Episode 11: Taegan Goddard

In this episode of the News Items podcast, John Ellis sits down with Taegan Goddard, the founder of Political Wire, for a sprawling conversation about the chaos engine that is modern American politics. Goddard traces the unlikely origins of Political Wire, from downloading newspaper front pages at 4 a.m. on a commuter train, to building one of the internet’s earliest and most influential political blogs. From there, the discussion turns to Trump’s collapsing approval numbers, Democratic momentum heading into the midterms, and the Senate races that could decide control of Washington. They dissect everything from AI data-center revolts in rural America to the future of MAGA after Trump, while gaming out whether figures like Gavin Newsom, JD Vance, or a dark horse nobody sees coming will dominate 2028. It’s equal parts campaign autopsy, media criticism, and insider shop talk from two veteran political obsessives.

News-Items.com

Hosted by John Ellis

Produced by Dale Eisinger

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the News Items Podcast. I'm John Ellis. I'm the founder and editor of two Substack newsletters. One is called News Items, the other is called Political News Items, and you can find them both at news-items.com. My guest today is Tegan Goddard. Tagan is the founder and editor of Political Wire. You can find that at politicalwire.com. It's one of the very best and most influential political websites in the United States, and it updates continuously throughout the day. And Tegan, thank you very much for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Thanks for having me, John. I'm a big fan and a longtime reader of news items, as you know.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Thank you. So it's an interesting story. We you were like an investment banker or something, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:49

I worked, I worked in the asset management field, but but before that, I was actually I worked in politics. I actually worked for Senator Donald Regal, who uh actually passed away today as we record this. Uh just got the news of that. He was 88 years old. I worked for him on the staff of the Senate Banking Committee. And then I also worked for the late governor of Connecticut, Lowell Wiker. Considering uh that one was a Democrat, one was a Republican, turned independent. I think you could probably gather that my uh political takes uh don't really map quickly to left or right. So yeah, they're pretty much uh pretty much across the spectrum. So I just try to find out what's interesting in politics and let my readers know about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

So how did you start it? I mean, what what was the birth of uh political wire?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

So I as I said, I had worked in politics before I had a career on Wall Street. And uh when I one of the reasons why I left politics was the fact that I had written a book that was published by Simon and Schuster called You One Now What? And I I needed to leave the public sector in order to promote that book. I worked, I worked for the asset man worked in the asset management business in the meantime, but I missed politics. And this was the this was the late 1990s, this was the early days of the internet, and I decided that I was gonna start a website because I had just written a book and and the web was a new thing, and I thought, thought that I'd do that. And what I modeled it after what when I was in college, and you'll you'll recall this as well, John, on Fridays, the Wall Street Journal, on the front page, there was a right-hand column called Washington Wire. And I could not wait every Friday morning to get my copy of the Wall Street Journal in paper form, of course. And I I devoured that column every single morning. And it was what I learned later, it was the longest-standing editorial feature in American journalism. It had started in the late 1940s, I believe, and it continued through. And interestingly enough, the internet undermines Washington wire for the journal, and it eventually faded away. And anyway, political wire was born because I thought it was such a great way to curate news. They the journal did it by curating these interesting nuggets that came out of their Washington bureau. And with the internet and with the ability to link to sources all over, whether they're newspapers or social media or blogs or what have you, I started Political Wire because I thought that this was the perfect format for the internet.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

And so you had to quit your job at some point to keep updating this thing every every 12 minutes or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Well, what happened there, John, is that it was originally I what I would do was I would have a uh I had a computer that would uh it was a laptop computer that would go online at 4 a.m. and it would download the front pages of newspapers, um, trying to scrape the front pages of newspapers, trying to gather political stories. And then I would get on the commuter train into Manhattan and I would compile in my train ride, I would compile a briefing. Here's what happened in politics. Here's what's interesting. And so for the first few years, it was actually a briefing that for the most part, for the most part published in the morning. I would occasionally update it and do other things during the day, but I had a day job. And then what I realized, what I discovered is there was this fantastic new software that had been developed. It was called Gray Matter. It was uh by a guy named Noah Gray, who just released this software which uh which ran on your server and allowed you to do reverse chronological posts. So, as you know, that became the format of blogs, and there were other blogging software companies, Blogger, which Google bought, or Movable Type, or WordPress, which is the dominant one today. But I started with the very first software because I said this is perfect for doing what I want to do. And uh, so in many ways, I could probably claim ownership of the oldest blog on the internet because I put this thing up uh when the very first blogging software was actually released. Anyway, it's it's been changed over time, but the core of it is really the same, which is to try to provide you with a snapshot of any time that you come and view the website website at politicalwire.com, you will find out what I think is important in politics right now. And so, as you said, it does become this endless stream of interesting news. And politics, as you know better than anybody, has only gotten faster. There's only been a just a deluge of political news that comes at us all the time. But that that actually makes political wire a little bit more important because having someone curate that, tell you what's important, provided in in some sort of context, I think that's the key to political wire and the key to a success over the years.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

What happens when you go on vacation? Like if you and your wife go to Greece, what happens to political wire?

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Are you just shut down or do you keep doing it and No, I I I I unfortunately, I was actually recounting this story to some friends the other day. My wife and I had our first date on the uh night of the Lloyd Benson Dan Quayle debate. And uh I wanted to rush home from dinner on our debate uh so that I could watch that. So my wife pretty much knew what she was getting into when she when she met me. And and no, I I really can't stay away from it. I have an insatiable appetite for politics. I would be reading the news anyway, and it's not that big a problem for me to continue updating political wire. And as my readers know, because I like sending them postcards of the places that I go, I've been all over the world. And political wire, sometimes the timing's a little different, but you know, when I was in Nepal or if if I'm in Cambodia, things are a little bit different. But I do love traveling, but I really love putting political wire together, and so I've tried to fit it in.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

It's incredibly impressive that you're able to do it day in and day out, I must say. It's amazing. And at many days, I mean, there are 20 or even 30 items. It's uh it's just uh continuous stream, as you say in your, you know, in your descriptor on the website. So what people are interested in, obviously, today are you know the upcoming midterm elections and President Trump's standing, I guess you would say, in politics. So let's start with Trump. As far as I can tell, he has the lowest approval ratings of any president at this juncture in their presidency. It's difficult, you know. You don't know whether you describe it as a first term or a second term, but is there any way back for Trump? Is or is he hit kind of a floor but is now a ceiling of uh support?

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Is there any way back? I mean, with Donald Trump, you know, it's really obviously hard to say he's been the kind of uh houdini of politics and he gets himself out of all sorts of jams. But yeah, he's in a huge jam right now. Democrats have a huge advantage as the out party right now. Presidential disapproval has typically been historically decisive. There are very, very few exceptions, and there's there were reasons for those exceptions. While there's a chance, I would give the a strong edge to Democrats uh having the momentum. You know, but there's a big but here as well. The the one thing that that is different right now is that the electorate is more polarized than ever, and that's gonna limit the size of any blue wave. We've seen that in recent years. There's been a lot of wave elections, but the fact that everything is more polarized and the fact that there are fewer truly competitive districts than ever before, that's gonna limit the size of the wave for Democrats. But given the margin in the House and the margin of this in the Senate, Democrats don't really need that big a wave to take control of one or both chambers. So, you know, I I'd like to say that it's not about whether there's a wave, it's about how much friction stops it. And uh right now, it the advantage is to the Democrats.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Aaron Ross Powell The Republicans have a enormous financial advantage, apparently, from all of the uh reports of fundraising that it it's uh gigantic. Do you think that money really makes any difference after a certain point, or is it just at a certain point are there diminishing returns to having a huge financial advantage?

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Aaron Powell Yeah, I mean that's a great observation because there's there's only so many ads you can put on on linear television, or I guess you can put unlimited number of ads on the internet, but it becomes much harder to target them once after a certain point. But if you put that money in context, I think there's something else that goes with that. The Republican Party and Republican-affiliated super PECs have a massive advantage. We're talking probably half a billion dollars, if not more, over what the Democrats have raised. The Democratic National Committee has been a particularly poor fundraising vehicle over the course of the last year and a half. But there is one advantage that Democrats do have is their candidates, and particularly their Senate candidates, are raising money more money than their opponents. And so that that is definitely an advantage that they have. But you're right, if if Republicans, and if when I say Republicans, we're really talking about Donald Trump since he controls the levers of most of this money, if this can be deployed in a useful way, it could blunt the wave as well. I mean, that is definitely, you know, he could use it towards boosting turnout. And obviously, a guy who unexpectedly won two presidential elections, you know, certainly knows a thing or two about boosting turnout. But again, I think that the the fact that his approval rate is so low it really limits his effectiveness right now.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Aaron Powell That's one of the things that people are pointing to is that the enthusiasm gap is yawning. Uh Democrats could you know can't wait to go to vote, and Republican voters or mega voters are said to be less than enthusiastic, if not depressed, uh, and so therefore are less likely to show up for the midterms. Do you buy that?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

I mean, I do think that there's a I mean, the I think we all see this just anecdotally. We see this among Democrats that we talk to, how how much they despise Trump and how much they want to go vote against him in any way they can. And unfortunately for Trump and Republicans, what's weighting them down more than anything is the economy, which, you know, is always the biggest issue. And even though there's a lot of issue fragmentation right now, the economy is the overwhelming issue and continues to be. So healthcare obviously plays a role. You know, it's unlike 2022 where the Democrats in those midterm elections, they lost control of the House, but they lost it by fewer seats than many people thought. But there was one dominant issue that Democrats had in 2022, which was the Supreme Court Dobbs decision. And abortion really allowed them to rally their voters to their side that year. That is not the case right now, and right now there is no overwhelming issue that Donald Trump and Republicans can point to to rally their voters. In fact, it's the opposite. The economy is such a drag, and this war in the Middle East has spiked the prices of energy and therefore the prices of virtually everything else. It's really the worst thing in the world that could happen to Republicans when you look at their electoral prognosis in November. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Let's talk about the United States Senate races, because that seems to have gone from unlikely that the Democrats would uh regain control of the Senate to more of a 50-50 proposition. And one reason people think that is that the races in North Carolina, Maine, and Ohio are shaping up fairly well for the Democrats. The North Carolina, they have a very strong candidate. Maine, Senator Collins, is, you know, advancing years, let's put it that way, and has been around probably past or so by date. And then Ohio, uh, the Democrats have a strong candidate. What's your assessment of those three races?

SPEAKER_01 12:56

I think those are a really interesting three for you to choose. Democrats likely need to win two of the three to kind of feel good about their chances in taking control of the Senate. And so if you look at North Carolina and you look at Ohio, the Democrats got the candidate that they wanted in both cases. They got former governor Roy Cooper in North Carolina, extremely popular governor. And even though Republicans have a structural edge, the candidate quality is probably going to be the thing that tips that race. And Roy Cooper. I, you know, I think it's technically a toss-up still, but I think it's it would be really nuts to count out Cooper in a situation if there is, in fact, you know, momentum behind Democratic turnout. Ohio is similar in the fact that this is the seat that J.D. Vance vacated to become president, and you've got an appointed Republican, John Husted, uh, running against the former senator, Sherrod Brown. And Sherrod Brown is a, you know, he is a populist, he is a progressive, but he is a known name who has always outperforms the Ohio trends. And so if the environment is strong nationally, you can't count Sherrod Brown out. And he's one of those candidates who has raised a ton of money. Now, again, this is not his first rodeo. He's been here before. He knows how to win in Ohio, and so that's interesting. The one that I think points to more problems for Democrats is Maine, because in Maine, you have Susan Collins, first of all, she is older than she was, but she's been a tough candidate. Six years ago, many people thought she was going to lose that seat in the year that Joe Biden won the presidency, and she managed to significantly outperform. And it's made more difficult to figure out what's happening in Maine because the polls there are notoriously bad.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

There was a group uh that I know about that did focus group conversations. It wasn't so much focus groups as it were gathering people together to talk conversationally uh for a couple of hours about politics in Virginia and the upcoming gubernatorial race. And the takeaway amongst the so-called swing voters was that they were quietly desperate, thoroughly convinced that politics was corrupt, both parties, and that they would vote against anything that made that sentiment known. In other words, if they were voting in Maine, if you transferred that to Maine, it wouldn't matter about Graham Platner's Nazi tattoo or his comments on Reddit. They would just vote against Collins because she's she's the one in power and they're there to vote against anyone who's been around. D does that strike you as true or or uh Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

I mean in the Trump era, I mean Donald Trump has benefited from that strain same strain in politics. And so you know, he's gone on to win, you know, very complicated elections that uh people gave him no chance at for precisely that reason. And so again, I think that's why it's an interesting test if Graham Platiner is the nominee and if he goes on to defeat Susan Collins, a longtime incumbent and one who has won tough races before in what is typically a blue state in presidential elections. That that would have a big impact on the way Democrats view the 2028 presidential election and the type of candidate that they might want to nominate. So yeah, it's it we we have we live in interesting times, John, as you know. So it will be fascinating to see how these play out. Each of these races is like a crystal ball in a way. We can kind of look into them and see what the future may be, you know, as we look to a what is going to be a very exciting and tough thought-out presidential race in a couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

So there are four races that the Democrats have some hope of winning. They are in Alaska, Iowa, Texas, and Nebraska. Of those four, are there any that stand out to you? I'm I'm of the view that I don't know about Alaska, so I'm I'm putting that aside. But I'm of the view that the Democrats could actually win all three. Is that do you agree with that?

SPEAKER_01 17:00

I do. I do think it's possible. It really is this is one of these things where it depends upon how big those the blue wave is and how big the national wins are. But you know, Alaska is another one of those states where they got the candidate they wanted. Mary Paltola, who was a former congresswoman who, you know, win won statewide because they have only one house seat, um, she has won and she has proven herself that she can win there. And so they did get the candidate they wanted. What makes it tougher there is a little bit like Maine is the polling is not as reliable as it is there as it is in other places. But there was a poll that came out last week that had Peltola leading Dan Sullivan, the incumbent senator, by six percentage points. So it's an interesting, interesting data point. I don't know how much to make of it because it is tough in Alaska. But anyway, they defin the Democrats definitely have a chance at this point. In terms of the other ones you mentioned, you know, Iowa, you know, that's a state that's been quietly drifting right since, you know, back in when Barack Obama won it, but it still can be somewhat elastic in a wave year. And, you know, the the fact that Joni Ernst, the incumbent senator, decided to step aside and to retire and not run again makes that state much more interesting uh for Democrats. In Nebraska, I'll skip to Nebraska before we get to Texas, but in in Nebraska, that's competitive under specific s conditions. You've got Dan Osborne, who's running as an independent, who I believe lost by only six percentage points in the race there two years ago when Donald Trump won the state by 20 points. And so with Democrats kind of backing an independent in Nebraska, that's their way into potentially winning that seat, assuming Dan Osborne would end up caucusing with the Democrats in the Senate, which he would if they had a chance to get the majority, I think. Texas is that one, you know, Democrats, as long as I can remember, as long as you can remember, Texas is always competitive, right? We always hear it's going to be competitive, but you know, you know, I mentioned Lloyd Benson earlier. I don't think the Democrats have not seen the state that Lloyd Benson saw in quite some time. And so a big wave could break through in Texas, and it really depends upon what happens in this Senate runoff, where you've got the incumbent senator, John Cornyn, running against the Attorney General, Ken Paxton. And Paxton is an extraordinarily controversial candidate. I mean, he is he is, first of all, he's MAGA to the core. Uh John Cornyn is not considered that, although he's done everything he can over the course of the last year to cozy up to Donald Trump and try to get Trump's endorsement. Tellingly, though, Donald Trump has stayed out of that race. He has declined to endorse either candidate. And that's really a huge advantage for Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton has all sorts of personal baggage, all sorts of legal baggage. If he becomes the Republican nominee in Texas, then James Tallarico, the Democratic nominee, who also won a pretty tough primary, he would immediately be go on the Democratic backbench for a possible presidential run in the future if he were to win that race. He's a very adept candidate, if you've heard him talk. You know, so Democrats have a chance there. But again, none of those states that you mentioned, Alaska, Iowa, Texas, or Nebraska are really key targets. But if the wave is big enough, they could take one or more. Absolutely. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

So the Ellis theory of how the Republicans keep control of the Senate is that John Sununu wins the Senate race in New Hampshire. How do you assess the New Hampshire Senate race?

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Aaron Powell So I again I think the Senate races tend to break nationally, where where you know where any of these competitive races tend to break the way the wave is going. We've seen this time and time again, although just like there was six years ago an exception with Susan Collins in Maine, uh, and she hung on to that seat. It certainly could happen. And the Sununu name is obviously well known in New Hampshire. And he was a former senator himself, that he just he wants his old job back. Again, New Hampshire, as we've seen in so many races over the years, it's the independent voters that are decisive and that you could definitely see late swings. So if somehow the environment shifts towards Republicans, I think that absolutely that would be their key to holding that seat. I I think you'd have to give the edge to Democrats right now. But again, we you you can't predict what's what the national environment will be so much in four or five months. And so that that would certainly be a key seat for Republicans if they do hang on to the majority.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

One of the races that I I'm struggling to understand is the Michigan Senate race, where you know it's an open seat, theoretically a Democratic seat, so the Democrats would hold it in this off year cycle or midterm cycle, but it's consistently on the list of Senate seats that the Republicans might pick up. What's going on in Michigan? Why is that assessment widely shared, as they say?

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Mainly because the Democrats are fighting in what is a very, very competitive primary right now, and there is no Democrat front runner in Michigan at this point. And due to the fact that the Republicans have rallied around Mike Rogers, who ran statewide just two years ago, and you know, is a relatively strong candidate in Michigan. Right now, this is again, again, like in Maine with uh Graham Platiner against Janet Mills in that primary. This this primary could also say an awful lot about where the Democrats are headed as a party nationally. You've got, you know, a very progressive candidate running against a very moderate candidate, and then you've got kind of this new different candidate, um, a state senator, Melly Mallory McMarrow, who actually does have a slight edge in the polls right now, who is kind of the new face in the different candidate for Democrats. And so depending upon which direction they choose, that could say an awful lot again about where Democrats are headed in 2028. But I think once that primary passes us, and once we begin to see a straight matchup between a a Republican and Democrat, and we begin to get some polling on that, the assessment of that race may change once we get past the primary.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

I was talking to somebody the other day about the House races. You know, there's 17 that are said to be truly up for grabs, and the three that are up for grabs, maybe not as much as the seventeen, and then there are fifteen out there that that in theory a big blue wave, you know, could bring some number of them uh to the Democratic side. This person I was talking to said, there's no point in talking about the House races because the Democrats are going to recapture control of the House. It's it's baked in. Is that is that your view?

SPEAKER_01 23:42

It would be very, very surprising and very hard for the Democrats to lose it. The fundamentals all favor the Democrats at this point, and mainly because they don't need a huge wave to flip the House. They only need to need a handful of seats. But what is interesting, and and I think the real story in the House races is how big the blue wave gets. And, you know, we've had these redistricting wars, as you know, John, where the Republicans started it in Texas, and then the Democrats, led by Gavin Newsom, continued it in California. We saw last week in Virginia, the Democrats managed to force a new map there. And then we've got, you know, in Florida. Florida's now going to come back, and just before we started recording, you know, Ron DeSantis in Florida has proposed another new map to kind of offset what happened to Virginia. So on the one hand, it looks like these are guaranteed seats because they become you can redistrict this the map so that the seats, you know, the seats are held by majority with one party or another. But the reality is the only way that you can do that is to make them more competitive than they once were, than the than the Red Republican seats were once were. And so the process of this redistricting may actually backfire quite solidly on Republicans, because if you make a lot of solid red seats more competitive, then when you talk about an additional 15 seats that Democrats potentially could win, that that's when it becomes a real wave. In some of the seats that we're talking about here were redistricted to be made less solidly Republican. And so if the wave is going, you know, it's one thing to say that the Republicans pick up five seats in Texas through re-redistricting. You know, the reality is that there's still an election. And if their wins are at the Democrats' back and you've just made a bunch of seats more competitive, then the Democrats could really end up, you know, blunting the momentum. And instead of Republicans winning five seats, maybe they only win three. And that happens in each one of these places. It would happen to the Democrats as well, you know, in California and Virginia if the wins were in their face rather than at their back. But right now, with the Republicans being the out party and with the president's approval rate so low, you know, this could really backfire badly, and it could turn what would be a modest wave into a rather big wave. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Right.

unknown 26:01

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

And the coverage, political coverage so far, hasn't really given us much insight or much reporting really on the governor's races around in the country, and yet the midterm elections are where most of the gubernatorial races take place. Are there any gubernatorial races that you think are particularly interesting or important? California obviously being number one.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think California is the number one state. I think Florida could be potentially interesting, although Republicans still have an edge there. But the and the reason why California is so interesting is that they have this open primary or jungle primary where all the candidates run together in one primary. There has been no Democrat breaking out of that at this point. And so it is still quite possible. It's not theoretical at this point, it's still quite possible that two Republicans could emerge as the top two vote getters and shut out the Democrats entirely. Now, I don't think that will happen, but you know, here we are at the end of April, and that primary is coming in just about five weeks or so. And right now, there's still nobody, nobody who is kind of winning the hearts of Democratic voters. Eric Swalwell, of all people, was the candidate who was leading the Democratic PAC, and he dropped out in a pretty fiery scandal, as you know. Right now, the Democrats are just left scrambling, and someone's trying to see if they can break out. If I had to pick somebody at this point, I would probably be someone like Tom Steyr, a guy who's never won office before, but is a billionaire and has spending tens of millions of dollars of his own money to increase his name recognition in a state where money actually probably does play an important role. But Steyr has never won before. He's never won office before. And so that will be one to watch. I mean, so that's an interesting one. Even though these governor races are governor's races are under the radar at this point, they're pretty important for two reasons, I'd say. One is for the bench building for candidates who have future presidential aspirations. So, you know, I think that that becomes important. Like if you look in Maryland at West Moore, Westmore's got to win re-election in Maryland if he thinks he might run for president. And so that's potentially interesting. But the other thing is that the governors who are elected are also the ones who are going to be overseeing the redistricting that we take place at the end of the decade. And so that becomes a pretty important factor as well, because particularly what we've seen in these redistricting wars right now, it's highly unlikely that those wars are going to cease just at the end of this cycle. And I think that uh both parties are gonna look towards the end of the decade when the new census comes out and and really try to do whatever they can to eke out even more wins for their party through creative map drawing.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

One of my favorite things about elections is are uh referenda and initiatives. And I wondered if you saw any referenda or initiatives that were of particular interest to you or to us, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Yeah, to me, the most interesting one, and this is something that I obviously I read news items with um great energy because I think it is one of the big uh issues that we have, and you cover it so well, which is on the whole artificial intelligence and data centers, the the infrastructure for artificial intelligence and the zoning fights that take place at the state and local level. I mean, that is a big deal. And this is the type of thing that is really potentially going to move voters. Now, it's not gonna be as big an issue as the economy, it's not gonna be as big an issue as even healthcare. Not in this election, maybe, but it really could be set up in the election in two years to be a massive issue. And presidential candidates from both parties are gonna have to take very clear positions on this. It's also interesting because what I one thing I love about news items is the way that you cover the technology space. And you've got private sector alternatives for these data centers. You've got Elon Musk saying he wants to put these in space, and that has all sorts of other implications because with his starship and you know launching rockets, you know, he's planning on launching a starship at least every day, if not more. That could become another issue as we go farther. So, you know, AI data centers, I think, is the big issue. It's already kind of impacting the main democratic primary. That's the big one that I think of.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

It's interesting because the Trump administration has sort of the stated view is it's all about China. The answer to everything is China, we have to stay ahead on AI, therefore we need the data centers. And so, you know, we'll plow through any objections because that's in the national security interests of the United States. And on the other hand, the MAGA base, as you can see locally, you know, here, there, and everywhere, all across the country, is adamantly opposed to the build-out of these data centers. And there's a very good story, I think, in the Times today about a town in in Missouri where they've, you know, they've basically fired their local elected officials because they were in favor of uh the build-out of a data center in in that neighborhood. So it I think it's interesting to see how it plays out, because I agree with you. I think it's going to be an enormous issue in 2028, not just data centers, but the impact of AI on our society, on our economy, on employment, on et cetera.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Absolutely. And you you actually just pinpointed what I think is the great challenge for the Republican Party as we look two years and ahead. Is there a candidate who can keep that party together? The MAGA half of the Republican Party and the more traditional half of the Republican Party. Donald Trump showed that he could do it. It's not clear to me that any of the other likely candidates can do it, whether it's J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio or or someone like Tucker Carlson, and maybe somebody takes take somebody completely out of left field. It's very unclear to me which Republican can coordinate both sides of the party. Donald Trump had a coalition, and you know, that's how he achieved two victories in presidential elections. It's not clear which Republican is going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

You know, if you think of the Democrats recapture control of the House and in a s you know, sort of a stunning upset, they gain control of the Senate by one vote, right? So the Trump administration agenda essentially ends when those people are sworn into office. So the presidential campaign begins on the same day, right? So you have all of the, as you point out, you have all of these Republicans who are thinking, okay, Trump's gone, it's over, uh, assuming, of course, that he does leave, and you have, you know, Ted Cruz has his thing, and J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio and so on and so forth, and suddenly you have a sort of chaotic, you know, year and a half to the run-up of to the Republican National Convention in 2028, it would feature, uh, if you will, all of the divisions within the Republican Party and within even within the MAGA base. If you look at it from the Democratic point of view, and they now have control of the House and now control of the Senate in this scenario. What happens on the Democratic side presidentially? Is the same thing break out where you have all these people in their separate lanes, or or do you think there's some kind of early consolidation? Because if there is, that makes it much more likely the Democrats will win the presidential race in 28.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Yeah, no, I think I think it'll be a mess. I don't think the Democrats are going to consolidate around any candidate. I mean, right now, the one that's clearly the front runner is Gavin Newsom, but Gavin Newsom comes with a lot of baggage and a lot of a lot of expectations. The advantage that someone like Gavin Newsome has is that the more you hear him talk, particularly if you're a Democrat, the more you end up liking him, even though you might have had preconceived notions. Interestingly, J.D. Vance, I think, has the opposite issue, which is J.D. Vance, a lot of Republicans know who he is, but the more he talks, the less they like him. And I think that that's kind of interesting. But I think the Democrats are just as likely to get a candidate out of left field, someone that most people aren't thinking. The one that I'm thinking about right now would be John Ossoff, potentially, the senator from Georgia. He's up for re-election this year, and we didn't talk about the Senate race in Georgia, but John Ossoff is leading that race. And obviously, Georgia is very much a swing state. And if he wins by a significant margin, I think he's immediately enters the conversation as being a potential presidential candidate. So I think that would be interesting. There's other candidates who have been talked about like this, someone like Ruben Gallego from Arizona, who's a senator, uh, who unfortunately for his aspirations, he happens to be the best friend of Eric Swalwell. And that's probably not going to go over very well in a Republican. That's not that's not gonna go over well in a Democratic primary, let's just say that. So I I do think that there's a lot of potential. Um I mean, not since 2008 have we have we seen such an interesting primary, I think. So so I think I think this is going to be interesting on both sides because I don't think J.D. Vance on the Republican side can can seal this up quickly, even though Marco Rubio suggests he's not going to run against J.D. Vance. You know, we'll see. And uh we'll see what happens, you know, after the midterms. We'll see how damaged Vance is with some of his positions and if Rubio sees an opening. And that would create obviously great controversy within the Trump administration if he were to do that. But they don't need to look at people inside the Trump administration because Tucker Carlson seems to have already broken from Trump. He sees a lane potentially if he runs for president that is almost like uh in opposition to Trump, a more true MAGA-type position. You know, Tucker Carlson has his share of followers. So the Democrats, you know, while Gavin Newsom might be considered a front runner, there's a long time, uh a long time from now, and I could see someone that we're not even talking about right now become the candidate.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Yeah, my theory about the Democratic primary campaign is that whoever attracts the most black votes in the South will be the nominee in the way that same way that Biden was able to get the nomination in uh in 2020. One last question I wanted to ask you. People always, you know, wonder how someone like you, what is your media diet, or is it just a constant uh flow of everything? I mean, do you you s when you start the day, do you think, okay, I have to read these seven sites or these ten sites, or is it just a matter of scrambling and keeping up with what you can?

SPEAKER_01 36:34

It's a great question. It would be impossible to to literally read everything. Um obviously I read all of the major sources. You know, my my favorite must-to newspapers that I read are the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The Washington Post for a while there was looking like it had uh really great coverage. It's it's much more sporadic now. Uh the political coverage in the Washington Post. There is a new competitor to Politico, which is launching pretty soon, which will be called the Washington Star. Um it's currently called Notice. Notice, yeah. N O N O T N O T U S, and that is backed by Robert Albretton, who also backed Politico and exited that and made quite a bit of money, quite a bit more money for himself. And and now he is he he seems to want to have a go at it again. Um and so he is gonna the he's going to bring back the Washington Star, which will be the name, and they have quite a bit of good reporting there. But that one of the key ways that I do it is I've over the years, I've created all sorts of interesting algorithms to be able to figure out what are people talking about, what are people sharing, where whether it's from Reddit forums to on Twitter to Blue Sky to Threads, what are people, what are the articles that people are talking about? And so I do have a lot of back-end systems that I've developed, which will show me at any given time what people are talking about. And then, you know, the one thing about political wire that I pride myself on is it is it is all human curated. Even though when I originally started, I must admit that I thought that eventually you could have computers do this, you could have computers tell you what the most important things are. I find that computers are still, while they're amazing at so many things, and while AI is incredible and it's an incredible technology, it's very hard at telling you what's important. Right. You know, and and and it's very hard, hard to do that. And so I I still think so that that means John, you and me are safe. We're uh we're we're safe because we can tell still tell people what the important news is, um, and people still value our judgments. But I do have systems that help uh narrow it for me in terms of what uh at least what other people are talking about on the social networks and and what they're talking about in Reddit forums. And and so that kind of helps me gauge what is important at any given moment.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

I think uh my take on AI, which very few people agree with, is that it will eventually come to know Tegan Goddard and it will eventually come to know John Ellis, and so it will scour all of the places that one would scour for the information that you and I present to our readers and present it to us at whatever four o'clock in the morning or whenever it, you know, you wake up, and then we'll be able to say, this one, not that one, this one, not that one. And it will actually enhance our products. Do you buy that or am I piped?

SPEAKER_01 39:30

No, I I I I buy I buy it almost entirely. I mean, and I I'll I'll I'll take it from here. I mean, John, you and I have had lunch a number of times, and I always find our lunches fascinating because we end up talking about all sorts of things, and you know, one set of stories leads into another, um, and we begin to have our own takes on things and we have our own judgment on things based upon our experience. And I can't imagine talking to Claude or Chat GPT in the same way that I can talk to you at lunch. So until until that happens, until my my next lunch date is with Claude, I just I I I think I prefer John Ellis.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

All right. I think we'll close it there. Tagan, thank you very much for joining us today. Uh, we urge all of our listeners and the fastest growing audience in America to subscribe to politicalwire.com. Pay for the subscription. You get uh a lot of bonus material as a result. And uh Tegan, thanks again for doing this.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

It's my pleasure, John. Real, real pleasure to talk to you. Thanks so much.