Trump’s Fox meltdown, Karoline Leavitt’s money & pneumonic plague

David Pakman (0:00)

Coming up on today's show, Republicans may be starting down a generational midterm disaster, but there is a big warning sign in the polling. If Democrats ignore it, they do so at their own peril. Donald Trump is singling out CNN's Kaitlan Collins at a rally, supporters bloodthirsty booing her. And then Trump loses it when Fox commits the ultimate betrayal. They didn't cover his rally. Oh, Tucker Carlson interviewed someone who actually knows what he's talking about. And it went exactly as well as you would expect really poorly. We also have stunning financial disclosures from Karoline Leavitt. They involve Trump's own media company and an absolutely terrifying story out of a Russian laboratory involving possible pneumonic plague. Finally, Fox interviews a man who says, I met Jesus and he's five eleven and has a ton of testosterone. We will discuss how polite society should interpret such claims. All of that and more today.

Republicans are facing a historic destruction, which could be a generational catastrophe in the midterms that are now four weeks plus one day away.

But hold on a second. You might be saying, David, sir, isn't it possible the polls are overstating Democratic support? Isn't it possible that this isn't going to be quite as good for Democrats as some of the polling suggests that it might be? The answer is yes, very much so. So how could both be true? How could Republicans be facing a generational defeat? And actually, the polling might not be as good for Democrats as it suggests. Well, if you look at the polling and betting markets and momentum and Trump's approval and consumer sentiment about the economy, it is the case that Republicans may lose like they have not lost in generations. But at the same time, if the polls are overstating Democratic support by even a little bit, it would be a very different scenario. Let me explain. If the polling is overstating Democratic support by a little bit, Democrats probably still take the House, but they take it by less than expected. And control of the Senate is a lot more uncertain. We have already seen some big polling misses this year. Now, let me talk you through them and then I'll tell you what we can apply and extrapolate in what we can't start with Wisconsin. Today we'll be speaking to the ultimate or eventual winner of that Democratic primary David Crowley. But for a long while, Francesca Hong, who was the Democratic socialist running for governor there, looked like she was cruising towards the Democratic nomination. And you had these late polls which said, wow, Francesca Hong is leading by 18 She's leading by 25

And then people voted and David Crowley won. Now, it was very tight. Crowley only won by about half a point. But depending on which poll you looked at, a candidate who looked to be winning by 15, 20, 25 lost. So the polling was not right there. But that's a primary poll. We'll get back to that. We had Michigan in Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary. But the polls in that last month said he was winning by 13 over Haley Stevens. He won by a single point. In other words, El-Sayed's results underperformed the polling by 12 points, which is crazy. Now what's the caveat? The caveat is these were mere Democratic primaries. Democratic primaries are notoriously difficult to get good polling for. So that wouldn't prove that Democrats are being systematically overestimated in the general. And in fact, you could say there's evidence pointing in the other direction. If you look at actual Democrat versus Republican special elections, we've seen Democrats flip 13 Republican held state legislative seats since Trump came back to office. Republicans have flipped zero Democratic seats and incomparable special elections. The average result shifted more than five points away from Republicans and towards Democrats compared to the previous general election. And three quarters of those districts moved towards Democrats. Some of the individual results are incredible. So if you want to want the case that no, no, no, the Democratic polling is really good. It's strong in Arkansas. Democrat Alex Holliday won by 15 in the district. Republicans won by two. That's a 17 point swing in New Hampshire. Democrat Bobby Boodman won by four in a district. Republicans previously won by 14 That's a swing of 18 points in Florida. Democrat Emily Gregory won by more than two points in a district. Republicans won by 19 That's a 21 point swing. There's an example of Brian Nathan who won by more than nine points in a Republican district. Louisiana, where Democrat Chasity Verrett Martinez got 62 percent of the vote and Trump had won by 13 So put it all together. Is there real evidence of a Democratic wave? Yes, it's not just polls. It's Democrats winning special elections, Democrats flipping Republican seats, outperforming previous Democratic results. But this is the important thing. Number one, special elections have lower turnout than November elections. People showing up in special elections are the most motivated voters so they can tell us about enthusiasm. They are very motivated, but that doesn't tell us that that's what the electorate will look like in November. And polling has shown us this year that candidates supposedly ahead by 15 or 20 might only be ahead by one or they might even lose at the end of the day. So two things can be true at the same time.