00:00:00
Speaker 1: Right, let's go to the US. The primaries are over. The midterm elections in the US are set. We've got less fuel than 50 days left on the clock. Now, Democrats favoured to retake control of the House and they are a genuine chance of snatching the Senate. Now, all of this matters to you, dear viewer, because who wins and by how much could determine how much we are paying for petrol in New Zealand. Prices up 10%. to $ 3. 28 or $ 3. 29 you can see there, $ 4. 91, up 10% over the last month. We're at $ 3. 29, that's the average from Gatsby. So in a funny kind of way, what happens in the US in the midterms could have more of a direct effect on your wallet than what happens in New Zealand's election on November the 7th. In any case, let's go to Dan Schnur, U.S. politics expert with us from Los Angeles and friend of the program. Dan, nice to see you. How's things?
00:00:58
Speaker 2: Things are good, Ryan. Thank you for having me.
00:01:00
Speaker 1: Great to have you back. Now, what are the chances of this double grab of the Democrats getting control of the Senate and of the House?
00:01:10
Speaker 2: The odds are still in favor of Republicans maintaining control of the Senate by an extremely narrow margin. As you correctly stated a moment ago, Ryan, Right now, Democrats look to be strong favorites to retake our House of Representatives. If you and I had talked in the early months of 2026, though, I would have told you that most observers here in the states said that even while Democrats would probably retake the House, they would have almost no chance of regaining the majority in the Senate. The fact that the Senate is so closely contested right now points to a major challenge for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. This isn't a fight they were expecting.
00:01:50
Speaker 1: 100 percent. So because they need to in order to get the Senate, they need to gain a net four seats. Can you just tell us what actually changes? Let's assume the worst for Trump, that the Democrats do take the Senate, the thing we thought wouldn't happen, and do take the House. What does that mean for Trump's agenda? Can he still do because he's still the commander in chief, right? He can do military operations. So can he still do the two biggest things we care about, war and tariffs? Can he still do those?
00:02:19
Speaker 2: He can, but with much greater restraints. Trump's domestic agenda will almost certainly be stopped dead in its tracks. The Democrats will not pass anything that he wants them to for the next two years. But while they can't stop a war, what they can do is commit less spending to support it than a Republican-controlled Congress did. So Republicans are arguing very, very strongly that after November, that prices will come down for gasoline, for food, for housing and other necessities. Democrats are saying that that's not true. Right now, though, it's very clear that the momentum is with the Democrats. And that's because the motivation is with the Democrats. Our midterm elections don't see nearly as high turnout as presidential campaigns. So it really does become a question of which party is able to motivate their party to the polls. Right now, that looks like the Democrats pretty decidedly at least six and a half weeks to go.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? And you've also added that the fact that the president's party almost always loses some in the midterms too. Just finally, I want to ask about Trump and the latest salvo on the media. Let's take a look.
00:03:35
Speaker 3: I don't think somebody should be allowed to come in and write fake stories. They're fake news. And that's why they have no credibility. When you look at CNN, it's just fake. That's why their ratings are no good. When you look at MSNOW, which used to be MSNBC, which some people call MSDNC, Democratic National Committee, it's fake news. It's fake news. And when you look at Politico, I mean, they got a government. The government under Biden gave them like $ 8 million to keep them afloat. And the stories they wrote are fake. There's a lot of news and there may be others to join them and maybe they can get better and would like to have men.
00:04:20
Speaker 1: Dan, the question is, so all these news outlets are lawyering up. Will they have a case, you know, under the Constitution, have a case to actually stay on and cover politics from the White House?
00:04:34
Speaker 2: I suspect that the news outlets, CNN and MSNOW and Politico, will regain their White House access in very short order. But Ryan, going back to what we were talking about a moment ago, what this is really about is Trump's efforts to motivate his most loyal supporters. He offered them, as you know, $ 5, 000 in his convention speech a couple weeks ago, if a Republican Congress were reelected. He proclaimed an agreement with Greenland, which was designed to excite his base. Fighting with the news media is one of the best ways to excite conservative Americans. This is Trump trying to gin up enthusiasm for Republican candidates in November's midterms.
00:05:17
Speaker 1: On the money as always, Dan Schnur, our U.S. politics expert out of L.A. in California.
Speaker 1: Right, let's go to the US. The primaries are over. The midterm elections in the US are set. We've got less fuel than 50 days left on the clock. Now, Democrats favoured to retake control of the House and they are a genuine chance of snatching the Senate. Now, all of this matters to you, dear viewer, because who wins and by how much could determine how much we are paying for petrol in New Zealand. Prices up 10%. to $ 3. 28 or $ 3. 29 you can see there, $ 4. 91, up 10% over the last month. We're at $ 3. 29, that's the average from Gatsby. So in a funny kind of way, what happens in the US in the midterms could have more of a direct effect on your wallet than what happens in New Zealand's election on November the 7th. In any case, let's go to Dan Schnur, U.S. politics expert with us from Los Angeles and friend of the program. Dan, nice to see you. How's things?
00:00:58
Speaker 2: Things are good, Ryan. Thank you for having me.
00:01:00
Speaker 1: Great to have you back. Now, what are the chances of this double grab of the Democrats getting control of the Senate and of the House?
00:01:10
Speaker 2: The odds are still in favor of Republicans maintaining control of the Senate by an extremely narrow margin. As you correctly stated a moment ago, Ryan, Right now, Democrats look to be strong favorites to retake our House of Representatives. If you and I had talked in the early months of 2026, though, I would have told you that most observers here in the states said that even while Democrats would probably retake the House, they would have almost no chance of regaining the majority in the Senate. The fact that the Senate is so closely contested right now points to a major challenge for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. This isn't a fight they were expecting.
00:01:50
Speaker 1: 100 percent. So because they need to in order to get the Senate, they need to gain a net four seats. Can you just tell us what actually changes? Let's assume the worst for Trump, that the Democrats do take the Senate, the thing we thought wouldn't happen, and do take the House. What does that mean for Trump's agenda? Can he still do because he's still the commander in chief, right? He can do military operations. So can he still do the two biggest things we care about, war and tariffs? Can he still do those?
00:02:19
Speaker 2: He can, but with much greater restraints. Trump's domestic agenda will almost certainly be stopped dead in its tracks. The Democrats will not pass anything that he wants them to for the next two years. But while they can't stop a war, what they can do is commit less spending to support it than a Republican-controlled Congress did. So Republicans are arguing very, very strongly that after November, that prices will come down for gasoline, for food, for housing and other necessities. Democrats are saying that that's not true. Right now, though, it's very clear that the momentum is with the Democrats. And that's because the motivation is with the Democrats. Our midterm elections don't see nearly as high turnout as presidential campaigns. So it really does become a question of which party is able to motivate their party to the polls. Right now, that looks like the Democrats pretty decidedly at least six and a half weeks to go.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? And you've also added that the fact that the president's party almost always loses some in the midterms too. Just finally, I want to ask about Trump and the latest salvo on the media. Let's take a look.
00:03:35
Speaker 3: I don't think somebody should be allowed to come in and write fake stories. They're fake news. And that's why they have no credibility. When you look at CNN, it's just fake. That's why their ratings are no good. When you look at MSNOW, which used to be MSNBC, which some people call MSDNC, Democratic National Committee, it's fake news. It's fake news. And when you look at Politico, I mean, they got a government. The government under Biden gave them like $ 8 million to keep them afloat. And the stories they wrote are fake. There's a lot of news and there may be others to join them and maybe they can get better and would like to have men.
00:04:20
Speaker 1: Dan, the question is, so all these news outlets are lawyering up. Will they have a case, you know, under the Constitution, have a case to actually stay on and cover politics from the White House?
00:04:34
Speaker 2: I suspect that the news outlets, CNN and MSNOW and Politico, will regain their White House access in very short order. But Ryan, going back to what we were talking about a moment ago, what this is really about is Trump's efforts to motivate his most loyal supporters. He offered them, as you know, $ 5, 000 in his convention speech a couple weeks ago, if a Republican Congress were reelected. He proclaimed an agreement with Greenland, which was designed to excite his base. Fighting with the news media is one of the best ways to excite conservative Americans. This is Trump trying to gin up enthusiasm for Republican candidates in November's midterms.
00:05:17
Speaker 1: On the money as always, Dan Schnur, our U.S. politics expert out of L.A. in California.
