Friday on the RealClearPolitics podcast: Sean Trende joins Tom Bevan, Andrew Walworth, and Carl Cannon to react to the Virginia Supreme Court throwing out Democrats’ new congressional map, and debate whether AOC’s anti-billionaire rhetoric is a liability or a sign of Democratic energy. Greg Swenson, chairman of Republicans Overseas U.K., joins the group to break down the Labour Party’s big losses in local elections this week, and the breakout of Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. Party. After that, the group marvels at a new sporting event which encourages the use of steroids, and they share their weekly “You Cannot Be Serious?!” roundup of entertaining headlines. You can listen live weekdays at 11:00 a.m. on SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly Channel 111, and then on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and here on our website. *** The show opens with the Virginia Supreme Court throwing out Democrats’ controversial new congressional map. Sean Trende, who helped draw the map the state will now revert to, said the ruling is likely final for this cycle because it is procedural, but the partisan impact might not be as big as either side is saying. “It’s got some footnotes that are almost a whole page, but the bottom line is this is it,” Trende said. “It’s not quite as big a blow as it’s being painted as … In a really bad Republican year, Democrats still might win one or two of these districts.” *** At minute 7, the group dissects Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arguing that nobody can truly “earn” a billion dollars. Tom Bevan argued that Ocasio-Cortez was taking the party’s anti-billionaire politics to the next level, from arguing that successful people had help to suggesting their wealth is inherently ill-gotten. “But this is where the Democrats are today,” said Trende “This doesn’t dissuade me at all from thinking that she could be the Democratic nominee in 2028. She is tied into the energy of the party.” *** At minute 18:30, Greg Swenson, chairman of Republicans Overseas U.K., explains the significance of Labour’s heavy losses in local elections, how much the new Reform U.K. Party can grow before national elections in 2029, and what happened to the Conservative Party. “An election being called sooner is very unlikely when the party in power is polling so poorly,” he said. “But if the election were tomorrow, Reform leader Nigel Farage would definitely be the prime minister.” “It was really just an outright rejection of the prime minister’s policies, and the prime minister personally, to lose that many reliable Labour seats,” he explained. “It is really the end of the traditional two-party system in the U.K. Either Labour or the Conservatives have been in power for more than 100 years. So this is a really systemic shift.” *** At minute 33, the panel mocked the upcoming “Enhanced Games” in Las Vegas, where athletes are encouraged to use performance-enhancing drugs. “Some people are calling it the ‘Doping Olympics’ — where you can take as many performance-enhancing drugs as you want, ” Andrew Walworth explained. “Just legal drugs. No cocaine. But you can use steroids, if they’re FDA compliant.” “They’re doing this because pretty soon humans are going to be competing against robots,” Cannon added. *** Finally, 41 minutes into the show, the panel gives their weekly “You Cannot Be Serious?!” roundup of entertaining headlines, including Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison conditions, fraud charges against a major Gretchen Whitmer donor, and a robot being ordained as a Buddhist monk in South Korea. *** Don’t miss a single episode of the RealClearPolitics daily radio show – subscribe at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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