Monday on the RealClearPolitics radio show — weeknights at 6:00 p.m. on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel 124 and then on Apple, Spotify, and here on our website — Andrew Walworth, Tom Bevan, and Carl Cannon break down a new Gallup poll suggesting that American pride is at an all-time low, the response to Zohran Mamdani on both sides of the aisle, the latest updates on Trump’s trade talks, what Democrats need to do to take back the Senate, and shocking amounts of money handed out by the Department of Energy in the final days of the Biden administration. *** First, a new Gallup poll suggests a record-low 58% Americans are “proud” of their country — down from 91% in 2002. Is this deeper than Trump fatigue? “What jumps out to me is the partisan split,” Tom Bevan commented. “Ninety-two percent of Republicans, but only 36% of Democrats, say they’re proud to be an American. Obviously, that’s related to Donald Trump, but independents are down as well. As with almost every issue, that’s the way things are these days.” “Jeffrey Jones, a senior editor at Gallup, says he doesn’t think it is just a Trump issue,” Andrew Walworth added. “He thinks it’s just younger generations not being as patriotic as older people. And if you look at the demographic split there, Generation Z: 41%, Millennials: 58%, Gen X: 71%, Baby Boomers: 75%, Silent Generation: 83% are proud. That’s not a helpful trend for the country, don’t you think?” “Well, they’re taught this in school,” Cannon complained. “You think you love America, warts and all. But they’re getting a version of America that is only warts, and it takes its toll.” *** After that, starting around minute 7, New York Democratic mayoral candidate Zohan Mamdani has fascinated people across the country with his open embrace of millennial socialism. He told “Meet The Press” this week that President Trump is wrong to call him a communist but if it were up to him, billionaires would not exist. “There’s a clip circulating of Mamdani from 2021 talking about seizing the means of production, so…” Tom Bevan said. “Someone needs to ask him if billionaires shouldn’t exist, how much money do people get to have in Zohran Mamdani’s socialist paradise? Is it $ 900 million? Is that what equity looks like to you?” “When he says billionaires shouldn’t exist, they’re not talking about rounding them up and shooting them, they’re talking about confiscating their money with a tax system,” Cannon noted. “But De Blasio already governed that way, and he wasn’t considered, even by Democrats, to be a successful mayor.” “Well, we’re all gonna be talking about Zohran Mamdani for the next several months — and that’s probably a good thing for Republicans,” Bevan added. *** In the next segment, at minute 13, Canada abandoned a plan to implement a “retroactive tax” on digital services that would have cost U.S. tech giants billions. Trump threatened to cut off all trade talks, and they caved. Are Trump’s tariff negotiations making any progress elsewhere? “What is more odious than a retroactive tax?” Cannon wondered. “I think Canada has elected a moron!” Bevan added. “They had to cave, they look weak, and now they’ll probably get an even worse deal than they would have. Flatter Trump and you’ll get a better deal — this is like Trump 101.” “These trade negotiations are completely Trump-driven. Whether you like his style or not, this is what’s happening. But ultimately, the proof is in the pudding,” Bevan continued. *** And then, at minute 20, President Trump plans to visit a new 5,000-bed immigration detention facility at an abandoned airport deep in the Florida Everglades that they’re calling “Alligator Alcatraz.” “Remember, his original proposal was the real Alcatraz,” Cannon reminds us. “They can laugh all they want until some 18-year-old girl is wrongly rounded up and mauled by an alligator. The media will love to report that news.” “The fact that Democrats and environmentalists are upset is like a cherry on top for Trump,” Bevan joked. “This is branding to remind people they’re focused on rounding people up who are in this country illegally, particularly if they commit crimes. Our very own Phil Wegmann asked Karoline Leavitt today about reports that they’re going to pause deportations for farmers, the service industry, and the like. And she repeated that they’re prioritizing people with criminal records. So that’s who is headed to Alligator Alcatraz.” *** In the next segment, starting at minute 23:30, RCP senior elections analyst Sean Trende and Tom Bevan talk about the wider implications of North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis deciding not to run for another term. Trende wrote today: “Most Vulnerable Senate Seat Just Became a Lot More Vulnerable” “I was initially shocked, but when that wore off, I thought this kind of makes sense,” Trende said. “There was already a very good chance he would have lost the primary. But this reduces the chance that ‘radioactive’ Mark Robinson wins the primary just because Republicans are sick of Tillis. Now, some more mainstream Republicans will run for the seat.” Remember, Democrats need to pick up four seats to secure the Senate majority. In the House, they’d need to pick up two. “Democrats would need to hold all their Senate seats, pick up North Carolina and Maine, hope Ken Paxton defeats Cornyn in the Republican primary and becomes radioactive, so maybe they can pick up Texas, and then they’ve still got to get one more,” he said. “It’s feasible for them to get three, but four is really hard. At that point, their best bet is to get Lisa Murkowski to switch parties.” “Donald Trump’s job approval rating is net negative four, which isn’t great, but it’s not terrible either,” Trende said. “It’s much better than where he was in 2018 and much better than Biden was in 2022.” *** Finally, at minute 32, Carl Cannon talks to RealClearInvestigations reporter James Varney about his new piece on $ 42 billion in funding for “green energy projects” in the final days of the Biden administration: “Shovel Ready: Despite Warnings, Biden’s Energy Department Disbursed $ 42 Billion in Its Final Hours” “You’ve heard of midnight appointments, these are midnight disbursements,” Cannon joked. “Energy Secretary Wright first brought this up to Congress maybe two months ago, that the Energy Department’s Loan Program Office had given out $ 93 billion after Kamala lost the election,” he said. “Well, I got somebody at DOE to give us a breakdown of it, and it turned out that of that $ 93 billion, $ 42 billion of it happened in their last two working days — Thursday and Friday, Jan. 15 and 16, just prior to Trump’s inauguration. Which was a remarkable figure, because that’s more than they had given out in the previous decade through the Loan Program Office.” “The jury’s still out, in terms of where the money went,” he said. “You’ve got a company called Sunnova, which is very much like Solyndra. It has since filed for bankruptcy, and it got, I believe, most of $ 3 billion.” “This money is going to real companies. It’s almost as if the Energy Department was acting like a venture capital fund. And some of it might go to projects that people think are worthwhile, right?” “Obviously, the time frame is very suspicious. But because Secretary Wright has ordered all of these things to be reviewed, we weren’t able-they wouldn’t provide us with the background documentation. They allege that a lot of these business plans-one person told me in the current Trump administration that the business plans were: let’s get money from the government.” *** Don’t miss a single episode of the RealClearPolitics weeknight radio show – subscribe at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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