Chuck Todd begins by examining whether Democrats have lost by enough to force meaningful change or if they're simply tinkering around the edges. He covers Trump's recent controversial moves, including hosting dinners for his memecoin buyers and politicizing his West Point commencement speech, while exploring how "whataboutism" and Trump creating a culture of fear have become pervasive in our political discourse. Chuck analyzes new polling data on potential Democratic matchups and discusses why being an incumbent may be a liability in upcoming elections.Then, he’s joined by political analyst and author of “Where Have All The Democrats Gone”, Ruy Teixeira, who provides insights into America's ongoing political realignment and the challenges facing both major parties. They explore whether Democrats need to move toward the center to win back working-class voters, discuss the possibility of party collapse similar to what happened with the UK's Tories, and examine why neither party seems capable of forming a truly dominant coalition. The conversation covers everything from the Democrats' branding problems and communication failures to Trump's enduring influence on American politics and the potential for viable independent candidates in 2028.Chuck concludes with upcoming Republican primary dynamics, including Senator John Cornyn's hiring of Trump's campaign manager and why it could be an UGLY campaign.Timeline:00:00 Introduction02:00 Have Democrats lost by enough to force them to change?04:30 Democrats seem intent on tinkering rather than an overhaul05:45 Trump hosts dinner for buyers of his memecoin06:45 Mike Johnson defends corruption if it’s “done in the open” * (14:30)08:30 Trump politicizes his West Point commencement speech10:30 “Whataboustism” is plaguing our politics12:00 Neither party has a monopoly on crazy or violence12:45 Trump has created a culture of fear which mutes criticism14:30 The public has become numb to Trump’s bad behavior15:45 Corruption will eat away the credibility of the MAGA movement*16:30 New poll released on AOC vs Schumer and Torres vs Hochul18:30 Being an incumbent will be a negative in 2026 and 202822:10 Ruy Texeira joins the Chuck Toddcast 23:40 What is the current state of America's political realignment? 26:25 Do Democrats need to move to the center to win working class voters? 28:10 Lower turnout benefits Democrats 29:55 Democrats have only changed rhetoric, not their positions 31:40 Neither party can form a dominant coalition 32:40 Despite the chaos, Trump's approval rating isn't that bad 34:25 Could we see one party collapse like the Tories in the UK? 36:10 Could a third party replace one of our two parties 37:55 Voters in the western world feel the system is broken 38:40 Democrats are viewed as the status quo party 41:10 What are some lessons Democrats can take from the early 90's? 43:10 Neither party loses by enough to change 46:40 The DNC doesn't grasp how bad the brand has become 47:40 The problem is bigger than communications 49:40 Trump is the towering figure of 21st century American politics 51:10 What to make of Gavin Newsom's political maneuvering? 52:30 Who could be the Democrats next Bill Clinton? 54:40 What states should Democrats be targeting for future elections? 57:10 Democrats made a mistake not having Iowa first in their primary calendar 58:10 Why has Wisconsin stayed so competitive? 1:00:10 What to make of the red shift in blue states where they didn't campaign? 1:02:40 Party strategists are too out of step with the voters 1:04:25 What will we learn from statewide elections in 2025? 1:07:25 Will Joe Biden become a pariah like Jimmy Carter for the Democratic party? 1:09:10 Being a cabinet member for Biden will tank Pete Buttigieg's presidential hopes 1:10:10 The cover up of Biden's decline will haunt the Democrats for years 1:11:25 Any positives for the Democrats? 1:12:25 There could be a viable independent candidate in 20281:16:00 Chuck’s thoughts on the interview with Ruy Texeira1:17:30 Senator John Cornyn has hired Trump’s campaign manager1:19:00 We’re about to see new level of negativity in a Republican primary1:20:45 The new traffic patterns out of Nationals games are annoying
Chapter 1: Have Democrats lost enough to force change?
Und die Zeit und das Geld, das ich dadurch spare, kann ich anderweitig investieren. Vor allem in Wachstum.
Hello there, I hope you are enjoying your Memorial Day weekend that we are uploading right now on the actual Memorial Day or the day that we are honoring those we've lost in service to this country on Memorial Day. There's always this debate, you don't celebrate Memorial Day, you honor Memorial Day. I'm not going to get into the nuances of language here. I think sometimes...
Social Media gets up in arms over that. I have a fascinating guest today, Roy Teixeira. He is one half of the authorship of a book that, had you read it before November 2024, you would have known in advance exactly how Kamala Harris was going to lose this presidential race. Roy Teixeira is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and along with John Dudas, he wrote a book
Chapter 2: What are Trump's recent controversial moves?
Das kam, glaube ich, im Frühjahr 1923, Frühjahr 1924 mit dem Titel Wo sind alle Demokraten? Und essentiell jede Trendlinie, die im November 1924 zur Fruition kam, hat er bereits in diesem Buch identifiziert. And as I said, and many of you know this, I've used this book among three or four others as a teaching text for a class that I teach on behalf of USC called How Washington Works.
And as one of my students wrote, boy, I wish I had read this book before the election and I wouldn't have been so surprised by the result. The point is, it's an excellent book, definitely worth your time if you're trying to figure out what's going on inside the two parties. And frankly, is the two-party system going to be able to hold up?
And if we're stuck here with a two-party system, what are the Democrats going to do to respond to what we've seen on the right? And I do think when you listen to the conversation that Roy Teixeira does provide a path for Democrats to become a majority party again and a majority governing party again. But they've got a lot of work to do. And
I think you will hear in the tone of the conversation that we have, we're both a little bit skeptical that the Democrats have lost enough. And I think that's the real question. Have they lost enough money? to make the changes necessary to become a majority party again. In 1988, Democrats lost the presidential race with George H.W. Bush getting over 400 electoral votes.
It was a race that they were supposed to win. It really suddenly made the party rethink things. When you lose by essentially a percentage point, a couple hundred thousand total votes in a handful of states could have flipped the outcome. Do you think you have to make major changes or minor changes?
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Chapter 3: How is 'whataboutism' affecting politics?
I remember a conversation, and those of you who have been long-time listeners of me know this anecdote well. But when I did a... Ja. which really began at the start of the 21st century and really foreshadowed everything we've seen nationally.
And Tommy Thompson, the longtime Republican governor during the last part of the 20th century there in Wisconsin, I had him and Jim Doyle, the last two-term Democratic governor before Tony Evers got in there. And
Both of them remarked, but it was Tommy Thompson who said, you know, until one of the two parties loses by more than a point in any given election, are you going to have either party do any soul searching, right? When you have a path to 50% plus one to win, you don't think about winning.
Maybe we have some long-term issues here, long-term issues there, but if you still think of a path to victory, you don't worry about it. Frankly, to pick on Wisconsin, it's like the Milwaukee Bucks with Giannis.
If you think having Giannis plus a semi-healthy Dame Lillard can at least get you to be competitive and maybe have a chance to make the Eastern Conference Finals, maybe you don't do the teardown. But if you're the Charlotte Hornets or you're the Miami Heat, you think, we're not even getting to the Eastern Conference Finals, we're going to do a whole teardown.
And I think that's the conversation Democrats are still in. They're not in a teardown mindset yet. They're still in this... in this place where I think you still have a good chunk of the party that thinks just tinkering is going to do it. Oh, if they just come up with a better message with Latino voters, they will be able to fix their problems in the Southwest.
Or if they just come up with a better message for working class voters in Michigan, then maybe they can improve things in an Ohio or an Iowa. versus what happened after 88 when it was a slaughter.
And you realize, as I pointed out before, that the combination of McGovern, Carter, Mondale and Dukakis sent a message of massive weakness inside the Democratic Party, that they may have had good ideas, but they had weak leadership. And Bill Clinton came along and just came up with a new theory of the case. But but was a bit more, but led essentially with a bit more strength in how to do it.
And I think that that's the question I have. Are Democrats in that mode or is there such a desperation to win, they'll take any answer? Well, this we're going to find out in a couple of years. But before we get to the conversation we're going to share, I do want to back up a little thing on the weekend's events. Look, let's talk about what it is, which is,
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Chapter 4: What is the current state of America's political realignment?
And you want to talk about why I keep quoting Bob Dole from 1996 all the time, which was, where's the outrage? And I think on this one, where's the outrage? And there is none. And now the Republican Party is putting itself in a position... Where they're just going to be laughed out of the room anytime they attempt to criticize anybody else on corruption issues.
The silence, the ignoring of what Donald Trump is doing with this presidency is something else. Now let's take his commencement address at West Point. His decision to politicize the address, his decision to wear a MAGA hat. I want to take you back into the way back machine. To go back, it's Barack Obama, who was president.
And let me just remind you of certain controversies that took place when Barack Obama did things with the military. Some commencement addresses, saluting the military. There was a huge outrage over what Sarah Palin deemed the latte salute, that how dare Barack Obama hold a latte while he saluted the Marines as he was, I think, going on to Marine One.
Chapter 5: Do Democrats need to move to the center to win back voters?
Chapter 6: How are incumbents viewed for the upcoming elections?
And I think that that's the question I have. Are Democrats in that mode or is there such a desperation to win, they'll take any answer? Well, this we're going to find out in a couple of years. But before we get to the conversation we're going to share, I do want to back up a little thing on the weekend's events. Look, let's talk about what it is, which is,
If the roles were reversed, what would the level of conversation and criticism be? If Joe Biden and Hunter Biden were trying to make money off of the presidency, oh, did they do that? What was the level of conversation? And I'm struck by something the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said to my friend Jake Tapper on CNN over the weekend.
Jake Tapper was asking him about the meme coin, the infamous meme coin dinner, where basically if you bought this phony meme coin, basically the baseball cards of Ja, genau. Mike Johnson hat tatsächlich gesagt, dass die Bidens es unter Koffer machen. Donald Trump macht es in der Öffentlichkeit, um alle zu sehen. Und deshalb ist es okay. Also stoppt nur und denkt über dieses Rationell.
Der Speaker of the House sagte, dass der Grund, warum er nicht überrascht ist, dass Donald Trump aus der Präsidentschaft profitiert hat, Versus the amount of effort he did to investigate whether Hunter Biden was essentially profiting off the Biden presidency. The big distinction for him is Biden tried to hide it. Trump doesn't hide it. So didn't ask yourself, where are we headed as a society?
Where are we headed in our politics if basically one political party is completely okay with this corruptible practice? And I say it's corruptible. I don't want to assume corruption has happened yet. But it is easy to corrupt. It is obvious. It is, you know, sort of peeing on your leg and telling you it's raining kind of obvious at this point. And yet that's the rationale and that's the defense.
And you want to talk about why I keep quoting Bob Dole from 1996 all the time, which was, where's the outrage? And I think on this one, where's the outrage? And there is none. And now the Republican Party is putting itself in a position... Where they're just going to be laughed out of the room anytime they attempt to criticize anybody else on corruption issues.
The silence, the ignoring of what Donald Trump is doing with this presidency is something else. Now let's take his commencement address at West Point. His decision to politicize the address, his decision to wear a MAGA hat. I want to take you back into the way back machine. To go back, it's Barack Obama, who was president.
And let me just remind you of certain controversies that took place when Barack Obama did things with the military. Some commencement addresses, saluting the military. There was a huge outrage over what Sarah Palin deemed the latte salute, that how dare Barack Obama hold a latte while he saluted the Marines as he was, I think, going on to Marine One.
And it became this sort of obsession with sort of whatever you want, whatever you want to call, you know, not journalists, not conservative journalists, but just sort of conservative influencer wannabes, pundits, whatever, whatever Fox News calls itself these days. Denn es ist nicht eine journalistische Unternehmensarbeit, sondern es ist nur ein Fahrzeug für Schmerzen und Ausrufe.
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Chapter 7: What lessons can Democrats learn from the early 90s?
Chapter 8: Is there potential for a third party to rise?
I really don't like what he's doing with the government. But I can't say anything or I'll lose my job or I can't say anything or I'll lose this client. I can't say anything because I don't want funding to be cut off from my institution. So this culture of fear that's out there is very real. And, you know, this is where. where trust in political leadership continues to erode.
We don't have much trust in either side of the aisle and it's because both sides of the aisle are earning that distrust every day with their behavior, with this idea that We've got to make sure we look good by tearing down the other side rather than simply. Why don't you govern well and let people decide that you're doing a good job?
Donald Trump has trouble handling that because right now things aren't going well for him. Right on merits. But he needs to feel like they're going well. So it becomes this attempt to tear down the left and tear down the other side. And certainly Joe Biden's.
legacy is in tatters because of what joe biden did and donald trump is certainly reveling in it and using it as a way to essentially protect himself politically at this point but it just it just struck me that all of these things the corruption in plain sight which the speaker of the house says oh but it's in plain sight so it's okay Okay, just imagine.
So basically, if I shoplift and wave to the camera, it's okay. But if I shoplift and quietly put it in a knapsack and so the camera doesn't see it, then I've committed a crime. That's exactly what the Speaker of the House is claiming with this meme coin nonsense. So it's just this look. Whataboutism is a disease that strikes a lot of people in in in this information ecosystem.
But it is a really deadly virus these days on the right. Donald Trump's behavior. With the meme coins, Donald Trump's behavior at West Point, again, just, you know, we have seen the outrage that took place on the right when a Democrat behaved 10 percent similarly as the way Donald Trump has has behaved over the weekend in various ways. And again, I know we're numb. Right.
There's a numbness to it on one hand. Right. I've got some friends in Europe who have said to me, how come you guys aren't in the streets? And I'm like, well, that was the first Trump term. There's a little less energy for that this time. So there's a little bit of that.
But I also think it goes back to the fear issue that I was telling you about, where there is plenty of people who are very uncomfortable with the with the president's behavior, particularly how he's self enriching. I mean, this I do think what is going and what tears down every political movement, every political movement comes to an end because of corruption.
Und ich werde Ihnen sagen, dass das Verhalten der Trump-Organisation mit Krypto, und ich habe es schon gesagt, das wird das sein, was das MAGA-Movement endlich verursacht und zerstört. Vielleicht ist es nicht dieses Jahr, vielleicht nicht nächstes Jahr, aber es ist, das wird weggehen. Das ist ein Kanzer innerhalb dieses Bewegungs.
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