Thursday on the RealClearPolitics radio show, Andrew Walworth, Carl Cannon, and RCP White House correspondent Phil Wegmann discuss Trump’s threat to take advantage of a possible government shutdown on Oct. 1 to fire as many federal workers as he can, Wegmann’s new piece on Linda McMahon’s pledge to be the final secretary of education, and the emerging rivalry between Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom ahead of the 2028 Democratic presidential primary. After that, Emerson College Polling director Spencer Kimball joins Andrew Walworth and Carl Cannon to discuss their shocking new poll showing the New Jersey governor’s race in a dead heat. You can listen to the show weeknights at 6:00 p.m. on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel 124 and then on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and here on our website. *** First, Andrew Walworth, Carl Cannon, and RCP White House correspondent Phil Wegmann react to President Trump’s threat to take advantage of a possible government shutdown on Oct. 1 to permanently fire as many federal workers as he can. Andrew Walworth expressed everyone’s exhaustion with another “government shutdown” panic cycle: “I really don’t follow these stories because it seems like 9 times out of 10 at the end they sort of cobble something together at the end. But if it happened, who would pay the price?” Carl Cannon says Trump’s threat to use a possible shutdown to lay off government workers changes the game. “The Democrats haven’t acknowledged this dilemma yet. This is a relatively new announcement by the Trump administration. But I think it leaves them in a tougher place than usual,” Cannon said. “Public employees are disproportionately Democratic, especially if they live in Washington. And the Democrats who are forcing this, while trying to blame Trump for it-which is par for the course-could be in the odd position of basically leading to the permanent unemployment of tens of thousands of their most loyal supporters,” Carl Cannon said. “I was sort of amused that Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the OMB director, Russ Vought, a ‘malignant political hack,’ because in this case, it seems OMB has got Democrats cornered,” Wegmann added. “They have taken hostages at a moment when Democrats thought they were the ones in the hostage-taking business.” *** After that, starting around minute 12, Phil Wegmann discusses his in-depth profile of Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who says she wants to be the “The Last Education Secretary” “I think she’s not the last education secretary,” Carl Cannon said. “It’s like that old Vietnam War phrase: We had to destroy the village to save it. What they have to do to save this agency is cut it way back. But if you cut it way back, there’s going to be much less fervor to get rid of it.” “McMahon admitted she wanted to change the narrative from ‘shutting down’ education to moving it back to the states,” Wegmann said. “As her plans survive their first brush with reality, she has concluded there’s not an appetite in Congress for a vote on this. But what’s notable is that McMahon is really embracing this moment where Republicans are not letting their limited-government principles curb their appetite for big reforms.” He added, “In McMahon, you have someone who is a very skilled bureaucratic knife fighter. She is doing everything she can, absent Congress, to move the ball forward for conservatives.” *** In the next segment, around minute 21, the panel talks about the emerging rivalry between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former VP Kamala Harris as the two San Francisco Democrats position themselves to run for president in 2028. Without major policy differences, their fight could get personal. California native Carl Cannon says he’s been “waiting 25 years for these two to come to some fight like this.” “They came up in San Francisco politics. They’re roughly the same age, the same generation. They won local offices on the same night, went to literally the same Democratic victory parties in San Francisco. They have the same donors. They used to have the same advisors,” he said. “I would call them frenemies. They’ve been civil and respectful, but obviously rivals.” In her new book, Harris complains that Newsom said he was “too busy hiking” and never called her back the day she replaced President Biden on the 2024 ticket. Cannon offers context for Harris’ snark: “Well, what he did was call the Biden people to make sure this was real-that Biden was dropping out-asking what he was supposed to do… And Newsom endorsed Kamala Harris that very day, three or four hours after the text she’s taken umbrage at, he was one of the first prominent Democrats to do so.” *** Finally, starting at minute 30, Emerson College Polling director Spencer Kimball joins Andrew Walworth and Carl Cannon to discuss Emerson’s shocking new poll showing the New Jersey governor’s race in a dead heat. That’s considerably closer than the RCP average, based on polls from this summer, suggesting Democratic candidate Mikie Sherrill had a sizable 6.5 point lead over Republican Jack Ciattarelli. “A lot of polling had shown Sherrill with a 9-10 point lead, but we see it as a toss-up: 43-43,” he reported. “I don’t know if it’s tightened or if it was always tight. This is our first poll there. We saw this back in 2021-polls were really high on Murphy, but the race ended up within three points. We had it between four and six.” The top issues for New Jersey voters are taxes and housing costs, where Ciattarelli has an advantage, and education, where Sherrill is trying to focus, Kimball explained. As Trump fades into the background compared to local issues, the state continues to drift from blue toward purple. “Trump is not as unpopular today as he was eight years ago. In our polling in Jersey, he was -21; now he’s -10. That’s still underwater, but not as angry. The anger is at Gov. Murphy. He was +6, now he’s at 35% approval. That’s dragging Sherrill down,” Kimball said. “Bush only lost New Jersey by six in 2004. Then Obama swung it back. There’s an appetite for Republicans with the right messenger. Murphy’s approval went from +16 to +3, Biden’s went from +15 to +6. That’s a trend.” *** Don’t miss an episode of the RealClearPolitics weeknight radio show – subscribe at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
RealClearPolitics Videos