Thursday Morning Politics: Primary Results and More Midterms News

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
Brian Lehrer on WNYC. And now the primary season is close to ending in the midterm elections. Let's talk to New York Times political reporter, Reid Epstein, who's been covering some of these races. We'll focus on two crucial Senate contests mostly, where the nominees have now been determined, Georgia and Maine, and look at the bigger picture of the fight for control of Congress. Hey Reid, thanks for joining us. Welcome back to WNYC.

**Reid Epstein** (0:35)
Good morning, Brian. I must admit I was rooting for the Spurs in the finals, so I hope that doesn't mean you kick me off the show.

**Brian Lehrer** (0:41)
That's our segment with Reid Epstein from the New York. Do you come from Texas or was there some, you know, were you a big Wembe fan?

**Reid Epstein** (0:49)
Well, so I grew up, I grew up a Bulls fan in the 90s, and so I'm constitutionally.

**Brian Lehrer** (0:54)
Anybody but the Knicks.

**Reid Epstein** (0:55)
Anybody but the Knicks in Detroit, I'm for.

**Brian Lehrer** (0:59)
So before we get into the results of these two particular primaries which were so interesting and fraught even afterwards going forward toward November, set the bigger scene for us. Primary season is almost over, and the nominees are locked in for many of the races that are going to decide control of the Senate. What were you watching for? Big picture heading into this stretch.

**Reid Epstein** (1:23)
I mean, there's a couple of things to look for. One, on the Republican side, does President Trump still carry the juice in Republican primaries that we have seen from him over the years? And while he's become quite unpopular overall, has he remained popular enough to swing Republican primaries?
And for the most part, the answer is yes. There have been a few high-profile Republican primaries for governor in Georgia, for governor in Iowa, where the Trump-endorsed candidate has lost. But in the contest for the Senate, where Trump certainly has the most to gain or lose, he's had a pretty good record.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:05)
Yeah. So let's talk about Georgia, where Trump, as you were just indicating, had mixed results in the Republican primaries.
As we focus on the Senate, Representative Mike Collins won that Senate nomination. He was Trump's pick. So tell the rest of the country, who is Mike Collins and how did he gain the endorsement of the president over his Republican opponent, who was also a conservative member of the GOP?

**Reid Epstein** (2:32)
Well, the endorsement came very late. It came after midnight over this past weekend, just before the primary runoff. So it was too late to put the endorsement in any advertising or any mail pieces to voters.
It felt like a lot of these Trump endorsements do. It felt like he endorsed the person he thought was already going to win.
The opponent in this race was a man named Derek Dooley, who had not run for office before, who was a former college football coach. And most importantly for him, a childhood friend of Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia. And Kemp had put his political machine to use.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:17)
Whoops, this is the connection I didn't think we were going to have a problem with today, but did we just lose Reid Epstein?
Reid, are you there?
Controller room, do you hear me? Okay, you hear me. Okay, audience, you hear me. So I'm not sure what happened to Reid Epstein. We'll reconnect his line. In the meantime, we're going to play a clip of John Ossoff, the Democratic Senator from Georgia, who's now been renominated, who Mike Collins, who we were just starting to talk about after he won the Republican primary, is going to be facing off against. Reid wrote an article the other day, which we'll get to, I presume we'll get his line back, about Ossoff becoming a national figure, and there even being 2028 presidential buzz about him. So here's a clip of John Ossoff, 47 seconds from his Facebook page posted on April 13th. This clip is called Mar-a-Lago Mafia.

**John Ossoff** (4:24)
And while our national power and wealth are squandered and families are made to pay more for everything, rest assured, the Mar-a-Lago Mafia are finding ways to profit. Because of course they are. The Financial Times reported, quote, Pete Hegseth's broker looked to buy defense fund before Iran attack.
A company owned in part by Eric and Don Jr. has been pitching Gulf monarchies on its drone interceptors. Jared Kushner is already on the Saudi payroll to the tune of $2 billion, and he's been soliciting billions more from princes and sheikhs across the region while leading negotiations on Iran.