Monday Morning Politics: Midterms Ramp Up

Brian Lehrer (0:10)

It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Here are some numbers to begin the week. It's now exactly 50 days before election day.

It's 40 days before early voting begins in New York and New Jersey, also 40 days in Michigan, where the Rogers-El-Sayed race could determine control of the Senate. Just 20 days before early voting begins in Maine. Yeah, they do it really early there. Where the Susan Collins-Troy Jackson race could decide the Senate as well. More numbers. PBS estimates that Republicans could net about 10 additional US. House seats in November, 10 seats if redrawn voting districts perform as they were intended.

Working against that, meaning working against the Republicans' advantage, oil today hit $108 a barrel on world markets now that fighting has escalated again in the Iran War. It was going for about $70 a barrel before the war, and you know your gas prices and the diesel prices and everything. President Trump promised voters last week a $5,000 payout, another number, $5,000 if Republicans keep control of Congress in the election. NPR's Maura Leysen remembers some other numbers like that.

Maura Leysen (1:29)

Trump has made so many unfulfilled campaign promises.

He promised to give Americans a $5,000 Doge dividend, a $2,000 tariff rebate. He promised no foreign wars, that inflation and high prices would come down as soon as he took office, and none of those things have happened.

Brian Lehrer (1:45)

Maura Leysen on Morning Edition today. Oh, and just a little thing.

Darya Amadei, CEO of Anthropic, published a thousands of word essay over the weekend. Maybe you've heard this by now, urging a slowdown on AI development by his own industry. He said an AI swarm, as he calls it, that is AI out of human beings control, could take over the Internet in just 6 to 12 months. President Trump's reaction to that number, meh.

SPEAKER_3 (2:18)

We're leading China in AI.

Lisa Lerer (2:19)

We're the most sophisticated country in the world. And frankly, I want to keep it that way, because whoever wins AI wins.

Brian Lehrer (2:27)

Okay, one more comparative number. A New York Times political analysis today notes that, while the stock market is returning to double-digit gains, is returning, I should say, double-digit gains to shareholders, many Americans are struggling to pay higher prices for groceries, gas and healthcare.

With me now for our weekly Monday Morning Politics segment is the writer of that new article, New York Times national political correspondent, Lisa Lerer, different spelling, no relation. But Lisa, despite your chronic misspelling of your name, it's always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Lisa Lerer (3:01)

Thank you, I appreciate it, despite the fact that I have no age, that I'm still welcome here.

Brian Lehrer (3:07)

Also with us for an All-Star Tag Team is NPR political reporter, Stephen Fowler. He too covered that Republican Midterms Convention last week. His report on it had the headline, Empty Seats, Socialism and Trump Dominate the Republican Midterm Convention. Stephen, welcome back to WNYC, and you can spell your name any way you want. Hi.

Stephen Fowler (3:28)

I spell it with a pH, which is apparently not a thing to some people.

Brian Lehrer (3:32)

It's always good to be here.

Lisa, your line about the stock market booming while inflation is too, came in the context of your story on a Senate race that will seem obscure to many of our listeners in the lower 48, the one in Alaska. Why did you key on the race in a state where Democrats basically never win?

Lisa Lerer (3:53)

Well, this is a state where Democrats believe that you're right. Trump won three times by double-digit margins, given the economics going on in the country right now, the high gas prices, the high grocery prices, a feeling that Trump promised that these prices would go down. In fact, for many people, they've gotten worse. Democrats see an opportunity in Alaska to potentially flip that seat. That really gives you a sense of how optimistic Democrats are about this political environment.

Maybe optimistic is the wrong word since they're Democrats, so there's a ways to measure of anxiety. I guess, cautiously hopeful might be a better description, but I think when they look at the national political environment, combined with sort of the history of midterms during a president's first midterm, historically, the party in power loses seats. So that history, that tradition paired with sort of what's going on in the country right now, have made Democrats hopeful that they could play in states they don't normally play in, like Alaska, like Texas, even Iowa.

Brian Lehrer (4:56)

Optimistic, hopeful, using those words for the Democrats, even though they have a fairly frequent history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in some situations like that. They just did like this. Did you see the clip, Lisa, from the debate in that Alaska race that's gone kind of viral the last few days? Here's the moderator's question, which I'll say almost none of our listeners nor I will understand.