Democrats take U.S. Congress. What happens now?

Ashley Etienne worked with former Vice President Kamala Harris, Maura Gillespie with former Republican House Speaker John Boehner. Thanks for coming back. It feels like 10 minutes since you were sitting right here. It's been a couple hours, Ashley. You know, you won big, Democrats won big, but that comes with big pressure to deliver, right? What's your sense of how that's going to happen? Well, I mean, I think the pressure is going to be on really two fronts to deliver. One is some accountability toward Donald Trump. You know, you can hear it and sense it from leadership, from voters basically saying we want Trump held accountable. They want some blood. The other area in which there's going to be some expectation for action is going to be an agenda related to people's lives. I mean, people, the issue that people voted on last night was affordability, corruption connected to affordability. So they're going They're gonna want a democratic party to go after these corporations. to go after the tech companies, the data companies, data center companies, all of these people who in institutions that they feel are squeezing their pocketbooks. So whether or not Democrats can do that sort of with Donald Trump running interference on their agenda is going to be the question. As I listen to you, I think about the scale of what you're talking about. I mean, in some ways it could sound like this win is a bit of a poison chalice, right? Like you have to show results where people may not. You know, trust you with their votes in twenty twenty eight. How hard is that going to be when, as you say, the president is still talking vetoes? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he said today, I think just today that he's not going to pass any legislation that will reverse what he's already done and what he's already done is a mess. So how do we where do we go from here is a real question. But, you know, one way of looking at this is that there's a. There's going to be pressure for Democrats to deliver early and quickly on a proactive economic agenda. How they do that is unclear with the president there. I think My advice would be that they use their investigative powers to actually pursue tariffs, corporations, price gouging, all the issues that are related to people's pocketbooks that don't involve the president or do involve the president to some degree. That's where I would advise them to focus their attention because in their energy, because anything else is sort of the president's been inoculated from. accountability. And so, you know, I think the challenge, as I said last night on the show, is that the economy is only going to get worse. That's how the president designed it. The big, beautiful bill, the worst parts of it, cuts to Medicaid, et cetera, are going to kick in in 2027. So they're going to be under a lot of pressure to deliver in an environment that's only going to get worse. Pressure to more on the Republicans, right? They have some work ahead of them. What does that work look like? Like, is it distancing from MAGA and Trump? Is it rebranding? What is it? It is. I think it's mostly distancing from Trump because, you know, remember, MAGA is also frustrated with Donald Trump. They don't feel as though he delivered for them either. And so there's an opportunity to really reclaim not only the power of the purse, as we discussed last night, but to remind folks that the Republicans have been the fiscal conservatives. So going back to what Ashley is saying about investigations, targeting where the fraud, waste, and abuse is actually happening. And you can start with the Trump administration. If you're looking to distance yourself from what President Trump has done and the debt he's added to the economy, the situation he has made worse for families to get ahead or to just even be able to afford groceries or afford their gas. There needs to be a responsibility placed as well on Republicans in Congress and being an active participant and how to steer that ship in a better direction, because right now it is not going very well and they have a have a responsibility to their constituents to do so. I think that requires work across the aisle, but also really reclaiming some of that positioning so that they can run on something in 2028. I'm so curious, Maura. I know you've been speaking with your Republican colleagues today. How has the conversation changed today from what you heard last night? You know, last night was certainly a lot of disappointment, just kind of for those who have been in the MAGA world, they're a little bit insulated. And for those, and when I say MAGA world, I mean Trump world, excuse me. Trump world is very insulated. And so they are feeling the pain points of what happened last night. I think that for the rest of the Republican Party, for many people, they feel as though this is what was deserved. It is a rebuke. On Donald Trump and his policies and his cabinet and those who have pushed and not stopped the president and been guardrails where they could have been being yes men to him at all times has not been a fruitful exercise, I'd say, in governance. But what you're about to see now is Republicans have an opportunity to recalibrate and to realign their mission and their values and their. Then policy positions that they want to run on in the future. This is a chance to really reclaim the narrative that Donald Trump has stolen because Donald Trump is not a Republican. He is not a Democrat. He's not a Republican. He is a egomaniacal man that is really solely looking out for himself at number one. And it's time for the American people and for both, especially the Republican Party, to step away from that. At the risk of making timekeepers very angry here, is there one name from either one of you that we should be thinking about for 2028? Start with you, Ashley, and then end with Maura. Yeah, I think J.B. Pritzker is an obvious one. He invested in Gina Hinojosa, which is going to get him the Latino vote. Stratton, who's an African-American woman. So he's actually laying a really good foundation and he's got a ton of money. So I think he's one to watch. Maura? Republicans in our soul search mission right now and anyone who is attached to Trump is someone who I wouldn't be able to support. And so I think it's going to be some time for me, but I'll pick a name for you. All right, Maura Gillespie, Ashley Etienne, you're both wonderful. Thank you. Thank you.