Today's episode is sponsored by AARP.

Politico will take a closer look at voters over 50 this election cycle

with the new series The Deciders launching June 18th.

Check back monthly at politico. Let's block. I'm Scott Bland, your host, and this week on the show, we are going to talk about

the state of the Republican Party following a couple of surprises in this week's primaries.

Plus, Paul Ryan avoids some votes on immigration.

By promising some votes on immigration, it'll all make sense, I promise, when we have

Rachel Bade on the line to explain it to us in our second segment.

A reminder to our listeners to please subscribe to the nerd cast, rate us and write a review,

and stay tuned for the end of the show for a

contribution from one of the nerd cast's biggest fans. One more note before

we begin we are taping this a little bit before noon eastern on Thursday

June 14th,

so it is all up to date as of then.

All right, I want to get started.

Let's welcome our guest.

We have a senior politics editor, Charlie Metessian.

Good to see you.

Hi Scott.

We have Elena Schneider back again.

Thanks for having me.

And Alex Eisenstadt, National Political Reporter, who has been all over the nation lately, but is here

...