'BradCast' 7/29/2026 (The 2026 Election, GOP division, Dems' odds, Trump's War, with guests: Heather Digby Parton and 'Driftglass')

Poll numbers just out and they are strikingly bad for President Trump. With less than 100 days until the midterms, the President's approval rating is tanking on just about every major issue. We're talking Iran, inflation, gas, immigration, his D.C. construction projects and more. A whopping 73 percent of American adults polled say the President has not paid enough attention to the country's most important problems. That's a record number of discontented Americans. Trump's overall approval ratings has slipped to just 34%. His approval rating hasn't been this low since just after the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Well, let's hope it can go even lower. There's still time, right? Well, I don't know why I came here tonight. I'm wondering. I got the feeling there's something right. From Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, this is the broadcast, as heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA, and on dozens of other fine affiliate stations over both public airwaves and the internets around the country and the world. Blanketing, planet Earth. I'm Brad Friedman, your friendly investigative blogger, journalist, troublemaker, muckraker. And all around, swell fellow says me from brand blog.com. Thank you very much for joining us for another thrilling edition of the brandcast. Digby and Drift Glass are standing by for our monthly-ish. check in with two of the smartest longtime progressive bloggers, troublemakers, and muckrakers on our sweltering, burning, and drowning planet. I think is that a largely accurate way of describing it this week, Desi Doyen? Oh, yes, I would say so. All right, so I will try to be very quick about a few headlines of notes since we last spoke yesterday, some of which we may want to discuss with Digby and Drift Glass. After a few days of relative calm in Donald Trump's deadly, ill-conceived, misbegotten, now six-month long... Little excursion against Iran, as he claimed Iran wanted to talk, which Iran denied. Well, there were a few surprise attacks from Iran against U.S. bases in the region, resulting in return attacks this time by the U.S., this time with Saudi Arabia apparently playing along. In the conflict with still no end in sight and signs that it is spreading further with other countries now joining in like Saudi Arabia and threats beyond the Strait of Hormuz to the Red and Caspian seas as well. So this ain't over by a long shot, it seems to me. On Capitol Hill on Wednesday, for reasons that remain unclear to me, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is still...

Choking his Dr. Anthony Fauci created COVID chicken with the renowned infectious disease expert and longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who served as a key member of both the Trump and Biden administration's COVID-19 task forces, being called up to testify. to the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for some reason on Wednesday. In his opening statement, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who saw the nation through both the AIDS pandemic decades ago and the COVID pandemic, and has testified literally hundreds of times under oath to congressional panels over his decades-long career at the NIH, explained why this time... For the first time ever, he was refusing to answer questions from Senator Rand Paul, who chairs that committee and who has for years tried to somehow blame Anthony Fauci for the 2019 COVID pandemic. Given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me. The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything. that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up in his words, quote, behind bars, unquote. Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion. Therefore, although it pains me to do so, Because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions. Thank you. Now, in response, Senator Paul said that the committee would vote on a contempt resolution against Dr. Anthony Fauci next week, arguing that his use of the Fifth Amendment was, quote, unsupported since President Biden had apparently already preemptively pardoned him for any crimes. real or imagined that Paul and the Republican Party might spin up against Anthony Fauci. Elsewhere in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, the nomination of Donald Trump's personal criminal attorney and deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche to become the nation's...

Top law enforcement officer as Attorney General is said to be in doubt at this hour, though color me dubious with potential challenges coming from two Republican senators, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, both of whom will be leaving the Senate next year after getting essentially pushed out by Donald Trump. Both men are said to be concerned about Todd Blanche's refusal to amend the corrupt, fraudulent so-called settlement. agreement to Trump's own lawsuit against his own IRS, which resulted in Todd Blanche helping him to create an unprecedented $1.8 billion slush fund for Trump to use to reward his January 6 co-conspirators and, of course, himself, and a provision that would give lifetime immunity from investigation or penalty by the IRS to Trump and his family members and his companies. Todd Blanche claims that the slush fund is now a dead letter, though he has refused to put that in writing even as the addendum giving immunity from tax penalties appears to remain in full force as of now. Whether either John Cornyn or Thom Tillis will actually stick to their guns to try and block the appointment of Todd Blanche as AG remains to be seen. Though as I note, color me skeptical about that, as skeptical about that as I am that. Mitch McConnell will ever be able to return to the U.S. Senate whether or not he is alive or dead, which still nobody seems to actually know conclusively. We will see what Digby and Drift Glass may think about all of that in a moment. And on the elections front today, in advance of November's critical... Midterm elections in which Democrats hope to retake majority control of both the U.S. House and Senate, along with control of committees like the one headed up right now by Rand Paul. Well. On Tuesday, South Dakota Republicans held their primary election runoff for the GOP gubernatorial nomination between incumbent Republican Governor Governor Larry Rodin and his challenger Justin Dodin. Neither of them who reached the bear 35% of support last month that would have been needed to avoid Tuesday's runoff, and neither of whom was endorsed by Donald Trump. Well, Rodin had risen to the position of governor just last year from lieutenant governor after Trump's appointment of then-governor and puppy killer Kristi Noem as Secretary of DHS. who has since been fired, and despite a Republican governor unable to receive even the bare minimum 35% of the vote during the first round of primary voting in early June, with the businessman and political newcomer Dodin receiving the most votes back on June 5th, well, Governor Rodin on Tuesday was victorious, easily besting Dodin.

Rodin v. Dodin, I guess, by more than 40 points in the runoff where both men campaigned on cutting taxes and supporting Donald Trump. Governor Rodin will now square off for full term against former Democratic State Senator Dan Ehlers in November for the governor's seat in the otherwise deep red state where even a developing blue tsunami. would be unlikely to unseat a sitting Republican governor in South Dakota. The rural state has not had a Democratic governor since the 1970s. It's two U.S. senators and lone house member are all Republicans. But hey, this is shaping up to be a very, very interesting year on a very interesting and seemingly expanding map for Democrats. By way of just one example. As per the Texas Tribune on Tuesday, the latest survey of the U.S. Senate race from Texas public opinion research in the Lone Star State shows Democrat James Talarico now leading the extraordinarily corrupt Republican Ken Paxton. the state's AG, by five points, 45 to 40 percent in the state's U.S. Senate race this year. That after Trump endorsed the corrupt indicted and impeached by his own party, Ken Paxton, over longtime Republican stalwart Senator John Cornyn in the state's primaries earlier this year. The new poll marks the Austin state rep James Talarico's largest lead, five points. in any public poll taken during the general election period. After Ken Paxton locked up the GOP nomination in late May, polling of the contest has since found pretty much a neck-and-neck race with neither candidate able to break the 50% mark, at least not yet, with just under 100 days to go. But interestingly, as the observer... observed. Texas public opinion research poll, which I will note is run by a Democratic strategist, reportedly found Talariko leading among voters who do not have a college degree, which is a group that has consistently favored Republicans in Texas and across the country in recent years, and James Talarico is also dominating among independence, less than a quarter of whom say they plan to vote. for Ken Paxton. The three-term incumbent Texas Attorney General also had weaker Republican support than in other recent surveys with nearly one in five GOP voters as 20 percent, saying they were still undecided or that they planned to vote for the Democrat, James Talarico this year. But let's not put the cart before the horse as primary elections are still underway in a whole bunch of states, including next Tuesday, August 4, a big primary election day in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia, and Washington State. Get out and vote like your nation and democracy depended on it because they both do, if you have yet to vote in any of those states. And do try to vote on a handmarked paper ballot.

at your precinct or at least hand-deliver your hand-marked paper vote-by-mail ballot if you are able to do so. Joining us now to discuss just some of all of that and much more are our old friends, longtime old-school progressive bloggers who we like to touch base with at least every month or so for a reality check since they've got a decades-long track record of... Almost always getting it right. Heather Digby Parton is the much-beloved award-winning columnist and blogger for Salon.com and her own Digby's hullabaloo blog and the man known mostly as Drift Glass, though occasionally as Bill, is the proprietor of the Drift Glass blog and co-host of the professional left podcast produced. Each week, rain, snow, sunshine, oppressive heat or corn sweat with his wife, Blue Gal, from their cornfield resistance headquarters in Flyover Country, Illinois. Hey, guys, welcome back to both of you. Hello, Brad. Oh, there we go. Good to have you here. Heather, you there with us as well. Hello, hello. There she is. Hey, Heather. No worries. And I should say off the bat so that folks know, even though you are supposedly what we'll call on vacation, you agreed to join us today, but making things even worse, you're under the weather while on vacation. And you still agreed to join us because you are, Heather, both a patriot and a champion. Are you going to make it through the hour? I will make it through the hour. I'll do my level best to do it, but I think I can. God love you. But if you hear me kind of, you know, coughing, choking, I don't know, screaming quietly in the background, you'll know what it's all about. Oh, okay. Well, you normally do that anyway. And it's not that COVID, by the way, that Anthony Fauci gave everyone, is it? Absolutely not. It's not that cyclospora that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. gave everyone, is it? Nope. Okay, good. So to try and go easy on you today, allow me to begin for the most part for change with Drift Glass. Since we covered on this program yesterday, Drifty, the fact that my old hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, not all that far from where you are in Springfield, Illinois, blew away. It's all-time record high feels like. Temperature this week, the combination of heat and humidity, topping out at an inconceivable 130 degrees. Did you all get a taste of that in the cornfields of Springfield this week? And did you survive it? We did not survive it. Damn. I'm gone. That's what I thought. Yeah, this is me speaking to you from the Great Beyond, where it's air conditioned and Democrats run everything. There you go. Good here. It's real good here. Move towards the light, Brad. Come to the light. All right, I will. Yeah, we did get a big taste of that. We got up to around 113, 115 feels like around here. My youngest stepdaughter lives in St. Louis. The middle child lives halfway between here in St. Louis.

Although youngest child is currently out in Washington State, doing counseling over the summer. So she avoided that disaster. But yeah, it's hot as heck here. We've had tornadoes. We had four rip through the state on Monday. So we're having weather. A lot of weather. Yes. And it's humid as all get out. And, you know, I can put a book in the air and just leave it there. And it just hangs there in the air. It's mysterious. Wow. Wow. That's rough. Well, as noted, then, you are both champions for stepping up today come, well, come cold or corn sweat, I guess. I am very grateful. I'm not entirely sure where to start today. To be honest, so much has been going on since we last spoke a month or so ago. I do want to. get to elections, but really so much ongoing right now that will likely actually play a huge part in those elections. But we've got a couple of guys who are already out of the election. That would be Republican Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who chose not to run for re-election after being attacked by Trump and Republican John Cornyn, who lost his primary election earlier this year, incredibly enough. against the corrupt Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after Trump incredibly endorsed the guy, endorsed Ken Paxton. Now, they are claiming Thom Tillis and John Cornyn that they are not yet sure whether they will vote for the nomination of Trump lawyer Todd Blanche to be the nation's attorney general. Heather. Do you have any confidence, any belief whatsoever that these guys will actually end up blocking Todd Blanche's nomination, even though, frankly, neither of them have anything to lose? Well, and no. I mean, you know, let's face it. These people, you know, talk about Taco Trump. You know, the Taco Trumpers are the worst. But I have to say it would thrill me to see this. It really, really would. Because Trump stabbed both of those guys in the back hard, especially Gordon, but Thom Tillis too throughout. And they were good soldiers. You know, yeah, they were a little bit, you know, it's kind of mealy mouth from time to time. Not John Cornyn, not John Cornyn, by the way. I mean, John Cornyn was a champion. I mean, maybe Millie mouth is like the worst thing you could possibly say about him in this game. What he, yeah, what he did was that he failed to endorse Trump quickly enough. That was the problem. Right. But, you know, he's sort of, you know, he's not a real big, he's not a mega warrior, as Trump put it. He's just a regular mega, you know, weirdo. And it went along with everything. But if those two were to actually take Todd Blanche.

it would make me so happy. It would cure my cold overnight because it would be a beautiful thing. And it's something that needs to happen. It would be great. It would be a wonderful lesson for Donald Trump and for these mega people, which is that, you know, people apparently keep not learning the fact that Trump has no loyalty toward anyone. And no matter how hard you try to, you know, you go along, you do what you're supposed to do. They voted for all of his other nominees and everything. It's never good enough. And what he did, according in particular, with backing Ken Paxton, who it would have been easy for Trump not to back Ken Paxton. Right. Because, you know, I mean, he knew that Ken Paxton was, you know, maybe kind of going to win that primary, but Trump could have just stayed out of it he had up until the very end. And just kind of say, hey, you know, they're both good men. And, you know, I really think either one would be good. No skin off his nose. Instead, he actually went in and stabbed Jeremy Corbyn in the back. Actually, he stabbed him in the face. Right in the last days of that primary. And if Corda just, I mean, he showed that tiny bit of integrity, which is to say, okay. I'm out. I got nothing to lose. You did that to me. I'm going to do that to you. It would just be beautiful. So that's why I don't think they're going to do it. Exactly. Exactly. Drift class, listen, we're pretty old. We have seen this trick before, haven't we? I mean, Artilis or John Cornyn actually going to stand up to Trump here and block Todd Blanche's nomination. Even though, Heather, by the way, to her point, she makes a good point. Trump also doesn't have the power unless you give it to him, at least in this case. Yeah, I think we're looking at, you know, this, we've been around this block enough times to be sick and tired of going around this block. These are Republicans. Republicans are all the way they are. They, they, every now and then they show little flashes of what resembles integrity, and then they cave. I have no, I'm with Heather entirely. They'd be great if they did this. That would be terrific. If I may just add. In celebration of the White House Correspondents Dinner. Yeah. We, at the professional left, went back 10 years and did the Larry Wilmore, 2016 dinner. Wow. And it was in that time period that you might recall that a guy named Ted Cruz, also from Texas, stood up and just railed against Donald Trump as a liar and a scumbag and the worst man in the world. And he said, my daddy did nothing to do with killing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. And then he rolled over.

Yeah. Because that's how Republicans are. Yeah. They put on a good show, a good performance as if they had integrity. They know what it looks like. I'm sure they've seen it at the zoo somewhere. They've seen integrity perform someplace and they can put on a performance like that. But they're basically just Republicans and they have no integrity. So it would delight me if they did it on the way out just as a big FU. But, you know, I have no hope that they're going to suddenly get better on the way out. No, because that's how they roll over. for this guy. Speaking of on their way out of the Senate, at the very least, Mitch McConnell, who claims at least his office does to still be alive, but who has not shown up for work for more than 40 days after what his official statement describes as a fall at his DC home in June, but that the... 911 calls described as an unconscious man in need of CPR. Before we discuss whether he is alive or dead and whether Kentucky's Democratic governor is meeting this moment in response. Mitch McConnell's friend, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who never saw a war of choice that he wasn't unwilling to send American kids to die in. He definitely died a few weeks ago since we spoke with you last at the age of 71. A couple weeks ago, Drift Glass, would you like to say something nice about Lindsey Graham as he is being laid to rest today? Not really. Okay. But I will say that because our governor is a class act, he did lower the flags in Illinois to half staff over this, which in a weird way seemed appropriate because Lindsay was half a man. And he blew in whatever direction the wind was blowing. So how appropriate was that? Okay, then. The even tougher question, Heather, I won't ask you if you'd like to say anything nice about Lindsey Graham, though you're welcome to. And I won't ask you to say anything nice about Mitch McConnell. But is Mitch McConnell alive or dead? And will he ever show back up in the U.S. Senate? I sincerely doubt we're going to see Mitch back in the Senate. I would be very surprised that this is not normal. Something's going on here. The fact that the governor, you know, Andy Beshear, is out there every day kind of saying, hey, we need to see some proof here, guys. You need to make, you know, a radio appearance or do something. I mean, I would think that the governor may have some information, right? I mean, maybe not. Maybe I'm just becoming a conspiracy theorist. But I have a feeling that the governor may know something here. And he's out there saying this because, of course, they're playing games. There's a, there's a date, I guess. I don't know what is. August 3rd, August 3rd, next Monday. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, they have to, you know, they got to keep him out until then.

Well, just to explain that, because there's been a lot of speculation that, you know, Mitch McConnell will not release his or his office will not release his real condition until after that date, August 3rd, when supposedly it becomes too late for Kentucky's Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, to either call for a special election to replace Mitch McConnell as per state law or to name a replacement for him as per the state constitution. There's much debate about all of that. But, yeah, you're suggesting that it sounds like Andy Beshear knows something? That's what I think. I mean, it just seems odd to me that if Mitch McConnell is, you know, I don't know, ambulatory or functional in some way, that that would be a risky thing for him to do. Maybe it isn't. But it struck me when I was watching Andy Beshear on TV talking about this. I'm kind of going, that's very interesting. I bet, you know, he. He's the governor of the state. I mean, this can't be a big, you know, a completely, you know, tightly held secret that the guy is, you know, that he's gone. I mean, it just seems to me that maybe, you know, when you think about these elderly people in like Mitch McConnell, when you take a fall like that. And it happens all the time. Yeah, they break their hip or whatever. But, you know, it has a far-reaching effect. Let's just put it that way. Neurologically speaking. So that would be my guess. Here was Andy Beshear. You mentioned this. Now, Andy Beshear is the state's two-term Democratic governor. I kind of... I saw his comments a little bit differently, Heather. He was, I felt that he was sort of poo-pooing this whole idea of this August 3rd date. Let me play just a piece of that and we'll discuss. Well, do I understand it correctly that August 3rd? is a key deadline here that if Mitch McConnell continues in this capacity through the third, then you will not have an opportunity to name a replacement until the actual election is held. There's an argument out there that that's a date where I could not later call a special election. And for those that are really pushing this... Will you challenge that? Well, a lot of those that are pushing this are... online and I think are under the impression that a Democrat in Kentucky might be able to win that election. It's been since 1992 that we have had a Democratic senator in Kentucky. So now, well, that's people online. They're very online. Now, Drifty, Andy Beshear, supposedly a 2028 presidential hopeful. He's done another sternly worded. letter to Mitch McConnell's office this week. This is his second one, I think. The last one was the beginning of July because nobody's heard from Mitch McConnell, at least haven't heard him speak or seen him move in more than a month, once again demanding his, is, you know, that he respond verbally in some way or resign. Is that enough as you see it?

Well, I mean, around here we refer to Mitch McConnell these days as Schrodinger's senator. You know, you won't know until you open the casket. You know, you can't really tell if you're still alive or dead. And I think that Andy Beshear is trying very hard to make the case that whatever Republicans do, they've been misserving the constituents of Kentucky and that that won't be stood for by the governor of Kentucky. If I were him, I would subpoena Mitch McConnell. I'd have someone serve him with papers so that they walk into his hotel room and find out. Hospital. Yeah, hospital, wherever he's at, rehab facility, morgue. I don't know where he's at. But wherever the body is, make someone in an official capacity deliver papers to that location that Mitch McConnell has to respond to. I don't know if they might just blow him off, but, you know, this is something like the reverse of what they did with John Ashcroft. You know, you can find a person. at the hotel or the hospital or the rehab facility and send someone there, find out where he's at. Don't know why that's not happening, but that's Kentucky politics. Well, I've seen some other folks online. I think Mueller, she wrote, Alison Gill, has sort of been leading the way on this one, unless I'm mistaken, but as sort of calling for Andy Beshear to simply name someone to replace Mitch McConnell and let Mitch McConnell. If he wants to contest that, go to court where he would have to offer proof of life in order to block the governor's appointment. Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you saying that we should steal a seat from Mitch McConnell? I mean, is anything lower than stealing a seat? All right. Yeah, we're not standing for that kind of thing. We don't do that. I don't know. It seems like a fine idea to me. And, you know, if he was going to have to say, no, I'm right here. I'm alive. Then he would have to say, I'm right here. I'm alive. And he had to prove it in a court of law. I mean. Does the way that Andy Beshear has been handling this make, I'm watching this and thinking, man, you've got a great opportunity here. You've got a platform, Andy Beshear. Does it, the way he's been handling this, make him, frankly, more or less likely to win over Democrats for a presidential run in, in 2028. As either of you say, actually, let me start with Heather. Well, I mean, I think it kind of does, actually, because for one thing, you know, he's sort of, he's the good boy governor, right? I mean, he's the guy. He's very nice. He's not a fight. You know, he's no Gavin Newsom or J.B. Pritzker out there, you know, causing all kinds of trouble. He's just a good, he's a good guy who's trying to do a good job, and that's his whole schnick. This is a very kind of clever, I think, underhanded way. of playing the game because I think he's insinuating that Mitch McConnell is brain dead. I really think that's it. And he's insinuating that Republicans are all lying about it. And he's saying that they're all talking to him on the phone and he's having 20-minute conversations about policy, you know, from his sick bed. And why if he can do that, why can't he come forward? So I think it gives him a little bit of a, I don't know,

You know, a little sexiness there about, you know, maybe he can do this thing. If you're talking about the presidential race, I think, I think that's a pretty clever thing. Unexpected for him, too, by the way. Do you agree, Dirkclass? Because I do not. And I, you know, I'm never happy disagreeing with Digby. But I don't think he looks particularly good. So you be the tiebreaker here, Drifty. I think in Kentucky with Kentucky constituents. He is striving to look like he has taken every reasonable, possible step to not invade the man's privacy and just to serve the constituents. And that's the phrase that shows up in all of his correspondence, as far as I can tell, which is serving the people of Kentucky. You're not serving the people of Kentucky. You've missed 30-some-odd votes. You've been out for, you know, longer than freaking Lazarus. And we'd like to know where you are and what's wrong. If nothing's wrong, why not show? He's boiling it down to a very simple. question. If there's nothing wrong, why aren't you talking to us? If you're not talking to us, we can assume something's wrong. And once he's exhausted every possible decent, honorable way of getting at Mitch McConnell, then he is free to go nuts. And I think that sets him in good stead with people who want to believe that we're better than that. And because it's both good politics and good policy. And I think that's a... That's a nice match. Okay. Well, you guys are both outvoting me. Of course, you're both wrong as usual. But I would note that in that August 3rd date, and maybe because there's, you know, there is some confusion here about whether, because Mitch McConnell actually engineered a new law in the state that says the governor. cannot just replace a vacant Senate seat as they can in most states, that there would actually have to be an election. And that was after Kentucky had elected a Democrat. to the governor's mansion. So they changed the law, but apparently the state constitution says something different. The state constitution says that he can just appoint someone. And I don't know if the August 3rd date applies, but I think we may see some action around all of this as of August 3. Yes, we might. And I just want to say overall, I think that this speaks to the way that the media, the corporate legacy media, treats Democrats differently from Republicans. If a Democrat had been out of commission. for this long, then the media would be, I think, demanding wall to wall. How dare they do this to the constituents? But, you know, it's okay if you're a Republican. Let's take a quick break here and we will be back with more Drift Glass and our dear ailing Digby on the never-ending quagmire of Trump's Iran war. It's effect on the November elections. And I think for the first time this year with Digby and Drift Glass, some of their thoughts. on the odds of Democrats reticking the U.S. Senate this year. I don't think we've discussed that with them yet. That's all straight ahead right here on the broadcast. I'm Brad Friedman. Don't touch that dial.

Hey, this is Brad. Please consider supporting whichever progressive media outlet is supporting you and the things that you care about. Most, just like us, do not receive corporate or political support. We all need your support to counter the powerful corporate media echo chamber. Right now, as much as ever. If you choose to support us, you can do it really easily, safely, and quickly via brandblog.com slash donate. From Desi Doyen and myself, thank you. Black Day in July. Black Day in July. The printing press is turning, and the news is quickly flashed, and you read your morning paper, and you sip your cup of tea, and you wonder just in passing, is it him or is it me? Black day in July. Oh, it's definitely him. Welcome back to the Bradcast, Brad Friedman from Bradblog.com here with our monthly-ish roundtable with our good friends Heather Digby Parton and Drift Glass. Heather is hanging in there with us, despite her cold on vacation. And just to ruin it even further, we made her appear on today's broadcast. All right, Heather, Donald Trump's war on Iran now seems to be expanding from the Strait of Hormuz to the Red and Caspian seas. Saudi Arabia apparently joined in the bombing on Tuesday after a surprise attack from Iran, as Trump claims that he had stopped. the bombing because Iran wants to talk, though Iran says that's not true. We don't want to talk. Is there any way out from this war, Heather, other than really, because we've been talking about it for months, and I see no way out other than a really complete loss for the U.S.? Is there any way out from where you're sitting? No. He lost it months ago. It was lost basically before it began. The decision to do it was the death knell. And there's nothing he can do. He made a huge mistake. It's an absolutely historically bad decision to have done what he did. And he now he knows, and this is all driven not by, he doesn't care about Iran and its nuclear program. He doesn't, I don't even, you know, he just wanted to do it for the glory, right? You know, he was just in it for the glory. Sure. Well, there's no glory. It's not looking good for the glory. So he would like nothing more than to just declare victory and leave. But he can't because he knows that the global economy is resting on this. And that he can, if he leaves. that we're going to see a complete reordering of the Middle East. We're going to see the Strait of Hormuz and all the other waterways and other paths come under different jurisdictions, as it were. And he knows he can't do that. There's an article, I think it's today, maybe it was yesterday, about him. You know, he keeps saying this over and over again. If I do it, I'll be Hoover.

That's what he's afraid of. He thinks he's going to be Herbert Hoover. And he could be. I mean, that's entirely possible. And it's entirely possible that it could happen with him not leaving. Exactly. Either way. Continue either way. He's already lost it. There is no upside here. There's no, you know, if there was. Then he could, you know, he could make a decision and then lie about it. You know, I mean, he doesn't care what the reality is. He just needs to do something. And there's nothing. He's trapped. So I don't see this. I don't see what he could do. And I don't see a good outcome for any of us. No. I really don't. I don't either. I'm not, I don't take joy in the fact that there's no way out. It's kind of maddening because it was all so predictable. Drift Glass. Back in 2006, after it became clear that we were in, at that time, a no way out quagmire in Iraq, the Republican president's party at the time took what George W. Bush called a thumpin. As I recall, in that year's midterm elections, it's become pretty clear to me that we are still going to be stuck in Iran now, in an Iran quagmire, just under 100 days from now in the November midterm elections. I think... Even before this Iran mess, Trump and his party were set to take a whoopin. That's a little bit. That's one level higher than a thumpin. So how is the Iran war likely to affect this election even worse than a whoopin at this point? As you see it, I know you had predicted about a 40-seat flip in the U.S. House on this show about a year ago. Yes, I did. Is that still operative at this point? Well, I want you to get out your pencil and write this down, Brad, because I don't want any misunderstanding. All right. Julianne Stratton is going to win the Senate seat in Illinois. And you can just take that to the bank and call me a fool for being that Pollyannish about politics. I kind of figure the House is still the Democrats to lose. And the Senate might come out as a 50-50, which would break my heart. But I just, this isn't the same party that it was in 2006. We're talking about the Republicans here? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, the Republican Party is simply not the same party that they were in 2006. They could be shamed in 2006. They could be broken. They could tear off their uniforms, as I've said a million times, and burn it and pretend they were never in Berlin. They could pretend they'd never heard of George Bush and hide in their homes. And this is a cult now. And they're going to go hard. I mean, the catastrophe in Iran is simply not what people around here who are Maga are talking about at all. They're talking about Anthony Fauci being, you know, the worst villain in history and Zohran Mamdani being a secret Muslim terrorist in New York. So this is not penetrating them. What I'm hoping is that those undecided voters who can't tell the difference between a chicken dinner and broken glass will figure out that this once in their life, maybe they pick the chicken dinner, maybe they actually get involved in the election. If that happens, if the undecideds and the quote-unquote independents come off the fence.

that I'm willing to stand by a 30 to 40 flip in the House and maybe even take the Senate by two. Are you saying, because I did those numbers out of Texas in the James Talarico Ken Paxton case in the previous segment, are you saying that the Republicans out there, the MAGA folks out there, are not furious about what's going on in Iran, not furious about the rising gas prices? They're furious, but Democrats are always worse. Democrats are the devil. And that's in their, that's been on their head for, well, you can ask Digby, that's been on their head for decades. Democrats are always worse. That is the constant Republican politics. No matter how bad they get. There's a little circuit in their head goes bad, but Democrats are bad. I vote for a Democrat. I'm going to go to hell. So, yeah, they're angry and they're disappointed and they're furious. It doesn't matter because. Democrats are always worse. And just to underscore your courageous prediction there about Julius Stratton and a Democrat winning for U.S. Senate in Illinois, not that much of a ledge to go out on, I suppose. She will be running for Dick Durbin, I guess, who is standing in. Yeah, Dick Durbin's retiring. Right. Yeah, and he's, I ran into him at the bookstore a couple of weeks ago, so he's doing fine. All right. He's at least alive, unlike Mitch McConnell. True. But, you know, I think we have to be also include the fact that with Republicans' extreme gerrymandering that they've done over the last year, that Democrats may not get as many seats as they would normally have gotten. That is true. And by the way, I want to go on record as saying because I brought this up many times, your prediction about 40 seats in the House, I'm going to give you. 40 minus maybe a dozen or 10 or so because of all that mid-decade gerrymandering that no one actually could have predicted would work. I'm going to take back six of your 12 and say a number of those seats are dummy-mandered to the point where it's awfully thin. It's very, very thinly spread. They spread their Republicans very thin. So I think. A few of those at least, they've outsmarted themselves. And again, if independents, get off the fence, if non-voters suddenly see that this is actually in their interest, I think we'll get six more than your 12 that you took away from me. So that puts you to 36. Flips. Okay. Now, Heather is way too smart to commit to a number, so I'm not even going to ask her about that. Heather, though, you reminded us on your blog today, Hullabaloo blog, about a remark from Donald Trump that he made back on April 1, I believe it was, though it wasn't an April Fool's joke. This was just over a month into his war on Iran that you described correctly, in my opinion, as, quote, this being an excellent. excellent campaign issue. Let me play it and we'll ask you about it. The United States can't take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state. We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare. You got to let a state take care of daycare and they should pay for it too.

They should pay. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up, but it's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. That's it. One thing. Get rid of everything else. Medicare, Medicaid. Heather, you wrote Republicans should run on. I'm sorry, Democrats should run on. Well, actually, I guess you were joking. You said Republicans should run on this. The voters will love it. Heather, A, what the hell was he thinking back then? And B, have you seen any signs the Democrats are actually doing that or actually front-loading that quote? I mean, my God, that's a gift from the heavens. Are they running on that quote, that issue at least so far this year? Well, I haven't heard it. Yeah, I mean, okay, I'll just say, you know, I don't know. Maybe they, maybe there are some House members that are running on that. But this is the kind of thing. I mean, we just, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that they're going to get rid of subsidies for Medicare Part D. Medicare Part D. Do they know who takes Medicare Part D? Old people. They know how many old people there are in this country? It's the baby boom. Do they understand what they're playing with here? And that's Rosvode out there doing that. Oh, we got to get rid of those subsidies. That's really ridiculous. Well, I mean, the idea that this would even come up in, what is it, four months before the election is just, it's astonishing to me. So. My feeling is this. As I was listening to Drift Glass, you know, I agree with him. It's not the same party. We've got this weird dynamic. It's a cult, you know, all this stuff. And the Democrats, they're not doing themselves any favors in some ways, too. So maybe it won't be this huge tsunami. You know, I mean, Barack Obama lost 67 seats in 2010. I mean, seriously. So, you know, those days don't seem like they're here anymore. That just doesn't seem possible. Well, that was also before, I should note, that was also before the major, the red map Republican redistricting that happened in 2010, basically making it kind of impossible by and large for there actually to be a 67 seat flip anymore because of the way the maps have been redrawn. So, yeah, go ahead. Right. So, I mean, that's not, you know, you look back and go, well, gee, you know, I can't we have that. Well, we just can't because of what they've done. And the Senate map, which, you know, I thought the same as you guys did, I think, you know, which I had been super long shot probably at the beginning of the year. I wouldn't have expected anything.

You know, but it does look like there are certainly possibilities. At the very least, it's close. Maybe it will just be 50-50. Maybe they'll eke out a majority. I don't know. But then again, you know, so this is my feeling. You know, I'm looking at it going, okay, well, we'll probably get the house. It won't be as big a deal as people think. And there'll be a bunch of... You know, they're going to contest the hell out of it. There's going to be all kinds of lawsuits. You know, Trump's going to go through as they rigged it. They rigged it and all that. So who knows where all this is going to come out going to come out? And in the Senate, maybe the same thing, maybe not. But then I look at these polls. And the polls I'm looking at are just completely, I mean, they're mind-boggling. Trump's like it, you know, 34% in the new. And this is not outliers here. They're all right in the same area. He's underwater by like 20 points on immigration. Yep. And you have to ask yourself if that truism about midterms is that it's a referendum on the president, which is what everybody's always told us, it's hard for me to imagine that this isn't going to be, you know, a very successful democratic year. But again, I'm in the same place where maybe it can't be. You know, maybe it's just impossible for it to be under these circumstances. So that's where I'm at, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I'm looking at at least seven U.S. Senate seats that Democrats could, I think. realistically, flip from red to blue this year. And I say at least, because there's also some outliers, you know, beyond it in places like Florida. And is it Montana, I think, where there's an independent running, Nebraska, where there's an independent running. But places like Texas, Iowa, Alaska, Maine, Drift Glass. you know, longtime politico yourself. What do you see as realistic in a year like this in the U.S. Senate? What do you see Democrats as having a realistic opportunity to flip from red to blue this year? Because like Heather says, if you look at Trump's ratings, they are obviously in the toilet. But if you look at some of the polls in some of the states, you see Democrats winning. In some cases, in the polls, very, very close to winning. What do you see? What are we looking at? Looking down the barrel of this year. Well, let me just first say that when you talked about, when you ran that clip of Trump talking about daycare and military, et cetera, and how outrageous that, that is just Timu Reaganism.

I mean, that's just, that was Reagan's own policy, you know, cut social programs, jack up the military, cut taxes. Yeah, but he was smart enough to not say it out loud the way that Trump did there. But it took 40 years to dumb the base down to the point where they don't notice or care. It really, in the Senate, because these are statewide races, it really does depend on the people who are normally on the fence or independent. And my great fear is that they have been so conditioned to complete the sentence. Whenever you hear Republicans doesn't anything bad, they automatically, yeah, but Democrats are bad too. I mean, the 40 years of both sides do it, journalism has drummed into their heads that neither party is better than up. than the other and that everyone is equally bad, even though factually that's just ridiculous and you can go down an entire list of things where it's demonstrably not true. Everything you talked about, all the cuts to they're actually coming through on Medicare, on SNAP, all the big beautiful bill stuff. That was a straight party line vote with like three exceptions. So there's a clear division between the two parties. One is better, vastly better. One is psychotic and broken and corrupt. And my great fear is that there are just too many people out there who just don't believe there's any difference between the due parties and they will stay home or they won't vote at all or they'll just throw up their hands. And so that it'll be closer than I would rather it be. Because however low Trump goes, there's just going to be enough people out there who just believe Democrats are worse. They're always worse. Democrats are the devil. And that's going to make it less likely for us to turn. four or five or six states blue. Maybe three, maybe two, but your role at a hard six there when you're going that high. Let me stand up for Republicans a little bit here and for independence here. I think your argument, Drift Glass, is not wrong. about a lot of those Republicans and those, I know you like to call them programmable meatbags, the people in the cult. I think you're not wrong about a lot of them. But the fact of the matter is it does not take many of them to stay home, to not vote at all, to flip their vote to the Democrat. So many of our races are so close in so much of the country. It's not going to take a lot of them to stay home. And I think there are, what was that number that from that Texas poll I read earlier, you know, one in five Republicans in Texas is thinking about either staying home or voting for James Talarico. Well, if you have one in five, that's 20 percent, Bill. I mean, that's that's a, that's a, that's a landslide at that point, even in places like Texas. for Democrats. Yeah, I, I, I, first of all, trust me, I hope you're right. Boy, do I hope you're right. I'm in a white knuckle the next 94 days because I pray and hope for that. Just Democrats get a hold of one or two houses so they can start holding hearings and holding people accountable and dragging people in front of them for testimony. That is my great hope.

I live through John Kerry, and I'm sure you did too, where it was just, that's in fact what radicalized a lot of us, which was it was jaw-dropping to us that this obviously inept, incompetent, corrupt administration that had screwed up a war really badly and was led by a man who was at dry, drunk, half-wit was losing to a war hero. And yet he did. And so. After that, I became a lot more cautious about trusting the wisdom of the American people. No, I hear you. And let me make it clear. I'm not predicting anything here. I'm not nearly as foolish as you are to actually go on the line with 36 house seats. But I'm just saying that I see the conditions here. I don't see them as darkly, perhaps, as you do. Heather, do you want to break this particular tie? Well, you know, I will just, I can't break the tie because I honestly don't know what to think about this. Well, neither do we, but we just make it up, so feel free. Okay, well, all right. I did note in that Texas Bowl that you refer to that there's 14% that are undecided. Yep. You know. What, how can you be undecided at this point? I mean, yeah. This is just, it's insane. So I don't know. Who are those people? What kind of, you know, freaks are they? What way will they go? Will they go the way of Brad who when they'll say, look, these Republicans have really, you know, screwed things up and gas prices are high and they, my Medicare's going up and whatever. Or will they go drift glass way and just go, yeah, but it's a bunch of commies. We can't have the commies. We've got to get rid of the commies. So I don't know. You know, I do think that it's people are less, I don't even want to say open-minded. They're just less flexible in their thinking than they used to be on this kind of thing, that you just, they're just unable, especially on the right. But there's some of this on the left too, unable to sort of, you know, grasp that. they might have been wrong about something or that maybe they had a bad judgment or they just did, you know, they just made a little bit of a mistake. But it doesn't do it. But it doesn't take many of them to do it. It's true. You know, in a close election, you know, the margins are everything, right? I mean, we know that. And then, of course, Brad, let's not forget, in a close election where the margins are everywhere, then we have, you know. Rick in the vote and we've got, you know, lawsuits and we've got all kinds of things set up to challenge that. So, you know, it's complicated. Yes, it is complicated. That's the best way to put it, I guess, at this point. And we didn't even get into, once again, because I keep kicking it to the back, you know, the communist takeover of the Democratic Party that we've heard so much about. Yeah, how Republicans are trying to make communism happen. And I had, exactly. And I was. all ready for them to make Sharia law happen. That seemed like it was the plan and then it switched to communists. And of course the base doesn't notice the bait and switch. Oh, that's all the same. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, we'll have to get to that. And because there is a very real fight in Ternison battle, at least of sorts within the Democratic Party between the progressives and the more establishment folks. But guess what? We can't talk about it today either.

Maybe next time that we have you both back. You are both a delight as ever. Heather Digby, Parton, the hot tea is on me today. Thank you for bearing with us this hour. You can find her work at salon.com and at Digby's blog.net. You can follow her on the blue skies at Digby 56. You should download Driftglass. Subscribe and download for free, I think, to Drift Glass Pro Left podcast at Pro. left pod.com and his blog is driftglass. Dot blogspot.com. Oh, and he's on the blue skies too. Now just as driftglass. Yep. Yep. You defined. Thank you guys. Really appreciate it. Until we speak again. Stay well out there. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right, Desi Doyen, thank you as well. We have to get out. My thanks to everyone for tuning in today. If you missed any portion of today's show or any other since the beginning of time, it is all available for you for free now. as ever at bradblog.com, beautifully redesigned for your listening and reading pleasure. You can drop me email if you like. I am Bradcast at Bradblog.com. Oh, and while you're at the blog, please consider hitting one of those donate buttons to help us stay on your public airwaves. You can also find me on the social medias. I am the Brad Blog. See you there. Until we see you here next time, I'm Brad Friedman. Good luck, world.

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