Why GOP Candidates Are Ignoring Trump

Mike Warren is joined by Jonah Goldberg, Megan McArdle, and Kevin Williamson to discuss why GOP midterm candidates aren’t heeding President Donald Trump’s electoral advice, as well as Texas Railroad Commission candidate Bo French’s racist tweet about a University of Texas football game. The Agenda: —Making the election about Trump Show notes: Michael Warren is politics editor at The Dispatch and is based in Washington, D.C. A former on-air reporter at CNN and a senior writer at The Weekly Standard, he has spent more than 15 years covering lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the White House and the executive branch, the conservative movement, and political campaigns. When Mike is not reporting, writing, editing, and podcasting, he is probably spending time with his wife and three sons. Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things. Kevin D. Williamson is national correspondent at The Dispatch and is based in Virginia. Prior to joining the company in 2022, he spent 15 years as a writer and editor at National Review, worked as the theater critic at the New Criterion, and had a long career in local newspapers. He is also a writer in residence at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. When Kevin is not reporting on the world outside Washington for his Wanderland newsletter, you can find him at the rifle range or reading a book about literally almost anything other than politics. Megan McArdle is a Washington Post columnist, host of the Reasonably Optimistic podcast, and the author of The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success. The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings. Mike Warren 0:00 [intro music playing] Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Mike Warren. On today's roundtable, we'll be returning to the upcoming midterm elections and discuss why Republican candidates appear to be ignoring President Trump's advice on how to run their campaigns. They're not making the election about him, and they're certainly not promoting his five thousand dollar dividend. Then we briefly look at the race in Michigan and ask why Vice President Vance is telling House Republicans to, quote, "Just talk about Abdullah El-Sayed," unquote. And finally, not worth your time, demolishing the Kennedy Center. I'm joined today by Dispatch Editor-in-Chief, Jonah Goldberg, National Correspondent Kevin Williamson, and Dispatch contributor, Meghan McArdle. Let's dive in. [instrumental music playing] All right, we are recording on Thursday, September seventeenth, which means there are forty-seven days left until Election Day. And there are a number of indications coming in here in these final weeks that the election might be very, very bad for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. But I wanna start actually with a Washington Post article that, that caught my attention and just deep dive into this a little bit. Last week in Dallas, I was there covering the Not a Convention convention in Dallas. We heard from Donald Trump, you know, "This election is going to be about me." He talked about the five thousand dollar payout to every American adult if Republicans hold Congress in the midterm elections. It's very clear that the president wants Republicans to make this midterm election about him, which, you know, you can hear Democrats saying, "We know. We wanna do that too." And what I found interesting was this Washington Post article, "GOP candidates are largely ignoring Trump's midterm advice." Essentially, nobody is talking about Trump. If you are a Republican candidate for House or Senate, the Post has done this analysis, has found that the number of references to Trump has dropped among Republicans, but interestingly, also Democrats, which I think could be a whole nother conversation. But not only are Republicans not talking about the president and the leader of their party, they are basically trying to avoid talking about the messages. He wants to talk about Save America Act, now this new five thousand dollar check proposal. And it just got me thinking that it does seem that Republicans are perhaps simply engaging in a very old kind of political move here, which is you have an unpopular president, you're the incumbent party. The way to go about this is to run away from that unpopular president. It is almost an iron law of politics that you run away from the unpopular incumbent leader of your party. So is that what's going on, or are we seeing something a little deeper? Are Republican candidates, Republican members of Congress, and others in the party starting to look at Trump in the rearview mirror? He's just about to be a lame duck president, and, and the party is trying to move on in fits and starts. Are we at long last seeing that? Jonah, let me start with you. What's your, your take on why Republicans aren't taking up Trump's message here and running with it? What's going on? Jonah Goldberg 3:39 Well, first of all, when you said-- when you asked, "Is the party moving on?" I get what you mean. When you say the party, you mean the members of the party who are running for office? Mike Warren 3:47 Correct. Jonah Goldberg 3:47 But there's also, like, the actual organization of the Republican Party, and it is not moving on. Mike Warren 3:52 That's fair. Interactive transcripts are available to Premium members. Join to follow along with the audio. Join Now More We Think You’d Like