Stay Tuned with Preet: Trump’s Midterm Defeat & the Fight Ahead

0:00Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. Today, we're bringing you a new episode of Stay Tuned with Preet from Cafe Studios and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Host and former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara sits down with a panel of experts to unpack Tuesday's election results and talk about what comes next. He's joined by Yale historian Joanne Freeman, New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser, and author and political commentator Charlie Sykes. That's a great group. And tomorrow, Hillary Clinton and I will be back with a special episode of High Stakes to give our own hot takes on the midterm results, whatever they may be.

0:53We'll talk about what they mean for the country and for the Trump administration's last two years. But first, here's a new episode of Stay Tuned with Preet. Stick around. Thank you. No bouncing between tabs and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try it today for free at odoo.com slash Cara. That's O-D-O-O dot com slash Cara. Ripple has been powering modern finance for a decade. We're leading the charge to bridge the gap between existing financial systems and the future of finance. You can have it all, legacy, stability, and digital innovation, systems that work with your other systems. Because with the right partner, the question

2:15isn't crypto or traditional finance. The question is simply, why choose? A new standard of modern finance. It's happening with Ripple. For informational purposes only, availability of products can vary and may be provided by different Ripple entities. Support for the show comes from Injun. Running a small business means every dollar has to work hard. But if your team is still booking travel the old way, it's costing you more than you think. Injun is the fastest growing travel and spend platform in the country, built specifically for businesses like yours. Book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes. Earn up to 10% back on hotels. And in 2025, Engine customers save more than $300 million on travel with zero booking fees,

2:57no contracts, and no BS. More than a thousand businesses Enjin every month. Join them and get $500 when your business signs up and starts traveling at enjin.com slash vox. From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I'm Preet Bharara. It was only ever going to be possible for red America to begin to fix what red America has wrought. I am going to be fascinated to see how far and fast J.D. tries to run away from Donald Trump and how far Donald Trump lets him run away. What are Democrats going to do with the power that they have? And how are they going to realize whatever they do, they can't go back to what they had. They're going to have to address where we're going to be going forward.

3:57I'm Preet Bharara. The American people have spoken, delivering Democrats a sweeping victory in the 2026 midterm elections. But what comes next? Joining me to make sense of the results are historian Joanne Freeman, The New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser, and Charlie Sykes, political commentator and author of the Substack publication, To the Contrary. And by the way, folks, for a limited time, you can get 30% off our annual Substack membership at staytuned.substack.com. You'll get access to the Insider Podcast I co-host with Joyce Vance, bonus conversations from Stay Tun Glasser, welcome back to the show. Happy to be here. Thanks for being here. I simply sent out a tweet this morning, which I don't do very often anymore, saying good morning.

4:55Got a lot of good responses. Good morning. I guess it's afternoon here. There's a lot to talk about. I was going to make the old joke that there's rarely been an assemblage of such talent, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson did a podcast. I knew you were going to Jefferson. I didn't see the podcast. Joanne is tired of those Thomas Jefferson references. So why don't we be, Joanne, historian, why don't you put what happened yesterday and overnight into historical perspective? How big a deal is this? Is it comparable to any other change election? Would you call it a change election? A lot of compound questions there, but as a resident historian, what the hell's going on here?

5:37Okay. So a few things. On the things that echo throughout history level, midterm elections, which we normally, we don't pay so much attention normally to midterm elections. Often in the past, when there has been a little political creativity, it's been the midterm elections where that happens because the presidency isn't involved. So like the radical Republicans after the Civil War, they rise up in a midterm election and then they take over with Reconstruction. Or the Republican Party, 1858, and then by 1860, they have a president. So midterm elections tend to be moments where, actually the Tea Party too comes up in a midterm election. So anyway, midterms are sort of politically creative moments. And then also, obviously, they tend to be a

6:32reaction against whoever is president. So that's all in play here. To me, one of the things that's distinctive about what just happened is that the actual process of democracy was on the table. Like the actual functioning of elections, the fact that the folks who have power right now aren't so keen on the institutions of democracy, and that the simple fact that Trump this morning said, yes, I will abide by the election. The fact that he said that, that he was asked that and that he said that shows you the degree to which this isn't a normal time. So as a historian, I don't like to say. Meaning in his case, it's not normal because it's not abnormal? Well, there is that. Right. So we're shocked.

7:21It's like, wait, you're going to actually do what you're supposed to do? Be democratic? Can I push back a moment? So you think democracy was on the table, not just high prices? I do. I do. But I don't think in the way, I don't think Americans were like, oh, she'll support democracy. I think it was on the line because the fundamentals of it, the accountability of people who have office, the rule of law, free and fair elections, all of those things, which are the absolute foundations of any kind of small d democratic government, they were absolutely on the table. And the folks who have power were speeding up. They were revving their engines to begin eroding even more. So yeah, I do think democracy was on the table, but not as a talking point.

8:16Susan, I want to ask you, because when you arrived in the digital green room, you said you were just finishing your column. And I believe it is an accurate statement to say you giggled and said it was the most fun column, did you say ever or in a long time? And can you give us a preview of why it was so fun? Well, I don't know if fun is a word, but I will say that it flew off the keyboard. I mean, look, 10 years, 10 years. This is the election that actually didn't happen even in 2018, even in 2020, when Donald Trump lost. In neither of those cases, for a variety of reasons we can talk about, was there such a sweeping, broad-based rejection of Donald Trump. And I think the thing that's been gathering all year, but to see it happen

9:06was so remarkable because Donald Trump, unfortunately, was this creature that this really sort of monstrous attack on democracy that the Republican Party gave us. And, you know, I've watched the horror movies. Only the Republican Party, you know, could end this. And I'm not, you know, nobody gets props because the shame of this is going to, you know, echo for a long time. And it's not over in some definitive sense. And I'm sure Democrats will make the mistake of interpreting it in an overly broad way and whatever. But, okay, put aside the caveats for a moment. It was only ever going to be possible for red America to begin to fix what red America has wrought. And Donald Trump couldn't challenge this election. I think Joanna's right to call

10:01attention to the fact that even he said, you know, he has to accept the results. But the reason he does is because even Donald Trump cannot say that Kansas and Texas and South Carolina and North Carolina and Ohio and Michigan and the states that voted for him, that they all conspired against him now. And, you know, so I think that is just, we've got to stop for a second. Again, like, I will talk caveats until I'm blue in the face and all the reasons why there's still a crisis in America. But, yeah, it flew off the keyboard because this is a hell of a day. And it is one that we know is one for the history books. If I could just say one sentence. We the people, man. We the people. Yeah, but so can I ask Charlie, where were we the people in the last three elections?

10:56Where was your erstwhile party in the last three elections, Charlie? What an excellent question. Apparently willing to sleepwalk through this disaster. But they woke up or I should say Donald Trump managed to wake them up. I mean, the extraordinary thing about this. And by the way, it's you know, Susan said it was easy this morning. I was trying to figure out which storyline do we pick up on because there are just there are just too many. But, you know, the basic line is that Donald Trump, this is all Donald Trump, and we can talk about gas prices, but it was Donald Trump who connected the dots between the economy, the corruption, the Epstein class, the unneeded wars, his complete insanity,

11:37the fact that his closing argument was to remind people about the reflecting pond. And it was in the red states that people said, OK, you know what? We're just sick of this show. This is not something that, you know, this is not was not a revolution in Berkeley and, you know, in Burlington, Vermont. This was this was in Kansas and South Carolina. I can't get over this. You know, the fact that we're even at this moment talking about Mississippi is an indication of this country really decided that they'd had enough of Trump. And maybe it was the cruelty, the brutality, the lies, all of it. And, you know, this was the moment that the voters said we're done now. Republicans, of course, who remain joined at the hip with Donald Trump,

12:23they went down with him. And this repudiation of Donald Trump. But Republicans have agency. And all of the Republicans from, you know, at every level, basically, no, they bought president when things are bad and they blame the president and they credit their own president when things are good. And there's not such a time, Charlie, you sort of made this point a second ago, where all of these ills and challenges and regressions are so clearly able to be traced back approximately to a single person, the president of the United States, on Epstein, on the war in Iran, on tariffs, when all the people around him and all the people on the other side of the aisle said, don't do it, he did it. Has there ever been a time

13:31when there was, you know, more cause to hold a chief executive responsible? Now, I'm sure that Joanne will come up with a good historical analogy. I mean, from a long time ago, probably. Right, right, from a long time. But I will say the answer to your question is I don't think so in terms because Donald Trump is unlike any other president we've ever had. This is what we we mean when we say this is not normal. Let's not become numb to all of this. And it's hard to remember a president, you know, singularly squandering his coalition as aggressively as Donald Trump did in such a short period of time. You look at the shift of young voters, of Hispanic voters, of black voters in every single category. But it was it is that whole sort of cloud and cluster of things that

14:19all came together. It's not one thing. And it was Donald Trump who sucked all the oxygen out of our political world for the last 10 years and Donald Trump who shaped all of this. And therefore, you know, again, gas prices, the price of eggs. Yes. But I think that it is all the things that you just mentioned here. And I am struggling to come up with a president. I mean, you have Nixon who squandered his mandate with corruption, Lyndon Johnson with a war. But who put it all together as completely as Donald Trump did? Only he can do it. Only he. Only he can do it in the someone sort of owning all of the bad that brings something down. I do think it's important to say Trump's brand, so to speak, was absolute loyalty to him. It was all about him. Everything that he said, it's all me. It's all me. The last thing he did in front of the reflecting pool included,

15:25we're going to name it after me. And if you are going to make it so that the people you hire are hired because they're loyal to you, if you're firing people because they're not loyal enough to you, if you have made your party about you in that concrete way, I don't know how you make an electoral loss anything other than an absolute rejection of you. Now, you can look at people like, you know, Andrew Jackson is a president who was divisive. He created the Whig Party because everyone hated him so much. But although he was a figure that sort of grabbed at people, this is distinctive, I think, explicitly because Trump, in every way possible, made it about him and nothing else. Susan, do you want to seize upon the metaphor?

16:12I'm going to let you use the metaphor. It just occurred to me, it's very obvious, that it's sort of fitting that the reflecting pool is the symbol for this gentleman given the origin story of narcissists. Yeah, I used that in my column. Did you? I called him the narcissist of the National Mall. I love it. My senior thesis. Great minds working here. My college senior thesis was about this. There's no other way in which we can view this except as this, you know, almost Greek kind of morality play about hubris and... Is it worthy of the Greeks? Well, it's, you know, high tragedy, low farce, right? They co-mingle in politics. And, you know, I mean, the speeded up nature of this reckoning is one that I think people are going to study for a

17:06long time because it does go so quickly from the high to the low. And again, there are echoes in the American past. You know, remember George H.W. Bush, who was, had, I think, the highest modern approval rating at the time of the first Gulf War, over 90 percent. Within two years, he had less than two years, he had, less than two years, he had lost re-election and become a single-term president. But of course, he did not disgrace the office. And, you know, we've mentioned Nixon here. What's particularly remarkable is that while the Watergate election defined repudiation for an entire generation, and it was the widest gap in the national popular vote for Democrats, you know, in fact, even wider than this one will turn out to be,

17:56which I think at around 13 points will be the biggest gap in the national vote since the 1976 election. However, I was just looking at this and made this point in the column as well. It is the biggest electoral victory for Democrats in an election like this since the two elections of, midterm elections of 1946 and 1958, with the combined performance of a pickup of what could even be eight seats in the Senate and more than 35 seats in the House. So it's the across-the-board nature of it. It's the map of it. And it's the fact that these were his own voters that puts it so squarely on his own hubris and reckless narcissism. But I do, I wanted to, because I'm very curious what everybody has to say, and we're all going on a very little sleep.

18:51You know, you already see the war over how to interpret this beginning to unfold among Republicans. And I'm sure, you know, this conversation that we're having is their nightmare that they're trying to sort of debunk, right? We're saying it's everything. It's not just the war. It's everything. It's the corruption. It's the this. And so you see J.D. Vance, the sitting vice president, already on Wednesday morning, where we're having this conversation at midday on Wednesday, already coming out with a remarkable thing where he's saying it's the Iran war and that's just what it is. You saw Sean Hannity last night on Fox News saying that they're trying to narrow the scale of the disaster and then fight their own kind of internal bubble policy fights. And, you know,

19:41I think we have to really reject that. I'll be right back with my guests, Joanne Freeman, Susan Glasser, and Charlie Sykes, after this. Support for the show comes from InGen. Running a small business means every dollar has to work hard. But if your team is still booking travel the old way, it's costing you more than you think. InGen is the fastest growing travel and spend platform in the country, built specifically for businesses like yours. Book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes. Earn up to 10% back on hotels. And in 2025, InGen customers save more than $300 million on travel with zero booking fees, no contracts, and no BS. More than a thousand businesses join Engine every month. Join them and get $500

20:32when your business signs up and starts traveling at engine.com slash box. Support for this show comes from Whatnot. Selling online is tough. You're competing with millions of other businesses all fighting for the same thing, attention. And getting people to actually buy something, that's a whole other challenge. That's where Whatnot comes in. It's the largest dedicated live shopping platform where people are building real businesses, selling everything from beauty products and collectibles to electronics, luxury fashion, and even cookies. And you don't need to be a big retailer to get started. Anyone can sell on Whatnot, whether you're running an established business or just getting one off the ground.

21:12In fact, according to Whatnot's own data, sellers on the platform sell 10 times more than on any other major marketplaces. One of our producers tried Whatnot. It takes a small learning curve, but once you're in, you're in. As a buyer, you can lurk in the chats with real people and save sales that you've got an eye on for later. Download Whatnot today and get $20 off your first live purchase. Search Whatnot, that's W-H-A-T-N-O-T, in the App Store. Sign up and take a shopping trip. Terms apply. We just moved into our new house and I didn't realize just how close we were to the neighbors. That's when my friend told me about Blinds.com. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home.

21:57Customers who shop at Blinds.com experience excellent customer service from consultation to installation. Side effects include increased privacy and better sleep. Talk to your partner today and see if Blinds.com is right for you. Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week. Can I ask a question about, you know, Donald Trump's mantra, his exception to the political, you know, laws of physics, which I think has by and large been true. And it's the famous saying, the famous phrase, when he said, I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, I wouldn't lose any support. And he was right. He was right for years and years and years. He said the things that he said about John McCain. He took certain actions with respect

22:44to his political adversaries. He embraced Putin. I mean, he did so many crazy things. Why did that principle expire? Okay, Charlie, Charlie wants to go. No, I'm really glad you brought this up because, you know, basically Trump started off saying, yeah, I could shoot anybody in the middle of Fifth Avenue. And then as time went on, he said, you know, I could sexually molest anyone. I could rip anyone off. I could commit any crime in the middle of Fifth Avenue. And in Trump 2.0, I think he was even surprised at how much he was able to get away with. that we were in a not just a post-truth world, but a post-shame world, a post-morality world, that he could put up a candidate like Ken Paxton and no one would care that that he had.

23:31He really believed that he had repealed the laws of political gravity. And so, you know, back to the Greek analogy, this is hubris. You know, he he, you know, got away with an awful lot. And you're right. It seemed like, you know, he was right about all of those things. He was returned to the presidency and then he just took it too far. And, you know, what I'm saying that a massive amount of money could, you know, overcome all of these things, that the appeals, the the the naked racist appeals that worked in 2024 could work, scare people about Somalians, do those things. They bet that. And if Ken Paxton would have won last night, we would be having a very different conversation. We would be living in a world in which a trillionaire can basically buy a seat using one of the most vile

24:30campaigns, electing one of the most vile and corrupt human beings. But that is not what happened. The American people did have their say and they said, we're done with that. So Donald Trump, the Donald Trump, Elon Musk, J.D. Vance theory of the case was radically rejected. And I am going to be fascinated to see how far and fast J.D. tries to run away from Donald Trump and how far Donald Trump lets him run away. So just two quick things. And, Joanna, I know you want to say something. When you said vile campaign, some people who are tuning in in the middle would be like, is Charlie talking about Vivek Ramaswamy? Is he talking about Ken Pelley? Which one of the number of people is he talking about? Then second, the point about J.D. Vance. Someone

25:15said the point that's obvious, but hadn't really occurred to me in the way that it was expressed, is J.D. Vance can't, even with an enervated and weakened president, Donald Trump, he cannot, as a sitting vice president, criticize directly Donald Trump. And how do you become the standard bearer for the Republican Party, given what happened in 2026? In 2028, if you are unable to rhetorically or otherwise distance yourself from this president, Joanne? I totally think that the idea that he, Trump and his minions were testing boundaries and seeing how far they could go. They were not held accountable for anything in Trump won. So why wouldn't they begin, including January 6th? So why wouldn't they begin by thinking they could keep pushing and

26:06keep pushing? But sort of with poetic justice, that fact, the fact that they were going more and more and more extreme, that it was more and more obvious that they thought they were violating all the rules, that's part of what woke, to use that word, woke some people up to what was happening and fueled some of the opposition in and of itself. So you want to take on the J.D. Vance question and how he achieved separation? Yeah. I mean, short answer, no, he can't. But slightly longer answer, it was always destined to end badly for this relationship. You know, and we still, you know, we're probably only seeing the beginning of the end of for this relationship. You know, and we still, you know, we're probably only seeing the beginning

26:46of the end of this particular relationship. It could play out in very spectacular ways, by the way. You know, I don't remember that, you know, the screenwriters aren't done with us yet. This season has a ways to run. And... Can he fire J.D.? Can he, can he... He's a constitutional officer and he cannot fire J.D. Vance. He's the only one he can't. I'm not going to spoil things for you. But if you haven't seen the new season of The Diplomat, you know, it invites you to contemplate what happens when a vice president and a president profoundly disagree about matters of war and peace. And so one thing is that you cannot fire a constitutional officer. You cannot fire the vice president who was elected by the American people

27:36and, you know, confirmed by the Electoral College. I mean, you're the lawyer. But I think more importantly, like Donald Trump was never going to sit by whether it was going to end in a policy dispute or, you know, whatever. He's not somebody who was going to like go along with his sort of constitutionally obligated obsolescence, right? That he wasn't going to be like, oh, well, yes, I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to, you know, hand off my legacy to J.D. Vance. You know, he's never done anything like that in his life. So I always knew they were destined for a falling out. I'm trying to parse because it's still new. This long little mini manifesto Vance has posted on X this morning, by the way, echoed by Donald Trump Jr., which is fascinating, another opponent

28:25of the Iran war. So you're seeing one faction inside Trump world that's decided that for political or personal or both reasons, they're willing to go public with it. I just think that it may well be that Vance is already beginning to understand that he's not electable and that he can't be. No, I mean, there's already been reports even before the election. Is he that self-aware? I don't know that he's that self-aware. I don't think he's self-aware. Did you guys see the picture of him in his Halloween costume? He's not self-aware. I think we can say that. No, he is not. Fairly. Is he aware that he's married to an immigrant? Again, I'm going to go with no, I'm going to go with no. Okay. I mean, would you say that in one way or another, this idea that it's all about the war, although in an obvious way that most people would argue, the war is about Trump.

29:23It was his. But in people making this argument that that's the reason, is that going to be grabbed at as a way to suggest it wasn't Trump? Trump said, put me on the ballot. And people said, yes, you're on the ballot. Well, it's not my guy. I think you're clarifying. I appreciate you saying that, Joanne, because I think I wasn't clear enough. I believe that is why one of the reasons why Sean Hannity would never be saying this unless they think it's oddly exculpatory of Trump on the other matters, even though he himself did it. But yes. So who's the scapegoat? Does this mean that Hegzeth is out? Are they going to blame Rubio? Because if it's not, some people are definitely going to be out. Right, Charlie? Some is going to be out in the next several weeks, right?

30:06Yeah. I mean, Hegseth is a dead man walking one way or another, although I've used that phrase for him before, erroneously. But, you know, he's going to be impeached, you know, pretty much right away if he's not fired. But this dynamic, you know, does mean that Donald Trump has to decide. And by the way, what an awkward thing for this to happen, because I have to tell you that in my deep cynicism, I was thinking that, you know, if in fact this election turned out very badly for the Republicans, Donald Trump, who always wants to change the subject, who always wants a distraction, that number one on his bingo card would be restarting the war with Iran, right? Go back, begin the bombing again. Bibi wants him to do it.

30:46And now, with his own administration cracking up over the war, this is just one more dog that he can't wag this week. So, interesting moment. One last question on just how we got here. Is the camel and the straw analogy or metaphor not correct here? Because when you talk about, you know, one could construct the argument that there were all these things going on and that the Iran war was a straw that broke the camel's back. Does anybody want to take the position that there was a straw and it was Iran or something else? Or was it something more fundamentally, you know, sort of divided among equal causes? I mean, my take is that Donald Trump was always going to have a bad election, that it's very likely if it wasn't the Iran war, it would have

31:31been something else because there are so damn many things. And I do think that, you know, it's a question of what is our, you know, sort of bandwidth and focus on it. You know, let's talk about the fact that he literally changed America's side in the world in the few weeks before the election and abandoned Ukraine and openly embraced Vladimir Putin and his, you know, regime of death and terror in Russia. He's about to, you know, we'll see if it still happens, by the way, he's about to hold a summit of himself with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin a couple of weeks from now at his own resort in Florida. He's hosting the world's leaders and making bank on it. I mean, you know, my point here, Preet, I don't know the answer.

32:22And it's a sort of fascinating, you know, historical hypothetical. His numbers were already going down. There were already so many historical reasons to suggest they were going to have a bad night. Maybe it wouldn't have been an epic one for the history books bad night. But I suspect that it quite possibly could have been, depending on, you know, sort of what occupied our brain space of the other many, many, many scandals. There's one more thing I just want to, just before we leave this, because I think it's important and it's depending on your perspective and how cynical you are about politics and how hopeful you are and maybe what age you're at, because I'm older than I used to be. Is any of this a repudiation, not just of Trump, but of, you know, a despondent kind of

33:08negative, hateful politics? I mean, you have James Tallarico, as someone pointed out today, when he gave his speech either this morning or last night, what did it say on the lectern? It said, love thy neighbor. It was amazing. Love thy neighbor. He's talking about love. Is Bobby Kennedy back? Are we tired of this destructive politics and we want hopeful politics again? I mean, I think where I was headed a moment ago was a part of, there are many things, as Susan was saying, there are many things that could have put people in this direction. But it was the caliber of it. It was the fact that it wasn't just racism. It was celebratory racism, right? It was things that normally are bad, sort of blatant, and they were happy about these things. And so I don't know if

33:57Americans explicitly thought, we need good again. But I think they were longing for it, right? They were longing for something. Can you say that again? Can you say it like that again? Yes. We need good again. I cannot escape voices. I'm always doing voices. But I don't know if that was conscious, but I very much think, you know, I do a lot of live streaming at night, 10 o'clock at night, a few thoughts for those who can't sleep since I can't on my YouTube channel. And what I see in the, I don't know, 1,000, 2,000 people who show up, they were scared, but they also just wanted to not be feeling horrible about everything. They just wanted humanity, empathy, like the things that were explicitly being attacked by the folks on the right.

34:49So they may not have been saying, I vote for love thy neighbor. But I think that will and that desire was very strong in a lot of people. This is a really good question because I would admit that I was driving back from the airport yesterday afternoon, and I think I heard Ken Burns on with Nicole Wallace, and he was taking this very, very optimistic, you know, high-flying view of the American, you know, that the American people will rise to the occasion and we're this good and decent people. And I'm sitting there going, maybe that's bullshit, you know. I've become I know I've become a little cynical. Yeah. The column I wrote the day after the 2024 election was this is us. This is us. We are, you know, we the people we have just chosen Donald Trump. But then last night,

35:40as I was lying in bed listening to James Tallarico's speech where he is talking, you know, about moving on to a different kind of politics, I really did think, and I'm, you know, I don't chuff the hopium, but I was thinking, this is what America wants. This is the healing moment. You know, we need repair and restoration, and it's starting for this. And it felt like water being poured on parched sand. And I was thinking, you know what, if this resonates, and it obviously did resonate in Texas of all places, then there is actual hope. By the way, can I offer a really strained analogy to answer your question about the camel? Those are my favorite kinds. Okay, this one is a reach, and you can edit it out if it doesn't work.

36:21But you asked, was the war the straw that broke the camel's back? I would offer a slightly different analogy. And please correct me if I'm not pronouncing this word, because, you know, I'm thinking of the fasces, the mound bundle of wooden rods that the Romans used. Then, of course, the word went on to be, you know, turned into fascist. Okay, there's the analogy that they just put too many rods in. He just kept putting too much. He kept building that thing bigger and bigger and it just became too much. And people decided, you know what, this fascism thing is not really what we signed up for in the first place. I just, I'll throw my analogy on the table here because I actually failed to put it in my column,

37:09but it speaks to this question that you asked, Preet, and I feel like this is the question, which is how do we reconcile that it's the same damn country that, and same part of the country that voted for him not once but many times, knowing full well, frankly, all that we've learned the last couple years. I didn't learn very much new about Donald Trump. You know, so how do we reconcile those two things? And especially because, understandably, given the scale of this, I'm hearing a lot of almost sort of Barack Obama 2008, you know, kind of ebullience. And, you know, we have to reckon with a history where the country that elected Obama elected Trump. So here's my analogy. I think that you're right, whether it's the straw that broke the camel's back or too many rods in the fascists,

37:59because it was the scale and brazenness of it, you know, that after all, so much of our institutions had failed us, after so much of red America had enabled this and celebrated this, that only, you know, so belatedly they would discover the actual cost of it and maybe in an overly selfish way. But I think of it as like our constitutional system, you know, had all of these checks and constraints that proved not to be strong enough to stop a rogue president like Donald Trump, including the one remedy of impeachment, which failed. And so to me, this is like Red America pulling the emergency brake on the train. I'm not sure what else we had left at our disposal. And I'm really glad that the emergency brake on the train. I'm not sure what else we had left

38:45at our disposal. And I'm really glad that the emergency brake worked, but I don't want to overstate what it took to get us there. Joanne, your metaphor, please. No, I do not have a metaphor at all, but I do have a founder reference, right? So one of the reasons why that early generation was nervous about democracy and the founding folk were not, generally speaking, excited about mass democracy in the streets. And the Constitution, they assumed, was, you know, grounded on the people. Democracy made them nervous because it was enormously responsive. Anyone could rise up from among the people and woo them and grab power. And so along the lines of what Susan was just saying, how do we reconcile people who are voting for Trump and now people who just did what they did?

39:43Part of the answer, according to the founding folk, would be, see, look how responsive people are. They're just responding to the founding folk would be, see, look how responsive people are. They're just responding to the moment. And yeah, in a whole bunch of ways, all of us have been talking about the extreme nature of even, not even all of Trump, but just the last two years. And people responded. The instability of that made the founders nervous, but the instability of that is a strength that we just experience. I'll be right back with my guests, Joanne Freeman, Susan Glasser, and Charlie Sykes, after this. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify.

40:23They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling, and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash special offer. to overwhelming satisfaction. Side effects may include a fuller, deeper night's sleep and the sudden urge to host the watch party again. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week.

41:16This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, like All I Want. Right. Okay, we can't afford that you don't forget the music budget we're gonna stick with whatever's in the public domain give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch upfront payment of 45 for three months 90 for six months or 180 for 12 month plan required 15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra new customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. Why isn't the answer to all of these questions something less inspiring and more mundane, which is just there's a pendulum and

41:58it swings, right? And Susan, you invoked Obama and I I was going to echo that, that hearkening back. Because when we're sitting here, and I blithely asked a question about hope, and we're going to have new policies. Well, we had an explicit campaign of hope. It wasn't 100 years ago. You know, we didn't need Joanne to reach back to the 1800s on that one. That was within, you know, even my memory, which is slipping in recent years. And we went from, so when we say, how could it be that the country elected Trump and then did what it did yesterday, you could expand that question, say, how did the country elect Barack Obama twice and then do that? And not only that, because we keep talking about the country and we entirely use the plural first person pronoun, we, you know, I didn't elect that guy. You didn't

42:52elect that guy. Nobody on this panel elected that guy, but some subset of Americans elected that guy. And that subset of people has now shrunken to probably, you know, a floor. And there are people who voted, I think there have been journalists who have gone out and traced it. There are people who voted for Obama, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump, and then did what they did yesterday in Texas and in other places. Wisconsin counties. And to me, that's the more bizarre question. And maybe the answer is, you know, most of America is not, you know, part of the punditry. Like we four are, whether we like that label or not. you know, the hope was extreme, right? The message of hope was sort of off the charts.

43:45What we just saw was extreme in the way in which the rule of law was being violated and corruption. When it's extreme like that, you're going to have a strong response. So I do think in part, maybe you could say there's some pendulum swinging, but I also think, and as a historian, I shouldn't say this, right? As a historian, I should say, well, there are uniform patterns. I think there were things that were distinctive about this moment and this election and even broader than that. This, the nature of partisan politics at this moment, because it actually wasn't about parties at this moment. I think in many ways, this wasn't, certainly as a historian, this was not a moment when I thought to myself, well, the pendulum is going to swing. I spoke so often about contingency

44:31and how we didn't know what the hell was going to be coming next because it was such a weird moment when things were happening that we didn't predict. Or you were seeing things and thinking, I don't know if I've seen this before, speaking about what people were responding to. In some of the marches, I saw people holding signs that just said empathy. Yeah. So, you know, that that kind of floored me. Susan, you want to jump in here for a second? Or Charlie, either one. Well, I'm getting the sense, Preet, that you're putting the American people on cross-examination and that what you're doing is like, OK, you know, you're saying this today, but aren't you the same guy who and let me show you the paper.

45:14Yeah, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. You are doing this, which which I which I think is is legitimate. I mean, I have a hard time getting in the heads of some of these people. I'm just trying to understand. I worry that, you know, we talk about the pendulum politics, but there's also a ratchet effect that every time you become coarser, more vulgar, more authoritarian, it's not that the pendulum is going to be able to swing back, you know, to normality or decency. And we've lost so much in the last 10 years. And this process of repair and restoration is going to be so, so difficult. But yeah, it's the American people. Let's put it this way. There are many aspects of American democracy.

46:01The rest of the world, particularly in Europe, is looking at it going, you are not serious people. The world can no longer rely on the United States. We cannot have the fate of the world depend on a few swing voters in Michigan and Wisconsin every single two years. Well, now they got Texas. And by the way, the metaphor doesn't have to be the pendulum. It could be the thermostat, right? It gets a little, you know, it's fuzzy logic. It gets too hot. It gets cooled down. It gets too cool. We heat it up. I don't know if any of that works. Susan's shaking her head. Well, I mean, look, I guess, again, what I would say is let's not discard entirely the bad luck of Trump in 2016. I think it was a low probability event. And the reason I mention that is because, you know, this,

46:42his hard core of support, more or less, has existed, you know, for quite a long time and is a very similar block of people. And we had McCarthyism and we had the people who supported Nixon until the very end. you know, let's say a quarter of the country at minimum, you know, maybe a quarter to a third of the country who probably always would have been likely and more than willing at least to, you know, support a demagogue, a right-wing demagogue with Trump's particular views. The shocker was not that. It was that a minoritarian president essentially could come to office not once, but twice, and to govern as though he had some vast, you know, two-thirds of the country mandate when that wasn't the case. And, you know, we had a good run of luck. And this is, you know,

47:41like the first time that it happened that Joe McCarthy actually was not just a senator, but he became president. So I throw that out there as one thing to think about in this moment. But then your questions, Preet, are excellent questions. The American people, you know, should sit down for a cross-examination here. And I do think that in the euphoria of the moment, I wonder how much people will be, you know, willing to sweep away the, I'm not just talking about the accountability for the sort of criming, you know, of, you know, Jared Kushner and whatever, but I mean the accountability for, you know, the Mike DeWines of the world and the, you know, the garden variety, non-MAGA Republican senators. I mean, you know, my husband's been like, you know, mad at me

48:33for saying this, but I'm going to bring it up one final time here because I think it's emblematic. You know, Mike DeWine really gets me. You know, I was a young reporter for Roll Call. I covered his first statewide campaign. He's not a MAGA guy. He's, you know, was was a young reporter for Roll Call. I covered his first statewide campaign. He's not a MAGA guy. He's, you know, was not going to let his election be stolen. And this guy not only endorsed Donald Trump after January 6th, look at what he did, not only in 2024, when Donald Trump and J.D. Vance were, I mean, honestly, blood-libeling the law-abiding Haitians of his own state. He didn't do a damn thing. Not only that, but he endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy in this campaign.

49:17Okay, fine. You know, he's just a partisan hack, whatever. But when Vivek Ramaswamy ran that horrible, awful, terrible, disgusting, vile ad, okay, Mike DeWine gets credit from all the, like, good, sensible people like us who say, oh, well, at least there's a Republican willing to criticize the ad and isn't that good? And then he was asked, and do you withdraw your endorsement? Oh, no, no. Why would I do that? Okay. So that guy needs accountability. He's going to lie to his grandchildren 10 years from now and pretend that he was never on board with this. And he is the reason, in my view, that we have been cursed with this horrible situation for 10 years. And I blame him as much as I blame the crooks and thieves and liars

50:03who are directly around Donald Trump. I want to offer a historian-esque version of what Susan just said, which I totally agree with. There is, to be overly general about it, you know, a block of bad, not even a block, a blob of bad that does the sorts of things that we just saw. And yes, McCarthyism is another example of that. Jim Crow is another example of that, right? Throughout American history, that's existed. The question is, what shifts people who are sort of in the middle to actually act and do something? And what's in my mind about McCarthyism is that this didn't change things, but it resonated. Have you no decency? That was a moment when suddenly morality was brought out in a way that put a light, shined a light on the

50:55immorality and the ugliness in the same way that the Ramaswamy ad did as well. You know, the funny thing about that is I've thought about that and people like us, I'll speak for myself, kept hoping and thinking and expecting there would be a having no decency sort of moment with Donald Trump and the fever would break, which is why this question of what it was, is it a straw, is it a rod, you know, what it is, is important as to let me pivot because it's a more important question going forward, right? Because if life is a cycle and if it's a pendulum or if it's a thermostat or whatever, then you have to think about how you're going to conduct yourself in the immediate future and in the intermediate future

51:45and in the long term because uh if you're if one of your goals is and i hope it is that we don't have this crap come back again um you have to know you have to know what forces brought it about in the first place so so let me now ask this team panel what's the next couple of years going to look like and then beyond let's start with the next couple of years going to look like and then beyond? Let's start with the next couple of years. You know, somebody is going to have a gavel, wrote. And by the way, I think this is a product of Trumpism and, you know, simple speak and tough talk. I don't think a member of Congress who's about to have a gavel would have used this phrase lawyer up, lawyer up, folks.

52:23Now, that's justifiable. I think a lot of investigations have to happen. Who has a view on how that's going to unfold and how people are going to react? I have a historical reference. Well, why don't we start with the historical reference? I've been thinking about this. I've been thinking about the 1850s all the time, as one does when one is a historian. In the 1840s and 1830s, you had the Southerners being more and more and more blatant in their pro-slavery intimidation of the rest of the country. And in the mid-1850s, people, Northerners essentially began saying, we've had enough. And there were people running for office who positioned themselves as different kinds of Northerners. They actually came

53:13to Congress saying, we will fight the slave power. We're going to practice a different kind of politics. We're not going to reach across the aisle. We're not going to compromise. We're going to fight the slave power. And the Republican Party came about in a very quick way because the public responded to a different kind of politics and they elected different kinds of leaders. So as far as in a broad way, some of what we're going to see, I think some of what we saw in that election is some Democrats practicing a different tenor of politics that the public was really responding to. I don't know if all of the Democrats, I think some Democrats wanted to dismiss it as scary, scary socialism. But I think some of what we're seeing is a necessary shift in how you

53:59practice politics in this moment. And because of that, I don't think Congress, the sort of daily in and out of Congress, is ever going to happen. But I will say this. I believe that there is a certain, you know, structure dictates outcome in politics as well as in, you know, many institutions. And the structure of our politics is such that Congress doesn't really function anymore the way that it even had much more power in some respects in the 19th century than it certainly has in the modern imperial presidency. Just to take one example that, you know, and again, this predates Donald Trump, by the way, he's he's preyed off of the weakness of this institution, as with many other things. You know, my my son, who's 21 years old, has never been alive when the U.S. Congress managed to pass all of its annual appropriations bills, which is like the one core function that is specifically, you know, written into the Constitution for it. And the nature of the excessive out-of-control fundraising that is required to be a national politician right now,

55:36courtesy of our broken Supreme Court, which again also, you know, has been accelerated by Trump, but predates him. You know, I can sort of list all the other reasons why, structurally speaking, you know, the tone and tenor of our politics may have shifted in some important way last night. But, you know, let's sit down with Barack Obama and talk to him about what one can meaningfully do to change how Washington actually works. And I think the story of Obama's presidency, this incredibly preternaturally gifted politician, is the story of understanding the limits of even what appeared to be a transformative election. And that's the way he himself spoke about it. I recall even after he won re-election in 2012,

56:24really in a very different kind of election than, you know, the one we all remember, 2008, really in some ways 2012 was, you know, a much more real story about Washington and the limits of hope in our politics. So, again, I hope to put that off till tomorrow, but... I agree. I agree with what you're saying. Just two sentences and then I'll stop. I agree with what you're saying, and I'm not saying structure doesn't matter. But what I am saying is, in this moment where things are so abnormal, that is the question, which is in what ways will structure allow for change or not? And I don't know the answer to that question yet. Charlie, what does accountability look like and what will it look like? Well, just to, you know, mention that I'm obsessed with the 1850s, but I

57:17remember, of course, that that ended with the American Civil War. So hopefully we'll come up with a different solution to all of that. So if Jamie Raskin called you up, Preet, and said, hey, we need some advice on how to conduct some really, really, really aggressive investigations, you'd pick up the phone, right? Because this is the number one job. I mean, this is going to be a hard job. Call me. OK, this is a hard job for Congress because, you know, as Republicans found out in the 1990s, you cannot actually govern from Congress. The president still has tremendous authority. So they're going to have to be effective as well as performative. But they're not going to be able to pass any other signature legislation. They're not going to be able to get anything through the president's veto. So their main their main priority is going to be accountability,

58:07is going to be this oversight responsibility. And the question is, can you become consumed with that? Do you get distracted? Do you go down too many rabbit holes? Are they going to try to impeach Trump again? Can they be effective in going after the Elon Musk's of the world. What happens? And by the way, this is where we're in uncharted territory. You know, people keep saying, well, now the Democrats, you know, have the gavel, so they have subpoena power. But what if Trump basically says, we're going to ignore all the subpoenas? What are you going to do about it? My Justice Department is not going to enforce any of those subpoenas. Is Congress going to be willing to be aggressive and assert its inherent power to arrest and jail people?

58:47What are they going to do? So how do you know to what degree do you play hardball with somebody who clearly, number one, feels that they are personally above the law and is essentially promising that he will pardon any of the, you know, the members of the wretched hive of villainies surrounded himself with. So I do think that this is going to be a real test for Congress, which has been, you know, you know, so lacking in any kind of, you know, effectiveness or order. How is it going to deal with this administration? I hope they have a plan. I hope they're prepared to push it through. I hope they don't overplay I hope they're prepared to push it through. I hope they don't overplay their hand, but I also hope that they don't squander the power they have

59:30right now. So, I mean, this is going to be a really interesting test because, you know, my caveat is this was a huge election, but if number one, but is this going to be basically a fart in the wind if they do not actually put a break on the Trump administration and check the administration. Number two, set the Democrats on a path to win the 2028 presidential election. None of this matters. If MAGA wins in 2028, this will be a mere footnote, one of those false springs. So Democrats have a real challenge, and it is not going to be easy considering the institutional restraints, as Susan mentioned. I just want to say, Charlie, congratulations and thank you for using a metaphor that finally is on my level.

1:00:17Farting in the wind. Good, thank you. You recovered from the very obscure rods. Good, thank you. With a fart in the wind. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Charlie. Final question from the very obscure rods. Good. Thank you. A fart in the wind. Thank you, Charlie. Final question. John Ossoff, is he going to be the next Democratic nominee? Listen to his speech. I don't know what the future holds, but I, you know, I thought it was, it was a great speech. James Tallarico gave a great speech. But John Ossoff said the thing, I think that we wanted to hear both about what the election meant and also he called it the first light of dawn in the morning. Channeling Reagan. But he also stood up and projected defiance in a way that Democrats don't typically do.

1:01:02And I think right now. I see a consensus for John Ossoff, Charlie. That matters. He's definitely the breakout star of 2028. And it was very important, by the way, that the Democrat was elected as governor of Georgia. I don't think he would have been able to run if he would have had to give up his Senate seat. So now that you have Lance Bottoms in the governor's race, that makes it more likely. However, my one caveat is this. I've talked to reporters who say that the Ossoff we see in these staged events is not quite the Ossoff they see in private in the Senate. So, you know, we'll, you know, you know, we've had a lot of candidates who look sort of great until the big spotlight goes on them. So there is that caveat that there are some skeptics out

1:01:41there. But I have to say that there's been no one who is as impressive as Ossoff was. And let's not take it for granted that they have, the Democrats have now turned Georgia into a blue state, which is amazing. And Texas is now a purple state or what? Well, I mean, Texas, we got to spend the entire time talking about Texas. It's not just that, by the way, that Tallarico won. It's that every Republican all up and down the ballot was just white. And one of the chambers of the legislature, too, no? Well, one of my favorite lines was Donald Trump, you know, failed to have regime change in Tehran, but he succeeded in having regime change in Texas. Love that line. Final words, anyone? Historian, take us out.

1:02:27Historian, take us out. I guess in this moment, you know, we just had a moment where we, as a nation, demonstrated that democracy still functions, despite all of the ways in which the structures and nature of democracy was being undermined. And as everyone has said here, the question now is, going forward, what are Democrats going to do with the power that they have? And how are they going to realize whatever they do, they can't go back to what they had. They're going to have to address where we're going to be going forward. Thank you all for your wise words. Susan Glasser, Joanne Freeman, Charlie Sykes. Hopefully we can reconvene on another happy occasion. Thank you so much. My conversation with Joanne Freeman, Susan Glasser, and Charlie Sykes continues

1:03:17from members of the Insider community. The dynamics of right-wing politics is the harder they push back at Donald Trump, the stronger his support gets. For a limited time, get 30% off our annual Substack membership at staytuned.substack.com. You'll get access to full episodes of the Insider Podcast I co-host with Joyce Vance and more. Again, that's staytuned.substack.com for 30% off. Well, that's it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guests, Joanne Freeman, Susan Glasser, and Charlie Sykes. If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. You can reach me on Twitter or

1:04:10Blue Sky at Preet Bharara with the hashtag AskPreet. You can also call and leave me a message at 833-997-7338. That's 833-99-PREET. you can send an email to letters at cafe.com Stay Tuned is now on Substack. Head to staytuned.substack.com to watch live streams, get updates about new podcast episodes, and more. That's staytuned.substack.com Stay Tuned is presented by Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The supervising producer is Jake Kaplan. The lead editorial producer is Gloria Teal. The editorial producer is Claudia Hernandez. The audio and video producer is Nat Wiener. The senior audio producer is Matthew Billy. And the marketing manager is Leanna Greenway.

1:05:02Our music is by Andrew Dost. I'm your host, Preet Bharara. As always, stay tuned. Thanks for listening to this special episode of Stay Tuned with Preet. We'll be back with a new episode of High Stakes Tomorrow and a new episode of On with Kara Swisher on Monday. Running a small business means every dollar has to work hard. But if your team is still booking travel the old way, it's costing you more than you think. InGen is the fastest growing travel and spend platform in the country, built specifically for businesses like yours. Book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes. Earn up to 10% back on hotels. And in 2025, InGen customers save more than $300 million on travel with zero booking fees, no contracts, and no BS.

1:06:08More than 1,000 businesses join Engine every month. Join them and get $500 when your business signs up and starts traveling at engine.com. Afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game. That's when my buddy recommended Blinds.com. With custom window treatments made to fit your style, space, and budget, customers who shop at Blinds.com experience overwhelming satisfaction. Side effects may include a fuller, deeper night's sleep and the sudden urge to host the watch party again. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week. This holiday, all plans, even unlimited,

1:06:53are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, like All I Want. Right. Okay, we can't afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're going to stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for a 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. See terms.