Super Tuesdays with Chris Cillizza and Chuck Todd

With 14 days left, Chuck Todd & Chris Cillizza make the argument that should scare Republicans most: corruption has climbed to the number two or three issue, and unlike any other message, it hands a lifelong conservative permission to punish his own party without admitting he was ever wrong. The evidence is already in the ad buys — Trump appeared in 47% of Republican broadcast airings in May and 1% in October — even as he opens a nine-stop closing tour in Wichita and calls the polls rigged. Chuck and Chris dig into why his Senate coattails are a myth Republicans keep believing, read the Kalshi market where an Abbott-plus-Talarico split is the likeliest Texas outcome, and unpack the five-day implosion of press secretary Katie Zacharia. Then the hardest question either of them gets: if Democrats actually sweep, what does December look like? Chuck’s answer is paralysis inside both parties, a Schumer who won’t walk away, and a president who’s less a partisan than a dealmaker. Plus Ann Hornaday, Miami at No. 1, and the cheapest World Series ticket in years. 

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Timeline:

00:00 Fourteen days out and Trump’s closing tour

08:00 Corruption, the permission slip, and ad data that gives the game away

15:00 What Trump says versus what he’d actually do after polls close

21:00 Kalshi: the Texas two-race market, vouchers, and the Beshear fight

29:00 The five-day press secretary and a West Wing built to keep Trump busy

35:00 What December actually looks like if Democrats sweep

43:00 DC statehood, the scorpion and the frog, and the race to replace him

49:00 Election-night tea leaves, and whether Schumer walks away

55:00 Miami–Florida State: the double-overtime finish and No. 1 since 2002

1:01:00 A 12-team playoff, Mensah, and the Arch Manning question

1:07:00 Rays–Brewers, and an election-night announcement coming

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Three weeks out from the midterms, the richest man on earth spent a weekend laundering a fabricated story about a Senate candidate’s mental health into the mainstream — and Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza argue the desperation of it is the tell. They open on the smear campaign against James Talarico in Texas (PolitiFact rated it Pants on Fire; the Ohio facility at the center of it publicly stated he was never a patient), then widen out to what it means that Elon Musk owns both the megaphone and the checkbook — $276 million into the midterms since July. From there: whether Republicans are underestimating the size of this wave, the four-to-seven-point scandal penalty and how it prices Kansas, and a Kalshi-driven walk down the Senate ladder — why 52 seats is the bull probability case, 54 the bull possibility case, and Annie Andrews the most mispriced bet on the board. Plus three stories of an administration behaving like it expects to lose: Kimberly Guilfoyle on the brink in Athens, Hegseth’s plan to livestream a firing-squad execution with eight articles of impeachment waiting for a House that isn’t back until November 9, and DHS agents at Ilhan Omar’s door 22 days before an election. 

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Timeline:

00:00 The Talarico smear and how Musk mainstreamed it

06:00 Why Texas is the whole ballgame — and the GOP’s stages of grief

12:00  Musk’s $276 million, the Soros projection, and who should control a megaphone

18:00 Kalshi: Are we underestimating the size of this wave?

22:00 The scandal penalty, candidate quality, and pricing Kansas

30:00 Walking down the Senate ladder: 52, 54, and the most mispriced race

36:00 Kimberly Guilfoyle, Scott Bessent, and monkey see, monkey do

41:00 Hegseth: the man crush, the 2006 rerun, and eight articles waiting

46:00 The televised execution, and whose information ecosystem produces it

50:00 DHS at Ilhan Omar’s door, and a DOJ that changed the protocol

54:00 Brewers-Dodgers, a top-heavy West, and why Milwaukee keeps doing this

1:02:00 Commanders’ tie, Dan Quinn’s hot seat, and hire a clock guy

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Twenty-eight days out, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza stress-test their own assumptions: if everything points one direction, what could still be wrong? They work through all three counterfactuals — the Republican money advantage, a polling miss, and the fact that it's October 6th and not November 2nd — and find the money argument weakest, since the GOP has owned the airwaves for six weeks with no discernible movement. That sets up the episode's central frame, borrowed from Charlie Cook: this is a red undertow, not a blue wave, because the fight is happening in light-red and formerly purple states where Republicans own the status quo and there's no Democrat left to blame. The weekend's five New York Times/Siena polls back it up — Talarico at 51 in Texas, Kansas tied, and Ashley Hinson clinging to a one-point lead in the race Chuck calls the most predictive on the board. He also floats a tinfoil-hat theory about who benefits from leaked audio making Ken Paxton look ungrateful, a day before Politico published exactly that. Plus the Kalshi board and where Susan Collins is underpriced, Ted Cruz firing back at JD Vance, Flávio Bolsonaro's first-round win and what it signals about a Trump on the 2028 ballot, and Trump posting Tom Cotton's cell number over daylight saving time. 

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Timeline:

00:00 Twenty-eight days out — and the case that we're all wrong

04:00 Red undertow, not blue wave: why the map explains everything

08:00 Five NYT/Siena polls, and the one race Chuck would want to know

14:00 Iowa as the tell — and the Republicans who are one turnover away

16:00 The tinfoil hat theory about Paxton, and the money pit called Texas

20:00 Talarico at 51 — the point where money stops mattering

26:00 The Kalshi board: 48 seats, Collins as the value & overpriced governors

35:00 If Collins wins, it's one of the great holds of all time

39:00 A little 2028: Vance baits Cruz, and why Rand Paul is the real threat

45:00 Night golf, $90 checks & the rise of the "meatloaf Republicans"

51:00 Bolsonaro's son wins round one — and the Trump 2028 question

53:00 Baseball playoffs, the ball off the roof & a Packers team with no line

 

 

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Thirty-five days out, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza open on a president playing the hits: Trump spent the weekend at a football game and a golf tournament, then announced his campaign tour kicks off in Durant, Oklahoma and Mobile, Alabama — the site of his first mega-rally in 2015 — rather than anywhere control of Congress is being decided. The more consequential move was rejecting Iran's seven-day truce offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, an exit ramp every Republican in a tough race is publicly begging for; Brent jumped above $107 on the news. That sets up the episode's best segment: a truth-serum run through every competitive Senate race asking which Republicans would actually stand next to Trump — and why the answer across Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska is no, because the damage there is his own tariff and diesel policy. Plus the Senate Leadership Fund's $118 million bet on Ken Paxton, a candidate who's spent under $1 million himself; Fetterman's "lifelong Republican" slip; why Murkowski's calculus runs entirely through Mary Peltola; and why Chuck reads AOC's upstate tour as a Senate campaign, not a presidential one. 

 

Timeline:

00:00 Trump kicks off in Oklahoma and Mobile — and rejects the Iran exit ramp

08:00 Truth serum: which Republicans would actually do a rally with Trump?

18:00 The $118M Paxton bet, and whether McConnell would have swerved

26:00 Triage: walking from Georgia and North Carolina, holding Maine and Ohio

30:00 Fetterman's slip, Murkowski's calculus & when party switches happen

40:00 AOC's real 2028 decision — and why Chuck reads it as the Senate

48:00 The Nats finish 77-85; why reloading is harder than it looks

54:00 The Packers, an atrocious offensive line & a pick headed to the Jets

1:03:00 Kalshi sponsorship, the 62% sweep question & Collins underpriced

1:12:00 Do your own research — and World Series wishes

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Six weeks out, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza open on Trump's ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House — escalated Monday when the rest of the TV pool refused to cover him without CNN. Chuck, who fought the Obama White House's attempt to cut Fox out of a pool, explains why the real story is why now: a president lashing out as he loses control everywhere else. NBC has Trump at 41%, his second-term low; the Fed just raised rates for the first time since 2023; and the three most toxic positions in NBC's message testing are the three things Trump spent the last ten days amplifying. Chuck argues everyone is probably underestimating Democrats, then turns to the party's own problems: a DNC in debt, a brand that polls worse than the GOP's, and Axios reporting that most former Harris aides don't expect her to run in 2028. Plus JB Pritzker's 80-pound GLP-1 disclosure and Jayden Daniels' devastating elbow injury. 

 

Timeline:

00:00 Trump bans CNN, MS NOW & Politico — and how the TV pool works

06:00 Why now? A president grabbing what he can control

16:00 Toxic message tests, Iowa defections & a party running from Trump

24:00 Are we underestimating Democrats? Wave, tsunami or mirage

34:00 The Democrats' money problem — the DNC, donors & turnout groups

40:00 Is Kamala Harris running? The Malibu tell and a cycle off

48:00 Pritzker's weight loss, the Democratic brand & the rise of independents

1:00:00 Jayden Daniels, injuries & the college sports bill

1:08:00 NFL chaos, NBA predictability & the case for relegation

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Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza open with a thesis worth marking on a calendar: the next two weeks may be the most consequential stretch of the campaign. Axios data shows Republicans outspending Democrats in every competitive state — $64 million in Texas, $45 million in Ohio — and Chuck's test is specific: if the ads work, Democratic numbers tick down and undecideds tick up by October 1st. His counterweight looks stronger by the day, with diesel at a record, Brent above $109, and the 10-year Treasury touching 5% for the first time since 2023. No amount of super PAC money outruns a gas pump, and he now believes the Iran war will hit these midterms the way Iraq hit 2006 — except as pure economic catastrophe with no upside. Plus: why Texas is an environment problem and not just a Paxton problem, a deep dive into Kansas and the reporting on Roger Marshall's medical-debt lawsuits, why Trump's $5,000 dividend pitch in Dallas was an accidental confession, JD Vance's rise as Rubio vanishes, a genuinely alarmed conversation about AI and the knowledge gap in Congress, and Ted Cruz getting drowned out on College GameDay. 

Timeline:

00:00 The late-money avalanche & why these two weeks decide everything

10:00 $6 diesel, a bond market on fire & the Iran war as this cycle's Iraq

18:00 Texas, Florida & the rescue mission for Ken Paxton

24:00 Kansas: the debate, the medical-debt story & why Marshall is vulnerable

34:00 Forced pairs — who flips first across Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Alaska

40:00 The Dallas convention: Vance rising, Rubio missing, Trump promising checks

46:00 AI, the knowledge gap in Congress & a leadership vacuum

56:00 Ted Cruz gets booed, and the case against the college sports bill

66:00 Week one signal vs. noise, monkey picks & the top five

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Eight Tuesdays out, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza open on the first midterm convention in modern American history — two nights at Dallas's American Airlines Center with 109 speakers, Trump appearing both nights, and House members getting billed $25,000 to attend. The guys are skeptical of nearly all of it: the event lands on NFL kickoff night, it butts up against the 25th anniversary of September 11th, and Politico found 45 of 70 Republican candidates and members skipping it. Their sharper point is that the whole thing is a microcosm of the party's bind — you cannot win without the MAGA base, and you cannot win with only the MAGA base — which is why swing-state nominees like Jon Husted and Mike Rogers will show up and try very hard to deliver a forgettable speech. Chuck argues nationalizing the election isn't crazy on its own terms, since the other side is going to run against Trump anyway, but doubts Trump can hit any register besides red meat, and doubts even more that he can find a second gear for the September 11th anniversary the following day.

From there they dig into Texas, where MAGA Inc's first $10 million buy is running a half-negative, half-positive ad about taxes — a signal, Chuck says, that they know the target is suburban Romney Republicans, not the base. He walks through Greg Abbott's steadily declining margins, the four-to-eight-point scandal penalty that history says attaches to a candidate like Paxton, and lands somewhere that surprises Chris: he now likes Talarico's odds better than Sherrod Brown's in Ohio. They check the prediction markets, unpack the Missouri Supreme Court ruling that blocked the Republican-drawn map and effectively hands Emanuel Cleaver his seat back, and take apart Trump's request that the Supreme Court impose a national check on mail voting — a policy every Republican strategist will tell you privately hurts their own side. Then a long, unsparing conversation about the Wall Street Journal's reporting on John Fetterman and what it means for control of the Senate on January 3rd, a real case for a third Senate conference built around Murkowski and a possible independent, and a closing riff on Nick Saban, Pat McAfee, and why the Protect College Sports Act is doomed without collective bargaining.

 

Timeline:

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00:00 Eight Tuesdays out — and why they actually prepare for these now

03:00 The first midterm convention since the early '80s 

04:00 $25,000 a head, and Tim Burchett's surprise invoice

05:00 It lands on the opening night of the NFL season

07:00 The Trump trap — you can't afford to say no

08:00 Nationalizing the election isn't the crazy part

11:00 The convention as a microcosm of the GOP's whole problem

13:00 "Trumpapalooza" — so what's the actual message?

14:00 Conventions aren't for swing voters, and never have been

16:00 Husted, Rogers & the art of the deliberately forgettable speech

19:00 Trump as TV producer — and the 9/11 anniversary the next day

20:00 Will he turn the 25th anniversary into a political speech?

23:00 MAGA Inc's first $10M buy lands in Texas

26:00 They tried calling Talarico weird. It didn't take.

27:00 Trump throws Paxton under the bus in the Oval

29:00 Abbott's slipping margins and the blue tsunami scenario

31:00 South Texas Latinos appear to be shifting back

33:00 Clinton lost Texas by less than she lost Iowa in 2016

34:00 Blue-collar trade unions and the industrial Midwest problem

38:00 Trump asks the Supreme Court for a national mail-voting check

39:00 The rural voters his own rule would punish hardest

42:00 Democrats at 85-88% to take the House

43:00 The Missouri ruling

46:00 Why this is anti-voter, full stop

47:00 The Senate sits at 52-48 Republican. A year ago it was 71-29.

49:00 Alaska, and Dan Sullivan's troubling primary numbers

51:00 The Wall Street Journal's Fetterman story

54:00 The practical stakes: who controls the Senate on January 3rd

55:00 Does Fetterman leave the party?

58:00 He's already built the intellectual case for walking

1:00:00 January 3rd is the whole ballgame

1:02:00 Osborn, Bodner, Banks and the independent wave

1:03:00 The real case for a third Senate conference

1:05:00 Saban and McAfee push the Protect College Sports Act

1:07:00 No labor at the table means it dies in court

1:08:00 Ashley Moody's quiet ACC poison pill

1:12:00 The Nats chase the blown-save record. Sell the team.

1:13:00 Dynastic: Finebaum on why Alabama may not run it back

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Inside ten weeks to the midterms, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza start with the race Republicans have suddenly woken up to: Texas. With Talarico sitting on $21.5 million to Paxton's $1.75 million, Cornyn refusing to raise money in-state, and John Kennedy telling Fox News flatly that the Senate doesn't have the money budgeted for Texas, the guys argue the GOP's comfort blanket — that this is a Paxton problem, not a party problem — is wrong. Chuck's bet: no Republican on the Texas statewide ticket breaks 55%. From there they turn to the issue that's moved faster than either expected, data centers, framed by Trump's Monday Truth Social post declaring that communities rejecting them "want to end up being backwards and poor" and urging the country to "let Data Reign." Chuck and Chris place it in the rare category of issues voters force onto politicians rather than the reverse — the opioid crisis being the last one — and track the fallout from Wisconsin, where Tom Tiffany is already hitting David Crowley on it, to Shapiro and Hochul reversing course, to the blue-collar trade unions now cutting the other way.

The heart of the episode is a long strategic read of the map. The Atlantic reported Trump wants to deploy MAGA Inc's roughly $400 million on ads touting his own second term, telling voters to "pretend I'm on the ballot" — and Chuck makes the counterintuitive case that it may be defensible where the fight actually is, even as they debate whether it gooses MAGA turnout or hands independents another reason to break left. They walk the four-seat path through North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, and Alaska, why Michigan is the state that keeps Democrats up at night, and what Abdul El-Sayed's ongoing Hasan Piker problem is costing him thirty days after the primary. Chris picks Texas as the GOP's nightmare on sheer cost; Chuck picks Iowa, where three House seats, a Senate seat, and a governorship all sit on the table. Plus: the 2028er welcome in both red and blue America (it's not who you'd guess), Trump's demand that the FCC punish Kristen Welker over a single mild remark, a blistering segment on Pete Hegseth and a munitions shortage nobody in Congress seems to be asking about, and the Nats' blown ninth-inning lead as a season in miniature.

Timeline:

00:00 Inside ten weeks — and a college football appetizer

01:00 Why college football has become prime political ad real estate

02:00 The ads they spotted: anti-Whatley in NC, anti-Talarico in Texas

03:00 Republicans wake up to a real race a real money problem in Texas

04:00 The cash disparity — $21.5M for Talarico, $1.75M for Paxton

05:00 The Texas governor's race 

06:00 A one-party state can't blame a party that doesn't exist

07:00 Is Paxton the problem, or is it the environment?

08:00 Trump's data center post: "let Data Reign"

10:00 Reid Wilson called data centers the sleeper issue six weeks ago

11:00 Washington is only discovering what voters have said for months

12:00 David Wallace-Wells & data centers as a vessel for tech frustration

13:00 Wisconsin: Tiffany already attacking Crowley on data centers

14:00 Big tech is the new big Pharma 

15:00 The counter-trend: blue-collar trade unions saying these are jobs

16:00 Why is Trump this pro-data-center in an anti-data-center moment?

19:00 The Atlantic: Trump wants to spend the $400M and run his own campaign

20:00 "Pretend I am on the ballot"

21:00 Wave-year history: Clinton in '00, Bush in '06, Obama in '10 and '14

22:00 Where Trump can't go: Ohio, North Carolina, Maine, Michigan

23:00 The four-seat path — North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Alaska

24:00 The fifth state problem: Iowa, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Montana

25:00 The Darline Graham rescue mission and what it proved

26:00 Democratic gains are a given — the question is wave or tsunami

27:00 This election is about the cost of living 

28:00 Cook's toss-ups always break in one direction

31:00 What if Republicans win New Hampshire and Democrats win Texas?

34:00 The state that keeps Democrats up at night

35:00 El-Sayed is still doing cleanup thirty days after the primary

37:00 The libertarian-candidate play red-state Democrats aren't running

38:00 The Hasan Piker problem

39:00 The Detroit synagogue comment and the apology he did make

42:00 The Trump-and-white-supremacists parallel

43:00 Alaska as the wild card: ranked choice, two Sullivans, Peltola

45:00 Josh Turek is a very hard candidate to attack

47:00 Rob Sand deserves 30% of the buzz Ossoff is getting

49:00 The Obama-in-'06 comparison and the asses-in-seats metric

50:00 Newsom went to Michigan and couldn't find anyone to campaign with

52:00 Trump demands the FCC punish Kristen Welker

54:00 What the meltdown says about how fragile he is

57:00 The Maggie Haberman attack, 48 hours apart

58:00 Hegseth gets the worst week in Washington

59:00 Sean Parnell, the influencer hires & a very online secretary

1:00:00 The cabinet primary: Lutnick, RFK Jr., Gabbard

1:02:00 Are we really out of munitions after one excursion against Iran?

1:03:00 Lake Ontario gets more coverage than troops without weapons

1:05:00 The Nats blow a 2-0 ninth-inning lead to the Marlins

1:07:00 No bullpen help at the deadline, and here we are

1:07:00 Becoming Statler and Waldorf

1:08:00 Tuesday night live: the Massachusetts primary

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After last week's Democratic field audit, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza turn to the 2028 Republicans — and find a race the markets treat as a two-man affair between JD Vance and Marco Rubio, and one that Chuck thinks is far softer than that looks. His case: no sitting vice president has been denied his party's nomination in the modern era, but Vance sits below 50% in the markets and may be the weakest heir apparent in either man's lifetime, a candidate who has never won anything without Trump carrying him. They dig into why Rubio has kept his hands remarkably clean on the Iran debacle while Vance has ended up owning it, and why Chuck thinks Rubio takes a break, makes money, and waits for 2032. From there they build out the rest of the field: the near-certainty of a Trump family candidate, Sarah Huckabee Sanders as the likeliest VP pick, Joe Lombardo as the pragmatist the party should be building around, Nikki Haley's underrated path, why Tucker Carlson's contrarianism has no Buchanan-style through line, the class of cabinet officials convinced they can do this — and a genuine, surprising case for Rand Paul as the one candidate who could credibly run against Trump's tariffs and Iran war without being an anti-Trumper.

The second half is a brutal accounting of Trump's August. With Canada moving to retaliate after the administration began enforcing 50% tariffs on a slate of Canadian goods and Mark Carney declaring his country "at war," and a temporary waiver on tariffs for 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef drawing pushback from ranchers, Chuck argues Trump has become the single most effective partner Chuck Schumer has — turning Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota into live races and making life impossible for Collins, Rogers, Hinson, and Husted. They walk through the Arkansas poll showing Tom Cotton in a real race, why they think Republicans have already wasted their financial advantage, and Trump's insistence he deserves a perfect grade on the economy. Then they preview Tuesday's high-stakes South Carolina runoff between Darline Graham and Ralph Norman — a race Trump has personally invested in, with a striking stat about appointed senators in the South — before closing on the Nats' collapse and a hard look at how the front office handled CJ Abrams.

Timeline:

00:00 Last week was the Democrats — today it's the 2028 Republican field

00:40 The markets read it as a two-man race: Vance 47%, Rubio 20%

00:57 Who else clears 3%: Tucker, Trump Sr., DeSantis, Don Jr.

01:35 History says the sitting VP gets it 

02:51 Vance reminds Chuck of Kamala Harris

03:19 A frontrunner with no positive track record to point to

04:05 Vance probably isn't even a senator without Trump

04:51 How much of Vance's weakness is actually Trump's decline?

06:26 If Trump loses the House and Senate, the field blows open

07:28 Why a Trump family candidacy isn't a 0% proposition

08:03 Ivanka as heir apparent? The Don Jr. vs. Eric assumption

08:44 Rubio: does he run, or take the VP slot?

10:07 Hegseth as McNamara, and Vance owning a war he questioned

10:48 How has Rubio kept his hands this clean?

12:42 The one cabinet member with no visible pay-for-play story

13:13 Chuck's prediction: Rubio sits it out, runs in 2032

14:21 Who else? A Hawley or Cotton as Trumpism 2.0

14:48 Sarah Huckabee Sanders as the most likely VP pick

15:24 Youngkin's problem, and the Huntsman-Kasich empathy lane

16:17 Spencer Cox and the never-Trump ceiling

17:59 How the war with Canada gutted the Las Vegas economy

19:30 Can a Jim Banks run against Vance? 

20:42 Brian Kemp passed on the Senate to look at 2028

21:24 What do Republican primary voters even want after a wipeout?

22:11 Are we underwriting Nikki Haley?

23:45 What to make of Tucker Carlson's ten-point plan

25:37 MTG, Massie & the America First lane

27:12 Why Never Trumpers overrate his constituency

28:40 The cabinet members who all think they'll be president

30:09 The Portnoy/Cuban outsider slot

31:19 The one advantage — Vance runs the RNC's fundraising operation

34:06 The real problem for Rand Paul: he isn't likable

35:02 Tariffs and Iran — Trump's two great failures, and Paul opposed both

36:27 Under 1% on the board: the dark-horse buy

36:51 To Trump: a trade war with Canada, and more sanctions on Iran

38:20 The beef decision and what it does to midwest states

39:05 Why the Canada fight hits Vegas and Orlando hardest

40:21 Has Trump found a floor lower than Bush's?

41:41 The Arkansas poll putting Tom Cotton in a real race

42:03 Reading the methodology honestly 

43:18 Donald Trump has declared war on rural America

44:55 Trump says he deserves 100% on the economy

46:22 Republicans wasted their financial advantage

47:59 Tuesday night preview: the Graham-Norman runoff

48:40 Trump calls in, rallies in Myrtle Beach t

50:16 Appointed senators survive at 44% in the South vs. 81% elsewhere

52:26 Trump's endorsement record & why he wants to reassert dominance

53:27 What a Graham loss would mean for Hinson and Husted

54:41 Why Collins doesn't want Trump in Maine

57:02 Vance as a cipher — from near-primary-loss to vice president

59:37 What has JD Vance actually done?

1:00:45 The Nats get swept by the Marlins 

1:05:04 How you actually screw up a team

1:06:23 Where this front office is genuinely excellent

1:07:48 It's still a people business, just like politics

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With under 80 days to the midterms, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza pause the horse race for a full "where are we now" audit of the 2028 Democratic field — prompted, Chris admits, by listener pushback that they'd been too dismissive of Gavin Newsom. Using the Kalshi and Polymarket odds as a starting point rather than gospel, they work through a top tier of AOC, Newsom, and Jon Ossoff. Chuck's central thesis is that AOC could become a magnetic force on the scale of Trump in 2016 or Obama in 2008 — a candidacy the entire field gets measured against, potentially freezing out half the governors and senators eyeing a run. He maps how she could be the frontrunner while playing underdog in South Carolina, and why the new calendar's crowded first state may actually cushion her. On Newsom, Chuck is blunt: the prediction markets are artificially inflating him, the attention economy is doing the work, and a California governor with a mixed record has no obvious state to win. They also make the case that Kamala Harris ultimately doesn't run — and that not running is the smarter play for 2032.

The back half turns to the field's second tier and its long shots: whether Mark Kelly has the hunger and the issue to go with the biography (Chuck's dream ticket: Kelly and Warnock, order randomized), why John Glenn and Bill Bradley are the cautionary tales for résumé candidates, whether Ossoff can realistically jump straight from an $87 million Senate race into a billion-dollar presidential campaign, and a genuine dark-horse case for Rahm Emanuel built on the party's underinvestment in rural Black voters. They preview Tuesday's Florida primary — Byron Donalds's real ceiling, why Chuck thinks the general could land inside five points, the Mel Martinez precedent, and Corey Mills, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Alex Vindman. Then the tone shifts hard: an angry, unsparing exchange about the expired US-Iran memorandum, the Strait of Hormuz, conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and Pete Hegseth's fitness for the job.

Timeline:

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00:00 Under 80 days out — and a full 2028 Democratic audit

01:06 Why Chuck thinks JD Vance will divide the right 

02:08 The prediction markets as one data point, not the whole story

02:55 Reading Polymarket and Kalshi: AOC, Newsom, Ossoff at the top

05:12 Could AOC suck up all the oxygen the way Trump did in '16?

06:15 The egg-freezing story as proof of her magnetic pull

06:42 Skeptical Newsom can play in Michigan, Iowa, South Carolina

07:30 The impossible position for Newsom

08:16 AOC's advantage — no long record to defend

09:38 Could egg-freezing access become an issue she champions?

10:01 How her presence could paralyze half the field before it starts

10:57 Where does that leave Pritzker? Or Ossoff?

11:59 The formalized DNC calendar

13:37 Nevada, Michigan and the Culinary Union question

14:42 Why a crowded South Carolina helps the progressive lane

15:13 What 2020 looked like when South Carolina came fourth

15:49 Newsom's real problem: where does he actually win?

16:59 Harris's East Coast headquarters lesson

17:22 Advice: put your HQ in Michigan, not San Francisco

19:42 The counterargument: no gatekeepers left, and the hustler wins

20:10 Ossoff, Buttigieg & who's actually willing to burn the boats

21:08 Newsom one-on-one vs. Newsom in a big room

22:08 Would a swing-state Democrat invite Newsom to campaign? 

23:04 Harris analysis: you don't buy in Malibu if you're running

24:06 The Dan Quayle risk if she runs under these circumstances

25:01 Newsom and Harris can't both run 

26:20 Mark Kelly in Iowa & the quote that reads like a stump speech

27:15 Chuck's lab-built ticket: an astronaut and a pastor

27:50 Will the Democratic base accept Kelly?

29:30 Is Kelly too pro-business for this version of the party?

30:45 How Trump's attacks on Kelly may have helped him

31:33 The real gap: Kelly has no signature issue

32:03 AOC is the change candidate — inside the party and outside it

33:09 Biographies don't win the presidency

33:30 The cautionary tales: John Glenn and Bill Bradley

35:08 The charisma gap — and Kelly's habit of yelling to show energy

35:55 Scanning the long shots on the board

36:55 If not AOC, then Ro Khanna

37:16 Pritzker at 1% — the governor who could reach the left

37:46 Chuck's real dark horse: Rahm Emanuel

39:32 Democrats' rural problem isn't just rural whites

39:59 The left will never accept him

42:07 Not a cycle for an insider — but maybe for an ideas guy

42:27 The Wisconsin lesson: Crowley won against something

42:50 To Florida: Tuesday's primary and Tuesday night's live stream

43:35 Jolly-Donalds could land inside five points

44:01 Why Florida isn't as noncompetitive as people assume

44:44 Could DeSantis win a third term? 

45:24 What's Donalds's real number? 

46:16 The Mel Martinez precedent

48:29 Why Chuck thinks Jerry Demings had the better shot at Donalds

49:56 The 2018 what-if: Bernie, Soros, Gillum and DeSantis

50:43 Credit to DeSantis for saying what Trump never does

51:48 Debbie Wasserman Schultz in a majority-Black district

52:38 The Vindman question — and the residency problem

54:23 The US-Iran memorandum expires with no deal

55:46 A $1.5 trillion budget and a carrier crew that can't get fed

56:11 Testosterone tests and push-up contests while the Lincoln goes short

56:33 Operationally a disaster — and where's the audit?

57:57 Damaging the last institution still standing

59:51 The Nats get swept by the Mets 

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