FIVE-ALARM FIRE: Trump gets NIGHTMARE news

I'm joined now by the co-host of Potsafe. America, Dan Fefeifer. Dan, thanks for. joining me. >> Happy to see you, Brian. >> So, we've just watched as the Democratic. candidate defeated a Republican in a. district that Donald Trump won just last. year by 17 points. And they did so by 14. points, meaning it's a 32 point swing. Already, we've seen some Republicans. coming out and offering some excuses. like this is, you know, a low turnout. election because, you know, it's special. election. We're in an off year. How much. of a problem are these election results. in Texas uh for the GOP as we head.

toward midterms? >> Look, I I've said many many times over. the years that special elections are not. particularly predictive. They are things. where Democrats tend to do better. because our election our coalition is. now disproportionately made up of people. who vote all the time. Um and as we saw. in 2024, Republicans benefit from higher. turnout. And sometimes when you get. results that are shocking, it's because, you know, one party got caught napping. or as you mentioned, it's a really low. turnout election. That's not what. happened here, right? The Trump endorsed. the Republican. The Republican party.

spent money in this race. The Republican. outspent the Democrat by several fold. and the Democrat still won. And so if. you're on the ballot anywhere in Texas. or frankly around the country, this is. should scare the crap out of you because. not are not saying that we're going to. get a plus 31 plus 32 Democratic. environment, but this just means that a. whole bunch of races that were not on. the map before are on the map now. Can. you talk about the fact that, you know, this this electorate was 51% Republican,

35% Democrat, and 14% independent, but. the Democratic candidate Teller Remmit. won with like 57% of the vote. And so. mathematically, the only way to have. done that is to is to have gotten votes. uh and support from Republican voters. and independent voters. I mean, how are. you thinking about that as we as we move. move forward? That's the part that. should really scare Republicans because. a lot of times when you see these. Democratic results, sometimes you'll see. it like it's a state house race in.

Montana in a district, Trump won by 36, the Democrat loses by 12 and then you. look at the results and you see there's. just this massively disproportionate. Democratic turnout. Just our our party. turned out at insane levels. Not enough. to win sometimes in districts, but to. make them races much closer than they. are. [snorts] That is absolutely not. what happened here. This district, this. district is in Tarant County. It is the. epicenter of the Texas Republican party. It's sort of a power center for the MAGA. movement, the the far-right Christian. movement. And the only the way that the.

Democrat won is yes, we had great. turnout from the Democratic base, but. because persuaded basically every. independent who voted to vote for the. Democrat and a decent chunk of. Republicans and that and and notably. also as well, this is important. I think. this is you can see this in the. independent numbers is there are a. number of heavily Latino precincts in. this district and from the early results. we've seen and we you know have to get. some more granular detail but it seems. like in math would suggest that the. Latino vote swung back hard to the. Democrats. >> and and I think that poses a pretty.

serious problem for Republicans as we. move forward because they built their. new map that would give them five new. seats on this idea predicated on this. idea that Latinos swinging super heavily. to theublic Republicans and Trump in. 2024 was a permanent move. And and and. that's how they built their gerrymander. And so we could we could be in a world. where not only do we not see five seats. get handed from Democrats to. Republicans, but if if those margins. were drawn so thin and we see a big blue. wave election, not just where we're.

seeing high turnout from Democrats, but. where we're seeing um Republicans and. independents defect and vote for the. Democratic candidates in numbers that we. saw just yesterday. We we could see a. world where this new map turns into a. dummy mander and actually Democrats net. seats from Texas. >> This map still remains pretty hard. because they did a pretty good job of. fortifying some of their members as they. did this. But the Democrats are trying. to vote out uh along the border um like. Henry Quay Vente Gonzalez with if the.

Republicans are really suffering this. much with Latinos in Texas, those races. are not going to be competitive. And. there some of the new districts they. drew depend heavily on this. So we could. draw even here potentially, you know, uh. obviously if you have a plus 31 uh. Democratic advantage, we're going to. crush everywhere across Texas, across. country, we'll pick up, you know, 70 80. seats or whatever that would be. But the. Republicans made a bet here and that. bet, you know, not only did it not last. for a generation, it didn't even last.

for a year. We we also, I'm sure, both saw the. numbers of, you know, in terms of the uh. expenditures um in this campaign. I'm. going to put right up here on the screen. an image that Amanda Litman shared, uh. the founder of Run for Something. This. image right here shows like the massive. disparity that we have between what the. Republicans had and what the Democrats. had. And yet still, you had a Democratic. candidate flip this seat by 32 points. from what we saw in 2024. What does that. suggest moving forward that even a. boatload of money wasn't enough to win. this race for the GOP?

>> Yeah, I mean it's it speaks to their. problem because in these special. elections, this is what we saw happen in. uh the district in Tennessee, Tennessee. 7 late last year, is. >> the party with the with the partisan. advantage can usually hold on and win. because they have enough money to tell. voters the election is happening. Um, and this time they had that money and it. did not work because it wasn't that they. they told Republicans to vote and then. some of those Republicans and all those. independents voted against the. Republican. The other thing I think is. important here and I think this provides. larger context for how much the polit.

politics have shift is shifted over the. last few months is so this was a runoff. election. The original election what. happened in November and in in November. when you added up all the Republicans. and the Democrats the Dem the. Republicans had a fivepoint advantage, right? which was very good for the. Democrat meant we that they were in. striking distance is why some people had. this election like on their radar screen. and so it shifted dramatically from a. five-point Republican advantage to a. 14-point Democratic advantage over the. since November to now and that says a.

lot about you know we can't attribute. this entirely to what's happening in. Minnesota ICE Venezuela all of the. things that have been happening with. Trump over the last few months but it. does speak to how fired up Democrats. have gotten over the last few weeks and. how disillusioned Republicans have. gotten and so delusioned that they'll. vote against the Republican What do you. think that principal driver is? And and. by the way, I say this knowing that it. may very well not be one specific thing, but but these are pretty huge numbers. And especially the defection numbers are. are are what I'm looking at. >> Yeah, it is. There's nothing that would.

suggest that there would be this huge. increase in an in people upset with. Trump over affordability from November. to now. Um, and the thing that's really. changed is just that this feeling of. chaos that is sort of permeating the. country because of what's been happening. in Minnesota and Maine and elsewhere. And so, you know, we I really am. hesitant to speculate because you really. there's no exit polls here. We don't. know what was on top of people's minds. But I don't think you can separate the. shift from November till now from what's. happening in the larger political. environment and that's been defined by.

ICE in Minnesota for, you know, almost a. month now. So I guess the question. becomes does Trump see this and and kind. of like shift gears or because it's. Trump because any any you know uh uh. concession to the other side is viewed. as capitulation which is viewed as. weakness. He's not he's never going to. do that. And so what do you expect to. see as far as Trump is concerned? Do you. think that that he he uses this and says. like okay we have to change course a. little bit or just triple down? I you. know you just you know I think it's like. one step forward two steps backwards all.

the time with Trump like maybe he'll. feel like maybe he'll call Tom Hman. today and be like slow it down and then. the next day Steven Miller will be in. his ear and we'll do the opposite. So. you don't really know. I think where it. has some impact is on Republicans as we. debate in Congress what sort of ICE uh. guardrails can be put into the spending. bill. There's a world where in a. different political environment, the. Republicans be relishing a shutdown of. the of the Department of Homeland. Security and ICE. And the fact that. they're not and that Mike Johnson, the. speaker of the house, is going to bend.

over backwards to try to get this bill. passed on Monday or Tuesday speaks to I. think just the increasing political. pressure on this issue. >> What about from Democrats vantage? I'm. I'm seeing a lot of posts and statements. um from, you know, Hakee Jeff and Ken. Martin and Chuck Schumer that they are, you know, look, I I think if I was in. their position too, I would I would also. be taking credit for what's happening. right now. And and frankly, at the end. of the day, they are in charge. So, they. can take credit, but but also I'm just. curious because, you know, on one hand,

there is obviously a lot of anti-Trump. sentiment, if not all anti-Trump. sentiment that's driving this. And so to. what extent do you think that Democrats. should or could take credit here versus. are just kind of coasting off of what. we're seeing Trump do and reaping the. benefits of that? >> I think most of what has been happening. almost all the positive things that have. happened in terms of resisting Trump of. sort of sending a message Trump have. happened from outside of Washington, not. inside of Washington, from the bottom. up, not the top down.

>> I think the the DNC spent money here, they should uh get credit for doing. that. If the Democratic Legislative. Committee spent money here, they should. get credit for doing that. But the. reality of what's happening is happening. on the ground and it's happening in. spite of not because of leadership from. Washington. >> And so is there some concern that we'll. kind of like ping pong back and forth. that because because some of the. leadership in the Democratic party is. going to look at this and say, "We fixed. it. You know, the the brand is fixed. We're we're winning again. We can take.

all this credit. We don't have to. release any any autopsies. like we'll. just keep doing what we're doing and. keep on keeping on and you know kind of. end up in a situation where okay we. haven't really done anything. substantively to fix the Democratic. brand but they've seen all these wins. and so they get the wrong message out of. it. Uh and then you know we're in a. position where Democrats have control. and all of the things that led them to. lose in 2024 rear their heads again. because they were never actually. rectified. >> Yeah. So I think there's a couple of. things that are going to happen on the. interim. I think in the short term this.

election victory is going to put stiffen. some Democrats spines for to use the. limited leverage they have in these. negotiations over ICE guard rails. I. think it will encourage more Democrats. to speak out more boldly about what's. happened with ICE. Although I think for. the most part they've been pretty good. since uh the killings of Renee Good and. Alex Prey. Um not everyone but for the. most part you're getting less heming and. hawing from Democrats about what is h. what Trump is doing and what ICE is. doing. So that's good. So I think it. stiffens the spines. I think the big. concern is if we have a very good 2026,

does the party make the same mistake. they made after 2022 and view that as a. validation of themselves as opposed to a. response to something else? Right? 2022. was about dos, not a show of support for. Joe Biden. Joe the Biden White House and. a lot of Democrats read that as the the. wrong way. And so I think I have I could. go on and on and on about the the. medium-term and long-term challenges the. Democratic party has regardless of what.

happens in 2026, but we have a ton of. work to do. And so the hope is you um we. have a great year. We recognize that. that that we benefited greatly from. anger against Trump prices being high, but once we get into an actual election. where a Democrat presidential candidate. is on the ballot against Republican. presidential candidate in that much. larger electorate that that doomed us in. 2024, we got some real work to do. >> And to to that end, in terms of uh what. what we can hope to accomplish as we. head toward midterms, where's your head.

at? Obviously, I think we're all kind of. aligned on the House, but where's your. head at on the Senate? >> You know, I feel. I am cautiously optimistic about the. Senate. I think look, you see these. results in Texas that should give you. even additional belief that there is a. path to a Senate seat in Texas with the. right candidate running the right. campaign. But you know the political. environment if it is in our favor we. have shots. Like I think we can defend. all of our incumbents. Not easy, right?

Like we have to we have to keep we have. to win our open seat in New Hampshire, win our open seat in Minnesota. We have. to win an open seat in Michigan, which. is the toughest of them all. And John. Osaf's got to get reelected. Those are. all about as good as you would expect. them to be at this exact point. We have. good candidates on all those races, and. the Republicans aren't awesome in those. races. Although in Michigan, I think. Mike Rogers is going to be is hard to. beat. Not impossible, but he's he's, you. know, he almost won in 2024. Um, and. then we got to do well in we got to win. in North Carolina. We have a great. candidate. And we got to win in Maine.

where we, you know, we have a primary. coming [snorts] and, you know, because. those are the purplish states. And then. we got to win two of what I think is now. five red states. Um, so you we're. talking about Ohio with shared brown. We. are talking about Texas. We were talking. about Alaska with Mary Poto. We were. talking about Iowa. We have a bunch of. candidates. All interesting on paper. We'll see how they look as we go through. this primary. Um, and then you you know. I think there is an interesting question. about Florida. Like Florida is a very. very hard state. Um,

you know, we now have Alexander Vidman. running. He's a candidate who raised a. ton of money on the first day. I'm. always skeptical of a candidate who is. like very famous to the resistance crowd. is 100% Iowa, you know, MSNBC America. name ID. But I here's the thing I'd say. Florida is Trump won Florida by the same. amount he won uh Texas by. >> Yeah. >> Um and so like we should keep an eye on. it and possibly you know the Republican. is could not be more generic. It's the. it's the it's the woman who took Marco.

Rubio's seat. No one has any idea who. she is. She's a generic Republican is. not what you want to be these days. Um, so like let's keep an eye on like. basically we want as many paths to 52 as. we can to 51 as we can get and that's. another potential one and that's not. even talking we haven't even really. brought up Nebraska where you have. independent Dan Osborne running um. against Pete Ricketts. >> Yeah. Well, a lot to a lot to look. forward. Look, I I want to say for for. everybody who's watching listening right. now um the best analysis online is from. Dan on message box which is his.

newsletter. I could not recommend highly. enough that if you've not yet subscribed. to to message box, please go ahead and. do so. I'm going to put that link right. here on the screen and also in the post. description of this video. It is the. smartest analysis, the best analysis, and it is always correct. So, just go. ahead and do that. Thank you, Brian. >> Go ahead and subscribe if you're not yet. subscribed. And uh and I'll put that. link again right here on the screen and. also in the post description. Dan, as. always, thanks for the time. >> Always good to talk to you, buddy. [music].