[0:00]Democrats are going to clean up in the 2026 midterms. I'm not worried that Democrats can win the election. I am worried that they can get this man to leave office without some kind of major
[0:12]curse. Hello and welcome to Trump World. I'd say it's not been a great week for
[0:21]Donald Trump. We are winging through literally millions of files from the Epstein files. There's been a lot of criticism of his administration for
[0:32]their lack of transparency in releasing them. He is named literally thousands of times in them. He insists that there has been no wrongdoing, but clearly that has been very difficult for him and the
[0:44]administration. On top of that, he's had to back back down over the kind of ice surge that we saw in Minneapolis and across Minnesota. He also had to claw
[0:56]back from basically threatening to invade Greenland. And there is a lot of people here who are worrying a lot about the cost of living and do not think Donald Trump is doing enough to fix it
[1:07]and who also think that he's a bit less America first and a bit too much America fights. He is sending an armada to Iran um where there could at some point be an
[1:18]American strike. We've seen a huge focus on foreign policy and I hear more and more people here saying why is he not fing focusing on the domestic side of this. This is an important year after
[1:30]all an important political year. I tell you every week a week is a long time in Trump world. Well, how about nine months? Enough time to create a baby.
[1:41]But is it enough time for the Democrats to put together a strategy that will actually hurt Republicans on November the 3 in the midterms? That's what this year is about. I'm going to be speaking
[1:52]to a Democratic analyst and um data expert in the first half of this podcast to see how much hope the Democrats have when it comes to the midterms. And then
[2:03]after that, I'm going to be speaking to not Matt this week, but my colleague Chris Schleman, who is behind the scenes here in Washington, DC. He is our
[2:13]picture editor, and this week marks 40 years that he has been doing that job on the front line of this crazy story. Now, Donald Trump has kicked off the midterm
[2:24]year with a speech in Iowa where he talked about how much those elections mean in his eyes. So even if it's a Democrat or
[2:35]Republican, whoever wins the presidency has a hard time with the midterm. If we lose the midterms, you'll lose so many of the things that we're talking about, so many of the assets that we're talking
[2:46]about, so many of the tax cuts that we're talking about, and it would lead to very bad things. We got to win the midterms. >> Joining me now is Dr. Rachel
[2:56]Bitteroffer. She is a strategist and pollster, author of Hit Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game. And she's
[3:06]also just done an analysis of November's midterm elections and how she thinks it's going. I think it's fair to say that Rachel is very much on one side of
[3:17]this argument and certainly quite anti-Trump. Rachel, thank you so much for joining me. You've described this second Trump presidency
[3:26]as a roller coaster. Um, and I'm certain it feels like a roller coaster ride, an emotional one for a lot of the people who, you know, oppose Donald Trump.
[3:38]Take me on that ride for a moment. If we just go back to November last year when he won, how high had he risen? >> Yes, he was popular. I mean, you enough to win the popular vote and the
[3:49]electoral college by, you know, strong margins. So there's no doubt I would say that Trump was riding a wave of popularity higher than he had ever had before. A lot of that was driven by the
[3:59]fact that Trump was not in office and Joe Biden was. Okay? Because Americans um you know part of it's our low civic literacy. We only have half the population that votes even in a
[4:09]presidential election. So some of it's that. But the other part of it is that we always hate the in party. Whoever's in charge now sucks, right? And you know media likes to spend a lot of time
[4:20]talking about the independence and you know and the number of independents have risen. But in political science speak we know most independents will admit that they lean towards one party or the other
[4:30]and if they do say that that we can anticipate their vote choice just like a partisan voter would be able to. Right? So those independents they always hate
[4:40]what's in office. That being said they really hate what's in office now. I mean, they're starting to kind of see the difference between like a hypothetically bad government, which is,
[4:50]you know, American system, not no government is perfect, but it's it's until now been reasonably stable. >> I know what you're saying, like the American system, half the country is
[4:59]disappointed. But half the country was really disappointed this time, right? Because the gap between where Donald Trump was and where those who oppose him
[5:09]are and were is massive. What I learned is it's really hard to get a public to anticipate something catastrophic, right? Like humans are not wired to like, oh, Donald Trump's going to come
[5:20]back and it's going to be a disaster, right? Um, some of us can feel that and, you know, we're ringing the alarm. But I I just think it's so funny, right? Because like in the American system,
[5:31]we've normalized his behavior to the point where we really don't take a second to step back and say, "Wow, that's really weird." Right? And you know, there's a segment of the
[5:41]American intellectual class, I would say, that I'm a member of it, that has always been very like sober about the threat that Donald Trump would pose.
[5:51]When you say go back to November, boy, let me tell you what November like 8th and 9th and whatever felt like. It it felt like knowing like being strapped to
[6:02]a train that you know is coming up to a crossing where the bridge has been blown out but you can't get off the train. >> So where are you right now then?
[6:13]>> The train kept going >> you know I mean right now I'm I'm I am 5050 as to whether we we are able to transition power in 2028. I think that I
[6:22]think it's really uh astounding how many people will just assume he'll leave office. I hear it even amongst media that are are pretty wideeyed and opened
[6:32]about like the illegalities of Trump and yet I'll hear them say but you know he's go he's a lame duck or he's going to be gone in 28 and I just think that's a huge assumption to make. You know it
[6:43]it's a it's a load to bear. I think there's a segment of us that have been with us, you know, from the moment he went down the escalator I was like oo that's bad cuz I know voters and they're going to like this. They're going to
[6:54]love this idea that, you know, this um, you know, racist and bigoted language that he's selling. They're going to love it of an expert in in American voters. And that's unfortunately a part of of of
[7:05]America, right? Racism. So, it is uh, it's definitely something that every citizen of the free world should be focused on right now. >> And there has been a decline in terms of
[7:15]his popularity. And you said he's the most unpopular he's ever been. But you know when I look at those figures and I spent a lot of my career looking at data and trying to analyze the type of data you work with and you know give it to
[7:27]our viewers there's still tens and tens of millions of people who really do support what he is doing. How big has the decline been? >> Okay, let me be clear. Where is he
[7:38]declining? He's a binary choice environment. So it's a lot of these independent soft Republicans who like oh Biden's old. I'm going with this guy. Right? So when I say that his popularity is declining, it's big- time declining
[7:50]amongst independents. So you could see that and I just put out my 26 2026 midterm forecast yesterday where I talk about this massive backlash. The thing
[8:00]that first brought my work onto the national stage in 2018 was forecasting the midterms. The first midterm after Trump and Trump backlash, >> you got it right. Is bigger. Yeah. And I
[8:11]was right. Right. And I'm right now I mean what's happening now is that the electorate has serious buyers remorse. The problem with that is we're going to see strong performance from Democrats in
[8:22]these midterms. In fact, we just saw a district here in Texas. Texas has one of the most, you know, strict and and painful voting systems. The Republicans make it hard to vote there. And even
[8:32]then with a purely Republican administered electorate election um you know the Democrat won not just won a district that Trump had carried by 17
[8:42]points but overperformed even that it was really a 30 point swing right so he's in trouble where he's never been in trouble before and that's amongst
[8:52]Republican some soft independent Republican leaners. Okay. And that's a very positive sign. So like here's the thing. I'm good news bad news. I got great news for everybody. Um, uh,
[9:02]Democrats are going to clean up in the 2026 midterms. Cleaning up for the Democrats means taking the House majority. It's very narrow majority to begin with, and they've offset the
[9:14]gerrymandering, right? Um, so there that's easy, I think, for Democrats to do. The question is, can they translate that better into the Senate map? And the Senate map is not easy for Democrats. It
[9:26]never will be until they improve their brand image among working class. Not when we say working class here, I don't not talking just about white people. I'm talking about a very diverse population
[9:36]of people. So, you know, the point is the public is going to want Trump checked and they're going to want him out in 28. Will he leave? Like, right. I mean, can we get I mean, we can win
[9:47]elections in Georgia. Can we certify them in Georgia? I mean like the I don't know if the international community really understands how much power grabby stuff has already happened but in
[9:58]Georgia which is one of our states that and it has two Democratic senators. It's a red state. You know they have to not only win the election to win it. They have to get the state legislature which
[10:08]is controlled by Republicans to agree they did so without fraud. Right? And they don't have to have any like evidence. This whole time Trump has never had any evidence of fraud. He's had the opposite. Right? We we did an
[10:20]analysis and we know for sure there was no fraud. But yet, you know, there so that but but there's 30 or 40 million people who believe him that the election
[10:31]was stolen. They believe >> and he's now this week talking about nationalizing elections. >> Yep. And they and they love this stuff. In fact, some of the breakage that we
[10:41]see is not from, you know, Renee Good and Alex Pretty getting shot doing peaceful observing, okay? it's from uh some from the far right when he pulled
[10:52]out of Minnesota it was a betrayal right that they they in their opinion it's not tough enough and I just think it's very important for people to realize the Trump base is not all of America again
[11:04]half of us didn't bother to vote right so it's definitely not half of America the American electorate it is half of and then of it I would say you know we're talking 70 million votes well I
[11:15]think about 30 million of them are in in a mass psychosis they believe in alternative reality that they could disprove if they were to Google it or read a transcript or a criminal
[11:26]indictment. Right. >> But a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 voted for different reasons as well. I mean, you talked about the demographic groups. I was um
[11:36]presenting in my old job the data as it came in. We were using AP vote counts and AP vote cast and we had done some practice before the actual election night. And in one of the practices, they'd come up with some data for
[11:48]Georgia, which had shown underlying trends among black people and women, and it had shown a quite significant shift towards Donald Trump for both of those groups. And when we were doing it, some of the people we were practicing with were like, "Yeah, but that won't
[12:00]happen." Um, and then on the night, we got the exact data that we had practiced with, which was this remarkable shift among black voters and among women in Georgia. And and I know you're saying
[12:11]that has changed, but nevertheless, at the time it was extremely striking. And of course, over the night, we also saw an extremely striking shift among
[12:21]Hispanic voters. And ultimately, what happens this November and what happens in 2028, presumably for a candidate, if it isn't Donald Trump, trying to stand
[12:31]himself who is in Trump's image, is whether or not those groups shift back. How how you know striking is the move back away from for example Hispanic
[12:42]voters. >> Striking I mean we already see it right. So again I mean one thing that like you know got me into to try to bring political science more into the mainstream is things like that right
[12:54]like okay um you know are these demographic ch changes some of them. So there has been for 30 years a shift of workingclass voters towards the right
[13:06]and college educated voters towards the left. That is something that's going to happen. Although progress will flip back and forth if you if you're the party of power in the United States, we consider
[13:17]that to be the White House. If you are the president, right? So what we're already seeing is a massive switch back and I know like there's been a couple analysis that have come out. I think
[13:29]Nate's Nate Cohen had some data on this from his New York Times Sienna poll as well recently and it shows he's moving right back, right? And so a lot of that
[13:38]is just buyers remorse, the constant swing back and you know I knew Democrats would clean up in 2018 for one reason and one reason only. They were Democrats
[13:48]and not Republicans, right? Now we have an environment. So for four years we lived under this Biden world where everything was very angsty and focused about Biden. Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden.
[14:00]Now it's Donald Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And for Vibe voters who are the majority of the electorate, if you know who your governor and your house member is like I do, then you're
[14:10]weird. Okay. In America, like you shouldn't know that, right? Normal people don't like spend their day reading about politics, right? You >> say we're not normal. >> Yeah, we're not normal. Like we are not.
[14:21]>> We are definitely not normal. >> If we were normal, the world would be a better place, but we are not normal. And we have to accept that what these voters are voting on basically is out party
[14:32]vibe. So what we're seeing now is a reversal with some of that demographic movement, especially young men and Latinos. Huge buyer remorse. Okay, we'll continue >> because of the immigration policy. Much
[14:42]more extreme than they expected. >> I mean, these are think about what's happening in America right now, guys. Think about what's happening in America. We have masked government goons who have
[14:52]no identification, busting into people's houses, pulling over people's cars and beating their, you know, breaking in their windows and dragging them out, shooting them, uh, shooting cars,
[15:03]leaving abandoned shot cars running on the streets of Minnesota, running into houses, telling people, "Hey, WHERE'S YOUR WARRANT? WE DON'T NEED A WARRANT." RIGHT? Telling people, you know, you better stay back. You saw what happened
[15:15]to the last one that got too close. Right? And these ICE raids have really brought home to some conservatives, oh, like this is supposed to be something I
[15:25]don't like, right? So, you know, there's some there's there's reasons to be hopeful in the context of reality. And I deal with reality. I don't deal with
[15:35]optimism. Like, oh, you know, I I have to deal with the facts at hand. And the facts at hand say the voters are going to switch back in November. They're going to vote D. um you know and and
[15:45]return control at least of the House to the Democrats. But like if they're expecting the Democrats to suddenly have some wonderful Trump show, you know, stopping power, I mean, it certainly is
[15:57]more of a check for them to have this congressional oversight function and Congress is not oversighting anyone. I mean, the only person being brought in for the Epstein files is Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton. Okay? Like, Donald
[16:09]Trump appears in those Epstein files more than Bill Clinton does, right? And so, you know, having control of the Senate and the House would help stop Trump, but nothing can stop Trump now.
[16:20]Nothing. So, for the American people and the Republican party that really they they're the only ones that can save us at this point and make him, you know, adjust behavior. >> Just on the issues you're talking about,
[16:32]clearly immigration, although it is a popular policy in many ways, has probably gone too far for large groups of voters. Some people see Alex Prety's killing in Minneapolis as a really
[16:43]important turning point. We're yet to see whether that will be the case on Epstein. It felt for a while as though there was this big rupture for MAGA voters, but in reality, MAGA voters
[16:54]remain very loyal to Donald Trump if you look at the data. And although his name appears thousands and thousands of times, it feels as if there possibly isn't a smoking gun when it comes to
[17:06]Donald Trump. Now, it might be hidden in the redacted bits and in the bits that we will not see perhaps until Democrats take over in the White House. But do you
[17:14]think Epstein is net negative for him? Clearly with independent voters. >> Yeah, clearly it's it's hugely. I mean, if it's if it can be negative with the
[17:24]Republican base, then it's going to be catastrophic amongst independents, right? >> And do you think do you think there is also there's always this thing that like with Donald Trump, nothing sticks. like he can be accused of some really bad
[17:36]things. It didn't stop him winning the presidency last year. Has that shifted? >> No. His base. Okay. Yeah. So, let me let me say like of the Republicans, most of
[17:46]them are are going to be 9010. I mean, the do the entire time Donald Trump was in the first term, he had a 90% approval rating among Republicans. Okay. So, lately that has ticked down into the
[17:57]80s. That is that is huge news because they've been unwilling to register reality aside from the first weeks after Jan 6 before the effort to remake what
[18:08]happened on Jan 6 was really begun in earnest by the Republicans and they were able to at least for their part of the country to rewrite the history and you know they all got pardoned and now they are suing the government and their
[18:19]heroes right so it is um you know it it is definitely the case that there's some erosion amongst those Republican identifiers But yeah, to answer your
[18:29]question, those folks will follow Donald Trump through anything like they would he would anything he wants to they will never part with him. And in fact, whatever happens, there's a
[18:40]psychological tool for Trump and his cult to use to discount it and to justify whatever behavior he might do. So waiting for those folks to wake up is
[18:51]not an option. The only real option is to hope that the tuned out American middle who wants no politics. They don't they hate it. They they they don't want to listen to it. They don't like it. Um
[19:02]uh politics you can ignore politics to to when it's when it's functioning, right? But when a system is collapsing like ours is, and it is a collapsing
[19:11]democracy, no doubt about that. Um you know, government becomes noticeable when it's bad, right? And so, you know, our best hope is that people will realize,
[19:23]oh, actually, I had it pretty good. Like, America was be we were respected in the world. We could travel somewhere without having to worry about being
[19:31]booed um or black balled from a Canadian restaurant because >> I mean, you say that, but also we've seen world leaders bend over backwards to try and say how much they love Donald
[19:42]Trump. I mean it is kind of interesting to see how the world is reacting to >> they have to but the reason you see world leaders capitulate to him I'm
[19:53]going to tell you is because of the size of the United States military I mean guys we can't have like the world together would have trouble standing up to the United States armed to the
[20:04]capacity that we have allowed the United States to become armed to and we did that as the idea of being like the protectors of freedom and stabiliti uh stabilizing force in forward events. But
[20:16]Donald Trump has had inherited a machine that could be used for other purposes, right? And he's already shown us an incline to do or an um impulse to do that. He went to Venezuela and did a
[20:26]coup, you know, did a coup. That's crazy, right? He was blowing up boats in the water. He threatened Greenland to the point where our our allies had to
[20:37]deploy forces to Greenland to protect Greenland from America. right? Like it sucks. It really sucks. Um but it's important for people to know that not
[20:48]all, you know, half of America did not vote for this quite literally. >> And let me just ask you one final question about the positive vote, the partisan positive vote. Going around the country talking to people, it is clear
[20:59]to me that the Democratic brand has taken a real kicking. And actually, although I think the cost of living could get Donald Trump into trouble, a lot of people still blame Democrats for
[21:11]the state of the economy, whether that's fair or not. Um, and where is the positive message? Like, how important is that when it comes to the presidency? um
[21:22]sorry when it comes to the presidential elections in 2028 and are there characters out there in the Democratic party who you look at and think they are going to mobilize and motivate people?
[21:33]>> Oh yeah. Oh, they always do. And they have a very well-healed system. Everything that runs on on uh elbow grease and bubble gum in the Democratic system is financed and and professionalized in the Republican
[21:44]system. So you can doubt have no doubt that they'll show up. But Elon himself dropped $240 million personally in 2024, has said he's coming back for 2026. Um, and you know, so here's the thing. It's
[21:56]a great opportunity for my shameless plug of my 26 2026 midterm forecast, which just came out yesterday because I talk about how in 2026 because midterm
[22:07]effects are a referendum on the party in power. There you don't our brand is stopping chaos is what I call it, right? You don't need a brand to win the midterms big. And we already know the
[22:17]Democrats are winning midterms big from all the indicators and the data that we have. So you guys can read that there. But the um you know the problem comes for them on branding and I mentioned
[22:29]this throughout the piece that in you know right now the Democratic brand is defined entirely by its opposition. So the Republicans spend a lot of money branding Democrats as blue-haired you
[22:40]know trans people like radical people. they they do a very good job of defining Democrats along its most extremist base.
[22:49]Okay. and um and and Democrats themselves because of uh Obama era election strategy which is really focused on microtargeting like what we
[23:00]call identity based appeals like oh Indian-Americans or women or this or that right um that left us with a brand I take on my lecture circuit I take a
[23:11]slide I take two slides but I take one that shows all the issues of 2024 and it asked people which party's better on each of these issues issues, right? So, what you're looking at is a graph
[23:22]where a bunch of stuff is 50/50. Like I, you know, respondents are just as likely to say Republicans are good on and it's a host of Democratic bread and butter issues, social security, Medicare,
[23:34]healthcare, education, right? The one thing in that data that they know about the Democratic party, the average Joe's and James out there, and these are the better ones that at least vote. They're
[23:45]not the other 100 million. They know nothing. literally nothing in the data about Democrats except for one thing and that is that we're for gay rights. And that is great. Like as a human being,
[23:57]I'm glad that my party represents people's, you know, um, gay, you know, is robustly in support of gay rights. But like, if that's the only thing that most of the electorate knows about you,
[24:08]good luck, okay? Because it's a niche issue for most people. There's only a small segment of of a population that's gay. And although we made it really really big in social media on the
[24:18]progressive left like it's not an issue that is is is on top of mind of voters. So the point of it is the brand issues remain. It is it is not consequential
[24:29]for 2026. It will be consequential in 2028. That said, can you imagine where we'll be in three years? What I always tell people is like this is not
[24:38]>> in three days. This is not even the end of the beginning. To quote the great Winston Churchill, who's my favorite politician ever, right? We're not even at the end of the beginning, guys. I
[24:49]hate I hate that. I hated knowing that through the election. I hated knowing it, you know, on November through 2024 and that winter. But the fact of the matter is if you think things are bad
[24:59]here now, just it's just getting started. It's going to get much much worse. And like the point of that is I think there's going to be huge appetite against Republicans in 2028. An
[25:11]advantage Harris didn't have. She was the end party. Okay. And I'm not worried that Democrats can win the election. I am worried that they can certify it and get somebody sworn in and get this man
[25:22]to leave office without some kind of major curl. >> Not not the optimism I was hoping to end on, but I guess that is um the reality as you would see it at the moment. I
[25:32]guess for those who oppose Donald Trump, you are saying that there could be something hopeful at the end of this year and then who knows what comes beyond that. Rachel, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
[25:44]>> That was a great way to put it. Yep. Now, as you've probably noticed, Matt Fry is not here, but I am going to be talking to a colleague, Chris Schlean,
[25:55]who unlike Matt and myself, is behind the scenes, but has an absolutely lynchpin role here in the DC team. He is the picture editor. He basically puts
[26:06]together the pieces that you watch on Channel 4 News. He has been doing it for 40 years. is when he began, Ronald Reagan was president. He's seen seven
[26:18]presidencies. And I have to say, as someone who is newish to America, I often ask Chris for kind of background and his take on the stories that we are
[26:28]covering because he has seen it all again and again. He's covered almost everything you can imagine. He's had a front row seat to this crazy American
[26:38]story, and I'm delighted that he has agreed to come on to Trump World. Uh Chris, thank you for doing this. >> Thank you. >> Not normally in front of the camera.
[26:48]>> Um so I was six when you started this job. >> That just blows my mind. It's so hard to conceive of. Oh man. >> I was in the UK. Margaret Thatcher was
[26:59]prime minister. >> Yeah. >> And Ronald Reagan Reagan was president. >> President with a interestingly close relationship. But but let's start with your first day. >> Yeah. My first day interest I was 27
[27:11]years old. I came in the bureau. I've been hired just to come in that day and it was going to be a normal day for a spatial launch. Like there've been a bunch of them. So, no big deal. They weren't even going to record it. And the
[27:22]guy I was working with said, "Oh, let's record it anyway." And it took took off and blew up. And at first, we didn't understand what it was. We thought it maybe that was just the rocket boosters coming off. And then we realized what
[27:34]had happened. And they're like, "Get on a plane now. Go to Florida. You're going to go cover the story." I'd never done anything like that. I'd never worked remotely. I'd never put an edit pack together or whatever. And it was big
[27:45]machines back then, these big. So, we went and >> with with who? >> I went with Well, Jon Snow came later, but Jon Snow, the famous Jon Snow, and and a couple other camera people that
[27:56]were working then. And I was scared, but I was excited and I was sad because, you know, these people just lost. >> I remember it actually. I remember seeing it as a child. It was >> It's one of those things like you
[28:06]remember where you were that day. So, we went down to the Kennedy Space Center and covered that story and and I don't think we ever went to bed for like two days, three days maybe. And um like I
[28:17]said, never put an ed pack together, never used a microphone like that, any of those things, but we figured it out. And then they said, "Get on a plane and go to Houston to the Johnson Space Center because that's where they were
[28:27]going to have the memorial service." And Jon Snow flew down for that. And we did a live show from there, which I again I had never done before, and got to work with John, which was amazing. What was
[28:39]he like? >> He He's such a bubbly, interesting guy and he was, you know, so important in British television and I just felt so honored to get to work with this guy, but he was just a regular guy, you know,
[28:50]which is why he was so endearing and um, you know, that was my first day and >> as it remained around that pace. >> It's been crazy ever since. Unbelievable.
[29:02]>> Seven presidents. >> Seven presidents. Yeah. >> Including all the elections that came with it. >> Yeah. Who has been the most interesting? >> You know, there's two answers to that. I think the most fun or the what brought
[29:14]out the most joy was covering Barack Obama because we went out with him in Iowa when he first started and there was no one following around. It was me and maybe another news team. That was it.
[29:26]So, we got really good access with him because some somebody's like, "Who's this senator from Illinois? He's got no chance. It was going to be Hillary Clinton." And then we went the night of the election. we were in Chicago because that's where his uh party was going to
[29:38]be and we had access to the um polling data and knew that he had won before everybody in the crowd knew. So we got out there and had our cameras on the
[29:48]people when they announced it and there was just so much joy and happiness and you knew that um it it's was just a different era. It feels like that felt like a turning point. >> It felt like a turning point. A black
[30:00]man had been elected, you know, a black woman was first lady. He had two little girls, African-American girls, and there was just like joy, you know, his whole campaign was hope and joy, right? And it
[30:12]didn't last very long. Sadly, it just didn't last very long because he just ran into all these headwinds in Congress. So, um, >> and some people see that as a turning point to what came later as well.
[30:22]>> Yeah. So, the other thing you asked me about the most interesting president. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, that it's got to be Donald Trump. It just has to be. And in 2016 when we were doing that election, you know, it was Trump or Hillary and then
[30:34]the DC, New York bubble, Hillary was going to win, right? Because we're all in this bubble. There's no way this guy can win. But when we were out west, I remember this so clearly. We were in Las
[30:44]Vegas, Nevada, and we went to a Trump rally and we got there fairly early and the line was like a mile long to see this guy. He wasn't really high in the polls yet. And when we started talking
[30:56]to people and they were all going saying um you know they all had maybe two or three houses, three cars, a pension, but they were angry. They were just angry and they weren't even sure why they were
[31:06]angry, why they were angry, but he tapped into that. You know, they were angry about immigrants. They were angry about somebody's getting something for nothing and I worked hard my whole life. Um and we came back from that trip and I
[31:17]said, "He's going to win." >> When was that? >> That was six, seven months before the election. And the other weather vein I use is yard signs, you know, like vote for Trump, whatever. And everywhere we'd
[31:29]go, we see Trump signs, not one Hillary Clinton sign anywhere. And that just was a good indicator that, you know, he tapped into something and he was going to win. >> And we were right. And all the pundits,
[31:41]it's probably a little like Brexit, you know, it it surprised everybody. We weren't surprised that he won. >> Is it different in terms of the access
[31:51]that you get? Is it different in terms of the type of stories you want to follow? >> Yeah, Axis, that's really interesting. Like I remember pinning a microphone on Bill Clinton. I would never get that
[32:01]close to Donald Trump now. Um, yeah, they are so good at spin and putting out the message that they want to put out. It's hard and it's hard for us as British broadcasters to, you know, to
[32:12]crack into that. We do the best we can. Um, yeah, >> you were talking about seeing a line and knowing there was a big change. Funny enough, I had a similar experience when
[32:22]I was here in 2006 working for the Washington Post where I went to an event that they sent me to to interview an upand cominging senator which had a huge line and I was like, "Oh, wow. This guy's exciting." And I wrote about it in
[32:34]a blog afterwards. That guy was Barack Obama. It was really exciting. I went and interviewed him backstage for the Washington Post. I mean, I'd like to pretend it was a big sit down. It was like 15 minutes about getting people
[32:45]into the federal government. And I got back and I realized I hadn't pressed record on my dict phone, >> which was the worst mistake I've ever made. I managed to rectify it. I won't explain how, but I managed to rectify
[32:57]it. Have you ever had situations like that? What's the kind of most oh moment where something's gone wrong? >> I mean, the most moment for me is every day because we have a deadline, you
[33:08]know, like in the UK, our show goes on at 7:00, which is 2:00 local here in DC, which means we have to finish by 1:00. So, we're working pretty much from 9 to 1, five hours maybe to do a story that's
[33:20]going to be on the nightly news. Many times a lead story, it's pressure filled and you just worry like, am I doing the right thing? Am I using the right shots? Am I using the right soundbite? Um, the domino could fall and it's all
[33:30]technology and we might not get our piece over to London in time. There's all these things every day. So, it's like I don't know. I have a heart attack every day and then I'm okay and then I have a heart attack and I'm okay.
[33:42]>> This doesn't sound good for your health. No, I know, right? But we >> But you do always make it. Actually, I think we did miss our slot once because of me since I've been here. >> That was maybe your first time in 40 years.
[33:53]>> It's so rare, though. But yeah. Um, >> so the technology and the technology has changed beyond that. Yeah. >> Yeah. We've talked so often, you know, that what has changed in my 40 years is
[34:02]this, an iPhone or a a smartphone. And why? Because you can take video. Citizens can take video. We can look stuff up. we don't have to come back to the office and look up, you know, find
[34:13]an encyclopedia to find something. But what I think what's changing for that too is that instead of when we used to go out and uh follow the news, now we're kind of following what a citizen has
[34:24]taken on their iPhone, especially like recently in Minnesota, >> the killing of the killing. Good. Um, so I think our job now is to
[34:35]take the stuff that's out there that everybody gets every day inundated and put it into some kind of context. And I think we're really good at that channel for putting things into context. But I mean with that with that phone and
[34:46]technology also comes AI, artificial intelligence. And so often we're, you know, you and I will look at a shot and go, is that real? How do we find out if we use that? It it's changed everything.
[34:56]It makes our job a lot easier and a lot harder. >> Yeah. because you got to verify stuff and also you have to persuade people who are watching that we are the trusted source when they can see everything else and some do you think this like collapse
[35:08]in trust of mainstream media has changed how you've worked >> you know it's I was just going to say you know what has a lot is you've had the president of the United States constantly saying you're fake news you're fake news you're fake news you
[35:19]can't trust you guys you can't trust you guys and that hasn't a corrosive effect I think when we go out because as often he says it so often people start to believe it right it's hard to fight you know to swim up against that tide.
[35:30]Really, I think that's one of the hardest parts of our job. >> How do you, >> you know? I think all we can do is just keep telling the truth and hopefully people believe us. It's It's hard though. You >> Every Trump rally we go to, people are
[35:42]like, "Well, you know, f you. We can't trust what you guys are saying. Get out of here." It's tough. >> And we get that from the left as well. >> Yeah. That Well, we found that out again. Yeah, I know. So
[35:53]>> yeah, that was quite a scary incident where someone who was at the Alex Prey memorial kind of basically told us to get the hell out of there >> and not in a nice way. >> Not in a way. Very threatening.
[36:04]>> Very threatening way. Did you um can you think back at what has been the most scary moment in this 40 years? >> Yeah, that I think you know we've done a lot of riots. Usually I can trust what
[36:13]the police or National Guard are going to do. You just know that they're going to leave you because you're press and not anymore. And I think the most scared recently was when we were in Minnesota,
[36:24]and you've got these ICE agents and border agents with heavy weaponry, not well trained, pointing their guns at us. Like, I don't know if that guy's finger is going to slip and he's going to shoot
[36:36]us or we got shot recently in Los Angeles by by police um >> with rubber bullets. >> With rubber bullets. That's never happened to me before, ever. So I really
[36:48]worry now where what's going on where we're going these people are not well trained. It's changed a lot a lot. >> And what about the most fun moment? >> Most fun moment you know most fun moment most interesting most fun the best story
[37:00]I've ever been to. We went to Chile and there were these miners. There were 22 miners trapped underneath in a mine that had collapsed. And we camped out in the Atakama desert in Chile for like a week and you didn't know if they were going
[37:11]to make it or not. And they made it. They got them out safely. And it was like there was so much joy and happiness and so rare that we get to cover a feel-good story because usually we're
[37:22]doing shootings or tornadoes or Trump stuff and that that brought the most most joy to me. >> How long did it take to know that they were safe? >> It was a we were down there a week but
[37:33]they had been down there for a couple about a week before that maybe. >> How much have you traveled around this country? >> This country >> and surrounding countries. >> Uh almost every state which is great.
[37:43]Yeah, we figured that I've done between 4,000 and 7,000 stories that I've edited. Wow. >> Which is, you know, so I'm just, it's just such an honor though to work for Channel 4 and get to do this. Most
[37:54]American networks don't do what we do. I think we're we're very nimble when we get out there and all of my American friends who see our stories are like, "God, I wish America covered the news the way you guys do." And I think that's
[38:05]what's kept me here. >> Chris, thank you very much. >> Thank you. It was an honor. Thank you. >> That's all for this week. I hope you are enjoying watching or listening to Trump
[38:16]World. If you are, please do press subscribe or follow. We really appreciate it. We will be back next week and Matt will be here. See you then.