Trump's Epic Fury...with Indiana Republicans | The News Agents USA

Added: 2026-05-13

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[00:00:12]>> Donald Trump sets up Project Freedom and within hours of him announcing that some French containers ship gets hit. There must be plenty around Trump now who realize that every time he uses a word like surrender and capitulate, all it does is it gets the back of Iran.

[00:00:30]>> I feel I've read this about 15 million times. If you don't do what we say, we're going to blow you to smitherines.

[00:00:35]>> Oh, you're going to kill another civilization. Oh, you're going to wipe them off the face of the earth. All right. Okay. Yeah. And it just sounds so meaningless.

[00:00:40]>> You crack on. We'll call the Undertaker.

[00:00:44]Iran had never exercised that degree of control over the straight of Hormuz.

[00:00:49]>> The operation is over. Uh epic fury is president notified Congress. We're done with that stage of it. Okay, we're now on to this project of freedom. As far as a negotiation is concerned, I think the president's been clear that part of the negotiation process has to be not just the enrichment, but what happens to this material that's buried deep somewhere that they have still have access to if they ever wanted to dig it out. Marco Rubio announcing that the military operation Epic Fury is over in the tone of someone who thinks we're the stupid ones for not having realized and saying that it's all about project freedom reopening the straight of Hormuz with American military hardware. Except Donald Trump undermined him moments later and said, "I'm putting that on pause because a peace deal is close."

[00:01:38]Really? Welcome to the News Agents USA.

[00:01:43]>> The News Agents USA with Emily Mateless and John Soapal.

[00:01:48]>> It's Mateless.

[00:01:49]>> It's I don't know what I am. John, I think. Um and Marco Rubio yesterday was at the White House briefing room lectturn standing in for Caroline Levit.

[00:02:01]Uh not standing in for Donald Trump.

[00:02:02]That would be very presumptuous of him indeed uh to even think about such a thing. But there he was in the briefing room saying, "No, no, look, look, look, look. Epic Fury is done. The military part of this campaign is complete. We've done everything we achieved and we're now about project freedom, which is solving a problem that wasn't there before Epic Fury started, namely the straight of Hormuz and the passing of commercial shipping through that straight, which is now a huge problem created by the Iran war." And just as a footnote, no, you haven't changed the regime. No, you haven't got the nuclear material. And no, you haven't stopped Iran's missile program. But apart from that, it's all gone really well.

[00:02:44]>> Well, I guess there was this flurry of activity and interest. A story breaking mourning from Axios, which suggests that the White House is now on the brink of what they call a memorandum of understanding. A one-page memorandum of understanding. One page in Trump terms sounds quite long actually because you know it's not a true social post. It's not a tweet. It is something that if it comes to pass will number the things that it expects to hit in terms of a peace agreement of sorts with Iran. So the framework suggests there will be more detailed nuclear negotiations uh which would involve Iran committing to a moratorum on nuclear enrichment.

[00:03:31]Okay, let's just see if that gets signed off. It would mean the US agreed to lift its sanctions. Again, a complicated one because as we know, Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary, started lifting sanctions in the middle of the actual war as a way of trying to get some of the oil through. So, that's confusing.

[00:03:51]And the US would have to release billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds. both sides crucially to your point would have to agree to lift restrictions around the transit through the straight of Hormuz. And so we haven't seen this memo yet. It is just being reported by Axios which has been sourced we understand from two officials inside the White House but other parts of the press other papers are reporting this. and Pakistan as well say Pakistani sources have been quoted as saying yeah this is real um and that maybe the two sides are closer u apparently it's being negotiated by Donald Trump's two favorite negotiators his son-in-law Jared Kushner who I saw at some fancy Miami nightclub with Ivanka the other night walking in and kind of looking like his mind wasn't entirely on Iran peace talks uh and uh Steve Wickoff the property billionaire there from New York. They're apparently the ones negotiating this stuff, but they're not in Islamabad. They're not meeting with the Pakistanis. So, look, this may all be real. It may be that it is about to come to pass that there is going to be a peace deal, that it will kind of result in some kind of nuclear deal, that Iran commits itself to no nuclear enrichment for 10, 15 years. Apparently, according to this Axios report, that the Iranians want to commit to five, America want 20 years. So maybe there'll be some middle ground phase uh there. There'll be the question of the straight of Hormuz. Can Iran start charging a kind of motorway toll for any kind of tanker uh passing through it? America would want to that not to happen. Um but there's also the problem that who are they negotiating with because the leadership has been taken out and it seems that there are rival factions in Iran who may take different views. apparently the foreign minister uh more moderate than some of the others where the revolutionary guard are sort of holding sway. So that's a problem. That's one idea. That's one explanation for everything. The other explanation is that Donald Trump sets up project freedom. Says that there is this red, white and blue dome now over the straight of Hummus and shipping can pass freely. And within hours of him announcing that, some French container ship gets hit, crew members get injured, and oops, it looks like that dome is not quite as fireproof as Donald Trump asserted it was. And just thought, God, I'm going to be humiliated here if I carry on with this. So, let's let's pretend there are peace talks going on and that they're really close to conclusion, which is not the first time this has happened.

[00:06:34]>> Yeah. I mean, if you um take on some of the numbers that we're seeing, I think it's up to a thousand ships are stuck in the straight of >> 1500 and there are normally over a hundred passing per day through the straight of horm and the first day of project freedom two >> two. So that percentage is is pretty slight. Now you can say slow start only day one but it looks like now there isn't going to be a day two because he has as you said halted project freedom and I guess the question is did he halt it because he genuinely believes that this memorandum of understanding is going to end the war and it's all going to be fine and he doesn't have to send anyone there. I mean they've still got I think 23,000 troops there so god knows what they do now. or he's just kind of flailing around and nothing that he suggests actually comes to fruition in the way that he imagines it would. And there is one more detail which I think is kind of important. This epic fury war has been going on for 60 days now.

[00:07:36]Anything longer than 60 days under the US Constitution needs signoff approval from Congress. So, it is perhaps not completely arbitrary that this is all happening now at the 60-day deadline because on Friday, Trump would have had to send a letter to Congress saying, "Can I have, you know, the goods approval to go on with this rather than wait for that to be turned down, he probably thinks it's easier just to put it to an end."

[00:08:06]>> Yeah. So, and so you've got people who are Trump loyalists desperate to come up with an explanation of what is going on that Project Freedom gets launched to such fanfare with Marco Rubio in the briefing room and then only moments later it's being put on hold. And so rather than say, does the president know what he's doing here? You have Fox News anchors like Jesse Waters saying, well, of course he knows what he's doing. At least I think I know.

[00:08:36]>> Fox News alert. The president says based on the request of Pakistan and other countries. We have mutually agreed that while the blockade will remain in full force in effect, Project Freedom will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the agreement can be finalized and signed.

[00:08:55]We suspect the president is letting the Iranians save face. The enemy just yesterday said they controlled the strait. That was obviously a lie. And watching the Americans escort ship after ship out of the Gulf and them not being able to do anything about that was going to be humiliating.

[00:09:15]Not only were they going to lose whatever military prestige they had left in the region, their negotiators weren't going to be able to fight for their position after they lost their last bargaining chip. The commander-in-chief must believe that the Iranians are serious about surrendering. if he's going to pause Project Freedom for the sake of a deal because you could also continue Project Freedom during the negotiations.

[00:09:42]You know, you do want to get these foreign ships moving. The president must know what he's doing. And we're about to find out how insane in the brain the regime really is.

[00:09:52]>> I think when he says how insane in the brain the regime really is, he's talking about Iran, not the US administration.

[00:09:59]It's ambiguous. I mean he he sounds like either way he sounds like he's trying to convince himself that there is a real rational explanation about what is going on here. It may be he's absolutely right. It may be that Iran has come up with a really kind of good proposal for peace and that's the basis of an agreement and that Iran is going to sign up to it and America will too. But what he was saying there about you know ships are able to pass through the straight freely and it's just such a humiliation for Iran that they can't do anything about it. No, the opposite is true. Two ships got through with all the American hardware and one French vessel gets hit.

[00:10:36]>> I really struggle to know how much the US administration is telling themselves this story because it is important to sort of have the propaganda sort of arm of Fox and everyone behind you when you sort of sail on doing this and how much they realized that they are up you know the old creek without the sort of hormones creek. Um, I mean, Trump said last week, if we leave right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild, which is technically true in terms of the military damage done, the infrastructure damage done. But he must recognize that amid this destruction, they have found all these new forms of leverage. Iran had never exercised that degree of control over the straight of Hormuz. People always knew that it could happen. It was a theoretical thing. It was a theoretical thing ironically like the nuclear enrichment, right? It was a theoretical thing and Iran has basically replaced that theory with this practice, right? Which is, oh, it just so happens that this is working really well for us.

[00:11:43]The country, I don't think, would have been confident that it could have done this without Trump literally giving them the how-to manual. So, we're in a place now where Jesse Waters and Fox News are trying to tell themselves that uh Trump knows exactly what he's doing.

[00:11:59]>> The three-dimensional chess mouth grandmaster >> as ever wandering along the sort of, you know, tiddlywinks board um trying to work out what he's actually stepping on.

[00:12:10]But I think that there must be plenty around Trump now who realize that every time he uses a word like surrender and capitulate, all it does is it gets the back of Iran up to the point where I mean, if you look, I'm just going back to this, you know, memorandum of understanding. It says that Iran would commit to never seek a nuclear weapon or conduct weaponized related activities.

[00:12:36]Now, they didn't sign that off last time in the 15point plan, and they don't appear to be weakened since first talk of that came. Trump is trying to replace the JCPOA, the exact deal that he got rid of, with something which is basically the Trump JCPOA. And this time, Iran is emboldened because they've seen that they've had America over a barrel of oil and they don't need to sign it.

[00:13:01]>> Well, listen to Donald Trump's latest post. We're sitting in the studio half past 1 and this was posted just half an hour ago. Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is perhaps a big assumption, the already legendary epic fury will be at an end and the highly effective blockade will allow the homo straight to be opened to all, including Iran. If they don't agree, the bombing starts and it will be sadly at a much higher level and intensity than it was before. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. I mean, I feel I've read >> You sound just like him when you do that.

[00:13:35]>> Yeah. I feel I've read this about 15 million times. If you don't do what we say, we're going to blow you to smitherreens. We're going to wipe you off the face of the earth. We're going to kill a civilization in one night and you'll never come back. I mean, how many more times does he say that?

[00:13:48]>> And the fact say it's so blas. It's so blas now. Oh, you're going to kill another civilization. Oh, you're going to wipe off the face of the earth. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah.

[00:13:55]>> And it just sounds so meaningless.

[00:13:56]>> You crack on. We'll call the Undertaker.

[00:13:57]>> Exactly. It just sounds like it's there for effect for his own base. And I think that it's convincing fewer and fewer people. I mean, if you look at his, you know, approval ratings right now, look, Donald Trump still has an enormous control over his party, and we'll come to that in a moment because it played out dramatically in Indiana overnight.

[00:14:18]But among ordinary Americans, there are more and more people thinking, well, hang on, you you said you were going to deal with inflation, but inflation is roaring back because of this. The cost of gas at the petrol station has gone up and up as a result of what's happening in the straight of Hormuz. um you know and so many other things as well that Republicans are really fearful now that in the midterm elections it's going to be bleak unless they can somehow cheat the system and massage the seats that are up for grabs.

[00:14:44]>> Well, let's hear what um Marco Rubio had to say when he was asked precisely that about the gas prices.

[00:14:50]>> Thank you, Mr. Secretary. The average price of gas in the country right now is $4.50. Do you have a thought on how long Americans are supposed to kind of accept this? Do you think it will affect Republicans majorities in the m midterm?

[00:15:02]>> Well, I don't I'm not going to speculate on the politics of it. Uh you can tell me. I mean, look, it's obviously being driven by global events that that was true during the Russia Ukraine war as well where you saw that come up. It's one of look we don't benefit from the straits as much as other countries. I don't know you've seen what the gas prices are like in other parts of the world that are really suffering big time. Um so we're very fortunate that the United I believe right now is like the world's largest net exporter of oil and natural gas as a result not because of this war because we have this capacity. So, we've been insulated to some degree. We're obviously still vulnerable to some extent to global prices. And so, but in the end, I mean, we're more insulated than other countries, even though that's not welcome news to Americans that are paying more at the pump. No doubt about it. Um, and and it and it certainly is one of the circumstances of it. There are people that were predicting would be much higher at this point, but we're not taking that for granted. Suffice it to say that.

[00:15:48]>> Let's pause that little um paragraph.

[00:15:50]So, the Secretary of State is saying, "I'm not going to speculate on politics, right? I I don't want to get involved in in their world. Sorry, you're who?

[00:16:00]You're what? You're you're the actual United States Secretary of State. And then he says it's obviously being driven by global events. Sorry, who is driving?

[00:16:12]What global events? There is this wonderful, wonderful attempt to make it seem >> nothing to do with us.

[00:16:19]>> This is all in the passive. It's all happening around us. And I don't I don't understand how these global events started. Do you? Well, no. That's politics. Well, yeah.

[00:16:28]>> Well, he did say it's just like Russia's invasion of Ukraine when prices went up.

[00:16:34]Yeah. Yeah. America didn't have anything to do with that.

[00:16:37]>> America has quite a lot to do with the fact that the straight of Hormuz is shut because it was as a result of American military action with Israel against Iran that the Iranian leadership or the revolutionary guard decided, you know what, we are going to pull this economic weapon out and we're going to see if it works. And boy has it worked. So when Marco Rubio says, "Yeah, it's just global events that's led to this price spike in the cost of fuel at the tanks for American consumers." No, it's your policies that have directly led to that.

[00:17:08]There's a straight line that leads from the price of gas to what you started over 60 days ago in Iran.

[00:17:15]>> You don't need to catch the fingerprints here, do you? I mean, it's kind of there. Um, in a moment we are going to be talking about what happened overnight in Indiana where the gerrymandering game continues.

[00:17:40]>> The news agents USA >> in Indiana. Uh just a few moments ago, the Senate there rejected the congressional maps to redistrict in that state. A number of Republicans voted against that redistricting effort. You have spent a lot of time talking about this. The vice president traveled to Indiana. What's your reaction?

[00:17:59]>> Well, we won every other state. That's the only state. It's funny because I won that. I won Indiana all three times by a landslide and I wasn't working on it very hard. Would have been nice. I think we would have picked up two seats if we did that. You had one gentleman, the head of the Senate, I guess, Bray, whatever his name is. I heard he was against it. He probably lose his next primary, whatever that is. I hope he does.

[00:18:22]>> So, that was Donald Trump speaking last December when he was asked by a reporter, what happens to that rebellion against the redistricting of seats in Indiana. We've talked before on the podcast about this move that began in Texas that then spread to Virginia last month that has hit California as well to essentially redraw the electoral maps.

[00:18:46]And in Texas, in the red states, Trump has been a big fan of it because it nets him, he thinks, more Republican representation, Congress people for the Republican party. and he's faced suddenly the Democrats doing the same thing in the blue states. So overnight in Indiana, Trump flexed his muscles and something pretty interesting happened.

[00:19:12]The people that he threatened because they had rebelled against his efforts to redistrict lost their chance to stand in these seats.

[00:19:23]>> Yes, they lost their primary race.

[00:19:25]Donald Trump has asserted control. He has flexed his muscles, as you say, Emily. And he wasn't just flexing muscles. He got like-minded supporters, these political action committees, packs, to pile in a ton of money >> into into Senate seats for the Indiana Senate. This isn't the Senate in Washington. This is the Senate in Indiana. And these are normally kind of lowlevel races that no one takes any notice of outside of Indiana. But the Huzia state became the focal point of this redistricting battle.

[00:20:02]>> Should we just go back? What is a Huzia?

[00:20:04]I I keep reading a Huzia. What is a Huzia? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it >> Yeah. Well, I've always known it as the Huzia state. I have no idea.

[00:20:12]>> Okay. Well, I can just tell you. We've just looked it up. There is no definition of Huzia. It just means >> you're from Indiana.

[00:20:18]>> It means you got a hardy frontier spirit and that's it.

[00:20:21]>> Have you got a hardy frontier spirit?

[00:20:23]>> I'm a Huzier. Yeah, >> you're a Huzzier. We're all Huzias. So what happened last night was that the money was piled in against Republicans.

[00:20:30]And don't think of this as a sort of battle between liberal Republicans and conservative Republicans. This is about MAGA and the authority of Trump and Trump wanted this redistricting to happen. There are nine congressional seats in Indiana.

[00:20:46]>> The last map was drawn after the census which is when congressional districts are meant to be redrawn. But Donald Trump has set in trained this kind of war between Democrats and Republicans to redistrict as much as possible. So you can draw a map. And essentially what the Republicans or what Donald Trump wants the Republicans to do is to redraw the map so that there is zero Democrat representation in Indiana because there are nine seats. Currently there are seven held by the Republicans, two held by the Democrats, and Donald Trump wants all nine to be Republican. And you do that by just simply redrawing maps so that you take away Democrat strongholds.

[00:21:25]You put them into even safer Republican strongholds. And hey presto, you deprive the Democrats of any representation at all in the House of Representatives in Washington.

[00:21:35]>> Yeah. And this is a story about big money and also about small money because the average salary for an Indiana state senator is about 33 $35,000.

[00:21:48]Right? We're not talking me bucks.

[00:21:51]They're sort of part-time jobs. You're allowed to keep doing, you know, you're a lawyer or you're a doctor, whatever.

[00:21:55]You do this as well. And yet, these Trump aligned dark money funds groups have spent around $7 million on TV ads just this year in Indiana. We're going to play you some of these. Um, just to to put that into sort of context, in 2024, a presidential election year, the entire cycle, less than 500,000 was spent on Indiana State. And in the first four and a half, four months of this year, 7 million. Here is a taste of some of those ads that the Trump friendly sort of packs were running.

[00:22:33]>> Pathetic. Rhino Jim Buck voted against Trump repeatedly, against Trump on China to keep liberals in Congress. Jim Buck, pathetic, old liberal. Tracy Powell, endorsed by President Trump. Trump endorsed Tracy Powell for State Senate.

[00:22:48]>> Soft on skin, soft on bottoms.

[00:22:53]>> Soft on China. State Senator Greg Walker betrayed Hoosiers by voting to let Chem China own Hooser farmland, putting us at risk. And Greg Walker was soft on redistricting, voting against President Trump to protect liberals in Washington.

[00:23:06]Greg Walker, soft, weak, liberal.

[00:23:09]President Trump has endorsed conservative Michelle Davis for state senate. ProTrump Michelle Davis for state senate paid for by Hooser Leadership for America.

[00:23:18]>> When you first see that advert uh on YouTube, you think you're you're about to press skip ad because the whole thing is set up like a toilet paper advertisement, right? You see the pictures and and then it basically just wipes sorry the floor. You know, it calls an 80-year-old public servant who's been in the business for decades old pathetic liberal.

[00:23:42]>> Yeah. And remember these it's not this isn't Republican versus Democrat. Just this is a primary campaign where one Republican is fighting another Republican. And these guys have given their service, public service, men and women for decades to the state, as you say, Emily, for not very much money at all, but because they believe in their politics and, you know, they're all kind of anti-abortion and they are proun rights and you know, they're not screaming weak liberals. These are proper conservatives, but they it's a question of control of do you submit to MAGA? Do you obey what Donald Trump asks? Do you bend the knee when Donald Trump tells you to? And that is what this whole battle in Indiana is about.

[00:24:26]And that is why it just isn't about Indiana because those muscles are going to get flexed elsewhere in the coming weeks and months with other battles coming up affecting Thomas Massie, the Kentucky congressman, for example, who has been a thorn in Donald Trump's side on a number of questions, but principally on the release of the Epstein files and has been vocal and clear and articulate >> and worked alongside a Democrat at Roana and worked alongside a Democrat to achieve that. So he is right in the crosshairs of Donald Trump and the money is now piling in against him with the requisite advertisements to go with it.

[00:25:08]>> Thomas Massie caught in a throppple in Washington. He's cheating with the squad on the America First movement. Massie voted with the squad against Trump's tax cuts. Massie voted with the squad against finishing Trump's wall. He voted with them against hiring new border agents. Well, this is worse than adultery. It's a complete and total betrayal of President Trump and Kentucky conservatives. On May 19th, fire Thomas Massie. MAGA Kentucky is responsible for the content of this advertising.

[00:25:38]>> MAGA Kentucky, right? Not Republican.

[00:25:40]MAGA Kentucky.

[00:25:41]>> MAGA Kentucky. And it's worse than adultery what he's doing. And >> well, last time we don't think Donald Trump had a problem with adultery. So frankly, you know, that didn't need writing.

[00:25:52]>> Yeah. But in Kentucky, maybe that has more resonance. And what you see, there are a whole series of AI images and Thomas Massie holding hands with the squad, AOC, and all the rest of it.

[00:26:02]>> The squad just means the progressive Democrats.

[00:26:04]>> The Progressive Democrats. And a bedroom door shutting and a do not disturb sign on the bedroom door. And a throple, which is a new word to me. I mean, >> no. So, where have you been?

[00:26:16]>> I don't a throple. Sounds such an odd word.

[00:26:19]So yeah, so basically they are painting Thomas Massie as luch, sexually addicted and >> promiscuous.

[00:26:28]>> Promiscuous. Yeah. And a man who has no place in Kucky's MAGA Republicans. And I think that to your earlier point, I mean, obviously the adverts are always going to be, you know, sensationalist and loud and in your face, but the fact that the voters followed what Trump said when they went out in these primaries last night, I think tells you that there is this there is this warning light right around anyone who thinks that despite Trump's sliding popularity in the polls, despite Trump's seemingly kind of uh unhinged grip on reality at times, despite his very unpopular war, that his grip on the party isn't just as strong, >> right? And I think it's really interesting this because we do spend a lot of time on this podcast sort of trying to look in the weeds of who is still a hard, you know, a hardened cast sort of MAGA fan and where the cracks are appearing. And we've talked about Tucker Carlson over the Iran war and we've talked about Megan Kelly over uh uh the Epstein files and we talked about Thomas Massie and all the rest of it.

[00:27:44]But it does seem that on something like this, when it comes to kind of gearing up your electoral levers, Trump can still pull them and they work.

[00:27:52]>> Yes. And and I I tell you what it underlines is that in 2028, you're not going to become the Republican candidate unless you've got Donald Trump's blessing. And so therefore, it is going to be a very very MAGA person who is running in 2028, assuming it's not. Of course, >> that's a long time away is all I'd say.

[00:28:10]That is still two and a half years away.

[00:28:12]>> Yes. But he's he's he he still instills and justifiably from the results of Indiana last night, he still justifiably instills enormous fear in Republicans who are going to dare to branch out from the orthodoxy of MAGA.

[00:28:28]>> And anyone who doesn't do what Donald Trump wants, you know, he he started off in Indiana trying to persuade them nicely. I'll play nicely with you, but if you want to get rough, I'm going to get rough. He got rough. And I think that the I hope you're watching America because Indiana tried to defy me and now they've those guys have learned the lesson. You don't defy me in the Republican party. And that is what the takeout is from that. And we've talked about, you know, uh Massie in Kentucky.

[00:28:54]There's a senator in Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, who could find himself in a very similar position. He's up for a primary.

[00:29:02]>> He's one of the few that voted to impeach Donald Trump.

[00:29:04]>> Yeah, exactly. So, he's in the crosshairs. His career could be ended anytime soon. And this is the price you pay for daring to cross Donald Trump.

[00:29:14]>> Even now.

[00:29:16]>> Even now.

[00:29:16]>> We'll be back in a second.

[00:29:30]The news agents USA >> Politico's Jonathan Martin is reporting that there is a quiet but serious effort by Senate Republicans like McCormack uh and Katie Britt uh to get Democratic Pennsylvania Senator John Federman to switch parties to become an independent and caucus with Republicans. Um what's your take on that?

[00:29:50]>> I mean, look, I I don't know what uh Senator Fedterman's going to do. I know that Pennians voted for a Democrat to represent them in the United States Senate. And so I think he needs to honor that and continue uh with his service to Pennsylvania and hopefully get back uh to what he was elected to do and reflect the will of the people.

[00:30:10]>> That was Josh Shapiro. He is the governor of Pennsylvania. And he was being asked a question about the Democratic Senator John Fetman of Pennsylvania. Now, John Fetterman does not look like your typical Democrat. He's a big tattooed fellow with uh a voice that often sounds strangely MAGA. And he came into the race having suffered a stroke uh and he won his seat in 2024.

[00:30:42]and he often frankly campaigns and sounds more like he's part of MAGA than than the Democrats and his approval ratings are starting to echo that in his home state.

[00:30:56]Just have a look at CNN's uh latest poll for him 3 days ago.

[00:31:01]>> John Federman is doing as well with Pennsylvania Democrats as the New York Giants are as liked in the state of Pennsylvania or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I mean, just look at this.

[00:31:09]Among Pennsylvania Democrats in that approval federament back in 2023, he was a Democrat liberal darling. He was at plus 68 points. Look at how low he has fallen down to negative 40 points. He's down there with the Titanic among Democrats in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And you know, to put a comparison point on, you know, we always talk about how Chuck Schumer is not well-liked by the Democratic base nationwide. Chuck Schumer has a net popularity rating of about minus two points. He is 38 points more popular than John Federman is with Pennsylvania.

[00:31:41]>> So, this is starting to raise big questions for John Federman. Is he unpopular because he doesn't sound or look like a Democrat anymore? In other words, they think he's flipped to the other side or is he growing strangely more attracted to possibly a Republican sort of style of of politics because he's just not really working out with the home base. So, it was striking, wasn't it, listening to that clip of Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, who, you know, you'd have thought he would have normally just said, "Of course he's not. He's a Democrat. Of course, he's not defecting to the Republicans." He didn't say that at all. He said, you know, kind of, it was much, >> we'd like to get a Democrat back.

[00:32:18]>> Yeah. It was much more equivocal. Um, he is very much in the mold of another senator who was a Democrat in West Virginia. Uh, and that was a guy called Joe Mansion who often held Joe Biden to ransom. it felt during the Biden years because of course that he desperately needed uh Joe Mansion's vote on various different things and Mansion was in a state that was largely Republican and Pennsylvania as we know from previous elections crucial swing state and Fetman in a lot of things seems temperamentally much more ma-minded than your conventional Democrat and there are all sorts of things where he just finds himself siding with MAGA >> and I know and I Think the real reason why people are fighting to build that ballroom, it's the TDS. Just because the president happens to agree, as I do, that we need a new ballroom facility for events just like this, why can't we just agree? Let's just build this thing and we move on. And now we create the kinds of of uh place that you can have more inclusive, more secure, and more frequent kinds of >> wellorganized kinds of events just like this. more.

[00:33:31]>> Yeah. TDS, Trump derangement syndrome.

[00:33:34]And he's saying that the Democrats who are opposing uh Donald Trump kind of reshaping the White House and building this gargantuan ballroom are just people that are suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. And it would be much better if we had a huge ballroom and everything could be held there in a very secure way. So there's a real debate I think in the Democratic party which is if somebody doesn't look like a Democrat, you know, should you basically say get out, change or get out because you're not helping us or do you do what they did for Joe Mansion and say no, this is exactly the kind of person that we need in the Democrat party to stop us looking like we're sort of hegemonic, we're sort of monotheistic, we're sort of, you know, we're all one color and one creed and one type. It's great to have somebody like Fetman because he attracts a different kind of voter. Now, Fetman said there is no chance that he's going to defect to the Republicans.

[00:34:28]Clearly this is something watched very very carefully. Not just because it's a key swing state but because there are so few uh numbers in the control of the Senate when it will come to November elections, the midterms that one switch could actually land the whole Senate into the Democrat's lap or into the Republicans's lap. So I think the numbers are very specific here. But the wider question is, do you try and encourage different types, different shapes, different voices in your party, or do you say we don't need somebody who's talking about Trump derangement syndrome when we all think that Trump is deranged?

[00:35:09]>> It's so interesting. Look, let's just go back to the previous, you know, topic we were talking about of what's happening in Indiana, where you've got to have political purity and you can there is only one gospel and it is the gospel of Donald Trump. Um, the Democratic Party has not been that. The Democratic Party has always been a home for people who are more establishment Democrats, more radical Democrats like Bernie Sanders, the AOCC's.

[00:35:31]>> I mean, Bernie is an independent case in point. He's an independent who always caucuses >> with the Democrat as does Angus Young, you know, >> but but AOC is a member of the Democratic party. Sorry.

[00:35:41]>> Yeah. And and so I think that you've got a problem for the Democrats because I think that if they were to drive out um Fetman and make him kind of feel like there's just no place for him in the Democratic party.

[00:35:53]>> It becomes a class thing.

[00:35:54]>> It becomes a class things. It becomes a purity test that the Democratic Party, you know, I believe it's my belief that the political center of gravity in America is further to the right than it is in the UK. If you set up just that the Democrats are only those politically pure people who hold idealistic positions on kind of whatever the the hot burning topic of the day is, then you will lose a lot of middle America.

[00:36:18]And at the moment, middle America is going to the Democrats precisely because they can't stand the MAGA orthodoxy.

[00:36:24]>> Middle America is going to the Democrats.

[00:36:26]>> Yes, middle America. So if you look at polling data that independent Americans who voted for Trump in big numbers in 2024, >> you mean they're falling away from the independents are falling away from MAGA and they are leaning towards the Democrats. And you look at kind of there was a special election in Michigan last night. Democrats way outperformed what they should be doing. And there have been a whole series of elections where the Democrats have been far done far far better than the state of national opinion polls would suggest. That kind of makes you that makes me conclude that putting a purity test. Yeah.

[00:37:04]>> And just going right, we're essentially a socialist party now is is there is no future for the Democrats.

[00:37:10]>> Except sometimes the weight of these outsiders is outsized. So Joe Mansion had more control over the Democrat party than almost any other senator, right?

[00:37:20]And the same could be true of Fetman. If they spend all their time trying to reach towards the one guy who doesn't look like the rest of the party, >> you know, are they kind of squandering >> and it builds up resentment as well >> that this one person who is a pain in the backside stroked and loved and, you know, nurtured all the way through so that you get what you want.

[00:37:40]>> We will be back next week. We shall see you then. Bye-bye. Bye for now.

[00:37:47]>> This is a Global Player original podcast.

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