The Forecast

Keegan Goudiss (00:21)
All right, welcome back to the season two premiere of the forecast. I'm really beyond honored to have as our premier guest, ⁓ a good friend, former colleague, mentor from the past, Matt Rodriguez. Welcome, Matt.

Great, you know, it's good to have you here. Thank you so much for joining Matt. Matt and I have gone back over over 20 years. We're just actually talking about we met in 2002 in Iowa. I was fresh off of college trying to fulfill my dreams of becoming a campaign manager and Matt was working for get part get parts pack out there and and before that I know you worked for Bill Bradley's race in 2000.

along along history with Gephardt working with Obama. ⁓ And and you are the founder and CEO of Rodriguez Strategies out in California, ⁓ where I know you as as a. As really like a coalition builder, that's where I where I where I see we can tell me tell me a little bit about Rodriguez Strategies

Matthew Rodriguez (01:25)
still do that. So, you know, I'd been moving around the country doing campaigns, as you know, there's a few others in there that I got it. I don't even remember all of the ones. So I was sort of living out of a mattress for, you know, on a mattress and out of a suitcase for 10 or 15 years. I keep saying, I tell everyone I didn't have a bed until I was about 34. And I got married literally, I'll take the mattress, you know, conquer New Hampshire, you know, Connecticut, you know, Arizona.

after Obama, I'd had about enough. I, I was like, I can't, you know, and my wife had had about enough. I got married at 34 and she's like, I can't, you know, this is what, what is this? so, no, so I did work for a public affairs firm for a couple of years and then I started my own. So this was back in, at the end of 2013 or the beginning of 2013. ⁓ and yeah, and really are, you know, I didn't really want to do a lot of candidate work at that point. I really enjoy parts of politics and organizing.

doing polling and the strategy. I just didn't want to be doing candidate work forever. There's nothing against it. It's God's work in some ways. It's also terrible in others, but there's just a lot of extra work. And I just didn't want to be taking the call from candidate X at 1130 at night. They need someone who's going to do that. I just didn't want to spend the next 20 years of my career at that point doing it. So we focused mostly on coalition building. I always thought there was a space for real coalition building where you're not just getting

10 people to sign a letter, but you're getting them to whatever the issue is, pro or con, to advocate, engage or whatever. And so we've kind of built off of that and we've expanded into other things, but our core piece is still getting a client. They need bodies who can represent an issue and we try to turn them on and engage them in some fashion.

Keegan Goudiss (03:07)
Well, we're we're recording this is it's been just over 100 days with the Trump 2.2 Trump 2.0. Yeah, what are we like? 115 or something like that now 103 and. I don't actually I don't know if it helps or hurts to count, but I'm curious what do you what do you feel like is different this time around? Trump 2 versus Trump 1.

Matthew Rodriguez (03:12)
Is

It counter.

⁓

It's funny, the sequel is always different and the same. think different, ⁓ look, think to try to be as objective about this as possible, although we can bash them, I'm sure we'll do plenty of that, but I think they were more prepared coming in. ⁓ I think they had a pretty good sense of what they wanted to do. Again, we can debate.

tactically whether that's been good or bad, but I think they had a pretty good sense. They clearly had had a long time to think about some of this stuff. I think he had time to refine the type of people he wanted around him and how he wanted things to work. ⁓ So I think from that point of view, I think they've been effective at first at kind of moving some of their priorities around. I think the problem that they've been having to me, again, trying to be objective, because there's plenty of podcasts that can just sort of play the sky is falling, but I think

The problem they're having is a lot of what's happened, I think, in modern politics. If you try to look at this more objectively, and they're not the only ones. You get presidents in there whose constitutional role is not really to run everything. We're not a parliamentary system. But I really think, and I think we want to talk about this later when we get to some of the populist parts, but there's been an issue over the last 50 or 60 years where Congress has just ceded territory to the executive branch. They don't do anything. And so you have this scenario where...

And it goes backwards with War Powers Act, some of Obama's immigration stuff, what the Bushes were doing. And you have presidents making policy that's not really their purview. And then you have the other side, again, whichever side of the aisle you're on, just goes and sues, right? And so when Obama's president, the red state sue, and when Trump's president, the blue state sue, and they take great pride that. And then you have judges who really, I don't really know, I don't wanna sound Republican here, I'm not sure it's their job either to say, well, you just can't implement this policy.

their job and yes, to a degree, but the problem is we have these kind of dueling banjos of the Congress doesn't do anything. And so the executive branch does something and then you find a judge that says, yes, you can or you can't. And then if they say, yes, you can, you can't go and appeal it and find another one who says it. And I think it's a really bad way to make policy. And again, we can talk about Trump, but he's more of a symptom than a cause of this. This has been going on for a while. And I always use the example no one wants to hear it of DACA.

Obama didn't really have any authority to do DACA as laudable as that is. And it ended up just, I'm gonna do DACA, I really can't, but I'm gonna do it. And the public was there, that means the Congress should have done it, but the Congress didn't do it. so then you're in the kind of, and so a lot of presidents are being judged on their executive power and what their legal strategy is on it and what the opposition's legal strategy is. And I think Trump is the same thing. I think they were like, well, we're just gonna skip Congress and do whatever it is we want. That's created a lot of angst.

But he's not the only one doing it. And it's a bit of a flaw of this country's politics going back, really, I think, to the Vietnam War, when the country just decided, I guess, we're not going to declare war anymore. We're just going to let presidents do whatever they want. And it's bleeding into, to me, legislation and legislative making, which is getting worse rather than better. And again, Trump might be the most egregious example of it, but he's not the only one.

Keegan Goudiss (06:37)
Well, yeah, I want to talk about how we got this a little bit and then obviously focus forward because as you said, there's plenty of podcasts to talk about this, but I have this opportunity here and one of the things that.

that you told me once many years ago, back in 2002. And I, you know, I was, I was convinced just like you, wanted to pack my bags and live on, on, you know, many different mattresses. I felt it. It was a romantic thing to do to travel the country and try to work my way up as a campaign manager. And I ran into a brick wall in 2002, which was not a great year for Democrats as we, you for

For those of us that are old enough to remember our cycles was not a great one. And I, you know, it was one of those ones as my I had volunteered in 2000. I had done stuff in the nineties, but this was like my first professional cycle. And, and I was just, uh, you know, I was convinced I was going to come work for you and get part and, that like, you know, this is, this is my path forward here in Iowa. I was working in a very difficult part of the, of the, state, Scott County, at least it was then.

I got placed there because I willing to put up with a lot to put it politely. and so, you know, here here I am catching up with you, I think in DC actually, after after we had a pretty bad election. And I'll never forget you. You know, I telling you how how it was not what I expected and it didn't go the way I wanted. And you're like, so we lost. What did you learn from it?

And that was stuck with me. I don't know if you remember telling me that, cause it's probably something you told a of people that election cycle, but because there were a lot of losses, a lot of big losses, a lot of surprising losses. And it really always stuck with me because, know, zooming out over the many cycles that I've been working in, in democratic politics, certainly have been wins and losses. And I've always reminded myself like, I'm going to lose what I learned from it. So I'm curious, what do you think Democrats learned where we're at now?

After the first hundred days, have we learned anything from our defeat last year? And are we learning anything from the first hundred days?

Matthew Rodriguez (08:46)
Well, I think, you know, it's an interesting question, because that's been the question in everybody's mind. Where Democrats go from here, right? You lose and you have a lot of soul searching it. And Democrats, you always, and this again, any political party is going to have this. You have the wing that's going to be, we're not true enough to our values. If we just were, we would have won. You have the, need to moderate more. We have the...

you know, the kind of everybody just complaining, right? We're just gonna complain about Congress. I'm gonna sort of pseudo run against DC. It's everybody, it's all of DC's fault. And there's a variety of levels to that. What we've learned, I don't, I've rarely believed, and I really believe this on election night, which is we're not gonna learn, we are beholden to where Trump is and kind of the winds of the electorate through 2026.

nothing is gonna get quote unquote solved in 2026 or even 20. Now we may win some seats, we may do very well. He may be catastrophically bad and we'll get into that. All that could happen, but that's realistically not, it's very rare. I maybe you could make the case for Newt Gingrich, you know, that someone who was not the president or the presidential nominee kind of driving a philosophy, but that's just very rare. For as much as everyone talks about great Nancy Pelosi was, it wasn't like.

you know, she was a legislative tactician. She wasn't kind of setting an agenda in that sense, right? And so it's just very hard to do. We're not gonna get any kind of direction for the party until there's a nominee in 2028. I mean, let's just be honest. I that's just the way it's gonna be. And so have we learned something? I don't know what we've learned. I think the party's gotta go through its own kind of...

searching, you know, the Republicans were very much in this frame after 2012 when, you know, Obama was a little bit lackluster going into that election, but for some reason, coming off of a populist rising era and off of a huge financial crisis, they decided to put Mitt Romney of all people to run, which was sort of insane looking back on it. ⁓

Keegan Goudiss (10:45)
Yeah, yeah, brilliant.

Matthew Rodriguez (10:51)
And so, not dissimilar, frankly, I get myself in trouble, not dissimilar to Hillary Clinton in 2016, you know? And we saw the warning signs with Bernie as he was running and that people were upset and putting up, know, she was kind of our version of Mitt Romney in her own way. And so look, what have Democrats learned? I don't know it's a question of what they've learned yet. I think the question is where's the party and the culture gonna go? And this is gonna take multi years to play out.

and it's going to take a while for I think the parties to start to settle on what's a direction that we can live with within the current atmosphere. What I would say, what I don't think the parties learn something is that I don't think the, I think the Republicans have come to this quicker than Democrats did, which is that we are in a popular, an actual populist age and that we're not in the FDR moment.

any longer. We're not really even in the Reagan government is the problem. We're in a completely different moment. You've seen it globally, Brexit, some of the changes in governments, you know, like we're just in a different place. So we can talk about what we think there's a back to me and geek out on that. But I think that we're in a different spot. I think Democrats have not figured out how are we talking to voters, whoever they are, I the working class, but how are we talking to voters about where they are in this moment? Obama had a bit of a run on it because he had a bit of a, I'm not of the Vietnam

I'm generation. I'm not going to have those fights that, you know, he was able to the Hillary's and the Bush's and that all I'm past that. But then I think he got into office and I was like, well, wait a minute, why are there bankers all in your administration? We didn't prosecute anybody. And I, you why is George Clooney in the office? Why is it in the White House all the time? I felt that there was a kind of like, we're going to shake up Washington. I don't think voters really felt that totally. think Trump is a more chaotic sort of the joker version of that. And there's ups and downs to that. But I don't think Democrats.

are really, have been really reckoned with what is it that voters actually want beyond what their base is, which is more of a laptop class. And that I think is a challenge that they've not really reckoned with. And I don't know whether they're gonna successfully reckon with it in 2028, but realistically, we're not gonna have any kind of agreement as a party, I think, until then.

Keegan Goudiss (13:11)
I think there's a huge opportunity for someone to just say let's stop dancing around it. I'm running for president. In 2028, like and and they might not end up being the nominee, but they would have the ability to really drive so much of the the national conversation because it's just not. You know there are obviously some Democratic leaders. You know Cory Booker had his moment and and and you know.

Hakeem Jeffries did something with him recently, didn't get as much attention, but there's certainly, there are Democratic leaders that are starting to capture some of the attention from Trump, which is awfully hard. But without saying, I'm out there, I'm going to run in 2028 against JD Vance or Marco Rubio or Trump again or whatever the heck is going to actually happen. They might not be the nominee, but they could really drive the message right now.

Matthew Rodriguez (13:58)
Don't you? Yeah.

Keegan Goudiss (14:04)
and it's

Matthew Rodriguez (14:04)
Well,

that I think is the key issue. I think which is, you running for president? There's a lot of question of like AOC and is she ready or Bernie, but we'll put AOC over here for a minute, because I think she has some problematic elements which might be a problem down the road, just politically. But, know, Bernie's the only one who's got a theory of the case. I mean, this is the issue. there are Democrats sticking out. Yes, Cory Booker did his thing and it got some attention. And yes, Democratic leaders.

You know, in fairness to Chuck Schumer, what did you think Chuck Schumer was going to lead a national movement? That's not what his job is. I mean, I get it. I know the frustration. That's not what he's going to do. ⁓ I think, but I think the challenge with you and you've seen this a little bit with Gavin Newsom doing his podcasts or Britsker giving a speech or Cory Booker.

But I agree with you, but no one is a theory of the case. The case of like, this is what I'm selling to the American people. Most of it is, we gotta be better on this, or maybe we focus too much on trans issues, or we gotta really get the working class back. But no one is sitting there saying, and whatever you think of the oligarchy tour, and some like it, some don't. But there's at least a theory of the case where they're like, these are the macro forces that are leading to some of these frustrations, and this is how we would take them on. Now it's a little bit scatterbrained, but at least Bernie's been in that space for 40 or 50

years. I agree with you there's a space to do it, but you got to have a theory that isn't just a kind of it's the end of the world. We're turning into Germany circa 1930s like that. That's a constituency, but that's not it. You've got to speak to voters who want to say, okay, this is where you're going to lead us from a policy and a political perspective.

And I think that part hasn't happened yet. And I think the person who does do that is gonna be rewarded pretty well. The question is who and when, or well, and if, because there's no guarantees.

Keegan Goudiss (15:52)
It's you know, so I just got back from Europe and and it's it's always fascinating to me on how much. Bernie credit I have, you know, like there's ebbs and flows. People being interested in him and his celebrity and what he's saying. And you know, it's like all of a sudden now everybody I was talking to that. Yeah, I've worked with a number of years now and in Europe because I tried to keep a couple clients there for. Precisely the excuse so can go to Europe.

Matthew Rodriguez (16:22)
Yeah, exactly.

Keegan Goudiss (16:22)
on someone else's dime, which is a great gig

if you can find it and and. Yeah, this is all of them want to talk to me about Bernie, which for the first time in like years, it was like really fascinating, not quite yet wanting to talk like a couple of them were asking about AOC and what I thought, but it was. It was really fascinating how much like that he's driving the conversation. Abroad right now because of the tour Pritzker broke through a little bit.

And you he is like you know I'm paraphrasing right he was talking about Democrats message on on on believing like someone shouldn't be just snatched off the streets and and sent to like a foreign gulag you know I feel like that got a lot of attention but still it was just one speech where Bernie is like doing the thing with AOC right like they are going. To speech to rally after rally and like I run and I talked about this in previous podcast episode just sometimes like.

seems to get lost that like it's not just a one time thing for Democrats. We need to actually keep doing it over and over and over and over again. And that is really missing. I mean, do think there's like an opportunity here from any other candidates like your own your own governor had the podcast for a little bit got some attention, but like I you know anybody else out there that you see has the potential to really drive the national narrative.

Matthew Rodriguez (17:42)
It's early, I'm a little underwhelmed by who's out there right now. And that's not just to be critical. I don't mean that from the other all, you I'm the only serious person. I think ⁓ it gets back to what I was saying. Most folks other than Bernie are making most mostly a, they're almost acting as political pundits. And to me, that's not your job as an elected official, if that makes sense, right? I mean, I get it, plenty of pundits, we're doing it right now.

Keegan Goudiss (18:09)
I was

gonna say as we were acting as punters

Matthew Rodriguez (18:11)
Well, if you want to run for office, I think so I'll give you an example of the Pritzker speech, which it's fine. I think there's also some problematic elements of Pritzker. think it's difficult to have the kind of anti-billionaire thing while he's inherited a bunch of his money. He'll have to figure that out, right? Those are the political things. He's smart guy. He's aware of that. But even the issue on the Albrego Garcia case, I think a lot of Americans are really upset about this. And there's some problematic elements. You're seeing it in the polls.

But it gets back to me, other than Bernie, but what's the theory of the case? Like, I don't know if voters, if you look at the polling, Trump is dropping, but they would still vote for Trump over a Democrat. You're going to have to have an organizing principle on what is your approach to immigration. And I'm not saying moderate means you just have to say, if Republicans are here, we got to just, we're here. We just got to get closer to them. But you have to have a theory of what does immigration.

Unless you're gonna say for open borders, which maybe even some of your listeners are for open borders, my guess is that's a 90-10 issue loser for politically, but that is at least a policy position. You're gonna have to lay out, whether it was inflation or ⁓ immigration, crime, foreign policy, you're gonna have to lay out where you are. Now, Trump is in office and I think people are upset a little bit about the direction he's going, but he at least told folks where he was gonna go. I do think that...

Most of the candidates I've seen at least so far, it's all been, or at least prospective candidates. They're all just sort of doing punditry. Talk too much about this. We gotta be better. We can't be so ivory towerish. That's not running for office. I can say that. You can read Ezra Klein a thousand times in the New York Times as, know, while he drinks his $20 lattes in Brooklyn telling us how we should go represent people in the middle class. Yeah, I just think some of this stuff is, there's plenty of that going.

I think there's a mantle for someone who's got a theory of the case who's actually gonna go out there and talk about this stuff. And I think Bernie's the closest to it. No, he's too old to do it. He had some limitations on himself as does his philosophy.

But it's difficult to answer because right now everyone is a prospective governor or that we all know they're kind of running as if this is like 2000 or something. I'm a governor, I'll run a little bit against DC, I'll talk about my state. I'm not sure that's what it's gonna be. My guess is that someone we don't see right now that's gonna catch, know, fire a little bit in the Democrat party that they're not thinking about right now. Most everyone right now is a little bit underwhelming. And not underwhelming because they're bad or they're dumb or they just think they're not.

I'm not sure there's enough at their core to sort of drive what it is that they want to do. And coming off of Trump, who's a unique, charismatic figure, you're not going to match that. You're going to need to go in a different direction. I just don't see anyone right now as a different theory of the case, of the direction they want to take the country. I haven't seen it at least yet.

Keegan Goudiss (21:03)
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I almost feel like so Trump obviously does a lot of stuff and to red meat right to his his his base. A lot of folks want like to your point like that Joker chaos. Asian in DC, because they really dislike DC. They were applauding like Doge, even though it hasn't been that effective from at least your pure metrics standpoint.

They're still like this is great like just sack DC right and there's a you know some legitimate reasons for that and and obviously some things that from my perspective at least have been just sort of trumped up. No pun intended to get people all you know blame DC for all of your problems. They. Almost feels like they're starting to moderate a little bit like today they they you know they were like well we're going to offer up folks option to self-deport you know.

thousand dollars and you can like leave the country, which seems like a very different approach to what they were doing with. With let's just snatch people up and make it. Almost make it you know spectacle like this, you media production out of like we're we're putting them on these planes and everybody is like being sent to these awful prisons and I mean I for me I think that's awful watching that like the humanity ⁓ that is lost in in treating people that way for me and you know just is not.

palpable, but I understand that people look at this differently than I do when they when they think about like what's causing their problems in their lives. Do you you feel like they're changing a little bit like because there's been a couple other things that they.

Matthew Rodriguez (22:35)
Yeah.

It gets back to what we started with. I just look at the Trump thing politically, and again, I like to geek out on the strategy of this stuff. Trump is hard to discuss because anything you either say positively or that's not at an 11, there's a certain cohort of democratic voter which just can't handle that. I always thought, to me, Trump had the win in immigration.

crossings are way down. to me, that was what people elected him to do. the criminal stuff, I think there's pieces of that that he could do, but he could get the political benefit of that without kind of going to the extreme lengths that he's doing. He's got the win. Like I think most voters, most voters obviously thought the Biden administration did not do well. They certainly didn't message it well.

It was, say whatever you want, but was a huge driver of vote. So to me, Trump's already won on the issue. The crossings are way, way down and we can have an argument as to how good, you know, is he really, whatever it is, it just, he's got it. And instead they just can't control going after his, the sort of base folks, right? They just, everyone complains about Democrats being too online. I mean, like they just cannot control their kind of like ex followers, meme, you know, let's own the libs.

And I think it's just been a huge strategic and tactical mistake. agree with that. think they're moderating a little bit because again, I don't want to say nice things about Trump. I don't want to yell that even by my own spouse, my wife. ⁓ But I do think he's pretty good in terms of like the time that he was the worst about listening to people. think getting a public opinion was COVID. I think that was the reason people threw him out, which is people were scared and they were just, he just wouldn't stop the kind of general level of unease and chaos.

I do think now, and I think he's got a better team around him now than he did. Suzy Wiles, do think is quite good. I think they ran a good campaign, purely on the tactical and strategic side. I think they are a little bit like, if you notice, when they start moving, you notice all of a sudden, Elon is a lot less front and center, Doge is sort of a little quieter, but he's doing it in a way that isn't his kind of celebrated firings like he used to, right? wasn't, remember in the first tour, it was like, I'm throwing them out and screaming at them. And I think there were certain people who kind of liked that, but I think his team is smart enough to know that that...

Injecting that level of chaos does come with some problems. So I think they've seen the polls dropping. If you notice Doge is a little quieter, immigration's a little quiet, we're getting a little bit less of Kristi Noem looking like Rambo out there. I think they're trying to play a little bit more nice in the sandbox. So they are self-correcting more. Now, whether that's gonna matter to voters or not, I don't know. Because I think ultimately their success or failure is gonna be tied to the economic stuff, which they're still way out on the limo.

⁓ But I think immigration is just an example of just trying to do too much. What are we doing here? What are you trying to do at this point? And it's just not clear. ⁓ But I agree with you. think softening is clearly something they're doing more this term than they did last term, which they would just keep digging in and digging in and digging in. That seems to be

Keegan Goudiss (25:33)
Well, in some ways

they already got what they came for, right? They they they you look at project 2025 and there's a I you know. I can't remember the website now, but someone really, you know, really talented smart person put together just online like here's here's everything as a checklist and it's really sad. Obviously from my perspective, I'm not rooting for the things in the checklist, but from their perspective they got a lot. Done the they they you know.

sort of said they were going to do even though Trump denied it since it's politically unpopular, but they really did get a lot of those things done and we're going to pay the price for many years if not a generation as a result of them. And I think that we'll look back at this moment and it will be something that we run around, run off of rather for a long time whether Democrats, Republicans, embracing it Democrats, you know, saying this is the moment that we have to change.

think we're going to hear a lot more about it. ⁓ Obviously Trump this weekend, he said this a couple times now, he's sort of having his weird FDR moment in a bizarre world where it's like, we have to make a sacrifice, your children need less dolls, which is the weirdest possible message and I want to get to this a little bit later too.

Matthew Rodriguez (26:46)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So first it's chicken in every pot.

Uber's chicken in every pot. Now we're like, you know, fewer dolls in your crib or something like that.

Keegan Goudiss (26:56)
Yeah,

he's oddly focused on manliness all the time and and you know I you'll you'll get the issue soon all of you like it's in the mail now like right there's a section of my magazine that's asking was this Trump actually want to become a woman and we write a play about it because it's like he's always really obsessed about like this manliness thing to a whole other level that I'm not going to take our podcast episode this direction too much on.

Matthew Rodriguez (27:21)
He

needs a lot of self-introspection. What I found amazing was that the guy with gold toilet seats is the one lecturing the country on the anti-consumer, trying to be a little more anti-consumer and less consumer focused with a guy who's got golden toilet seats and chandeliers hanging from every room in his arm. Very nice.

Keegan Goudiss (27:39)
It doesn't land so well. ⁓

We'll see. We'll see how it plays out for them as as Christmas comes. know, for all of them saying the Liberals war on Christmas, it's going to be perhaps twisted the other way. And I'm curious what you think like as we it seems likely that there's some economic pain ahead. ⁓ You know, like what do you know? Not just people running for for twenty twenty eight. Like what do you think about the Democrats message?

Matthew Rodriguez (27:49)
Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

I think you gotta bifurcate it. think, I said before, there are gonna be plenty of articles being like, Democrats need to do this. I I sort of saw that David Brooks, we need a civic uprising the other day. I started just laughing as millionaire writers for a giant corporation like the New York Times, the Harvard's and the law firms of the world making billions need to rise up, which doesn't mean you have to like Trump, but it's almost laugh out loud funny watching some of these. Look, to me, politics is a sequential process.

So to me, 2026 is going to be totally beholden to, in theory, Trump should lose a few seats. We're a little bit hamstrung in the Senate because of where some of the seats, because just the way this works, but they're going to have to draw a kind of anti-Trump and a contrast in. That's where we are now, bottom line. Now, yes, there are going to be other, we talked about other potential candidates, but the bottom line is the whole party is not going to go in one lockstep or the other. It's just not going to happen.

And I think people need to stop acting like it's gonna happen. And I think they also need to stop whining about how horrible Democrats are. Also a little bit of this phase, we talked about trans issues too much. Whoa, we're so horrible. As if that's not an organizing philosophy. It's just a bunch of like, we're bad. Well, what would you do differently? Well, I don't know. Look, right now, Trump and his success is gonna be tied to where the economy goes. People elected him on the border. He's doing reasonably well on that, but overreaching as we discussed.

people are trying to get their costs down. Now, maybe tariffs magically work well, but that's not exactly, now he said he was going to do this. So it's not like people can say that they're surprised by it, but it isn't necessarily that the remedy that he's proposing right now, now we're gonna have to see if supply lines start getting choked up. And there's a good article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend about how, even if this thing, there's some kind of deal with China soon, there's a lot of orders that have already been canceled. Just, you know, it isn't like these things just start back up like it's water through a hose, right? There's gonna be.

know, challenges and orders and potential price increases and shortages. People didn't elect him for that. And I want to see if that's what plays out. think we have to watch the jobs report was.

was pretty decent this last week, but it also might've been because everybody's rushing to get orders in before some of these tariffs hit. people elected him to stabilize the economy, to try to get inflation to a better place that they did blame Joe Biden for. For some reason, Democrats couldn't wrap their heads around that and just kept saying, no, it's not. And it's like, we're gonna lose. So they couldn't grasp that. ⁓ I think Trump is doing what a lot of presidents do, which is blaming his predecessor for it, but voters, I don't think are gonna go for that.

To me, that's where we are now. It's all kitchen table economics. Are prices better? Do you have money at the end of your month, you know, in your pocket than more than you used to before? Right? And I think people during the Biden administration were like, wait a minute, why is my car payment used to be 250 now it's like 550. Why is my always like a thousand dollars behind on my credit card? And it always seems to be happening. I even see it. I'll go shop with my kid. like, what the heck? So I think there was just a visceral reaction. It wasn't political. It was just visceral being like, okay.

And I think that's what he's going to be judged on. I don't think it's going to be until we get after the midterms that you're going to really start to see people start to really rev up for, okay, then what's the Democrats' solution for this? What's their philosophy on this? What's the alternative to Trump? I think it is unrealistic no matter how many TV shows and people write stories about, but I think all of that stuff is just fodder for discussion, which I think is important. We're having it now.

But I don't think any of that really starts to take shape until 2027. One other thing I'd say, to ramble on too much, I remember 2004, the presidential, right? We're talking about 2002 and Gephardt was hoping to win the house back. didn't, and he was one of multiple, Dick needed a place to go. Where do you go? You're not gonna be the leader anymore. So he runs for president, John Kerry, John Edwards. But I remember seeing Howard Dean early and it was in, I think it was in.

Was it Polk County or Johnson? It was a dinner. And Dick was actually a great speaker, which was always better in person because people thought, he's kind of boring. And you would always see him. But I remember there was a dinner, was Kerry. It was early in the process and everybody was not declared yet other than Howard Dean, if you remember. Speaking of.

declaring early, remember he had declared early and people were, know, and I remember going there and thinking, oh my God, this guy from Vermont, this is like a joke, John Kerry's here. And I remember he was giving the speech and he'd been giving that whole speech of I represent the democratic wing of the democratic party and the anti-war stuff on Iraq.

And he was way out in front. And I remember being at the dinner, was like, this is not, I mean, not good if you ever get part. I was like, uh-oh, like there was just a lot of energy around him. And again, I know I'm a broken record, but he had, here are the three or four things that we need to do. Right. And he was the one saying it where everybody else was kind like, yeah, I voted for the war. They were kind of wishy washy on Iraq and they were trying to find a way to get out of it and find a way to bash Bush and other areas.

And Dean was going right at where the voters were. And the voters were really unhappy about Iraq. They didn't want it. Iowa is a famously dovish state. My point on all of that is, and it gets back to how we started, there just isn't anyone out there yet, and maybe Bernie a little bit, who again, I don't think so realistic, candidate at his age. There's no one getting that response right now. Like, okay, this guy's speaking like my language. He has caught the threat of where voters are.

in the same way Trump did in 2016. We can talk about all those things, but if you read the stories, once you got past the kind of hyperbole, because everyone was worried about the end of the universe, he would be talking about drug prices and donors and the Democratic Party screwing over Bernie and you're getting screwed and the voters were into that. And I think the Democrat elite media assigned all sorts of negative.

motives to the voters. if you watched his stuff, and I would watch a lot of the stuff, the stuff that we actually was getting the biggest applause on wasn't the stuff that CNN would pull out and put on say, my God, it goes to show that he's the next, you know, Mussolini. The stuff was getting people was you're getting screwed on drug prices. There's an opioid crisis, you're getting screwed on like, you're the ones who are going to war and like, we're spending all this money over there, that money should be being spent here. I think a lot of the New York Times type of stuff didn't cover that.

But that was where he was starting to get a little bit of push. And that's where the voters were in his primary. And I thought of that when I watched Howard Dean in 04. I thought of Trump a little bit in 16. I thought Bernie was a little bit of that in 2016. He's doing a little bit of it now, but I don't think anyone other than him has captured where the actual voters are. We keep forgetting, what do the voters actually want? And that is where we're gonna have to find that energy. I haven't seen it yet. And I don't think we will see it until we get into the 2028 cycle.

Keegan Goudiss (34:33)
I always wondered what it would have been like if if you just reminded me I agree with all your points and I but I also I want to and I want to just remind me of there was some universe out there where we actually won in 2002 and and Gephardt became speaker and always wondered what he would have been like as speaker. I know it's a weird thing to nerd about but it was you know like he was the first national politician that I had like one on one time with like I would be

I used to work at DTrip member services and he would come in a ton, very supportive of the other members and would like say hi to me, right? Like as a a college student and it was he was such a he's not dead, but you know, it's like.

Matthew Rodriguez (35:14)
Yes.

One

of the most decent, I mean, I guy was like, I've worked for every, even Obama and I enjoyed it, but Dick was by far the best person I've worked with in, I've been in the business almost 30 years now, I hate to say it. And maybe it's the first guy I worked with, you know, but, and I worked in, went in, started with him in 1997. But he was just great. I mean, the guy was just, he was great. Just very Midwestern nice, you know, really meant it. Really thoughtful. Just really, really won, you know.

kind of person who worked for once in a life, frankly. Because not everyone's like that in this business, including on our side of the aisle. They're not always like that.

Keegan Goudiss (35:50)
Yes, there's quite

a few on our side of the aisle. I'm not going to go in and asshole shame everybody right now, but yeah.

Matthew Rodriguez (35:58)
One of the things that I think is important, and this is gonna be a challenge for Democrats as we're talking about this, because I remember this when I started with, like I said a long time ago, I don't think the elite side of the Democratic Party realizes, I know they say it, but I don't know if we realize how much culture matters and how far removed we are from some parts of the country. And I don't mean this as the usual, we just like say it, I'm saying we actually don't represent those areas of the country.

This is a real challenge. And I don't just mean the usual, we gotta talk, work, and class. These are like slogans. I'm talking about, I remember when I worked in the house, there was a guy, Gene Taylor, represented like Mississippi. Was it Boswell? What was the guy's name? Yeah, Leonard Boswell ⁓ in Iowa. You had people from kind of all over.

at Lipinski, I remember, but the father, not even the son, who was in Illinois, Congressman Lipinski. So you had people who represented some of these more working class areas, both in the South.

Midwest. The problem is we don't represent them anymore. And I'm not here doing the usual Democratic bash. I'm just saying I think it's going to be hard. When I see a Newsom or I see a Rahm Emanuel who's made a bunch of money and like hedge funds or whatever it is, I can't understand it. I'm not blaming him for that. I'm just saying, think we say, well, we just to go talk to those people, but we don't really represent them. If you look at the maps. So I think that that's a bit of an issue is everyone complains about blue latte drinking Democrats. That might be true. We can't just give up on those voters. Those are our voters.

But I do think it's going to be difficult because we just don't represent those areas. So we're kind of making up through our focus groups and research or what we read, what we think those voters want. Does that make sense? And so I think that's a challenge, but we don't actually just represent them. We don't actually come from that community. And I do think that has been creating headwinds now as we've been losing that and shunting those voters for about 20 years.

with a big lot of it frankly happening during Obama, we got hammered in 2010 and 2014. And so I think how do you culturally connect with an area that you don't represent where you're just sort of saying, I think if I say this to that cohort, whatever it is, demographic, ethnic, religious, whatever it is, if I just say these things, it will move them in my direction. That's a hard thing to do. And we just don't represent areas of the country that we're purporting right now to go in and try to get back.

Doesn't mean we can't, but it's a challenge.

Keegan Goudiss (38:25)
Well, I would argue that embracing primary is as part of it ⁓ that we sort of like law. We're a very big tent party and you're an expert at building coalitions and you know this as well as I do. Like our coalition is really big, right? And it's like any like cultural shifts can can change it drastically and we have to figure out how do we keep people in the tent? You know, as they're like, I don't like how this is shifting and also address people who want to shift that way.

And yeah, I've always felt this is a little bit self serving because of my work with Bernie, but like they're just you know, people are just so hostile like I had people who tell me told me that they I ruined their wedding because of Bernie running against Hillary and I was like really? Well, why did? That yeah that they were getting married. They were going to get they were going to get married during the primary season, but like Bernie did so well that they had to like push off their wedding and like reschedule it. I'm like, well, I you know that's not my fault.

Matthew Rodriguez (39:08)
You ruined the wedding.

Keegan Goudiss (39:22)
that you stupidly booked your wedding when you're working on a presidential campaign during the fucking primary, you know? Like, I don't know why you feel the need to tell me that. Back then, I was much more of a people pleaser, and I was like, oh, wow, I'm really sorry to hear that. Like, I hope we can still be friends. We're not friends.

Matthew Rodriguez (39:38)
I thought Democrats

were for democracy. I thought we were for the open sharing of ideas. What, now for weddings, we gotta shut down the primaries for weddings? Interesting. It's a new one.

Keegan Goudiss (39:45)
⁓ Yeah, well at

some point along the way it felt like we were much more about fixing the race for who we thought could win and that's obviously worked out so well for us.

Matthew Rodriguez (39:56)
Yeah, well,

that's been, I mean, you couldn't have picked, ⁓ I mean, again, I've got nothing against the Hillary thing. We've obviously beat her in 08 when we ran in the primary. She was what she was, but I just think there's been, this is what I mean by what gets back to the beginning of the conversation. I don't think Democrats as a party and as voters have, ⁓ I don't think they've reckoned with the era that we're in.

of lack of trust in government and institutions and the repeated failings that have come on all sides. It's not like one thing or the other. And I think, you know, when the Republicans put up Mitt Romney, it was almost laughable in terms of the moment. was just an absurd, and Mitt Romney's a smart guy. He's been very successful. He would have been a fine president, whatever you consider a fine president.

beyond the ideology. It was just ludicrous coming off of people getting tossed out of their homes in 08 or 09 and bankers making massive bonuses that you're going to put up a corporate rate or whatever from Bain Capital. But it wasn't really dissimilar to the Hillary thing. And they basically ran almost the same campaign, which was the other side's bunch of idiots. Don't vote for that. His was the what? The 47%. Hers was the deplorable. mean, they both just couldn't really grasp where kind of like regular voters were. Bernie had that, but he was getting...

tossed into the meat grinder of the kind of the institutional part of the Democratic Party. It happened again in 2020. And so I don't know what that's gonna look like in 2028. That's, you know, we're gonna see. There's no obvious institutional candidate running. So this is gonna be the most wide open one we've had in a while. I mean, they were trying to preordain Hillary in 2016. You know, Biden, you know, the 2020 race was unique.

but he still had been the vice president and there was panic around Bernie in the institution. There may be panic, but there's no one to coalesce around in 2028. I mean, there may be a candidate we don't see, but I'm saying there's no former vice president, Hillary Clinton or anything like that. This is gonna be open. Doesn't mean a Bernie type candidate comes through. I don't know who's gonna come through, but it's gonna be a different fundamental race.

Keegan Goudiss (41:59)
I just hope we have the equivalent of the Dean scream or something. I just want that. Yeah, obviously not everything is a repeat of every election, but does it remind me a lot of of of 2004 in like trying to find our like, know, it was such a. 2000 was such a obviously huge disappointment on the whole other level so many levels and with everything going.

Matthew Rodriguez (42:03)
Are we going to get worse? ⁓

Keegan Goudiss (42:26)
felt like there was a big shift then and there's a big shift now. I was a Democrats don't really have a great like offline meeting space, something that like, you know, I'm hoping that will change over time. But we you know, we aren't as religious, some of us are but like churches aren't like a great watering hole like it is for the right. I would say the closest thing that we have to that is Costco. And I was in Costco on Sunday and ⁓

It was like it felt like COVID right right before COVID like it was like panic shopping in Costco over the weekend. And I mean like Costco is always bad on a Sunday from my perspective in suburban DC. It was like the lines were all the way to the end of the store. Like people were aggressive and angry and just like you could feel like they were worried ⁓ and whether something bad happens or not. You know, like that just because people are worried doesn't mean things are bad. Bad are going to happen, but it's. I think we're in for a big big shift.

Matthew Rodriguez (43:04)
Oh, yeah, it's like, oh my god.

Yes.

Keegan Goudiss (43:23)
⁓ And I don't know exactly what it is. It might be dolls. might be Christmas. It could be like, you know, other things. But yeah, I, I certainly don't have any faith in the Trump administration being ready for the shift. And I, you know, I certainly hope on our side that we're able to tap into that in a way that we haven't in quite some time.

Matthew Rodriguez (43:42)
Yeah. Well, it's the opera. It's for all the stuff that I was saying, Democrats have some challenges. This is the opportunity. I mean, if Trump, if prices go up, this is politically, because no one wants to, you know, look, I'm actually rooting for Trump rooting in the sense of who wants prices to go up? You know, you know, I'm lucky enough to live in Santa Barbara. Like, yeah, it'll be annoying to me. It's going to be existential for some people. So I would, you know, I'm not looking for the supply chains to be to the point where it's a disaster, because I just, I think that's a kind of a kind of ghoulish way to look at public policy.

personally. All that said, from a political perspective, if Democrats are serious about this, this is where they need an economic plan, right? Like, because to me, I would be keeping it much more simple. You like the tax increases? You like the tariffs that are going to potentially cause these problems? Do you like of the chaos that he's unleashing? I would be doing most of that. I think the other stuff is sort of distracting.

I would be focusing completely on his job was to bring prices down and he's not doing it, right? He had opportunities to change it he could never do it. And I would be focusing on that. I think that is what Democrats ⁓ future is tied to. And I think out of that will become, will hopefully come lessons of, okay, how do those voters that we are trying to win back, some of those people of color that are starting to move away a little bit, some of those middle-class folks and working class folks.

some of those emerging and some of those other ethnic groups too, they're not just Latinos, right? know, Indian, Asian American, you know, where are they looking at themselves in this economic time and how do we craft something heading into 2028 that speaks to them? ⁓ Coming off of what Trump has done, because I do think there are clearly going to be consequences from what he's done. And not just that the stock market went down for like two weeks and it's starting to float back up. I don't think that's enough. ⁓ I think we got to meet them there.

And that's my take of where the opportunity is. But we've got to, if this party does not establish itself in an economic frame, it doesn't mean we'll lose forever. There's always the apocalyptic visions, but we are never, it's gonna be very hard to have any kind of governing, either majority or, we are always gonna put Republicans in the game if we do not have some approach to the economic life that voters have. And the fact is, all the polls say it. People don't think Democrats have any position on any of that.

And that's, I think that is the biggest flashing red light. All the other stuff is problematic, social issues, that's all that's true. But, you know, we do not have an economic plan that voters have any faith in.

Keegan Goudiss (46:11)
Well, you mentioned

Ezra Klein before. you read his book Abundance? The new one everybody's talking about?

Matthew Rodriguez (46:14)
I have

not read it. I've seen a couple of, I haven't looked at it yet. I have my own thoughts on, I've seen a couple of his interviews.

Keegan Goudiss (46:21)
I haven't read it yet either. was hoping maybe you were gonna tell me what you think of it. It's on my list.

Matthew Rodriguez (46:25)
Well, think,

well, know, like, I can't, you know, it's a little bit like we don't represent any of these people. what Ezra Klein, he writes his books so he can say it's in the New York Times bestsellers. He's making, you know, hundreds of thousands. And there's nothing against Ezra Klein, I'm sure he's fine. But like, I...

I don't think if, say California, it could be any state, I don't think if California or the blue states had gleaming high-speed trains like Japan, that people would be like, you know, that's an example of great liberal governance. I do think some of the blue states have problematic elements to what they've done, but I think some of this stuff is, it isn't like, we've run government so well that we're just gonna put people in charge. mean.

The voters have been throwing people out every two years now going back to Gingrich. mean, people are pretty unhappy. When I grew up, I'm old enough to remember it. I literally, I grew up, a guy was born in 1972, I hate to say it. You just assumed that the Democrats were gonna be in charge of the House literally forever. It wasn't even a question that they would. I mean, yeah, the Senate flipped in 1980 to Republicans, but then it flipped back during Reagan and Reagan, so the presidency would flip.

But wasn't until, but after that, like Republicans can't keep a speaker because they can't run the house. So they've, they've deposed everybody. I mean, we'll see how Juan Johnson lasts, but they basically, it goes back to Gingrich, Livingston, Hastert, you know, Paul Ryan. I mean, they can't keep any of their people in there. And it wasn't like, you know, Obama was a unique figure in terms of his branded image, but voters were pretty immediately soured at least broadly on the Democratic party while he was there, whether you blame him or not, but like, you know, 2010 and 14, plus the state races were disasters.

and Trump won in 16. And now it's been ping ponging back and forth. ⁓ you know, I think from that point of view, I just think you have a lot of unhappy, unhappy voters, and they're just not happy with how people are conducting themselves when they get into office. I read a good piece by John Judas today, but he just talks about we're in an era of the lesser evil politics, right? Everything right now is relative to once somebody else gets in, it's all their fault.

and then want to throw the other one out. I don't know if this lasts another two more years or 200 years, but we're definitely in that cycle now where just nobody's happy.

Keegan Goudiss (48:35)
What had Trump this weekend was like, he was asked like, his review, well, is this the Trump economy or the Biden economy? He's like, well, the good parts of the Trump economy, the bad parts of the Biden economy, which for a portion of his base that they like that, it'll work for a bit. It's not going to work for a winning coalition. not going to be big message.

Matthew Rodriguez (48:53)
Yeah, goodbye.

Well, it's also,

yeah. it's also, I mean, I even remember Obama doing this a little bit. They were still talking about George W. Bush in like year, it was like 2015. Like, you know, it's all Bush's fault. But that's, that's pretty typical. I think, look, you own what's in front of you. You know, you can't, you know, look, the voters are not political pundits or American history professors. They're not going to be like, well, I think the price increase with Biden was actually due to the, you know, like you, you, you, the Glass-Steagall Act.

Keegan Goudiss (49:08)
yeah? We all do it.

Nuance is not it not not not something

that's a political

Matthew Rodriguez (49:29)
No,

but if you're a voter and you're working two jobs and you're coming home, they're like, I got a kid, I'm tired all the time, I know you're beat all the time. I'm not running around trying to give a... You're just trying to realize where you are in the moment. Trump's not gonna get away with that. He can say it, but he's not gonna get away with that. He is either gonna have successes or he's not, and he's gonna be judged on that.

Keegan Goudiss (49:47)
Well,

in Johnson Day was like, we're their messages. Well, if Democrats win Congress, they're going to impeach Trump. I'm like, well, that's not really good. I might rally some of your folks, but again, like with everything happening in the economy, I am curious. You know, want we want to make sure we talk about a couple other issues. I want to get your perspective on like, you know, the biggest one to me is Ukraine, but just generally like foreign.

policy like do you obviously tariffs and the economy plays into that now but like do think that's going to be top of mind for anybody or is it is it really not to belabor this point ⁓ it's the economy stupid and that's just focus on that

Matthew Rodriguez (50:27)
Well, I think it is probably the economy. think to me, I'm not the only one ever said this is hardly some revolutionary thought. Like foreign policy is on people's minds when something bad happens, right? Or that really affects them.

I think there've been some problematic elements of Ukraine. And you've seen this with the American kind of military state, which is we're always in a new war. And I think Trump was smart enough, both in 16 and then in 24 to be like, why isn't that money here? Why are we doing this over here? And again, you can make the more nuanced case for why we should or shouldn't be. I'm not here to take a position on it. I'm just saying, think politically there is an element of like, why are we in something every five years? Like, why are we in a new, there's a new threat to democracy that we need to spend.

hundreds of billions of dollars on that nobody else puts over there. And I think Trump has woven a little bit of an anti-war thing along with a little bit of a kind of ⁓ anti-Europe thing and NATO thing. ⁓ And so do I think it's gonna have a big impact? Probably not, but I think some of it's gonna depend if something else happens. mean, if there's an attack or if there's an invasion somewhere, then it is gonna be all the rage. But as we've seen, even in the best example of it in terms of.

getting a political benefit of it, let's say the first Gulf War, I mean, you know, or even the second Gulf War, right? mean, both Bush's skyrocketed and Bush Jr. barely squeaked by in a war because even with, and we're talking just not that long after 2001 and much shorter after invading Iraq where he was mission accomplished and blah, blah, blah. You know, he was in major trouble.

⁓ And then the father lost, you know, after what was not as big of a boondog as the kid got us into, right? I mean, at least that Gulf War, got Saddam out of Kuwait, they backed him up. It was all by all accounts, at least a success. And that lasted him basically not even through his first term and he ended up losing to Bill Clinton. So I don't think foreign policy will be big, but that's always the big unknown, right? ⁓

So I don't know where that's going to land. do think Trump will be marginally helped if he can land the plane on Ukraine and get this thing stopped. think it will help him. I mean, yes, I think you'll have a lot of the DC very smart people being like, oh no, we need to be bombing more, do more. But I think if he actually says I was gonna try to stop this thing and he can.

Again, once we get past the talking points, I know there's been a lot of hysteria, but I'm thinking broadly speaking, think if Ukraine is settling down, we did sign a minerals deal, I do think you'll be able to talk about that. Do I think it's going to be a big boat driver? Not necessarily. But a guy like Trump could say, look, border's better, we're out of Ukraine. If the economy stabilizes a little bit, I know this is probably giving your listeners agita, but if it stabilizes a little bit, it'd be like, look at the things that I was able to do. And that's going to be their case.

But do I broadly think right now people are going to be going to the voting booth thinking of his approach to foreign policy? No, I don't.

Bye

Yeah, yeah, for a audit. No, I just, yeah, I mean, and I think Trump, think most people, the people who voted for Trump, even though, forget about the hardcore ones who loved him, but even the ones who did vote for him, if they'd like to stance in Ukraine, and some did, by the way,

And I'm not defending it, but like, you know, I've seen James Carver running around clucking about how he said he was going to do it in 24 hours and he didn't do it. I don't think anyone who voted for him, I think it's treating the voters like they're morons. No one thought he was going to be out of there in 24 hours. This is how Donald Trump does his thing. He's, you know, politicians tend to speak in hyperbole. Trump just has a unique way of doing it. It's not a defense of him. It's just to say if he gets, if that thing gets wound down, I think it will accrue to his benefit. How big I don't know. Probably not that much, frankly, if again, the economy is all screwed up.

Keegan Goudiss (53:44)
Yeah.

Matthew Rodriguez (53:59)
But I think if things are stable though, and he does wind that down, I do think there will be some benefit for him and his ability to say, you don't want to bring the Democrats in, they're gonna get us right back into these boondoggles. So, time will tell.

Keegan Goudiss (54:12)
time will tell. Well, any other predictions you have for 2025? What do you think? What do think the end of the year is going to look like?

Matthew Rodriguez (54:20)
Trump will be Pope, I'm really excited about that. As fellow Catholic, my mother's rolling in the grave here with his AI-generated imagery. I really don't know, I think ⁓ I'm really, I'm fascinated to see how much bloodletting, if any, beyond the Mike Waltz thing, you know, does a guy like Hagsteth survive? ⁓ know, he's clearly got people in positions. ⁓

that are much more suited to kind of the podcast life, but not just the podcast life, but really the kind of trolling podcast world, right? That's a much more comfortable space for it. Hank Seth, RFK, Kristi Noem, even though she'd been an elected official. So I'm curious to see how long they last. I think guys like Rubio, again, I don't know whether he does or doesn't last, but they're lifers. They wanna be in the business for a while. I'm curious to see how long this first wave of ⁓ Trump cabinet or like advisors,

Blast, I'm really curious to see.

Keegan Goudiss (55:18)
Well, in the final star for Walt seemed to be like he was trying to conspire with Israel to bomb Iran, right? Like he was going behind everybody and like it with all the other things that seem to be pretty awful.

Matthew Rodriguez (55:25)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's not the one that the one was was this thing

Keegan Goudiss (55:35)
He's like, no, you don't go around me to bomb, bomb around. I'm, I'm, I'm the one who's going to go talk to Israel.

Matthew Rodriguez (55:42)
Yeah, yeah, that whole thing is like, you know, I mean, just sort of, I will say, thought Trump, I thought it was a signal of how Trump handled things. I might want to say better or worse, a little more quietly than usual, right? He did, you know, he did get rid of them. And yes, you had the articles being like, it's a mess and it's chaotic. But of course, if you don't like Trump, you're going to write that. I'm not, and you probably should, by the way, I don't think the guy did a good job, but I think the first term, would have been a much more chaotic scene. And they kind of, you know, they kind of knifed him, got him out of there.

And no one's talking about it now. It doesn't mean it speaks well of the incident, but I do think it's a little bit less. I think some of these things are hanging on to Trump a little bit less. know, second thing I am interested in seeing, and maybe I just like it because of the, I don't have to deal with like the Democratic Party like infrastructure, I get to watch it from afar while still being involved in politics, but you know, there's been, ⁓

I've been talking about this for, have to indulge me for my rant, but I'm from outside of Boston originally, so I'm a big sports fan. And I'm a big obviously New England Patriots fan when they were doing well. I'm sure I just lost half your audience who probably hate them. But I remember towards the end watching Belichick and I thought the Belichick stuff, forget about the new girlfriend, if we can talk about that, we'll do that on our TMZ podcast next. I've got thoughts on that too.

Keegan Goudiss (56:52)
That's it.

Matthew Rodriguez (56:58)
But if you watched him, Pete Carroll in Seattle, you saw with Biden a little bit, you saw it clearly with, I think, Feinstein being off as a, but, I forget who that Republican Congresswoman had turned out, what was it? She had dementia or whatever for six, eight years, no one even knew. But my point is there's something about the boomer generation for whatever reason, and again, we'll wait for the books and all the smart people to dissect it, but they won't leave. They won't like leave the arena, right? They just keep staying.

I'm going to be curious from a party perspective, where does this next generation of the party go? Now, some of it I agree is going to be 2028 and a candidate, but you started seeing that was that David Hogg kid or whatever going after Carville. Now, it was kind of funny because I have no dog in this fight one way the other.

But I thought it was kind of funny watching all the smart people in Washington and the carnivals, you know, talking about how this kid doesn't know what he's talking about. And I have no idea if this kid does. I don't know the first thing about him other than obviously the tragedy that he's involved in and he's been politically active since, right? But everyone's kind of trashing him. And I'm thinking, these are all the very smart people making fabulous amounts of money having lived in DC that's driven the Democratic Party's approval rating down to 27%. And you're telling me that this kid has no idea what he's talking about. And it just reminded me a little bit of watching Belichick, like you really are of your moment.

And it's like, the guy's got to go. I don't care that he won the Super Bowl. This isn't working. And I am curious to see how does the party finally say these elected officials, because they're not, some of them aren't getting up there. They are well paid. And I'm not trying to make an ageist case or anything. I'm just broadly speaking. There's a creative destruction that we say in capitalism. There's a creative destruction that happens in all ideological and party movements and they will not leave. And I am curious to see.

how that plays out. I that was a microcosm of the little stuff. But at some point, you know, the world's usually run by 40s and 50 year olds, and even 30s to some degree. And I think watching this just this sclerotic thing in the party, while whatever you say about the Republicans, they might be kind of freak shows and a little crazy, but there is a kind of dynamism that I think they've shown over the last and tolerance for kind of chaos. And that can be negative, but it has created some growth for them.

certainly in terms of their electoral coalition. And I just think it's kind of hilarious watching the same people being like, well, we can't possibly do these three things. We have to do this. And it's like, aren't you the people who've been doing it for 40 years? I don't think that's a tenable, I'm not here to trash them. I'm just saying, I don't think that tension is a, it's a sustainable tension that can go on forever.

Keegan Goudiss (59:32)
Yeah, no, I hear you. also I, you going back to predictions, I'm not sure Trump's going to make it to the end of the year. Like I, think, know, like, there's obviously that there should be a lot more discussion about what happened behind the scenes with Biden as he as he visibly aged in the Oval Office. I mean, this is not like that big of a secret. Like the presidents get a lot of stuff to keep them going and working the hours they need to do. And I think when you are

In your 80s, there's only so much your body can take and clearly Trump is at the end of like whatever they're doing to keep him animated as well. You know, whether it's you know, whatever drugs or whatever regiment like the man is not healthy. And I think that we're going to it's going to start coming out a little bit more on on him being manipulated by his staff. Maybe maybe it'll take several years for all it all come out. Who knows, but.

Matthew Rodriguez (1:00:29)
Well,

I agree. Well, it was one of the great, I think, mistakes, you know, everyone's going through there, like that we just never ran a primary in 2024. I, you know, was a million, like million books on it. I get it. We just, we won't know, assuming, let's say, Kamala for whatever reason did not get the nomination. We don't know whether she would have saved it in a full primary, but let's say she didn't for whatever reason. And it was name the person.

I don't even want to accidentally, because it's Gretchen Whitmer, it's Wes Moore, it's whoever. Whoever it is will never have had the juxtaposition of a person sort of in the prime of their professional life versus what Trump is and could be. And the risk that we're taking by having put someone in so old, that was just completely taken off the table. And by the time Kamala was put in the race or got in the race or however you want to frame it, that was just sort of.

too late and you can't go back. But I'm with you. I've never been for this type of stuff. I've always been when it's time to go, it's time to go. You know, and that's and look, I'm going to face it and we all face it. I get it. It's the circle of life. ⁓ At some point, you got to go and Democrats won't go. And I do think that that's been part of the boomer generation. And I think it's been not under report. I it's been reported. But I don't think it's been enough focus on it. But we'll never know if there's been a real 18 month

Workout issues, what's working with different demographics, what's selling, what's not, battle it out. That's what primaries are for, and they really do serve that purpose. It doesn't mean that everyone coming out of primary is the perfect candidate, obviously. You can get Michael Dukakis, or you can get Mitt Romney on the other side. But it does tend to at least sharpen you and force you to run a real campaign. We never did it, and we paid the price for it. But I agree with you. To have an 80-year-old in office who's 270 pounds is ludicrous.

But we did that to some degree ourselves because we didn't give them much of an option.

Keegan Goudiss (1:02:23)
Yeah, no, I hear you. I I want one. I'm there's a song. Please don't go don't go that the for whatever reason is my head now that you're making your point

And two, I feel very, very strongly that Biden could have been remembered as George Washington, even if we had still lost, right? Even whoever the nominee was. Kamala might have won the primary. Like she had a really good like operation and money that may have carried through. Whoever the nominee was, even if we had lost, it would have been like, look, this man sacrificed the ultimate power for the future of the country.

Matthew Rodriguez (1:02:47)
Yeah.

Keegan Goudiss (1:03:01)
We gave it all we could in law. And it's just such a moment that frankly, they fumbled, right?

Matthew Rodriguez (1:03:09)
It's so ironic about it because with Biden, I'm totally with you because you're right. So let's say Kamala gets through that, but the whole frame for her would have been different because Biden's being looked at as someone who was addled and should have been. Even if he was out, he gave it up. So the whole frame, his positives would have been, think by definition, much higher. There were still a bit of angst. mean, there were some had with look, inflation's bad. That stuff wasn't good, but it would have put in the party. I think the country's been waiting for it. It would have put a kind of person, know, it would have put the country above.

personal interests, whatever. So we'll never know how that would have, the benefit that would have accrued to whoever the Democratic nominee was, including her, had she been coming out of it. Instead, I think she was saddled with all the negatives of Biden, ⁓ with no chance to kind of carve her own path, which I think was a real, I just think it was a real, it was just a real tragedy. And the other ironic part is, look, Biden was never a great politician. mean, great in the sense that he'd been elected for a long time, but he was somewhat, know, he was rescued from the ash heap, not,

He'd run in wait, he wasn't gonna win. He'd run multiple times, it had not gone well. This was a guy who was gonna just retire. He becomes vice president on Obama, who was a kind of phenomenon of his time. And Biden becomes the president, the Bernie stuff, the party coalesces around him to either push him forward or to take it away from Bernie. It depends on how you wanna frame it. ⁓

But he does become president. Biden is never gonna be, no matter what he did, he was never gonna be the charismatic version of a Clinton, Reagan or Obama. He was never really gonna be a kind of giant intellectual figure. That's just not who he is. But he had one thing in front of him to make him that kind of great historical figure, which was, I was the bridge to get us away from Trump. And I'm handing it off, which people don't do in this business, George Washington, right? And he didn't do it.

And it's completely reversed how he's looked at both as president and think his entire career now. And it was a shame because it was right in front of him and he didn't do it.

Keegan Goudiss (1:05:04)
It is a Greek tragedy.

Matthew Rodriguez (1:05:06)
Yeah, it is. really is. It really is a great tragedy in a lot of ways. Gets the office he was searching for for so long, ⁓ and in a lot of ways left it worse off. ⁓ When there were two paths, it was like Robert Frost, it was like two paths in a snowy wood. He had two paths to go and he took the one that probably resulted in maximal damage. I don't know how else to say it. I think it's true.

Keegan Goudiss (1:05:30)
Well, that note, Matt, thank you so much for joining the forecast. I hope that we can do this again and we'll look back and see where the country is at, hopefully.

Matthew Rodriguez (1:05:39)
Once we get

to 2026, we'll be able to do more predictions. That'll be a little easier once things are a little clearer, and then we can have 2026 predictions.

Keegan Goudiss (1:05:46)
for sure is very uncertain right now, but I appreciate your time. Thank you for joining and for everybody listening. The first issue, the forecast has been printed. It's making its way out to you now. If you haven't signed up already, now is your last chance to get a free copy. Go to forecast.news, put in your mailing address and we will send you a free copy. Thanks Matt.

Matthew Rodriguez (1:06:06)
Thank you.