Transcript: Trump-GOP Tensions Erupt as GOPers Sound Midterm “Alarm”

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the March 16 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

Republican senators are privately very upset with Donald Trump and MAGA. They don’t understand why Trump keeps prodding them to pass voter suppression legislation when they don’t have the votes to get it done. In fact, Republicans fear that their string of losses at the state level bodes very badly for the midterms, and they really want to focus on the economy. Trump won’t let them.

We think this is a telling moment because it shows that Republicans really do expect to face real elections this fall—and it doesn’t look like Trump can get his way and cheat his way through this. Is that too optimistic? We’re talking about all this with Tara McGowan, a former Democratic strategist who’s a shrewd observer of politics as the publisher of Courier Newsroom. Tara, nice to have you on.

Tara McGowan: Always good to be with you, Greg.

Sargent: So Trump wants Republicans to pass the SAVE Act, which is a truly disgusting piece of voter suppression legislation. It’s already passed the House, but doesn’t have close to 60 votes to pass the Senate. Trump and MAGA want Republicans in the Senate to use a talking filibuster to pass it. Tara, can you explain how this Trump-MAGA strategy is supposed to work?

McGowan: I can do my best, Greg. Just trying to explain any Trump-led strategies these days is very difficult. The SAVE Act is horrific voter suppression. The issue at hand now is that after it passed the House, John Thune, the majority leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, has said repeatedly and explicitly he does not have the votes to get the SAVE Act passed. That is making the president and the administration increasingly desperate, and they are calling first to get rid of the filibuster—that procedural motion that Thune has always stood against [repealing]. This is not the first time Trump has called for that, to try to get his agenda passed by a Republican-only line vote and majority.

And so now what’s happening—and this gets a little convoluted—basically there is another procedural option to get around the 60-vote threshold with a talking filibuster, which would require Democrats to hold the floor, as we have seen occasionally and recently in other situations. They would need to hold the floor to debate this bill and talk about their opposition to it. But they essentially have to hold the floor. And when they cease holding the floor of the chamber, then the majority party can bring the measure to a vote and pass it on a simple majority instead of requiring that 60-vote threshold. That’s how I understand it.

But even that, Senator Thune has come out and said he does not have the votes to push the talking filibuster to get the SAVE Act passed.

Sargent: The strategy of getting rid of the filibuster itself doesn’t have enough Republican support to pass, because a few senators—maybe more than a few Republican senators—oppose getting rid of the traditional filibuster. And the talking filibuster strategy can’t work either, because Democrats would probably relish the opportunity to hold the floor for pretty much forever. They could do what Cory Booker did recently and get a ton of attention on what’s going on with Trump’s economy, with his immigration crackdown.

McGowan: We have millions of Epstein files that we could do story time with America for months—really, Greg, on end.

Sargent: That would be absolutely something that they would do. And I think smarter Republicans know that it would be an absolute catastrophe to let Democrats tie things up that way, especially when Republicans want to be focused on the economy. Even the Wall Street Journal editorial board ripped into the strategy, calling it basically a mirage and a fantasy, and pointing out that Democrats would love to jump at the chance to draw attention to both themselves and to all the failures on Trump’s watch. So it’s not happening.

McGowan: Nope, that’s exactly right. And we’re even seeing—right?—so the desperation is spreading. Senator John Cornyn of Texas is in a fight for his political life in a runoff in the Republican primary in Texas against Ken Paxton. And so he has actually changed his position around the filibuster and the talking filibuster to try to appease Trump and get his endorsement, because Trump has so far withheld endorsing either of them. And like everything else in this administration, everything to President Trump is a bargaining chip to get his agenda passed, which is always about him, right?

He knows—and Mike Johnson, the House speaker, came out after the State of the Union and even said—if and when Republicans lose the House in the midterms this year, that is game over for this Trump administration or any Trump agenda. They won’t be able to get anything through—not that they’ve gotten anything through that has the support of the American people to date.

So Trump is also fighting not just for his political life, but his life—because when he is no longer in office, that man will be in jail, as will his family and many members of his cabinet.

Sargent: I wish I had the same sort of confidence you do.

McGowan: He’s not going to go easily, Greg, let’s be honest.

Sargent: Well, okay, let me just switch gears here. Punchbowl News had this striking report: It says that GOP senators are “incensed” with Trump and MAGA for pressuring them to do this. They’re shocked that Trump and MAGA are demanding that they do something unworkable. Some of them are blaming social media disinformation for this, according to Punchbowl. You know, Tara, this is funny because Republicans created this Trump-MAGA disinformation monster. Now they’re upset that Trump and MAGA are making unreasonable, non-fact-based demands of them. You know what? Tough shit. You deserve this. Your thoughts on that?

McGowan: Yeah, they chose this leader. They have stood by him unconditionally, unequivocally through the horrors and disastrous impacts that this administration has had on our economy, on the lives and wellbeing of Americans. Fifteen million Americans stand to lose their healthcare under the billions of dollars cut from healthcare that were then given to fund the Department of Homeland Security under Kristi Noem—of which she spent $220 million on an ad for herself, which got her fired last week. Amen to that. But it has also funded masked thugs that have publicly executed two Americans since this Congress went into session for exercising their constitutional rights in broad daylight.

Clearly these tariffs have hurt the economy and our alliances abroad. The cost of living has only gone up. It was a huge promise of Trump and his campaign that that would be a priority for them, as was releasing the Epstein files.

They have bait-and-switched on every single promise made. And instead now we’re in a billion-dollars-a-day war in Iran that no Americans want and that Congress did not approve—a war that is now increasing gas prices that could skyrocket to $5 a gallon on top of how Americans are already feeling squeezed. So of course Republicans are panicking.

And I really appreciate what you said at the very top of this program, which is that them panicking publicly is actually a very good sign. Because I think all of us paying close attention—our worst fear is that they do not allow free and fair elections, or elections at all, in the midterms, because they know that they will get a shellacking—to quote President Obama from 2010.

And so this is the situation they’re in. I think it’s so important because we all need to be pre-bunking this to the American people, right? Making it very clear what they’re trying, and their desperation out of this administration, because the writing is on the wall.

Sargent: So yeah, it’s very clear that Republicans do think they’re facing an election. Politico reports that Republicans are looking at all these Democratic wins on the state level—some of which are coming in deep red areas, as you mentioned earlier—and they’re worried about this fall, the midterms.

Brendan Steinhauer, a Texas GOP consultant, says, “I’m ringing the alarm bell.” Another senior GOP operative tells Politico that all these state-level races are showing that Republicans aren’t turning out the low-information voters who put Trump over the top in 2024. This operative says, “how do we turn out these Republican voters in a midterm election?”

Tara, that does seem like the story right now. It’s a double whammy. First, midterms usually are driven by high-engagement voters to start with, which is not great for Republicans. Second, in the Trump era, Republicans are particularly reliant on the low-information voters who turn out for Trump and no one else. Is that about the size of it?

McGowan: No, all we have to do is look at the Texas primaries last week, where we saw a ton of defection from Republican voters—from voting in their own primaries to voting in Democratic primaries in protest of Trump, the administration, and the GOP-led agenda. And of course we’re seeing that in races across the country.

So they are going to struggle with enthusiasm—they already are—with turnout and with defection, because you cannot create the swings that we’re seeing toward Democratic candidates without Trump voters switching sides. It is not just an increase in turnout among Democrats or independents.

Sargent: Yeah. And you mentioned at the top of this that you think the Senate could go to Democrats. I mean, it looks like a very tough map to me, even so. The House—certainly Democrats are favored, though I wouldn’t say it’s a sure thing by any means. But yes, Democrats favored. I think the Senate’s a tough road still. Are you more optimistic? I’d love to hear why.

McGowan: I am more optimistic than you today, Greg—that’s not always the case. I think honestly everything is on the map in this country. I truly do believe it. And that’s based on a lot of data from the special elections, from the turnout numbers that we saw.

And in large part it’s because Democrats really suffered in 2024 because millions and millions of Americans who voted for Democrats and for Biden in 2020 sat home in 2024. These folks are not sitting home now, and we are peeling off voters because they are vehemently opposed to parts of this administration’s agenda.

They do not want Americans killed in the street by masked thugs who work for the federal government. They do not want the economy to tank even worse than it already has. Everything is on the surface right now and being felt very viscerally by the American people.

Also, we have to always be talking about the Epstein files—that is such a powerful wedge. There are people who voted for Trump three times in a row who will not vote for Trump or the Republican Party because of how they have mishandled the release of the files and the lack of accountability. It really is very powerful. So they’ve created their own perfect storm and they know there is no way out of it.

And I am optimistic about the Senate for the same reason. We have enormous opportunities because there is an incredible bench of Democrats running and contesting Republicans in open seats across the country in Senate races, including in states like Alaska and Ohio. And I think that these folks would have been living on a prayer in an ordinary midterm election season, but now actually have a very viable shot.

Sargent: Yeah, it definitely has a bit of a 2006 vibe to it. In 2006, it sure looked like Democrats were favored for the House all throughout the election.

Sargent: The Senate always looked like a very, very tough road. And in a really dated thing, Virginia was seen as a really, really tough lift for Democrats. And then of course they somehow squeaked out that Virginia race and won Virginia—this was before the big shift in the Democratic direction in that state. And they were able to take the Senate. It does have that feel to me a little bit.

McGowan: It does. I mean, the other reason to be optimistic about the House is—I don’t have the numbers in front of me—but the mass exodus in terms of retirements in the Republican Party are making their majority thinner and thinner by the day, before we even get to the elections, that Democrats are very much favored to win.

And the other thing I would say is that the part of this story which is important to note is that all of this defection and increased enthusiasm and turnout against Republicans is happening despite Democrats having the lowest approval rating they have ever had in history. Republicans know this is about them—this is their failure, in power, to have a trifecta of power.

Every American knows who’s in charge and who’s running our government and our Congress. And instead prices are going up. We are now in an expensive, endless war that nobody asked for and that has no end in sight, where American service members are being killed and people are going to feel increasingly anxious and worried because we have a very volatile situation on our hands.

The corruption is everywhere on the surface—which is the issue that actually unifies the most Americans in a bipartisan way—against a system of corruption where the wealthiest and most powerful get a different set of rules. That is the definition of this administration and this Republican Party.

And so I really do feel like this is going to be bigger than any election I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, as would 2028, because folks are enraged and understand that the stakes truly have never been higher—and they don’t need candidates or paid advertising to tell them that this time around.

We are seeing races that are getting very little attention or investment have these massive swings. It’s a testament to the American people saying, this is not the country that I want to live in—and even, this is not the Republican or the president or the party that I voted for, even on the right.

Sargent: That’s an important point you raise about these races that are not getting a lot of investment and attention swinging, because it really shows that Trump and what they’re doing—particularly, I think, some of the ICE stuff and the tariffs and that sort of thing—those things are really penetrating to voters in the middle. The information is getting through to them about what’s happening, which is just so damn rare.

As you know, I want to address the point you made about Democrats having their lowest approval rating ever. I think we should be sensitive to that point. And there are a number of critics out there—kind of centrist liberal types—who point out this problem a lot. And I think it’s fair enough, right? We have to worry about the Democratic approval rating.

There is a way to understand why things are happening the way they are in spite of that, though. And I think it’s this, as you say: point one, everything is about Trump—he just sucks up everything and he’s deeply unpopular. But point number two is that in a situation like that, if you have good Democratic candidates, individual candidates running in some of these races, you can get voters to give those individuals a second look and take them seriously, regardless of what they think about the national party, at a time like this. What do you think of that? Is that what’s going on?

McGowan: I mean, yes, I hope so. My hope is that—because we’ve seen this before, where Democrats have won despite themselves pretty much every election, honestly, going back to what they won after 2016—the error of their ways was that they didn’t believe that they won despite themselves, and they believed that they had a mandate for one sort of approach or another, and that wasn’t actually the case.

And so my hope coming out of this is that it really does allow for a very diverse group of Democrats to win, because it isn’t everybody growing in one same direction or with one set of talking points, right? That can tend to happen in a presidential race like 2024. And what needs to happen then is that once they take office, they need to produce results based on the demands and fears of the American people.

Sargent: All right, just to wrap this up—I think a lot of liberals and Democrats tend to look at Trump’s demand for passage of the SAVE Act and simply assume he’s going to get his way, because they just assume he’ll be able to hold power forever no matter what. But I wonder if that ultimately surrenders too much power to him. Like, we can’t demobilize ourselves.

McGowan: Oh gosh, no. But I don’t even think that’s a real risk, Greg, because what we’re seeing again in all of these elections and special elections is that the American people are outraged and they are voting because of it. And that’s a good sign—one that I think will only build the closer and closer we get to November.

Sargent: I agree on that point 100 percent. Tara McGowan, great to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming on—it’s getting very interesting.

McGowan: Sure is. Thanks, Greg.