[Originally released 11/22]

Maggie Haberman is, of course, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who's covered the political rise of Donald Trump for the New York Times...and her book, CONFIDENCE MAN: The Making of Donald Trump & The Breaking of America became an immediate best seller. In this conversation, Maggie dives into all things Trump...from his formative influences in the New York City of the 70s and 80s, to his political ascent, time in the White House, her take on the likelihood of another Trump run, what a Trump White House restoration would look like...and much more from perhaps the most authoritative voice on the Trump political phenomenon.

IN THIS EPISODE…

Maggie breaks down the influences that explain Trump’s political persona…

The member of Congress with whom has had a decades-long feud…

Maggie talks Trump’s ethos of “hate as a civic good”…

Why Trump never wanted to be Mayor of New York City…

Maggie talks the rise of Trump as a credible candidate in 2015…

How Trump leveraged Twitter so successfully…

Maggie on the connection between Trump and the National Enquirer…

How Trump has recently lost allies among the conservative media…

Why Trump as the “deal maker” fell flat in the White House…

Maggie’s thoughts on Trump’s various legal entanglements, old and new…

How Maggie thinks about the challenge of covering candidates who lie…

Maggie’s instincts on a Trump 2024 campaign…

The faces Maggie would expect to see around Trump in a second term…

What it’s like to have 1-on-1 conversations with Trump…

What’s surprised Maggie most about Trump’s behavior over the past year…

The status of Trump relationships with names like Giuliani, McConnell, Bannon, Roger Stone...

Some of Maggies favorite books and authors covering NYC politics...

AND avenging angels, Bill Barr, Wayne Barrett, birtherism, Mike Bloomberg, E. Jean Carroll, catch-and-kill, the Central Park Jogger, Hillary Clinton, Michael Cohen, Roy Cohn, James Comey, conspiracy theories, convention speeches, covfefe, Andrew Cuomo, Mario Cuomo, Ron DeSantis, the Dobbs decisions, Meade Esposito, the favor economy, Fox News, Stanley Friedman, Ric Grenell, Sean Hannity, instinctive racial paranoia, Andrew Kirtzman, Ed Koch, Jared Kushner, the Lavender Scare, Rush Limbaugh, low-interest federal loans, Donald Manes, John McCain, McCarthy acolytes, Mark Meadows, Andrew Meier, Robert Morgenthau, Rupert Murdoch, Muslim bans, Jack Newfield, NewsMax, Richard Nixon, OAN, George Pataki, Kash Patel, David Pecker, permanent enemies, Jeanine Pirro, Vladimir Putin, John Ratcliffe, rejecting objective reality, Seth Rich, rubber chicken dinners, Eric Schneiderman, Doug Schoen, Time Magazine, transactional media, Allen Weisselberg, white noise…. & more!

[Initially Released 11/07/23]

Patrick Ruffini, pollster at Echelon Strategies, returns to talk about his new book PARTY OF THE PEOPLE - on the transition of the Republican Party from being dominated by wealthy, suburban white voters to a more blue-collar and increasingly-multi-racial coalition. In this conversation, Patrick lays out the data behind these shifts, what is driving the GOP's new-found success with blue-collar voters, why this movement came as a surprise to many, the balance of economic vs. cultural priorities, how Latino/AAPI/Black voters are increasingly persuadable audiences in elections, and expectations as to how these shifts will continue to define American politics for the foreseeable future.

IN THIS EPISODE

Patrick lays out the core thesis of Party of the People...

Patrick's favorite data points that illustrate the changing face of the GOP...

Patrick's take on the role of "educational attainment" in changing voting patterns...

Patrick gives a quick tutorial on when and how Democrats have historically been the party of working-class Americans...

How flawed 2012 exit polls have contributed to shifting party coalitions more than a decade later...

Patrick's take on how the "In This House..." yard signs unwittingly speak to tensions within the Democratic coalition...

Economic vs cultural drivers of voter behavior...

Missteps and missed GOP opportunities from the trifecta control of government in 2017 and 2018...

Mining recent data among Hispanic voters...

What Patrick learned about border communities on a trip to the Rio Grande Valley...

Why Lester Chang is important...

Why Black voter behavior has been more stable than Latino and Asian voters...

Patrick's take on the growing segment of biracial and multi-racial Americans...

The impact of free trade and foreign policy on changing partisan coalitions...

What Patrick learned in the process of writing his first book...

AND 7:3 coalitional splits, anti-globalization sentiments, Joe Biden, blurbs, Brexit, George W. Bush, census buckets, charts and data, Hillary Clinton, Nate Cohn, Thomas Dewey, Tom Edsall, Ryan Enos, existential demographic crisis, fading historical patterns, faint echoes, frontier mentalities, the Great Recession, the green transition, Hamiltonian tendencies, illiberal populism, instinctive hawks, Andrew Jackson, jettisoning first principles, Chryl Laird, majority popular tendencies, mercantile progress, the New Deal, Barack Obama, Mike Podhorzer, Ronald Reagan, the Republican autopsy, rivalrous groups, Mitt Romney, sheepskin effects, David Shor, social taboos, Starr County, Steadfast Democrats, Harry Truman, Donald Trump, the UAW, Ismail White, white phenomenons....& more!

With just hours until polling places open for the November 5th presidential election, this week's guest is analyst Amy Walter to provide her insights and instincts heading into Election Day. The editor and publisher of The Cook Report with Amy Walter, Amy has been a constant presence writing and thinking about US elections for nearly three decades. In this conversation, she goes deep on her thoughts on the presidential race, her take on both the Senate and House, and narratives she expects to emerge post-election. This is a smart and expansive preview from a top analyst on the eve of an incredibly competitive and consequential election.

IN THIS EPISODE

Amy starts with her initial table-setter on expectations in the presidential race...

What is Donald Trump's ceiling of support?

Rationales for both a Harris win and a Trump win...

Is this the closest presidential race 3-4 days out that Amy has covered?

Amy's theory that, for many voters, the presidential election boils down to "controlling risk"...

Why are we in an era of consistently 50-50 races?

Which candidate is more likely to over-perform the polls?

The one Rust Belt and one Sun Belt state Amy feels will be the most predictive of the overall result?

Why early vote analysis is like shaking gift boxes before Christmas?

What is different in Trump's 2024 campaign compared to '16 and '20?

Amy's take on the truncated Harris campaign and its closing message?

How both Democrats and Republicans would respond to a presidential loss?

Amy's range of expectations for the Senate and the race that would be most predictive of which side is having a good night...

How the NRSC has tried to avoid mistakes from the '22 cycle...

How the issue of abortion could be a stumbling block for a good Republican night in the Senate?

Amy's take on late-breaking Senate races in Texas and Nebraska...

Amy returns to her roots as a "House homer" to gauge the state of play in the House...

Amy's prediction of when the news desks will call the race and declare a President-Election...

& more!