Beardos, Weirdos, and Donald Trump

Jon Favreau (0:21)

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau, I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, we'll talk about Trump finally hitting the campaign trail, whether Republicans like it or not, and many of them do not, his morally binding, completely voluntary agreement with our AI overlords, Senator Eric Schmitt's national humiliation, Pete Hegseth's national humiliation, and why neither of them think what they did was humiliating because shame no longer exists. Then, Dan talks with Reverend Adam Hamilton, who's mounting a very serious challenge against Senator Roger Marshall in Kansas.

Dan, the buzz around the office is that it was a fantastic interview and that Adam Hamilton is awesome.

Dan Pfeiffer (1:01)

He is awesome. I encourage everyone to listen. I encourage everyone to support him. I really was very impressed by him in a way. I was very impressed by a politician in a while.

Jon Favreau (1:08)

That's exciting. All right, everyone, well, stay tuned after we blab on about the news for Dan's interview. All right, with 32 days left until the midterms, Donald Trump has finally hit the campaign trail in his so far successful effort to make the election about him and his 38% approval rating. The Republicans who are actually on the ballot don't seem as enthused about this strategy, but as one Republican operative told Politico, these guys are in a pickle. They may not want Trump to come to the district, but there are still things Trump can do to help. Another GOP strategist working on midterm races was asked what would happen if Trump campaigned in their battleground states and said, quote, I suspect my candidates would come down with COVID.

But one candidate who was seemingly COVID free on Thursday, Ken Paxton, who campaigned with Trump in Texas just a few days after audio leaked of Paxton telling donors what he really thought about Trump's midterm convention in Dallas. Here's the audio from the New York Times.

Dan Pfeiffer (2:10)

But do you feel like you used a little bit of a drag?

SPEAKER_3 (2:12)

So to be honest with you, when we did that convention, we dropped our numbers, everybody's on a new job.

SPEAKER_4 (2:20)

Right now, yeah, not good.

Jon Favreau (2:25)

Not good.

Dan Pfeiffer (2:26)

Yeah, not good.

Jon Favreau (2:28)

That was Paxton saying that, yeah, someone asked him if Trump's been a drag and he said, yeah, Trump's been a drag and that after that convention in Dallas, everyone's numbers dropped a little bit.

Dan Pfeiffer (2:39)

Paxton, now this is not the point here, but it's just truly unbelievable that someone, like most incredibly corrupt politicians who succeed have incredible charisma. Trump is an example, what is Paxton bringing to the table that allows people to just go along with his corruption?

He's the personality of a snail.

Jon Favreau (2:58)

People who analyze Texas politics for living and do Texas politics for living have made the point that he has gotten as far as he has because of his corruption.

And so because he has been so corrupt and gotten so many people who are really wealthy in Texas politics to spend so much money getting him elected, he really hasn't had a super competitive race, especially in a primary where he's had to rely on his charisma and talent campaigning. All he's had to do is just be the guy who a bunch of wealthy special interests poured a bunch of money into making sure he got elected so that he could pay them back.

Dan Pfeiffer (3:43)

Guys, we really can't lose to this guy. We cannot lose to him.

Jon Favreau (3:47)

So here's Trump in Texas on Thursday proving that he's definitely not a drag.

Donald Trump (3:54)

Ken Paxton was at my side more than anybody. And I have to always remember that because he could be a pain in the ass sometimes, I'll be honest. Is he here, by the way? Oh, there he is.

I didn't even know if he's here. I don't care.

Jon Favreau (4:10)

You think that's what Paxton was looking for? He's like, well, he didn't call me ugly this time. Now, we don't think that the event's not over.

Dan Pfeiffer (4:19)

Yeah, so it's possible he closed this with the ugly thing, the bad dressing thing.

There's so much in this remarks. Yes, is it helpful to Ken Paxton for Donald Trump to take his very poor approval rating, even in Texas, and just be like, see, Ken Paxton, he's always by my side. My stink is definitely on him, in case you're wondering.

My stink is on him. But also earlier in those remarks, he spent the... Before he gets to the acknowledging Ken Paxton's existence, he spends like 10 minutes at the top just saying how amazing the economy is and how we have numbers like no one's ever seen before. And the only reason people don't know it, it's because the fake news won't tell people.