What happens if Trump loses these midterms? | The News Agents

We're now in the final straight of the race for the midterm elections. Donald Trump has been relentless. He is campaigning with unbelievable energy and in the case of Michigan he's campaigning with relentless racism as well. I call him Mohammed Abdul Ramadan but we can't have these people in the United States. The numbers look pretty attractive for the Democrats. If they manage to take both the House and the Senate we are talking about a whole different game. The News Agents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. Thank you very much. Thank you. This is a global production. Despite having worked as hard as you have, how do you intend to work with Democrats if they have control of the House or the Senate? We'll figure a way. Look, I have strong veto. I hope that that won't be the case. But if it is, that's happened before with many presidents. And you have strong veto and you end up working out deals. And you'll respect the results, whatever happens? I will if they're honest elections, yeah. If they're honest elections, yeah. That was exactly the formulation That Donald Trump used back in 2020, and we know what happened there. So is he subtly setting the stage for another major coup? We're going to talk you through what these elections are about, what to watch, and how to know if he's in or out. Welcome to the News Agents. The News Agents. It's John. It's Maitlis. And after hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on TV ads, we're now in the final straight of the race for the midterm elections. And it's all about getting out the vote next Tuesday so that the polling stations are full and that the Republicans and Democrats have got their supporters out in huge numbers to vote in these elections. There is a massive amount at stake. Donald Trump will still be the president. Whatever happens, but how Donald Trump can govern and what happens in terms of oversight, congressional investigations into all that has gone on over the past year and a half is utterly up for grabs now with these particular races. And they're going to be governor's races. There are going to be Senate races and there are going to be the whole of the House of Representatives, the 435 members up for election as well. So we want to introduce you to our new partner in crime, Miles Taylor, and talk a little bit before we get on to the races and what to watch and when the results will come in about Miles's own role, because you have been, Miles, for those who are just joining us for the first time and finding you with us. We want you to explain about your work with Trump in the first administration and how that all ended so worryingly. We're best friends. I will spend election night with him at Mar-a-Lago. But incidentally, incidentally, I'll spend it with him virtually with you all talking about this because I no longer work for Donald Trump. I previously had been his chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. And Emily, to be honest with you, virtually everything we have seen in Trump's second term. We saw the writing on the wall in the first term. I mean, almost everything he's done from ICE and DHS to his use of power to his renovations of the White House and his pursuit of his political opponents, all things that he had been tempted to do in the first term, and many of which ethics officials and lawyers and appointees like me and my colleagues had dissuaded the president from doing. That's not to say that the... First term wasn't turbulent. It was very turbulent. But what you have seen in the second term is manifestly different because the president has either gotten rid of or lost any of those aides or most of those aides who were willing to tell him no. And I spent a number of years after the first. term, trying to warn people about that and saying this is what it's going to look like in a second term. Hell, I wrote a whole book where I interviewed 100 of my former colleagues in the Trump administration and in the GOP and asked them one question. What will he do in a second term that he wanted to do in a first term? And 90 percent, nine zero percent of their predictions have already come true. So we saw it coming. Now we're in it. The question is. Will that last 10% play out the way many of us think, which is that Donald Trump will refuse to relinquish power like he did in 2020, including potentially to the political opposition in these midterms? Miles, I just want to go to the bit that you've missed out because you were the whistleblower. I remember this landing in the New York Times in 2018 when this anonymous person. suddenly told us what it was really like on the inside and that op-ed was called I'm part of the resistance inside the Trump administration and if I'm not mistaken you are still wanted for what is it sedition treason as a result of what you then told the New York Times. Well you know it um I guess you could say it's meta, is that the president of the United States, his response to my allegations that he was abusing his power for personal self-interest and revenge. Was to abuse his power for personal self-interest and to get revenge against me. He quite literally signed an executive order on April 9th of last year, declaring his view that I was guilty of treason, but then ordering his agencies to go find the evidence to essentially prove it. Now, that was novel in that moment, but we've now seen Donald Trump. Do that many times. As recently as this week, his administration, which had been hunting for reasons to prosecute Cassidy Hutchinson, another aide from the first term who testified against him in the January 6th Select Committee, that Justice Department failed to reach an indictment because a grand jury turned it around and said, no, the evidence isn't there. So this has become a little more than just a trend in the second Trump administration of him trying to go back and silence those first term. Critics and, you know, now that's something that I think voters have awoken to in these midterms is that the president really seems to be on an almost daily basis using his powers to further alleged corruption. And indeed, voters now say in polling it is the number one issue they are concerned about in this election. So, OK, let's go from what happened to what is going to happen next Tuesday, because what we've got, as I say, is the whole of the House of Representatives up for that's the lower house of Congress up for reelection. There are 33 of the 100 Senate seats up and you get a third every two years because it's a six-year term if you're a senator. Worst thing, if you get elected to the House of Representatives, I mean, if you're thinking of the House of Commons where it's five years between elections, in the House of Representatives, the whole House is up for re-election every two years. So if you get elected, essentially, because this is the nature of American politics, you're not legislating, you're either fundraising. Or you're campaigning for re-election. I mean, there's very little time for legislation and kind of doing anything proper because you've just got to, you're permanently on a war footing. And then you've got governor's races as well. So it's kind of worth looking at, you know, what this could mean if power shifts. Because at the moment, the Republicans have a very slim majority in the House of Representatives and they have a kind of slightly more comfortable majority in... And that's what I think we should look at now. Yeah, let's give you the numbers just to spell it out. The Republicans hold 218 seats in the House and the Democrats have 214. So in other words, they need to get five of those House races to flip to have the majority. In the Senate, Republicans have 53 to the Democrats 47. So again, they are looking for about... Four or five of those Senate races to come through to give them control of the upper house. It is at this point looking more likely that they could take control of the lower house, the House of Representatives. It is looking knife edge as to whether or not they could take the Senate. But if they manage to take both the House and the Senate, we are talking. about a whole different game of what happens over the next two years. And then there's the governor's races you mentioned as well. 39 states will see governor's races. Now, these are not part of the sort of congressional framework, but they are very individual to each state. They still tell us about where the balance of power is and how people are feeling about one party versus another. So we'll be watching all that quite closely. The good news is... We will be with you all night long, on election night, on Tuesday night. The bad news is you have to start with us at one in the morning and we'll be going on LBC. Simon Marks will be there ahead of the actual results coming in to set the scene for us. And we will take you through the night into the morning when we should end up with most of the results. I'm guessing, Miles, except for maybe Alaska, where they are dog sledding the ballots. In a fairly sort of deep dive way, which might take a few more days. Is that and where we are already seeing challenges in the courts? And I'm sure we'll get to that in talking about these races. But, you know, Emily, when we when we handicap the chances of each of the two parties. Right now, things certainly do favor the Democrats in the House of Representatives. Most of the models show between a 70 and 90 percent chance that Democrats retake the House of Representatives. The betting markets are even higher than that. Right now, I'm looking at Polymarket, and it's showing that bettors think there's a 92 percent chance that Democrats take The House of Representatives, the Senate, as you note, is a little bit more close, but still gives the Democrats a pretty good edge. Most of the predictions show about a 60 percent chance of Democrats retaking the U.S. Senate. And again, over on the betting markets, a 67 percent chance that they get to that point. Now, one thing I'll note about the United States Senate, you could see some unusual things happen here. It could be very close. And, of course, the vice president of the United States, if there's a 50-50 tie in the Senate in terms of Democratic and Republican members, the vice president casts the deciding vote. So that gives sort of a built-in institutional edge to the administration there. And then there is the speculation that a number of people have put forward that the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, a man named John Fetterman, who has consistently sided with the Trump administration, there's speculation that he might flip And caucus with the Republicans if it helps give them another seat to retain control of that chamber that perhaps they will induce him with committee assignments or positions that would get him to either flip parties or at least again. So he could do that without resigning, could he? He could do that without. So he could stay as a senator, having won for the Democrats and then decide that he was actually a Republican midway through a presidential term. And, you know, interestingly, it has happened before. In fact, George W. Bush experienced this in and I believe 2002 when he was president. It looked like there was a capture of the U.S. Senate. And then you had, I believe at the time it was another senator from Pennsylvania. Flip his allegiances and change control of that chamber. So we have seen that before, and it's something folks are watching. If the Democrats don't have a healthy enough majority to take that chamber, you could see some of those maneuvers. So, I mean, it's just, I was just looking at some CNN polling. So, you know, about some of the key races where there are Senate seats up for grabs that the Democrats could take. And I've got to say that, I mean, look, the numbers, ...look pretty attractive for the Democrats. They're talking about in Michigan, where there is this controversial Democratic candidate, Abdul Al-Said. He's taken up a 49%. He's got 49% over his Republican opponent of 42%. If you look at... Texas, which is kind of the ruby red state where Democrats have always dreamed that one day they'll take Texas. Well, their candidate, a guy called James Talarico, is on 49% over his Republican rival, a guy called Ken Paxton, who's on 43%. Even in Maine, which is held by a Republican senator, a woman called Susan Collins, the Democratic candidate seems to have an edge there as well. And even in Kansas, and Kansas... is as red a state as there is. And you'd have to go back to 1932 to the last time a Democrat won in Kansas. And that's kind of seven years before The Wizard of Oz came out. So, you know, you're talking a really very long time ago. You called Michigan controversial. I mean, is he controversial or is he just Muslim? Because that has become A really salient point on the campaign, that Trump is trying to make him sound controversial, dangerous, a threat, all this talk of, you know, whether he's a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or not, which has not just come from one guy in a crowd. Well, he said he's a jihadist on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. So, I mean, this this controversial guy is actually a doctor. Dermatologist, is it? Yeah, I think so. Or epidemiologist, something like that? A Rhodes Scholar who studied in the UK? A Rhodes Scholar, oh yeah. Well, that's what makes it really controversial. Siding with the enemy here. He's a secret Brit. He is, he's a secret Brit. He probably likes Marmite. I mean, God knows. What's also interesting about that race, what's perhaps even more controversial. Then Donald Trump's comments, which I think are to be expected from Donald Trump, is that you've still seen the Democratic establishment fail to coalesce around Abdul Al-Sayed in that race because a lot of establishment Democrats are still smarting over the fact that their candidate didn't win in the primary and they thought perhaps Al-Sayed was too far left. I say that's controversial because El-Sayed continues to dominate in the polls in that race. I was having a conversation on set with a number of prominent Democrats this week, and I expected them, I think naively, to be waxing excitedly about El-Sayed's chances. And some of them were still saying how disappointed that they were that the congressional representative who had been in that race Didn't win and get the nomination. I thought this was quite extraordinary because El-Sayed has far exceeded expectations. And so if he doesn't pull it off in Michigan, there will be a lot of finger pointing that the Democratic establishment, the party, the old money didn't get behind him. Although, again, despite all of that, he seems to be, as we would say in American football, outkicking his coverage. Now, Haley Stevens was the one who fought him in the primary. She was more of the kind of Democrat kind of mold, I guess, in Michigan. And she came in behind him very quickly after he beat her. But one of the things that he has done is really try and differentiate. Uh, American tax money going to Israel. And that I think was initially the thing that really divided him from her. She raised thousands, millions of pounds. I love the way we still talk in thousands. She raised millions from AIPAC, you know, which is this sort of Israel friendly lobby. And he said, I don't want to have any money from AIPAC and I will not take any money that goes towards Israel and we should explain that Michigan has a very high Arab American population, particularly around Dearborn, some of the sort of cities where he has found this message has really, really sunk in. And I think it's kind of put a lot of Democrats all over the map. In this newer position, Miles, would that be right in terms of redefining the relationship that America is having right now with Israel? I say this three days on from the Israeli elections, of course, where everything still feels very, very fragile in that part of the world. That's right. But you know what is benefiting El-Sayed right now is this doesn't feel like a far left political position anymore. There are a lot of Republicans, a lot of working class Americans that have taken a dim view of Israel and not least of which because the president of the United States appears to have ceded to Israeli demands that he attack Iran and get the United States into a war that broke Donald Trump's. pledge of no more forever wars. So you have a lot of folks on the right who are actually interested in El-Sayed because of his positions on Israel and that conflict. And so you've got sort of a strange bedfellows political situation emerging here in the United States. I mean, it's so interesting. We'll broaden the picture out in a minute. I just to give you a I mean, Donald Trump has been relentless and. unbelievable in his campaigning in the sense that you know every day he's in a different state and yeah he's got Air Force One and yeah you know there's the motorcades and he doesn't have to wait around for buses or anything else to get himself to the venue but it is he's still an 80 year old man and he's campaigning with unbelievable energy and in the case of Michigan and what is happening in that state with Abdel Alsayed he's campaigning with relentless racism as well just have a listen To what he is saying. This was in Lubbock in Texas the other night, on Wednesday night, talking about Abdel Alsayed. He's not the guy for you. He doesn't represent your value. We can't take a chance. I've never seen anybody. Well, maybe the guy up in Michigan. I call him Mohammed. He goes by Abdul. Abdul Ramadan. We're done. I call him Mohammed. Then I found out his name was actually, his middle name is Mohammed. No, he's I would say he's changed. I would think equally as much. These are people we can't have these people in the United States and with with with him. I don't know if we have to do with Telefrico, but with the guy up in Michigan, we're going to have to get to the you know, the test, the metal detector test before he's allowed to sit every day. He's going to have to go through a metal detector in the United States Congress. I mean, Abdul, Ramadan, anything that you can conjure up that says Islam is terrible. That is how Donald Trump is playing it in this race. You know, when I before I went to work in the first Trump administration, my first experience with the man was I was sent up by House Republican leaders to go meet then candidate Donald Trump in 2016, who was then running for the presidency and was our party's nominee. And I had a mandate, which was Trump had been on the trail saying the words. Muslim ban, that he wanted a Muslim ban. And GOP leaders were shocked by this. None of them thought Trump would win the presidency, but they were convinced that his rhetoric would destroy the GOP brand once he lost the race for the presidency. And so they sent a group of us to advise Trump on what to start talking about instead of Muslim ban, right? And we. Went and explained to him, no, you don't want to ban people from a largely peaceful religion from coming into the United States. What you want is better policies to weed out actual violent extremists from the immigration flows. And we managed to persuade him to stop using the term Muslim ban. And, John, I naively thought at the time that Donald Trump was crass, but he was saying it to get a rise out of people that in his hearts of hearts, he didn't have these. bigoted views. Once I went and worked in the Trump administration, I will just say quite frankly, I was disabused of that naivete because I would have meetings in the Oval Office with the president where he explained very clearly the types of people he did not want in the United States. People from Somalia and Haiti and Ethiopia. He would list off the countries. I don't want those people. And then he would say the people I want are from places like Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. And you would walk out of the Oval and say this is Pretty difficult not to see that the president is saying, I do not want people from black and brown countries coming into the United States, but by God, if they are blonde haired and from a rich country, let them in. And I think it became clear what his real opinions were. Well, his opinion was that those, the African countries or the Middle Eastern countries were shithole countries. And if you were Nordic and kind of Aryan, you were fine. But he now classes Norway as a shithole country. After, of course, they didn't give him the Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah. I mean, I guess what we're looking at here, specifically in Michigan, is whether America, well, Michiganders are still inclined to follow the racism of the commander in chief or whether they can actually start to think for themselves when it comes to electing their senator. Another area that will be really interesting that we're going to be looking out for is this whole question of AI. And data centers, because Ohio has got a Senate race, which is really, again, quite tight. The Democratic nominee, Sherrod Brown, has tried to label his opposition candidate, John Husted, the man whose ass famously Trump is slathering over, the face of data centers. And there are more individual ballot initiatives about data centers. in Ohio than anywhere else. And so this is something that genuinely, I think, has sort of come from nowhere. We're going to be talking about this when we're out in America, but this sort of plugging into people's. Fear. And it is a fear that is not very easy to pin down. Is it about resources? Is it about jobs? Is it about a future they don't understand? Is it about big money? I mean, it's very interesting that the crypto super PAC, Defend American Jobs, has spent, I think, 46 million trying to defend Husted, the Republican, over Sherrod Brown. Maybe that will work. against him in Ohio, where clearly people are starting to ask that question. What are these data centers? Where are they coming from? Are they poisoning the water? Are they taking our jobs? Are they sending our kids mad? And I think we're going to start seeing really interesting races. I mean, the Kansas one is quite similar as well, where the Democrat had to row back from an endorsement of data centers because they suddenly understood how weirdly toxic this whole question has become in recent months. So. Let us consider in a moment what it means for Donald Trump if the polls are right and he loses the Senate and he loses the House. We'll be back in just a moment. Now it's time to thank our partner HSBC UK Commercial Banking. When you're growing your business, you need a banking partner as invested in your success as you are. And with HSBC UK, business financing is about more than just money. They support ambitious UK businesses looking to grow. Whether that's accelerating technology adoption, expanding into new markets or strengthening their workforce through upskilling. And they're not new at this. With over 160 years of experience, sector specialists, regional expertise, tailored financing solutions and a global network to tap into, they bring deep insight into what it really takes to grow your business. That's why they've launched the second edition of their HSBC Financing for Growth report. 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As you were saying, Miles, that, you know, the number one issue for Americans is corruption and what the House and the Senate do about that, where it leaves foreign policy for Donald Trump and the potential for enormous clashes between the legislature and the executive, between Congress and the White House. over what laws get passed, whether Donald Trump signs them, and all of that. And I think this is, it really could change fundamentally how Donald Trump spends the next two years in the White House. Yeah, I think what's really interesting is that every time we come to this sort of midterms point, we imagine that the loser becomes, and this is the phrase that is always used, a lame duck, you know, a lame duck president. Would losing the House make him a lame duck president? With Trump, it's sort of somehow harder to imagine. This little quacking duck sitting quietly in the corner of a lake, and you start to think, what would actually happen? Would he just find different channels for his power? Would more things come down to executive power? Would more things go through the Supreme Court? Would more things, frankly, just go sort of mano a mano to, you know, the leaders of different places if he wants to start a war? I mean, he didn't ask Congress last time round. So if he wants to start a war, he just calls up Bibi Netanyahu, who will probably still be in power, you know, in a month's time or whatever, too. So you start to imagine something very different, which is not the sapping away, I think, of presidential power from Trump, but a man who will probably stop at nothing to still do what he wants. Just on your lame duck. I mean, I don't think that's the right metaphor. I think he's going to be a wounded beast, which lashes out, which has still got some strength, and you don't know what the hell he's going to do next. Yeah, yeah. Well, and this sets up fights in the courts. I think that's the expectation is Donald Trump has spent the first two years of his second term really challenging the limits of the rule of law, blowing past a lot of those guardrails. But he's had a compliant Congress that has challenged him on almost nothing except briefly on the Epstein files. And it's made for an administration that's been willing. To take a few losses, well, quite a few losses in the courts and to largely abide by judicial decisions, even though there's been a lot of flouting of judges orders amidst various cases. I think you're going to see that change if Donald Trump loses the House and also potentially the Senate. You're going to see him in a position where he may be defying judicial orders. And that's been one of the big worries since he came back to office is. Will he set up a constitutional crisis by refusing to go along with judges who tell him to stop? Now, you can also see, John, you pointed to corruption being. A top issue in this election, you can see Donald Trump's nervousness and how much this throws him off kilter. We've covered on this program that in the past week, former President Barack Obama has mocked Donald Trump's corruption and how visible it is, the sort of garish gold he's put all over the White House and his building of ballrooms and monuments. And Trump has spent the past week. Sort of in defense mode on this, trying to persuade rally crowds that his marble is beautiful and that it's only cost peanuts and that this is very important for America. I mean, he's been on the defensive. His closing argument has been to basically double down on the perceived corruption while Americans are suffering at the gas pump. And there was even this remarkable moment this week where Donald Trump. He said he doesn't even care about high gas prices, that America has gotten so damn rich because of it, presumably pointing to the oil company executives who've gotten rich. And so he's gotten very defensive over this side by side of Trump corruption and suffering ordinary Americans. And I think if Democrats retake the House and the Senate, you are going to see those anti-corruption investigations consume the rest of his term. So one of the things that I'm really... Curious about. And if we go back to the first administration, what I'm going to call the Miles Taylor Trump administration, in 2018, we did see a blue wave and we did see the Democrats take the House and we did see the beginning of this impeachment process. I don't know whether standing back in 2026, you would say that impeachment one or impeachment two worked well enough to start. Impeachment three. I mean, the second was unprecedented. I'm not sure what we'd call the third. But I guess the question is, would they bother? Would Democrats feel that there was still grounds to impeach him because of this excess of corruption, because of this impunity again, because of this starting of foreign wars without the seal of Congress and all the rest of it? Or would they just kind of go? He's Teflon. It doesn't work. I think it's such an interesting question. Because, you know, who would have thought that a guy who had faced two impeachments... And also criminal charges and being found guilty could ever win re-election to the presidency. And he used those impeachments as a sign that everyone's out to get me. And, you know, and in the law cases saying, oh, God, look, if they can come after me and get me, just think what they'll do to get after you. And I am all that stands between you and the kind of weaponized Justice Department. I mean, the Justice Department has never been. More weaponized than it is right now, doing Donald Trump's bidding, as you know, we were hearing from Miles earlier on. I think that the impeachment weapon will be tempting, but it is a double edged sword. Would they bother more? Well, I think, look, Democrats are still a little bit wounded about how both of those impeachments ultimately failed to remove Donald Trump from office and, as John notes, failed to keep him from coming back to the presidency. So their hesitation is political. And not necessarily legal. In fact, you talk to a lot of these Democrats behind the scenes and they sort of feel like maybe they wasted their fire the first time because they have such solid grounds this time around to undertake impeachment proceedings. Simply look at Donald Trump's first impeachment over Ukraine. What was he impeached over? He was impeached because the Congress has said you must spend money to help Ukraine defend itself. And Donald Trump withheld that money and said, hey, Ukraine, I might want you to investigate one of my political rivals before I give you this money. That was considered a violation of appropriations law and the power of the purse and a quid pro quo, and they impeached him over it. Well, what Donald Trump has done in a second term on Ukraine. Is arguably orders of magnitude more serious as the president is believed to have participated in an effort to turn off their air defenses and shut off intelligence to the country. And he's openly collaborating with Vladimir Putin on this issue. He's demanding, you know, getting concessions on gas prices and buying Putin's oil, potentially for political benefit in the midterms to say he's making oil prices go down. It's gotten vastly worse. And Democrats feel like on that issue and so many. You raised the whole question of foreign policy, and I kind of remember as a kid, as a student, doing American politics and the power of the president to run a small war without requiring to get any kind of approval from Congress. And I wonder what sort of oversight There can be on Donald Trump's pursuit of foreign policy, regardless of whether it's a Republican House or a Democrat House. I mean, I'm not sure in my own mind that it would have made any difference if it was the Democrats controlling the Senate before Donald Trump decided to go in with Netanyahu to launch the attacks on Iran. And so, you know, what can the Senate compel Donald Trump to do? That he doesn't want to do and wouldn't do anyway. Yeah, I mean, on that exact question that Miles raises of lifting sanctions against Russia, buying diesel from Russia. Is there anything that the Democrats can do? Because they can use funding negotiations, right? They can stop money going towards something. But could they actually reverse a foreign policy, which it is essentially, of Donald Trump? Donald Trump had signed into law. Yeah. That was passed through Congress that was called the Lindsey Graham law. Yeah. After the Republican senator. I think you might see. In the in the lame duck Congress in between the election and the swearing in of a new Congress is there's a good chance you see the Congress close the loopholes in that law. In fact, even Republican senators had warned when that Lindsey Graham law had passed, it had a big. glaring loophole that you could drive a semi truck through and that loophole gave the president the ability to declare it was in the national interest to temporarily suspend those sanctions, which the administration has done to do that oil deal. So I think you could see that loophole closed. But Emily, you're also right that writ large, the question is this, you know, well. Let me put it this way. In politics and in life, the answer to 99 out of 100 questions is money. And that's where the Democrats see that they're going to have leverage over Donald Trump if they retake the majority is in these funding fights. And that's how they could shut down his ongoing war with Iran is simply starve the Pentagon of the funds they need to continue. And I will note, by the way. That the War Powers Act in the United States says the president must get congressional approval after 60 days when a conflict has been initiated. They are well past that 60-day mark, and even Republican members of Congress have made the case that the administration is continuing unlawfully to pursue this conflict. Billions and billions of dollars, in their argument, have been spent illegally to go forward in this conflict, but there haven't been the votes to shut off the money. There may now. Soon be the votes to shut off the money. For our English listeners, I just wanted to do a bit of translation. A semi-truck is an articulated lorry in British English. I So the other area that could be really interesting, and obviously we're in fantasy land at this point, don't we are imagining change and it is still entirely possible that there is no change to the House, there is no change to the Senate. But come with us on this journey because it's exciting anyway. If the Democrats controlled Senate committees, know. they could actually block or delay confirmations. And that would be particularly significant if a vacancy arose on the Supreme Court. What do we mean by that? Frankly, we mean somebody dying, right? So if there is a Supreme Court justice that dies in the next two years and the Democrats have control of the Senate committees, then they get to decide who they veto. Well, Emily, I'll take your scenario and I will raise you an even more dramatic scenario, which is that if the Democrats retake the United States Senate, there is a chance in the lame duck Congress. You see a conservative justice resign and try to trigger a really rapid confirmation process while Republicans still hold the United States Senate. In fact, there have been. Some indicators that there could be a resignation on the court, and so what is expected to be likely a very contentious post-election period, potentially with the administration contesting the results of the vote, may also have the possibility of a Supreme Court confirmation fight layered on top of it. So you mean in the next month, basically, before the confirmations come in January? That's right. Wow. Yeah, well, that would be exciting. That would certainly kind of raise the temperature in Washington, D.C., because, of course, the Supreme Court, I mean, decides so many of the key issues in American life in a way that the British Supreme Court just doesn't. And, you know, the kind of hot button issues, whether it's abortion, whether it's guns, whether it's voting rights, you know, the key decisions are not taken in Congress. The key decisions are so often taken. Yeah. And if you go back to Maine, one of the, you know, biggest fights of the whole Senate race is the question of Susan Collins, who confirmed Brett Kavanaugh. Now, Brett Kavanaugh was the man accused of sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford. She came and testified. He denied it. He sort of talked about the sort of frat boy culture, all the rest of it. And Susan Collins, who's, you know... The current, the incumbent senator for Maine went on and endorsed him. Now, her opponent is making a big deal of this this time around, saying, well, don't forget, you know, don't forget the part she played in this. What do you what do you imagine would happen on the next Supreme Court? I tell you the question we haven't raised yet, which I've kind of before we go, I think we ought to is there are going to be, you know, again, if the polls are right. And I keep saying if the polls are right, there are going to be some Democratic Party superstars emerging. From these midterm elections, who will be looking at themselves in the mirror on Wednesday morning and thinking, huh, not only am I devilishly good looking, I could be the next president of the United States of America. And I just think it's worth considering who the people are that we should be looking out for. I mean, I've seen John Ossoff. The Democratic candidate for Senate in Georgia, who looks like he's going to win. The thrice denying. Yeah, the thrice denying. You've got Gavin Newsom in California who will be kind of looking at himself. You know, there are quite a few, aren't there? Well, he'll be out, obviously. He'll be out of the governor's position, but might be thinking about the next. Eyeing a run in '28. So, you know, we haven't got an obvious. I mean, on the Republican side, you know, Trump can't run again because of the 22nd Amendment. J.D. Vance is likely to be the candidate. Who is it on the Democratic Party side? Sorry, just before you skip over that too quickly, JD Vance has been everywhere on this campaign trail. The person we've hardly heard from at all is Marco Rubio, who I'd suggest has kept very strong because he probably thinks that anything he says now will be associated with Vance and with Trump, and that's not a great place to be. OK, right, we've got to go round. I'm being told we've been rabbiting on for too long. We've each got to make a prediction. Who should we watch out for, Miles? It is John Ossoff's rising star that we should be paying attention to. I think he's going to be the one after this election that all eyes turn to in the Democratic Party as they are looking for a fresh face to lead the charge. Well, I am going to put my mouth and my money on Texas, where I think that Talerico actually will do it. I've been looking at the traditional Republican sort of bands, whether it's the Bushes, whether it's the Dallas Chronicle, whether it's the Texas Tribune. They are all getting in behind Talerico, which I find really significant. Does that mean that he will then stand for the presidency in 2028? Almost certainly not. Because I'm guessing once he's won Texas, you never, ever want to let it go. And they would never move him from that state until his mid-90s. So one to watch, but probably not one to project onto the presidency. I don't know. I mean, Gavin Newsom is obviously a, you know, he's very articulate, very slick, very good communicator, has been in politics a long time, is battle hardened, has probably got raised a lot of money. So that would be an obvious candidate. I mean, there are some other people. I mean, Wes Moore in Maryland, I still think is someone to watch. And I hear Democrat voices saying he could be very articulate. He could be someone who could really come forward. But I do think it's striking that... You know, here we are, we're two years out and it's not immediately obvious who that candidate is in a way that, you know, when it was Clinton versus Obama for the nomination. Back in, you know, 2000, it was clear that it was going to be between those two. And I don't think we're at that point yet. I will also throw in, I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will put her name into the ring for 2028. I can feel that coming because all this talk about, oh, you know, is she too young? Is it too early? Is she too female? I think it's bollocks. You have to go when it feels hot. And right now, or at least in 2028, that will feel hot. OK, someone else might be considered too female. Kamala, does she go again? I think Democrats are ready to move on, and I've got to agree with Emily, even though I don't think she is their best bet. I think AOC probably signals as soon after the new Congress is seated as possible that she intends to run for the presidency, and she sucks a lot of the populist oxygen out of the room with that signaling, and then the race begins. By the time this episode lands in your inbox, I am hoping that Emily and I will be halfway across the Atlantic or. We will be sitting in Heathrow Airport throwing paper darts at each other because we're now four hours delayed, really pissed off, have had a really grotty sandwich and are just thinking, oh, screw this, screw international travel. But hopefully we are going to be arriving in DC this weekend. Lewis is going to be watching that fevered race between Ken Paxton and James Talarico down in Texas. And we will be bringing you Miles Taylor on Monday morning. Is he any good? Ha ha ha! I don't know if he's listening. A lot of people say he's ----, but this is a really interesting time to bring him into the conversation. He's wanted for sedition wherever. So I'm expecting him to kind of enter the studio dressed as a sort of camouflage tree. Why do you think I have a hat on that I can just lower conveniently at any point? Nobody would spot you in defiance. But you can say of a seditious guy, it's always going to be interesting commentary, controversial commentary. So we'll bring that. And speaking of controversy. We will also be tracking the Trump administration efforts to potentially tip the scales in this election. I expect by the time that you all are in the air, there will be even more developments on that front. And on the night itself, we're going to be live on LBC, bringing you every twist and turn of the race. But for now, bye-bye. Join us for all of it. See you next week. Bye for now. Take care. The News Agents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. This has been a global production.