Jeffrey Goldberg: Tonight on a special edition of Washington Week with The Atlantic, the fight to control Congress.

Live from the battleground state of Texas, next.

Good evening, and welcome to Washington Week.

We're coming to you tonight from Austin PBS in front of a live studio audience.

Early voting begins here in Texas on Monday, and the outcome of the race between State Representative James Talarico and Attorney General Ken Paxton could determine which party controls the Senate in the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency.

The biggest questions are on the table tonight.

Is there a blue wave coming?

What would the Democrats do if they managed to take control of one or both chambers of Congress?

And how will Donald Trump rule in the last two years of his presidency should he find himself living down the street from a Democratic-controlled Capitol?

There's an even more immediate question before the country.

Will Trump or his supporters challenge the election results in conventional or unconventionally dangerous ways should they lose the House or the Senate?

And there's one more question.

I call it the World War III question.

How will Donald Trump manage a destabilized world, one in which America's support for its allies can no longer be assumed?

We have a great panel to discuss all of this tonight.

Mark Leibovich is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of, among other bestsellers, "This Town".

He is a former reporter for The New York Times and The Washington Post, and is known as the foremost anthropologist of Washington.

Ashley Parker covers The White House for The Atlantic and is a multiple Pulitzer Prize winner.

She previously served as White House Bureau Chief for The Washington Post.

Vivian Salama covers national security for The Atlantic and previously covered global affairs in The White House for The Wall Street Journal.

And Evan Smith is the managing director for events at The Atlantic and also hosts Overheard on PBS right here in this studio.

He is the founding editor of The Texas Tribune, and he's something of a local legend.

Thank you all for -- and he's the next governor of Texas, right?

Yes.

You haven't announced yet, but we're just -- I'm just assuming that the early polls are good.

Evan, thank you for being here and hosting us in your home studio.

We're very glad to be with such a great audience.

We have a lot to get to tonight.

And before we talk about the midterms, you know, the world intrudes, as it tends to do.

We just saw a dramatic U-turn -- I guess it's another dramatic U-turn, in President Trump's attitude toward Ukraine and Russia.

Last week, he decided to buy billions of dollars in diesel from Russia, which makes Putin much richer at a time when he needs the money.

And President Trump has spent the week deriding President Zelenskyy of Ukraine.

He told an interviewer this week that he feels -- well, this is Zelenskyy talking about Trump, but he feels betrayed by the powering down of Starlink, that's the communications that we've been using.

And he feels betrayed by the diesel deal when he said, quote, It's a pity that we're losing a strong partner.

I was really struck by how final that sounds.

But, Vivian, give us a sense of what's happening, why it's happening, and what it means.

Vivian Salama, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Oh, well, there's a difficult question.

But I will try.

So -- Jeffrey Goldberg: And you have 12 seconds to do it.

Vivian Salama: And I have exactly 12 seconds.

You know, President Trump has never shied away from the fact that he's been skeptical of Ukraine, its leadership, and this dates back to his first term.

Remember, in the first term, you had the so-called perfect call with Zelenskyy when he first took office that ultimately led to the first impeachment because he asked President Zelenskyy to investigate his political rivals.

And so, you know, since then, President Trump has sort of had a grievance.

He also has an affinity for Vladimir Putin.

He likes the way that he runs his country.

It's sort of this all-powerful way where he can kind of, you know, put down journalists and political dissidents and kind of rule with an iron fist, and it has been very appealing to him.

He sees him as a strong man, and that's something that appeals to him.

And so when Russia launched its war, first of all, its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, President Trump, A, insisted that that would have never happened on his watch, that Putin respects him too much to have done that.

But then, secondly, he also decided that he would resolve this conflict overnight.

He hasn't managed to do that, and he sort of tried partially because he had a lot of people around him pushing him in the direction of Ukraine.

Ukraine is an ally.

It's, you know, the doorstep of Europe.

You have to help.

And so he's entertained that idea for the first year of his presidency.

But over time, he increasingly believed that the only guy he needed to talk to, the only guy who matters in this is Vladimir Putin.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Vivian Salama: Because he's more powerful.

He's the one who's going to change things.

And so he's really kind of leaned in on that.

And as a result, it's come at a, a price for Ukraine, both in terms of the deals he is making with Russia and the deals he is willing to kind of pull back on with Ukraine.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Ashley, you have a PhD in Trump's behavioral patterns.

U.T.

Austin, I think.

Okay, great.

Ashley Parker, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

The question is -- we periodically go through these phases where he seems supportive of Zelenskyy, but from your perspective, does Trump ever change?

In other words the impulses that he has seem to -- there's a little bit of a sine curve, a rollercoaster maybe, but he always comes back to the same ideas.

Ashley Parker: Yes.

On his -- I mean, there's a sense that Donald Trump is not particularly ideological, which is both true and not true.

Which is to say that on his core set of beliefs, he's sort of frozen in amber in the 1980s, and the views he held then being hard line and kind of nativist on immigration, the views he had on trade, frankly, the views he had on Iran, those are very unchangeable.

You know, in the margins, he is often swayed by charismatic personalities, by what he lasts on T.V., by the last person to call him on the phone or leave the Oval Office.

But on these big things, he fundamentally doesn't change, which, when it comes to geopolitics, one of the things, as Vivian just mentioned, that he likes strong men.

He likes strength and power.

When he was first elected to the presidency, he thought that it was a bit more like a monarchy, right?

He was kind of genuinely befuddled that Congress had to sign off on laws, and he couldn't just dictate these things.

And so there -- Jeffrey Goldberg: I think Congress might be befuddled about that too.

Ashley Parker: Yes.

Everyone's deeply confused, yes.

And so at the end of the day, he sort of believes, as he said famously in that Oval Office blowup, that Zelenskyy doesn't have the cards.

Zelenskyy is operating from the weaker position, and Trump, who is desperate, desperate, desperate for a Nobel Peace Prize and wants this deal, in his ideal view, he would get the deal by Zelenskyy just capitulating with his, quote/unquote, mediocre cards.

Jeffrey Goldberg: One question before I go to Mark on a question about history.

When you - - you talk about these patterns being set in the 1980s.

I'm not asking this as a joke, but what was the key year?

Was it '79, the Iran hostage?

No, because it's really remarkable that there's this level of multi-decade consistency in his views.

What he thought about Iran in 1979 is what he thinks today.

What he thought about trade in 1982 is what he thinks today.

Was there like a -- was there a moment when something coalesced in him where he developed his worldview?

Ashley Parker: I mean, I can't pinpoint it to a particular year or a particular month, though that would make a great oral history, but I would -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, you could just say June 13th, 1981, and I'd believe you, you know?

It's like -- Ashley Parker: And but I would say kind of the '80s as he's -- coming up as, you know, the boy from the outer borough made good.

I mean, even some of those other things are still there within him, and these are not policy things, but there was this sense that he had finally gotten to Manhattan.

But he was not taken seriously by the -- he was sort of gauche and a little crude.

And even that sense of outsiderness is something in the chip on his shoulder that you see.

But I mean, A, that's how he relates to his base in certain ways.

But it's something that is still with him.

I mean, people joke or half say seriously that maybe one of the reasons he ran for the presidency was because he was so embarrassed by Barack Obama at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Who -- you know, who knows if that's an origin story, but it does get to those pathologies that were formed as a young man in the '80s.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I mean, some of us were there and Trump did not look happy at that moment actually.

Mark, let me ask you this about Trump and Trumpism.

It's a very deliberately oversimplified question, but is there anyone in American politics like Trump in his ability to just sort of plow through things phenomena that, that would sink any other political leader?

Mark Leibovich, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Oh, not even close.

No.

I mean, I think that we've seen this again and again, I mean, you know, in many categories, one being things that other politicians w- would end their career.

You know, we've seen from the beginning, I mean, that doesn't apply to Donald Trump.

And I think that that's going to inform the very messy, I think, succession to him in the Republican Party because, you know, J.D.

Vance, whoever, you know, tries to be the heir apparent is going to find that those rules do not apply to him or her.

And I think so that will -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, go back.

It's almost the tenth anniversary of Trump's first term in office.

Go back and with everything that you know now, what are the qualities of Donald Trump that made him this unique, gravity-defying candidate?

Mark Leibovich: I mean, I think one of the superpowers is just the shamelessness, just his inability to be sort of confined by the rules of embarrassment, by the rules of norms, by the rules of, you know, what will history think of me.

I mean, I remember during the end of his first term there was all this kind of Pollyannish talk about, well, Mr.

President, don't you worry about how you'll be remembered in history.

And he, like and others around him, like, you know, Rudy Giuliani and others, would say, No, I'll be dead, or, you know, I'll be remembered as a loser.

I mean, it was very black and white.

But it's also very much -- I mean, you do realize that the check and balance of the White House begins with the conscience and the character of the president, him or herself.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Before we jump, and we'll talk about the Trump legacy a little bit, and before we jump to Texas and national politics, I want to ask one more question about some news of this week.

Vivian, you've been covering the controversy over the execution of Nidal Hasan, the convicted terrorist who carried out the Fort Hood massacre.

Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, wanted to televise that execution.

That was too much for Donald Trump.

He just said no to that.

Can you tell us what happened inside the White House?

Vivian Salama: So, Pete Hegseth sort of surprised everyone, including people at the White House, when he came out and -- Jeffrey Goldberg: He had not cleared that with President Trump?

Vivian Salama: Well, the people that we talked to, the sources we talked to say that they were blindsided by it.

And even if he did consult with President Trump, he may have sort of processed the idea that there was going to be a firing squad execution, but not that it was going to be televised with the president, that that didn't really kind of sink in.

And so when the president sort of realized it, partly because Pete Hegseth announced it last week, he was taken aback.

He was getting -- he was inundated by calls, including from Republicans, including even from people in his inner circle, Speaker Mike Johnson very wary about the whole idea.

And this concept of, you know, a public execution of a paraplegic, an old man who is a paraplegic, just did not sit well with the president.

And, of course, people -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Even though the paraplegic was a mass murderer.

Vivian Salama: Even though the paraplegic was a mass murderer.

And, eventually, when the president revealed that he would pull back on this live-streaming, he, you know, started with the idea that this man is a terrorist and deserves to die, in his view, but live-streaming it will not happen.

Jeffrey Goldberg: This obviously raises questions about Pete Hegseth.

It also raises questions about his management of the Department of Defense.

It also raises questions about his future political judgment.

I mean, he is one of many people.

We obviously have Marco Rubio and J.D.

Vance in the first two.

Just conventional wisdom says that they're the two most likely nominees at the moment.

But Hegseth has expressed a great deal of interest in electoral politics.

Does this hurt Hegseth, either in his current role or in his future?

Vivian Salama: I mean, there's been so many episodes in which Pete Hegseth has sort of, you know, kind of hit rock bottom, and then somehow, you know -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, I'm aware of that.

I was involved in one.

Vivian Salama: There you go.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Vivian Salama: And somehow he comes back from it, in part because he almost knows how to speak President Trump's language.

He's very good at sort of putting himself out there on television and making these sort of campy videos with -- of shows of military bravado and insulting -- Jeffrey Goldberg: The performance parts of -- Vivian Salama: The performance parts, and insulting journalists and things like that.

And that resonates with the president, even if literally everyone around the president kind of soured on him at one point or another.

And that's been pretty consistent.

President Trump, for some reason, has just continuously believed that he is effective, in part because he takes orders.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Evan, Evan.

Evan Smith, Managing Director for Events, The Atlantic: Jeff.

Jeffrey Goldberg: On behalf of the 49 other states, could you explain Texas to us?

Evan Smith: I cannot.

I can't -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, all right, then we're going to pivot to the earned income tax credit.

Evan Smith: I can tell you that it is the middle of October.

We're sitting here in an election year talking about whether Texas elections are competitive, and that is not something that we're used to in the state of Texas.

It has been more than 30 years since elections in Texas have been competitive.

The last time a Democrat was elected statewide in Texas, the number one song in America was by Boyz II Men.

That's how long ago it was.

November 1994, that was the year that George Bush beat Ann Richards.

Other Democrats on the ballot won, and since then, no Democrats have been elected.

We are looking at the possibility of a Democratic United States senator from Texas, and possibly other Democratic statewide officials, and no one really can believe that we're here three weeks out.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

I mean, there's good reason not to believe it.

But let me give you a couple of names to go against this feeling of novelty.

Beto O'Rourke, Colin Allred.

Evan Smith: Right.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Talarico is obviously raising tons of money.

Evan Smith: Right, the most money.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And getting a lot of excitement around his name.

Evan Smith: Right.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I mean, and it's all the more surprising because he scans, at least to me as an outsider, as someone sort of socio-culturally closer to like the Brooklyn liberal model rather than some kind of -- Evan Smith: But it tells you something about this election that James Talarico is running ahead of a generic Democrat, and Ken Paxton is running behind a generic Republican, right?

That's one of the reasons that this race is so close, candidate quality.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And the only reason, and the only reason I bring up those two names is that there is a lot of excitement around them, and for whatever set of reasons.

And maybe it's structural.

Maybe there's just simply more Republicans than Democrats in a dispositive way.

For some reason, Democrats can't get over that hump.

This is not like Kansas, which never -- I mean, now it's competitive, but never had -- you know, never had this -- that run of close calls for the Democrats, if you will.

Evan Smith: Right.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, I'm not asking you to predict what's going to happen, but I'm asking you to predict what's going to happen.

Evan Smith: What's going to happen.

Okay.

Well, let me first of all push back on you.

Colin Allred was never really competitive against Ted Cruz in that Senate race.

Beto O'Rourke is a better analogy.

It was a Trump midterm in 2018.

It's a Trump midterm now, but there are a couple of things that are different this time versus last time.

The first is that the political environment has migrated down to the level of Texas voters in a way that it had not in 2018.

Turnout in 2018 in Texas was unusually high for a midterm, but people in Texas, both Democrats and Republicans, both urban voters and rural voters, are pissed off this year in a way that they were not in 2018.

That is a motivating factor in this election.

The second thing is that the issue set this time is working against Republicans in a way it did not in 2018.

The economy, data centers, Flock cameras, vouchers, these are all issues that are cutting against Republicans in poll after poll.

The candidate quality thing I mentioned is a big deal, but I would also say that the dynamics of the electorate are very important.

Latinos who voted Republican in the last election have swung all the way back, according to every single poll.

The Republican Party, I'm told by people in both parties, is collapsing in the Rio Grande Valley, a number of the seats they redistricted.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And that, to remind our national audience, that is a very, very heavily Hispanic region.

Evan Smith: Majority Hispanic counties that are along the border and in South Texas where they redistricted.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And a lot of families that have border police or -- I mean, they lean -- it can lean conservative.

It can lean -- Evan Smith: And we're probably susceptible to the idea that we're going to deport criminal migrants, but they're not happy about deporting your gardener from the Home Depot checkout line, right?

The fact is that the, the swing back of Latinos to the Democratic Party is going to cost Republicans a number of those seats that they redrew famously, right?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Can I just bring in Ashley for one second on this, because I don't understand the internal White House deliberations on these, just on a pure political, on a pure level of politics, these deliberations?

I would imagine that, you know, on one side you have Stephen Miller who says, deport as many people as you can and Hispanic support or non-support be damned.

And you have a lot of other people who are more politically sensitive to midterms, among other things, who are like, well, maybe we should ease up a little bit because we did actually do surprisingly well with Hispanics.

What's the dynamic there?

Ashley Parker: Well, I mean, there is a misconception that the Hispanic vote is monolithic and turns on immigration, and that's not the case.

A lot of Hispanic voters who came here illegally or whose families came here illegally want other people to do the same, right?

So, a lot of that appeal was economic votes.

That's the first thing, which is also not going well now.

But the second thing is that, yes, Stephen Miller is incredibly hard line on immigration.

As discussed, it's one of those few core political values that Donald Trump also shares with him.

But there is this irony where Republicans do benefit and Democrats to their peril, on being tough on border security.

That is sort of a norm in the United States.

But it gets to what Evan was saying, the sort of rounding up people who are just waiting in a Home Depot parking lot to try to go to work and work hard, or someone's babysitter.

And, of course, what we've seen in the States, not just in Texas, from ICE, the murders.

There was a real backlash in the country.

Vivian Salama: It ends up diminishing what a lot of people see genuinely as a national security issue, and it turns it into a culture wars issue that right now when people can't afford to -- their gas, they can't afford groceries.

That becomes very quickly diminished.

Jeffrey Goldberg: What you're saying is that for a lot of people in the Trump universe, including maybe Trump himself, it is more of a culture war issue.

You wouldn't be targeting the people you're targeting if you were simply trying to enforce existing law on the border.

Vivian Salama: I think they do genuinely view it as a national security issue, but they have implemented it as part of their culture wars.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

I mean, Mark, what's interesting here is that both parties have stumbled on immigration for opposite reasons.

The Democrats, the Biden administration, did not take border security seriously, much less what's going on inside the country, and the Trump administration has moved way past the border, way north of the border, let's say, to just sort of randomly -- or not randomly, but very deliberately go into northern cities and start looking for illegal immigrants who are living responsible, quiet lives.

Mark Leibovich: Yes.

No, I mean, the irony of this is that Donald Trump did get elected largely on this.

I mean, this was a huge issue for him, and he also did a really -- I mean, people perceived him as doing a really good job securing the border.

I mean, if he had just quit after however long it took to feel like the border had been secured and not gone ahead with the next iteration of the ICE raids and the Home Depot, you know, just like the seizing and so forth, this would've been a great sort of thing for him to boast over, but he sort of let it run out of control.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Evan Smith: Can I say something about the culture war just on this, and to come back to the Talarico race?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, please.

Evan Smith: Hundreds of millions of dollars have come into this state from out of state to put ads on during football games, and everybody in Texas watches football, that have been about trans kids.

If you look at the voters' preferences on issues this cycle, issues related to trans Americans are at the very bottom.

This is an election about the economy.

I think what's -- we're going to know this on November the 3rd, but I think what we will say is the Republicans lit hundreds of millions of dollars on fire running culture war ads in an election cycle that was still about the economy, stupid.

Jeffrey Goldberg: It's about diesel prices, not -- Evan Smith: It's about the economy.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Evan Smith: It's about the economy.

Ashley Parker: And also just to take it a step further, the reason that the Kamala Harris, she's for they, them, not you ad was so effective during the campaign was actually in talking to both Democrat and Republican operatives, it was less about the actual trans issue, and it was, again, in a moment of economic peril.

What it was signaling was she's not focused on what you care about.

She's not focused on prices and on your daily life.

Like that's why it was so devastating.

But now it's the exact opposite.

Things Donald Trump is doing, like talking nonstop about the ballroom, right, he's asked a question about Iran, and he holds up a huge poster board of the, the gilded ballroom, that sent the exact same signal to voters.

You're going to three supermarkets in order to use all your coupons and afford your groceries, and this is what he cares about.

Jeffrey Goldberg: If I were running for office right now, I would turn the ballroom into a data center and then point all the Flock cameras at it.

Ashley Parker: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: That's why I'd be a very successful politician.

No.

You know, it's interesting you mentioned the money that's coming into this state, which I guess is good for the people who live in this state, but -- or at least the T.V.

buyers in the state.

Evan Smith: Right.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Our friend Leigh Ann Caldwell reports that the -- $500 million in combined spending so far, and the estimate is that the $368 million more than Republicans are planning on spending in this race.

That's a lot of -- Evan Smith: Well, it's an enormous amount of money.

Jeffrey Goldberg: That's a lot of money.

Evan Smith: And, again, it's possible that all this money never would have saved Ken Paxton.

We're going to know the outcome of this race soon enough, but one scenario here is that money could have been better used to save Jon Husted in Ohio, to save Dan Sullivan in Alaska to save any number of other candidates.

The Kansas race, which is suddenly competitive, that money might be more helpful in Kansas ultimately than in Texas.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Mark, I want to ask you about the Democrats on this.

They - - Democrats have a pretty bad record of picking candidates.

Remember Graham Platner?

It seems like a million years ago, but -- Mark Leibovich: You know, people loved Graham Platner -- Jeffrey Goldberg: People loved Graham Platner.

Mark Leibovich: Until they didn't.

Jeffrey Goldberg: No.

But the Republicans have done -- let's be honest.

They've done quite a job on themselves here in Texas in terms of picking a floridly unconventional candidate.

Mark Leibovich: I would say they're Floridly unconventional, to be kind.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Mark Leibovich: Yes, I would say.

Jeffrey Goldberg: That is -- I was just looking for vocabulary words to use on this show.

Mark Leibovich: It was a great turn of phrase.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Oh, thank you very much.

Mark Leibovich: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But -- so talk about that and talk about the particular Trump dynamic that led to the Republicans picking possibly the worst candidate they could find to run against, obviously, this, this young and exciting liberal Democrat.

Mark Leibovich: Yes.

I mean, look, I mean, Donald Trump got directly involved in the Texas race.

He did not endorse John Cornyn, as many were hoping he would, and who would've been a much stronger candidate, and we might not even be talking -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Cornyn would have won.

Mark Leibovich: Probably.

Evan Smith: Cornyn would have absolutely been the favorite in this race.

Mark Leibovich: He would have been the favorite, there's no question.

I mean, there are other incumbents like Jon Husted in Ohio and Dan Sullivan in Alaska who are in big, big dog fights.

But I think Cornyn was definitely seen as a stronger general election candidate.

I would give Democrats, and Chuck Schumer in particular, some credit for recruitment.

I think, you know, especially after they kind of got rescued from Platner by events, they have a pretty good crop of Senate candidates, Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Mary Peltola in Alaska, Talarico here, and a bunch of others.

So, I mean, they are set up pretty well.

Jeffrey Goldberg: People who seem connected to their states in some organic way.

Evan Smith: Yes.

Mark Leibovich: and they're good candidates.

I mean, they've performed well.

They've overperformed in primaries and so forth with some exceptions.

But I do think also the overriding benefit they have is that Trump has just given them so much to work with.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Vivian Salama: Let's remember how we got here.

I mean, President Trump -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, how did we get here?

Vivian Salama: -- prioritized loyalty during the primaries over these qualifications.

And so, so many of the people that he sort of sided with were loyal, but not necessarily people who could go on to win a general election.

They did well in the primaries, but here we are now.

You know, Republicans are facing major potential losses because of this.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But, Vivian, let's also remember how we got here.

Donald Trump launched a war against Iran.

Now, we've been in a -- Vivian Salama: Oh, there's that too.

Jeffrey Goldberg: We've been in a cold war with Iran since 1979, obviously, but he chose the time and the date to upgrade that war, but then he didn't do the thing that you're supposed to do when you start a war, which is win.

And so my question, particularly in this state, is the fuel prices that the diesel prices that are a byproduct of not winning, how big of a deal is that in a state where -- I just -- I mean, I know the state a little bit, and everything is really far away.

Evan Smith: Well, it's massive.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Evan Smith: Look, I fill up my car this week and I pay $4 and something a gallon.

The people who are long haul truckers going from one end of this very large state to another, who are bringing us food, fiber, and other things that are material to our lives, are paying north of $6 a gallon for diesel, which is the most it's ever been in the history of this country.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And that will take somebody who's MAGA-oriented and make them un-MAGA-oriented.

Evan Smith: Quickly.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Evan Smith: Quick.

Look I do think that this is important, but let me tell you what the most important thing that we haven't talked about yet that's going to decide this race is.

What will John Cornyn's voters do?

That is the one unanswered question that we have right now.

900,000 people voted for John Cornyn in the first round against Ken Paxton.

500,000 voted for John Cornyn in the runoff that he lost to Ken Paxton.

The difference between Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz in 2018 was 216,000 votes.

Are the Cornyn people going to put two clothespins on their nose in case one falls off and vote for Talarico?

Are they going to put merely one clothespin on their nose and vote for Paxton, or are they going to skip that race?

Will there be a significant undervote?

That math is the ballgame, I'm telling you, on November 3rd.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I'm just picturing how to put two clothespin on one nose.

Evan Smith: Well, I think you could get them on there.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Is that like some weird local custom that I'm not -- I don't know.

Evan Smith: Possibly.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, you know, you raise a really interesting, big question about Texas Republicanism.

I mean, the only living ex-Republican president this country has is a Texan, tried and true.

The foremost Republican strategist the past 30 years, Karl Rove, is here.

Evan Smith: Just lives over there.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And lives over there.

And we're going to bring him out right now.

And both are outcasts.

Both are outcasts in -- not only in their party, but in their home party.

And so the question for you, you've studied this more intensely than anyone, how did this change happen?

And is there room for them and their brand of Republicanism, and maybe John Cornyn's brand of Republicanism, in Texas' future?

Evan Smith: To come back?

Jeffrey Goldberg: To come back?

Evan Smmith: Yes.

Well, let me say, I've lived long enough to see everything.

Suddenly, George Bush is a liberal.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Evan Smith: Right?

There was a time in Austin, Texas, when George W. Bush, Karl Rove, these were the most conservative people you ever did meet.

And now, George W. Bush could not get through a Republican primary in Texas.

Bush is a four-letter word in Texas.

Anybody associated with that administration, with that brand of politics, is an outcast in the Republican Party.

I can't believe it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But how deep is that in the state?

Evan Smith: Well, I think it's deep in the sense that a lot of people who were once that guy don't even run for office anymore because they know they're going to get killed in the primary.

Right now, it is the other end, the Trump end of the party that is dominant in politics in Texas.

Now, we're going to see whether this election is a rebuke of that end of the Republican Party, but the Bush crowd, for the moment, is on the sidelines, is on the sidelines.

And there are really good politicians.

I'm going to cite one, the mayor of Fort Worth, Texas, Mattie Parker, who is one of the most, in my experience, interesting politicians in this country.

She is a 50 percent plus one Republican.

She is not an ideologue.

She is not an activist Republican.

She's getting stuff done in her city.

The perception is she'd be a great governor, she'd be a great United States senator from this state except for the fact that she couldn't get through a primary because she is much more aligned with that Bush wing of the party than the Trump wing.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, the primary system is obviously a subject for a whole other show.

You know, one of the questions just popped to mind as you were talking about Cornyn voters is I want to know who Cornyn himself is going to vote for.

Evan Smith: Right.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I mean, it doesn't -- I mean, you know, you -- look, you wrote a book literally called "Thank You for Your Servitude".

It was about people who -- Mark Leibovich: It was anthropological, actually.

Jeffrey Goldberg: It was an anthropological treatise.

Mark Leibovich: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I just find it -- I find the questions that you were raising in that among the most interesting.

People who -- maybe you would phrase it this way, people who knew better and who didn't agree with the turn that the Republican Party was taking turned anyway.

Cornyn tried to be loyal.

Wasn't loyal enough, I guess.

Evan Smith: Voted with the president like 98 percent of the time.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But the question, it's not about -- it's not about just Cornyn, but the question for you is, is there a kind of -- especially let's assume just, for argument's sake, that Congress goes Democratic and Trump is 80-plus years old in the last two years of a term.

Is there going to be a wholesale abandonment by people like Cornyn, who maybe were holding their nose the whole time?

You know, when does this level of complicity in things that they don't agree with, when does it come to an end?

Mark Leibovich: You know, we've thought in the past, certainly after January 6th, that that would -- that the fever's over.

I mean, people are -- you know, people were speaking publicly about, you know -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Oh, January 7th, it was over, yes.

Mark Leibovich: Yes, no, Lindsey Graham, I mean, the whole crew.

But, look, it did snap back.

I mean, Donald Trump is term limited.

I mean, I think, look, in the category of they who knew better and who allowed it to happen anyway, John Cornyn, for as nostalgic as certain people might be about him right now, was absolutely among them.

He -- and if he were endorsed by Donald Trump and got the Republican nomination, he would be talking very differently right now.

So, the idea that there are all these outspoken Republicans now who are finally sort of developing a backbone, I mean, the vast majority of them are people who are either out of office or have just lost primaries, like Thom Tillis and so forth.

So, I mean, that's worth talking about.

Ashley Parker: And also just -- I mean, January 6th I think is such a good striking example because there was a sense of this is over.

And I just think it's worth reminding people not only did it snap back, but after January 6th, it began to snap back after three weeks, right?

This wasn't a slow burn.

Within three weeks, Kevin McCarthy flew down to Mar-a-Lago, appeared with Donald Trump, a photo was tweeted out, and Trump was back.

And so I think what we will see, if there is an abandonment, at the end of the day, we have seen -- and this is not unique to the Republican Party.

This is most politicians in general.

But the Republican Party is incredibly self-interested and self-motivated, as politicians are, both parties, of getting re-elected.

And so if there is any distancing, it will be because Trump, for whatever reason, no longer has that vise-like grip over his base.

But if it turns out in a Democratic-controlled Congress, as a lame duck president, that he can still attack you and get voters to turn on you, you're not going to see these profiles in courage.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Vivian, I wanted to ask you something.

We've talked about this a little bit, and Mark mentioned the name, Lindsey Graham.

And when we were talking about Ukraine, you've made some interesting points about -- I mean, a very specific point about Graham, but a larger point about the difference between the second term and the first term.

The first term, there were people around Donald Trump who were building and maintaining guardrails.

One by one, they've all disappeared.

Talk about that that issue, I think.

It's very fascinating.

Vivian Salama: So, we've talked a lot about how this -- this term, the president really has surrounded himself with yes men and women, people who will take orders, agree.

I mentioned Pete Hegseth earlier.

That is what he has chosen as, you know, the path for his second administration, in part because he felt like too many people undermined his presidency the first time around, and he did not want that.

So, this time around, you know, especially with Ukraine policy, for example, or even the Iran war, one of the things that we saw throughout was that, for the most part, the president's whims were being carried out, but then he was being reined in, definitely in the first year.

And there really is only one reason for it, and it is Senator Lindsey Graham.

When he passed away in July, I kind of rounded up all the old interviews I've done with him on either Iran or Ukraine and tried to piece together just how influential he was on the president's thinking and his approach.

Hugely influential in the president's decision to go to war with Israel against Iran, to attack Iran in conjunction with Israel, and also hugely influential in keeping the money and the aid flowing to Ukraine because he is an old school hawk when it comes to national security, and he still believes that Moscow, Vladimir Putin should not be trusted and need to be subdued.

And so that was -- you know, he's-- the president still kind of -- even though he -- you could see it playing out in public that he was begrudgingly helping Ukraine out, he was still doing it, and it was partly because Lindsey Graham was so adamant and influential on his thinking.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, you literally think that, as Trump is sitting there stewing about Zelenskyy's ingratitude or having just general warm thoughts about Vladimir Putin sitting there in the White House, that at some -- the thing that was missing, the dog that didn't bark was Lindsey Graham calling him up and saying, well, of course you're not going to cut Starlink off to the Ukrainians, and then being influential on Trump's thinking -- Vivian Salama: And a couple of four-letter words and all of it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Vivian Salama: I mean, Lindsey Graham would have lost his mind on what we've seen just in the last week with regard to getting a -- striking a diesel deal with Russia that will basically kind of fill their coffers again and allow them to strike, and all of it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: This leads me to a 2028 question in a kind of way.

We've talked about - - I mean, the conventional wisdom is that J.D.

Vance and Marco Rubio would be the two obvious contenders, leading contenders for the Republican nomination.

Not clear that Donald Trump believes anyone should follow him, but J.D.

Vance, I guess, is the technically anointed one.

But in talking about the shift in Texas Republican politics away from what we now would call the muscular or over-muscular interventionism of the Bush years, you know, the Republican primary voter, especially after Iran, especially seeing where the prices are now, it sounds like a little bit of an uphill battle for Marco Rubio to get to get the nomination.

Mark Leibovich: I mean, you get the feeling -- I mean, you hear Rubio and Vance in all these discussions, you get the feeling we're all going to look like rather obsolete in two years.

I mean, if you think about -- it feels like I have a real feeling that someone who is not one of those two will emerge.

I mean, if we were having this conversation -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Who?

Mark Leibovich: I'm going to say -- Evan Smith: Someone else.

Mark Leibovich: Yes, you know, last night -- Jeffrey Goldberg: I thought I could trap him into -- Mark Leibovich: Evan mentioned Ted Cruz last night.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Ted Cruz.

Mark Leibovich: No, actually, Ashley mentioned Ted Cruz.

Anyway, that's a name -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Cruz '28, yes.

Mark Leibovich: But, listen, if we were having this conversation in 2014, we'd have been talking about Jeb Bush and Chris Christie and Rubio, the first iteration.

And looking back, we would be sort of laughing at ourselves.

Vivian Salama: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Vivian Salama: The other thing is that Vance, like on paper, is very MAGA.

I mean, he's more MAGA than Donald Trump on paper.

Mark Leibovich: Is that going to be a good thing?

Vivian Salama: But the party is Donald Trump right now.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

And the other thing -- Vivian Salama: And he's made sure of it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: -- and Ashley knows this better than anyone, the difference between J.D.

Vance and Donald Trump is that, and people might not believe this who haven't been directly exposed to Donald Trump, but Donald Trump has his real charms.

I mean, we've been directly in the Oval Office, as he's trying to convince us that he -- a chandelier would look great hanging over the desk.

Ashley Parker: And that he won in 2020.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And that he won in 2020.

Ashley Parker: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But J.D.

Vance does not -- I'm going to try to find a way to say this -- does not have a personality that one associates with political popularity.

Ashley Parker: Hold on.

Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And Marco Rubio does to a much greater degree.

And Donald Trump like -- and what people who don't vote for Donald Trump don't understand is that he's tremendously charming and charismatic when he wants to be.

Ashley Parker: Yes, exactly.

I mean, J.D.

Vance is not the political athlete that even Marco Rubio is, and certainly not that Donald Trump is.

And also we've seen that Trumpism, the behavior, everything about him is not transferable.

I would just point you to Marco Rubio in 2016, where in the last gasps of his campaign, tried to do a poor man's Donald Trump, and it didn't work for him.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Either you're born an insult comic or you're not.

You can't just train yourself in the last -- yes.

Let's talk about what happens after the midterms and what Trump's last two years in office might look like.

Evan, talk about that a little bit.

I mean, an ordinary figure in the last two years of eight years total, you know, is a lame duck, he might not have Congress with him at all, and those people sort of fade from view.

Donald Trump is not the sort of person who would allow himself to fade from view.

So, what -- I'm not asking for policy predictions, but what could the relationship between a Democratic Congress and a lame duck Republican president, who is Donald Trump, look like?

Evan Smith: Well, as a practical matter, if they win the House, Democrats win the House, or if they win both, then the Trump agenda could be slowed to the point of being dead in the water for the next two years.

The president has shown a willingness and enthusiasm for ignoring Congress the first two years.

He's been able to get stuff done without Congress being involved.

Congress has been unwilling to assert itself.

Surely, he would find ways to do that.

But, to me, the four most important words of the post-midterm period are going to be Art of the Deal.

This is a guy who temperamentally likes to cut deals.

Remember that press conference with Mamdani a couple of weeks ago where he was looking at Mamdani like a boy looks at his junior high school girlfriend, right, with those puppy dog eyes?

Trump understands that there are people he has to make peace with, do business with in the way that he -- going back to the New York Trump.

That is the guy who we're going to see potentially for the next two years if Congress flips.

Ashley Parker: But I also think -- you know, we were talking about how the guardrails from Trump's first term are gone to a second term.

I think to -- I mean, this may surprise people, but to the extent that there are still guardrails in the first two years of his second term, those will be gone potentially in the final two years.

And the thing Donald Trump fears more than anything is sort of obsolescence, irrelevance.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Irrelevance.

Evan Smith: Right.

Ashley Parker: And so if he feels it's slipping away for whatever reason, because his party is having a primary that he's not a part of, because Congress is investigating him and he doesn't have control, whatever it is, he will become ever more desperate to get the attention back on him.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, you're saying he might go onto social media and tweet crazy things?

Ashley Parker: Well, sure, certainly that.

But -- Mark Leibovich: He would never.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I mean, theoretically.

Mark Leibovich: Theoretically.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I mean, yes.

I mean, but you're - - what you're saying is an intensification of the practices that we've seen already?

Ashley Parker: An intensification of the practices the people, who don't like his behavior already loathe, yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Vivian Salama: And there's also going to be a wave of sort of less qualified people coming into office, as we see usually in the first -- after the first two years, you see turnover.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Vivian Salama: And the fear is that also there are less qualified people that will step into the ranks and also be guiding and informing his decisions that way, and that's also going to be problematic.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Vivian, I want to come to you to talk about what the next two years might look like on a global -- from a global perspective.

But let's just talk about -- I don't want to scant the issue of what could happen next month during the election.

Obviously, elections are all local and distributed, but we've gotten many signs that when Trump doesn't like the outcome of an election, he says so and also tries to manipulate the systems to get the outcome he wants.

How worried should we be that -- let's just say there's two or three key Senate races that are very close that will decide control of the Senate, how worried should the country be of different kinds of shenanigans?

Vivian Salama: I mean, there's definitely the potential for different kinds of shenanigans.

I mean, depending on what happens in the midterm elections, obviously, that could hurt Congress' ability to do much.

Let's say in the case of Ukraine, for example, you know, if it is a -- if Democrats hold both chambers of Congress, for example, they could pass appropriations.

I mean, a lot of Republicans would agree to that too.

They could pass appropriations only for Ukraine, for example, and find ways to get weapons and other things to Ukraine.

But the White House has also become very skilled at circumventing sort of those normal processes.

And so that is definitely a possibility, and especially with Stephen Miller, who has basically mastered the art of circumventing the roadblocks.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Vivian Salama: I think that that is definitely something that we're going to see a lot.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Evan, how worried are people in Texas about what -- I don't want to say it's inevitable that it will be a close election, but there's a really good chance that you'll have a very close race here.

Evan Smith: I'd say very worried.

Remember that the Republican candidate, who may be on the losing end of a close election, maybe, is the attorney general who believes himself to have purview over election interference and shenanigans.

And, you know, Texas has been a place where allegations have been made, repeatedly disproven, about non-citizens voting.

Tarrant County, which is one of the largest counties in the country, that's where Fort Worth is, just cut the number of polling places in advance of Election Day summarily to reduce access to voting.

They say, no, there's plenty of polling places, but the citizens of that community are not happy about this.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, what are -- I mean, what are the chances that you wake up the morning after Election Day and we don't know who controls the Senate, and we don't know the results here, we don't know the results in Maine, we don't know -- I mean, it's not insignificant.

Evan Smith: I'll go back 26 years to when I was standing on Congress Avenue when George W. Bush and Al Gore were locked in an election that did not end on election night.

We have experience at this right here in Texas.

But, look, I think it's entirely possible.

I think it's entirely possible.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Mark, what are the chances that we actually are heading into a crisis, and we're being all a little bit too blithe about it, which is to say, the crisis would be if we don't even know by the time a new Congress is supposed to be seated, who's in charge?

Mark Leibovich: Yes.

I mean, that's the real threat here.

I mean, and there are states, like Texas, where -- I mean, by the way, it's likely we won't know who controls the Senate even if there are no shenanigans or protests or anything because just the nature of, you know, Alaska time differences, slow counting and so forth.

Evan Smith: Ranked choice.

Mark Leibovich: Ranked choice, I mean, where there's going to be -- you know, that could take a while.

Evan Smith: Right.

Mark Leibovich: But I would say there is part of me that thinks that, you know, it's important to be vigilant but it -- probably at this point, you know, probably things will go fairly smoothly, but at the same time, you know, January 6th kind of changed all the calculations there.

Ashley Parker: But there's also -- I would add there's the actual crisis of, you know, the people around the president, as we, my colleagues, at The Atlantic reported trying to get him to declare martial law, right?

Like there's the crisis of real shenanigans, and shenanigans is not a strong enough word.

But then there is the crisis of confidence in Trump -- Jeffrey Goldberg: It's a good word, though.

Ashley Parker: Yes, it's a nice word.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Ashley Parker: But -- and then there's the crisis of confidence and trust in institutions, which have already been eroded when you have a president who doesn't accept the results of a free and fair election in 2020.

And, you know, talking to Democrats, they're terrified.

Are ICE officials going to show up at the polls?

You know, we don't know what's going to happen.

But to just point out, even just the talk of ICE officials showing up at the polls coupled with the arrests and some of the killings that is happening with ICE officials can have a chilling effect of a legal citizen who has brown skin saying, you know what, it's not worth it for me, right?

I'm not going to take time off of my job to show up and maybe get hassled by ICE and get shot in a parking lot when I'm a citizen.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Vivian Salama: And Ashley just mentioned eroding agencies.

That's also true for the agencies right now that monitor and combat foreign interference in our elections, where they have been really watered down to bare bones.

And that is something that officials are very concerned about as well.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The FBI is not that interested in what Russia does in America, at least compared to the way it used to be interested in what Russia does in America.

Vivian Salama: Well, they believe it's a hoax, actually.

It's actually even worse than that, where they believe it's a hoax.

And so they think that that is a narrative meant to undermine Donald Trump.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Vivian, I want to talk -- in the last few minutes that we have, I want to talk about the way the world could shake out.

I alluded at the top of the show to the idea that we're already in World War III, we just don't recognize it as such.

And the reason I say that is you have a war in Ukraine.

Russia's invaded Ukraine.

Russia's using North Korean troops and Iranian missiles to suppress a NATO-backed western country.

America has been supplying and been the main source of intelligence and weaponry, at least until now, more or less.

But we're in this moment when our allies, America's allies, don't necessarily believe that America will come to their rescue.

South Korea, I'm thinking of Japan, Lithuania, the rest of the Baltic states, Poland -- Vivian Salama: Canada.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, our notorious enemy, Canada.

But Canada -- the only threat to Canada is the United States.

The threat to Arab countries in the Gulf is Iran.

The threat to South Korea is North Korea, obviously China and Taiwan.

So, the question is, if the president -- going back to this theme that the president's views are actually kind of stable in a way, he is a quasi-isolationist, the next two years can be very, very strange and very, very frightening because America's adversaries might be able to guess that Donald Trump is not going to come to the rescue of our traditional friends.

Vivian Salama: There's an increasing belief, especially across Europe, but elsewhere in the world as well, Japan, you mentioned South Korea, that the president will not come to their rescue, as you say.

I mean, a perfect example -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Even when there's a treaty.

Vivian Salama: Even when there's a treaty.

And a perfect example of it was about two months ago, the U.S.

was preparing to do their annual joint military exercises with South Korea, and President Trump, out of nowhere, just put the kibosh on it, said, we're not going to do them anymore, because he didn't want to offend North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, with whom he has a deep, long-standing romance.

So, you know, they completely pulled back on it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: They blow hot and cold, though, to be fair.

Vivian Salama: But, yes, this is true.

This is true.

And so -- but this was shocking to the South Koreans, but also to allies across the region who saw that as signaling to North Korea like it's open season at this point.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Vivian Salama: And this is something that is deeply concerning across the world.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Mark, I mean, we always talk about the question of loyalty in the context of the Trump presidency.

Is there any loyalty at all to the principles that Democrats and Republicans have previously adhered to when it comes to the organization of the world, the post-World War II liberal international order?

Is there any sign there, or did that die with Lindsey Graham maybe?

Mark Leibovich: It's certainly dubious at this point.

I mean, certainly the NATO countries, you know, and Canada obviously and Ukraine, I mean, they have learned, I think, this lesson, not just over the last year, I mean, certainly, I mean, probably towards the end of the first administration, and certainly now.

I mean, I think they have, in some ways, learned how to stand on their own two feet in ways that I think has emboldened them in some degree.

And, you know, maybe is healthy in the long run, but certainly not for the purposes of the United States and their alliances.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Ashley, maybe next to last question to you on this question, Canada came up in a joking manner, but it's not a joke, neither is Greenland.

The things that he thinks about, he always thinks about, right?

It never -- I always think of it as kind of a Lazy Susan, where the issue's just the brain is a Lazy Susan and it just comes around.

So, talk about a president under duress, under investigation by a Congress.

We've kind of hit this point, but I think it's worth underscoring.

Ashley Parker: Yes.

I mean, again what he is so focused on now, even under duress, is the ballroom, is physical, tangible monuments to himself.

And I say that to answer the Canada and Greenland question because he is a quasi-isolationist, except he is very focused on physical, tangible expansion, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.

He sort of truly believes Canada should be a 51st state.

When Greenland pointed out, you get all the advantages, he's like but it's not the same.

I want to own it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Ashley Parker: And we may see that going forward.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Well, we're going to find out if Canada remains independent, and we're going to find out who the next senator from Texas is, I think we're going to find out soon.

We're going to have to leave it there.

I want to thank our panelists for joining me, and thank you at home for watching.

And a special thank you to Austin PBS for hosting us.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Austin, Texas.