Transcript: Trump Spirals as Brutal New Data Shows Scale of GOP Losses

But you’re starting to see some people make a calculated dash—or maybe create an exit strategy—like Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s, you know, she was saying Nancy Pelosi was this great legislator, while several years ago she was saying she should be executed for treason.

So, you are seeing some Republicans get wise, but I think they’re doing it in a more calculated way because they have to be. They can’t just break with Trumpism because there’s political consequences. Like, Thomas Massie is the only one who’s done any kind of formal public break—and he was always like that in private as well—but he’s done this formal public break. He’s got primary challenges now; he’s under constant attack.

Someone like Rand Paul is kind of getting that treatment to a lesser degree. But you’re still seeing a few Republicans maybe start to think there’s going to be a life after Trump. And what does that look like? Does it say, oh, I’m the next Trump? I think you’ll see some of those. Or they might say, true Trumpism has never been tried. You know, I guess we’ll see.

But you’re starting to see little cracks—but it’s not in a meaningful way that I think Republicans will be able to seize on in a year’s time.

Sargent: And how do you see all this playing out into the 2026 midterms? Do you sense that what we saw on Tuesday is really a harbinger? 

Perticone: So the Supreme Court—if they block Trump’s tariff ability—they might give him a gift. They’ll, you know, prevent him from savaging the economy further, which he won’t like, but it might end up helping him in some ways.

But it could end up being that prices could continue to rise, or they could stay the same. Or, for example, prices could stay the same even though economic conditions get better, because companies don’t want to lower their prices once they’ve raised them.

And so there’s a lot of anxiety—or there should be a lot of anxiety—for Republicans. This is a big warning sign, what happened this week, and it could very much continue going into next year. And it’s not a lot of time.

Sargent: And this kind of lock that Trump has on the Republican Party—and sort of brain lock on the entire MAGA-slash-GOP information universe—suggests to me that they’ll continue with the deportations and the ICE raids, and even ramp them up, which they don’t seem to be willing to admit is really working against them.

Perticone: Yeah. In all of these states that they’re doing this—you know, they’re going after immigrants not just in California, for example, where they’re doomed anyway—but they’re doing it in all of these states that they need to rely on.

And as we’ve seen, it’s just marking these huge shifts and turning a new bloc of swing voters that are highly unpredictable, because they’re a new bloc and there’s no track record for determining how they’ll switch votes in the coming elections—except for these past two years, really.

Sargent: Well, that would be really something else if they continue and they just completely throw away in the midterms the gains that Trump made with Hispanics, which were significant. Joe Perticone, that was an awesome discussion. Thanks so much for coming on. Really good stuff. 

Perticone: Thanks for having me.