We have a special guest on the podcast today: former FiveThirtyEight Politics podcaster, staff writer at The New Yorker, and dear friend, Clare Malone.As a reminder Clare, Nate Silver and I will be taping a live show at the Comedy Cellar in New York City on September 29th. Tickets are available here.In this installment of the podcast, Clare and I catch up on some of the latest news in politics and media. We talk about the political and emotional reverberations from Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the strange bedfellows who have found common cause in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, and we dig through the most recent polling in the New York City mayoral race.We also debate the potency of Democrats’ messaging about Trump’s “culture of corruption,” as well as the meaning of Kamala Harris’s new book. Lastly, we discuss what the recent Murdoch family settlement means for the future of conservative media. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.I recorded today’s podcast on Wednesday before the news broke that Charlie Kirk was killed, so I want to take a moment to address it at the start.It’s despicable and saddening. It’s sad on a human level and sad on a national level. On a human level, my heart goes out to Charlie’s family and his young children. On a national level, it’s a horrific situation to be in that someone was murdered while engaging in debate on a college campus. People must feel safe to speak their minds in a free country — left, right, center, controversial or not.At the time I’m writing this, we don’t have details about the perpetrator, but all indications point toward political violence. If you’re a longtime listener, you’ve been alongside me for far too much political violence: multiple assassination attempts against President Trump, January 6th, the shooting of Steve Scalise, the shooting of two state lawmakers in Minnesota, the El Paso Walmart shooting, the Brian Thompson shooting, this assassination of Charlie Kirk, and more.Partisans may focus on blaming a political party. We know from evidence that’s not helpful. The best way to prevent future political violence is for all leaders to condemn it in the clearest, strongest terms whenever it happens, by whoever it’s committed. Evidence also suggests that it’s a very small number of Americans who see violence as an acceptable form of political behavior. Tragically, though, all it takes is one person to wreak havoc on our nation and our system.It’s heartening to see the most prominent Democratic leaders condemning the violence in absolute terms. It’s disheartening to see left-wing provocateurs celebrating and right-wing provocateurs describing this as a call to arms.For my part, this is the whole ballgame. Decreasing political discord and engendering a shared sense of fate amongst Americans is one of the things I care most about. I hope I never have to cite statistics or evidence about the number of Americans who support political violence again on the GD POLITICS podcast. I sadly know that’s unlikely.It’s hard to feel optimistic at a moment like this, but I do feel thankful for the positive community we have here on this podcast. So thank you for that and my prayers are with Charlie Kirk’s family.The bulk of today’s show focuses on recent elections and questions from listeners. We got a lot of great questions, so please continue sending them in. We talk about why Trump’s approval rating has been holding up better now than in his first term, whether all those spam calls and texts are making it harder to poll, and how young voters’ priorities are diverging along gender and partisan lines. We’ve also got some recent election news, including the special election in Virginia and a national election in Norway.With me to discuss all of that and more is friend of the pod and senior data scientist at the Washington Post Lenny Bronner.
Tuesday is Election Day in Virginia’s 11th congressional district. Call it an amuse bouche for Virginia’s statewide elections this November.The special election, following Democrat Gerry Connolly’s death in office, isn’t expected to be competitive. Harris won the district by 34 percentage points, but it gives us one more data point to assess how the parties are doing in special elections. So far this year, Democrats are over-performing by double digits.On today’s podcast we also discuss Friday’s job numbers and whether they’ll add to Americans’ pessimism about Trump’s handling of the economy. It’s a very different dynamic to Trump’s first term, when Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the economy even if they didn’t like him overall.Plus, a recent New York Times analysis of population trends paints a dire picture for Democrats Electoral College math next decade, with red states gaining electors and blue states losing them. Is it “Good Data, Bad Data, or Not Data?”Joining me are two trusty hands: Nathaniel Rakich and Mary Radcliffe. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.It’s hard to open the news these days and not get the sense that American democracy is on the fritz. And I’m not just talking about if you’re mainlining MSNBC. Within the past week, a headline at the Financial Times reads: “US sliding towards 1930s-style autocracy, warns Ray Dalio.”The Wall Street Journal reads: “In Trump’s Second Term, a Bolder President Charges Ahead Unchecked. Trump is frequently riffing on authoritarianism and ignoring caution from advisers.” The New York Times reads: “Historians See Autocratic Playbook in Trump’s Attacks on Science.”President Trump has tested and – according to the courts – exceeded the bounds of his power while in office.He’s deployed the National Guard against governors' wishes, levied tariffs of all manner, frozen funding to universities, cut off law firms from federal contracts, fast tracked deportations using the Alien Enemies Act, fired a Fed governor and heads of independent agencies, installed allies at the Department of Justice… the list goes on.Some of this may fall into the category of “things that Democrats don’t like,” and the remedy for that is to win elections. Some of it may be illegal. And in those instances, the remedy is the courts.One of the most important tests of our system is whether the courts recognize breaches of the law when they happen and whether involved parties comply with court rulings once they’re made.So on today’s podcast I want to get beyond what can sometimes feel like a nebulous freakout and talk about the cases asserting that Trump has exceeded his power and check in on where they stand.According to Just Security, there are at least 390 legal challenges to the Trump administration's actions, so we don’t get to all of them, but we touch on some key ones. With me to do that is Professor of Law at Cardozo, Jessica Roth. She’s also the co-director of the Center for Ethics in the Practice of Law and a former federal prosecutor.
The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers at gdpolitics.comEven before the mid-decade gerrymandering wars began, the 2026 midterms were on track to feature the fewest competitive House districts in modern elections.According to Cook Political Report’s ratings, 84 percent of House districts are solidly in one camp and another 7 percent are likely Republican or Democrat. That means 91 percent of districts aren’t particularly competitive and 30 states don’t have a single competitive election for the House. Current gerrymandering efforts are likely to take more competitive districts off the table.It’s a tricky moment for – well, the country – and also for good government groups that have long pursued election reforms like independent redistricting commissions. Common Cause, which has frequently sued over partisan gerrymandering, said it won’t fight California over its proposed gerrymander.According to the nonpartisan group Unite America, which has also pursued independent redistricting reforms, this makes reforms to primary elections – where the vast majority of the midterm elections will essentially be decided – all the more important.Unite America advocates for “open primaries” in which all voters (Republican, Democrat, and unaligned) can cast a ballot, and candidates from all parties compete together. They also advocate for instant runoffs in general elections, known as ranked choice voting.Joining me on today’s podcast to make the case for these reforms is Richard Barton, a fellow at Unite America and political science professor at Syracuse University. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
We’ve got a podcast full of election updates today. We kick things off with the latest in the gerrymandering wars. Both Texas and California approved new maps in their state legislatures. For Texas, that makes it pretty much a done deal, pending lawsuits. For California, that means the maps now go to the voters to approve and we have some new polling on what they think at the start of all of this.Now eyes are turning to Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, and Florida for more Republican gerrymandering and to New York, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon and Virginia for more Democratic gerrymandering. Although, much of the Democratic gerrymandering may have to wait a cycle.Next we look to the New York City mayoral race, one of the hottest items of the fall’s off-year elections. It’s getting about as New York as you can imagine. There’s more scandal surrounding Eric Adams, including one associate trying to bribe a reporter with cash stuffed in a bag of Herr’s potato chips. Zohran Mamdani led his supporters on a city-wide scavenger hunt and got panned online for failing to do a bench press rep solo at a campaign event. And Cuomo is attracting big money from Mamdani-skeptic New Yorkers, with his super PAC raising 1.3 million in a single week.We also check in on the national environment, lest we get to Texas, California and New York-centric. With me to do it all is my former colleague and newly minted Chief Election Analyst at Decision Desk HQ Geoffrey Skelley. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
Do moderate candidates do better in elections? It’s a question that has rocked the online world of election data nerds in recent days.There has been hair pulling, locker stuffing, and swirly giving. Sorry, I mean, there has been online snark, Substack posts and replies, competing Twitter and Bluesky threads, academic credential waving, and accusations of bias.What started this whole thing is a little metric called WAR, which is oftentimes used in sports and means “wins above replacement.” Basically, how well does a particular politician perform in an election compared to how a generic candidate from their own party would have done.The folks at SplitTicket, helmed by Lakshya Jain, have been using this metric to analyze electoral politics for a while and have found that the benefit to being a moderate is notable. From 2018 to 2024, according to their data, Blue Dog Democrats did about 5 percentage points better than progressive Democrats in House elections.The folks at Strength In Numbers, helmed by Elliott Morris, recently published their own version of WAR, showing a smaller benefit to political moderation, about a 1 to 1.5 percentage point benefit, with significant uncertainty bands around those numbers. Elliott concluded in an article that moderation is overrated in electoral politics.This initial disagreement sparked a broader debate between other Substackers, academics, and election wonks who took one side or another.Today, for the first time since this debate began, the two sides sit down together to hash it out on the GD POLITICS podcast. Joining me on this episode are Lakshya Jain and Elliott Morris. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.The gerrymandering wars are continuing apace. Texas Democratic legislators are returning to their state this week after leaving in order to block a Republican attempt to redraw the state’s congressional maps. Their return means Texas Republicans can move forward with their gerrymandered maps, which aim to add five Republicans to the state’s congressional ranks.California Governor Gavin Newsom has kicked off his own retaliatory gambit, attempting to add five seats to the Democratic roster in his state, with new maps that will be considered by the California legislature this week and – if all goes to plan – considered by California voters in a referendum this fall.Speaking of gambits, Ipsos announced that it is partnering with Stanford to create AI survey respondents that are twinned with real people. Is this “Good Data, Bad Data or Not Data?” And will survey respondents be the first casualties of the great AI job displacement?Also, as we sat down to record Monday morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders were meeting with President Trump to present their vision for how to bring about an end to the war in Ukraine, after Trump seemed to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Friday.Trump’s relationship with Russia was a highly scrutinized part of his first term, but what do Americans think now? And how involved do they want the US to be in ending the war in Ukraine?With me to discuss it all are two dear friends of the pod, Mary Radcliffe and Nathaniel Rakich. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.As students begin to head back to school, American higher education is in its most fraught position in recent memory. Most prominent among the challenges is President Trump’s pressure campaign against elite universities.There have been federal funding freezes linked to accusations that schools haven’t done enough to stem anti-semitism and remove race considerations from admissions. There have also been cuts to scientific research, roadblocks for international student visas, and new limits on federal student loans.There are also broader concerns about higher education that predate Trump or have little to do with him: The rising cost of tuition, concerns about the return on investment, and the growing gender imbalance amongst those who graduate. Women now receive about 60 percent of bachelor’s degrees in the U.S.To top it all off, there are emerging questions about whether artificial intelligence will shrink the availability of entry level jobs that a degree prepares many students for.On today’s episode we get into as many of these challenges as possible with Preston Cooper. He’s an economist and senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. He’s done extensive research into the value proposition of American higher education, and has estimated the return on investment of 53,000 different degree and certificate programs across the country.
Low-key, the whole political scene is such an L right now. Everyone’s either gaslighting, rage farming, or displaying NPC behavior. American politics is just vibe-check after vibe-check, but it’s mostly giving flop era with zero accountability.If you’re confused as to why I — a millennial podcaster — am writing like a Gen Z TikToker, it’s because today we are talking about how the Internet shapes our language and in doing so also shapes our culture and politics. (Also, yes, in case you were wondering, ChatGPT wrote that.)Today, the spread of ideas happens in large part on social media, where what content gets promoted or demoted or even what words we are allowed to use is largely determined by algorithms. This has created a new dynamic where algorithms are increasingly influencing how we communicate.A simple example might be the emergence of the word “unalive,” because social media platforms banned content about suicide, but it goes well beyond that.This is the argument Adam Aleksic lays out in his new book, “Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language.” Adam is a linguist known online as “Etymology Nerd.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.We’ve got lots of election updates for you today. It’s that time of the cycle when potential candidates are increasingly making moves. As you probably heard, Kamala Harris is not running for governor of California, which has opened up a crowded primary there.Longtime New York Congressman Jerry Nadler got a primary challenger from a 26-year old who is making Nadler’s old age a prime issue. The blockbuster Texas Senate primary is continuing to heat up on both sides.And, of course, the Texas legislature has released its newly gerrymandered maps, with the goal of adding to five seats to Republicans’ congressional numbers in what will likely be a tough midterm for the party.Oh, and lest we forget, we are three months away from Election Day 2025, which will feature statewide elections in New Jersey and Virginia.Today we talk about all that and focus in particular on the Senate. Inside Elections just released its overview for the Senate in 2026 and lucky for us our guest today is the deputy editor of Inside Elections, Jacob Rubashkin.
On Friday morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its jobs numbers for July. The nation provisionally added 73,000 jobs, shy of the 100,000 jobs expected. It wasn’t particularly good news.More newsworthy, though, were the downward revisions for May and June. What had initially been reported as just shy of 150,000 jobs added each month, turned out to be closer to just 15,000 jobs per month. Quite plainly bad news.The Trump administration first went to work spinning the numbers as the result of seasonal adjustments. By the afternoon, President Trump claimed on social media that the numbers were manipulated for political reasons and said that he’d directed his team to fire the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer.I probably don’t need to tell you, dear listener, that this raises red flags. If you listen to this podcast, it’s probably because – in addition to finding me charming (lol) – you value what data can tell us about the world as it is, not the world as we might wish it to be.For now, the acting director of the BLS is William Wiatrowski, the former deputy director. But the administration has said they’ll replace him within a matter of days and the question now is whether that new person might apply pressure within the bureau to make economic data look more like the president wishes it to be.That’s what we discuss on today’s podcast and we’ve got an all star lineup to do it. Joining me is economics department chair at George Washington University Tara Sinclair. She’s been a visiting scholar at the St. Louis and Atlanta Fed banks, a technical advisor at the Bureau of Labor statistics, and founding chief economist at the job search site Indeed. Also with us is Ben Casselman, the chief economics correspondent at the New York Times, who worked with me at FiveThirtyEight back in the day. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode and video are available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.Today we are opening up the mailbag and answering some of your questions!I want to start with a reminder of how you can get in touch to submit your questions. First, there’s the paid subscriber chat that you get access to when you become a paid subscriber to the podcast. I’ll prioritize the questions in there. You can also get in touch on X or Bluesky and you can reach out at galen@gdpolitics.com.On today’s episode there are questions about public opinion on the war in Gaza, which actually coincided with some new polling out this week. There are questions about the youth vote, as well as President Trump’s conflict with American universities.Someone wanted to know if voters would be willing to elect a gay president and also what happened to Fivey Fox, the FiveThirtyEight mascot. Those were two separate questions, although Fivey Fox would make a great candidate if you ask me.There was one question about why Trump often deflects questions by punting for specifically “two weeks.” Is that how long it takes people to forget about a story?We got questions about the midterms and elections this fall, but we’re doing an episode on that soon, so I’m going to save those.With me to help answer your questions is my dear friend and political data extraordinaire Lenny Bronner. He’s a senior data scientist at the Washington Post.
The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.The last time I spoke with today’s guest it was late September of 2021 and I started the podcast by citing recent FBI crime data: “The murder rate increased by 30 percent from 2019 to 2020 meaning 4,900 more people were killed in homicides in 2020 than the year prior. That amounts to the largest single year increase since records began in 1960.”Today the story is very different. Data from the first half of the year suggests that the U.S. is on track to have the largest one-year drop in murder on record for the third straight year. The absolute numbers are also remarkable. Los Angeles, Baltimore and Detroit have all recorded the fewest murders at this point in the year since the mid-1960s. San Francisco has recorded the fewest murders ever and so has New York City (spare one year, 2017). Violent crime more broadly and property crime are also at or near historic lows.It’s a major success story that has already attracted competing explanations and ideological debate. It has also gone largely unnoticed by Americans. Sixty-four percent say there is more crime now than there was last year, according to Gallup. Although that’s a noticeable drop from 2023, when 77 percent said there was more crime, it still leaves the majority of Americans with the wrong impression.With me to talk about it all is Jeff Asher. He’s worked as a data analyst for the New Orleans police department and the CIA. He’s also the co-founder of AH Datalytics and writes about crime data at Jeff-alytics on Substack. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode and video are available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.A year ago, this week began with President Joe Biden announcing that he was withdrawing from the 2024 election. The decision came about three weeks after his mess of a debate performance that set off a revolt within the Democratic Party. By July 23, 2024, Kamala Harris had secured endorsements from enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination.We all know now how the story ended, and looking at the data after the fact, the result doesn’t seem particularly surprising. No incumbent ever won re-election with an approval rating as bad as Biden’s. The number of Americans saying that the country was headed in the wrong direction was around all-time highs. And on the two biggest issues Americans were concerned about, inflation and immigration, Americans preferred Donald Trump.That gives us some sense of why the election shook out the way it did, but those numbers don’t explain everything. For example, why did Biden decide to run for re-election in the first place? Or frankly, why did Donald Trump himself run for a rare non-consecutive term. How did Biden and Harris decide how to address Americans’ biggest concerns? And why the lack of daylight after Harris took the reins?Today, with the help of reporters Josh Dawsey and Tyler Pager, we go behind the scenes of the 2024 campaign. Josh is a political investigative reporter at the Wall Street Journal and Tyler is a White House Correspondent for the New York Times. Their new book is called, “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and Democrats Lost America.”
The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.If you scan some of the latest headlines, it looks like President Trump is finally facing the scandal that will do him in: “Trump Fumes at Epstein Mess as Polls Reveal Big GOP Revolt,” reads The New Republic. “Donald Trump Suffers Major Polling Blow Over Jeffrey Epstein Files,” reads Newsweek.The Epstein story has indeed had some staying power and Trump’s approval rating has also been sliding, but is it “Good Data, Bad Data or Not Data” to draw a connection between the two? We answer that question on today’s podcast.We also take a closer look at how Americans are thinking about the economy. It’s a tricky moment. Inflation is up, but only modestly. It still looks like more tariffs are likely on their way, which is one of the reasons the Fed says it isn’t lowering interest rates, though Trump is threatening the independence of the Fed. And more economists are raising alarms about the national debt.And finally, we have a redistricting update. Republicans in Texas are suggesting they’ll redraw the state’s congressional maps to their benefit before the midterms and Gavin Newsom says he’ll fight gerrymandering with gerrymandering and do the same in California if they follow through.With me to discuss it all are two dear friends of the pod, Mary Radcliffe and Nathaniel Rakich. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode and video are available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.The Nordic countries have come to play an outsized role in the American political imagination. Denmark, a country of six million people, roughly the size of Wisconsin, is by now used to being called out by both the American left and right as an example of a socialist country.For Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it’s an example of an ideal system worth trying to emulate at home. For Fox News commentators and the Trump administration, it’s mentioned alongside Venezuela and has been featured in an administration report on the opportunity costs of socialism.There’s just one problem. The Nordic countries don’t see themselves as socialist. In fact, that $1,000 a month Ozempic prescription everyone’s talking about? It comes courtesy of Novo Nordisk, a Danish company listed on the Copenhagen and New York Stock exchanges with the highest valuation of any company in Europe.While its profits are taxed to help fund government programs, if that’s socialism, then maybe America is already socialist. The U.S. corporate tax rate is 21 percent and the Danish corporate tax rate is 22 percent. Danish companies can hire and fire at will and there are no minimum wage laws.On Today’s podcast we get a different perspective on the Nordic countries and socialism from an actual Nordic socialist. Pelle Dragsted is a member of Danish Parliament and leader of the country’s furthest left party in parliament, the Red-Green Alliance.In 2021, he wrote the book “Nordic Socialism: The Path Toward A Democratic Economy” in response to the attention his country’s system was getting and as an argument for socialism. It’s now been translated into English.
The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.There’s little doubt that America faces a health conundrum. We spent nearly 18 percent of GDP on health in 2023. The average per person was $13,400 dollars, roughly double the amount spent in comparable countries.Meanwhile, the results are lacking. American life expectancy at birth is 78 years, about 5 years shorter than the average of similar countries. And nearly 75 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, with 12 percent having diabetes.I could keep citing statistics, but you get the point.The Trump administration has set out to, in its own words, “Make America Healthy Again.” And while the similarly named commission’s first report got a lot of attention for faulty citations, it’s also surprisingly blunt about some of the challenges the country faces. Perhaps more so than any other recent administration.That blunt assessment, though, has been paired with changes that critics say pose more challenges to American health: funding cuts to the Food and Drug Administration, cuts to research on things like the impact of chemicals on health, changes to eligibility for medicaid, food stamps, and Affordable Care Act subsidies, and replacing the vaccine advisory panel at the CDC.American health finds itself in a position not so different from other issues under President Trump. An administration that is more candid about naming the problem than many others in politics, but with some controversial and even self-defeating solutions.With me to talk about it all is the dean of the school of public health at Washington University in St. Louis, Sandro Galea. He’s authored many books and also writes about public health on the Substack “The Healthiest Goldfish.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode and video are available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.What was the first election ever accurately predicted by a poll? And how far off the mark was that poll? Also, which elections had the highest and lowest turnout t…
First and foremost, I want to say I’m thinking of everyone affected by the flash flooding in Texas. The details are heart wrenching and here’s to hoping that everyone stays safe as more flooding appears to be on its way.We start off today’s episode taking a look back at how Republicans managed to pass a tax and spending bill that so many of the party’s own caucus seemed to take issue with. We also look ahead to the kinds of political fights we expect to emerge over the legislation.Plus, Elon Musk says it’s official that he’s starting an America Party. We all know the structural challenges that lie ahead if he actually does it, but what’s the most optimistic case for America (the party, not the country) and the most pessimistic? Also, the pause on President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs expires on Wednesday. The betting markets are wagering that it’s going to be another case of TACO.We didn’t have time to get to it in this episode, but we also played a game of historical election data trivia to mark the beginning of America’s semiquincentennial year. That will be in the feed for paid subscribers later this week.Joining me is Jacob Rubashkin, deputy editor of Inside Elections, and Leah Askarinam, reporter at the Associated Press. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe