Midterms Nerd Avengers

In Conversation with Norm Ornstein, Waj Ali and Brian Karem

[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]

Mary Trump: Hello everybody, and welcome back to Mary Trump Media. I do not know if you have heard, but tomorrow is the midterm election, also known as the most important election of our lifetimes. I could think of no better occasion to bring the nerds back together to talk us through it, so here they are, the Nerd Avengers: Norm Ornstein, Wajahat Ali, and Brian Karem. It is so incredibly wonderful to see you, my nerds, even under these circumstances, and to everyone watching, we have missed you. It is great to be back.

Norm, I want to start with you and get your sense of what to look for tomorrow. There is an interesting combination of optimism and hope on one hand and anxiety, and dare I say sheer terror, on the other.

Norm Ornstein: That is where we are. Before I get into it, I want to ask everyone watching to do something important. Get yourselves to the polls, and not just to vote, but to serve as poll watchers. Be there to make sure there is no chicanery or violence, and record anything that could be useful if they try to steal this election. That is where my anxiety comes in, Mary.

Norm Ornstein: We can take polls with enormous grains of salt, because the polling profession is not healthy, shall we say. Still, the latest New York Times polls, the last ones before the election, suggest a remarkable landslide, with states, districts, and governorships that no one would have thought were contestable now very much in play. The Times and Siena College also changed their methodology, and they showed what the results would have been under the old one. The landslide under the new methodology is milder than the one under the old, but it would still mean 30 to 40 seats in the House, six, seven, or eight in the Senate, and governorships and state legislatures in places we never would have imagined.

Norm Ornstein: Mississippi and Louisiana are in question right now, which nobody would have thought possible. I have to say that Scott Colom, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Mississippi, is running a brilliant campaign that should be shown to candidates everywhere. He has gone to Donald’s rallies, gone into red areas, and talked to people at their level. He ended his campaign with an ad going to Medgar Evers’s house that is one of the most brilliant and emotional I have ever seen. For all of that, there is a caveat, because these monsters will stop at nothing to prevent this from happening. The fish rots from the head, as Brian in Las Vegas would know, and what the Justice Department is doing, what we know Kash Patel will do, and what we know Markwayne Mullin and Tom Homan will do means we have to be on guard. Fortunately, many people are on top of this. We can talk later about what it means if we do get this landslide, because it will not be all peaches and cream, starting with the new Congress and continuing from November 4 right up to January 3.

Mary Trump: To your last point, Norm, one of the first things Democrats need to do when they regain the majority and the executive branch is shorten the interregnum. Sixty-one days to seat a new Congress and roughly 79 days to get the new president in is a recipe for disaster.

Waj, I want to talk about what is propelling this potential wave. Democrats have exceptional candidates in places you would not expect, including Angie Nixon in Florida, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, James Talarico, and Scott Colom in Mississippi. They are running excellent campaigns in places where Democrats might actually make serious gains. Meanwhile, Republican candidates are abjectly awful. Can you talk about how those two things are helping propel Democrats toward even more massive victories?

Wajahat Ali: The rot starts from the top, as Norm said, and the top is Donald. Republicans have made a Faustian bargain for the past 10 years, and you go all the way up with Donald, and you go all the way down with him. Look at the candidates he has backed. As soon as he chose Ken Paxton over John Cornyn, I said Texas was in play, because Paxton is so odious and corrupt that he gives Donald a run for his money as one of the worst elected officials in the country. It is scandal after scandal. Look at Vivek Ramaswamy, who was booed off stage today, and at Donald doubling down for Max Miller, whose wife has credibly accused him of physically abusing her and their infant child. Then there are the Christian nationalists, the violent insurrectionists, the racists, and the people who openly say the most Islamophobic, hateful things about Somalis and the most homophobic things.

Wajahat Ali: That might work if the economy were going well, if we did not have a failed war, and if you were not part of an Epstein pedophile coverup. It does not work, Mary, when gas and diesel prices are at record highs, when people cannot afford groceries or healthcare, and when American soldiers are dying in an unnecessary war. Couple that with strong candidates running a Mamdani style campaign in their states against corruption and for affordability, and you see consolidation happening. Progressives are not throwing Turek, Brown, or Acton under the bus. The only people doing that were a certain wing of the Democratic Party against Abdul. Even now, thanks to Haley Stevens, you are seeing consolidation.

I am going to say it, and if I am wrong, I will be proven wrong. This is an insane country, and I am not going to be shocked by what happens either way. This country barely elected a rapist criminal twice, but I think voters are deliberately hedging their bets. They are gun shy and have PTSD, and I think they are underselling what we are witnessing in the data, including early voting, Latino voters, and independent voters.

Wajahat Ali: We can sit here a day before the election and talk about Texas being in play, along with Kansas, Iowa, Mississippi, and Ohio. These Senate races are close, but the fact that they are even close gives us hope. I think we will see 52 plus Senate seats and, as Norm said, 20 to 25 plus in the House.

Mary Trump: Brian, I agree with both Norm and Waj about this potential landslide and the idea that states never in play before could come into play. So is a landslide going to be enough to insulate the American people from the machinations Norm alluded to?

Brian Karem: Nothing is going to brace us. Nothing can keep us safe from the machinations of Donald, who has about as much cognitive ability as a potato I just pulled out of the microwave. He is a dangerous human being. To everyone who plans to vote, do it, and reflect on what Norm said. I have heard people complaining about standing in line for an hour or two, and you will stand in line that long for a ride at Disney World, so stand in line that long to cast a vote, because it matters. As bad as you think it could get, it could be worse, because Donald will be unhinged. But it is not Donald who concerns me most, because I have been out there for the last three weeks and have seen him up close.

Brian Karem: He is playing to smaller and smaller audiences. He could not fill a livestock arena. He went to a gymnasium where a high school basketball team filled the seats, and he could not. He showed up at what looked like somebody’s garage in South Carolina, spoke to fewer than a thousand people, and made it look like he was the chief speaker at a middle school PTA meeting in South Florida. The danger lies with the ones still pulling the strings in the Republican Party. You need to be worried about Stephen Miller and Susie Wiles. From my sources in the White House, they are the last two who get the ear of Donald, and usually it is Miller, because he has walk-in privileges to the Oval Office. He comes and goes as he pleases, and he always makes sure he is the last one to talk to Donald, and that man is a danger to the United States of America. So what happens after the election depends entirely on what those two decide.

Brian Karem: Mary, two nights ago Donald was out complaining. He showed up in South Carolina and said the following:

I can’t believe I still have to do this. 28 stops.

Brian Karem: He called every stop he has made on the campaign trail a waste, and he insulted his own people.

Mary Trump: It is an interesting campaign strategy to insult the candidates you are allegedly stumping for, ignore them entirely, and insult your voters.

Brian Karem: What you have to realize is that he is gone. I do not think he makes it through his entire term. There are 810 days left, and I do not think he makes it. JD Vance could be president in a hundred days, so we may be talking about him as president.

Mary Trump: I do not want to pretend we do not have a lot to worry about. I want to cover another topic. If the margin of victory is big enough, I think a majority of Americans are not falling for this nonsense anymore, and the bigger the margin, the more that will be the case. Norm, we have seen tensions play out in the Michigan Senate race since the primary, which El-Sayed won. There is a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party between establishment, corporatist Democrats and this new wave of more progressive candidates. This has nothing to do with Haley Stevens and whatever she is doing. It has to do with what will happen if many of these progressive candidates get into office. Will the Democratic establishment finally pivot, or are we in for more of the same?

Norm Ornstein: First, let me address Michigan, because I got an email this morning from a friend who is very Jewish and very pro Israel asking what I would do if I lived in Michigan. There is no question for me, but let’s look at the arithmetic. On the surface, Democrats need four seats to make a Senate majority, but if they have four seats and John Fetterman is there, they have nothing, so they need five. If they lose a seat, which is what Michigan would represent, they would need six. Taking that risk, with more Alitos, more Thomases, more Aileen Cannons, more RFK Juniors, more Tulsi Gabbards, and more Pete Hegseths, is insane. The brouhaha with Haley Stevens is a sideshow, even with her longtime friends, like former governor Jim Blanchard and Debbie Dingell, saying they worry about her mental stability. Most voters in Michigan are paying no attention to it. They are focused on the things that will lead to a landslide, and we need to pray for one for two reasons.

Norm Ornstein: The first reason is to make sure they cannot steal the election. If it is close in the House, Mike Johnson has ugly cards up his sleeve, and if it is close in the Senate, God knows what they will do. The second reason is that leaders are not capable, in this instance, of bringing discipline with small majorities. When Democrats in the Senate, with Harry Reid as the best leader I have known in many decades, barely reached 60 votes, Joe Lieberman held them hostage. That is why we do not have a public option in health policy now, which would have transformed the country. When the margin is very close, any small faction has the power to block things, and they will all do it. I would not believe that Chuck Schumer is the guy you want in that post. Even if they win six or seven seats, you are not likely to unseat him. Still, Democrats came through when it mattered with Nancy Pelosi and especially Harry Reid, when they had to find compromises on issues like the Affordable Care Act. They understand the stakes, but they will have to change the way they do business.

Norm Ornstein: If you run on affordability, people will expect you to do something about it. You cannot wave a magic wand or pass policies overnight, but you have weapons in your toolbox. If they are disciplined and focused enough to use them, their tenure may be a short one.

Thank you for joining us! Stay tuned for more Nerds.