn't have guns. The others had guns, but we didn't have guns. And what I say we, these are people that walked down. This was a tiny percentage of the overall, which nobody sees and nobody, nobody shows. But that was a day of love. So there are lots of public-facing proof points of his decline performatively, perhaps cognitively, I don't know. This feels like the inability to stop talking about an event, again, that took place on live television, where it was his supporters who were beating the cops, where there was no love, certainly, that was...

obvious to anybody watching the crimes take place on live television. They also had their days in court. I mean, everyone that was convicted was convicted by Democrats, not by the Biden administration, not by Merrick Garland, but by juries made up of their peers and the vast majority of them pleaded guilty to receive lighter sentences. Why do you think he can't stop talking about it? You know, I think that Donald Trump has always been a broken man, but I do think that him losing the 2020 election fair and square to Joe Biden permanently broke his brain. I don't think he's ever been able to recover from that because he looked at someone like Joe Biden and thought. how could I lose to this guy? I mean, he called him, you know, a sleepy Joe. And then obviously it affected him because he's a narcissist. His ego won't allow him to see the facts for what they are, that there was no election fraud and that it was Joe Biden who was the winner of the 2020 election. And so he's been fixated on this topic and talking about the election, talking about the January 6 rioters, because. He saw them as fighting for him when he felt like no one else was fighting for him. I was in the White House during that time, the post election up until January 6th. And there were advisors telling him he lost that there was no evidence that everything he was trying in court was going to fail. And he refused to believe it. And when he stopped taking the advice of those people, he surrounded himself with enablers who told him what he wanted to hear. And I do think that if you tell yourself what you want to hear and surround yourself, with sycophants like that, eventually you start to believe it yourself. I do think that, you know, he did slip privately and admit that he lost. But I think now so much time has passed that he actually thinks that he was wronged. And he believes that he's the victim here. And you know what? It just, it makes me laugh when you have all these MAGA people who think that Trump is some alpha male. No, he's the weakest, most thin-skinned. a baby of all time. I mean, he can't accept the facts for what they are. And I think that the American people, are not fixated on January 6 or the 2020 election. They have pushed that aside and move past it. You know what they are focused on? They want to be able to afford a home. They want lower health care costs. They want to be able to fill up their gas tank and not have to decide between doing that and putting food on the table for their families. Those are the kitchen table issues that they are focused on. And they don't want to see him keep relitigating this. And all it's going to do is hurt Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. If he keeps forcing January 6 and the 20... 2020 election into the conversation.

Michael Pynberg, I had a chance to sit down with Brian Driscoll, who was the acting director of the FBI for short period. He says it was a clerical error that he was supposed to be the acting deputy director. But he had about 31 days in the post. And importantly, sort of stood in the breach when Malbovae first wanted the list of all of the names of agents who had worked on January 6 cases. I asked him sort of the what does it mean that all those people have been purged from the Bureau and the Department. Here's what he said to me. What's being purged from it. is the result of a political retribution campaign announced by Donald Trump and carried out very publicly by his leaders at DOJ and the FBI. But the consequence is to hollow out hundreds of years of expertise. Yeah, it's devastating to put it in one word. And it's not a dramatic statement from where I'm sitting. I had a buddy on the hostage rescue team. He's a mentor. and still a great friend, and he used to say, you can't get 20 years of experience in less than 20 years. So it takes people to work their way from the academy. And the FBI is a very diverse workforce experience, speaking. And everybody brings something to the table, and it takes that because the FBI... must be diverse in all ways because you need to reflect the people you serve and protect. And to lose those experiences collectively in how many people have been removed and unlawfully terminated is devastating to the mission. We cover the things like the Slesh Fund and the pardons as though they happen in a vacuum. But for every award you give to convicted felons and criminals, you lose something inside the department. People either were fired to make room for those convictions to be... expunged from the record, or they left because they were so appalled by that perversion of justice. And Brian and I talked a lot about something you and I talk about a lot, which is how hollowed out the department is on the national security front. Talk about that. Yeah, I agree with every single point that Driz just raised. And I'm really glad. that he expressly tied the losses to the workforce and the decreasing diversity as something to be worried of. And I want to point out, this isn't, I'm not saying that out of any sort of neutral ideological devotion to diversity policies.

But America is a complicated, multi-layered place. And when you add in the rest of the world in which the FBI also operates, that becomes true by further orders of magnitude. There are neighborhoods, diaspora populations, ideological alliances that someone like me cannot walk into and implicitly be trusted. And if every single person in the FBI... looks like me, or if you want to go with like Dan Bongino's ideal or Royed up version of me, you just, you lose something. You need to represent the country that you are protecting. And you need to be able to establish trust, even with the groups that make up your adversaries. And if we're going to be able to get witnesses and sources and double agents and recruitments in place from places like ISIS and Al-Qaeda or the Chinese intelligence services, or... the IRGC in Iran, we need people who understand those cultures, who speak those languages, who know how to walk in a meeting and lower the temperature without offending everyone. And to believe that that's something that, one, everybody can do or that anybody can be taught it during five months at the academy is insane. When I first entered the FBI, one of the people who became my mentor told me the best way to become a good agent is to accept that you're going to make a ton of mistakes in your first five moves. Then you can start. All of that expertise, just decades and decades, purged over Donald Trump's obsession with a lie. We were really, really... I'm honored to have a chance to talk to Brian at length. I think it's one of the longest conversations we've put up. And I think it's one of the earliest interview opportunities that he's given him. We're happy he gave it to us. He is our newest guest. He is the newest episode of The Best People podcast. It's up now for premium subscribers. You sign up by scanning the QR code on your screen. The full episode will be available to everybody starting Monday. Panel sticks around when we come back both of Trump's picks to serve as Director of National Intelligence. Showed up today this cabinet meeting awkward, causing confusion and setting up alarm bells for the men and women who work in the intelligence community. We'll have more on that. Plus, as Trump chooses to again publicly back the compensation fund for the violent January 6th rioters to potentially receive money, voters are again making clear what they care about, and they do not include The slush fund. They care about things like groceries and gas, as Sarah just alluded to. If you remember the Trump administration, you are forced to say and maybe even believe that the country's hot and everything is pretty rosy. We'll show you that remarkable split screen coming up and later. And what may be the best headline of the day, quote,

The boss wants this money inside Donald Trump's unprecedented fundraising operation. New reporting on just how far Trump and his team are going to shake down companies for millions and millions and millions of dollars. We'll talk to one of the journalists on that story. All those stories and much more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast. That's called Literally with Roblo. And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Join me, Cindy Lauper, with Chef Michelle Bernstein and Dr. Panico to talk about psoriasis and psoriotic arthritis, the potential connection and risk of developing permanent joint damage. Coscentic secukinumab is prescribed for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis 300 milligram dose and adults with active psoriotic arthritis 150 milligram dose. Don't use if you're allergic to cosentics. Before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur, like tuberculosis or other serious bacterial, fungal, or viral infections. Some are fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle eggs, or cough. Had a vaccine or planned to, or if inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen, serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1844 Cossentics or cossentics.com slash Cindy. Everyone's talking about protein lately, but how do you actually get enough of it? Muscle milk. Muscle milk has a great-tasting new formula with no artificial sweeteners, flavors, or added colors. It's high-quality, complete protein designed to support healthy muscles with fewer ingredients than the previous formula and 206 to 42 grams of protein. For when you're stuck in meetings or need a post-work recovery, available in chocolate, vanilla cream, cookies and cream, and strawberries and cream. Try the new great-tasting muscle milk today. Available in stores nationwide, muscle milk. protein for all. What's more disturbing and frankly dangerous for our country mired in a deeply unpopular war? Not knowing who currently leads our intelligence community or that the White House doesn't seem to know either. White House officials tell us that they did not know whether the acting DNI, Bill Pulte, or his confirmed permanent replacement, Jay Clayton, would represent

the Office of the Director of National Intelligence at today's cabinet meeting. So here's how it turned out. Both of them showed up. It was a baffling site, Bill Pulte, housing person, who's a Trump loyalist, was there. He has no relevant experience, and he has a record now of weaponizing election intelligence. He's lingering one of the country's most powerful and important national security positions. And importantly, he's there two days after Jay Clayton was confirmed by the Senate to be the permanent DNI. Democrats and former intelligence officials tell MS now they're alarmed at Trump's delay and swearing Jay Clayton in. White House officials say they don't even know when he's going to get sweared in. We're back with Harry, Michael, and Sarah. Harry, your thoughts. This is the Director of National Intelligence. Bill Pulte has zero experience at it. He was brought in already controversially to be the acting director and really his... job was to ransack fire people and God knows what else once he has his mitts on the actual intelligence, how that could be used during the election, etc. But now that finally Jay Clayton is confirmed, it's virtually unprecedented for the confirmed by the Senate. actual, he's not a nominee anymore, the actual official not to be serving. Bill Pulte has said to Trump, I've still got some work here to do, and that work obviously has nothing to do with intelligence or national intelligence and everything to do with hollowing out one more agency in the federal government. I mean, Michael Feinberg, the problem for Bill Pulte is that on his watch, John Solomon had to admit to my colleague, Von Hilliard, that there was, quote, zero evidence, any foreign power, any American adversary flipped any votes in 2020, meaning Trump actually lost. Yeah, look, I think as... Any MFA graduate student will tell you, writing fiction is actually really difficult. And the way Vaughn Hilliard sort of forced John Solomon to do it on the spot, while a brilliant journalistic move really wasn't fair to John Solomon's larger goals of deceiving the public about what happened in 2020. And if I could, I really want to just add one thing to what Harry just said, which is we also need to remember. While Bill Pulte has zero intelligence experience and no real integrity or belief in public service, so to speak of, Jay Clayton is the exact same way. This is somebody who's worked in transactional law and high finance. He has never worked in the intelligence community. And I think we all saw when he refused to even state the historical fact of who won the 2020 election and tried to sit there in Stonewall the senators, you know, reviewing his application functionally.

He basically revealed that he is no different than Bill Pulte in terms of what I will politely call his moral flexibility in service of Donald Trump. So I don't know that we're actually going to be better off with him in the position. Yeah, I mean, I may be in the minority on this, but I think the people who know better are the most dangerous because their barrier to entry is humiliation. And it becomes more difficult to go back to polite society if you're Kevin Warsh or Jay Clayton, and you can't say who won the 2020 election. Because Jay Clayton knows, as Kevin Warsh knows, as Todd Blanche knows, that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Frankly, Jared Kushner knows that, so does Ivanka. I mean, the people that can read all know who won the 2020 election. And Sarah, I wonder if you can shed some light on how those two different, let's just call them different stripes on the goats of the different big cats running around a Donald Trump White House operate. Yeah, I think there is something to be said about your point of these people know better and that almost makes them more dangerous. I think you have other people in the White House. I look at like a Stephen Miller. I think that he is just crazy. And so that is dangerous in a different kind of way. Right. But then you look at someone like a Todd Blanche, like a Jay Clayton. I think that the, even like a Susie Wiles, I think that these people know better, but they are choosing to dig their heels in and sacrifice their integrity and debase themselves in order to gain access to power. And. Once you do that, you're just going to continue to dig your heels in because you know that there's no coming back. So you might as well just stay the course. And I think that someone like a Jay Clayton, as we've talked about, he repeatedly refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square during his confirmation hearing. And that just shows you that he's going to be just as bad as a Bill Pulte in this role. And he's an unqualified hack and that his only qualification is that. he's willing to do Donald Trump's bidding and go after his perceived political enemies and do whatever Donald Trump wants, even if it's at the detriment of our own national security. Which is so alarming at any level of any agency, but deeply disturbing. And for all the Republicans and the handful of Democrats who voted for him, I'd love to know what they think he's going to do once he gets there. Or what adversary will be afraid of him if he can't answer Democratic questioning at his confirmation hearing.

Harry Lemon and Michael Feinberg, thank you for starting us off today. Sarah sticks around for the hour after the break. Donald Trump finds himself nearing Nixon Watergate levels of public approval right now with no signs that he's trying to stop the political nosedive. Much more ahead. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast. That's called Literally with Roblo. And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen, wherever you get your podcasts. With the Vivgard-Hitrullo, F-Gar-Tygamad Alpha, and hyaluronidase QVC, pre-filled syringe, self-injection is in your hands. It's your treatment routine. You set the time and same day each week. Take the pre-filled syringe with you on vacation. Or have it handy for cozy staycations. For more information, visit live vividly.com. That's L-I-V-E-V-Y-V-Y-V-I-D-Y dot com. Brought to you by Argenics. I used to lie awake, tossing, and turning. Then I added magnesium breakthrough by bioptimizers to my nightly routine. Now they've launched magnesium breakthrough Advanced 10, with 10 bioavailable forms of magnesium, plus active vitamin B-6 and ionic trace minerals to support uptake. Go to buyoptimizers.com slash hags and use code hags for 15% off. Every order is backed by their 365-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it with confidence.

Just 95 days to go until the midterm elections. And Donald Trump is in uncharted territory for a second term president when it comes to his plunging presidential approval ratings across multiple polling indexes conducted in the last week. A clear message has been sent by the people of this country. that just one-third of voters are satisfied with the job Trump is doing as president. 34% approval in a CNN poll, 33% approval in an Associated Press poll, and just 32% approval in Quinnipiac. As our friend Peter Baker from The New York Times points out, only former President Richard Nixon, who at this point in his second term, was just weeks away from resigning. due to the chaos around the Watergate scandal, had worse approval ratings. And if you think that message from voters is getting through the Trump White House, take a listen to Donald Trump's top economic advisor, Kevin Hassett, and how he responded when he was confronted with the brutal economic reality facing all Americans. 66% of people, these are Americans, everyday Americans, they say President Trump's policies have worsened economic conditions in this country. That's 10% more than in the final months of the Biden administration. So, I mean, you say the economy looks amazing, but what do you say to that person who's part of that group, that 66% who say Trump has actually made the economic conditions are worse? You know, I just don't believe a poll like that, given how strong the numbers are and how strong income growth is, how optimistic people are.

You know who doesn't believe polls? People who go on to lose. Bigley. Joining our coverage is Democratic Strategist and Chief Communications Officer for the political organization. Move on. Joel Payne is back. Sarah Matthews is still with us. Joel, you were here two days ago and the polls are even worse. They're only going in one direction. And as people who work on campaigns know, you're sort of ending or exiting the political... window, the window's closing politically for changing people's moods about the things they have the most intense feelings about. And it's almost always the economy. What do you make of what Trump seems to be committed to locking in in terms of public sentiment against him? Well, Nicole, as you allude to political opinions are starting to harden now. We're getting to the end of the summer. We're within 100 days to the actual election. And there's less and less time for you to do the necessary persuasion work to actually win over voters. I looked at particular at that Quinnipiac poll. And look, obviously, he's unpopular with Democrats. That's not a surprise. He's gone down in one month from the June to the July, Quinnipa poll, almost 10 points of Republicans. and I believe nine points with independence. I mean, that's seismic. Donald Trump's superpower has always been holding his Republican base with an iron fist. If he can't do that anymore, that is the core to his superpower because Donald Trump's political worldview is, if my base lets me do it, I can figure out the rest. His base is no longer giving him the leeway and giving him the deference that he and his political movement depend upon. And I will just say, if you're a Republican down ballot, if you're a Republican around the country, not only are you not afraid of Trump's base, but you actually can't depend on Trump's base showing up for you this November the way that you may have thought in previous cycles. And that's a real political problem for that time. Yes, Sarah, we were talking about the ritual humiliation of Republicans and men like Jay Clayton. I didn't think I'd see Trump humiliate his own base. And by calling affordability a hoax, by assuming they'll be with him for a war of choice in Iran, for his complete indifference and disdain for people who say they're upset about the economy, is, it seems like, his effort to humiliate his own voters. What do you think is behind that? Yeah. You know what's really interesting about this is that Republicans spent years mocking the Biden administration for trying to gaslight the American people and telling them that the economy was great when people were feeling the exact opposite. And they clearly learned nothing from this because this is exactly what the Trump administration is doing. They're trying to gaslight their voters and tell them everything's fine, putting Kevin Hassett out there and having him go on the news and say that the economy is amazing. I mean, are you kidding me? And I look at the difference between what Biden was dealing with.

versus what Trump is dealing with. The things that Biden was dealing with were things that were out of his control when it came to the economy. When it came to gas prices, you had the war with Ukraine and Russia that was causing gas prices to skyrocket. And you look at inflation, he was dealing with the ripple effects of COVID still during his presidency. Then I look at what Trump is dealing with in his second term, and it's all self-inflicted. The tariffs that he put in place that were completely asinine are what has caused inflation to stay where it's at and the cost of everything to continue to rise. And you look at gas prices. His war of choice with Iran has caused gas prices to skyrocket. So it's just amazing that they clearly have not learned the lessons of the previous administration and then are trying to tell their voters that everything's fine. And the thing is, I think that people do fan. feel bamboozled. They voted for President Trump because he said that he was going to lower prices on day one. He said that he was going to be the peace president. He said he was going to do all these things. And it turns out that he's done the exact opposite. And so it is just a slap in the face to the people that put him into office and that have supported him for them to continue to try to gaslight them. What's amazing, too, when you look at the polls, Trump gets his lowest numbers on Iran, 66% disapprove. After that, the economy is 62% disapproved. He can't stop talking about Iran. The thing that is most politically perilous to him, the thing that only has a 28% approval rating, Iran is the one thing that polls beneath his lowest approval rating in all those polls. The economy and foreign policy are right behind that at 34%. But the thing that he talks about the most, the thing that he's trying to make people. sort of stomach most frequently in every news cycle and on his social media platform is the thing he's doing that they hate the most. So again, it feels like reverse engineering defeat. I'll show you what that means for the down ballot races where all the Democrats are ahead in all of the battlegrounds. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with that.

We're back with Joel and Sarah. Let me show you those Senate races, which I know we're all keeping track of, but sometimes you don't want to look too often. It's like refreshing your flight tracker. So here's Texas. James Chalricco is now up three against Ken Paxton, who seems like he's trying to lose, but who knows. Roy Cooper is now up nine against Michael Whatley. And Jon Ossoff now leads by nine as well. So seven, eight, I'm sorry, more than that, 11. What do you make of, I'm sorry, 13 points in Georgia? What do you make of these numbers? How reliable are they, Joel, in terms of tracking battleground Senate races? I always think of false direction. Right. I don't think John Opsom's win number plus 13. I don't think Cory Cooper's win number is plus nine. But what it does tell me, the fact that they're over 50 percent and that the Republican in the race has not been able to gain traction and get beyond the Trump and the Republican brand, which is toxic in both of those states. I mean, that's a real challenge for the Republicans and that's a real boon for the Democrats. And what you're already starting to see now is Republicans reconsidering. some of their investments in those states. I've seen reports that they're considering pulling out of North Carolina. And by the way, in a bad cycle, those are the types of choices you have to make. You have to say, well, we can't go for a stretch state like North Carolina. We have to batten down the hatches in Texas, where Ken Paxton is toxic. And Ken Paxton is a challenge. We have to go to a place like Montana where would I expect the Democrat to win in Montana? Not necessarily. But I think Republicans can't be as sure of that or as sure of the margins of that and as sure of the down ballot impact of that in this environment. And so this is where the political ramifications of Donald Trump's failures of these last two years and the fails of his party and his policy really come home to ruse for Republicans who are counting on running under that Trump brand. They can't count on that protection.

51 is probably the most newsworthy number here. I think a lot of Democrats were anxiously awaiting James Talarico to go over 50%. The latest round of polling has him at 51%. Sarah, let me importantly just point out that I misspoke earlier when I talked about some Democrats voting to confirm Jay Clayton. No Democrats voted to confirm Jay Clayton. When he was nominated in the first Trump term, there were some, but not this time around. The solidarity, though, among Democrats and the ability to sort of dust off primary dynamics very quickly and throw in behind the nominee seems to be a hallmark and something that's working for them very effectively in Texas specifically, where James Talarico is going everywhere. He's generating a lot of crowds. He's got all the retail political skills. And he has, I don't want to say this in a... in a derisive way, but he sort of has a Republican skill set in terms of rapid response and swatting back the negative. Ken Paxton has tried everything against him, I think up to an including a bizarre attack on him being a vegan or something, and he seems pretty adept at wiping up all the smears. Yeah, I think that James Talarico being the nominee, obviously going up against Ken Paxton is the ideal scenario because, look, it would have been a much closer race and a much tougher race if James Talarico is going up against John Cornyn. But Trump obviously shoots himself on the foot because instead of thinking who has the best chance politically to win in a state like Texas, he could have endorsed. John Cornyn. But no, he chose to endorse the crazy guy. He chose to endorse Ken Paxton, someone who has a long history of scandal. I mean, the guy was impeached by his own party and is as corrupt as they get. And so I think that the voters in Texas see someone like James Talarico and they see authenticity. They see someone young. They see someone bringing new energy to the party. And that's exciting, not just Democrats, but independence as well. And the thing is that why this is troublesome for the Republican Party is now they have to pour money into a state like Texas because you could actually have a chance at James Talarico winning that Senate seat there. And so the more money they're spending in Texas, the less money they're spending in other states where they desperately need it. And if you had asked me six months ago if I thought that Democrats could take control of the Senate, I probably would have said, I don't know. I think that that's too big of a hill for them. It's uphill battle. They're certainly going to take the House. I don't know about the Senate. Then he has something like Trump deciding to make the idiotic choice to launch an attack against Iran and get us into a war that he has no way to end now. And we're seeing the sentiment in the polling of how frustrated people are with his choice to go to war with Iran, with the concerns over the economy and him dismissing them, calling affordability of hopes. And so obviously, now it is giving Democrats this ability to actually gain momentum and have a chance to take control of the Senate as well. So I think that there's a really a very real chance that we could see a senator of James Talarico.

Yeah, I mean, James Talarico, Cooper, and Jon Ossoff are all incredibly strong candidates running very, very effective campaigns. And I take your point, what are traditionally tough states, but very much in reach. Joel Payne, Sarah Matthews, to be continued. Thank you so much for today. It's great to see you both. When we come back, why Donald Trump is on the side of Iran and not Minnesota. Sounds like a headline from the onion, but it's true. We'll explain next. rule out that Iran is behind that cyber attack? I don't know, I think Minnesota is behind it. You know who's behind it? Minnesota, because they're grossly in conflict. I think the governor is Iran. I don't think there was an Iranian cyber attack. They like to say, oh, is Iran? Iran should be so lucky. Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota. Two times today, Donald Trump publicly sided with Iran, who since the war has started, has taken the lives of 18 United States service members. Donald Trump, they're publicly rejecting suspicions held by his own administration, thinks his own administration is currently investigating that Iranian hackers could be behind a cyber attack on dozens of municipal water systems in the state of Minnesota. But without evidence, Donald Trump instead blamed Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz. Today, Tim Walz said, quote, Trump knows exactly who's responsible for this attack and knows that other states were hit too. This is what modern warfare looks like, and it further illustrates there's no plan to win a war with Iran. Governor Walls also pointed to the Trump administration's mass firings and budget cuts that have depleted the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency that he says have left the United States exposed to these cyber attacks. We'll stay on top of that story after a break. A campaign fundraising shakedown so brazen, you have to see it to believe it. You're reporting on the aggressive tactics Donald Trump is using to get the boss his money. The next hour of Deadline White House starts after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. Hey, everybody. It's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard. I have a podcast that's called Literally with Roblo. And basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen wherever. You get your podcasts.