District Club: RNC Takes Dallas: Day 1

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Ben Domenech (0:14)

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Mary Margaret Olohan (0:30)

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Tara Palmeri (0:35)

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Tim Rice (1:15)

Hello everyone and welcome to a special live edition of The District Club. I'm Tim Rice and guys Dallas is absolutely a buzz. The question on everybody's minds, will Republicans leave this convention with a more unified message and the boost that they need to get through November? Or will this unconventional setup backfire? We're also wondering what's going on in Texas's increasingly messy and important Senate race. And of course, what is Donald Trump going to say tonight at his primetime address here in Dallas? So joining me as always to talk about all this and more are my co-hosts Mary Margaret Olohan and Ben Domenech. And we are thrilled to be joined today by Tara Palmeri, intrepid journalist, host of the Tara Palmeri Show, and author of The Red Letter. Tara, I want to start with you.

You're on the ground here with us in Dallas. You've been here for a little bit. What are you thinking? What's the vibe? Is this going to go well for Republicans?

Tara Palmeri (2:09)

I don't know. I mean, to me, I feel like this is a Trumpapalooza. You've all heard it. But Trump is the present and past of the party. And that is not the future of the Republican Party. He is the only unifying personality that they have right now. And a lot of Republicans, they're not here. Reporting shows that there's only about 100 lawmakers and candidates that are here. Many of them do not want to be associated with him right now. And he is the only unifying principle in terms of their policies. They haven't figured out the future. And this whole Republican midterm convention, RMC, is that what we're supposed to call it? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I don't get it. It's weird.

It glorifies him. I know for sure there are a few topics we're not going to be hitting on. And one of them is the war in Iran.

If they're going to call it a war. I doubt we're ever going to hear the word war. What do you think?

Mary Margaret Olohan (3:01)

I don't know about that. I think the war in Iran will absolutely come up because the president is actually very proud of where he is right now. Many Americans may not totally agree with him on that, but Trump, he's proud to talk about his success with the war. He's proud to talk about all these other wars and peace that he's brought throughout the world. And I would actually argue, Tara, that there's going to be so many eyes on this RMC, RNC, because even the people who aren't here, even the people who opted not to come, are going to be watching it on Twitter. They're going to be talking about it. They're going to be engaging with it. They're going to be talking about it on the networks.

Tara Palmeri (3:34)

But why? They're all in battleground states right now. They don't want Trump there. I don't think they want this in their backyard. It was useful for Texas. Paxton's in a lot of trouble. They wouldn't have just given him $10 million.

He's running against Talarico.

Democrats are delusional. Every cycle, they spend a ton of money in Texas. But they've got a flawed candidate. We know that a lot of money from Republicans were spent against Paxton. So maybe having Trump here is useful for one race, and that is the Senate race in Texas. Maybe it's worth it.

Ben Domenech (4:06)

I want to disagree with Tara on a couple of points. One is, I think that one of the interesting dynamics that we currently see, at least in the analysis of polling at this point, decision desk HQ, which is a place that I trust, just ran through their midterm analysis of the different Trump-carried states where the candidate is lagging him. And the truth is, in Trump-carried states, the candidate is lagging him in every single one of them, including Texas, except for Iowa. Iowa is the only one. And so the truth is, for those people, they're not even matching up with where he was, and that to me is a real question going forward. Maybe he does need to be more out on the trail. Maybe he does need to be there. I don't know that that helps you in any of these competitive, battleground, new House districts or things like that. But when it comes to the Senate races, in Ohio, in Alaska, in North Carolina, in Michigan, which he obviously carried, those are all situations where I think the Trump effect is really kind of untested at this stage.