Hi, welcome back to Conversations.

I'm Bill Crystal.

Very pleased to be joined, I think, for the fifth time, by my friend Doug Sosnik, veteran, Democratic

campaign strategists and political analysts and did great job for Bill Clinton there in the 90s

in the White House, but subsequently has become really, I think, well-deserved reputation as being

a shrewd and careful analysis, but also analysts of American politics, but also a little more imaginative and willing to be contrary than some of your peers, who I will not shock anyone by saying, tend to have a little bit of a group following mentality. What's the right way to say that? You know what I mean? But you're willing to cut against it some. So that's, anyway, I very much enjoy our conversations. And thank

you for joining me again, Doug. Thank you, Bill. By the way, it's always good to be graded on the curve. Yeah, we've both benefited from that over the years, I think, to the degree, to the degree anyone's given us high grades, which is another question. Yes, it is, it is, it is, we should thank those guys for being around. Okay, it's February 26,

2026. It's two days after the State of the Union. Donald Trump said about 40%ish approval.

The world, the first term is, the first year of the second term has been what it is.

Just let's go through. I want to go talk about 2026 and then saves some time to go beyond that to what the world might look like in 27 and 28. Well, let's go through. I want to go talk about 2026. And then saves some time to go beyond that to what the world might look like in 27 and 28.

We do need to discuss the state of play in the Trump administration.

What do you expect this November?

What things could happen that would change what you expect and so forth.

This is baked in.

Let's talk about the next nine months first.

Then we can talk about the next three

years. So what do you think? 2026? What's going to happen? Well, I think, first of all,

I think that whatever happens in 2026, I think you should not, no one should take any sort of

interpretation of that as a precursor to what's going to happen in 2028.

They're completely separate elections off years or usually a referendum.

28 is going to be an election about choice.

So in 26, by historical standards, I mean, all the expectations based on traditional

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