The New Realist Podcast

Note: I spoke with Bloomberg’s Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz after President Trump’s prime time address - a few snippets from those broader conversations are included here.

Main Takeaway: The speech only heightened concerns that Trump may try to meddle in the 2026 Midterm.

Worth paying attention to this regard are the actions his DHS Secretary, Markwayne Mullin, took in the hours after Trump spoke.

On Friday, Mullin sent letters to the secretaries of state in four states (California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania) warning them about tens of thousands of non-citizens who he alleges are illegally on the states’ voter rolls. The letters give these officials 2 weeks to comply with DHS demands to verify voter identities or risk severe penalties, including withholding aid, fines and criminal prosecution.

In a subsequent press conference, Mullin warned the government will "hunt down" and prosecute state and local officials who fail to cooperate with DHS demands regarding voter roll audits and security measures.

When it comes to non-citizens voting in US elections it is important to continue to underscore that it is…

(A) ILLEGAL

Trump continues to claim that preventing non-citizens from voting is a big part of his push for the SAVE America Act but that makes little sense because it is already illegal for non-citizens to vote.

Moreover, it is also…

(B) EXTREMELY RARE

Documented cases of non-citizens voting are extremely rare.

* The very conservative Heritage Foundation’s database of election crimes finds that in two decades (2003-2023) there were only 24 documented cases of noncitizens voting

* Pennsylvania’s Republican secretary of state, Al Schmidt, said that “all evidence has shown that noncitizen voting is extremely rare across the country, including in Pennsylvania.”

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As of this afternoon, it is still unclear what the president will say during his prime time address this evening or why he is giving the speech in the first place.

Earlier, his press secretary confirmed speculation that the speech will focus on election integrity. On a day when mortgage rates hit their highest level in a year, the public is deeply concerned about the cost of everything from food and housing to oil and electricity, and the nation remains in an active war in the Middle East - the idea that Trump will address the nation on an issue that does not rank in the top 20 of issues voters are concerned about is baffling.

It is also risky. If Trump has nothing new to report by way evidence of election fraud and interference (and by all indications, he does not), not only will Americans be frustrated he broke into their homes this evening to re-litigate 2020, but it will be that much harder for him to convince the networks to cover his speeches going forward. As of now, it is not clear how the networks that cover the speech will handle it if he engages in ‘the big lie’ or any fantastical commentary designed to spread falsehoods.

There was one unsubstantiated report, for instance, that the president might allege foreign interference by China in the 2020 election. There is NO evidence that any foreign nation, including China, successfully changed any votes or hacked into any machines. While many nations attempted to influence public opinion - including Russia against Biden and China against Trump - no evidence of vote rigging has been uncovered that we know of.

There was another report - also unconfirmed - that Trump may suggest the 2020 election in Georgia was stolen and declare the states two Senators - Sen’s J. Osoff and R. Warnock - illegitimate. Another farcical suggestion. It is worth remembering that Georgia uses paper ballots and there were two recounts in the state that yielded no evidence of fraud.

All of this comes in the wake of a long crusade by the president to interfere with the outcome of US elections and to sow doubt amongst the American public in those that have not turned out to his benefit. This effort has ramped up a good deal since he came back to office. Even a partial list of his activities to this end is startling:

* Pushing for mid-decade redistricting in red states

* Firing the three remaining Commissioners on the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the only bipartisan federal agency devoted to election administration at the federal level

* Threatening states that refuse to hand over their voter rolls with funding cuts

* Sending his Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard and the FBI to Fulton County, GA to seize files regarding an election that is 6 years old and already examined multiple times

* Continuing to attack absentee and mail-in balloting

* Describing California’s elections as fraudulent, even though his candidate made it into the run-off

* Repeatedly insisting he won the 2020 election and insisting anyone who works for him parrot this falsehood

We saw the latter on full display yesterday when Trump’s nominee to replace Gabbard, Jay Clayton, refused to tell members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that Joe Biden had won the 2020 election. This is something we have seen repeatedly from Trump nominees who refuse to use the ‘L’ word as it pertains to Trump and the 2020 election.

In On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder writes about obeying in advance, a perfect description of what we saw from Clayton and have seen for almost two years now from the rest of Trump’s nominees. They are willing to cast aside their integrity and publicly normalize a known falsehood in an effort to curry favor with the president and retain their hold on power.

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Woodrow Wilson described congressional committees as the ‘graveyard of legislation.’ It is an apt description given that most legislation dies in committee. The same is not true of presidential nominations - particularly when the president’s party is in charge of the Senate, as it currently is.

In his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today, Todd Blanche faced a committee made up of eleven Republicans and ten Democrats. Since all Democrats are expected to vote against him, he cannot afford to lose any Republicans.

Going into the hearing, two Republicans were on the fence - Sen T. Tillis (R-NC) who decided not to run for re-election next year and Sen. J Cornyn (R-TX) who was defeated in the GOP primary after President Trump supported his opponent. If either Senator decides not to support Blanche, his nomination will be deadlocked and die in committee.

Both Tillis and Cornyn have been clear that they have two primary concerns regarding Blanche’s nomination. First, how he managed the Epstein files and second, his role in the 1776, ‘anti-weaponization’ fund and the lawsuit that gave rise to it.

Federal Judge’s Ruling on Trump’s $10B Lawsuit against the IRS & the Subsequent Anti-Weaponization Fund

Earlier this week, a federal judge found that the lawsuit was “manufactured simply to justify its settlement, including a multibillion-dollar ‘anti-weaponization’ fund for political allies and a shield from IRS scrutiny. “This lawsuit was not brought to vindicate rights; it was brought to manipulate the judicial process… This was an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law.” The judge also suggested that as a result, Acting Attorney General Blanche may be subject to disciplinary action by state bar associations.

Read more on Politico

Given this, it was expected that Blanche would come to the hearing prepared to address these issues to the Senator’s satisfaction. Shockingly, he did not.

When he was asked by Sen. Dick Durbin whether he would promise to meet with the Epstein victims - the same question his predecessor was asked - he refused and instead made all kinds of excuses.

Even more stunning, however, was how ill-prepared he seemed to address the controversial anti-weaponization fund. When Cornyn pressed Blanche for reassurance the fund was dead and asked him to put it in writing, he declined.

This did not sit well with Cornyn. When he was asked later if Blanche’s response satisfied him, he told CNN that the Acting AG had confirmed his fears regarding the status of the fund.

Tillis also implored Blanche to help him finally put ‘a fork in this turkey’ (i.e., the Fund). To the end, Tillis all but begged the Acting AG to recommend language congress could adopt to codify the death of the fund. Whether Blanche complies and whether congress would pass something like this remains unclear.

Either way, it begs a question - if being AG is really his dream job, as he said today, why doesn’t he save congress the time and energy this would require and put pen to paper himself?

The only plausible explanation can be summarized in one word - Trump. The president - Blanche’s boss and former client - wants to keep the contract alive because with it comes the potential for immunity from the IRS for himself and his family.

The committee will likely vote on Blanche’s nomination in about a week. If both Cornyn and Tillis support him, his nomination will go to the floor. While it isn’t certain he will survive a vote of the full Senate, since Trump returned to office the Senate has not once voted down any of his nominees on the floor.

For this reason, the best chance for stopping Blanche remains in the hands of Tillis and/or Cornyn at the committee level.

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Yesterday, President Trump informed Congress that the war with Iran had resumed, he ordered a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and announced that the U.S. would be charging a 20% levy on cargo shipments traversing the waterway.

Today, he did a complete ‘180,’ backing away from the toll because, as he told reporters, so many Gulf leaders called him and suggested instead that they are eager to bear the cost via foreign direct investment (FDI) in the U.S.

There is no evidence yet that Gulf State leaders are pushing for more FDI in the U.S. (note they pledged billions already last year). Instead, the cost of this unpopular and ill-conceived war - $1B per day - will be paid directly by American taxpayers.

Trump did not abandon his 'US assume the role of Guardian of the Strait’ plan because of any calls from Gulf leaders, but rather because (a) it was met with a lukewarm response from members of congress, including those in his own party such as Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and more importantly, (b) it did not play well in the markets. In fact, within hours of his announcement, the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, rose above $86/barrel.

From the start the toll plan never made sense for a variety of reasons, including that it is not possible to enforce and it legitimizes charging a levy, something Iran wants to do and which we have long opposed. More importantly, it raises questions regarding why Trump started this war in the first place? Was it about addressing Iran’s nuclear program (or the many other foreign policy reasons the administration has provided to justify the war) or was it a scheme to collect funds?

The president will have a chance to address these issues, as well as other serious challenges facing Americans from the high cost of food and gas to the two innocent people killed by ICE on American streets in just the last week, during a prime time address on Thursday evening.

Instead of addressing these critical issues, however, Axios, reports that after providing “an update on Iran,” Trump is interested in pivoting to "election integrity,” the “SAVE America Act,” and the “findings from his intelligence officials about the administration’s review of the 2020 election.” Of course he is!

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So much has been said and written about Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) since his unexpected passing this weekend. Someone said he was ‘as partisan and bi-partisan at the same time’ as the come. It’s a fitting description backed up by the tributes we have seen from across the aisle; this includes everyone from President Biden and Sen. Chris Coons to President Trump and Sen. Rick Scott.

A lot has been made about Graham’s ability to shape-shift. The examples are legendary. His bipartisan and “Maverick/Three Amigo’s” era with the late Sen. John McCain that was quickly replaced by his startling embrace of all things MAGA and America First. His pivot from Trump’s fiercest opponent (i.e., during the 2016 campaign he called Trump a "jackass," a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who was "unfit for office) to one of his closest allies and most frequent golf partners.

Throughout all of this, there was one commitment that Graham held on to and that was his belief in interventionism and a highly muscular U.S. foreign policy. To this end, he supported US campaigns around the world (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc…), aide for allies (Ukraine, Israel…) and before his death had just returned from a trip abroad to bolster security relations with U.S. allies.

Today, as the ceasefire with Iran has imploded and Trump has reinstated the blockade on the Strait - it is also important to recall the critical role Graham played in the current war. In keeping with his reputation as an ardent hawk, Graham was one of the chief architects behind the war that began in late February. A war that stunned many, particularly Trump supporters, who believed the president was committed to keeping the U.S. out of endless wars as he had long promised.

As we talk about Graham’s ability to change with the times and current leadership, it is also the case that he did so for a reason, so he could champion causes he believed in. One of the most important was U.S. interventionism, a cause which was realized most recently with the US and Israeli attack on Iran.

We know this not only as a result of his legislative record and many public statements, but also the comments of foreign leaders since his passing. As the Times of Israel reports, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that it was Graham who had urged him to strike Iran:

He came to me and said, Bibi, you have to do it… You have to knock out this nuclear weapons program before they knock us out.

Netanyahu did not say when this conversation took place.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Graham also played a role in helping coach Netanyahu on how best to lobby Trump. The piece entitled “Lindsey Graham’s Quest to Sell Trump on Striking Iran” details how the Senator used his friendship with and knowledge of the president to coach a foreign leader on lobbying him; a move that was part of Graham’s effort to push Trump on a war and policy his statements prior suggested he might be reluctant to pursue and which has left Trump in the unenviable position of a quagmire with no obvious way out, is wildly unpopular with his base and the American public, and threatens not just the GOP in the midterms and the president’s legacy, but the US and world economies.

It is not surprising that Graham was a strong proponent of US intervention in Iran, but given where we are today it is not clear that his public statements and private activities pertaining to this matter will age well. By way of a few examples…

On the Iranian regime & the ‘new’ Middle East that is ‘coming’

* “When this regime goes down, we are going to have a new Middle East, and we are going to make a tonne of money,”

* “This regime is in a death throe now; it is gonna be on its knees, it’s going to fall, and when it falls, we’re going to have peace like no other time, we’re going to have prosperity unlike anyone could ever imagine.”

Urging UAE and Saudi Arabia to strike Iran.

* “I want them to get into the fight. We sell them weapons. Iran is striking their country; they have good capability.”

Criticizing Saudi Arabia for not engaging in the war on Iran.

* “Americans are dying and the US is spending billions to dislodge the terrorist Iranian regime that threatens the region. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia seems to be issuing statements and doing things in the background that are marginally helpful.”

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President Trump announced this morning that he will not sign a bipartisan Housing Bill. This is the same bill that weeks ago he described as a “big yawn.” Taking to Truth Social Trump said he was not signing the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, the first housing bill passed by Congress in 30 years, in protest over the fact that Congress has not passed The Save America Act.

Trumps decision speaks volumes about his priorities.

* It makes clear that affordability, including the high cost of housing, is NOT amongst the presidents top concerns. This is increasingly evident to Americans, 6/10 of whom recently told pollsters that they disapprove of how Trump is handling the economy, an all time low for this president.

* It also crystallizes what is Trump’s top priority - giving himself and his party an advantage in the upcoming elections. This is why he is intent on bullying even members of his own party into signing the unpopular SAVE America Act; a bill that most experts agree would disenfranchise millions in the upcoming midterm election.

Instead of costs, affordability, inflation, and the economy, Trump’s priority has long been and remains tipping the scale on the upcoming election in his favor. The SAVE America Act is just one part of a broader effort that has been in the works since he came back into office. This includes:

* Firing the three remaining Commissioners on the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the only bipartisan federal agency devoted to election administration at the federal level (an action he took just yesterday)

* Threatening states that refuse to hand over their voter rolls with funding cuts

* Sending the Head of the DNI and FBI to Fulton County, GA to seize files regarding an election that is 6 years old and already examined multiple times

* Pushing for Mid-decade redistricting in red states

* Continuing to attack absentee and mail-in balloting

* Describing California’s elections as fraudulent, even though his candidate made it into the run-off

* Repeatedly saying he won the 2020 election, most recently at a press conference after the NATO Summit in Akara Turkey last week

All of this is designed to diminish Americans’ faith in the sanctity of elections and sow doubt in the results of the Midterm should his party lose. While unusual to see in the U.S., it is not an original tactic. Instead, it is a strategy employed by autocrats and strong men around the world and adapted to a democratic setting. As Freedom House notes, “leaders who fear losing power in a democratic system have taken to sowing distrust in elections.”

The good news is that the housing bill, which in the long term was designed to increase the housing supply and reduce costs for buyers and renters by addressing federal regulations, construction impediments, lending rules, and so forth, it will become law despite Trump’s refusal to sign it.

The bad news is, far from abating, the President’s focus on disrupting and undermining elections -a hallmark of his years in public office - has only intensified since he returned to the White House.

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How best to describe Graham Platner’s 11 minute diatribe last night dropping out of the race for Senate in Maine? I said ‘crying game’ others said ‘pity party,’ ‘off-putting,’ ‘unapologetic,’ ‘alarmingly narcissistic,’ and ‘angry.’

All are accurate.

Platner talked about being a “regular person” - without acknowledging that regular people are not often credibly accused of breaking and entering and rape, amongst the many other allegations against him. Regular people don’t have Nazi tattoos and then claim not to know what they are, post anti-semitic, homophobic, and other offensive messages on Reddit, the list goes on…

He said he was unfairly targeted. He blamed everyone from the “corporate media” to the “Democratic political establishment” for acting as judge, jury and executioner and ripping the rug out from under him. What he didn’t do was take an ounce of responsibility for his actions or the multitude of controversies that have dogged him for months.

He warned that they (presumably the media/establishment types) are going to take everything away from Maine residents. Once they have him out of the race, he said, Mainers will not be properly represented. What he didn’t do was try to ease the path forward by talking about the fact that there are other viable populist and progressive candidates in the state promoting the same issues he was running on or the fact that the state party has a process in place to help select a viable replacement candidate.

What is clear from his apologia is that he is blaming establishment moderates/Democrats for his predicament. As he said, the Democratic establishment would rather see Susan Collins (R) re-elected than have him win. Another bit of nonsense because Democrats would nominate Attila the Hun if they thought he could beat Collins.

On top of it all, Platner slow-rolled the release of the video as he and his team tried to exert pressure over the Maine Democratic Party and put their thumb on the scale regarding who will be his replacement. Thank goodness the party, led by an excellent Executive Director, Devon Murphy Anderson, pushed back, making it clear in no uncertain terms that the decision belongs to Maine Democrats, not to the remnants of Platners’ campaign or Platner himself. It was a final, galling display of machismo that would have been unbelievable if it wasn’t so on point given what we know about the candidate. Imagine if Eric Swalwell tried to pressure the California Democratic Party to have a say over who replaced him in the gubernatorial race?

There is going to be a lot of soul searching over how the Democratic Party let this occur in a race this critically important to the future of the party, Senate, Congress, and nation as a whole. Preliminary assessments suggest blame lies in various sectors from the DSCC, Senator Chuck Schumer and others who, in their quest to get Governor Janet Mills, on the ballot pushed aside other viable candidates who might have been equally or more attractive to progressive voters than Platner. Second, the contingent of NYC/WDC consultants who went into Maine looking for a progressive to counter the establishment. While they have every right to do this, their failure to vet him properly was political malpractice. And if you don’t believe how much they missed, listen to the interview the Wall St Journal conducted with his campaign manager Daniel Moraff on this very issue.

While time is short, it is a blessing that the Maine Democratic Party has time to replace Platner on the ballot and a strong bench of potential candidates to take on Collins. They have already laid out the process for choosing a replacement by the July 27 deadline - it will consist of holding a special nominating convention made up of delegates selected through a process involving local county committees and the state committee.

Amongst those on the short list as potential replacements are: Shenna Bellows, David Costello, Valli Geiger, Troy Jackson, Dan Kleban, Paige Loud, Nirav Shah, and Jordan Wood - among others.

You can read more about each here. One person who will not be seeking the nomination is actor Patrick Dempsey (AKA McDreamy of Grey’s Anatomy fame) who published an editorial in the Portland Press Herald explaining why he is not running for the office.

As I reflected on all of this, I kept coming back to one question: Do I truly want to serve in Congress? After a lot of thought, I realized the answer is no. Not because public service isn’t honorable — it absolutely is. But because I believe I can contribute more effectively through the life I’ve already built.

Whoever the candidate is, Dempsey continued, he hopes they offer “a new approach to how we govern ourselves…. Most of all, I want integrity. That may sound idealistic today, but it shouldn’t.”

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Vice President JD Vance is in the midst of a press tour for his new book on catholic conversion, Communion. To say it’s been a bit rough at times is an understatement. There was the awkward knee tap with his wife that went viral and which has to be seen to be believed.

In the Vice President’s defense, being in the public eye and constantly under scrutiny is not easy. If there is any place you can be yourself, however, you’d think it would be when you are sitting with your wife reading books to children - but unfortunately for Vance, it doesn’t come off that way.

The knee tap heard round the world was cringeworthy but not nearly as head scratching as his remarks at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California yesterday. For reasons yet to be explained, he decided to use the moment to downplay Watergate and suggest that Nixon was forced out of office by the “deep state.”

If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people — the same institutions — tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. There is a parallel.

Suffice it to say, this attempt to rewrite history, normalize corruption, and defend criminality is both in direct conflict with the evidence but ahistorical. Just as Trump is not a victim of the ‘deep state’ but rather has tried to use the power to go after his political enemies, Nixon was not driven out of office by the ‘deep state’. Instead he tried to use it to go after his political enemies, got caught, and too his credit (unlike Trump) ultimately took responsibility and resigned.

In addition, Vance also took time during the event to draw comparisons between himself and Nixon, noting that both are “hated by the media” and both were “young senator(s)” who went on to become “vice president” and wrote “some bestselling books.”

Perhaps in drawing this comparison he is trying to tell us that he too may be able to surmount the challenges before him and rise to the office of the presidency. Of course, in Nixon’s case that took a failed run (1960) and another eight years until he was able to ascend to the highest office (1968).

Perhaps the best thing Vance did in trying unsuccessfully to rewrite the history of Watergate and compare himself to Nixon is give us all an excuse to re-read a compelling book. And no, I am not talking about Communion, but All the President’s Men. Alternatively or in addition, it gives us an excuse to rewatch the Alan J. Pakula film that is based on it. The film is 50 this year, but as riveting as ever.

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In the midst of an affordability crisis and at a time when many Americans can’t afford to buy or rent homes, Congress did the unexpected - it came together to pass a bipartisan housing bill. Just hours before the President was set to sign the 21st Century Road to Housing Act into law and right after his White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the bill “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history,” Trump backed out. His stated reason for not holding the signing ceremony was he will not sign anything until Congress passes the Save America Act (as well as its enhanced version, the SAVE America Act (S. 1383)).

“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency.”

~Trump TruthSocial June 24, 2026

Why is Trump so intent on sabotaging his party members prospects in the Midterm by denying them the opportunity to go back to their districts with a win on something pertaining to the economy, particularly at a time when support for his handling the economy is at an all time low?

As he noted in his Truth Social post, it is because he considers the Save America voting bill critical and necessary to address a national emergency.

Few experts on voting or elections in the US, however, agree with this assessment. Instead, they see this as Trump’s attempt to change the rules of the electoral game in advance of an election his party is likely to lose. If this happens, Trump wants to be able to make the claim he has been making ad nausea (and without evidence) about the 2020 election - that the election was stolen by the Democrats.

Proponents of the SAVE Act often say it is a voter ID bill, as well as a bill that will help insure non-citizens cannot vote. Both arguments are disingenuous. First, 36 states already require some sort of Voter ID to vote and the 14 that do not, require other forms of verification. Second, it is already illegal in the US for non-citizens to vote in federal, state, and most local elections.

If the SAVE Act is not a Voter ID bill and we already outlaw non-citizen voting, what does it do?

What it does do is suppress the vote and disenfranchise voters legally eligible to participate. This is why most experts from the Brennan Center for Justice to the League of Women Voters oppose it.

Here are just a few of the facts:

* DISENFRANCHISEMENT

The bill will disenfranchise people who have the right to vote.

Example 1 an estimated 69 million married women do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name.

Example 2 The Brennan Center estimates that 21 million Americans do not have citizenship documents and half do not own a passport (particularly those from the lower and working classes).

This bill would make it complex, costly, and difficult for these and other groups to register or re-register

* NEW POLL TAX

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and others have said requiring people to get documentation such as a passport ($130) and certified copies of birth certificates would be costly and amount to a modern day poll tax leaving many unable to afford the cost of participating in our democracy

* BURDEN STATES/LOCALITIES & TIMING

Is this really something that the states and local governments can afford to do, particularly in the few months that remain before the election? The burden would be immense and time is short

* FEDERAL OVERREACH

What happened to the old Republican Party that favored a smaller federal government, argued vociferously against federal over-reach and in favor of returning power to states and localities? This effort by Trump flies in the face of all of that.

* A PROBLEM?

Is there a major problem with voting today and if so, is this the best solution for it? Most experts say the answer to both is no. In fact, there is not widespread evidence of voting irregularities that would demand this kind of action at this pace or in this way. This is instead, something Trump has pushed for as part of his fight against his loss in 2020 and his concern his party is going to face a similar drubbing in the upcoming Midterm.

POST SCRIPT:

Finally, and speaking of the sanctity of our elections, yesterday Postmaster General David Steiner told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee the U.S. Postal Service will refuse to deliver mail-in ballots in states that do not hand over a list of approved voters to the federal government. Another stunning attempt at overreach by the Trump administration and federal government into an area long considered the province of the states.

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President Trump visited the Mack Trucks manufacturing plant in the Lehigh Valley today. It was his first major public event outside of Washington DC since he signed the MOU with Iran and designed to help him turn the page from foreign to domestic politics.

This was Trump’s 5th visit to Pennsylvania in his second term - almost all of which were designed to allow him to road test his economic messaging in a critical state. At almost every turn, however, he has managed to step on his own message - whether its his tendency to refer to ‘affordability’ as a Democratic hoax and “a fake word made up by the Democrats” or his comments about how much he loves inflation.

The Macungie assembly plant Trump is visiting today is the same one former President Joe Biden visited in July 2021 when he kicked off his “Made in America” initiative in an effort to highlight the nation’s industrial might and promote manufacturing jobs.

Whether its Trump, Biden or any of their predecessors - what is missing from these visits is a real plan to address the underlying challenges that have resulted in a decrease in manufacturing jobs from a high of 19.6m jobs in the late 1970s to approximately 12.6m this year.

Months before the 2016 election, Saquib Hyat-Khan and I wrote an article for Fox News entitled “Clinton, Trump and Obama aren’t telling American workers the truth. Here it is.”

The article argued that it is ‘malpractice that our elected officials have done so little to help American workers prepare for a future in which the labor force is going to be forever changed by accelerating technological developments.’

This was a decade ago and well before the most recent Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom. In the interim, the challenges we spoke about have only grown more acute. Despite this, neither party and few officials have spent much time talking about how best to prepare the American workforce for the number of jobs that have been (and will continue to be) lost to robotics, automation, and AI.

This is not the only challenge facing manufacturing and the labor force in the U.S., but whether it is this or any of the other complicated factors - when officials visit these plants they seldom come prepared to level with the American people. They almost never talk about the hard truths or present an informed plan for moving forward. Instead, they tout accomplishments, berate their opponents and make promises about manufacturing and jobs that they cannot deliver on.

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