Show Notes
On the DSR Daily for Thursday, we break down the White House removing CNN from the press pool, new details from the terrifying FlyDubai flight, skyrocketing bond levels, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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On the DSR Daily for Thursday, we break down reports of a new attack on Iran after the midterms, Meta paying out a historic $25 billion in New Mexico, Trump’s plans to begin construction on his arch soon, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Donald Trump just unleashed a panicky string of posts—see here, here, here, and here—in which he frantically urged Republicans to vote by mail early. Amusingly, this comes after he told Republicans for months that mail-balloting is fraudulent to pass his SAVE America Act. Now that his efforts to nix vote-by-mail have flopped, he’s prodding Republicans to adopt it—effectively admitting his attacks on vote-by-mail were a scam to help him rig the election. Mail voting is an essential piece of pre-election-day voting, so his “fraud” nonsense could be discouraging GOP early voting, too. So what does the data say? To find out, we talked to Michael McDonald, who tracks the early vote at the UF Election Lab and on his Substack. He explains why the data suggests Democrats and independents are far more energized than Republicans, what we can extrapolate from it about the election, and how Trump screwed himself on early-vote-by-mail. We also discuss the latest New York Times poll showing Democrats leading by 11 points and Trump at a new low, which suggests the bottom is falling out for him.
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Or is it keep your enemies close and kick your friends to the curb? The Trump administration certainly seems to think the latter when it comes to Ukraine. Between a lifeline deal to buy Russian diesel and Steve Witkoff calling Putin a "humanitarian," it is clear this administration has a fondness for Moscow and contempt for just about everyone else. Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at CNAS, joins Rosa Brooks and David Rothkopf to discuss why this pivot to Russia is so dangerous—not just for Ukraine, but for the U.S. as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we cover Steve Witkoff’s praise for Putin, Trump’s approval hitting record lows, Trump’s $8 billion support program for farmers, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
With less than two weeks until Election Day, the Michigan Senate race is more or less on a knife’s edge. Amid all this, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has had some hugely viral moments lately, tangling with a MAGA plant over a question about the Muslim Brotherhood and battling with JD Vance over the vice president’s vile attacks on him. We think El-Sayed is developing an interesting way of doing politics that seems attuned to the information wars of the Trump era. Will it work in a swingy state that’s coming down to the wire? We talked to El-Sayed about the state of the race, the affordability crisis, his high-profile viral battles, and how it all reflects his deeper theory of politics in the Trump-MAGA era.