The DSR Network

Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg has prominently argued that it’s premature to freak out about Donald Trump’s lead in the polls. Rosenberg’s case is partly that the Democratic Party is strong and has been winning lots of elections lately, as readers of his “Hopium Chronicles” well know. But there’s another, less-appreciated side to his analysis: That the people who make ads and run campaigns and do politics for a living know that Trump’s unfathomably high pile-up of negatives is, in the end, probably insurmountable for him. So we chatted with Rosenberg about this side of his theory — and about why the Biden team appears quietly confident of victory.

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Mehdi Hasan, founder of the new media company Zeteo, joins Ed Luce, Kori Schake, and David Rothkopf to break down he ever-present threat of a global authoritarian-right alliance, continued destruction in Gaza and Ukraine, and the disturbingly real possibility of a Trump second term.

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On the Thursday edition of the DSR Daily, we cover Russia’s firing of a top naval commander, Congress considering a potential ban on TikTok, AI regulation in India, and more.

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This week, a group of prominent “Never Trump” Republicans and conservatives announced that they will spend $50 million to defeat Donald Trump this fall. The group, Republican Voters against Trump, hopes to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans who backed him in 2020 and might be persuaded not to in 2024. But how big is this pool of voters, and what’s the best way to reach them? We chatted with strategist Sarah Longwell, who runs the group and regularly conducts focus groups to figure out what really makes these elusive voters tick.

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The great power competition between the US and China and Russia poses an enormous challenge to US leadership. But this is not the first time the US has been faced with such a task. Jim Sciutto joins David Rothkopf to discuss his new book, “The Return of Great Powers,” and why we’re currently living in a “1939 moment.”

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On our Tuesday edition of the DSR Daily, we cover the resignation of Haiti’s Prime Minister, a aid ship carrying 200 tons of food to Gaza, Robert Hur’s impending testimony in front of Congress, and more. 

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Over the weekend, The New York Times published a news analysis entitled, “The Biden-Trump rerun: A nation craving change gets more of the same.” This has become a constant refrain in the press: One of the candidates is running on an explicit set of promises to destroy American democracy, yet the press keeps calling this a “rerun” of 2020, almost as if it’s all a sporting event. We chatted with Mark Jacob, a former veteran journalist who writes the “Stop the Presses” newsletter, about all the insidious ways that press coverage is sanitizing the threat posed by Donald Trump and MAGA.

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With such a heavy focus on the situations in Gaza and Ukraine, other foreign policy priorities have taken a back seat. Syria is one priority that is likely to get worse before it gets better. Director of the Middle East Institute’s Syria program Charles Lister joins Marc Polymeropoulos to outline the need for a coherent strategy to deal with Syria, and how the country is primed to explode. 

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On the Monday edition of the DSR Daily, we discuss Donald Trump’s meeting with Viktor Orban, the US evacuating nonessential personnel amid escalating violence in Haiti, Joe Biden’s new budget proposal, and more.

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Have you heard of Bridget Ziegler? A co-founder of the far right Moms for Liberty, she is embroiled in a three-way sex scandal involving her husband, Florida GOP chair Christian Ziegler. Now some Florida parents are running brutal ads attacking her, even as the Moms for Liberty movement is unexpectedly losing ground everywhere. We chatted with journalist Jennifer Berkshire, the author of a forthcoming book on our cultural battles over education, who explained the bigger, deeper story here: The right are the ones now on the defensive in the school wars.

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