Republicans Suddenly Have Plans Next Week

**Jon Favreau** (0:20)
Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.

**Dan Pfeiffer** (0:22)
I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

**Jon Favreau** (0:23)
Okay, Dan, we got a big show today. Trump's running midterm ads about himself and hoarding his super PAC money. Republicans are finding excuses to skip next week's Trumpapalooza midterm convention. President's face is now on a $1 coin. The gerontocracy prevailed in Massachusetts this week. Kamala Harris is shrugging off some Democrats rejecting her endorsement. And Republicans have a new pro data center vote to explain.
Then you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Jasper Nathaniel, an independent journalist who's been reporting on the ground in the West Bank.
All right, Dan, with 60 days until the midterms, Donald Trump and Democrats completely agree on what the election should be about.
Donald Trump. Republican candidates and campaigns aren't exactly thrilled with the president constantly telling voters to pretend he's on the ballot on account of his 38% approval rating. But there isn't much they can do about it. On Wednesday night, Trump summoned some of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress to the White House so that he could helpfully say each of their names on camera and deliver the welcome news that he will be hitting the road for 35 Republican candidates in the last 30 days of the election. Trump Super PAC also dipped into its $400 million war chest to shell out just under a million dollars, kind of paltry, for its first midterm ad featuring, who else? Donald Trump. Let's take a look.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:55)
He is the toughest, most resilient person that I've ever met, and nothing was going to stop him from fighting so hard for the country he loves.

**Jon Favreau** (2:06)
When the world needs courage, vision and inspiration, it is still turning to America. There is no challenge Americans cannot overcome, no frontier too vast for us to conquer.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:19)
And our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free.

**Jon Favreau** (2:26)
What the fuck was that?

**Dan Pfeiffer** (2:28)
Oh man, it's so good.

**Jon Favreau** (2:29)
I know you do a little show called Political Experts React about ads, campaign ads. That has to be one of the just most useless ads I've ever seen.

**Dan Pfeiffer** (2:41)
Yes, let me use the industry term. It sucks.
Let's put aside the obvious strategic blunder of putting in the ad the very unpopular incumbent president who is mired in a very dumb war right now.

**Jon Favreau** (2:57)
Let's just put that aside.

**Dan Pfeiffer** (2:59)
This ad, and then there's another ad that has a similar tone but actually mentioned some policies. Those are the two ads they put up.

**Jon Favreau** (3:04)
I mean, at least that's something.

**Dan Pfeiffer** (3:06)
But here's the thing. Both those ads, they're just so tonally off. They are victory laps at a time in which no one thinks America is winning.
You have Jardis of America, so you have the countries on the wrong track. You have in some polls seven in 10 voters with the economy negatively. And here you have this doofus doing this victory lap about all the great things he's done to help America and no one buys it. My takeaway from this is that anyone who has spent one minute in a focus group, looked at a poll this cycle or even just had a conversation with the actual person out in the world, would never make an ad like this. This was an ad made for one swing voter, and that swing voter was Donald J. Trump so he could feel better about himself. That's what this was.

**Jon Favreau** (3:47)
I understand that. I even think if you were trying to make Donald Trump feel better about himself, you wouldn't create an ad like that. You'd create an ad about how he was great and did a bunch of things.
There's not even accomplishments in that ad. It's just like courage, vision, courage, America, America.

**Dan Pfeiffer** (4:09)
But also it's just, and it takes, it's so lazy because it takes from the State of the Union, which he delivered as if he was on Xanax.

**Jon Favreau** (4:18)
So there's a new Washington Post story that despite assurances from Trump's political advisors, quote, Republicans are increasingly skeptical and suspicious that Trump's actually going to spend his $400 million war chest on the midterms.
They have concluded that it's already too late. Some Republicans on campaigns and that Trump is holding on to the money for his own purposes. I guess my initial reaction after reading that story, and watching that ad is, do they really want more ads like that? Is that what they're hoping he'll spend the money on?