Chuck Todd, former moderator of Meet the Press and host of The Chuck ToddCast, joins Dan to assess how the news media has responded to Trump 2.0. His read? Not great. He and Dan lament cable news' tired playbook, discuss Craigslist's indirect role in electing Donald Trump, and question whether broadcast news may be in the early stages of a kleptocracy. Then, turning to the Democratic Party, Chuck and Dan debate which fights Democrats should focus on, what voters will want from the party in 2028, and whether the right is exploiting President Biden's decline to undermine the left's faith in journalism. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.
Chapter 1: What are the challenges facing the media in covering Trump?
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Politics and media are inextricably entwined. The politicians who succeed are usually the ones who best understand how the media is changing. If you want to understand what's happening in politics and where it's going, you must understand the media environment.
Chapter 2: How has the media landscape changed since Trump's presidency?
That's why I'm talking to veteran journalist Chuck Todd, the former host of Meet the Press, for our Sunday show this week. Thank you so much for having me. Today, we're going to discuss the changing media environment, how the press is covering Trump, and whether Democrats have figured out how to communicate in this new era. Chuck Todd, welcome to the show.
Dan Pfeiffer, it's good to see you. I think I was one of your guests in the first month of your launch, if I'm not mistaken.
Yes, you were. You were. It was a very highly listened to and quite controversial episode, if I remember correctly.
I don't know. Every episode you guys do is controversial to somebody. The beauty of social media is if you want to be controversial, somebody will help you be controversial. Yes, that is true. That is true.
That is what Twitter slash X has done for us. You were the host of Meet the Press. I'm going to do what Chuck Todd would do. I'm going to start with the news of the week here. We are recording this on Donald Trump's 101st day in office. We are coming to the close of a series of media retrospectives looking at his 100th day. There are 100 days in the White House.
There are two themes that run through this. One is that he has the lowest poll numbers of almost any president at this 100th day and is in a big political mess. And the second one is that he is the most consequential president at this mark in his presidency.
What do you make of those two assessments? By the way, I love the word consequential. How often I now hear this word consequential. Okay, where else are you hearing it? Well, because Mitch McConnell defenders won't say he was a great senator. They'll say he's one of the most consequential senators. The point is the word is such a beautiful word because it's a way to...
impart importance without necessarily saying they were good or bad. Well, they're consequential. Okay. Right. You know, the point is, is that it really is such an interesting subjective word. And I kind of look at it as a bit of a weasel word. Right. But personally, because I think the word and I get it right. Cause he is consequential. Sure.
And so is a wild animal in my yard consequential in the moment, right? That's going rabid on us, right? You're like, yeah, it's consequential at the moment. Anyway, I don't know if you get the point I'm trying to say, but I just- I do.
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Chapter 3: What strategies should Democrats adopt for future elections?
I do. It's a way to say that he matters without saying that he is bad or good.
Right. George W. Bush, I used to say, really consequential president. Because at the end of the day, at the time, you were like, well, doesn't look like Iraq's going to age well. We'll see. And it hasn't. And it hasn't. And in fact, the legacy has somehow led to the Republican Party to no longer even believe in half the policies they used to believe in the Bush era.
No, I look at the, you know, the poll that I sort of been obsessed over of all the polling, even though they've all been very similar, has been Pew's because Pew had a large enough sample to have some interesting little, they were able to, I think, correctly find the following, right? And which you see tidbits up there, which is,
People don't like the execution of Donald Trump, but they're not yet souring on his goals, right? And I think the Pew poll did the best job of at least showing that, where what he's trying to do, there's still support for out there. His execution, though, is something that voters don't like at all. And then you see that when you see, oh, the Democrats are not, it's not a seesaw, right?
Trump goes down, Democrats go up. You're not seeing that yet, right? Nothing, whatever the Democrats haven't penetrated yet. You know, the best way you could say it is Democratic messaging has yet to penetrate or they're just not focused on it or there is no unified Democratic message, which is probably closer to being the correct answer.
And then the other thing that I found interesting in the Pew poll is they did this subset. They did the subset of non-voters. And what was interesting, because this to me tells me about the media climate. So at the start of his presidency in Pew, non-voters from 2024 approved, gave him a 44% job approval. So skeptical, but 44.
Now he had collapsed down to 31 job approval among people that didn't vote. What that tells me, because non-voters are usually lower information voters. And what I mean by that is they're just not paying attention. It doesn't mean they're dumb. These are people that are busy or just aren't as engaged. But what they're getting, they don't like, right?
So it does tell me that it's all bad for Trump right now, right? His media environment. I mean, Dave Portnoy is out there complaining about him, right? He doesn't even have a unified... His the right wing machine is not even unified in celebrating his first hundred days.
So I just think this has been political malpractice, how they've handled this first hundred days, because there were ways to make this better. And they have just I mean, can you imagine? If you didn't have George W. Bush to blame for the economy after 100 after the 100 days taking over in the Obama presidency.
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Chapter 4: How are potential 2028 Democratic candidates positioning themselves?
Chapter 5: What is the significance of Trump's first 100 days in office?
That is what Twitter slash X has done for us. You were the host of Meet the Press. I'm going to do what Chuck Todd would do. I'm going to start with the news of the week here. We are recording this on Donald Trump's 101st day in office. We are coming to the close of a series of media retrospectives looking at his 100th day. There are 100 days in the White House.
There are two themes that run through this. One is that he has the lowest poll numbers of almost any president at this 100th day and is in a big political mess. And the second one is that he is the most consequential president at this mark in his presidency.
What do you make of those two assessments? By the way, I love the word consequential. How often I now hear this word consequential. Okay, where else are you hearing it? Well, because Mitch McConnell defenders won't say he was a great senator. They'll say he's one of the most consequential senators. The point is the word is such a beautiful word because it's a way to...
impart importance without necessarily saying they were good or bad. Well, they're consequential. Okay. Right. You know, the point is, is that it really is such an interesting subjective word. And I kind of look at it as a bit of a weasel word. Right. But personally, because I think the word and I get it right. Cause he is consequential. Sure.
And so is a wild animal in my yard consequential in the moment, right? That's going rabid on us, right? You're like, yeah, it's consequential at the moment. Anyway, I don't know if you get the point I'm trying to say, but I just- I do.
I do. It's a way to say that he matters without saying that he is bad or good.
Right. George W. Bush, I used to say, really consequential president. Because at the end of the day, at the time, you were like, well, doesn't look like Iraq's going to age well. We'll see. And it hasn't. And it hasn't. And in fact, the legacy has somehow led to the Republican Party to no longer even believe in half the policies they used to believe in the Bush era.
No, I look at the, you know, the poll that I sort of been obsessed over of all the polling, even though they've all been very similar, has been Pew's because Pew had a large enough sample to have some interesting little, they were able to, I think, correctly find the following, right? And which you see tidbits up there, which is,
People don't like the execution of Donald Trump, but they're not yet souring on his goals, right? And I think the Pew poll did the best job of at least showing that, where what he's trying to do, there's still support for out there. His execution, though, is something that voters don't like at all. And then you see that when you see, oh, the Democrats are not, it's not a seesaw, right?
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Chapter 6: How can Democrats improve their messaging?
And then the other thing that I found interesting in the Pew poll is they did this subset. They did the subset of non-voters. And what was interesting, because this to me tells me about the media climate. So at the start of his presidency in Pew, non-voters from 2024 approved, gave him a 44% job approval. So skeptical, but 44.
Now he had collapsed down to 31 job approval among people that didn't vote. What that tells me, because non-voters are usually lower information voters. And what I mean by that is they're just not paying attention. It doesn't mean they're dumb. These are people that are busy or just aren't as engaged. But what they're getting, they don't like, right?
So it does tell me that it's all bad for Trump right now, right? His media environment. I mean, Dave Portnoy is out there complaining about him, right? He doesn't even have a unified... His the right wing machine is not even unified in celebrating his first hundred days.
So I just think this has been political malpractice, how they've handled this first hundred days, because there were ways to make this better. And they have just I mean, can you imagine? If you didn't have George W. Bush to blame for the economy after 100 after the 100 days taking over in the Obama presidency.
And Donald Trump said, yeah, I'm going to make sure everybody knows this is my economy now. Right. Like you're like, OK, brother, it's all yours. You don't get to blame Biden anymore because you have actually impacted the direction of this economy. And every voter now knows it.
I mean, the Blaine Biden thing is interesting because Trump did today on Wednesday, he truthed that this was Biden's stock market. It's the overhang of Biden's economy.
But Dan, I'm old enough to remember when the surge in the stock market during the transition was supposed to be Donald Trump's stock market surge. So I'm very confused. Yes.
I mean, he took credit for stock market surges when Biden was president based on what he said to be polling that suggested he would win.
Right.
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Chapter 7: What lessons can be learned from past Democratic campaigns?
Yeah, I know. We're shocked that Donald Trump isn't consistent.
The blaming Biden thing is interesting because, as you point out, for most of Obama's first term, voters in polling blamed Bush as much or more than Obama for the state of the economy. Now, there is a certain set of facts there, which was the economy collapsed before Obama was president.
No, I mean, the facts were on his side, but in this way – I mean, I really believe that Trump could have convinced many people that, hey, this inflate, you know, we're still recovering from Biden's inflationary mess and all this stuff. And nope, not anymore.
Yeah, he there was there was a failure to manage expectations for sure. Like there's a way in which you could have said this is going to take, you know, this like Obama used to say all the time, we didn't get in this mess overnight. We're not going to get out overnight and it's going to take time. But he but launching the tariffs
was the thing that, I mean, when you look, there's a world where he could have just not decided to blow up the economy himself. Like, that's the thing, right? It's not like he rhetorically messed it up. He substantively messed it up.
Correct. His chief architect, right, with his tariff regime, Oren Kass, wrote this op-ed in the New York Times that laid out a much more reasonable way to have tried to execute this, which is essentially You put out what you're going to do, but you give everybody six months. You actually don't do anything until October, until the fall.
And you give yourself time for both business to prepare itself and perhaps trade deals to take place. But that's not the Donald Trump way. And, you know. If you actually are an advocate of this policy, you should be really angry with Donald Trump because he may tarnish the whole idea for decades.
Yeah. As we're recording this, the Republican Senate may pass a resolution of disapproval on the Trump tariff. So it's all going to depend on
If enough senators show up, I didn't expect this to happen until until the spring of next year. I mean, because people would be right. Yeah. Because you think they'd be separating for the election. So I do. You know, my three, you know, my three early primary guys that I'm obsessed with are Tillis, Cassidy and Cornyn. Right. None of the three are MAGA Republicans.
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